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McDowell posted:A lasting peace must be brought to the Middle East so reconstruction and resettlement can begin. The US, Russia, and China must unite to achieve this. I demand that this conference turn rain into gummy bears so I can have a nice snack whenever work stops.
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Sep 4, 2015 06:00
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Ernie Muppari posted:won't somebody please think of the money? To be fair, when it comes to proposed interventions, like a no fly zone to end bombing runs on civilians, and provide safe areas within Syria so people don't have to flee, generally the same people who support increased efforts to resettle refugees as of this week or w/e have a lot to say about the cost of those efforts. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 06:45 on Sep 4, 2015 |
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Sep 4, 2015 06:39
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Kaal posted:Well none of the people fleeing Syria are refugees since that's a specifically designated status bestowed by the UNHCR, which they haven't had time to be assigned. Kaal, you just said there are 60 million refugees in the world, which includes the figures of not just refugees who haven't been designated refugees, but also the internally displaced who still live in Syria. If you're going to be an annoying, pedantic gently caress, be consistent. And second, that 60 million number? It's significant. Not since WW2 has there been over 50 million displaced people worldwide. We crossed that number in 2013, and the pace isn't slowing down. If we aren't facing the largest humanitarian crisis in world history, we're close to it. So don't sit here and act like this is more of the same old same, and people are just noticing it now because of that recent picture. It's not. This has been a growing issue over the past year, with huge measures taken in Germany and elsewhere before the picture even came out. This is a drastic situation that requires drastic measures, and there's no argument to be made about that. So if your intention in this thread is to tut tut about people beginning to recognize the status quo needs to change, while simultaneously downplaying the severity of the current situation, kindly gently caress off. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 08:00 on Sep 4, 2015 |
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Sep 4, 2015 07:55
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Ligur posted:I said move from a safe place. Are you intentionally not understanding what I'm saying? People in safe countries and in safe camps are not about to die, lest they go to Sweden. Those camps are squalid, and people freeze to death every winter.  No parent puts their child in water unless it's safer than the land.
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Sep 4, 2015 15:43
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The bodies of Aylan Kurdi, his brother, and his mother, were returned to Kobani where a funeral was held today.
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Sep 4, 2015 18:20
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Sep 4, 2015 22:14
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Nonsense posted:I think the United States should accept refugees in a large number. same op
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Sep 5, 2015 01:20
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Fun fact: The US contributions to the UNHCR since the Arab Spring are less than the annual military funding provided to Israel.
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Sep 5, 2015 01:41
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Chomskyan posted:Well for one, the US had a direct hand in creating the refugee crisis through its military action across the middle east. And its military inaction, given 10 million people fled Syria before ISIS was prominent. No corner of the country was safe for IDP's thanks to a systematic bombing campaign by the regime on residential areas. A NFZ would have been a huge asset in limiting the scale of this crisis, and many, many refugees still advocate for one today. It isn't just republicans that have to wear this.
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Sep 5, 2015 01:54
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Chomskyan posted:Not really. While in theory, a no fly zone could be positive for Syria, historically such actions tend escalate into bids at regime change (see: Libya) which would almost certainly destabilize the country further. The US had a NFZ in Iraq for a decade prior to Iraq and all it did was prevent a second al-Anfal campaign, but feel free to try and explain to a Syrian who's family was killed by a barrel bomb that we can't stop the regime from dropping them indiscriminately because that's a gateway bomb. In news: quote:Leaders in Austria and Germany have agreed to take in migrants from troubled Hungary who approach their border, the Austrian chancellor said. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/09/04/austria-germany-agree-take-migrants-hungary/71731476/ 
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Sep 5, 2015 02:19
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Chomskyan posted:Separate from other US policies at the time the Iraq NFZ was arguably a Good Thing, but the US didn't really have a group it wanted to replace Saddam. In the case of Syria, the US clearly supported the rebels, and it's pretty hard to believe a NFZ over Syria wouldn't have developed along the lines of military intervention in Libya. Also at the time the US was enforcing a NFZ over Iraq it was also enforcing a starvation blockade. So yeah, its worth considering that even if a small portion of US policy was good, overall its intervention had a pretty horrific effect on Iraq, even before the 2003 invasion. No it's not, because this is a really dumb way to try and act like ignoring Syria was a good idea. It was predicted by many people right from the get go that there was no ignoring it, and obviously we're seeing that prediction come to fruition now.
