Syria - the bloody civil war that could have been prevented in the modern world

[punjabi_khota]

ETV: Only the mofo pakis get their panties knotted up with Kashmir. Rest of the Muslim World gives a rat's @$$ about it. In fact au-contraire most of the muslim world laugh at pakis obsession with kashmir, because it is so old and unresolvable -- it is a pointless issue

:hysterical::hysterical: Unlike the Palestine issue ? Cuz it's only 2 years younger.

[Clarke]

Heartening to see Germany etc stepping up to help these innocent people. 800k is a lot of immigrants to assimilate in society. This should ideally have been the UN's responsibility as well, if it were a cohesive organization it could work on sorting out the primary problem(s) in the middle east itself.

[randomGuy]

USA is primarily responsible for so much loss of life for supporting rebels against a secular leader Asaad who is supported by all non-sunnis. This may be a simplistic view but it is correct imo.

[Clarke]

^I'd say the intervention in Iraq is responsible for the bigger catastrophe in the region known as ISIS. Yeah, Saddam was an evil dictator but this group is quite another league. Sad to say but he'd prolly finish them off within/beyond his borders the moment he saw them as a threat.

[randomGuy]

^I'd say the intervention in Iraq is responsible for the bigger catastrophe in the region known as ISIS. Yeah' date=' Saddam was an evil dictator but this group is quite another league. Sad to say but he'd prolly finish them off within/beyond his borders the moment he saw them as a threat.[/quote'] Maybe, maybe not. Syria civil war has caused 2-3 lac deaths as per Google. The results of intervention in Syria were most obvious. The long term implications in Iraq, even after civilian govt. formation , would have been more difficult to imagine. In this way, Syrian intervention is far more evil, we should say.

[biglebowski]

interestingly refugees are moving towards europe and not towards rich arab nations who are financially in a better position to help the refugees than european nations

[Clarke]

Maybe, maybe not. Syria civil war has caused 2-3 lac deaths as per Google. The results of intervention in Syria were most obvious. The long term implications in Iraq, even after civilian govt. formation , would have been more difficult to imagine. In this way, Syrian intervention is far more evil, we should say.

The body count in Syria is probably higher but I see it as one of the remnants of the cold war with Russia backed Assad against the US backed rebels. The cold war had a big body count in its battlefields, Korea/Vietnam/Iran-Iraq being the major conflicts. I would consider both sides to be responsible parties for the deaths. The Invasion of Iraq was completely unilateral in that respect, no logical rhyme or reason, just some random chemical weapons or fake nukes & non existent AQ links.

[Raghav_12]

Good informative piece on this crisis. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/europes-migrant-crisis-eight-reasons-its-not-what-youthink/article26194675/?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=Referrer%3A+Social+Network+%2F+Media&utm_campaign=Shared+Web+Article+Links

