"One of my fears is that European opinion will fall into that trap."
I find that a very odd first-order fear, Janice. So, Europe has already fallen into the trap of allowing the perpetrators wthin its gates (and let's presume, many other murderers too). Nonetheless the prescription in your mind remains clear: Europeans must 'avoid the trap' of forestalling a continued stream of jihadists. Is there a cost so prohibitive in your mind that it would disabuse you of your vision of a borderless continent? Because it's killing people and will kill a whole lot more:
"Brothers believed to be involved hours after Omar Ismail Mostefai named as dead gunman as other suspected jihadist revealed to have entered France through Serbia, Greece and Macedonia."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...ests-live.html
I'm imagining a bullet-proof, Pan-European flag flying high over a desolate, bombed-out landscape. Unperturbed, the flag-wavers claim...victory. It's like nihilism in its kumbaya permutation. Or is it that some people insist on seeing a Shangri-La where's there's only an abyss? Both can't be right. What side does this week's Paris argue for?
The cost of Pan-Europeanism is looking, sadly enough, like Europe itself --at least in something other than a militarized and surveilled armed camp. How many weekend assaults can the continent sustain as it continues in its role as a socially engineered hospice camp for unfortunate others? Surely what happened in Paris not a mere flesh wound to be sustained, week-in, week-out?
We could stem the flow of refugees, take away the root cause, by letting Syria be Syria again. However this might run counter to UN Commissioner Peter Sutherland's determination to discredit borders in all their permutations. (
"I will ask the governments to cooperate, to recognise that sovereignty is an illusion – that sovereignty is an absolute illusion that has to be put behind us. The days of hiding behind borders and fences are long gone." --Oct 2015). So, love the jihadists in your midst. Hiding from mass carnage is a vestige of a bygone era. Thank you Dr. Strangelove.
The walk-back would be a bitch as it involves Western de-funding of covert regime-change activities (France is up to its ears in this) and allowing for free elections. The real sting at the moment is that Assad (to the envy of practically every other Western leader) enjoys 55% popularity. So there is a chance he might survive. There goes that democracy-thing getting up to the craziest things once again. That would make the fiasco complete --and I suspect completely untenable for the powers-that-be. Fortunately our G-20 leaders (meeting this week) will be saved from this walk-back (quite possibly) by NATO entry into the Syrian conflict. Hollande has declared the attacks an Act of War. Let's see if they kick in Article 5 this week and against whom (the CIA?):
“The Parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all and consequently they agree that, if such an armed attack occurs, each of them, in exercise of the right of individual or collective self-defence recognised by Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations, will assist the Party or Parties so attacked.”
So, quite possibly a face-saving (for them) doubling-down --the fog of World War Three could yet prove to be their salvation. Hooray for them. Our salvation is less certain.
Threaded Mode
