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Politics, politics, politics

Is it true that the family of the child that died were not actually running from Syria and had actually been in Turkey for 6 months???
 
How do you work out a fair distribution?

Most of Europe seems to want to base it on wealth (because it benefits them and costs us), but that doesn't seem particularly relevant.

Surely a relevant measure would be how much spare housing there is in each country. In which case we've probably already taken more than our fair share.
It should take into account a whole number of factors, including wealth. Precisely what should be considered, I've no idea, but that's rather what I expect the idiots we elect to work out.

Iraq was a war well worth fighting. Not for the hogwash reasons the lying tossers in the Labour government used but because the world needed to be rid of Saddam Hussein. The fact that the planning and execution were wrong doesn't make it wrong to have decided to go to war.
Did it? I don't mourn his loss, but he was on a short leash since the first Gulf War. Same with old Colonel Face Lift in Libya, wasn't really a threat globally. I'm sure certain groups in both countries were delighted to see the back of them, and I'm sure both were the scum of the Earth, but I can't see how anyone can really say the vacuum left behind on both occasions, and the ugliness that's filling it, are any better. Better the devil you know sometimes, surely?

I'm not against intervention, but do it properly and finish it. Be prepared to spend a generation there and to pay the cost of it (both financial and in terms of loss of life). If the world (UN) wants to get together and kick down the door in Syria, clean house properly and rebuild it, I'd be all for it, but don't do it piecemeal.
 
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So basically if you offered them a camp in Vietnam or nothing they would take nothing?
I dunno what the state of the refugee camps in Turkey are. Probably better than being in Kobane, but if you've got family elsewhere I suppose that's quite a draw. I thought you'd be pleased they were heading for Canada, you used them as an example earlier.

The picture of the boy has obviously been very affecting, but that's just one story.
 
Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has said the refugee and migrant crisis in Europe is proof of the need for tough asylum policies.

Mr Abbott told Australian media that the only way to prevent people dying at sea was to "stop the boats".

Australia detains any migrants trying to reach its shores by boat, and takes them to offshore processing camps to be eventually resettled elsewhere.

On Thursday, the New York Times described the policy as "brutal".

In an editorial, the newspaper said the "ruthlessly effective" policy was "inhumane, of dubious legality and strikingly at odds with the country's tradition of welcoming people fleeing persecution and war".

It said it would be "unconscionable" for European leaders to consider adopting similar policies, as Mr Abbott has previously suggested.

_85359008_e1d6cd99-27e1-4b0d-978d-b4e233b193eb.jpg
Image copyrightAFP
Image captionAustralia sends many of its rejected migrants to a camp on the Pacific island of Nauru
Australia has not responded to the editorial, but on Friday Mr Abbott said the image of Syrian three-year-old Alan Kurdi, who died trying to reach Greece by boat with his family, was "very sad".

"If you want to stop the deaths, if you want to stop the drownings you have got to stop the boats," he told ABC Radio.

"Thankfully, we have stopped that in Australia because we have stopped the illegal boats."

_85359004_hi028514959.jpg
Image copyrightEPA
Image captionTony Abbott has repeatedly said his tough policies on asylum are saving lives
On Thursday, Mr Abbott angered Australian Jewish groups by saying the so-called Islamic State (IS), from which many of the migrants to Europe are fleeing, was worse than the Nazis.

"The Nazis did terrible evil, but they had a sufficient sense of shame to try to hide it," he told Sydney Radio 2GB.

But IS militants, he said, "boast about their evil, this is the extraordinary thing".

The Executive Council of Australian Jewry Robert Goot said the comment was "injudicious and unfortunate", saying there was "a fundamental difference between organised acts of terrorism and a genocide systematically implemented by a state as essential policy".

"The crimes of Islamic State are indeed horrific but cannot be compared to the systematic round-up of millions of people and their despatch to purpose-built death camps for mass murder," he told Australian media.

