Which side would you like that these gentlemen fight on?
I see your point. Taking in the most vulnerable among the refugees and sending back the others is not an unreasonable approach. But in the case of Syria I do not really see what the young men sent back could do. Fighting for their country would be fighting for whom? Should they rather fight for Assad or for ISIS? These men, who are not professional soldiers, can hardly form a new army out of whole cloth.
They could just let them stay.
Depends who “they” is. Some countries like Hungary or Greece seem to have more on their hands than they can handle right now. The question we are debating is, whether the US should offer to take some of them in (and whether the refugees would agree to that). You think they should not? Why?
Let’s see… If they’re moderate reformers, I’d like them to fight against Assad or the extremists in Libya or wherever they are from. If they’re the extremists, well, do you want them flooding into your country?
Well - that is who you want them to fight against. But even sven was asking whose side they are to fight on. A brave young Syrian willing to return home and fight Assad / ISIS can hardly do it on his own. So what does he do? There does not really seem to be a viable option right now. *Maybe *the Kurds, but that is only a real option if you are a Kurd yourself - and even there the Turks would beg to differ.
I doubt it would be a thousand.
Sam expresses an intelligent and reality grounded conservative position. Kudos, though I happen to disagree with it.
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Are there really cases of refugees turned terrorists? (A: Maybe, but I suspect it’s rare.) I concede this could happen given that we’re dealing with Al Q. (ISIS is currently less concerned with the far away Jihad).
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Mostly though I think Syria is FUBAR: I’m not convinced that it’s a country worth fighting for. I’m putting myself in the shoes of a 20 year old single guy.
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Syria might be worth invading though. Maybe you could offer young single guys the equivalent of service in the French Foreign Legion. I understand that such recruits are well supervised. Yeah, there’s a blowback possibility.
Is there any empirical information that can be brought to bear to evaluate #1 and #3? Tossing a guy back into the clutches of ISIS/Al Qaeda/Assad and telling him to fight without giving him weaponry or training doesn’t sound diplomatic or politic. That matters: it could affect which side they want to fight on.
ETA: If the Kurdish military were recruiting non-Kurds, maybe we’d have something. But I suspect they may even more worried, justifiably, about 5th columns.
Yep.
I’ll confess to not having a citation on hand but that is true however, the trip from Syria to Germany is a bit more difficult than Afghanistan to Pakistan.
That’s the reason, not a bunch of sleeper cells.
I really have no clue, which is why I expressed a range from ‘dozens’ to ‘ten thousand’. But terrorist groups are opportunists. They don’t have to be driving the show, they could just note that refugees are being let in en masse and say, “this is our chance” and start recruiting soldiers to take on the role of refugee and blend in. If I was a terrorist leader, that’s certainly what I’d do. What better opportunity to infiltrate the west?
It’s a scenario plausible enough that it should be a legitimate issue when dealing with the refugees, even if I can’t claim I know even remotely what the extent of it might be.
Thank you. It’s nice to know we can disagree civilly while respecting each other’s points of view.
Like I said, I don’t think the refugees would be ‘turned terrorist’. I think the more likely scenario is that there are terrorists planted within the refugee community.
However… You can be a legitimate refugee and still be a radical Islamist willing to use violence in service of your belief system. We know that the Syrian war has plenty of hardcore extremists fighting against Assad. I would assume that some of them are included in the refugee population. The question doesn’t have to be, “Are they terrorists?” It could simply be, “Are these people we’re going to have to worry about in our country? Will they make good citizens, or will they be a source of trouble?”
I can agree with that. I don’t know what can be done at this point. For a while it looked like it was a war that was winnable, and Assad’s forces were on the run. Now, he looks a lot stronger.
I thought of that. Take the young men, organize them into militias, train them, and send them back armed. But then you run into the same old problem - what if you’re training and arming your own enemies? What if all these weapons fall into the hands of ISIL? It’s a tough problem.
The problem is made much worse by the injection of Russia into this mess. There is real danger here of western involvement resulting in a conflict between Russia and the west on the battlefield. The U.S. is still bombing in Syria, and from what I understand they aren’t communicating with Russia at all. What happens when a Russian unit is wiped out by an American bomb, or Europe trains a bunch of fighters and they go back in there and start killing Russians? We’re entering a dangerous new phase in this conflict, and I have no good ideas for how to get out of it.
Yeah. Ideally, the other middle eastern countries threatened by the collapse of Syria and Libya would be taking these refugees, or taking the men and turning them into militias. But as you say, I don’t think these people are trusted - not just because they might be extremists, but for tribal and religious reasons.
