There are times when political considerations must give way to the relief of immediate human suffering. The current refugee crisis is one of those times and the UK must take genuine refugees on the same scale as Germany, starting immediately.
In the long term the influx of determined young people and families will in any event benefit our economy. We are strong and wealthy enough to shoulder the short term cost. Besides which, we bear a massive share of responsibility for the current disorder and devastation in the Middle East.
Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf despots, so beloved of the Blairs, also bear a great responsibility. They have been waging war and proxy war against non-Sunni Muslims at a high level of intensity all over the Middle East. Concerted diplomatic pressure must be put on them to provide funding on a massive scale to the European governments who are picking up the pieces. That pressure to include the threat of confiscation of assets.
Finally, Russia has been notably silent. Russia would benefit more than any other country from the potential immigration, given it is only just starting to recover from population decline and has massive natural resources. Russia must also be pressed to offer to take in very large numbers.
I met murder on the way
He had the mask of Theresa May
Laguerre; “No point in quoting the texts.”
So I just have to take your word for it ? Er, no thanks !
Laguerre; “That’s why there are not many left in Palestine.”
Funny how so many have such a fantastic life in Occupied Palestine, that they just don’t feel the need to move to France, like million of ex-pat Brits do ! 😀
“In 2009, there were an estimated 50,000 Christians in the Palestinian territories, mostly in the West Bank, with about 3,000 in the Gaza Strip. Wiki
or
“Today, of the roughly 3.9 million Palestinians living in the Occupied Territories, less than two percent are Christians.” = 78,000 (https://electronicintifada.net/content/christianity-palestine-misrepresentation-and-dispossession/6280)
Peter Beswick. I accept it is you. I was actually trying to prevent your identity being abused (which has happened in the past on here). It was the different avatars (icons) that threw me.
As to Russians being nationalist I could make a case that they are in that, like most other identities, love their country of birth or origin. That is in the same way that Walter Scott said “Breathes there a man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said: “This is my own, my native land.” Like other nationalities they have good and bad among them.
Recent wars, post-war wars, have been the work of the US and its allies. Creating failed states in the Middle East is, together with the increased military aid to Israel this year, all about Israel creating a United States of Israel in the same way the Yanks did it to incorporate New Mexico and Texas and steal their land. The eventual aim is to own the oil. I thought that was obvious. It is taking longer than they thought and those of us working for the Palestinian cause see Netanyahu’s Israel as an enemy of the Palestinians and good people everywhere.
I, of course, forgive John. Now; being a patriot is loving your country, being a nationalist is wanting to change it. Discuss (15 marks)
Anyone here know how folk like us can offer immediate practical help? We own a modest house but do have a spare room and would be prepared to give temporary shelter to a desperate soul in need of a roof, a square meal and a bit of peace.
Mary
“Speaking of the CoE, surely Her Maj could donate just one of her many palaces to accommodate refugees.”
_________________
Good idea.
I was just wondering whether you would be minded to take in an asylum-seeker or refugee – only temporarily, of course? Just one.
You have enough room in your house, after all.
Rose you may not want payment but you might get raped and murdered depending on who you let in. Good Christians and Muslims should be fine
Peter – I imagine you’re being sarcastic. What’s religion got to do with it?
Breaking news, when I signed the petition linked by Fred for the UK to accept more asylum seekers this morning it was on less than 100,000. I just looked and it is more than 218,000. Must be something of a record and shows the strength of feeling that we are not taking our fair share. So glad it succeeded.
https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105991
Here in contrast is a decent piece;
https://weegingerdug.wordpress.com/2015/09/03/refugees-are-welcome-here/
What are the BBC thinking of?
They have sent Huw Edwards to the railway station in Budapest from where he is broadcasting live on the 6pm News. Verily a stuffed shirt.
His smooth Savile Row attire is in sharp contrast to what the refugees are wearing. I should think they do not have a change of clothing. How do they feel being treated like exhibits in a zoo? Have they even had any food or drink?
Proof that a little knowledge is a very ignorant thing; I refer you to a certain boastful Zbigniew Brzezinski; Western sponsorship of Islamic terrorism caused humanitarian havoc & cost thousands of lives (including Russian as intended), long before it turned into a Western Frankenstein monster.
___________________
Macky, I’m well aware of the machinations of the West during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the point I am making is that Russia, has also caused human suffering, like the Russo-Persia wars and the Ottoman Turkey wars of 1828.
Then of course there’s the two Chechen wars with Russia, I won’t even start to go into the Holodomor.
