I was wondering when someone would create a post like this ...... those sad, sad pictures certainly brought a lump to my throat.
It is very easy and popular to react angrily towards our own government when pictures like this are published, but let's not be seduced by them - Britain's immigration policies did NOT cause that poor boy's death, and even if we opened our borders to everyone who came along, he would STILL be dead.
Lets be REAL about this; If you are in Syria, Iraq, or even parts of Libya, you are in mortal danger. If I were there I would be making EVERY attempt to get my family out. HOWEVER (and this is my main point), once you reach Europe - or even Turkey, you are SAFE - you are outside the conflict zone and free from harm. There is no reason for them to fight and scramble, as they have been doing, in order to get to one member nation or another, be it the UK, France - or Germany (the preferred nation of choice it seems), apart from ECONOMIC reasons. They should be housed in safe, clean centres, whilst their preferences and immigration applications can be processed.
Lets not also lose sight of the FACT than amongst all those desperate people, there are a few EXTREMELY unpleasant folks who are using the chaos to slip into our nice, safe western world with the sole intention of wreaking havoc and terror and spoon-feeding their poison into whoever is gullible enough to drink, listen and believe - and there are a fair number of those.
The solution?
In my eyes there are a number of simultaneous issues which need to be tackled urgently, and unless they are, this sad scene will be repeated many times (as it already has been - we just weren't shown pictures before).
1. Immediate safety for refugees fleeing conflict (food, medicine, shelter - basic human needs)
2. Tackling the initial CAUSE of this - the conflicts in Syria and Iraq mainly
3. Longer term accommodation for the people rescued (ie what I would call resettling, or 'proper' immigration)
Of all these, the easiest (and most important) is the first point. We have PLENTY of food, medicine, blankets, tents etc in the EU to provide basic accommodation to the people who arrive here. It is not very much to ask governments to club together to fund a tent, food, drink and emergency clothing for ALL of them. After all, they spend BILLIONS on bailing out banks, or Greece.
Tackling the root cause of this will be far more difficult, and I'm afraid that we (the West) are going to have to go to war at some point, but just WHO are the good guys in all this?
- Assad? No. An old-fashioned middle-east dictator. Rules his country with an iron fist and human rights are virtually non-existent. His forces are fighting against Islamic State AND a western-backed rebel force represented in London.
- IS (Islamic State)? Definitely not. I would rather call them SATANIC State rather than Islamic - whilst identifying the good guys in this mess might be tough, identifying the bad guys is not. This group are utterly horrific and must be destroyed at all cost.
- Turkey? Possibly. NATO allies and European wannabes. They are attacking IS, but they are also in armed conflict with the Kurds - who are currently the only effective force taking on IS.
- Kurds? Possibly - they HATE IS, but their eventual aims are for an independent Kurdistan, formed out of bits of both Iraq and Turkey, against whom they have been fighting a guerilla campaign for years.
- Iraq? Possibly, but they are weak and their forces unreliable. Although they 'tolerate' the Kurds for the moment, it wouldn't take long before Kurdish nationalist aspirations become too much for the Iraqi government to bear.
So it's not clear with whom we should ally ourselves - it's virtually an 'all against all' situation.
What I am saying in short, is that we DO have a human duty to help these people when they are in mortal danger, but we do NOT have a duty to allow them to settle permanently - although they must not be sent back into a conflict zone.
To be fair, most of them (I would guess) would actually prefer ultimately to return home to a stable, peaceful Syria anyway - once that can be achieved, but until it is I'm afraid we have not seen the last of pictures like that of the tragic little boy.
It is very easy and popular to react angrily towards our own government when pictures like this are published, but let's not be seduced by them - Britain's immigration policies did NOT cause that poor boy's death, and even if we opened our borders to everyone who came along, he would STILL be dead.
Lets be REAL about this; If you are in Syria, Iraq, or even parts of Libya, you are in mortal danger. If I were there I would be making EVERY attempt to get my family out. HOWEVER (and this is my main point), once you reach Europe - or even Turkey, you are SAFE - you are outside the conflict zone and free from harm. There is no reason for them to fight and scramble, as they have been doing, in order to get to one member nation or another, be it the UK, France - or Germany (the preferred nation of choice it seems), apart from ECONOMIC reasons. They should be housed in safe, clean centres, whilst their preferences and immigration applications can be processed.
Lets not also lose sight of the FACT than amongst all those desperate people, there are a few EXTREMELY unpleasant folks who are using the chaos to slip into our nice, safe western world with the sole intention of wreaking havoc and terror and spoon-feeding their poison into whoever is gullible enough to drink, listen and believe - and there are a fair number of those.
The solution?
In my eyes there are a number of simultaneous issues which need to be tackled urgently, and unless they are, this sad scene will be repeated many times (as it already has been - we just weren't shown pictures before).
1. Immediate safety for refugees fleeing conflict (food, medicine, shelter - basic human needs)
2. Tackling the initial CAUSE of this - the conflicts in Syria and Iraq mainly
3. Longer term accommodation for the people rescued (ie what I would call resettling, or 'proper' immigration)
Of all these, the easiest (and most important) is the first point. We have PLENTY of food, medicine, blankets, tents etc in the EU to provide basic accommodation to the people who arrive here. It is not very much to ask governments to club together to fund a tent, food, drink and emergency clothing for ALL of them. After all, they spend BILLIONS on bailing out banks, or Greece.
Tackling the root cause of this will be far more difficult, and I'm afraid that we (the West) are going to have to go to war at some point, but just WHO are the good guys in all this?
- Assad? No. An old-fashioned middle-east dictator. Rules his country with an iron fist and human rights are virtually non-existent. His forces are fighting against Islamic State AND a western-backed rebel force represented in London.
- IS (Islamic State)? Definitely not. I would rather call them SATANIC State rather than Islamic - whilst identifying the good guys in this mess might be tough, identifying the bad guys is not. This group are utterly horrific and must be destroyed at all cost.
- Turkey? Possibly. NATO allies and European wannabes. They are attacking IS, but they are also in armed conflict with the Kurds - who are currently the only effective force taking on IS.
- Kurds? Possibly - they HATE IS, but their eventual aims are for an independent Kurdistan, formed out of bits of both Iraq and Turkey, against whom they have been fighting a guerilla campaign for years.
- Iraq? Possibly, but they are weak and their forces unreliable. Although they 'tolerate' the Kurds for the moment, it wouldn't take long before Kurdish nationalist aspirations become too much for the Iraqi government to bear.
So it's not clear with whom we should ally ourselves - it's virtually an 'all against all' situation.
What I am saying in short, is that we DO have a human duty to help these people when they are in mortal danger, but we do NOT have a duty to allow them to settle permanently - although they must not be sent back into a conflict zone.
To be fair, most of them (I would guess) would actually prefer ultimately to return home to a stable, peaceful Syria anyway - once that can be achieved, but until it is I'm afraid we have not seen the last of pictures like that of the tragic little boy.
