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I am looking at it from a holistic historical and cultural perspective, cheers. I'm also not being paternalistic- British (and French) policies in this region of the world have been screwing it up for decades.

I think you underestimate the impact of the invasion and the aftermath on the cultural forces in play out there. I do not think it is paternalistic to see the invasion as a massive western influence that dragged a lot of extremists into the area and gave them a fertile environment to recruit from.

The extremist movement has also been aided as you obliquely note by the Israel/Palestine conflict (Specifically the failure of various secular leaders to destroy Israel or prevent it's establishment in the region).

Since the creation of Israel is also a British policy, I think tracing the roots of modern extremism back to British interference in the region is not at all that much of a stretch.

By saying this I do not mean to throw a huge guilt trip on British people. That's pointless. None of you were involved in these decisions. Plenty of people protested the Iraq war and Labour is yet to recover from it in public opinion.

However, there is a massive humanitarian crisis happening and Britain's response is to essentially say "Welp, we're an island, we can keep them out, so we will!" instead of mucking in, showing leadership and helping out. Too often Britain sits back in big issues in Europe and behaves as an outsider. I would like it to show more leadership. The fact that Britain is more "to blame" than other nations is salt in the wound, for me. Though I also have some strong opinions about France in that regard.

And of course, my own home nation is (typically) whistling away hoping no one will notice that we take in a pitiful number of refugees and that we don't attract any negative PR.

 Da Boss wrote:
I am looking at it from a holistic historical and cultural perspective, cheers. I'm also not being paternalistic- British (and French) policies in this region of the world have been screwing it up for decades.

I think you underestimate the impact of the invasion and the aftermath on the cultural forces in play out there. I do not think it is paternalistic to see the invasion as a massive western influence that dragged a lot of extremists into the area and gave them a fertile environment to recruit from.

Since the creation of Israel is also a British policy, I think tracing the roots of modern extremism back to British interference in the region is not at all that much of a stretch.

But this is the thing. Who was governing Syria/Libya before they went down? What were the motivations of the people who overthrew them? What are the causes of the religious strife between the factions? etc etc

I don't believe for one minute that the groups that overthrew the Libyan Government were doing it because 'America and Britain invaded Iraq'. Nobody in Syria was chanting the words, 'Get rid of the Israeli Government' as they turned on Assad, and the recent Egyptian unrest was not fomented by a sudden upsurge of interest in the Sykes-Picot agreement.

The causes for the situations in these countries are infinitely more rooted in the actions by the (often dictatorial) tendencies of those in charge, the economic situations on the ground, and several hundred years worth of religious suspicion and cultural/political unrest. Furthermore, ascribing the creation of the number of 'extremists' in that part of the world to the West, assumes that the kinds of people who are willing to turn into religious gun toting nutters made that decision based on the fact that America invaded a neighbouring country a decade beforehand. I personally, would argue that such people tend to have more personal and immediate factors that lead them into taking that path in life than a historical event in a neighbouring country which happened before they left school.

To ascribe the cultural and political tensions in the 'Middle-East' as a whole to 'The West', is I feel, a usurpation of responsibility for the decisions of many people who live there. YMMV. Please note that I'm not attacking you personally squire, but I firmly disagree with your opinion on this one.

Before I respond - I get along grand with you Ketara and would happily buy you a pint any day of the week. But I like a challenging argument.

 Ketara wrote:

But this is the thing. Who was governing Syria/Libya before they went down? What were the motivations of the people who overthrew them? What are the causes of the religious strife between the factions? etc etc

I don't believe for one minute that the groups that overthrew the Libyan Government were doing it because 'America and Britain invaded Iraq'. Nobody in Syria was chanting the words, 'Get rid of the Israeli Government' as they turned on Assad, and the recent Egyptian unrest was not fomented by a sudden upsurge of interest in the Sykes-Picot agreement.

The causes for the situations in these countries are infinitely more rooted in the actions by the (often dictatorial) tendencies of those in charge, the economic situations on the ground, and several hundred years worth of religious suspicion and cultural/political unrest. Furthermore, ascribing the creation of the number of 'extremists' in that part of the world to the West, assumes that the kinds of people who are willing to turn into religious gun toting nutters made that decision based on the fact that America invaded a neighbouring country a decade beforehand. I personally, would argue that such people tend to have more personal and immediate factors that lead them into taking that path in life than a historical event in a neighbouring country which happened before they left school.

To ascribe the cultural and political tensions in the 'Middle-East' as a whole to 'The West', is I feel, a usurpation of responsibility for the decisions of many people who live there. YMMV. Please note that I'm not attacking you personally squire, but I firmly disagree with your opinion on this one.

To me, your first two paragraphs are framing my argument in a particular way that I didn't intend. That is probably because I did not put enough effort into framing it at first, and because I needed to clarify my own thinking on it. So I'm not blaming you, but I think we're to an extent, talking past each other.

British interference in the middle east has been negative. It has contributed to the current situation. The level to which it has contributed is certainly up for debate - you feel it was extremely limited, I feel it is a little more insidious and wide ranging than that. I'm more than happy to admit that the governance of madmen like Qaddafi and Saddam were huge contributing factors, and there is a historical and cultural explanation for islamic extremism that goes well beyond "It woz the West wot done it".