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Sep 5, 2015 02:57
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Chomskyan posted:Your argument depends on the US being a good faith actor that would implement a Syrian air campaign in a way that mitigates civilian casualties, rather than one that maximizes the opposition's chances of winning the civil war. That assumption is at best laughably naive. Perhaps if the US didn't have such a long history of cynical foreign policy (almost always under the guise of humanitarianism), it would be easier to accept the idea of a US administered no fly zone. We're coming from fundamentally different perspectives on how the US government and democracy works, specifically in regards to foreign policy. I've got no interest in following this debate to its natural conclusion of secret elites bullshit, so we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this one, Chomskyan.
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Sep 5, 2015 03:48
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lmaoboy1998 posted:A better suggestion than yours: Stop waiting for us to solve this unilaterally and behave like human beings. That's not gonna happen, friend. Here's how this will work. You all will get together and push for an EU refugee deal that mostly fairly distributes refugees throughout Europe, while removing a bunch of obstacles for refugees to make it there, with the intent being a massive increase in refugee resettlement. This will happen, and it will be good. The US will not take part in that debate. 20 years from now, when people in my shoes are saying "the US is 20 years behind the rest of the world on its refugee policy, and it's archaic and disgusting," and you all are talking about how rear end backwards the US and Americans are, then we might get progress. Not one second before. Sorry, that's all I've got for you. 
Volkerball fucked around with this message at 05:21 on Sep 6, 2015 |
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Sep 6, 2015 05:17
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Short, subtitled video of a Kuwaiti official explaining why the GCC isn't doing poo poo for refugees.  https://twitter.com/Hassan_JBr/status/640222369278218240
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Sep 6, 2015 09:04
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Kurdi's family fled from Damascus to Aleppo in 2012 after his father was detained by the regime and tortured, and then to Kobani after fighting in Aleppo picked up. He and his family were absolutely displaced by Assad. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. In other news, the pundits in Kafranbel, Syria had a protest yesterday. 
Volkerball fucked around with this message at 11:14 on Sep 6, 2015 |
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Sep 6, 2015 11:04
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Nonsense posted:
If you're gonna try your hand at whitesplaining, at least try not to be militantly wrong about everything. I never said Assad was the sole problem, but he's the one responsible for the current state of Syria, the vast majority of deaths, and the vast majority of displacement. Ironically, a lot of refugees who knew they could talk the talk fled to ISIS held territory for a while, because it was spared the bombings for a year or two while the regime let them take care of some of the moderate rebel groups that actually presented a long term threat to the regime. Without Assad's bombings, there would be safe places in Syria outside of Rojava. But the bombings happen, and that's 90% of why half of Syria's population is displaced, the majority of whom were displaced by 2013 before ISIS even really existed in Syria. Would you at least maintain consistency and say it's wrong to bomb ISIS because of the civilian casualties that campaign causes? Because if you think ISIS is so depraved that civilian casualties are acceptable, but there's no good reason to destroy the regimes means to bomb bakeries and hospitals, you have no clue about the reality in Syria. Chomskyan posted:That is a serious oversight by FAIR, but it doesn't really detract from the salient point. The US is already heavily intervening in Syria, in ways that have fueled the humanitarian crisis. To call Syria a consequence of military inaction (as you yourself have done) is plainly incorrect. The US was not "heavily" intervening. 