Syrian Refugee Crisis

[Selah]

If anything, we can offer up prayers for them. 

[CrossCuT]

And on that note, CrossCuT, I'm going to agree with dominicansoul that further arguing with you would be "utterly pointless and a waste of time." My last point about faulty presumptions was obviously lost on you and thus led to no introspection on your behalf. If you want to argue with caricatures of ideas and not ideas, then you're talking to the wrong fellow. If, however, you actually want to address the issue, cool down a bit and come back later.

Im ready when you are. When you start slinging the poo Ill sling it right back so dont act like youre a poor poor victim.

Im not willing to acknowledge that borders, political ideologies, or any other fake constructs have any weight on whether or not we should treat humans like humans. If you disagree fundamentally on that then I dont think you can call yourself a Christian. 

[bardegaulois]

Im ready when you are. When you start slinging the poo Ill sling it right back so dont act like youre a poor poor victim.

Im not willing to acknowledge that borders, political ideologies, or any other fake constructs have any weight on whether or not we should treat humans like humans. If you disagree fundamentally on that then I dont think you can call yourself a Christian. 

No you're not. You took my demonstration on the danger of faulty presumptions far too literally, which simply shows that you're incapable of further discourse at this level, and I can't see for the life of me how you think I'm acting like a poor victim (something non-liberals generally don't do to begin with). Moreover, as I've already stated, you're quite far from an expert on Christianity, so to speak like you are is hypocritical. Further words about this to you are simply wasted.

If you want an echo chamber for your ideas, then I recommend going to Tumblr.

[CrossCuT]

No you're not. You took my demonstration on the danger of faulty presumptions far too literally, which simply shows that you're incapable of further discourse at this level, and I can't see for the life of me how you think I'm acting like a poor victim (something non-liberals generally don't do to begin with). Moreover, as I've already stated, you're quite far from an expert on Christianity, so to speak like you are is hypocritical. Further words about this to you are simply wasted.

If you want an echo chamber for your ideas, then I recommend going to Tumblr.

Tell me what I said in regards to the refugee crisis that is incompatible with basic christian understanding. 

[Winchester]

1. Have foreign policy that destabilizes countries.

2. Fund one terrorist group to fight another.

5. beesh about refugees from countries victmized by your foreign policy.

 

I can't see for the life of me how you think I'm acting like a poor victim (something non-liberals generally don't do to begin with).

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dey took muhjobs

[Winchester]

The sad part about all of this, is that the majority seeking entry are 18-30 year old non-Syrian men. Not women with little babies or families.

The story of that beautiful little boy found dead on the beach, he was living in Turkey with his Mom, Dad & sibling. Dad saw this rush to Europe (all seeking to get to the best welfare state) as great cover for them to enter. Dad had a job, was getting money from his sister in Canada and ended up wiping out his entire family.

This is an invasion. 

 

50.5 percent of the refugees are women. So assuming the other portion were made up entirely of 18-30 year old men (not bloody likely), that would be 49.5 (I think. I'm close). I'm not a math genius, but it strikes me that even that wouldn't be a "majority".

But I bet you was right impressed when you seen Ben Carson say it. Yup, them furriners is invadin us, and we needs to protect ourselves.

 

[KnightofChrist]

Math is fun, how you crunch the numbers matters. I think the percentages of 50.5% female vs 49.5 male is focused on one group of the current refugee 'crisis' and not the over all numbers of refugees that are part of the wave. Percentages of all the refugees is  69% men, 13% women and 18% children. At least according to the UN http://data.unhcr.org/mediterranean/regional.php

[Winchester]

I went by the thread title.  My mistake. 

[KnightofChrist]

The title of the thread is also limited in its focus. ISIS and other factors causing the crisis have much broader and international effects that are not limited to Syria alone. The over all picture matters.

[Winchester]

The title of the thread is also limited in its focus. ISIS and other factors causing the crisis have much broader and international effects that are not limited to Syria alone. The over all picture matters.

Overall picture still doesn't equal "invasion". Nor is the overall picture told by numbers from sea arrivals, although those numbers were informative.

A rapid influx of people can cause problems. But that doesn't sound scary enough, so let's ramp it up a notch.

[Didacus]

Ok - so at work we bought this shiploader from Germany. Of course. We have Germans coming by to start up the darn thing and they were goofing off instead of helping. So I (being the boss) started clamping down on them, stirred the pot and got them moving.  

I was direct, and after a while, being myself started ditchin' some wise cracks.  

At the management meeting. They told me to go a little easy on them kcause we needed them - which I think is BS, we can make the darn thing run. So I asked them what the big deal was - 'they're germans', I said, 'what's are they gonna do? A World war?'

Then there was silence...

So I also mentioned the potential of exchanging each of the German engineers for three Syrians laborers - that way we could get some actual work done for our money!

 

 

In case you're wondering I haven't been fired yet so don't bother asking.  

