Europe Under No Obligation to Take Refugees
If only paprika repelled refugees the way garlic does vampires.
But it doesn’t. So Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orban, is doing everything else in his power to stop the unchecked flow of Middle Eastern refugees into Hungary, and in doing so, is protecting his people.
And you know his tactics are on the right track when the rest of the nauseating politically correct European Union roundly criticizes his actions as barbaric and inhumane.
But there are other, much more appropriate terms for leaders like Orban: Gutsy, bold, smart, and most of all, visionary. And that last one is the most important, because it shows that Orban sees what will happen if he opens the floodgates and allows his country to be inundated with refugees.
So let’s cut through the name-calling and irrational demands of the open-borders crowd by dispassionately analyzing the situation:
1) Blame for the sake of blame is pointless, but blame so that mistakes aren’t repeated is priceless. So let’s cast blame onto whom it belongs: The United States.
Indisputably, America caused this crisis. And before the partisans holler "it’s Obama’s fault," let’s be clear that it is the result of very bad decisions by President Obama and President George W. Bush, along with a complicit Congress.
Iraq, when ruled by the iron fist of Saddam Hussein, was stable. Conditions were often brutal, but stability reigned. There were no car bombs, no suicide bombers, and above all, no chaos. Since Iraq had no involvement in 9/11, it should never have been invaded, an action America’s leaders naively believed would bring "democracy. " In fact, it produced anarchy, and an unprecedented terror threat. And it was a colossal waste of American blood and treasure, since nothing was accomplished except giving our enemies a huge foothold.
Ditto for Libya, where America betrayed Moammar Gadfafi by eliminating him on behalf of the impotent Europeans. Now, Libya is ruled by the same thugs who fought America in Iraq (giving them billions in oil revenue with which to "play," and spawning an exodus of refugees across the Mediterranean).
And perhaps most significant to causing the refugee exodus was America’s interference in Syria’s sovereign affairs, where we destroyed that nation’s stability by attempting to oust President Assad from power – an action that gave rise to the marauding ISIS.
The lessons for America are: A) stop playing policeman to the world; B) stop trying to force our values (democracy, human rights, etc.) on other countries in ways that always – always – backfire; C) become energy independent so that we can once and for all extricate ourselves from the Middle East quagmire that has us bent over a barrel. Enough is enough.
2) "A nation that cannot control its borders is not a nation." So were the prophetic words of Ronald Reagan, who knew a thing or two about handling crises.
To be clear, most of the Middle Eastern refugees are not "vampires" looking to suck the lifeblood out of European countries, and the majority must be assumed to be good, hard-working people who faced severe hardships in their home countries. But where does it end? Are Western nations obligated to take in everyone facing adversity? If so, that amounts to most of the globe.
Who will pay the billions to house and feed the hundreds of thousands streaming into Europe? (There have already been nearly 400,000 this year alone). And what’s next? With many European countries already facing high unemployment rates (France, for example, is just below its all-time high, and the number of people seeking work is at a record level), where will these refugees find jobs? If there is a job market at all, since many are surely low-skilled. And when they can’t find work, they will become recipients of Europe’s social safety net, which is so obscenely generous (aka unaffordable and unsustainable) that the refugees will soon "play the game," no longer incentivized to find employment, instead content to live off the taxes paid by productive citizens.
That’s a recipe for massive resentment and an inevitable violent backlash, which we are already seeing. And while violence can’t be condoned in a civil society, the critics fail to see that it is not rooted in xenophobia, but simple economics, and a sense that fair play has been jettisoned, with favoritism now shown to noncitizens, while those whose blood, sweat and tears built (and rebuilt) their country are left out in the cold.
Most people’s natural tendencies to protect their families, culture and country should not be cavalierly discounted by armchair analysts who live in ivory towers, far from the real life struggles of hard-working Europeans.
Temporary humanitarian assistance is one thing, but affording permanent status is quite another.
3) There is the charge against Hungary, which has erected barbed wire along its border with Serbia, that its people are inappropriately wary of Muslims entering their nation.
To many, they have good reason to be. Hungary’s Christian population clashed with the Muslim Ottoman Empire, which ruled their nation for 150 years in the 16th and 17th centuries. And if the situation were reversed, it would be perfectly natural for Muslims to be wary of Christians occupying their lands. In fact, the presence of America and its Western allies in the Middle East is a major reason why they are (legitimately) viewed with contempt by the indigenous peoples. And no, the East Germans who fled into Hungary after the Iron Curtain was lifted are not comparable to the current migrants streaming in, for obvious cultural and historically ethnic reasons.
Let’s be honest. There will undoubtedly be a considerable contingent of refugees who care nothing for European culture and traditions, as evidenced by the behavior and outrageous demands of many who have previously emigrated to Europe, from advocating Sharia law to rejecting showing their faces for state-issued IDs, to, yes, terrorism. And there are those with ISIS sympathies who are using the crisis as an excuse to gain intelligence and secure a foothold for future operations against European targets. Even if that’s one-half of 1 percent, it still amounts to thousands more that the already overburdened security services have to monitor.
And the tragic attacks in England, Spain and France proved that doing so is impossible.
4) This crisis shows why the EU should be disbanded, at least for everything but a common currency. No nation should have its sovereignty – its domestic and foreign policy decisions – usurped by the dictates of clueless Europeans who have no knowledge of history nor any foresight. Instead, they value political correctness above all else.
5) As detailed in prior columns, the solution is for the West to fund and fully equip regional anti-ISIS fighters so that stable governments can once again gain the peace. They may not be the most benevolent regimes, but the situation would become infinitely better, and the refugees would be able to do what is most important: return home.
Anything less, and the powder keg of Europe, which already caused two world wars, will move closer to detonating.
Chris Freind is an independent columnist and commentator. His column appears every Wednesday. He can be reached at [email protected]
