Since the Syrian civil war began in 2011, more than 11.6 million people, half of the entire population of Syria, have been forced out of their homes and displaced. More than 300,000 Syrians have been killed, 150,000 in the last year. Over four million Syrians have fled the country, flooding into Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, the Kurdish region of Iraq, and Egypt. And it’s not just in Syria – about three million people have fled Iraq in the recent period, escaping the civil war there as well.
As the countries neighboring Iraq and Syria have been flooded with refugees, Europe too is becoming a destination. In July and August 110,000 refugees from the Syrian civil war have made the exhausting 2000-mile journey into Europe, hoping to find safety and work. More than 2,600 migrants have drowned trying to reach Greece or Italy. Some have suffocated in locked trucks abandoned by murderous smugglers who take their money and then leave them to die. Tens of thousands have been turned back by police at the borders of Europe, often herded into camps with little food, shelter or sanitation, sometimes forced to camp out at bus and rail stations because there is no other place to go. Hungarian police recently attacked a crowd of several thousand refugees at the border, including many women and children, with clubs, tear gas and water cannons. Governments are building razor wire fences to seal the borders.
To justify their inhuman treatment of refugees the European governments claim that the refugees are a threat to their countries’ economies, and to their populations. The politicians use this scaremongering to divert attention from their own policies over the recent years that have slashed budgets, cut social services, led to massive layoffs and increasing unemployment.
Behind the civil wars in the Middle East, which drive the refugee crisis, lie the efforts of the U.S. to control this oil-rich region. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq and the years of war that followed has led to a civil war. And following the Arab Spring, the Syrian population began to revolt against the government of Bashar Al-Assad, and this fighting eventually led to a civil war there. ISIS, at the moment the most powerful and brutal contender for power in Syria and Iraq, grew out of the U.S. war in Iraq.
The U.S. strategy in Iraq has been one of divide and conquer. In Iraq the U.S. government played Kurdish, Sunni, and Shi’a populations off one another. By 2005, this policy resulted in a sectarian civil war, raging ever since. And throughout this civil war, the U.S. has continued to arm and fund all sides, trying to maintain a regime that would carry out its interests in the region. In response, many of the militia’s fighters turned against the U.S. and formed ISIS together with other anti-U.S. militias in Iraq and Syria. And now the U.S. has sent military units and aircraft to try suppress ISIS, only intensifying the civil wars in Iraq and Syria.
Recently the Obama administration has pledged to allow an extra 15,000 refugees into the country next year. This is a slap in the face to refugees. It has been the ruthless policies of the U.S. to dominate the region that have led to these civil wars. Millions of people have been killed and displaced, countries ripped apart. And this is supposed to be seen as assistance to the refugees of the region?
These devastating wars are just tools for U.S. corporations to hang on to control over the Middle East oil. And in general, in an economic system that seeks profit at all costs, war and devastation are just necessary tools to exploit working people and dominate resources all over the globe.
Refugees have every right to flee their conditions and seek more livable situations. They’re fighting for survival against a system that has destroyed their lives. It is an economic system that is against the vast majority of people on the planet. Refugees should be welcomed to all countries – their crisis is our crisis.