If you Macky, think that Russia is in some way any less complicit in human suffering, then as you say, a little knowledge is indeed a ignorant thing.
I’ll finish with this Macky one of the bloodiest conflicts in Africa of the 20th century was fought as a proxy war mainly between the USA and Russia, though other countries did back either combatant the battle ground was Angola, from (1975-2002).
The war displaced 4.2 million people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angolan_Civil_War
I agree Macky about Wee Ginger Dug’s essay. I linked to it earlier.
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2015/09/when-the-politics-has-to-stop/#comment-547595
~~~
Welby has spoken at last. It was the photo that did it.
‘3 September 2015 at 3:39pm
Justin Welby: ‘My heart is broken’ over ‘wicked’ crisis
The Archbishop of Canterbury branded the refugee situation a “wicked crisis”. Credit: PA
The Archbishop of Canterbury has said that his “heart is broken” over the current situation of thousands of refugees trying to flee violence.
The Most Rev Justin Welby made his comments after the distressing image of a three-year-old Syrian boy, Aylan Kurdi, lying dead on a beach in Turkey was published and went viral.
‘This is a hugely complex and wicked crisis that underlines our human frailty and the fragility of our political systems.
My heart is broken by the images and stories of men, women and children who have risked their lives to escape conflict, violence and persecution.
We cannot turn our backs on this crisis. We must respond with compassion. But we must also not be naive in claiming to have the answers to end it.’
He added that he believed the situation required a “pan-European response” with diplomatic and political debate alongside practical action to help those in need.’
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-09-03/justin-welby-my-heart-is-broken-over-refugee-crisis/
“Only because it’s uninhabitable.”
____________
Ah yes like the Gareloch, or Loch Fyne due to radio active pollution from nuclear sieves, aka subs. Or the Solway where thousands of depleted uranium shells have been fired, or parts of Cape Wrath that’s a testing ground for the MoD, god knows what goes on up there.
Not a word from Theresa since 30 August.
Downing Street plays down talk of a split after Theresa May says migrants seeking jobs should be barred from Britain http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/downing-street-plays-down-talk-of-a-split-after-theresa-may-says-migrants-seeking-jobs-should-be-barred-from-britain-10479137.html
ROS; ” I’m well aware of the machinations of the West during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan”
Show yourself some self-respect, because you obviously weren’t aware, as you wrote to “Russia created many refugees during its ten year sortie in Afghanistan”.
Save your outrage of the inhumans closer home, like this UKIP member who put out this tweet;
“The little Syrian boy was well cloth & well fed; He died because his parents were greedy for the good life in Europe. Queue jumping costs.”
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CN_dXasWIAAHjVy.jpg:large
I would include Israel on your list Macky. Predictably Israel has been mute on the Syrian refugee crisis until today that is when Lieutenant-General Gadi Eisenkot laments the possible massacre of refugees at the hastily erected Golan fence en masse. [Report edited as I write]
Within sight of IDF soldiers and Israeli hikers in the Golan, bombs are to be seen exploding, people running in fear and panic for their lives, as humans are mangled by cluster bombs.
Yet what tender hearted woman or her frail child would risk internment in Israel or repatriationand the excruciating torment of their original flight being repeated, and possibly resulting in capture, rape, torture, imprisonment and death.
Netanyahu has spat “We have no intention of opening refugee camps” (Ya’alon) and “Israel has maintained that it will not allow refugees into the country, but it has treated a small number of wounded Syrian
civiliansproxy terrorists.http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Israel-says-prepared-for-possible-Syrian-refugee-throngs-on-Golan-406258
What exactly has respect or UKIP got to do with Russians creating refugees during the Russia Afghan war? Where a million Afghani refugees fled to Pakistan or Iran.
Maybe Macky your feelings are running high, due to the harrowing picture of the young Kurdish boy, that is understandable.
But tell me were you as equally upset when in 1978 the pro-Russian government in Afghanistan murdered 27,000 political prisoners? Or do they not count because it wasn’t front page news.
You see Macky Russia and the West, aren’t really that different afterall.
Mack –
“The little Syrian boy was well cloth & well fed; He died because his parents were greedy for the good life in Europe. Queue jumping costs.”
What a Vile, Sick utterance… from Peter Bucklitsch
The petition John put up is at Over a Quarter million..
I’ll watch Chunky Marks take on the Wee soul after Jutsu…cos it’s a weapons defense Grading.. Concentration Required.
Ehh Typo..Sorry Macky.
