Italian emergency workers have recovered 217 bodies from the wreck of a boat that sank in the Mediterranean in April 2015, killing some 500 migrants, the Navy said on Thursday.
I think 1/5th of the people who have died in this crises were passengers on that boat. About 4 times as many died on that boat than were murdered in the paris attacks. The news is nearly always sad, and the sadness isn’t productive. I am less distressed by accidents with technical causes, because I feel like I can do something about them. Politically caused deaths feel like they belong in an illogical horror movie. Except we can’t walk out of the theater.
The Italians should have towed the wreck back to Libya and let them deal with it.
[QUOTE=Steamer;187056]The Italians should have towed the wreck back to Libya and let them deal with it.[/QUOTE]
That is a very STOOPID and little thought thru statement. You should consider withdrawing.
These people may not be Americans and most of them are not Refugees, but they are human beings and haven’t done any crime by wanting to get a part of the good life that you and others in the western world thinks of as a birth right.
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Libya has no functioning government. Anarchy reigns supreme, courtesy of the “well meaning” Western powers, incl. USA.
Who were the Italians supposed to hand the wreck and the problem of handling 217 bodies of people that don’t belong there to? Maybe to the people smugglers that has held them in custody for months, if not years, before putting them on board this death trap of a boat and pointing them towards Italy?
Sometimes it is worth thinking about what you are saying, before hitting that send button.
I have given it a great deal of thought.
The “rescue” organizations and the EU policy of allowing unhindered (assisted more like it) entry is actually facilitating the work of the human smugglers who are getting rich by loading ignorant and gullible fools who think there is a pot of gold waiting in Europe. They cram hulks with people who are in no way candidates for EU residence then abandon them at sea to either drown or get “rescued” by fools who somehow don’t consider that aiding the human smugglers by finishing the job for them is only encouraging more to leave their own countries rather than fix what is wrong with the place.
Those 217 are no longer human beings, they are lumps of decaying flesh created by the filthy business of human smugglers enabled by “do gooders” who can’t see beyond their own emotional needs.
It’s not "stoopid, it’s reality … those ignorant economic dreamers have been told that they will be collected at sea and given a new life of milk and honey in some EU paradise.
[QUOTE=ombugge;187059]That is a very STOOPID and little thought thru statement. You should consider withdrawing.
These people may not be Americans and most of them are not Refugees, but they are human beings and haven’t done any crime by wanting to get a part of the good life that you and others in the western world thinks of as a birth right.
Maybe you haven’t noticed, but Libya has no functioning government. Anarchy reigns supreme, courtesy of the “well meaning” Western powers, incl. USA.
Who were the Italians supposed to hand the wreck and the problem of handling 217 bodies of people that don’t belong there to? Maybe to the people smugglers that has held them in custody for months, if not years, before putting them on board this death trap of a boat and pointing them towards Italy?
Sometimes it is worth thinking about what you are saying, before hitting that send button.[/QUOTE]
Meanwhile, isn’t Norway paying migrants to leave?
May want to think about what you are saying before hitting that send button.
[QUOTE=Steamer;187062]
Those 217 are no longer human beings, they are lumps of decaying flesh created by the filthy business of human smugglers enabled by “do gooders” who can’t see beyond their own emotional needs.
[/QUOTE]
Right. We can’t aid the coyotajes in their crimes, and we can’t leave people to die at sea, and we can’t get cooperation from the non-functional or unwilling governments in North Africa and the Levant where the crimes are being committed. What can be done? It’s too bad that we suck at nation-building, it seems like the only hope here.
[QUOTE=Emrobu;187066] What can be done? [/QUOTE]
Maybe buy the property next door to the owners of the arms manufacturers and defense contractors who funnel weapons to the kleptocrats who run those ruined African states and turn it into “refugee” camps.
The White House lawn can probably house a few thousand of them. There must be some green space on K street that could hold tents for a few thousand more.
[QUOTE=catherder;187065]Meanwhile, isn’t Norway paying migrants to leave?
May want to think about what you are saying before hitting that send button.[/QUOTE]
Where do you get the idea that I support this policy from? I’m totally disgusted by the policy of Norway and other European countries, trying to solve the “migration crisis” by closing their boarder to genuine refugees/asylum seekers by trying to class them all as “migrants”.