1 billion dollars is 1/4 of what we give to Israel every year for military funding. Meanwhile Iran is so involved in Syria that 600 men from its proxy Shia militias have been killed, nearly 200 Iranian soldiers have been killed, and several hundred more mercenaries paid for by Iran have been killed, to say nothing of the billions of dollars they have provided. And Russia has given Assad his entire ability to bomb indiscriminately through constant shipments of equipment and billions of dollars. The US isn't even the top opposition funder. Qatar and KSA take that honor, both of whom stepped in during the relative absence of the US and were able to co-opt the SNC with officials who answered to them. The Islamic Front, Ahrar al-Sham, and JaN are the 3 biggest non-ISIS opposition groups, and the US funded none of them. Those are primarily supported by Turkey, Qatar, and KSA, who have much deeper pockets for the cause. The US supported Harakat Hazm, who were like 200 strong and were killed off by JaN, and the Southern Front, who are inoffensive, but have mainly just held their ground to protect the border with Jordan. I would agree with you that if your strategy was to try and limit your exposure to this crisis, the US shouldn't have done anything militarily, because if you aren't going to provide a game-changing amount of aid, you're just going to prolong the conflict with a middling, rudderless strategy that does nothing. But we still see the end result here with a limited US role in the war, and it's worst case scenario, so doing literally nothing likely wouldn't have resulted in Syria looking much different. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 11:50 on Sep 6, 2015 |
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Sep 6, 2015 11:47
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Nonsense posted:You will not be able to tie anti-war sentiment with being pro-ISIS, I will not play that game, and I have always been consistent, I'v always said Assad is going nowhere, and you continue to believe his downfall is just around the corner.  I'm not Hannity, dude. You can be against strikes on ISIS without being "pro" ISIS. My point is that if you think strikes against ISIS are smart and justified, but you don't think we should do something to degrade Assad's ability to project force, then you have no idea what you're talking about. So if you hold the position that nothing should be militarily done against Assad, then you should also hold the position that nothing should be militarily done about ISIS, because when we talk about Assad, you appeal to criticisms you feel are inherent to military force. ISIS exists in its current state because of Assad, and if Assad doesn't go, then the underlying conditions that created ISIS, and will create its successor should they be destroyed, will continue to exist. Assad will never secure Syria. Whether it takes 5, 10, or 20 years, the war will continue, and Assad will eventually be moved from power. If I thought his downfall was just around the corner I wouldn't have to advocate speeding up the process. And loving lol at the idea that a no fly zone would create more refugees when your strategy for the entirety of Syria has been let them get bombed daily, nothing we can do, pack it in. Chemical weapons attack kills 1,000? Boys will be boys. Those people who got killed are no angels either. Hob_Gadling posted:Assad loses and goes into hiding, Alawites are genocided, war continues between ISIS and de facto US-lead rebel coalition. Five years and ten million dead people later ISIS loses and the area they hold is ethnically cleansed. This is the best case, worst cases involve dead Russian troops and escalation with neighboring countries as fighters cross the borders both ways. The best case? There aren't even 10 million people who haven't been displaced in Syria! And 1/3 of Alawite fighting age males are already dead, so you've done a fine job protecting them from a horrible genocide when 80%+ genocidal massacres in Syria have been at the hands of the Shabiha and other militias the regime supports. Not to mention close to 15,000 civilians who have been tortured to death in regime custody, including children. This is what I'm talking about. You guys accept these fantastic scenarios that have been pushed by RT and SANA that have a tenuous grasp with reality as inherently true, to avoid having to look the fact that we're letting a genocidal maniac destroy an entire country and murder his entire populace without doing a drat thing, in the eye. Even as basically any refugee you talk to pleads for help to bring down the regime so they can start to rebuild. It's absolutely disgusting. Meanwhile, in Israel. quote:JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday rejected calls from opposition politicians for Israel to accept refugees from Syria, saying that Israel was “a very small country that lacks demographic and geographic depth.” He also said that plans to construct a fence along the eastern border with Jordan would go ahead. If there's one thing Israel lacks, it's a solid Jewish majority. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/07/world/middleeast/netanyahu-rejects-calls-to-accept-syrian-refugees.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cur Volkerball fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Sep 6, 2015 |
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Sep 6, 2015 17:46