Edited September 30, 2015 by Didacus

[KnightofChrist]

Overall picture still doesn't equal "invasion". Nor is the overall picture told by numbers from sea arrivals, although those numbers were informative.

A rapid influx of people can cause problems. But that doesn't sound scary enough, so let's ramp it up a notch.

Perhaps, perhaps not.  Maybe there's nothing to the idea of invasion, then again maybe there is some truth to it, however small. ISIS and other terrorist groups are likely hiding amongst the refugees, using them to gain access to Europe. They have promised to invade and topple Rome even if it takes generations. Which shows a strong will and determination of invasion and occupation. Anyway it's a large enough threat to take seriously and not ignore even if some ramp it up.

[Winchester]

OPerhaps, perhaps not.  Maybe there's nothing to the idea of invasion, then again maybe there is some truth to it, however small. ISIS and other terrorist groups are likely hiding amongst the refugees, using them to gain access to Europe. They have promised to invade and topple Rome even if it takes generations. Which shows a strong will and determination of invasion and occupation. Anyway it's a large enough threat to take seriously and not ignore even if some ramp it up.

Something something quietum servitium

 

[Mediator of Meh]Cussing. 7 day suspension. -dUSt[/Mediator of Meh]

[little2add]

 

“The board is set . . . the pieces are moving.” -Gandalf, Lord the Rings: The Return of the King

 

 Iran has purchased $21 billion worth of Russian satellite technology and aircraft, according to Iranian officials.

 

·      “The Chinese will be arriving in the coming weeks,” a Syrian army official told the Lebanon-based news website Al-Masdar Al-‘Arabi.

The report claims that a Chinese naval vessel is on its way to Syria with dozens of “military advisers” on board. They will reportedly be followed by troops.

The ship is said to have passed the Suez Canal in Egypt and be making its way through the Mediterranean Sea.

According to the website, the advisers will be joining Russian personnel in the Latakia region.

·      As U.S. ships and British warplanes neared the shores of its last remaining ally in the Middle East, Russia warned again Tuesday that any military intervention in Syria would have "catastrophic consequences" for the region.

[CrossCuT]

The US has a goal of causing political unrest in places where there is value to our enterprises. But of course we cant just take land over we have to stir the pot and cause tension among the people themselves. When things get destabilized we will come in as the hero, and tell them we will help solve their problems if they sell us their oil for super cheap. 

[CrossCuT]

The extent to which refugee children have been conditioned by their environment is heartbreaking. We wanted permission to take this young girl’s photograph, so we asked if her mother was nearby. Her eyes filled with the most uncontrollable fear that I’ve ever seen in a child. ‘Why do you want my mother?’ she asked. Later, her parents told us how the family had crouched in the woods while soldiers ransacked their house in Syria. More recently they’d been chased through the woods by Turkish police. After we’d spent a few minutes talking with her parents, she returned to being a child and could not stop hugging us, and laughing, and saying ‘I love you so much.’ But I went to sleep that night remembering the terror on her face when we first asked to speak to her mother. 

(Lesvos, Greece)

 

[beatitude]

The majority of Syrian refugees aren't young men. 50.5% of the refugees are female. Men of working age constitute 21.8%; the number of working-age women is slightly higher than that. Children aged eleven years old and younger account for just under 40%. So it simply isn't true that the strongest are fleeing while the weakest remain behind. This is the data from the UN High Commissioner on Refugees. Worldwide they now make up almost a quarter of refugees receiving UNHCR support. Their numbers are staggering.

This is the most comprehensive and detailed data we have on refugee movements, but it seems that some people here are happy to accept Daily Mail coverage at face value despite its reputation for being creative with stats and its shadowy history on the coverage of refugee issues. In WW2 the Mail was the paper that most strenuously opposed the right of Jewish refugees to seek shelter in Britain, calling them aliens. At one time the paper was sympathetic to the British Union of Fascists and when I compare its coverage of the refugee crisis in WW2 with its coverage of the refugee crisis today it's difficult to see how its editorial line has changed all that much since. People here seem to be very quick to accept material they want to believe and will digest it uncritically regardless of the source or the accuracy.

The sad part about all of this, is that the majority seeking entry are 18-30 year old non-Syrian men. Not women with little babies or families.

The story of that beautiful little boy found dead on the beach, he was living in Turkey with his Mom, Dad & sibling. Dad saw this rush to Europe (all seeking to get to the best welfare state) as great cover for them to enter. Dad had a job, was getting money from his sister in Canada and ended up wiping out his entire family.

This is an invasion. 

 

Aylan al-Kurdi's family hoped to reach Canada to join his aunt there. They were very explicit that this was what they were trying to do. People whose families have been carved up by war want to reunite and if you have a close relative who has a home to give you in another country, why wouldn't you want to go? The Kurdi family had already fled twice, from Damascus to Kobane, and then into Turkey, where Aylan's father didn't have a stable life or income. The family is Kurdish, if that means anything to you. There are some reasons why Kurds would not want to stay in Turkey. They have been persecuted there for a long time, and as refugees, the Kurdi family faced a double layer of prejudice and limited legal rights. So they entrusted themselves (and everything they had) to a human trafficker.

