EU member states determined to prevent uncontrolled migration from Afghanistan

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European Union states are determined to prevent uncontrolled migration from Afghanistan following the takeover of the country by the Taliban, a draft statement prepared for a meeting on Tuesday [August 31] says. EU governments are eager to avoid a repeat of the chaotic influx of refugees and migrants in 2015 that caught the bloc unprepared and sowed divisions among them, fueling support for far-right parties as camps in Greece, Italy and elsewhere swelled. Writes Hugh Fitzgerald

The European Union has in the past year shown signs of coming to its senses when dealing with Muslims. It has, for example, refused since January to give any aid to the Palestinian Authority, despite the PA’s furious entreaties. The EU says there are “technical reasons” for what it describes as a “delay,” which it says will not be resolved before October, but the real reason seems to be that the EU is finally fed up with the PA It realizes that Ramallah can receive $350 million instantly – the tax money collected for it by Israel, and ready to be transferred to the PA –merely by ending its “Pay-For-Slay” program. That program provides large monthly subsidies to imprisoned terrorists and to the families of dead terrorists; it’s a way for the PA to reward past, and incentivize future, terrorists. If the PA is in such dire straits, the EU reasons, it can easily relieve its current condition by ending the morally intolerable “Pay-For-Slay” program. And only then ought the EU even to consider turning on the tap of aid.

The Palestinian claims of financial desperation ring hollow. Israel – while still holding back from transferring tax money it collects for the PA, up to the precise amount the PA spends on its Pay-For-Slay program – has now agreed to lend the PA $150 million, thus providing financial relief that undermines the PA’s tales of woe. In Gaza, an agreement has been reached among Qatar, Israel, and the PA, for the distribution of $10 million a month in Qatari aid to the 100,000 poorest families in the Strip.

And the EU, having been chastened by what the last half-dozen years of large-scale Muslim immigration has meant for the indigenous non-Muslims of Europe, who now lead lives that are more unpleasant, expensive, and physically dangerous than would be the case without that large Muslim presence, seems determined not to let in large numbers of Muslims from Afghanistan, as it did in 2015 when 1.5 million Muslims – only half of them Syrian refugees, with the rest economic migrants mainly from Iraq and Afghanistan – arrived, with one million of them settling in Germany, thanks to Chancellor Merkel, who to this day has failed to recognize her colossal folly.

It is disturbing that Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the UK has taken quite a different tack than the EU, of which his country is no longer a member. He has vowed to “move heaven and earth” to ensure that more Afghans can find refuge in the U.K. The figure he mentioned in mid-August is 20,000. If anything, he’s likely to raise that number. Let’s hope he reconsiders his intention, as the terrific cost of benefits for these “refugees” – for housing, education, medical care – is made clear, to him, and as the task of vetting them, to make sure no Taliban sympathizers or of other Jihadi groups, manage to slip into the country, is shown to be nearly impossible. Finally, he must ignore those idiotic charges of “Islamophobia” and recognize that Muslim immigrants have already endangered the safety and wellbeing of the Infidels among whom they have settled.

A report on the E.U.’s determined resolve to severely limit the numbers of Afghans allowed into its member states is here: “EU to Seek to Stop Mass Afghanistan Migration Flows, Draft Statement Says,” Algemeiner, August 30, 2021:

European Union states are determined to prevent uncontrolled migration from Afghanistan following the takeover of the country by the Taliban, a draft statement prepared for a meeting on Tuesday [August 31] says.

EU governments are eager to avoid a repeat of the chaotic influx of refugees and migrants in 2015 that caught the bloc unprepared and sowed divisions among them, fueling support for far-right parties as camps in Greece, Italy and elsewhere swelled.

The point that ought to have been stressed is not that the huge influx of Muslim so-called refugees (really, economic migrants) in 2015 “fueled support for far-right parties,” but that their presence proved colossally expensive for taxpayers, because the generous welfare societies of Europe provided these economic migrants, as the migrants knew they would, with free or greatly subsidized housing, free education, free medical care, family allowances, and more. While local languages could be taught — at great expense — to these migrants, there remained between them and the Infidels among whom they had settled a cultural abyss that could not be bridged.