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Saudi Arabia is pretty pissed off. According to them, they have 500,000 Syrians inside the country who weren't there prior to the war, all of whom have healthcare. 300,000 of them were given scholarships to universities. But they don't have a formal refugee program, so they call these people "visitors." Now they're probably stretching the truth a little bit, but the people tossing around this "0 refugees in KSA" factoid likely are as well. https://soundcloud.com/sarah-y-bn-ashoor/bbc-news-hour-mohammed-khalid-alyahya-on-the-syrian-refugee-crisis-and-the-efforts-of-gulf-states
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Sep 8, 2015 01:01
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team overhead smash posted:Are there any charities which stand out as especially effective with helping refugees? Preferably ones active in the UK as I'm thinking of doing some volunteering but if not then there are always donations. I would recommend the UNHCR, because the vast majority of refugees don't have the means or the ability to attempt to come to Europe, and they typically only get 20-30% of their requested budget. No matter what Europe does, we're going to see a situation like Lebanon in 1948 where a substantial number of refugees will not be able to return home, and over decades, these UNHCR camps are going to evolve to become permanent cities. The more aid the UNHCR gets in adapting to that, the better off a lot of refugees are going to be. Can't help you with volunteering. http://donate.unhcr.org/international/general
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Sep 8, 2015 13:41
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gently caress this woman. https://twitter.com/DavidKenner/status/641340049850695680 And lol at the right winger acting like refugees don't die of exposure already. Because they live in the desert you see.  ~economic migrants~ edit: That woman got fired. Couldn't have happened to a nicer person. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 23:47 on Sep 8, 2015 |
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Sep 8, 2015 23:29
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Shageletic posted:EDIT: You guys talk about that rear end in a top hat camerawoman yet? I posted a tweet with the video in it a couple posts up. She got fired at least.
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Sep 9, 2015 01:18
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murphyslaw posted:That's right, this isn't a temporary flash in the pan, it might potentially last until the region stabilizes, which it definitely won't anytime soon if we do not help alleviate the internal refugee crisis. So we're just going to have to suck it up and let the refugees stay here for a while, aren't we. Lebanon said this in 1948, and the Palestinian refugees are still there. The conflict in Syria could easily last another decade, and it's hard to see Iraq stabilizing if that's the case. That's not a bad thing, but let's call a spade a spade. These are stateless people who need a place to live.
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Sep 9, 2015 15:59
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Tesseraction posted:I think it was lmaoboy1998 who said that Saudi Arabia have taken in something like 50k (or was it 500k?) but don't class them as refugees because of the way their system works. Of course that's according to them so the number is probably a little lower at least, but suggests that they have done something. It was me. Source was a BBC audio clip from this post. Volkerball posted:Saudi Arabia is pretty pissed off. According to them, they have 500,000 Syrians inside the country who weren't there prior to the war, all of whom have healthcare. 300,000 of them were given scholarships to universities. But they don't have a formal refugee program, so they call these people "visitors." Now they're probably stretching the truth a little bit, but the people tossing around this "0 refugees in KSA" factoid likely are as well. murphyslaw posted:Don't get me wrong-- I am not saying that I think they are not welcome to seek refuge in Europe, nor that the refugee situation is the main cause (or even one of the main causes) of instability in the ME. But it contributes to this instability, to what degree I am uncertain, of course. No, I understood what you were saying. You're certainly right, as you say, to a degree. And Lebanon obviously isn't a mirror image, but the reason I bring it up is because Lebanon was something that was discussed a lot in Jordan around 2012 and onwards, and it was relevant there. And Jordan is clearly an important case study for Europe. I had the opportunity to sort of pick the brain of the director at Zaatari, as well as to speak with some educated Jordanian folks around that time period, and my takeaway was that the lessons learned from Lebanon and Jordan are very important. The early plans to house refugees in Jordan were hastily done, and "temporary" was a key component of that strategy, rather naively in hindsight. Zaatari, which