Migrant children wait by the fence on the Greek side of the border to enter Macedonia
Intro
Tensions continue to mount across Europe as the refugee crisis reveals deep cracks in the European Union. In the past month Austria announced the construction of a massive wall along the Brenner Pass, in order to restrict the flow of people moving to Northern Europe. Subsequently Switzerland announced that it would have to respond to Austria's border closure by stationing a battalion of tanks to keep out the inevitable 'migrant onslaught'. Poor Greece is piling up with refugees after Macedonia closed its border - the tension has led to fights erupting between troops and migrants.
In the background EU and Turkish officials would have us all believe that they've been struggling to find a solution to this 'inescapable' crisis. The result was the EU-Turkey refugee deal which recently took effect - the first refugees have been traded like baseball cards.
In an interview with Sputnik Radio a professor from the University of Twente in the Netherlands pointed out a number of obstacles the EU had to overcome before coming to grips with the refugee crisis. Among them is the EU's lack of a central decision-making body that could issue demands which individual member states couldn't push back on. He stated, "What you have in the EU is the lack of a central government. In fact, they decided at one stage that they were going to take refugees and now they are pushing them back and they have a new deal with Turkey. But the refugees are still coming anyway."
In all, the professor makes several valid points. However, due to his selection of facts he misses the big picture, and thereby misleads his audience. Besides political in-fighting in Europe, and whether or not the refugee deal will be 'efficient', the following elements play a larger and much more critical role in the refugee crisis:
- The EU functions as a mere cheerleader for the interests of the cabal running the USA.
- Recent US interests have included the decimation of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria, thus creating a refugee crisis
- Turkey has played a fundamental role in first collecting, then disbursing refugees into Europe for its own political and financial gain
The EU functions as a US vassal
First a little historical perspective concerning the EU's 'centralized governing body' and who it really works for:
Post World War II, Europe faced a monumental political crisis, one which revolved around the question of whether or not Germany would be allowed to re-industrialize following the rise and fall of Nazism. Obviously the memories of Nazi atrocities were fresh in the minds of the rest of Europe. US policy makers had engineered their role (and the roles of other nations) in WW2 in such a way that the USA emerged as the most powerful nation on Earth, with their main competitors reduced to the role of scapegoats to justify the aggression of the new global Empire.
The US oligarchs at the time were quick to pounce on the idea of turning Germany back into the catalyst for European economic and industrial growth, all the better to control the block's political and economic future. As former Greek Finance Minister Varoufakis points out in his book, the Global Minotaur, it would be this German-led Europe which would become a pillar in a new 'global plan' - a plan to quickly dismiss Nazi crimes and instead use the massive crisis as a chance to rebuild the world in America's image.
Global financial planners in Washington, namely the architects of the Cold War (James Forrestal, James Byrnes, George Kennan, and Dean Acheson)1 all convened to design a new form of global capitalism that would survive the ravages of the Great Depression, two major world wars, and confront the 'Soviet menace'.
The US would thus spend 2% of its GDP annually 2 on the Marshall Plan which aimed to erase European borders and revive German and Japanese industry for the geo-strategic purpose of containing China and the Soviet Union, thus creating a pillar for a new financial order. Step by step the old order was demolished and the 'European Union' and NATO were born - both unions created by and for Cold War authoritarians bent on ruling the world.
The US' interests
© REUTERS/ Kacper Pempel
A specific example of this can be seen in the evidence discussed on last week's Truth Perspective interview with Graeme MacQueen: The 2001 Anthrax Deception and the intimidation of legislatures, in which MacQueen details, case by case, how Western governments are intimidated by this pathocracy, primarily through what seem to be 'isolated' acts of terrorism. Intimidation via well-planned and coordinated terror attacks, blackmail, and the corruption of key figures of power are all part of the 'game' of keeping Europe marching to the tune of the pathocracy's drum.
American troops in Europe will soon outnumber all European troops combined, with US intelligence fanning the flames of fear and hysteria towards Russia and Muslim refugees in the interest of completely controlling European politics for its own agenda. The US has Europe under political and military lock-down, and with the continuation of anti-Russian sanctions they've proven they can get them to shoot themselves in the foot and pay for it too.
So it comes as no surprise when Czech politicians lament the refugee crisis, but agree that they will still send troops to Afghanistan, Mali, and the Golan Heights to serve the wars of their masters. And it's no surprise when President of the European Council Donald Tusk warns of a new wave of migrants coming from Libya even while NATO is planning another bombing spree there, and arming al-Qaeda affiliated groups. 7,000 European and US soldiers are reportedly already in the country:
Five years after NATO's Libya war, Italy, the EU and the US are in the advanced stages of preparations for the next military intervention. The Western imperialist powers want to establish their own military bases in Libya in order to control the country's massive sources of oil and natural gas, and secure an important gateway to Africa.After all, they bend to the will of shadowy groups, and US
Thousands of tons of new weapons have been purchased and delivered to the Syrian Jihadists including anti-air MANPADs of U.S. (full text) and Chinese origin. Half of the weapons the "rebel" mercenaries are given by their sponsors regularly end up in the hands of Al-Qaeda in Syria. We will not be surprised when a few weeks from now a civilian passenger plane will be hit and come down in Turkey or elsewhere.Suffice to say that, with European leaders functioning as US lackeys and the US hell-bent on turning the world into a living nightmare, there will be no solution to the refugee crisis. In fact, left unchecked, things can only get worse. But thankfully there is a Russian counterbalance on the world stage. As Russian Foreign Minister spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said recently:
"When is Brussels going to bring to justice the countries that violated every existing provision of international law, making the lives of the people that live in the Middle East and North Africa a hell on earth, which they now call a 'mistake'?"When indeed.