THE MIGRANT CRISIS: HERE’S WHY IT’S NOT WHAT YOU THINK European nations are tightening their borders, shutting down trains and ramping up rhetoric to stop a surge of refugees from reaching their shores. But myths about the European tide are misleading policy makers about how bad the crisis is and why it’s happening - and that could have deadly consequences for asylum seekers. Doug Saunders does a reality check DOUG SAUNDERS The Globe and Mail Last updated: Friday, Sep. 04, 2015 3:37PM EDT 1. MOST REFUGEES NEVER LEAVE THEIR COUNTRIES To see the images of boats and trucks, you might think that millions of people are pouring out of their war-torn countries into Europe. But most never leave their countries, and only a few move internationally. There are about 60 million people around the world who have been displaced – that is, forced to leave their homes due to conflict and unable, for the moment, to return. By far the largest group, two-thirds, are “internally displaced persons” – that is, they do not leave their country. The second largest, many millions in size, are those living in camps across the borders of their country – of the four million Syrian refugees and IDPs, 1.9 million are camped in Turkey, 1.1 million in Lebanon, 630,000 in Jordan. These camp refugees do not generally try to come to the West (except a handful who are sponsored by agencies). By comparison, the total number of Syrians who have sought refuge in the West since 2011 is estimated at just more than 300,000. Likewise, half a million Eritreans are encamped in adjoining African countries; tens of thousands have come to the West. There are about 15 conflicts around the world that are responsible for all the world’s refugees; only a handful of those conflicts produce any significant numbers of refugees who leave their region and attempt to seek refuge in the West. Migrants face Hungarian police in the main Eastern Railway station in Budapest on Sept. 1, 2015. Migrants face Hungarian police in the main Eastern Railway station in Budapest on Sept. 1, 2015. LASZLO BALOGH/REUTERS 2. REFUGEES ARE A RECURRING CRISIS, NOT A CONSTANT ONE International refugee flows have not been constantly increasing; in fact, they have generally dropped in number over the last several decades, but experience short-lived peaks during major international crises. After the years that followed the Second World War (which remain the largest refugee crisis in modern history, after tens of millions of Europeans became refugees), the largest refugee peak in the West occurred in the 1990s, when three million fled the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia. Then, throughout the 2000s, refugee numbers declined to their lowest in history. The new peak began in 2011, after the Arab revolutions sent people fleeing the ensuing conflicts and the open southern Mediterranean shore allowed refugees to enter Europe from conflicts in places such as Eritrea. That peak abated in 2012-13, then picked up dramatically in 2014-15, when hundreds of thousands of Syrians fled the escalating war there. The Syrian refugee flood still has not reached the levels of the Balkan flood of the 1990s, although it could do so. But history shows that refugee numbers will sink back to historic lows once the conflict has stabilized. 3. MANY COUNTRIES SEE REFUGEES ONLY DURING CONFLICTS Refugees tend to come and go. Germany, shown here, is typical of Western countries (though it receives far more refugees than any other). It experienced negligible numbers of refugee claimants during the 2000s, but large spikes in the 1990s and in the post-2011 years. The 1990 Balkan refugee wave provoked a political crisis unlike any being experienced today: So fearful were Germans of a permanent tide of refugees that they amended their constitution, which had previously guaranteed citizenship to anyone seeking refugee status. It seemed to many that the Balkan wars would last forever, and the millions of refugees would be permanent. Those worries proved unfounded. About two-thirds of the 1990s refugees returned to Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo; the third who stayed became well-integrated citizens of Germany. All evidence suggests that the Syrian refugees are in a similar situation, with similar long-term intentions. Hundreds of families, mostly Syrian, walk down train tracks towards the Macedonian border to have their papers processed before crossing on Sept. 2, 2015, in Idomeni, Greece. Hundreds of families, mostly Syrian, walk down train tracks towards the Macedonian border to have their papers processed before crossing on Sept. 2, 2015, in Idomeni, Greece. DAN KITWOOD/GETTY IMAGES Graphic: Chris Inton, Matthew Weber, Vincent Flasseur, Simon Scarr, Gustavo Cabrera and Travis Hartman (sources: European Commission; Eurostat; International Centre for Migration Policy Development; International Organization for Migration; UNHCR) Graphic: Chris Inton, Matthew Weber, Vincent Flasseur, Simon Scarr, Gustavo Cabrera and Travis Hartman (sources: European Commission; Eurostat; International Centre for Migration Policy Development; International Organization for Migration; UNHCR) 4. MOST REFUGEES ARRIVE BY LAND, NOT BOAT Boat migrants make headlines – in part because they often are killed attempting a crossing – but they do not represent the majority of refugees. In Canada and the United States, the number of refugee claimants arriving by sea is negligibly small; almost all arrive at airports. In Europe this year, walking has become the most popular way of entry. The number of migrants and refugee claimants who enter the 28-country European Union by foot, crossing Turkey, Greece and the Balkans – what is known as the “Western Balkan route” – is now almost as high as all sea passages combined. A sunken boat carrying migrants is pulled in to the port in