Written by Finian Cunningham; Originally appeared at strategic-culture.org
Fighting terrorism is now morphing into clamping down on human migration, as far as the European Union is concerned. France’s President Emmanuel Macron is leading the charge, claiming at a conference in Paris last week that terrorism and human trafficking are part of the same problem, requiring the deployment of a military force spread across Africa.
The melding of the two concepts provokes serious legal and moral questions. But so desperate, it seems, is the EU to halt illegal migration into the bloc that it is moving to militarize the problem in Africa – under the guise of “fighting terrorism”.
Refugees of the fighting in the Central African Republic observe Rwandan soldiers being dropped off at Bangui M’Poko International Airport in the Central African Republic Jan. 19, 2014. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Ryan Crane/Released)
This is tantamount to European Neo-imperialism. That is, attempting to sort out deep-seated socio-economic problems down the barrel of a gun. Not only that, but using futile heavy-handed methods to deal with problems that European powers themselves are responsible for creating.
Such an approach will only worsen humanitarian problems for millions of displaced war-torn and impoverished people. In typical arrogant imperialist fashion, the EU is not addressing root causes of the problem – its own role in shattering African societies from illegal wars and predatory economics.
The panicky reaction this week in Brussels to the formation of the new Austrian government led by populist Chancellor Sebastian Kurz shows that the other European powers are still rattled by the rise of nationalistic politics across Europe and the underlying long-term problem of migration into the EU.
Kurz’s People’s Party has formed a coalition government with the Freedom Party. Both share anti-immigration policies and are deeply critical of the EU. The new Austrian administration has been described with trepidation in the news media as the first “far-right” government in the European Union. That epithet appears to be aimed at demonizing the new Austrian authorities with the taint of “fascism”.
However, what seems to be the real concern among the pro-EU governments of Germany and France is that Austria rekindles wider fears in regard to large uncontrolled flows of refugees entering into Europe and the knock-on effect of rising anti-EU populist politics that those fears tend to fan.
Another sign of the EU’s concern over the flow of migrants into the bloc is the attempt by France, Germany and Italy to morph the issue of refugees into one of “fighting terrorism”. This is an audacious, not to say reprehensible, step of treating a humanitarian crisis with military force. But because the emotive “anti-terror” card is invoked, the intention is to mask the controversial, unethical move with a veneer of humanitarianism.
Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted a summit in Paris which was billed as countering terrorism in the Sahel – the vast Northwest desert region of Africa. Macron has taken the lead earlier this year in forming what is known as the Group of Five (G5) countries straddling the Sahel region, comprising Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mauritania.
The leaders of the G5 were hosted by Macron at a chateau near Paris on December 13. Also in attendance were German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italy’s premier Paolo Gentiloni. Significant too was the attendance at the summit by the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
In a brazen appeal for financial funding, Macron asked the Saudis and Emiratis to stump up money for the G5 military force. Both the oil-rich states responded with pledges of $100 million and $30 million, respectively. Other donors to the G5 “anti-terror operations” were the EU and the United States, each pledging $60 million. In other words, the Saudis and Emiratis are bankrolling the G5 “anti-terror” military coalition to the tune of nearly half its total budget.
The G5 comprises some 4,000 troops from the five mentioned African countries – all of them former French colonies. The French forces in the region are believed to number around the same. There are also American special forces operating, as was shown by the dramatic deadly shootout in Niger in October when four US troops were killed in an ambush.
What Macron is claiming to do is to replace the French forces with local troops from the G5. That move will save Paris millions of euro it is currently shelling out on the presence of its military in the Sahel. Knowing that these poor African countries would never be able to finance the operations, the French president is deftly involving the Saudis and Emiratis in the funding.
Macron’s proposal beggars belief. Given the record of the Gulf Arab hardline Sunni regimes in sponsoring terrorism across the Middle East, it is absurd to propose that these same regimes could support “anti-terror” operations in the Sahel.
The contradiction raises the real issue and purpose. France, Germany and Italy, on behalf of the EU, are actually using the moral and political cover of “fighting terrorism” in Africa to further their agenda of stemming the flow of migrants from the continent to Europe. And getting the Gulf Arabs to pay for it. The latter get PR value in return.
It is reckoned that the total African population will double in the next three decades to some 2.5 billion people. That presents European leaders with a formidable headache of worsening migration flows. Already in the last two years, there is estimated to have been 1.5 million refugees entering the EU, many of them from Africa. That phenomenon has, in turn, fueled anti-immigrant political parties across Europe who blame the EU political establishment for the problem. The populist backlash poses a threat to the cohesiveness of the EU. It was one of the issues that drove the British electorate to vote last year for leaving the bloc.