“Ah yes like the Gareloch, or Loch Fyne due to radio active pollution from nuclear sieves, aka subs. Or the Solway where thousands of depleted uranium shells have been fired, or parts of Cape Wrath that’s a testing ground for the MoD, god knows what goes on up there.”
No, because it’s wilderness, mountains and moorland. If the British government declared they were going to put refugees on Dartmoor there would be outrage and Dartmoor has a better climate than we have.
Statement by the French on Syrians about two months ago. I don’t have time to look it up
I can’t see what your problem is. There are only a few Christians, because the rest got visas to go to the States or France or whatever. Or do you think the Muslims pushed them into the sea, or something? Which do you think is better for a Christian Palestinian – a visa to live in the US, or being harassed daily by the Israeli army? I know which I would choose. And I’ve met lots of them in the US. They just took the obvious lifestyle choice, the one that was available to them, but not so much to Muslims.
You obviously don’t actually know any of these people.
That last of mine was directed at Macky and his ignorance.
“No, because it’s wilderness, mountains and moorland. If the British government declared they were going to put refugees on Dartmoor there would be outrage and Dartmoor has a better climate than we have.”
_____________
No because it’s wilderness, I must enlighten you, but everywhere that’s inhabited was once wilderness.
Wilderness hasn’t stopped Africans or Indians encroaching on wildlife parks and reserves has it?
Wilderness is only such until man inhabits it, as for refugees living on Dartmoor, or war torn Syria, I know which one I’d take.
Remember Las Vegas was and in most parts still is a desert.
Fred, their are people living on Dartmoor just now all 7160 of them.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okehampton
As I stated in my last post, it’s only a wilderness until man decides to set up home in it.
Peter Bucklitsch Brian. On Linked In
Electronic Record Management Consultant
https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/peter-bucklitsch/11/286/781
To think the likes of him keep tabs on us and that 3.8m British ‘citizens’ voted for the UKIP brand of racism.
@ROS, self-respect, look it up if it means nothing to you; exactly the point Einstein, what has historical events/crimes got to do with demonising present day Russia, especially over something that was instigated by the West, and in aid of a current crisis that was also instigated by the West ?! Would you like Scots to be held accountable for all the dark deeds committed by Scots in the past, especially when they were used as sock troops for the British Empire? But I’m glad that you mentioned that Iran took over a million refugees back then, puts Britain’s current effort to shame a million times over.
@BrianFujisan, thanks for the great Finkelstein clip.
Laguerre; “a visa to live in the US, or being harassed daily by the Israeli army? I know which I would choose.”
Oh dear ! You stated iro Palestinian Christians that there were “not many left” in Palestine, I provided links that shown that between 50,000 to 70,000 are estimated to still be there, so hardly “not many”; you insist that they can easily all get visas & leave, so I asked so why haven’t they done so ?!
Can you not follow a rational exchange ? You are coming across a lot like a certain clownish troll that haunts this blog !
This is a crisis which is entirely of NATO’s making. (NATO of course being a shorthand for the US and its jackal like accomplices.)
Not only have a series of wars, begun by the US, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, Syria and Yemen led to the creation of millions of refugees- a consummation deliberately planned the warmongers our governments employ- but there has also been the, again predicted and planned, result that among the displaced have arisen armies like Al Nusra and ISIS which have been trained, financed, armed, given intelligence resources and air support by NATO and its proxies in the region.
If there is one culprit besides the US in this carnage, which is approaching WW II levels, it is Saudi Arabia whose wahhabism is used to galvanise the armies roaming the middle east. Than there is ISIS’s foster mother Turkey.
To blame Russia for any of this is incredible. So is the observation that this country subjected to almost a century of sanctions, boycotts, wars hot and cold followed by the West’s genocidal economic ‘reforms’ under Yeltsin, is nationalist. It would be surprising were it not.
The penny hasn’t dropped yet Macky has it?
As Kipling said in 1901, “Now I shall go far and into the North, playing the Great Game.”
Though Conolly first coined the phrase.
That’s what it is Macky, a game, between Britain at first then more Western countries and Russia, for dominance of the Middle East, though lately since the 50’s the USA has played a more and more influencial role.
Indeed you completely miss the point, it’s history repeating itself. The game for dominance of Afghanistan between Russia and Britain, goes way back.
Two men in 1842 Colonel Charles Stoddard and Captain Arthur Conolly paid with their lives,playing the Great Game , they were executed at Bokhara, and many Russian Officers have met the same fate.
The Caucasus, Central Asia, are a vast chess board that both East and West play out the Great Game for political ascendancy, the displacement or death of civilians means very little to them, except maybe as a propaganda tool, to sway public opinion.