Zuwara, Libya, on Aug. 27, 2015. A sunken boat carrying migrants is pulled in to the port in Zuwara, Libya, on Aug. 27, 2015. MOHAMED BEN KHALIFA/ASSOCIATED PRESS 5. MOST BOAT PEOPLE AREN’T SYRIAN, AND OFTEN AREN’T REFUGEES The people who cross the Mediterranean in illegal, dangerous boats are often called “migrants” or “refugees,” but in fact the distinction is often hard to make – and large numbers of them don’t come from countries that would automatically qualify them as a refugee under the United Nations Refugee Convention of 1951, which all Western countries subscribe to. During the first three months of 2015, the nationalities most often encountered in the most popular Mediterranean route (from Libya and Tunisia to Italy and its outlying islands) were Gambian, Senegalese and Somali – none of them countries with active conflicts that would make people fleeing them automatic refugees. Crossing the Mediterranean in an overpacked boat costs upwards of $3,000 (U.S.) per person, so the most desperate victims of war or poverty have no chance of making the crossing. Many are people seeking a better life for their families, drawing on networks of people from the same region already living in Europe. But the process of coming to Europe this way – which typically involves a brutal cross-Sahara walk to Libya, followed by months working in exploitative jobs in Tripoli, then at least one attempt at the extremely dangerous sea crossing – often leaves migrants as wounded and traumatized as any war refugee. Likewise, anyone seeking refuge from a conflict, is, naturally, also an economic migrant: They need to find a place with employment and an economy to provide stability for their families. So to characterize the Mediterranean boat people as simply “refugees” or alternatively as “economic migrants” is misleading. Most of them historically have not been legitimate refugees, but all of them are both victims of traumatic mistreatment and people seeking economic stability. 6. WESTERN COUNTRIES SEE RELATIVELY FEW REFUGEES Of the countries that receive the most refugees, no European or North American country even makes the top 10. Western countries, even today, are seeing a small and manageable number of refugees. Countries experiencing refugee numbers large enough to strain their resources include Turkey, Lebanon and Pakistan; Turkey has effectively built an entire large city of hundreds of thousands of people, complete with a school system and public utilities, populated entirely with Syrians. Many refugees are forced to settle in the nearest available country. Those who settle further afield are no less genuine as refugees: It is best when refugees seek not the closest country, but the safest country with a population of people from the same background and an economic need for newcomers. A young migrant girl from Iraq looks into the camera as her family waits for registration outside the main station in Munich, Germany, on Sept. 1, 2015. A young migrant girl from Iraq looks into the camera as her family waits for registration outside the main station in Munich, Germany, on Sept. 1, 2015. MATTHIAS SCHRADER/ASSOCIATED PRESS 7. REFUGEES ARE VERY UNEVENLY DISTRIBUTED IN THE WEST Almost six out of 10 refugees in Europe today are settling in Sweden or Germany – despite the fact that all Western countries are equally obliged to accept refugees. Germany, with 80 million people, receives more than 100,000 refugee claims per year and accepts more than 70,000 refugees per year, or almost half a million since the current crisis began in 2011. Sweden, with fewer than 10 million people, took 234,000 refugee applications between 2010 and 2014, and accepted most. Map: Volume of asylum claims in Europe and select industrialized countries, 2010-2014 SOURCE: UNHCR The United States comes second in the Western world, taking about 100,000 asylum applications per year – but its population is four times the size of Germany’s. Canada, with 35 million people, takes around 10,000 to 14,000 refugees per year, most of them sponsored by Canadian families. Ottawa has pledged to settle 11,300 Syrian refugees, most from persecuted religious minorities, by the end of 2017. Hungarian police watch as Syrian migrants climb under a fence to enter Hungary at the Hungarian-Serbian border near Roszke, Hungary. Hungarian police watch as Syrian migrants climb under a fence to enter Hungary at the Hungarian-Serbian border near Roszke, Hungary. LASZLO BALOGH/REUTERS 8. TOUGHER POLICING DOESN’T REDUCE NUMBERS, BUT KILLS MORE Until the end of 2014, the European Union handled the Mediterranean influx through a program known as Mare Nostrum, which attempted to rescue boat people and bring the victims to Europe. In October, 2014, amid outcry over the Syrian numbers, that program was cancelled, and replaced with a tougher program known as Operation Triton, in which the search-and-rescue vessels and airplanes were largely replaced with border-protection operations. The results were disquieting: The new program did nothing to reduce the refugee numbers – they remained largely the same in the first months of 2015 as they were under the old program in the first months of 2014. But it did cause migrant deaths at sea to increase dramatically: From 17 in the first four months of 2014 to 900 in the first four months of 2015. In other words, the death rate was 54 times higher but the migrant flows weren’t deterred. Number reported dead or missing at sea while crossing central Mediterranean What has reduced boat-migrant numbers is the opening of legal channels for trans-Mediterranean migration, as Spain did in the 2000s. Even if only a few hundred people are admitted through legal, visa-driven entry regimes, countries have found that the existence of such programs causes the numbers of illegal migrants to fall to negligible numbers.

