I would like to comment Bill C's post #109 about the "three kinds of refugees".
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It seems that developed European countries are facing three quite distinct classes of arrivals: enemy jihadist soldiers; Syrian refugees; and economic migrants from Africa and the Middle East. The policies, and rhetoric, regarding each should be kept distinct. This seems elementary, but you can see people confusing them at every turn, possibly under the influence of shock. Keeping out enemy soldiers is a very high priority, since every one of them that lax policies (or even strict policies) let in could cause untold harm. The presence of the first group makes admitting the second group more difficult -- very slow and painstaking -- but not impossible. The third group makes keeping out the first group and letting in the second group even more difficult. It appears that European countries need very strict border controls now and need to turn back all but bona fide asylum seekers until further notice.
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Who is a bona fide asylum seeker?
It is not simple to sort refugees into categories. Though presently there is a heartbreaking stream coming mostly from Syria, educated middle class people who know what fate they will suffer if ISIS gains total control, there are also those who come from other war zones, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen. Particularly young men and boys from Afghanistan, who in many cases are traveling onward from temporary resettlement in Iraq are fleeing from forced conscription into Iraq's army. The Swedish radio recently had an interview with a boy in his mid-teens whose father, unable to read, in the course of applying for a prolongation of the permit for the family to stay in Iraq had put his mark on a document binding him and the boy to fight for the Iraqi army. If they were killed, the family would be allowed to stay permanently. When the father learned what he had "agreed" to, the family sent the boy off to Sweden. One of the many, many children who have made the hazardous journey alone and who may never see their family again.
And what about all these young men in their twenties who do not want to fight for ISIS and therefore flee. They are the most suspect group these days and are being turned away because the limited resources of housing are being prioritized to children without dependents and families with children. So countless will be subject to deportation. And if granted asylum they are no longer guaranteed a roof over their head. Where will they go? It is winter now, and snow will soon be everywhere.
When is a refugee not a refugee? When he is classified as an economic refugee. Some make it all the way to Europe from Nigeria and these (mostly men) are among the first to be deported because they are labeled "economic refugees".
http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/nigerian...essure/8663426 That despite the fact that Boko Haram has displaced thousands of Nigerians. At least 74,000 Nigerians have fled to northern Cameroon, 18,000 to south-west Chad and at least 100,000 in Niger.
I am currently reading "Drone Theory" by Grégoire Chamayou, who is a research scholar in philosophy at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. I was particularly struck by this paragraph and I want to share it to a wider audience:
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[The policy of the RAF in WW I raids in Africa] ended in bitter failure. An assessment made by a British officer in 1923 describes perverse effects strangely similar to those seen today, three generations later, in the same regions of the world. "By driving the inhabitants of the bombarded area from their homes in a state of exasperation, dispersing them among neighboring clans and tribes, with hatred in their hearts at what they consider 'unfair' methods of warfare, these attacks bring about the exact political results which it is so important, in our own interests, to avoid, viz. the permanent embitterment and alienation of the frontier tribes.
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You don't have to be particularly smart to realize how this applies to the refugee problem of today.
It is worth remembering that they flee to the West because they are West-friendly.
In conclusion, for those interested, here is an overview of Sweden's 25 largest immigrant population as it was last year. (This is prior to this year's huge influx.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_Sweden
Curiously, (and I'm not hinting at any hidden meaning by mentioning this), there is an almost equal number of foreign-born residents in the Swedish population from the USA (19,569) as from the Russian Federation (19,028).