Mr Abbott later said he stood by his comments, but that he was not in the "business of ranking evil".

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Australia and asylum
  • The number of asylum seekers travelling to Australia by boat rose sharply in 2012 and early 2013. Scores of people have died making the journey
  • To stop the influx, the government has adopted tough measures intended as a deterrent
  • Everyone who arrives is detained. Under a new policy, they are processed in Nauru and Papua New Guinea. Those found to be refugees will be resettled in PNG, Nauru or Cambodia
  • Tony Abbott's government has also adopted a policy of tow-backs, or turning boats around
 
I dunno what the state of the refugee camps in Turkey are. Probably better than being in Kobane, but if you've got family elsewhere I suppose that's quite a draw. I thought you'd be pleased they were heading for Canada, you used them as an example earlier.

The picture of the boy has obviously been very affecting, but that's just one story.

I dunno I just find the facts abit blurred based on sensationalism.

There is no doubting the crisis in Syria is terrible, that's an absolute fact. But the sensationalism in the press and surrounding the picture leads you to believe that desperate measures were required when in fact they were away from war and in a safer haven, I wont go into disputes about conditions of Turkey as I don't know but I assume its a step up from Syria and bombs. The fact that a family had £3000 to bribe a place on a boat to make it to Greece to then ideally make it to Canada or the UK wasn't a move to desperately preserve their live it was to better it and aim for the promised land, a move that took them from a relatively safe Turkey to their needless death, in fact as I understand legally the father could be tried for reckless and needless death?
 
To stop atrocities and do what any human being has the responsibility to do.


Policing the world didn't make people bad. It may have changed bad people for others, it may have moved some from one place to another.

I genuinely don't know how to make this point without invoking Godwin, but surely a policy of never intervening when bad people do bad things is even worse than letting 'Murrica, fudge Yeah! make tactical military decisions?

But intervention doesn't necessarily stop atrocities and, in recent, relevant history in the same part of the world, has made them worse.

'Policing' the world enables bad people to do their thing, because they get armed and dangerous on account of us. Iran became an enemy some time after we and America helped to overthrow their elected government. When Iran was the bad guy, we liked Saddam and enabled him, sold him weapons etc. didn't give a sh1t about him gassing Kurds. And then Saddam 'became' bad and we got rid of him. Now a bunch of his former commanders are ISIS, armed with weapons that we gave the Iraqi Army. What could possibly go wrong fighting on the side of cannibals who have committed plenty of their own war crimes in the fight against Assad and ISIS (I'm talking about the Free Syrian Army). All the while, the yanks prop up the house of Saud and that country then funds and supports organisations like ISIS...none of these people could get so dangerous without us continually intervening, arming, training and then over-throwing their enemies for them. We create a series of worse and worse monsters.


People like to bring up World War 2 as a strawman for a pro-intervention argument, but I could just as easily bring up Vietnam. Was it a mistake not to 'intervene' there and ride America's coat-tails into that war? Of course it wasn't.

America now makes the military decisions because they have the power and call the shots. Even if you believe in military intervention in this case (and I obviously don't), WE don't need to get involved. Even the yanks don't want their own 'boots on the ground', they want to get the forces of surrounding nations to do that. And if the Russians are getting involved on the side of Assad, then there's even less reason for us to get in the middle of it.
 
If only there world were as simple as that black and white view then I'd agree.

What is black and white is this, if the warmongers Bush and Blair had not taken us into a illegal war then the situation would not be as bad now. America keep killing people for what? not for the benefit of anyone except themselves and now they have helped create what is happening nary a peep is heard from them. Pretty much as usual for them.
 
Agreed - the time to have a meaningful effect and safe millions of lives is long gone.

Quick lesson for the Grauniad-reading muesli munchers of the world: A lack of action is often as deadly as taking action.
So you are convinced military intervention was the key to success when it had largely negative consequences on the region when done against Iraq, libia and Afghanistan?

