West To Blame For Europe's Migrant Crisis, Say Erdogan, Putin

[Purveyor]

Source: CNN

By Don Melvin, CNN
Updated 14:03 PM PHT Sat, September 5, 2015

(CNN) — Who's to blame for Europe's deepening refugee crisis? To hear Erdogan and Putin tell it, it's the West.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin both point the finger at Europe and the United States for what has now become one of the biggest mass migrations of people in modern times.

"To be honest, the whole Western world is to be blamed in my opinion on this issue," Erdogan told CNN on Thursday.

Putin, talking to reporters Friday, said it's the West's wrong-headed foreign policy in the Middle East and Northern Africa that's at the root of the crisis.

Read more: http://cnnphilippines.com/world/2015/09/05/russia-turkey-blame-west-europe-migrant-crisis.html

[bulloney]

1. Meanwhile, leaders of the U.S. MIC continue plans for invasions of more countries

to create even more of these refugee crises in other parts of the world.

It's just sickening. Congress approves money for roads, schools, and public services after politicizing it to something Obama requests, but the Pentagon gets a blank check on everything it requests.

[Abouttime]

2. Bush and neocons

Sad to say they are right. Bush created this mess in the Middle East.

[ananda]

14. Sad to say, I agree.

This is the result of all western interference in the Middle East.

[Person 2713]

20. I agree too !

[RKP5637]

26. MIC = Big Money and lots of kickbacks in one way or another for $$$$$'s. It's disgusting and

inhumane.

[americannightmare]

3. Well, they are mostly right...

and you need look no further on DU for proof than a few threads down from this one. "France to begin airstrikes on ISIS in Syria." Just what Syria needs, more innocent people killed trying to muscle out ISIS, a direct result of the wrong-headed Middle East policy of which Putin speaks. Virtually all the fighting in the Middle East is done between Western functionaries - don't remember the last time I saw a non-Westerner in one of those beheading videos.

[zeemike]

4. Well we sure as hell destabilized the middle east with the Iraq invasion.

And then did our best to eliminate the Bath party which was a secular party.
So yes they are right...we did it...we broke it and then broke it some more.

[YoungDemCA]

12. The Middle East was already pretty damn destabilized

To look at the example of Iraq, the regime of Saddam Hussein was at its weakest at the time of the American-led invasion. The Iran-Iraq and first Gulf Wars, the sanctions and additional bombings under the Clinton and second Bush administrations, plus the fact that Saddam, though his regime was not particularly religious in basis, violently repressed the Shiites, the Kurds, and anyone else whom he perceived to be a threat to his power - all conspired to make his regime lacking in both strength and legitimacy by 2003. Plus, it's not like Saddam really had allies in other countries by that time.

As far as ISIS goes, I would note that much of the Baath Party's surviving Sunni leadership can be counted among ISIS' leadership. And something like this was kind of inevitable in Iraq and Syria, sooner or later. The present crisis was many decades in the making. Thus, I don't think one can reasonably argue that what the US or the Western world more broadly have done so far made a big difference in the conditions we see today.

[zeemike]

15. The instability and our medaling go back farther than that.

The borders were arbitrarily drawn by the British after WW2 not taking into consideration of the people that lived there. And the west has been exploiting and messing with this ever sense
So once again the OP is right...we are responsible. And we have done nothing but make it worse.
The responsibility is ours and we should not make excuses.

[Chakab]

5. Loathsome as they may be, they're not wrong on this point.

[lib87]

6. And the Media Acts Surprised Over This

The coverage of the humanitarian crisis in our US media (that I've seen) ignores this pink elephant in the room.

[Igel]

7. The protests were home grown.

And few on the left, center, or right had much trouble with them at the time. Assad's an ass. Even if there were Westerners involved with them, let's not infantilize the protesters to the point that we say every Syrian, every Arab, is nothing but a puppet, with a single westerner controlling the heart and minds and bodies of hundreds or thousands of protesters with a single thought or a single phone call. Or a single cookie.

It's nice to take on the role of omniscient deity, but really. Halloween's not for a couple more months.

After that it was the illusion of forthcoming western support that encouraged and gave hope to the movement. That's pretty much it from the West. Most of the serious funding came not from the feeble FSA but from the non-West. Unless we want to consider the Middle East "Western."


The cause of the protests was Assad. And Assad's biggest supporter was Russia and, before that, the USSR. Assad was Putin's outpost of the Russian World in the ME. Saddam wasn't exactly on the outs with Russia, but Russia was making pretty with Iran, as well. Before their big dust-up, Iraq was also a Russian ally and if you look at the Arabic taught in Russia it was mostly Iraqi-tinged.

