What is central Europe supposed to do in the current migrant crisis?

My apologies, It's just safe zones have never (afaik) been used as safe havens for refugees to set up camps, I'm fairly certain safe zones have only ever been used as temporary protection for refugees fleeing a conflict, CrimesofWar states "Safety zones is an unofficial term covering a wide variety of attempts to declare certain areas off-limits for military targeting"

At best safe zones are attempts to prevent military targeting of certain areas in a conflict giving time to get civilians to a place of safety outside the conflict.

Just because a country isn't a member of NATO wouldn't preclude action being taken, if an unknown force originating from within Syrian borders attacked Lebanon or Jordan do you really think the other Arab countries would do nothing?

Again that comes back to what we suspect is going to happen verses what has actually happened, if an unknown force originating from within Syria attacked a refugee camp situated in another country there are grounds for western troops on the ground, until that happens it's an internal conflict being dealt with by local military forces, with the aid of western forces.

Not matter how badly we think they're doing it's not our place to intervene until requested to do so, I would think you of all people would know that you can only help people (countries) that want to help themselves.

 

I haven't read all your posts, just replying to OP's first post.

Problem is refugees prefer to go to Germany/UK cause they give them better options, better houses, more money etc.

They don't want to stay in poorer countries, they want to go all the way through to countries that give the best options. I believe EU law says that first country where refugees arrive, should give them shelter - is that correct?

Poland lately gave them homes - new ones, like terrace houses, where each family got kinda studio flat with beds etc plus opportunity to work - what happened? Refugees didn't like it and left those houses and moved to Germany. Two months and the abandoned those places!

They are picky - they don't want to work, they want big houses and money so they don't need to work! Where are all their women and children?! 90% of refugees are men! They left them to starve and die?! What the hell?!

 

Yes (again: history. Have they ever acted before?).

There may be grounds for it, but it won't happen unless that country is a member of NATO.

I think that you have lost the thread in my posts a bit. I have been arguing against Western military intervention against ISIS in Syria and Iraq, for a bunch of reasons (post #190).

To rule is to see ahead. Given that military action against refugee camps is a depressingly familiar trend in history and a big headache for UNHCR, it would be naive to the extreme to not plan for that eventuality.

 

Citation needed.

 

Citation for what? Article telling about this Poland situation? It's in polish language...
I'll try to find it and translate it on google.

 

Yes, in the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen, calls for military, political action against ISIS from head of the arab League chief Nabil Elaraby, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates join international military action to enforce no-fly zone over Libya, and a bombing campaign on Islamist militants in Syria.

Then again the Arab league itself doesn't have a military force (yet) like the United Nations or European Union.

That seems a very western media centric view to have, that action is only take by NATO or that the Arab league is all but useless when it comes to intervention.

Perhaps we are at cross purposes, you say refugee camps outside the conflict zone are useless as Syria or ISIS will only attack them, thusly the action we should take is not to setup or resources refugee camps and instead tell the refugees that if they healthy enough and survive the journey then our borders are open.

At the same time you argue that we shouldn't take military action, understandably, but why do you consider taking action inside Syria or Iraq a no go, yet taking an action outside the conflict zone acceptable?

You've made it clear why military action is unacceptable, and on that we agree, but what I don't understand is why it's better to send a message to refugees that if you're fit and healthy and can make the dangerous journey then our borders are open.

Military action inside Syria or Iraq = Deaths
Refugees making a dangerous journeys = Deaths
Properly resourced refugee camps = Hypothetical Deaths that may never happen and would have repercussions.

 

same with Denmark - not enough free money and benefits

you can buy a Syrian passport for $1000 , as suddenly those in Calais are now claiming to be Syrian as Britain will let them in!

forgetting they are processing them in Syria(and other bordering countries) via a proper process and flying them over but you know....

 

Probably why they won't budge until the UN does.

No, NATO will only act when it feels threatened, and the League of Arab Nations is often too divided for concerted action.

No, I'm saying that refugee camps are helpful in the short term, but just postponing the problem in the long term. We have to think beyond that.

Not saying that either. Sure, a country can defend itself against incursions of refugee camps on its soil --but only if it has the means to.

No: properly resourced refugee camps = deaths in the long term with no guarantee of repercussions as deterrent.

So what do we so? Let's start by giving the Iraqi Sunni population an investment in a democratic Iraqi government. Then they will kick out ISIS. It will only have Syria left, and there it's up against Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, and assorted freedom fighters.

Perhaps they feel a sense of entitlement because we screwed their country up first.

 

Well, back to the topic - funny guys these Germans. They pushed through the quota for 120k refugees via qualified majority vote of ministers; but only for that 120k refugees. Good job Germany, you solved distribution total 160k of the 440k refugees so far; too bad it increases at rate of 6k/week. Also good job Germany, making central Europe angry at you, Germany can count on their vote against whatever Germany will want really, really bad.

Also considering Poland agreed to take some refugees, let's hope media will report how many will be there after a month.

 

I doubt that Arabs can tell a bunch of Western countries apart any more than the average Westerner can tell a bunch of Middle East countries apart.

 

None
Not many foreigners can keep up with polish people
Muslims?! Good luck with that! They'll get battered after a week!

 

Hell, the Brits can't keep up with Polish people. And that is on their own home turf!

 

Isn't the long term objective for these people to eventually return to their country of origin?
The longer refugees spend in a host country the less likely they are to return when the troubles are over, they set down roots.

AFAIK all the countries that have taken Syrian refugees have military forces perfectly capable of defending against incursions, and if they don't then that's why properly resourced refuge camps are important.

Yet they don't, attacks on refuge camps outside of the conflict zone are extremely rare and can be counted on one hand, the death toll from those attacks amount to a few hundred over the space of 30-40 years.