Your certainty makes me think you are really simplifying the issue or purposefully being disingenuous
 
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Iraq was a war well worth fighting. Not for the hogwash reasons the lying tossers in the Labour government used but because the world needed to be rid of Saddam Hussein. The fact that the planning and execution were wrong doesn't make it wrong to have decided to go to war.

When Sadam was Gassing Kurds we didn't invade, when Sadam was starting a war with his neighbour (a war that killed a million people) ...in fact we encouraged it (but let's leave that aside for a minute) we didn't invade. When Sadam was ethically cleansing north iraq of Kurds and Turkmen in a policy to arabise the Kurkic and Mosul regions we didn't invade.

Yet we invade when he was doing none of those things, you think the people of Iraq don't know all this? Have you spoken to many Iraqis? (Iraqis that's a funny term because it is a made up nationallitty by the west, Iraq never existed until the west made it, ignoring sectarian lines with almost staggering ineptitude, but I digress)

They do not think that:

"When he was doing his worst the west gave arms and was his buddy, but when he wasn't doing much, they came and bombed my house."

You think that alqueda or Isis don't use that as part of their recruiting/pursuance arsenal:

You think that they don't say something along the lines of :

"Why was your young wife and child killed by an American bomb, brother? sadam was an infidel bastard but he was doing nothing to anyone at that time was he, you remember? Your wife died for no reason except some kind of crusade by the west.... And to steal our oil. This is your chance to avenge her brother"

Or

" Hey you look at these pictures of these mutalated children here, these are Muslim children these could be your brothers or sisters, sons or daughters....the west done this, only because they are Muslim, there were no WMDs, they knew this, sadam was quite at that moment there was no reason to invade.... Except they like killing muslims... Let's fight them brother, let's teach them that there is a price to pay for the blood they have on their hands"

It was a flimflam war fought for the wrong reasons, when Sadam was Gassing Kurds....invade then..... When he was ethically cleansing.... Invade then etc etc

Because at least some of the people will see that the west invaded for these reasons, rather than WMDS that no body believed were there. And therefore it maybe harder for ducks like isis to recruit them.

Syria on the other hand, had millions of people on the streets wanting more freedom, it was a prime time to intervene, and be a hero to the majoriry of the Syrian people but the west didn't do anything.... Not much gassed and oil in Syria is there?

You think that this point is lost on the people in the region?
 
When Sadam was Gassing Kurds we didn't invade, when Sadam was starting a war with his neighbour (a war that killed a million people) ...in fact we encouraged it (but let's leave that aside for a minute) we didn't invade. When Sadam was ethically cleansing north iraq of Kurds and Turkmen in a policy to arabise the Kurkic and Mosul regions we didn't invade.

You're right, we should have invaded far, far sooner and stopped him before he could do any of that.

Yet we invade when he was doing none of those things, you think the people of Iraq don't know all this? Have you spoken to many Iraqis? (Iraqis that's a funny term because it is a made up nationallitty by the west, Iraq never existed until the west made it, ignoring sectarian lines with almost staggering ineptitude, but I digress)

They do not think that:

"When he was doing his worst the west gave arms and was his buddy, but when he wasn't doing much, they came and bombed my house."

You think that alqueda or Isis don't use that as part of their recruiting/pursuance Ar5ena1:

You think that they don't say something along the lines of :

"Why was your young wife and child killed by an American bomb, brother? sadam was an infidel bastard but he was doing nothing to anyone at that time was he, you remember? Your wife died for no reason except some kind of crusade by the west.... And to steal our oil. This is your chance to avenge her brother"

Or

" Hey you look at these pictures of these mutalated children here, these are Muslim children these could be your brothers or sisters, sons or daughters....the west done this, only because they are Muslim, there were no WMDs, they knew this, sadam was quite at that moment there was no reason to invade.... Except they like killing muslims... Let's fight them brother, let's teach them that there is a price to pay for the blood they have on their hands"

I think you're making some fairly sweeping assumptions about large and disparate groups of people.

