on its own a problem that is originating in Afghanistan, Sudan, Libya and – above all – Syria.” The New York Times sounded a similar note, writing: “The roots of this catastrophe lie in crises the European Union cannot solve alone: war in Syria and Iraq, chaos in Libya…”
What, in turn, are the ‘roots’ of the crises in these countries which have given rise to this ‘catastrophe’? The response to this question is only guilty silence.
Any serious consideration of what lies behind the surge of refugees into Europe leads to the inescapable conclusion that it constitutes not only a tragedy but a crime. More precisely, it is the tragic by-product of a criminal policy of aggressive wars and regime change interventions pursued uninterruptedly by US imperialism, with the aid and complicity of its Western European allies, over the course of nearly a quarter century.
With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US ruling elite concluded that it was free to exploit America’s unrivalled military might as a means of offsetting US capitalism’s long-term economic decline. By means of military aggression, Washington embarked on a strategy of establishing its hegemony over key markets and sources of raw materials, beginning first and foremost with the energy-rich regions of the Middle East and Central Asia.
This strategy was summed up crudely in the slogan advanced by the Wall Street Journal in the aftermath of the first war against Iraq in 1991: “Force works”.
What the world is witnessing in today’s wave of desperate refugees attempting to reach Europe are the effects of this policy as it has been pursued over the whole past period.
Decade-long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, waged under the pretext of a ‘war on terrorism’ and justified with the infamous lies about Iraqi ‘weapons of mass destruction’, succeeded only in devastating entire societies and killing hundreds of thousands of men, women and children.
They were followed by the US-Nato war for regime change that toppled the government of Muammar Gaddafi and turned Libya into a so-called failed state, wracked by continuous fighting between rival militias. Then came the Syrian civil war – stoked, armed and funded by US imperialism and its allies, with the aim of toppling Bashar al-Assad and imposing a more pliant western puppet in Damascus.
The predatory interventions in Libya and Syria were justified in the name of ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’, receiving on this basis the support of a whole range of pseudo-left organisations representing privileged layers of the middle class – the Left Party in Germany, the New Anti-Capitalist Party in France, the International Socialist Organization in the US and others. Some of them went so far as to hail the actions of Islamist militias armed and funded by the CIA as ‘revolutions’.
The present situation and the unbearable pressure of death and destruction that is sending hundreds of thousands of people into desperate and deadly flight represent the confluence of all of these crimes of imperialism. The rise of Isis and the ongoing bloody sectarian civil wars in both Iraq and Syria are the product of the US devastation of Iraq, followed by the backing given by the CIA and US imperialism’s regional allies to Isis and similar Islamist militias inside Syria.
No one has been held accountable for these crimes. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Powell and others in the previous administration who waged a war of aggression in Iraq based upon lies have enjoyed complete impunity.
Those in the current administration, from Obama on down, have yet to be called to account for the catastrophes they have unleashed upon Libya and Syria. Their accomplices are many, from a US Congress that has acted as a rubber stamp for war policies to an embedded media that has helped foist wars based upon lies upon the American public, and the pseudo-lefts who have attributed a progressive role to US imperialism and its ‘humanitarian interventions’.
Together they are responsible for what is unfolding on Europe’s borders, which, more than a tragedy, is part of a protracted and continuing war crime.
This article originally appeared as: ‘Who is responsible for the refugee crisis in Europe?’. Courtesy: www.wsws.org