These same countries were instigators with the US of the UN refugee treaty of 1951 and the amendment of 1967. They made the statement that the refugee problem after WWII should NEVER be repeated and have been telling countries like Pakistan how to treat the millions of Afghani refugees that have flooded that country for years. Yet, when the problem show up on their doorsteps they cannot handle it.
Lebanon has nearly as many refugees as native citizens, incl. Palestinians that is now 3rd or more generation, as well as newly arrive Syrians. Solution; “Oh, let us buy them off with some money”.
Norway even have a “quota” of asylum seekers to be returned every year, which the bureaucrats have to meet. They have to find a reason to send out the “target number”, come hell or high water.
This incl. unaccompanied children and teens + families with children born in Norway, some of the having been in Norway for several years.
At the same time there are hundreds, if not thousands left in limbo for years while waiting for their applications to be processed by these same bureaucrats. They receive free housing of sort, free food and a small allowance, but are not allowed to work, study or leave the municipality in which they have been placed. You put yourself in that position and let me know how long you would last before you rebelled?
Am I a bleeding heart that doesn’t understand anything? No, far from it. I worked with UNDP in Bangladesh after the Independence war in 1971-72, when people starved to death all around us. I was told; “you have to grow callouses on your heart, or you will not survive here”, which I did.
I was also Captain on a Drillship working in the South China Sea in 1978-80. We picked up over 4000 Vietnamese refugees during that period. In one 28 day hitch in June/July 1979 I picked up 2,200. There were reported to be up to 40,000 people floating around in the South China Sea in the summer of 1979 and all the ASEAN countries refused to accept any more refugees. They are not signatory to the Refugee treaty, but were told by the Europeans and Americans that they had to do so. It took years to get the refugees resettled in those same countries, however. (Yes, America took many)
We watched ships (regardless of flag) making detours to avoid getting close to any refugee boats. We sat there on 8 anchors and could not move, hence we were like a “piece of sugar to a fly”, attracting every boat that could see us, lit up like a x-mas tree at night.
Only Norway guaranteed that they would accept any refugees picked up by ships under their flag, but not many was willing to take up the offer. My ship was under Panamanian flag, but American owned and operated, drilling for an American Oil company, We got NO support from either.
I was also working on and off in Angola in the worst time of civil war (1981 -87) and got to see the suffering of those who were at the blunt end of a proxy war between the Soviets and the US. Not a pleasant sight, I can assure you.
At least the Cubans kept us safe from the American backed rebels, although working for American and French companies. (Don’t let a little war get in the way of business)
[QUOTE=Steamer;187062]I have given it a great deal of thought.
The “rescue” organizations and the EU policy of allowing unhindered (assisted more like it) entry is actually facilitating the work of the human smugglers who are getting rich by loading ignorant and gullible fools who think there is a pot of gold waiting in Europe. They cram hulks with people who are in no way candidates for EU residence then abandon them at sea to either drown or get “rescued” by fools who somehow don’t consider that aiding the human smugglers by finishing the job for them is only encouraging more to leave their own countries rather than fix what is wrong with the place.
Those 217 are no longer human beings, they are lumps of decaying flesh created by the filthy business of human smugglers enabled by “do gooders” who can’t see beyond their own emotional needs.
It’s not "stoopid, it’s reality … those ignorant economic dreamers have been told that they will be collected at sea and given a new life of milk and honey in some EU paradise.[/QUOTE]
One not too informed Norwegian “Lady” made the statement that the refugee boats should be towed back to Libya to stop all these people from drowning in the Mediterranean.
Why did she think so? “Because she had a holiday flat in Italy and she was afraid all these decaying dead people would pollute the water at her local beach”.
America is spending millions looking for bones of soilders missing in action from WWII, Korean War and the war in Vietnam.
Maybe a little consideration for the decaying bodies of these people would do good, if nothing else for the conciense of the European that do not want to set up an orderly immigration system, or open their market for products from their country of origin?
Sending money to corrupt governments, or sending weapons so they can kill each other has been tried for years and it does not work. Maybe time to try something different?
