... Over the past year, some 3,000 people have perished in the Mediterranean onboard rickety vessels that were far from seaworthy. The Italian coastguard has plucked 160,000 people from the sea in the last year alone – a figure that has escalated on previous years and underlines the crisis of immigrants trying to reach Europe. But who, ultimately, is to blame for this crisis? Why have numbers of desperate refugees willing to risk their lives trying to reach Europe suddenly exploded? Refugees coming from North Africa to Europe across the Mediterranean is not a new phenomenon. But what is significant about the latest surge in numbers is that most of the refugees are from Syria and Iraq, according to the United Nations and other monitoring groups. Of the 360 onboard the ship rescued this week off Italy’s Calabrian coast most were from Syria. The same goes for the other two vessels salvaged in the past fortnight. The crisis of immigrants trying – and dying – to reach Europe is thus a direct consequence of the conflicts raging in Syria and Iraq. Millions of people are fleeing from violence in those two countries. Their homes destroyed, their families butchered, their livelihoods decimated, who can blame those people for trying to seek refuge? But who should we blame, ultimately, for this appalling humanitarian situation? ISIS terrorists, human traffickers? Well, to a degree, yes. But the real culpability lies squarely with the European governments who in league with Washington have covertly launched a criminal regime-change war in Syria since March 2011. Britain and France, in particular, are the two European powers that have, along with their American ally, fomented and fuelled the conflict in Syria to overthrow the government of President Bashar al Assad. Over the past four years that country has been turned into a charnel house by these Western governments supporting a network of international mercenaries for the illegal objective of regime change. Now these same Western powers have launched air strikes on Syria and Iraq – with the stated purpose of “wiping out” the so-called Islamic State mercenaries that they unleashed in the first place. The humanitarian consequences should be obvious – except to the Western media, who try to disinform on the iniquitous cause-and-effect. Millions of Syrians and Iraqis are fleeing from the mayhem that Western powers have engendered, as they desperately seek relative safety in Europe, crossing hell and high water if that’s what it takes. ...To the burgeoning numbers risking their lives attempting to cross the Mediterranean are nationals from Libya, Palestine, and the African countries of Mali, Niger, and the Central African Republic – all countries where US-led NATO powers have directly fuelled violence. So, let’s not be distracted by Western media hype about anonymous “heartless human traffickers” abandoning “ghost ships” of refugees on the rocks of European coastlines. The real heartless human traffickers are the governments responsible for creating the flood of refugees from the Middle East and Africa in the first place. This is a crisis made in Washington, London and Paris.... informationclearinghouse.info/article40626.htm
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 02:10:41 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015