Rather than sniffing at “populist” politics in Austria, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Denmark, France, Italy, Netherlands and Germany – and denigrating it as “fascist” – European leaders need to question their own responsibility. It is understandable that European communities can feel unnerved by the sudden influx of foreigners into their country. Given the relentless socio-economic austerity imposed on communities by Neo-Liberal capitalist governments, the anxieties over scarce public resources are accentuated, and understandable.
Moreover, the European members of the US-led NATO military alliance bear direct responsibility for opening the migration floodgates when they destroyed the state of Libya in an illegal war for regime change in 2011. France, Italy, Britain and Germany, among others, were complicit in that criminal war.
France too went on an illegal military expedition in Mali in 2013 to “defeat terrorism” – and its forces remain in that country today. The real reason for that French intervention may likely have been securing uranium ore mines in Mali and Niger.
All those illegal military interventions by the Europeans in Northwest Africa unleashed militants, migration and human trafficking on a massive scale.
A report last week by Amnesty International also openly condemned European governments for colluding with human traffickers in Libya by forcibly sending would-be migrants trying to cross the Mediterranean back into the clutches of the traffickers on land.
Europe is so desperate to stem the flow of migrants because it is destabilizing the internal politics of the EU. So desperate is Europe that it is willing to force refugees back into the human trafficking networks to a fate of slavery in order to impede the flow into Europe.
Macron’s military “solution” for the Sahel is part of the same futile problem-solving. The French president, with the support of Germany, Italy and the rest of the EU, is using military force to combat “terrorism and human trafficking” which he equates as the same.
Furthermore, Macron and the EU are trying to do it on the cheap, by getting the Saudis and Emiratis to pay a large part of the budget.
This militarist policy is nothing short of a Neo-imperialist agenda in Europe, which can only make matters much, much worse.
European powers, as with the Americans, must stop interfering militarily in the affairs of Africa.
What is needed is a radical new economic and political model of massive public investment in Africa and Europe. The money is there, from the trillions of dollars that European corporations have stashed away in global tax havens. In short, what is required is a repudiation of neoliberal capitalism and the militarism that goes with it.
But there can be no solution under the current political leadership in Europe, as epitomized by French President Emmanuel Macron. Under the cynical guise of being a “liberal progressive”, he is offering the same old destructive policies that end up digging ever deeper holes for societies and the wider world. So much for his recent corny slogan copying Trump, “Make the Planet Great Again”.
The false solution of dealing with European migration as a military problem of “terrorism” and “human traffickers” only lets the real perpetrators of the problems off the hook. France and the other European NATO powers have created their own problems from illegal wars and predatory economic policies. Now they want to “solve” those problems by adding more of the same problems. Make the Planet Groan Again.
All Macron and USA want to do is to occupy the region to steal the ressources, to increase migration and to increase terrorism in this region.
If you want to stop migration, just close the borders and expell the “refugees”.
Also expel the career politicians from power and place them somewhere that they can never cause harm from again, preferably a prison.
Yes, except expel them all to Israel as that is where all these policies come from and when Israel the advocate of mass migration to all other countries except Israel in tern expels or kills them Israel will be shown for what it is. Expel all of the Shabbas Goyim slave politicians like Maccron, Merkel, May Blair etc. of Israel back to Israel as well and Israel will intern expels or kill them all as well and Israel will again be shown for what it is.
Fake refugees are a two edged problem for Europe. If Europe does what the bleeding heart leftists want and let more of them it will drive half of Europe into the arms of the populists and end the EU. If they do what has to be done to stop the flow, end the insane refugee treaties and close Europe’s border, the bleeding heart leftists will balk and Europe will look bad abroad. So it would appear that since they can’t close the borders and can’t allow unbridled immigration they’re now trying to stem the flow of immigrants before they reach the shores of the Mediterranean. That way they can have their cake and eat it. They can say to the bleeding heart leftists that ‘refugees’ are still welcome, while at the same time say to the populists that immigration is going down.
I have to say I see merit in the plan to stem the migration tide inside Africa. But it has to be multi tiered. Disrupt the migration flows in Africa, sink any boat and mercilessly send back any immigrants who manage to cross the Mediterranean, and above rescind the useless refugee treaties that only serve to draw in immigrants looking for a better life at the expense of the European tax payer. And if that means pissing off bleeding heart leftists, well, I can live with their discomfort.
