Quote Originally Posted by Raymond Holt View Post
I don't know what it's like to be a refugee either, but I would imagine both scenarios are devastating. A person displaced within their own country is effectively still trapped in that situation, which is potentially worse.

I'm sorry, but seeing the US involvement in the Middle East as anything other than purposefully inflammatory is very naïve. It is absolutely fair to attribute almost all of these refugees to the U.S. (and the U.K.). They are usually the aggressor and instigators of conflict.

The British backed a coup in Syria in 1949, among other things..

"In the mid 1950's, Britain also planned the assassination of [Egyptian president] Nasser and the overthrow of the government in Syria. This followed a successful British-backed coup in Syria in 1949." Mark Curtis, Web of Deceit, 2003, p.282

The U.S. involvement in Syria goes back to the same time..

As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. details, “The CIA began its active meddling in Syria in 1949—barely a year after the agency’s creation,” in a coup directed against Syria’s democratically elected president, Shukri al-Quwatli, after he “hesitated to approve the Trans-Arabian Pipeline, an American project intended to connect the oil fields of Saudi Arabia to the ports of Lebanon via Syria.”

https://libertarianinstitute.org/art...ring-in-syria/

That entire article is worth a read as it relates nicely to the current crisis we're talking about too.

Things are way more complex than they seem though, take this article from Declassified UK:

https://declassifieduk.org/uk-rearms...ccupied-syria/

So the UK is arming Turkey, to bomb the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces who are who are our key ally in fighting ISIS? WTF!?

The UK plays a far more direct role in the bombing of Yemen and has created what is currently the largest humanitarian crisis on the planet.

"A former BAE worker has said that without the company’s constant support, the Saudi air force would be grounded within a fortnight. BAE has thousands of staff in Saudi Arabia, many maintaining its warplanes which have conducted the majority of over 23,000 airstrikes in Yemen in the past six years."

https://declassifieduk.org/the-engli...bombing-yemen/

I'd actually like to admit that I was wrong to attribute all of those refugees to the U.S. and include the U.K. in this too. It's really uncomfortable reading, and I'm sure some people will think I am unpatriotic etc. but it's actually the opposite. The atrocities carried out in our name are not representative of the vast majority of the people of the UK or the US and that's what frustrates me most.

The US/UK have been actively fuucking the Middle East for so long and with the help of Israel, among others, the overall goal is to make sure it stays as an unstable hellhole so we can plunder its resources and prevent most of the Arab nations from developing. It's as simple as that.
"The US/UK have been actively fuucking the Middle East for so long and with the help of Israel, among others, the overall goal is to make sure it stays as an unstable hellhole so we can plunder its resources and prevent most of the Arab nations from developing. It's as simple as that"

This sounds like something that could be coming out of ISIS or the Iranian Govt's mouths.

No one should doubt the extent of foreign (not just US and UK) involvement in the middle east which has frequently been unhelpful, but to pin the blame of lack of development on them is preposterous.

It's also a curiously colonial attitude; that the countries in question are incapable of development or charting their own course without intervention (good or bad) from the UK and US.

The middle east has had some utterly appalling governments for many many decades. They bare responsibility. It's a mistake to let them off the hook.