And as Muslims, these migrants were largely unable, and unwilling, to integrate into an advanced Western society created by non-Muslims. They had been taught that they, the Muslims, are the “best of peoples,” and ought to always and everywhere be on top, while the indigenous Infidels, whom the Qur’an describes as the “most vile of created beings,” ought to have been properly submissive. The hierarchy in the Western world was for Muslims upside down, and many Muslims could not accept their reduced status. They knew, of course, that all the benefits they received were a kind of proleptic Jizyah, but that has not been enough to assuage their resentment of the Infidels who provided it.

Based on lessons learned, the EU and its member states stand determined to act jointly to prevent the recurrence of uncontrolled large-scale illegal migration movements faced in the past, by preparing a coordinated and orderly response,” interior ministers will say at the meeting, according to the draft statement seen by Reuters.

The position emerged as the UN refugee agency UNHCR warned that up to half a million Afghans could flee their homeland by the end of the year.

Thousands of Afghans have been evacuated in a massive airlift mounted by Western forces following the Taliban’s seizure of the capital Kabul on Aug.15. But as the operation winds down, many have been left behind to an uncertain fate under the rule of the hardline Islamist group.

More than 100,000 Afghans had been airlifted to safety by the end of August. They all claim to have “worked for the Americans and the British,” and, as a result, they are in grave danger from the Taliban, and therefore, they deserve to be given refuge in the U.S. and the U.K. But that last demand does not necessarily follow. They have been rescued from the Taliban, but that is the extent of what they are owed. They should be resettled among those who are most like them, those who share the same faith, that determines so much of a Muslim’s life and views, and if possible, those who share the same ethnicity. There is space for them in many Muslim countries close by, in Pakistan, in Turkey, and especially, in the Five Stans of Central Asia just to the north of Afghanistan – Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, whose peoples are religiously and ethnically so close to the Afghans. That is where the Afghans can best fit in, that is where they most sensibly belong. They should be sent to settle among people like themselves, in Bishkek, not Boston; Almaty, not Alabama; Dushanbe, not Delaware; Tashkent, not Tennessee. True, the Afghans won’t be provided in the Five Stans of Central Asian all the benefits they could receive in Europe and North America, but that should never have been their expectation. They have been rescued from the Taliban. They can now be safely resettled in moderate and stable Muslim countries in Central Asia. That is enough.

The UNHCR appealed for support on Monday, saying “a larger crisis is just beginning” for Afghanistan’s 39 million people.

Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, reiterated a call for borders to remain open and for more countries to share responsibility with Iran and Pakistan, which already host 2.2 million Afghans.

Why should the “borders remain open,” which might result in many millions of Afghan economic migrants will be swarming into neighboring countries as they try to make it to Europe? Does Filippo Grandi believe that Europe owes it to Afghan Muslims who manage to leave their country to take them in?

Why? Does he not realize what the Muslim presence in Europe has already done to unsettle their societies?

The point that must constantly be made is that these hundreds of thousands, or even several million, of potential Afghan refugees/economic migrants, cannot be expected to fit into European countries with ease, for they will both experience, and create for themselves, tremendous problems. Nor should non-Muslims be expected to take them in, after having endured the great economic costs, social disruption, and physical danger that Muslims in Europe have already caused, and will continue to cause, in every non-Muslim country where they have settled, in numbers sufficient — above 3% of the total population seems to be the tipping point – to affect the quality of life.

The airlifts out of Kabul will end in a matter of days, and the tragedy that has unfolded will no longer be as visible. But it will still be a daily reality for millions of Afghans. We must not turn away,” Grandi said in a statement.

The airlifts have now ended. No one is demanding that the West “turn away” from those who did indeed work for the Western militaries. In fact, for those Afghans who worked for the American and British military, and remain stranded in Afghanistan, diplomatic efforts should continue to persuade the Taliban to let them leave Afghanistan. Helping them escape from the Taliban’s retribution, however, does not mean we need take them in ourselves. Let’s recognize the tremendous difficulty Western governments have in vetting Muslim migrants to make sure there are no Jihadis among them. The danger of Taliban members, and other Jihadis (Al-Qaeda, ISIS) slipping undetected into the West amid the more than 100,000 Afghan refugees that have already left their country is very great. We have no good way to detect Muslim masters of deceit, and it is unacceptable to expect our own peoples in the West to live with such danger that is entirely avoidable. All we need do is to safely resettle those Afghans we have rescued in Muslim states that are deemed secure, and moderate in their version of Islam.

