This one is not a happy one. In fact, it is a tragic one that infuriates me. I am sure you have read about the migrants drowning in the channel (English Channel for the Brits and Manche for the French). 27 people, including a pregnant woman and 3 adolescents, died trying to cross the channel from France to the UK. This is not the first time such a tragedy has happened, and it will not be the last time. This time, however, it has created a row between France and the UK, each country blaming the other one for the tragedy.
There have been ample articles about who has done what and why. Comments about the explosion in the number of migrants trying to reach the UK, the accusation that the French are not meeting their commitments, and the blame that UK having closed clean and safe venues for asking asylum, has forced migrants from war ravaged countries to take dangerous routes. When I read these, I cannot help but to imagine 2 mafia families engaged in a territory war in a city that has claimed many innocent lives, and yet the two families deny their responsibilities, blaming the situation on the other. But let’s look at the details.
Most of the migrants come from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Soudan, Somalia and Libya. Iraq’s outlook darkened when Bush (son), Tony Blair and Jose Maria Aznar, sent the US, UK and Spain on false premises and lies into Iraq to eliminate Saddam Hussein, who was not a nice guy anyways. No weapons of mass destruction were found, no violations of the agreements, so the intervention was illegal on international protocols, and was nothing but a gang attack. The war did eliminate Saddam but destroyed Iraq’s fabric (something that is still going on), killed thousands of innocent people, did not really bring democracy and freedom, and created large masses of refugees.
Syria’s tragic story is well known. A civil war, compounded by the evolution of the Islamic State who emerged from the rubbles of the war in Iraq, created more misery and large masses of refugees. Iran’s case is different, because it emanates from a corrupt, bankrupt and blood sucking regime, compounded by the unjustified embargo imposed by Donald Trump, and the non-reaction of the Europeans to such an action. The case of Soudan, Somalia and Libya is directly linked to the UN intervention in Libya championed by France and the US to get rid of Muammar Gaddafi, who was not a nice guy anyways. But once again it destroyed the country’s fabric, it opened the path to people smugglers and terrorists in the region, which created large masses of refugees from Libya, Somalia and Soudan.
In the end, the 27 migrants died as the consequences of France and UK’s behavior. It is a tragic tale of 2 cities behaving as heads of two bullying mafia families.
Paris, November 30, 2021
Zeejay