Well Joe, maybe a little bit like WW I, but more like WW III.
Like it or not, we are in a world war. And, sadly, it is driven by
the Greed of a small percentage of Super Wealthy corporations. We are
in a transition period, watching our national boundaries being
replaced by Corporate Controlled Lands.
And they play hard ball. They are ruthless.
As imperfect as it was, nations had learned, more or less, to honor
each others borders. Only from time to time did we see one nation
become so greed driven that they set out to conquer the entire world.
The Roman Empire serves as the stand out example, but England, France
and Germany each had their fling at taking control of the planet. The
last great Empire, the American Empire is coming into its own just as
the transition is taking place. So the Empire is not only fighting
nations, but it is under attack by powerful international
corporations. Just as the budding German Empire discovered, you can't
defend the lands you conquer while continuing to fight on all fronts.
But this WW III is coming into its own. So far we have been led to
believe that it is a series of little skirmishes, mostly driven by
radical Muslims. Of course it is fueled by the Corporations producing
weapons and military equipment. This new World War is moving across
the Middle East, into Eastern Europe and will overflow across the
entire European continent, over into the already troubled African
nations, across the oceans to the Americas.
It will happen because there is no one powerful enough to bring a halt
to this insanity. Perhaps if enough lives are lost, the remaining few
will be able to begin all over. But it could well be so hard wired
into our human brain that we will just repeat the same mistakes again
and again.
Carl Jarvis
On 4/22/16, joe harcz Comcast <joeharcz@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Does anyone realize that this is sort of like WW One all over again?
Except we ton't have the Ottamon Empire to kick around anymore...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Loran Bailey (Redacted sender "rogerbailey81" for DMARC)"
<dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2016 9:22 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Unraveling of European Union deepens crisis for
Mideast refugees
http://themilitant.com/2016/8016/801604.html
The Militant (logo)
Vol. 80/No. 16 April 25, 2016
(front page)
Unraveling of European Union deepens crisis for Mideast refugees
BY MAGGIE TROWE
One result of the coming apart of the old imperialist Mideast order and
growing divisions born out of the conflicting interests of the individual
states in the European Union is the deteriorating situation faced by
millions of people forced from their homes in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and
elsewhere. This includes more than 52,000 people trapped in crowded Greek
refugee detention camps after officials in Albania, Bulgaria and Macedonia
sealed their borders.
Many refugees and immigrants trying to enter Europe are stuck in camps on
Greek islands where they landed, such as Lesbos, Chios, Kos and Samos,
located close to Turkey’s Aegean coast. Under a March 18 accord between
the European powers and Ankara, Turkey began accepting migrants deported
from Greece. Some 325 people were returned the first week.
The imperialist governments’ actions pit workers of different
nationalities against each other. Syrians are still considered for asylum
and settlement in Europe, in a very slow process. But since February
immigrants from war-torn Afghanistan are not.
Fights broke out among nearly 1,000 Syrian and Afghan asylum-seekers at a
detention center in Chios April 1, leaving five people seriously injured.
Cops allowed the melee to go on for six hours before intervening. About
800 people then broke out of the camp and marched to the port, where they
set up tarps and tents. They were attacked April 7 by some local residents
shouting anti-immigrant slogans and hurling small firebombs, and police
forced most of them to move to a nearby shelter.
At Piraeus, Athens’ tourist port on the Greek mainland, a recent fight
between young Syrian and Afghan men lasted three hours. Some 4,600
refugees live in tents and warehouses at the port, and the social
democratic Syriza government wants to get rid of them before Orthodox
Easter May 1, the beginning of the peak tourist season.
“Do not lose your courage, we stand by you, we love you,” read a
government flyer distributed in Arabic, Farsi, Greek and English to
migrants. Then it threatened, “The port of Piraeus cannot host you any
more and you have nothing to win by remaining here. In a few days the port
of Piraeus will be emptied (evacuated).”
Athens is in the process of selling Piraeus Port Authority to Chinese
shipping giant COSCO in the second large privatization move carried out by
the Syriza government since last year. Dockworkers struck and marched in
Athens April 8 protesting the sale and the job losses they anticipate as a
result.
In Idomeni, Greece, a small town on the Macedonian border, a group of
refugees, including many women and children, held a demonstration and
sit-in on railroad tracks, demanding to be allowed to cross the border,
the Greek press reported April 8. Thousands of people, including some
4,000 children, live in unsanitary conditions in the camp there.
Millions displaced in Syria, Iraq
The partial cease-fire brokered by Washington, Moscow and Tehran allows
the government of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, aided by Russian
airstrikes, to continue its attacks on Nusra Front, which is affiliated
with al-Qaeda. Other opposition groups have been hit as well.
In Iraq, thousands of civilians fled heavy fighting April 8 in the Islamic
State-occupied town of Hit in Anbar Province, which Iraqi government
forces are fighting to retake.
Some 12,000 families have returned over the past month to parts of Ramadi
that have been cleared of land mines set by Islamic State forces before
they were driven out of the city by Iraqi government forces in December.
Half a million people used to live in the city, which the war has reduced
to rubble.
The military campaign pressed by Washington and its allies to retake the
city of Mosul in northern Iraq from Islamic State has made little
progress. Iraqi regular army forces outside of Makhmour haven’t been able
to oust 100 to 200 soldiers of the brutal Islamist group, in spite of
Washington’s airstrikes and shelling by a U.S. Marine artillery contingent
on the ground.
The fighting has forced many civilians to flee. More than 2,000 people
have overwhelmed a camp in Makhmour that the Iraqi army is not prepared to
maintain. Many of the refugees, the majority of them Sunni, distrust the
largely Shia government and militias. “The Iraqi army had no plan for us
and we’re 2,000 people,” Abu Noor, a teacher from a nearby village, told a
Wall Street Journal reporter at the camp. “What will they do with Mosul?
That’s two million!”
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home