[sage]

Thank the USA for this. Syria is in **** for just one reason and that is Iran. If Iran is to be attacked, Syria needs to be taken out. Cos Syria and Iran are allies. Syria is actually Iran's only major ally in the region. Apart from that Syria also funds a terrorist group operating in Lebanon. This group literally fought a full scale war with Israel in 2006, resulting in 1000's dead. And basically the USA is using it's allies in the region including Turkey to destabilize Syria. Actually it's a lot like Mumbai 26/11. Terrorists from other countries armed to the teeth have invaded Syria in the 10's of thousands. Turkey which shares a huge border with Syria is the safe haven for these terrorists. Mumbai was virtually shut down by a handful of terrorists. So you can imagine, when thousands flock in, the mayhem it can cause. Syria's only hope is to hit the source, but since Turkey is with NATO, hitting Turkey will activate the pact with NATO, thus fueling a full scale war. So this is what's currently happening, safe zone in Turkey, funding coming in primarily from Saudi and Qatar, with arms coming in from NATO. Off-course everything is coordinated by America, Britain and France.Additional but less significant safe zones have also opened up in Lebanon and Jordan other nations bordering Syria. The question that everyone is asking here is who are the blokes fighting the Syrian army. It's basically the Olympics of terrorism. You have fighters from all over the world. Battle hardened Iraqi's and Libyans, Palestinian Refugees and random others from Pakistan, Chechnya and other Arab countries. This is no revolution and neither is it about freedom. Geo-Politics at play here. The western media though is shamefully fueling sectarian strife so as to keep the flow of fighters up. Essentially I think most of the fighters are Palestinian refugees. They are known for causing mayhem in whichever country that takes them in. Read about the Lebanon Civil War, Black September in Jordan(50,000 killed by the King of Jordan), siding with Iraq during the Kuwaiti-Gulf-War. That's not to say that the current president of Syria is some great ruler or anything. He too is at fault big time. He literally runs a military state with very limited freedoms. But when you take into account the region he's in, Syria is actually the most liberal of all Arab states. That said this current crisis is a lot more than a mere revolution. Adding to all this is Syria's history. While as a civilization it is one of the oldest in the world, as a nation they are pretty young. Then there were past conflicts with Israel and Lebanon. Well in Lebanon they went in as peace-keepers. All this this adds to the boiling cauldron of geo-politics, sectarianism, history etc etc It's like the best war novel ever written. Sadly it's not a novel, but reality. As an Indian it's fascinating to read bout these countries. And trust me when u read bout them and their crazy wars, it's like the best novel ever written. These people are completely insane.

If they're not fighting for any sectarian reasons. Or for freedom, or as a revolution -- why do you posit they are fighting?

[sage]

USA is primarily responsible for so much loss of life for supporting rebels against a secular leader Asaad who is supported by all non-sunnis. This may be a simplistic view but it is correct imo.

Yes. The same Assad that led genocides and chemical bombings on his own citizens. The same Assad with millions of Syrian lives to his name.

[BlackMamba]

Hope all the refugees become good citizens and abide by the rule of land, be it Germany, Austria or Hungary unlike the Pakis of Britain. Only time will tell in 20 - 25 years.

[sage]

Hope all the refugees become good citizens and abide by the rule of land, be it Germany, Austria or Hungary unlike the Pakis of Britain. Only time will tell in 20 - 25 years.

Unlikely. May the Islamification commence

[gs]

So much for the hypocrisy of the ummah --- the universal brotherhood!! How-six-wealthiest-Gulf-Nations-refused-single-Syrian-refugee

More than four million Syrians have been forced to escape the never-ending civil war ravaging their country and the barbaric terror group carving a bloody trail across the Middle East. The vast majority live in overcrowded refugee camps in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq - all under threat from ISIS - and record numbers are making the perilously long journey to Europe. Yet, as debate rages between politicians in Europe over how many they should take, nearby super-wealthy Gulf nations of Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain have refused to offer sanctuary to a single Syrian refugee. Amnesty International's Head of Refugee and Migrants' Rights, Sherif Elsayid-Ali, described their inaction as 'shameful'. He said: 'The records of Gulf countries is absolutely appalling, in terms of actually showing compassion and sharing the responsibility of this crisis... It is a disgrace.' Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3222405/How-six-wealthiest-Gulf-Nations-refused-single-Syrian-refugee.html#ixzz3l1I2X7NO Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

[mishra]

Refugees are the only way to disintegrate EU. Who is responsible for this exodus? Time will tell.

Saw some news yesterday. America already blaming Russians (not ISIS) for Syrian crisis! Russians saying, even boots on ground isnt ruled out to help Assad. These Ray ban wearing English speaking and Galaxy S6 mobile phone holding refugees are going to continue to flock into Europe for next few years now.