Category: Europe

Gaddafi has no weapons of mass destruction, unless you count the refugees unleashed on Europe

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Ed West writing at the UK Telegraph yesterday suggests that the tens of thousands of refugees being pushed out of North Africa will be Gaddafi’s last laugh on Europe as serious commenters begin to wonder if this is what the Fall of Rome felt like.  Thank champions of chaos, Obama and Ms. Power.

Colonel Gaddafi, having foolishly agreed not to arm himself with chemical, biological or nuclear weapons*, a lesson other dictators may heed, has set upon a more surreal but perhaps more effective weapon against the West – refugees.

[…..]

One of Roger Scruton’s most original arguments against our asylum policy is that it allows brutal dictators to rid themselves of enemies without having to get their hands dirty. But Gaddafi is now using people-dumping as a weapon of war, and a fairly effective one when your enemy has a free media and a conscience.

Italy opened the door to 20,000 Tunisians and France is freaking out!   France’s Marine Le Pen, a tough anti-immigration/pro-western civilization warrior, is running ahead of Sarkozy in polls.

And Gaddafi is now being aided by Italy’s incredibly short-sighted decision to give 20,000 Tunisians an effective amnesty by allowing them free movement in Europe.

[…..]

Most of the Tunisians are heading for France, which has an enormous Tunisian population already, and Italy’s decision, plus the refugees from a war started by Nicolas Sarkozy, will almost certainly influence the 2012 French presidential elections. Marine Le Pen, who is now second in the polls, and ahead of Sarkozy, has made much play of the refugee influx, and has already visited Italy’s refugee island, Lampedusa, for a publicity stunt.

Fall of Europe and America alone!

The Roman Empire comparison may be simplistic, but it’s worth remembering that the empire collapsed not as a result of hostile barbarian invaders, but because of barbarian refugees who wished to become part of the empire.

If the worst comes to the worst then come 2050 we’ll all be claiming asylum in the United States – better start practising your Spanish. [very funny Mr. West!—ed]

Read it all.

France puts checkpoints on Italian border to keep out migrants from North Africa

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

It’s amazing how quickly European Union—we are all one big happy borderless Europe—mumbo jumbo is forgotten when serious threats to a country’s sovereignty arise.

From the Wall Street Journal:

VENTIMIGLIA, Italy—The migration wave unleashed by North African unrest has prompted France to resurrect its border with Italy—a barrier that was supposedly consigned to history’s dustbin with Europe’s unified economy.

A couple of miles from the beach town of Ventimiglia, nestled along the Italian Riviera, French police have restaffed a formerly abandoned checkpoint along the country’s Mediterranean border with Italy.

In the nearby French town of Menton, French police in riot gear board trains crossing into France, grilling passengers while other police forces are monitoring roads and foot trails that lead into French territory from Italy.

Fences sure do make good neighbors.

To read the rest of the story, you will have to log-in at the Wall Street Journal.

Iraqi refugees clash with police in Sweden

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

They were protesting the deportation of fellow Iraqis, but it is not clear if these are Christians or Muslims (or both) being returned.

From Assafirpress:

Gothenburg, Sweden, INN – A number of Iraqi asylum seekers clashed with police forces at the Swedish Immigration Board protesting planned deportation of Iraqi refugees back to Baghdad, informed sources said Wednesday. Around 80 refugees gathered at the facility and tried to prevent police from taking 25-30 Iraqi refugees to Gothenburg’s Landvetter airport to fly them back to Baghdad. Protestors were dispersed by police who used batons and sprinkled pepper spray which causes no harm to human health to keep the protesters away from a bus which carrying to the airport the refugees who failed to get asylum permits., the sources said. Earlier this year, 20 asylum seekers were deported back to Iraq from Stockholm and another six from Denmark despite heated protests against their expulsion by human rights organizations including the UN Higher Commission for Refugees ( UNHCR), a number of the asylum seekers who were sent back belong to religious and ethnic groups targeted by violence in Iraq. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have fled the war in their country to resettle in Sweden, with official statistics showing 117,900 people born in Iraq lived in the Scandinavian country in 2009, up from 49,400 in 2000.

Here is one of several previous posts we have written on Sweden returning Christians to Iraq.

Australian: All immigrants are not the same (duh!)

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

This is an overly long piece by Greg Sheridan, foreign affairs correspondent for The Australian explaining how the realization has dawned on him that Australian multiculturalism is failing for one primary reason—Muslim immigrants.