So now that we know EU politicians are bought-and-paid-for by US 'national security interests', what is this EU-Turkey 'refugee deal' really all about? What purpose does it serve?
Turkey steps in to make a buck
In the Sputnik interview I mentioned earlier, the Dutch professor opined:
"As far as the EU-Turkey deal is concerned, it remains to be seen how well it is going to function, and we are not quite sure [of its efficiency]. The proof is in the pudding, as they say in English."Indeed, so let's dig into this particular pudding just a little. A copy of the leaked deal can be found here.
The EU-Turkey refugee deal amounts to a trade between refugees that made their way 'illegally' into Europe and those who are still in Turkey's refugee shelters. According to the document, Syrians who have not attempted to sneak into Europe before will be given preferential treatment. Turkey will then trade a 'legal' refugee back to Europe. Overall the deal will cover some 74,000 migrants seeking asylum. Refugees who either do not apply for asylum, or whose applications are 'unfounded' or 'inadmissible', will be returned to Turkey.
So, what does it mean for an application to be 'unfounded' or 'inadmissible'? From the blog EU Law Analysis:
If an application is 'unfounded' that means it has been rejected on the merits. If it is 'inadmissible' that means it has not been rejected on the merits, but on the grounds that Turkey is either a 'first country of asylum' or 'safe third country' (there are other grounds for inadmissibility, but they wouldn't be relevant). The Commission paper briefly suggests that Turkey could be a 'first country of asylum' (for more analysis on that, see the prior blog post). Most of the debate is on whether Turkey is a 'safe third country'.In order for this deal to be legal under international law it seems that Turkey must be deemed a 'safe third country' to relocate refugees to - that is, the refugees themselves must be considered safe while within the country. This is where the line between believing 'official' versus 'unofficial' reality leads to endangering lives.
© UNRWA/Associated PressThis picture taken on Jan. 31, 2014, and released by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), shows residents of the besieged Palestinian camp of Yarmouk, queuing to receive food supplies, in Damascus, Syria.
Turkey's role in the jihadi attack on Syria was motivated by the unfettered greed of the Turkish government and military officials. These psychopaths committed themselves to the destruction of Syria so that they could profit handsomely from the sale of Syrian oil stolen by "ISIS" and from the theft of Syrian industrial equipment. Now they stand to profit from the waves of refugees forced to flee by the "ISIS" terrorists supported by these same Turkish political and military scumbags.Visa liberalization: Turkish citizens will be able to travel in the EU without a visa by the end of June 2016. The EU will pay Turkey 3 billion euros in aid for refugees, disbursed as quickly as possible, followed possibly by another 3 billion. The EU was supposed to have already paid a portion of this aid, but hasn't. The EU and Turkey will "reenergize the accession process" to make Turkey a member of the European Union.
Meanwhile, EU officials have the task of figuring out how to convince refugees in EU countries to move to Turkey, a country that sets fire to and decapitates members of its minority population, routinely imprisons journalists, and forces refugee children into sweatshops. To say there are 'legal challenges' to this deal is the understatement of the millennium. This 'deal' is an utter farce guaranteed only to enrich the criminals at the expense of those suffering from constant war and conflict.
But the main question is - will this even stem the flow of refugees to Europe? If the asshats in the Turkish government can bilk enough cash from EU citizens, then perhaps Erdogan and co. will agree to not 'weaponize' the refugees (or any ISIS members among them). But in the long run, the answer is that as long as people are seeking to escape chaos, they will find a way. And as long as Western warmongers and their Turkish "allies" continue to enjoy making war, there will continue to be chaos and therefore refugees. Thanks to NATO's wanton destruction of Libyan society four years ago, the 'Libyan route' for refugees has seen a massive increase in traffic:
"We should expect tens of thousands to attempt to depart this spring and summer bound for Lampedusa. With the closure of the EU-Turkey border to migrants, we may learn once again how closing one route pushes people to another route," said Matteo de Bellis, an Amnesty International researcher who just completed a fact-finding mission to Italy's main migrant processing center on Lampedusa.Conclusion
The EU-Turkey 'agreement' is just the next stage in the ongoing US-inspired campaign of blackmail against the EU. What is most worrying, however, is that a rogue state like Turkey is directly involved and apparently very eager to barter millions of defenseless people for hard cash. Erdogan himself made it clear that it's all about the blackmail:
There are precise conditions. If the European Union does not take the necessary steps, then Turkey will not implement the agreement.As Maria Zakharova asks, "When is the EU going to observe international law in relation to refugees? Will the European Union ever do in good faith what it calls upon others to do?"
Everything that has been promised [must be put into action by the EU], everything that is specified under the accord.
[Referring to the aid for refugees], some three million people are being fed on our budget. There have been promises [of aid] but nothing has come for the moment.
We have received lots of thanks for our action on the refugees and in the fight against terrorism. But we are not doing this for thanks. Everything should happen in line with what has been promised, what has been set out in the text.
It's a great question - after all that NATO has done to destroy the Middle East, Europe is now poised to send thousands of refugees back to a country that routinely murders its own citizens - and they're going to pay the murderer for the privilege.
We can argue 'til the cows come home about how and why the refugees were foisted on Europe, but in the end, if Europe doesn't treat them humanely (and the overwhelming majority of them do deserve to be treated humanely), then its endless preaching to the rest of the world on all matters of morals and legality will count for nothing.
No one, of course, should be surprised by any of this. When a planet of mostly normal people allow themselves to be ruled by psychopaths, chaos, death and destruction are the rule rather than the exception. Get used to it.
References
1 Varoufakis, Y. (2011). The Global Minotaur: America, the true origins of the financial crisis and the future of the world economy (3rd ed., P. 68). London: Zed Books.
2 Ibid. p. 73
The US may well have dug it's own hole here.