[QUOTE=ombugge;187076]In one 28 day hitch in June/July 1979 I picked up 2,200. There were reported to be up to 40,000 people floating around in the South China Sea in the summer of 1979[/QUOTE]
And here’s me: idolizing Captain Menon all day today.
I don’t mind helping people who are actually in need, but I do mind helping young men in their 20s and 30s who travel through a number of safe countries to ours because we pay the highest welfare, wearing designer clothes that people like me cannot afford, and then travel back to their “unsafe” home country at their own expense when the paradise they were promised turns out not to be quite what was advertised.
However, I’m just an engineer, so I don’t have a humane solution to this crisis. I pay my taxes and hope that someone smarter than me will find a solution while I just try to stay out of the way.
[QUOTE=Emrobu;187079]And here’s me: idolizing Captain Menon all day today.[/QUOTE]
You should. She did the right thing, not turn her back at people in distress at sea.
I was told by the boss of the Oilco we worked for to use water hoses to keep the refugee boats away, like their FSO was doing.
I told him to come on board and do so. I would supplying with the fire hose so he could spray down women and children in boats that had been deliberately holed and sinking.
He never showed up, but I took my boots to town after that hitch, fully expecting to be asked to leave by the same gentleman. I was not.
When three people drowned trying to board unnoticed, they panicked and wanted to send divers out to check if the bodies were still under the hull, or somewhere close to the rig.
For compassionate reasons? No, they were worried to be sued if the surviving refugees should be allowed into the US.
[QUOTE=ombugge;187077]One not too informed Norwegian “Lady” made the statement that the refugee boats should be towed back to Libya to stop all these people from drowning in the Mediterranean.
Why did she think so? “Because she had a holiday flat in Italy and she was afraid all these decaying dead people would pollute the water at her local beach”.[/QUOTE]
It’s a bit arrogant of you to make a quote of what you think she was afraid of.
The people who run those “rescue” boats are as much a part of the problem as the smugglers, they are equally responsible for those 217 rotting bodies.
I think she had the right idea, rather than “rescue” the illegal immigrants in the middle of the Med, stop the smuggler’s boats within sight of the beach they depart from. Tow them back to the beach after destroying the propulsion engine. Libya is a failed state, what are they (whoever “they” are this week) going to do? File a complaint with the UN?
If we take the idiotic policy of helping the smugglers increase their production through the fiction of “saving lives” to its conclusion, why not just charter a fleet of cruise ships and run regular crossings between Libya and Italy or France … or maybe even Norway? That would be very safe and it would give the migrants an early taste of the good life that awaits them in the land of milk and honey. Even better, maybe Norway will protect them from the dangerous trip to Libya and start an airline service between every failed state in Africa and fly them directly to Oslo.
It is not what I think she was afraid of, it is her own statement in a comment column in VG, Norway’s largest tabloid Newspaper.This was just after the vessel in question capsized and sunk.
When she was called by the host of a call-in program on VG TV, and a few facts were explained to her she did applogise, but blamed the media for not keeping her informed.
The people who run those “rescue” boats are as much a part of the problem as the smugglers, they are equally responsible for those 217 rotting bodies.
I think she had the right idea, rather than “rescue” the illegal immigrants in the middle of the Med, stop the smuggler’s boats within sight of the beach they depart from. Tow them back to the beach after destroying the propulsion engine. Libya is a failed state, what are they (whoever “they” are this week) going to do? File a complaint with the UN?
And who do you propose should do this? There is a lot of spare tugs and crews available in the GoM, maybe a new opportunity for them. Get them all psyched up and armed for protection and let them loos on innocent people that has been deceived, cheated, robbed and are desperate enough to risk their life for a dream that can never be??
If we take the idiotic policy of helping the smugglers increase their production through the fiction of “saving lives” to its conclusion, why not just charter a fleet of cruise ships and run regular crossings between Libya and Italy or France … or maybe even Norway? That would be very safe and it would give the migrants an early taste of the good life that awaits them in the land of milk and honey. Even better, maybe Norway will protect them from the dangerous trip to Libya and start an airline service between every failed state in Africa and fly them directly to Oslo.