At Tuesday’s emergency meeting in Brussels, the EU ministers will also reiterate the bloc’s promise to give more money for Afghanistan as well as surrounding countries, although delivering aid had become more complicated since the Taliban took control, EU officials said.

The EU should also strengthen the support to the countries in Afghanistan’s immediate neighborhood to ensure that those in need receive adequate protection primarily in the region,” the ministers will say, according to the draft statement.

Instead of giving money to Afghanistan – which means giving money to the Taliban, a virulently anti-Western Jihadi group – EU aid money should instead be given to the Five Stans (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan) of Central Asia, all of them ruled by moderate – even “secular” – Muslim regimes, to help persuade them to take in large numbers of Afghan refugees.

Although Turkey helped contain the 2015 crisis with EU funding by taking in millions of Syrians fleeing, Ankara is less willing to receive many Afghans as the COVID-19 pandemic and an economic slump strain social and security services.

Turkey can, however, be offered EU money in sufficient amounts to help change Erdogan’s mind. It will be far less expensive for the West to help pay for Afghans to be resettled in Muslim lands, better both for us and, while they may not realize it, given their keen awareness of all the economic benefits that Western governments can supply, better for them to be living among those who, religiously and culturally, are their nearest kith and kin. There is a limit to the amount Erdogan should be offered; if his demands become outrageous, Turkey should be promptly dropped from consideration, and all efforts at financial persuasion should be focused on the Five Stans.

The ministers will also pledge to stop new security threats from Afghanistan for EU citizens, the draft said. It did not contain specific details of new measures.

It’s easy for those EU ministers to pledge that they will “stop new security threats” — but hard, indeed almost impossible, to enforce that pledge. Just how well can we expect EU security officials to detect the Jihadis among the Afghan migrants who will insist, with real or feigned sincerity, on all that they did for the Americans and their allies? Even those who worked for the Western militaries are not necessarily to be trusted; one German officer who worked with the Afghan interpreters has said that in his view they were in it only for the money and that, despite their outward friendliness, “they despise us.” In any case, rescue is one thing, refuge quite another. We can rescue the Afghans who helped us (or claim they did), but after that, we need only help them find suitable refuge in Muslim lands, not offer it ourselves.

The International Rescue Committee, meanwhile, said the EU should create a new scheme to resettle at least 30,000 Afghans from the region in the next 12 months. The charity estimated there were already 2.6 million Afghan refugees, mainly hosted by Iran and Pakistan.

The IRC has now said that the EU should settle 30,000 more Afghans – beyond the tens of thousands already in the EU member states. It’s curious that the IRC has said nothing about the Central Asian states taking in Afghan migrants. Why not?

The EU must uphold the right to seek asylum for people fleeing Afghanistan,” the IRC said in a statement. Caritas Europa also called on the EU not to abandon Afghans.

The IRC diktat to the EU should be ignored. There is no inalienable “right” to be granted “asylum” in any particular country; many of the Afghans, in any case, are better understood as economic migrants, who want to live only in the rich and generous West, rather than as “asylum seekers,” who are satisfied with being rescued from the vindictive Taliban and grateful to be settled anywhere that is deemed safe. And there are good reasons – just look at Europe today, unsettled by tens of millions of adherents of Islam in its midst  — why the members of the EU should no longer admit any Muslim migrants, whether from Afghanistan or anywhere else. The EU will have fully discharged its responsibility by helping Afghans escape the Taliban, and then finding them suitable Muslim states in which they can live. It makes eminent good sense to resettle migrant Muslims among other Muslims. Pakistan could take in tens of thousands of Afghans; given that it helped create the Taliban, it has a moral duty to do so.. Saudi Arabia (which needs foreign workers) might also take in some, and so could, albeit in lesser numbers, the U.A.E. and Kuwait. But as I have repeatedly insisted, it makes the most sense for Afghan migrants to be resettled in Central Asia, in moderate Muslim states – the Five Stans – whose governments are able to detect, and suppress, Jihadis better than we, the trusting Infidels, are able. It is to be hoped that before too many more of these Afghans are brought into our Western countries, the Five-Stan solution can be examined, approved, and put into effect.

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