Nonsense, Barba, you sound like a mentally challenged person and someone who has a prune instead of a heart. Europe has exploited Africa for long time and continues to do so. Europe has also sponsored and supported local and corrupt African governments who continue to support the heartless exploitation of their own countries. But you deranged infantile ignores this but calls for the refugees to be forcibly returned to Africa and the refugee boats sunk. I ask again where is your humanity, you deranged pagan and hypocrite? Every day here, you mount your soapbox and spew all kinds of nonsense about the United States policies in Syria and elseshere but you have proven to be different from what you criticize, you bloody hypocrite. In the interim, help us explain what to do with the millions of European refugees and illigal immigrants that roam all over Africa and elsewhere. Maybe they too should be forcibly returned to pagan Europe and the Chinese brought in as replacements. At least the Chinese offer some vslue. And that is more than can said of your exploitative and thieving brethrens.
It would appear that some of you do not remember your history, which is another way of saying your crime but don’t worry we will be here to remind you of them when your memory of that history fails you. We know what countries contribute to human civilization and we know those that built it’s fake culture and civilization by engaging in mass killings, thievery, truth distortion and muscular and aggressive paganism.
the integrity of the European ethnic groups is the highest moral good. we’re talking out own side. Not only will we eventually deport all these ‘refugees’, we will also throw out the browns who have gained citizenship in Europe. We are going to ensure Europe is formed of ethnically homogeneous, white European groups.
Lord Lemur, l,m assuming that that is what you prefer to be called though you have not justified that you are smart or reasonable enough to be called that. Regarding your statement about throwing out “the browns out of Europe”, l cannot help but to chuckle at your complete impotence to do anything of that sort. Europe is multicultural, the same way that the United States is. And like in the United States we have underemployed miscreants who have sought refuge in parochial and deranged racism because it gives them a sense of self worth. But l am not here to contribute to your self worth or for that matter, your delusion. Europe is dying on the vine because of people like you. Europe developed through theft and decimation of long lived and successful cultures. Karma is now catching up and exposing your absurdities. Again, l,m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but Europe has no future. Europe’s future is now in the past and one can only get a glimpse by looking in the rear view mirror at what has gone by.
There are now lots of “brown”people in Europe who simply cannot be uprooted without an Algerian or Syrian type civil wars in the major streets and cul de sacs of Europe. You may not realize this but you are disappearing. The future lies with countries and cultures that cherish lives and not with those who don’t have the strength or the inclination to procreate. Italians, Germans, the French and others in your neck of the woods are dying off. In less than 200 years one will have to visit a museum or a library to learn about you. The only productive Europeans are those who live in North America or in Africa.
Even the crudity of your language suggests how desperate your circumstances are. Don’t worry. Others would eventually occupy your present metropolis, your valleys and your hamlets because that is the nature of things. And l believe strongly that in the near future there will be scholars from Africa studying the great extinction of Europeans and whom may hopefully help us understand what this is all about.
I pray for countries like Russia and the Scandanevians to continue to prosper and to have a role in the human drama and in human history. But l do not have hope for your kind. Your heart reveals that the demise of you and of your mean extraction.
Where are my comments? I wrote two comments responding to the charlatan who writes under the name Barba_Papa and now those comments have been removed. Please explain to me why that is so. Evidently, it appears you are not interested in the ignorance of some of your posters being ecposed. That ignorance is acceptable so long as it advances parochial views. Don’t worry you will soon remove yourself from the market place of ideas or only attract fringe posters like the hypocrite with a dried prune in place where a heart ought to be.
the migrant crisis is great for us, the far right. Now the EU governments are forced with sudden, massive influxes of people the public notice. We can round up these people and throw them back into Africa later. For now, they are our greatest allies in ending liberal democracy in Europe.
I had replied to your tedious argument but alas, my reply to you had been removed. But I still hold on to my belief after reading your post that you are disgusting skin head and a Nazi. It may also interest you to know that l celebrate two holidays ever July. The 4th and the 5th. The 4th is American independence day and the 5th for the resounding defeat of Friedrich Paulus army in 1943. Anyway,, it doesn’t mstter. I am out of here.
Europe blocking unwanted economic immigration from Africa seems to me completely reasonable.
I had replied to Lord Lemur post about preserving the white race in Europe by uprooting it’s non European citizens about two hours ago. Once sgsin, I ask what happened to my comments. I can not come here and comment on posts only to have my comments removed. I find it to be disgusting and l must add, a criminal behavior. How can a site that wishes to push forward the idea that it is non biased and worth the time of intelligent posters engage in the sort of behavior that one expects from criminal syndicates and white trash?
The same thing happened regarding my two rebuttals to Barba. When I complained, my posts suddenly surfaced. Now, l”m compelled to complain again. But l will tell you what I think. I no longer trust this site. I don’t even want to be in the same place as the sort of people who manage it. God forfend.
These impotent eu politicans want to fighting with Russian Federation,when they dont stoped migrants?These unqualified persons leading us to hell !!