It is just a matter of time before some enterprising People Smugglers get hold of some old rust buckets, load them with people and send them, not across the Med, but directly to countries in Northern Europe. (Or maybe across the Atlantic??)
Far fetched? It was done during the Vietnam exodus in 1979-80, although not across the Pacific.
There has already been one such ship, but still with Italy as the destination.
But I do agree with you that there should be reception centers in North Africa, Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan etc. where real refugees/asylum seekers were processed and the economic migrants are identified and sent home. From there western countries can transport those who qualify and have the skills needed in the various countries by whatever safe means.
Most western countries has a falling and aging population by natural attrition. Without migration there will be insufficient people in working age to fill the needed jobs. In US this has been realized by many in government and new blood is brought in to fill the gap, incl. the skill gap. Unfortunately this has not filtered down to a large portion of the population. The same goes for much of Europe. UK even resist inter-European migration.
[QUOTE=Fraqrat;187081]
[/QUOTE]
No text, but I assume we are supposed to make our own?
- This has been the solution to all problems for years.
- This keeps the world happy, both the sellers and the users.
- Parking lot outside US shopping malls after 4 years of Trump’s Great America?
Here’s my idea, open for critique:
We should set up a naval blockade of the ports from migrants are being launched. If safety violations or immigration document problems are found with ships trying to leave those ports, then those ships can be turned back or impounded. The advantage is that the passengers will be intercepted before they are in grave danger, they can be returned to dry land with minimal expense, as boats get impounded the number of unsafe vessels in the med will be reduced. It may discourage migration if there is visible law enforcement near the harbors. If people are creating emergencies on purpose because they are counting on emergency services to save them, then it seems like the best way is to head off these boats before they manage to create emergencies. I know that it is supposed to be the flag state or the port that enforces the safety rules. but maybe its time to give that authority to some kind of international law enforcement or coalition in the case that the flag state or port isn’t doing its job.
[QUOTE=Emrobu;187103]Here’s my idea, open for critique:
We should set up a naval blockade of the ports from migrants are being launched. If safety violations or immigration document problems are found with ships trying to leave those ports, then those ships can be turned back or impounded. The advantage is that the passengers will be intercepted before they are in grave danger, they can be returned to dry land with minimal expense, as boats get impounded the number of unsafe vessels in the med will be reduced. It may discourage migration if there is visible law enforcement near the harbors. If people are creating emergencies on purpose because they are counting on emergency services to save them, then it seems like the best way is to head off these boats before they manage to create emergencies. I know that it is supposed to be the flag state or the port that enforces the safety rules. but maybe its time to give that authority to some kind of international law enforcement or coalition in the case that the flag state or port isn’t doing its job.[/QUOTE]
What about genuine refugees that is entitle to protection according to UN treaty on refugees? Are these to be separated on the boats before the illegal migrants are returned to whatever place they left from, which is not their country of origin, or the actual source of the problem. It now takes months, if not years, to decide who has a right of protection. The screening process is elaborate and should be so, but to close your boarders to avoid them reaching our shores to seek asylum is not the solution, or the long term answer.
That is what many countries are doing now, in direct contradiction to the way we in the west wants the world to see us.
What happen to the high moral standards we set for ourselves? Is it only for National Day speeches, or is it real?
If we are not able to take care of a few million genuine refugees in our rich countries, how can we preach to others?
The problem of people not in need of protection mingling with the refugees should be handled by having a legal way of separating them at an early stage, but who do you deal with in Libya at the moment? Who will go in and set up the system? Who will be responsible? Who will pay? and ultimately, which countries are willing to accept the benuine refugees. The well educated, or highly skilled among them may be, but who wants to care for the sick, disabled or illiterates?
The long term solution is obviously to eliminate the problems that cause the exodus, whether it is war, uprisings, or simply lack of opportunities for the fast growing populations in countries that is seen as a source of raw material only. Selling subsidize surplus products to the detriment of local farmers is one of the problems. Putting up tarif barriers to make it impossible to sell products made in these countries is another.
What do we do about it?? Build walls, physical or otherwise.
What to do with people is a complicated logistical and financial crisis. I guess UNRRA needs to step in: that’s their area of expertise. In the mean time, lives can be saved by enforcing SOLAS.