Tuesday 24 November 2015

Obama is responsible for the refugee crisis

Yale professor Walter Russel Mead excoriates Obama for his failure to take any action that could have prevented the crisis of millions of "refugees" swamping into Europe.
In the Harry's Place article where I first learnt of Mead's article, young James Snell says:
 Mead’s righteous evisceration of Obama’s hypocrisy and moral cowardice is practically unanswerable.
I agree.
Mind, this is not me taking part in the usual leftist practice of "blame the west (especially the "Great Satan" of the US)".  I don't believe that all the ructions in the Middle East are the fault of the west, least of all that the west "had it coming" as the likes of Chomsky allege (and infamously said after 9-11).
This is clearer, the refugee crisis: what could have been done by Obama?  At the very least: safe zones and no-fly zones.  But he did nothing.
I recall being disgusted at Obama failing to do anything after his "red line" threat (if Assad used chemical weapons, which of course he did).
Mead makes the point of Obama's culpability on this more cogently and eloquently.
And Snell's article at Harry's Place has many interesting comments.