Turkey's angling for more Russian deals. Putin blames all bad things on the West. It stokes the Russian nationalists and chauvinists that are his bedfellows.

[YoungDemCA]

11. +1. Thanks for injecting some facts into this thread

[pampango]

22. No. NO! Any time people protest against a brutal dictator it is the result of 'foreign meddling'.

Where have you been? Arabs are genetically predisposed to prefer life under a dictator. If they did not protest against Assad in 2010 they had no right to do so in 2011. Who do they think they are?

The protests were home grown. And few on the left, center, or right had much trouble with them at the time. Assad's an ass. Even if there were Westerners involved with them, let's not infantilize the protesters to the point that we say every Syrian, every Arab, is nothing but a puppet, with a single westerner controlling the heart and minds and bodies of hundreds or thousands of protesters with a single thought or a single phone call. Or a single cookie.

OR you could just be happy that folks did not 'infantalize' Black South Africans who protested against the minority white apartheid government. I wonder how many conservatives claimed that those protests for democracy and majority rule were merely a result of 'foreign intervention' (undoubtedly, evil, unAmerican forces in that case).

That turned out not to be the case. Though the apartheid government cast the opposition as terrorists who would tear the country apart with retribution and violence if they took power, Blacks wanted what most of us want: a say in who governs and how they govern.

Only Americans and other Westerners appreciate having a say in who governs and how they govern. There are a lot of other folks in the world who don't think on that level and just want some bread (or rice) on the table and only protest when someone else tells them to.

JK

[daleo]

24. Same with Iraq

The people of Iraq wanted Hussein out so badly, that they somehow elected George Bush to the U.S. Presidency. He then had no choice but to invade their country.

[JackRiddler]

31. Did ISIS, Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda manufacture their own arms?

The protests were homegrown, yes.

Then the war started. So who's 90% of this "opposition" now? Foreign-backed proxy armies of the Gulf states. The refugees are fleeing Daesh at least as much as they are fleeing Assad. The Gulf states are not "West" by your definition, but they are allies of the U.S. and receive their own arms mostly from the U.S. When did the U.S. complain about the Saudi wars?

[Exultant Democracy]

8. Putin is a dick, but the dick is right about this.

[Coventina]

9. And that's just how much Bushco sucked. He allowed those horrific jerks to score moral points.

Our name has been sullied thanks to those creeps.

I still want to see them (Bushco) prosecuted for war crimes.

[YoungDemCA]

10. That's pretty rich coming from the major ally of Assad

nt

[No Vested Interest]

13. Copy this to Jeb and his military advisors - Wolfowitz, Bolton, and most of all -

Jeb's brother, the great military leader, GWB.

[Person 2713]

21. Yeah I can not believe Jeb is trying to bring back Wolfowitz etc.

[sinkingfeeling]

16. I tend to agree, putting most of the blame on Dubya.

[moondust]

17. Putin and Erdogan, too.

The report that Putin is now (considering) escalating military aid to Assad tends to support the theory that his real or implicit threats may have deterred NATO from intervening to help oust Assad four years ago.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141199432

And hasn't Turkey been the main entry point for nutjobs going to join ISIS?

[underpants]

19. Putin wants to be the big boss but doesn't take care of what he should

I understand the looking strong BS and he probably sees this influx as a way to put a strain on Germany's resources, but Russia can't take much of this on.

[MisterP]

18. heck, we thought it was Pootie we'd be giving a bloody nose by "taking out" Qaddafi and Assad

[Sunlei]

23. Everyone let Putin sell to Assad and went very soft on Assad. He should have been brought

up on charges in front of International courts instead of courted like a King on vacation in Geneva.

[Grimelle]

25. IF we want

to go further we can start by blaming that egomaniac Napoleon.

[still_one]

27. Yeah, Erdogan sill refuses to accept the Armenian genocide at the hands of

Turkey

[JCMach1]

28. Erdogan until very recently colluded with ISIS

so yeah, Erdogan can go frak himself!

[left-of-center2012]

29. Nonsense

You can judge the success of America's foreign policy simply by looking at Iraq and Afghanistan. (sarcasm)

[Purveyor]

30. Exactly. To attempt to point to the East as a participant to this ME debacle is folly. Opportunist

s, perhaps in regards to protecting their own interests in the region.

Colin Powell invoked the 'pottery barn' rule and the West sure as hell broke the ME.