Far more people are dying because we (Europe) are not properly resourcing refuge camps close to the conflict, instead we're telling them to make a long and dangerous journey.

How is allowing more than 2,600 migrants to die crossing the Mediterranean Sea a better solution than properly resourced refugee camps?

Do you really think even if there was an attack on a refuge camp that the death toll would be greater than the inevitable 3,000+ migrants that are going to die trying to make it to Europe in 2015.

So save Iraq and let Syria burn?

 

Yes, but their home country is not going to sort itself out (in the direction desired) all by itself, is it? Either we have to make it happen --and we all know our success rate at that-- or we cross our fingers and root for the good guys, and hope is not a strategy.

And people can't set down roots in a refugee camp --you have to immigrate into the host country. Back to square one.

Well, people seem to walk into Lebanon willy-nilly. Iraq is not doing so well either. So yeah, "properly resourced" means militarily defended. Let's see if the League of Arab Nations is up for that.

But they do happen, and where a few people are killed, many scatter. Got to plan for that.

We're no "allowing" it, they are coming whether we want to or not.

I really think that attacking a refugee camp even once will cause them to start scattering to the four winds. People who don't feel safe don't stay put. Again: got to plan for that and be prepared to defend those camps, and plan how you can get their home country back on track so they have a place to return to in the long term, or admit that you can't recover their home country and be prepared to take refugees in as immigrants some time down the line. Because nobody is going to want to live for the rest of their lives in a refugee camp.

This is not a quick fix scenario. This is a cluster**** with many, many wrinkles. Plan for the long term, or find yourself in a worse mess some time down the line. As always.

We can't save Syria. Love to, but we can't --we have no political leverage. We can still influence things in Iraq.

 

So are you saying that 10-20 years from now, for example, that Syria is still going to be in the midst of civil war? That seems a rather pessimistic view to take, and also a view seemingly based on predicting future events.

Seems we got our wires crossed, when I said refugees set down roots I was referring to them setting down roots in a host country, i.e when relocated.

Not as you seem to have interpreted it as meaning countries with refugee camps in them, those are temporary solutions, places that people fleeing conflict go while their needs are assessed, while TPTB work on a solution to either bring peace to the conflict zone and return them to their homes, or failing that relocate them to a host country that's willing to take in refugees.

So because you think it's 100% guaranteed that refuge camps are going to come under attack, something that (afaik) hasn't happened in the 5 odd years there's been refuge camps on the borders of Syria, that because you believe this is going to happen that we should send in the military to defend them?

If they haven't been attacked in the last 5 years what's changed, why is there suddenly a need for larger military forces defending refugee camps?

Well I think many people scattering if a refugee camp was attacked would be the least of our worries, again what you're talking about is preempting a hypothetical outcome versus what is happening in the hear and now.

I didn't say we're allowing it, I said "Far more people are dying because we (Europe) are not properly resourcing refuge camps close to the conflict, instead we're telling them to make a long and dangerous journey."

Their only coming because the refugee camps aren't sufficient, because in the 5 years that civil war has torn their country apart we've done nothing to resolve it, because after 5 years we're still refusing to help Assad, as unpalatable as that maybe, to end a civil war that ISIS have take so much advantage of.

Their coming because people and governments are telling them to do exactly that.

But again you're talking about a hypothetical maybe versus what's actually happening in the hear and now, people are dying now and action needs to be take now, not based on some hypothetical future scenario.

There's no such thing as can't.

 

To be fair, Syria as it was will never exist again, it was an abstract construct, drawn by French and English on the map, without any consideration for the local population. There is no way Kurds won't make a new state of their own from the northern/northeastern part of the country. That is given, you can forget about that part ever becoming part of Syria. Agreement between loyalists (Assad regime) and rebels is going to be hard to get - for rebels Assad in power is unacceptable, and for loyalists he is the only guarantee of survival of Alawites. And then there is the question how to get rid of IS, as they pretty much have the land of nothing.

The most realistic solution would be an federalist state, but i doubt Kurds will accept anything less than their own full state.

 

Well, we figured we'd have sorted out Afghanistan and Iraq in a year or two. How's that coming along? In any case it's not about whether Syria will be in the midst of a civil war in 10-20 years time, but whether it will be in a state that the refugees will want to return to. Will Assad still run the show? Will ISIS? Hang on: what if they both win? That’s an actual possibility: Syria could fracture into pieces (in a way, it already has). An Alawite state backed by Iran, Hezbollah, and Russia existing alongside a Caliphate ruled by Islamists could very well emerge as a semi-permanent reality.

Again: hope is not a strategy.

Cool, we agree on that.

I think we should plan for that necessity. Because I've heard too often in the last few decades how certain things would never happen, like:



--and then it happens. We would bring democracy to Iraq. We'd clean up the Taliban and bring democracy to Afghanistan. Libya would be just fine once Khadaffi was overthrown... Yup, that all worked. Especially ISIS, which is making a career our of kicking over the rule book, should not be taken for granted. Hope for the best, but plan for the worst, because hope is not a strategy.

Everything is hypothetical until it happens. But I've been right before.

I don't think that they need the encouragement. And Assad is also a reason for people fleeing. If we help him regain control that doesn't mean it's all going to be happy families now and people will flock back home, as faugusztin points out. So you'd have to first defeat ISIS, which is backed by serious money from Saudi Arabia, and then defeat Assad, who is backed by Russia and Iran. Er, how long did you say that civil war in Syria was going to last?

1. We must do something.
2. This is something.
3. Therefore we must do it.

Short term thinking worked so well thus far, right?

Platitude is not a strategy either, but I'm open to suggestions.

 

Nuclear war? You want even more refugees?

 

He wants a post apocalyptic society where he can put his bottle cap collection to good use...