"U.S. should bear blame for European refugee, humanitarian crisis"

Defence and Security, Immigration, refugees, Politics, World Affairs

“U.S. should bear blame for European refugee, humanitarian crisis”

Sep 14, 2015

Disastrous intervention by the US has been the cause of many major refugee flows including the current flows out of the Middle East. The people’s Daily published an interesting article on this subject on 7 September. The article refers to refugees from Syria, Lybia, Iraq and Afghanistan. It could have added that one of the major refugee flows since WWII was triggered by the disastrous intervention in Vietnam. See article from People’s Daily below. John Menadue

Xinhua Commentary: U.S. should bear blame for European refugee, humanitarian crisis

By Hu Yao (Xinhua) 09:10, September 07, 2015

BEIJING, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) — When millions of people around the world were taken aghast by the pictures of drowned three-year old Syrian boy Aylan Kurdi lying washed up on a Turkish beach and the massive refugee crisis engulfing Europe, they should see through the fact that the United States is mainly responsible for all the mess.

The main sources of today’s refugees — Syria, Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan –are targets of U.S. intervention, which led to devastation,chaos, deteriorating domestic security and extensive displacements. People in those countries could no longer enjoy even basic human rights. Many of them had no choice but to flee for life, not only to neighboring countries, but to Europe.

According to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, more than 300,000 refugees and migrants have ventured to cross the Mediterranean into Europe so far this year, and over 2,600 didn’t survive the dangerous journey.

While the European countries are accused of indifference and incapabilities to cope with the refugee crisis, the Unites States, their closest ally and the major cause of the crisis,seems not to have realized its moral obligation to help clean up the mess and work to address the root cause of the problem.

Syria is the latest country following Iraq and Libya to become the victim of U.S.intervention in the Middle East. Having been mired in a fullblown civil war for four years due to persistent U.S.led Western intervention, the country was the largest source of refugees bound for Europe in 2013, 2014 and the first half of this year. The militants of the so-called Islamic State (IS), emerging from the Syrian oppositions which were supported by the U.S. to topple the Syrian government, have launched numerous attacks against Syrian civilians, who have become targets of kidnappings, suicide and car bombings, among others. Their lives are at peril if they hang on in their own country.

On other fronts, although the United States has pulled out its troops from some countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, it should be still held accountable for having destabilized these countries in the first place and then leaving them in a hopeless mess.

As a self-styled leader of the world, it is a shame for the United States to stir up chaos,anarchism and the emergence of extremist and terrorist groups in those countries by its selfish foreign policies.

Now as Europe struggles to cope with a daily influx of thousands of refugees, the U.S.should act immediately and do more to help solve the refugee crisis and work out long-term measures to help troubled countries and regions restore calm, stability and normal life as soon as possible.