is now the largest refugee camp in the Middle East, was built in two weeks. It quickly became apparent that the flow of refugees was not slowing down, and people weren't going home any time soon. In response, the UNHCR built a second ambitious, more permanent camp, Afraq. The problem was that the UNHCR routinely gets 20-30% of their annual funding requests, and they were not only trying to build a new camp with the lessons of the Lebanese situation (that these camps might exist 50+ years down the road, and they need to have the infrastructure to grow and adapt into actual cities), but also fix the situation in Zaatari, which was woefully unprepared for what it was tasked with. The result is that of 1.6 million refugees, only 600,000 are registered with the UNHCR, and the rest are undocumented, trying to survive in urban areas as best they can. The latter group makes up a large portion of the 86% of refugees in Jordan who live below Jordan's poverty line. Washington Post has an excellent collaboration of stories from a year or so ago that documents this well, btw. http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/syrian-refugees/story/refuge/ I totally understand how keeping this reality in mind hurts the overall argument. It's much easier to convince people who are hesitant that the refugees coming in would only be there temporarily rather than trying to explain that they will have to be adopted in as permanent citizens, but it's hugely important not to resort to that, or it's a massive disservice to not just Syrians, but refugees from all over the Middle East and Africa trying to seek refuge. Because much like how we look back today on Jordans policy in 2012 as naive, we are likely to judge what happens today as naive in 2019 if the policies are unprepared for the worst. On that note, I'd like to point something out about Syrian refugees in particular. I don't have as much direct experience with them as some posters, like Lascivious Sloth, but I have enough that I'm sure they'd agree with me. When the protests kicked off, overall, people were saying things not one person on these forums would disagree with. That it's wrong for the leadership of a country to be handed down from father to son. That it's wrong for government agencies to act as enforcers for the state rather than as servants of the people. That's it's wrong for there to be no oversight that ensures representation for all people in Syria, rather than sole representation for the whims of a single man. As the revolution progressed into a military fight rather than a civil one, it was these people who became most disenfranchised. The opposition government, and opposition forces, became dependent on international actors because they weren't strong enough to succeed independently. These Qatari, Saudi, and Turkish influences had an effect that worked for the FSA, JaN, Ahrar, Jaysh, and ISIS, as well as Iranian and Russian support that worked for Assad. The supporters of all the groups I just listed had a dog in the fight, with international support. If you support one of those groups, you have a reason to stay in Syria. To support those groups and their goal. Europeans far removed from the conflict have migrated to Syria to support these groups materially, so it stands to reason that those within Syria already would largely stay to do the same. The most marginalized group were the original activists, who simply wanted a free and fair Syria. They were public enemy number 1 for the two most barbaric forces in the country, the regime, and ISIS. These activists were a group of people who could find next to no safe haven in Syria. In ISIS held territory, democratic activists were detained, tortured, and executed as "kuffar," because they presented the most dangerous threat to ISIS' oppressive rule. In Souriya al-Assad, in addition to being detained, tortured and executed, they were also subject to an indiscriminate bombing campaign, that has murdered tens of thousands of civilians in their homes. Assad has consistently tried to force a decision upon the people of Syria. You get me, or you get terrorists. In order for that claim to resonate, he had to make it as true as possible, and so the regime spent a vast majority of its effort taking out people who were a counterweight to the idea that the opposition was purely composed of jihadists. He also largely spared the jihadist opposition of his brutality in this same aim. For instance, ISIS headquarters in Raqqa and Aleppo were both clearly marked buildings, and the coordinates to both were provided to the regime during the Geneva II negotiations by opposition activists. "You claim to fight terrorism, so bomb these places." Both buildings survived untouched until the very first day US strikes began in Syria. This campaign resulted in situations where some people, Sunni's who felt they could talk the talk enough to survive, or legitimately supported ISIS, were actually fleeing to ISIS held territory, because