But that is irrelevant to my point. Of the countries in Europe, aside from possibly France, Britain has more to answer for in the Middle East than anyone. (Happy to be corrected on that).
Whether they are the prime cause or just partially to blame is broadly irrelevant. There is a humanitarian crisis. The brunt of this crisis is being borne by nations who did little to contribute to it's genesis. The UK sits by and grumbles to itself in a "poor me" fashion, and does as little as possible to help. This is a shameful approach and does nothing to lift my opinion of the UK. If Germany leads on this and leads on so many other issues in Europe, it is little surprise that the UK may find itself marginalised despite it's economic, diplomatic and military clout.

To shrug your shoulders and say that it's okay for the UK to do as little as possible is also to avoid responsibility.

I feel strongly about Ireland's sleazy stance on this too, I should point out. Our sham neutrality is a real point of shame for me.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Lord of Deeds wrote:
Are there any lessons the US can learn from how the EU is responding to the immigrant crisis that would help the US address its own immigrant challanges.

No. Unless the US wants lessons in incompetence, indecisiveness and internal division.

We're quite good at that on our own, thankyouverymuch!

This all sounds like was fethed up situation without resolution.

 Da Boss wrote:
We need to do something.

I reckon the UK should be doing more. It currently takes far less refugees per capita than Germany, which is bearing the brunt of this crisis (along with the southern european countries where the migrants are arriving).

Since it was British and American "adventures" in the region that brought on much of this instability, I feel like Britain has a bit of a moral responsibility to step up and do more than it currently is (which is as little as humanly possible.)

That. We have 20mm illegals here now. them.

UK does not have enough jobs, homes and money to support more people. We are full up with European workers, and more beside.

Where and what are we ment to do with Syrians, Iraqis and such?

 Da Boss wrote:
Before I respond - I get along grand with you Ketara and would happily buy you a pint any day of the week. But I like a challenging argument.

On that note, let me know if you're ever back in old Blighty, it would be grand to have another game with you.

To me, your first two paragraphs are framing my argument in a particular way that I didn't intend. That is probably because I did not put enough effort into framing it at first, and because I needed to clarify my own thinking on it. So I'm not blaming you, but I think we're to an extent, talking past each other.

On the internet? Surely not!

British interference in the middle east has been negative. It has contributed to the current situation. The level to which it has contributed is certainly up for debate - you feel it was extremely limited, I feel it is a little more insidious and wide ranging than that. I'm more than happy to admit that the governance of madmen like Qaddafi and Saddam were huge contributing factors, and there is a historical and cultural explanation for islamic extremism that goes well beyond "It woz the West wot done it".

If you look back, you'll note that I more or less qualify myself in that I believe our recent influence is limited. Once you roll back more than twenty years or so, I think you're entering into the realms of the historical, and trying to say, 'this part of British involvement was positive, and this part was negative' gets quite dicey. But that's possibly my training kicking in, historians (or good ones, anyway) tend to do their best to avoid putting 'positive' or 'negative' connotations around historical events, and settle on just trying to describe what we think happened.

Playing the 'what if?' history game is grand fun, but saying (for example) 'Britain shouldn't have invaded Afghanistan in the nineteenth century because it contributed to later negative events' may sound logical, but for all we know, if Britain hadn't, it could have ended up part of the Russian Empire with even more 'negative' consequences. As such, when someone says, 'Britain is responsible for the current situation in the Middle East' or even 'partially responsible', I get a bit leery because I find trying to chart Point A to Point B on the timeline is rarely so simple.

But that is irrelevant to my point. Of the countries in Europe, aside from possibly France, Britain has more to answer for in the Middle East than anyone. (Happy to be corrected on that).

See, the concept of 'to answer for' immediately gets my hackles up, because it frames things in a hostile 'assigning blame/doling out justice' sort of way.

Whether they are the prime cause or just partially to blame is broadly irrelevant. There is a humanitarian crisis.

I did say in my first response that I could understand appeals/arguments from humanity, it was just the assigning of responsibility for an entire geographical region, with millions of people and different governments, religions, ethnicities, cultures, economies etc, to a small island off the top of Europe that I bristled over.

The brunt of this crisis is being borne by nations who did little to contribute to it's genesis. The UK sits by and grumbles to itself in a "poor me" fashion, and does as little as possible to help. This is a shameful approach and does nothing to lift my opinion of the UK. If Germany leads on this and leads on so many other issues in Europe, it is little surprise that the UK may find itself marginalised despite it's economic, diplomatic and military clout.

To shrug your shoulders and say that it's okay for the UK to do as little as possible is also to avoid responsibility.

I'm of the opinion that our foreign aid programme should be diverted into a refugee resettlement programme. Let the government decide a suitable number of refugees, and hold the lottery in the American style, with language classes and housing provided upon arrival, and refugees spread out over a geographically large base so as to avoid internal tensions. Tie them to a programme granting British citizenship within twenty years, on the condition of no crimes committed, and being tied to that geographic region for a period of a decade or so. Breaching the conditions of the programme would be grounds for immediate deportation.

Either that, or we should start reconquering the provinces (only half joking here).