I found myself annoyed as if I was reading the confessions of a liberal who got mugged.  However, it seems Sheridan isn’t liberal in the George Soros sort of way.    I was further annoyed by his assumption (that he gets from the mainstream media) that America is successfully assimilating its immigrants—Not!

Anyway, here is a bit of Sheridan’s ‘How I lost faith in multiculturalism‘ from The Australian:

IN 1993, my family and I moved into Belmore in southwest Sydney. It is the next suburb to Lakemba. When I first moved there I loved it.

We bought a house just behind Belmore Sports Ground, in those days the home of my beloved Bulldogs rugby league team. Transport was great, 20 minutes to the city in the train, 20 minutes to the airport.

On the other side of Belmore, away from Lakemba, there were lots of Chinese, plenty of Koreans, growing numbers of Indians, and on the Lakemba side lots of Lebanese and other Arabs.

That was an attraction, too. I like Middle Eastern food. I like Middle Eastern people. The suburb still had the remnants of its once big Greek community and a commanding Greek Orthodox church.

But in the nearly 15 years we lived there the suburb changed, and much for the worse.

Three dynamics interacted in a noxious fashion: the growth of a macho, misogynist culture among young men that often found expression in extremely violent crime; a pervasive atmosphere of anti-social behaviour in the streets; and the simultaneous growth of Islamist extremism and jihadi culture.

This is my story, our story and the story of a failed policy.

Gee, I realized after spending time in Europe that the problem wasn’t European multiculturalism that went awry (or never existed in the first place) but it was the large Muslim population most of whom are not like us and have no interest in assimilating.

So this must, logically, lead to one extremely inconvenient, politically incorrect and desperately fraught question. Could it be that the main difference between Europe, with its seething immigration problems, and the US, Canada and Australia, with their success, is not actually a difference based on some footling interpretation of multiculturalism?

There is one other variable that is consistent with the results. The US, Canada and Australia have far smaller Muslim migrant communities as a percentage of their total populations than do most of the troubled nations of Europe. Could this be the explanation?

All immigrants are not the same:

No one in Europe, 25 years ago, thought they would be in the mess they’re in today.

Australia has been a successful immigration country. But the truth is not all immigrants are the same. And it may be much easier than people think to turn success into failure.

So, now what the hell will Australia, or Canada, or for that matter the US, do to stop the inevitable?   After all, the writing is on the wall and it’s unfortunate that those who might have led us—‘intellectuals’ of all stripes—can’t see it (or, like Sheridan, are seeing it too late).

Muslim immigrants on the dole the world over

~ Ann Corcoran ~ Leave a comment

Kathy Shaidle (Five Feet of Fury) has a good post at Pajamas Media that is a sort of bookend piece to my earlier post this a.m. about how high the percentage is of immigrants on welfare in the US.  By the way, the polygamy Shaidle references in Canada is happening here as well.

From Pajamas Media:

In 2008, the Toronto Sun reported that “hundreds of [Greater Toronto Area] Muslim men in polygamous marriages — some with a harem of wives — are receiving welfare and social benefits for each of their spouses, thanks to the city and province, Muslim leaders say.”

“Polygamy is a regular part of life for many Muslims,” Canadian Society of Muslims president Mumtaz Ali declared bluntly. “Ontario recognizes religious marriages for Muslims and others.”

Government officials quickly denied the Muslim leader’s claims about immigration law and social benefits regulations. Only one public servant seemed sufficiently concerned. “This is wrong,” said city councilor Rob Ford. [Writer Shaidle tells us further in the story that Ford is now mayor of Toronto and did not respond to recent inquiries from Shaidle for an update, no surprise there—ed]

“They should put a stop to this immediately.”

Instead, welfare abuse by Muslims appears to have metastasized across the Western world. Almost three years later, news stories about radical Muslims — often immigrants — engaged in social benefits scams emerge regularly from Europe, Canada, and Australia. Even when they are not involved in fraud, Muslims frequently are overrepresented on welfare rolls, compared with other communities. The statistics from around the globe are jaw-dropping, especially in economically uncertain times.

Read it all.  Learn how we in the West are paying for our own demise.

Would someone in authority please begin to seriously connect the dots on the Food Stamp fraud cases in the US—the ones involving convenience stores and trading benefits for cash!