it was safer than Aleppo or the Damascus suburbs. For these activists, the war quickly degraded into something they barely recognized, fought by people they didn't support. This group makes up the vast majority of refugees, because the only thing keeping them in Syria was the belief that "this is my home." For some activists, like Zaina Erhaim, that sense of defiance and pride was too strong to justify leaving, despite her articles showing a massive disillusion in the direction Syria is going. But many fled. In many ways, the heart of the revolution moved to places like Zaatari, where the protests in favor of legitimate reform continued. And now, in the continued absence safety and security, it's moving to Europe. My point with this post that is entirely too long already, is that these are people you want in your country. I cannot describe to you the horrors they have dealt with in their lives. Famine due to sieges. Indiscriminate bombing. Chemical weapons attacks. Polio. Freezing to death. Vaccination mistakes resulting in dead children. Humiliating treatment by natives of countries they've fled to. Horrific torture in modern day concentration camps. Genocidal massacres. Sniper fire shooting down their streets at anything that moved. On and on and on. And through it all, they've maintained their sense of humor. It's impossible not to be deeply moved when you speak to people who have suffered so much, and still get up every morning. They have a perspective that is impossible to get in the West, because of all the civil protections we have to prevent us from experiencing the kind of trauma these refugees have had to go through. The perspective of a people who looked up at a gigantic picture of a totalitarian dictator, then looked down at the leather jacket wearing thug from the Mukhabarat underneath it, and realized that loyalty was not optional. Yet stood up and demanded their voices be heard anyways. They dealt with unimaginable suffering as a consequence, but never gave up. Even today, they have a hunger for life that pushes them to go through extreme sacrifice and personal danger to pursue just a chance at a future by trying to get into Europe, when most of us would just want to give up, die, and be done with it. It saddens me that at its best case, the US would take in maybe 100k refugees this year. That's one refugee for every 3,180 Americans. The vast majority of Americans would go their entire lives without so much as seeing a Syrian refugee, much less interact with them, when there's so much to be gained from these people. And of course, 100,000 is a pipe dream of a number anyways. In Europe, you have the opportunity to do something much better, like Germany has done. To allow in enough refugees to achieve a significant social impact. Countries where your children will grow up next to Syrian children that have gone through tremendous adversity, to inspire them. Where your Syrian co-worker can provide an insight and context to political and social realities you never would have understood otherwise, and benefit you personally. And that's to say nothing of the benefits of a people who have fought so long and hard and suffered so much for the things we take for granted every day of our lives, being given the freedom to finally pursue dreams, as if being unchained for the first time. Now, obviously, not everyone is perfect. Every massive sample size has outliers. But as a whole, these refugees have tremendous benefits to offer your countries, and I have no doubt in my mind that supporting their resettlement will have the potential for huge positive impact on so many fronts in Europe. So don't have a shallow outlook on this crisis. While many of you legitimately have your hearts in the right place, this is something much more significant than just agreeing to pay more in taxes to help people you feel sorry for. Find a way get involved in the political fight in favor of this. When they come, find the refugees in your communities and welcome them into your society, your culture, and your lives. Listen to their stories, their aspirations, and their beliefs. Encourage your friends and family to do the same. Only through that can you achieve real integration and real resettlement. But this goal has a real possibility of being realized over there, and for that, I'm truly jealous of you.
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Sep 9, 2015 22:56
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Sep 10, 2015 01:54
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Main Paineframe posted:We were in Iraq for almost a decade, and we would have stayed even longer if Iraq hadn't refused to keep granting US soldiers immunity from Iraqi law. It's not like we overthrew Saddam and bailed immediately, like you seem to be implying. There were a lot of fuckups that added some stupid years in there, but the post-surge environment where progress was finally being made needed a few more years of tlc when Obama came into office.