You are lying about dead people who can no longer speak for themselves, people who have been through hell. Or maybe you don't mean to lie, but you didn't think it worthwhile to fact-check spiteful online tittle-tattle when it fits so neatly with what you want to believe about refugees, the belief that the slim possibility of welfare benefits (which are hardly princely) is enough to motivate them to face death. Attitudes like this, in which refugees are treated as opportunists wanting to cash in, are no different from the attitudes that motivate the traffickers, in which refugees are treated as the cashing-in opportunity. Both show a complete and callous disregard for human life. In the same way, people pounce on the idea that most refugees are young males on the basis of a handful of photos they've seen or the words of a political candidate half the world away. No need to look closer when the whole objective is to keep these people as far away as possible.

I have noticed that some people seem to actually relish this idea of 'invasion' and get positively and pruriently gleeful at the idea of some showdown between West and East, good and evil, Muslim and Christian, as though this is some exciting video game about the Crusades rather than people's lives. Other people who glorify war and fighting as the height of masculinity and bravery criticise young Syrian and Iraqi men for not being brave enough to enlist (in what?) but are not themselves brave enough to give a welcome to people who arrived unarmed and helpless. It's easy to sit on your computer in your comfortable home and imagine yourself the Christian hero of a beleaguered citadel, boldly facing off the invasion with each stroke of your keyboard. It's easy to decide that Syrians facing barrel bombs must be cowards because they are fleeing rather than defending themselves (with what? Their industrial-sized bomb-resistant umbrellas?). It's easy for you to imagine that in their place you would be out there fending off ISIS and Assad and everybody else who wants to kill you single-handedly with your umbrella. But you aren't in their place. We should be grateful that we aren't in a situation where we face death on the way to pick up supplies at an almost-empty grocery store rather than judging the people who are.

We should also remember that becoming a refugee takes bravery. I met two refugee women from Somalia last week, both survivors of torture. One of them described to me how she ran while having no idea where she would end up or if she would ever see her loved ones again, or even if they were all still alive. She said, "You don't run away from home unless home is a shark's mouth", and then she cried, because she misses home and she knows that home is never coming back. It's destroyed. Even if it's rebuilt in the future, it will not be what she knew as a child, as a young woman. Gone. And getting out of bed every day when you know that, setting yourself to learn a new language, facing hostility and suspicion from people who think that you're here for a life of luxury and ease, jumping every time you hear the phone ring just in case it's news to say a relative's alive/a relative's dead...that's pretty brave.

[Oremus Pro Invicem]

Weren't St. Joseph, Mary, and baby Jesus refugees? Would we tell Joseph to sack-up and go face Herod simply because Joseph was healthy and strong man who could fight?

@beatitude: I too have a friend who is a Somali refugee.  His journey is an amazing story and one I would never have had the heart or bravery to take.  He too misses his home, his country.  I count my self blessed for being able to know him and work with him.  He works harder than anyone I know.  He doesn't take the gifts my country has for granted, one of those being the ability to go to bed and know that you will not be woken up to the sound of an AK-47 going off, or worse the AK-47 going off because some crazy a-holes chose you to die today. 

[Anomaly]

The US has a goal of causing political unrest in places where there is value to our enterprises. But of course we cant just take land over we have to stir the pot and cause tension among the people themselves. When things get destabilized we will come in as the hero, and tell them we will help solve their problems if they sell us their oil for super cheap. 

I think you are being as hysterically stereotyping as Didicus.  The Syrian crisis is fueled more by Russia playing at geopolitics than US desiring oil.   That's not to say the US is not engaging Russia and China in the Geopolitical Game of Thrones.  Unilateral departure of the US does not necessarily allow the Middle East to solve Middle East problems without outside interference.   It only removes US influence in a complicated issue involving parties and countries far outside the region.  Debate and discuss the implications of that. 

 

However, that being said, the US should put more in the game to address the human toll.  We should be taking many more refugees here and aiding other countries to do so as well.  Sure we run the risk of some saboteurs that mean harm, but I think they would be counterbalanced by the substantial majority that are/would be grateful and appreciative of the adopted country/fellow citizens/expanded family of another culture.  

Painting all sides and parties in the worst negative stereotype actively destroys any sense of solidarity and awareness of shared community.   Even blood brothers will kill each other if they dwell on hate and division and allow the outside wolf to ravage to the family's flock.  Pointless to create/find and fight the wrong enemy. 

[Didacus]

Is there any way of being patriotic and wanting to hold our border that does not end up with being tagged as a racist?

Edited October 1, 2015 by Didacus
I wanted to edit my post