This is myopic and a waste of analysis. You can also argue that Europe's colonialism and arbitrary political partitioning of Africa, South Asia and the Middle East created the corrupt regimes that the US has had to deal with since WW2. Greed is unfortunately not unique to any one group at any one point in time.
The arbitrary partitioning of Africa still has long lasting negative consequences… for the Africans till date.
I still don’t understand how the Article is myopic. It seems to capture contemporary history of the cause and effect of the US “War on Terror”.
Incidentally, US is mostly immune from the effects of their actions halfway around the world.
On Libya, the whole of the Sahel in Africa is still suffering from the effects of the arms proliferation that arose from the sudden removal of Gaddafi.
It seems, either the leaders over there are not thinking through the longer term effects of their actions or it’s by design and working as intended.
I can recommend the podcast series blowback if anyone wants a deeper look into the knock-on effects of western intervention in the middle east and elsewhere. Also, the book the Jakarta method for a broader look.
This is a biased political piece and should probably be locked by moderation.
It is also needlessly inflamatory; the USA is far from the only actor in the world; it even has a secondary influence at best in places like Syria and Ukraine where a ton of refugees have come from.
The response to potentially heavy, controversial topics should not be avoiding the discussion, nay, not even avoiding, but forbidding it. Surely we're all adults and we can engage with the arguments presented, and in the process learn something. And if the discussion becomes heated, then it becomes heated. Then some hours pass and we move on.
Having a couple of people saying: No, this should not be discussed is dystopic and illiberal.
The main waves of refugees I recall are Syrians, with Russia involved, Ukraine obviously caused by Russia and apparently their Wagner type proxies are merrily overthrowing governments in Africa and contributing to the Africans crossing in dinghies. I don't recall many waves of people from Iraq, Libya or Afghanistan.
I’m not familiar with the author or their other articles so I can’t say whether they are or not but do we need to label all critics of western foreign policy Russian/CCP shills?
I had a look, maybe, to me he just looks like bog-standard D.C libertarian think-tank type of guy. The Cato institute positions itself as libertarian non-interventionist (founded by American libertarians and a billionaire), so it would be consistent with their viewpoint. To me it seems more likely the shilling going on here is domestic rather than foreign.
Also, in Europe, it isn't a secret that Putin's violence in Syria was meant to create pressure on Europe and create a diversion from Ukraine, and it worked (wir schaffen das).
When I read the title, I had a feeling somebody wanted to reframe that.
This is why the author should have written the article during Obama's term, not now. Now Russia is responsible for pressuring the EU with migrants. However, not a word about it, which makes it anti-US propaganda.
US commercial and military interests led to the destabilisation of many republics and states across the world in the name of freedom and democracy. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is the bold and sad truth and the truth is that those wonderful values have been completely emptied from their meaning by the US capitalist elites.
"The obvious solution" would be a violation of UK treaty obligations to not return asylum seekers with a genuine need of protection. Which given a high proportion have their asylum claims granted is a significant portion of them.
Once they are processed, those whose claims are denied can be returned to their home country.
But Rwanda is theatre. It costs more than processing them in the UK, and the number of people sent there will be a few hours worth of UK net migration.
The entire scheme exists for the government to be able to telegraph to their most anti-immigration supporters that they're doing something. What isn't the point.
> and refuse to disclose their home country, in which case imprisoning them until they agree to play ball doesn't seem unreasonable.
How would this work in practice? Person comes from country A, claims he is from country B. You send him to country B, they can't find records of him and simply don't take him back. Now what?
Same as before you send them? They're in detention and go back to it. Presumably now with fewer privileges as they've lied to you.
This form of detention may seem costly, but the deterrent effect makes it less expensive overall when people realise the UK isn't a soft touch.
I think though that the debate isn't really about "does this work". It's more about the question of whether the UK (or any country) is responsible for looking after anyone that turns up on our shores.
I don't think we are, the default position should be the equivalent of an iptables deny rule.
The UK policy of deporting migrants to Rwanda is not too diffrent from Ibi Amin kicking Asians out of Uganda. Now Austria and Denmark came up with a plan to export migrant convicts to Kosovo, a country known for organ trafficking.
No nation, anywhere, ever has agency, except “senile” old Dark Brandon and good ol boy W. Dudes must be the greatest strategic thinkers in generations. Putin, Merkel, Macron, etc, just puppets on our strings.
Conspiracies used to be pretty involved and complicated. Now the Bell Curve for conspiracies would be completely flat. Even CATO channels the ghost of Pravda.
It goes with the territory of being a hegemonic power.
But yes obviously European and indeed African countries and their leaders also have their large share of responsibility.
The Cato Institute is libertarian, so them being anti-interventionist shouldn't be surprising. The article was written by a "weekly columnist at Antiwar.com" according to the author's bio, which explains the tone of the headline.
Yes, Cato's branch of politics is in a coalition (a.k.a. the Republican party) with the neocons who like invading other countries, but that doesn't mean they share every single political view as neocons.
They get along very well on the economic issues that are Cato's top priority, but they have some differences on foreign policy.
That's what I meant. Cato has some members who are libertarian but I thought they do employ and propagate garden variety conservatism including neo-conservatives who would not call US interventionism "Regime Change Wars."