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Sep 10, 2015 04:17
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Tesseraction posted:Even so, I'd say the premiership of Maliki was the key to a lot of the problems then and now. Not to say without him it'd be peachy, but he seemed to be a walking gently caress-up generator at every step. Bush "picking" him created that issue, and that's important to keep in mind. But Obama didn't help by telling Maliki to deal with "Iraqi problems," which he went on to deal with on a very sectarian basis. The Obama administration gave him a sort of green light, not really paying attention to what was happening.
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Sep 10, 2015 13:29
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 quote:A 92-year-old armed forces veteran has offered up his spare room to house Syrian refugees after being moved by the plight of families fleeing war and persecution.  Some extra details about Homes for Syrians, which seems to be an AirBNB for refugees seeking housing in the UK. quote:Richard Moore, who set up the Homes for Syrians website, said John was quickly becoming the "poster boy" for his campaign. The Independent also has a fantastic article compiling a lot of different ways that you can get involved. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/5-practical-ways-you-can-help-refugees-trying-to-find-safety-in-europe-10482902.html
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Sep 10, 2015 22:30
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Narciss posted:That's pretty sick. I'm saying that his father was an economically-motivated opportunist, and not the desperate "gotta get my family to safety that's all I care about" saint that we might like to assume he is. Edgy. Get hosed.
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Sep 11, 2015 16:21
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Captain Scandinaiva posted:I read an article (not in english) which claimed the situation in Lebanon is getting worse because UNHCR and the World Food Program are both underfunded. So the people who can afford it are leaving for Europe and those who can't have to consider going back to Syria. Why is this? Is it due to the unprecedented scale of the crisis or has funding actually been slashed because of financial crisis and following troubles? It's pretty amazing how many factors are working towards making this the clusterfuck it is. The UNHCR has been consistently underfunded every year since the war kicked off, so it's not so much of a "slashing" thing. The scale has definitely played a role, and tensions between refugees and Lebanese are the worst of probably any neighboring country that has accepted Syrian refugees. 1/4 of their population are refugees. The result has been ugly. There has been fighting in Arsal, including refugee camps being burnt  And a few instances that show the extent of the dehumanization of refugees in Lebanon, such as this one, where a man encourages his young child to beat a Syrian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPcmAO_0MVo There's another video around of a refugee boy selling things on the street getting paint dumped on him by Lebanese men, but I can't find it. As for your second question, absolutely not. Russia is on the UN security council, and has and will continue to oppose any deal that doesn't allow Assad to remain in power. That will never be an acceptable term for any opposition group, so a diplomatic solution is essentially impossible. Militarily, the regime is in about the worst condition it's been yet, but if Russia intervenes on a larger scale, as the last few weeks have pointed towards, then their role could increase Assad's staying power. Even if not, the regime maintains control of Latakia and Damascus, which would probably take a good two years of fighting to be overrun in the best of scenarios. And until Assad goes, the fighting will continue. The regime is an occupying force, and as such, the insurgency against them will never end until the occupation ends. That's not to mention the future prospect of continuing inter-rebel civil war among factions currently fighting against Assad, as well as tensions between the political entities of the Syrian Kurds vs the Iraqi Kurds, and growing resentment between the Iranian backed Shia militias in Iraq and the Iraqi government. Realistically, this could take ten+ years to de-escalate, and it's likely we haven't hit the bottom yet.
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Sep 11, 2015 18:37
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Eregos posted:Is it wrong for me to feel like a humane and safe solution to refugee deaths would be to: 2 is enough, IMO. If people know they only have to get to the Turkey/Greek border and then they'll be fine, that's gonna be their biggest goal. It won't 100% stop boats from coming, but it'll put a good size dent in it, as it would give a better option to anyone north of Egypt. As for the boats themselves, it's pretty inhumane to do anything other than accept them, but there needs to be more effort put out in places like Libya and Tunisia to help crackdown on the people responsible for that kind of thing, and alternate ways of making it to the EU provided for Africans moving north. Morocco to Spain, for instance. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 16:03 on Sep 13, 2015 |
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Sep 13, 2015 14:08
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PerpetualSelf posted:No i'm just a anti-semite. 