I suspect if you asked people "Did you want Saddam gone?" you'd get a resounding "Yes"
I also suspect that if you asked "Would you want him back?" you'd get a resounding "No"
If you asked "Did 'Murrica, fudge Yeah screw up tactically and get it all wrong?" then I would fully expect another resounding "Yes"

I've never argued that it's right to invade and then fudge up, my argument is to invade and get it right.

It was a hogwash war fought for the wrong reasons, when Sadam was Gassing Kurds....invade then..... When he was ethically cleansing.... Invade then etc etc

Because at least some of the people will see that the west invaded for these reasons, rather than WMDS that no body believed were there. And therefore it maybe harder for ducks like isis to recruit them.
Nobody invaded because of WMDs. We invaded because Saddam kept breaking the terms placed on him and then pulling back before it escalated to troops entering. WMDs were claimed to be there just to shut all the muesli crowd up.

Syria on the other hand, had millions of people on the streets wanting more freedom, it was a prime time to intervene, and be a hero to the majoriry of the Syrian people but the west didn't do anything.... Not much gassed and oil in Syria is there?

You think that this point is lost on the people in the region?
I don't think its anything to do with oil. To suggest that (other than keeping general stability in the area) Western intervention in the Middle East is for that reason is getting dangerously close to tinfoil hat territory.

It's all to do with politicians caring more about their careers than they do getting the right thing done. After the Iraq war the Lib Dems went for the easy vote by attacking the difficult decisions made, no politician looking to make a career for themselves would leave themselves open to that again. In Syria it took a year for the UN to get a peace resolution in place, and we spent the next year and a bit pressuring the UN for further measures. Eventually we have a commons vote on attempting to solve the situation but Labour were too busy winning cheap votes to actually try and save lives.
 
And now we are just putting off the evil day until we put troops in. Not a the best solution but I truly see little alternative. We will have no end to the mass migration from the area until we stabilise it.

We need to sort it sooner than later.
 
...Nobody invaded because of WMDs. We invaded because Saddam kept breaking the terms placed on him and then pulling back before it escalated to troops entering. WMDs were claimed to be there just to shut all the muesli crowd up.


I don't think its anything to do with oil. To suggest that (other than keeping general stability in the area) Western intervention in the Middle East is for that reason is getting dangerously close to tinfoil hat territory.

It's all to do with politicians caring more about their careers than they do getting the right thing done...


I have chosen to address these points (I basically agree with everything DTA said)...first off, 'muesli crowd' or not, it was a lie. As of why we went in, well, let's just say my hat in your eyes might not be made of an alloy or even hard plastic!!!

Oil has something to do with it (as it did when the US sided with Britain in Persia back in the day) but this is far more about the continued de-stabilization of the region in order to perpetuate a war economy. Do me a favor if you think anyone is genuinely interested in altruism there...so I actually agree that politicians do care more about their careers than what is right or wrong. But ultimately, this entire situation keeps the Industrial Military Complex going.

I'm long beyond losing sleep over it TBH...although the current resultant refugee crisis disgusts me.
 
I have chosen to address these points (I basically agree with everything DTA said)...first off, 'muesli crowd' or not, it was a lie. As of why we went in, well, let's just say my hat in your eyes might not be made of an alloy or even hard plastic!!!

Oil has something to do with it (as it did when the US sided with Britain in Persia back in the day) but this is far more about the continued de-stabilization of the region in order to perpetuate a war economy. Do me a favor if you think anyone is genuinely interested in altruism there...so I actually agree that politicians do care more about their careers than what is right or wrong. But ultimately, this entire situation keeps the Industrial Military Complex going.

I'm long beyond losing sleep over it TBH...although the current resultant refugee crisis disgusts me.
You forgot the lizard men ;)
 
When has there ever an invasion that the US and UK have got right in the last 50 years?

that depends on how you define "got right"

surely the question should be, are the majority people that live there better off than they were before we arrived?
 
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