I think the countries who are accepting refugees should let them all stay permanently and allow them to become citizens of the country they’re in.
And I don’t know where you got that I think they should or shouldn’t. I actually do think the US should help take in refugees, a lot of them. We have the land and money to absorb them and make them US citizens.
I was not looking to misrepresent your position. When we were discussing whether some of the refugees in Europe should be offered to go to the US (and whether they would want to go) **doorhinge **wrote: “How do you remove the Syrian refugees from Europe after they had made the journey to Europe because they chose/wanted to go to Europe?” To which you answered: “They could just let them stay.” To me that looked as if you did not want refugees to be moved from Europe to the US. So thanks for clarifying that.
As far as the suggestion to let them stay permanently goes: Eventually that is what will happen for most of them, because the conflict in Syria does not look like it will end anytime soon. But if by some miracle it ended next month and Syria were a safe place again (fat chance, I know), I would advocate sending them back.
If they won’t fight for their own country (on either side), why should anyone else be expected to?
“Accepting” refugees? The refugees didn’t ask the various countries taxpayers, or their governments, if “they” could illegally cross their borders. The refugees just showed up demanding housing and jobs.
European taxpayers, especially Germany and France, are already preventing Greece from going bankrupt. Socialist assume that since EU taxpayers have not yet spent all of their money, they should also support the uninvited Syrians. I guess it’s a case of “What Have YOU Done for ME Today”.
The “real” problem is in Syria but I guess there is no point in addressing that problem?
I don’t remember seeing that question but I can clarify. For refugees in Europe, I think whoever made it to a country, that country should let them stay. For the US, I actually don’t know how our refugee application works, I’m assuming there’s a process. If they can’t make it to our shores on their own, I’m not sure how we’d get them over here short of sending in ships to take them aboard. Obama just announced a plan to increase the number of refugees we’re taking in so I’m assuming there’s some way of getting thousands of people across the globe to our shores
That seems prudent, I don’t disagree. I do hope, however, that we eventually have a better refugee policy, sorta like the one we made specially for Cuba where if you make it here, you’re an American.
They’re refugees, not immigrants. They’re escaping murder, rape, and torture. I think in cases like that, you fast-track acceptance into the country and let them stay.
Different issue altogether. I wouldn’t let my bank account determine my morality. Besides, if the taxpayers don’t like it, they can vote them out next election. Right now there is a pressing humanitarian need and I hope all European countries accept whatever refugees make it to their borders.
Socialists sound like really good people. Always helping others, thinking little of themselves, taking in refugees. You sure you want to not be one? They are great people.
I’m sure glad you’re willing to help. But who do you help? The Assad side so the country can be stable again, or the other side, consisting of a motley group of random Kurds and other ethnic groups, some of whom are terrorists. No, don’t answer that, we know what your deal is, you want to pretend nobody wants to help in Syria when in fact we CAN’T help, there are no good people there that we can take sides with. So you use the impossibility of that to distract from having to help the refugees. Here’s a hint, we can do both, we can take in refugees and try to find someone good to help in Syria. That’s win-win.
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Socialists are very giving people as long as they have someone else’s time and money to give.
The taxpayer voted in their current governments and many EU countries seem to be closing their borders to these illegal aliens. I guess the pro-illegal alien socialist will just have to vote out their current governments. If they have the votes.
Who is this “we know” that you are referring to? I’d like to know who you represent. Besides yourself, that is.
Good luck with your win-win situation.
I think it’s rather telling about how blinkered you are, that you are reflexively calling brown people crossing a border “illegal aliens.”
You lost me. That is what illegal aliens are and it has nothing to do with “brown people” (why do liberals think that using that using the term “brown people” isn’t offensive in and of itself?). Many of those trampling international borders at will aren’t melanin gifted at all (many Syrians look like Steve Jobs because he was one). If I, (a melanin impoverished person) marched across Europe and told them that I was staying in whichever country I chose, I would be an illegal alien too.
Didn’t you get the memo? It’s all about racism, all the time.
There is no country left to fight for. It’s gone. Half the population has fled their homes. A ruthless dictator and a band of apocalyptic extremists are fighting each other to the death over the empty houses and ruined fields.
After decades of rule by a dictator, I’d imagine many people feel no more attached to the idea of “Syria” than you do. A strong national identity- one based on the kinds of shared values that people are willing to risk their lives for- doesn’t just come automatically from happening to live somewhere. People aren’t going to fight for a line on the map.