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Sep 13, 2015 20:24
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Refugees welcome in Macedonia! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8h4sgEKNKU
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Sep 14, 2015 04:32
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EA has a new article covering 9 myths about refugees. http://eaworldview.com/2015/09/syria-and-beyond-feature-9-myths-about-refugees-and-how-to-answer-them/
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Sep 15, 2015 00:08
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Huckabee with a scorching hot take on the refugee crisis.quote:Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says European nations are forgetting the “lessons of 9/11” by allowing “alleged-Syrian refugees” into their countries. http://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/huckabee-europeans-accepting-alleged-syrian-refugees-have-fo?utm_term=.hi1NOGXDVj#.usxlgO75N
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Sep 15, 2015 01:11
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You'd be better off trying to climb into landing gear than trying to smuggle yourself via shipping container, and you can count the number of people who have survived a flight up there across the atlantic on one finger.
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Sep 15, 2015 21:38
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Tesseraction posted:One could also point out that while Assad was being a dick for quite a while, America allowed the civil war to propagate in 2012 despite Russian attempts to diplomatically stop it. I'd be willing to bet a lot of money that at the proposed peace talks as part of that deal, Russia would have demanded that the framework to the end of the conflict would not provide so much as a timeline for Assad to step down, as they have demanded at Geneva 2 and every other peace talks regarding Syria. They didn't randomly decide Assad was indispensable one day in 2012. That was and is an absolutely unacceptable deal for the opposition, and you would be lucky to get them to sit down for so much as a day with the regime at that time, much less strike a deal. Early 2012, it wasn't just the US that thought the war would end soon. There were waves of defections, and the opposition thought they had Assad's back against the wall. The prospect of a peace deal was basically non existent, so there's really no basis to point at this as a "what if" kind of thing.
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Sep 17, 2015 04:56
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Tesseraction posted:Right, I can agree that this is the kind of thing that seems more acceptable in hindsight. I suppose I was curious as to why the civil war went on for 2 years without much more than a 'meh' when new peace talks could have occurred. Yeah. The thing to keep in mind is that Syria is a local war supported by foreign actors, not a foreign war supported by local actors. The US and Russia making a deal would be easy. They did so over Assad's chemical weapons. It was a lovely deal, but a deal nonetheless. It's when you add in the opposition and the regime, and you bring in the "not-terrorist" Kurds from Syria that no Syrian Kurds recognize, and start trying to work out those issues as well as the issues of foreign powers heavily invested in the war, and you just can't provide every side enough incentive to stop fighting. And if you can't do that, there's no reason to keep making token efforts to hold talks. The only solution in Syria is for someone to be put militarily in a position where they are more willing to make concessions.
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Sep 17, 2015 13:29
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SickZip posted:The crisis of the middle east is largely the middle eastern muslim community itself. The situation in Iraq and Syria is a human created problem and a lot of the humans that bear some of the responsiblity want to move to Europe where every indication is that they'll just do their best to recreate it. Your importing the problem, not solving it. Until they've fixed their poo poo, providing a safety valve does nothing but keep their state of perpetual crisis going and pull a larger area into it. Agreed. The Assyrian Christians in Syria are at least partially responsible for the rise of ISIS, and if we let them into Europe, they'll just make another ISIS there. We need to force them to stay and fix their ISIS problem or we're not dealing with it correctly. Good points op.
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Sep 17, 2015 18:54
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Nermal posted:If any are extremists, once they get to Europe, we can't get them out. Our legal systems will not allow us to deport them back to places where they'll be executed or tortured. We don't have a Guantanamo Bay. If only there was somewhere European jihadists could go of their own volition. Like a war they would want to fight in.
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Sep 18, 2015 00:18
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Saros posted:^^the UK is exempt as well and has made some moves towards taking refuges directly from the UN camps. This hasn't been discussed and it's actually really loving cool. Cameron has been a poo poo for a lot of this saga, but that gesture means a lot.
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Sep 18, 2015 01:07
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