I think you are being a bit obtuse. Populations tend to be roughly 50:50 in terms of male/female. If you see a wave of refugees that are 90% male, then you have to wonder why are all the females left behind. Most societies do prioritise women and children.
If you get 1m "refugees" and 900k of them are men, then people will obviously question whether those 900k men are actually refugees fleeing a place of war. Nobody begrudges people fleeing an actual war. But they are entitled to be skeptical whether those individuals who claim to be fleeing a war are actually fleeing it. It would not be impossible for someone to hop into a boat and land in Europe and claim to be coming from somewhere they were never within 500 miles of.
The Syrians were fleeing a war. And I think Euope rightly took at least 1m of them. If you have a huge number of people with no documents landing and claiming to be fleeing persecution from some remote part of Africa that has been on the news as being taken over by militants, it is not unfair to treat the lack of evidence or documentation as being perhaps a little convenient.
No, reporter said they were armed civilians.
Big warning on this one (this is the aftermath of the Russian attack on a civilian car).
EDIT: I realised one error, when I said "foreign country" I was thinking of non-bordering countries.
If you flee a warzone then well done for getting out. If you're a man of fighting age and shape then you deserve very little respect barring very specific criteria. The lads on the boats across the channel weren't fleeing a warzone (France and Belgium for now are more or less at peace. Well aside from the Bataclan attack and the like that a few "refugees" also participated in.). If you're fleeing a warzone you flee to safety. If you then choose to travel to somewhere with better benefits then **** off.
Refugee status isn't meant to be a lifetime thing. The whole point is that it helps to deal with (and people to deal with) short term incredible hardship. We were under 0 obligation to take in "refugees" from "Syria" (there aren't enough inverted commas in the world for that sentence) until we agreed to do so. If Germany wants a million young lads with no papers to enter their country then bully for them.
In the case of Ukraine today, any young men aren't just fleeing, they're also breaking the laws of their own state and trying to evade the organs of that state. We shouldn't be prioritising lawbreakers.
And as I keep having to point out, I say this as the son of someone who left his home because his life was under imminent threat by state-adjacent actors. Did he travel across Europe? Did he camp in Calais? Did he illegally emigrate to America or Australia? No, he went as far as he needed to go for safety and stayed there.
There's far too much planning already happening for refugees, and it's not surprising since it's a for-profit industry now. We have no idea how long it's going to last, we have no idea of numbers (100k is a nonsense but get those estimates in early and high to guarantee some budget), and, I'm sorry for being a big right-winger right now, but 2 women each with a kid can share a 3 bedroom house for the medium term. This nonsense of giving anyone their own accommodation ad infinitum needs to end, and I'm not just talking about refugees. The industries which can profit have started turning their wheels and once some money is added it takes a long-ass time for it to slow down whether the services are needed or not.
If civilians take up arms they are considered combatants, according to the Geneva Convention. They're soldiers without a uniform and a fair target.
So handing out arms to civilians is a double-edged sword. Not that I would ever question the wisdom of Vlydymyr Zelenskyyyy!!
You're just dismissing the thought experiment as a 'ridiculous proposition' because you don't like what it tells you.
What if, perish the thought, Russia nukes Kyiv to end the war to avoid any more losses and claims they were just doing what the US did to Japan? Does the West step in then or what?
Ukraine Airspace Update:
Russian Air Force losses over Ukraine thought to be "unsustainable." 121 Russian aircraft are estimated to have been shot down, with 25 airframe losses independently verified as of March 7th.
It's no excuse and was never meant to be one. The part where I wrote 'scumbags' and 'bastards' should have made that clear. The Ukrainains are fielding civilians they've recently armed up to much joyful thanks on Twitter and the Russians are getting hammered on a few fronts so they're jumpy as fúck and hitting everything that comes into range and might be a threat. So it's not so unlike the middle east on that score.
At this stage my concern is for ordinary Ukranians!
Ah yes the Neville Chamblerlain approach. It didn't work in 1938 and it aint going to work in 2022 either.
You must have a damn great white flag or would you just hang the bedsheets out the window.
The threat would have been Georgia, Moldova, and the Baltic states to start reconstituting the USSR.
But that was depending on his blitzkrieg in Ukraine working.
Instead he has created his Stalingrad.
Nope, not McWilliams, one Mickey Gorbachev "even more than my launch of perestroika, Chernobyl was perhaps the real cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union five years later".
The fall of the USSR like the fall of Rome was the bastard child of many fathers including what you noted; the above's perestroika didn't as planned rejuvenate communism, but caused the whole system to be put under public scrutiny, and was found very wanting. The second hit was the price of oil in the 80's for which Russia then as now needed for hard currency dropped by over three quarters in a few years. The military spend was always to the fore regardless of background economics and their misadventure in Afghanistan bled the coffers dry even more and the army which had been against Gorby's reforms were increasingly sidelined. That war also caused internal protests in the various Stans that had more in common with Kabul than the Kremlin which added to breakaways there. Glasnost led to more news from the outside world getting in and more western liberalism and capitalism. When MaccyDees opened their first cafe in the early 90's the jig was up. Chernobyl and the massive costs and embarrassment and outside help nailed the inevitable.
Uh...these are the Russians that civilians need the weapons to defend against. Thanks for finding the supporting evidence.
The difference here is Canada and Mexico have deep economic integration mediated by things like NAFTA and the US for the most part leaves their democratic systems to play out as they see fit. The likelyhood of Mexico City or Ottowa jumping fulll on into bed with Beijing or Moscow is so negligible to be a ridiculous proposition. People underrate America's soft power when it comes to their relationships, and overstate the extent to which they use their military to get their way.*
Russia has sought to undermine, coerce and overthrow Ukrainian independence since 1991 and force it into a subservient relationship where it's national destiny is cut off from the rest of Europe against their will.
*I'll add an exception to the Middle East for this, where they have stepped in forcefully on several occasions to backstop the ascendancy and security of key oil producing allies (Saudi etc). But, any power active in the ME would find themselves pulled into a mess.
You suggested that if you are a man fleeing a warzone, that's a life choice (much like veganism or not wearing socks, perhaps?). I'd like you to address that point please.
Here's the quote, for your convenience: "And no foreign country should be obligated to facilitate that life choice."
What is your point here?
No excuse in my opinion. This isn't the Middle East where armies have to worry about militants with no army uniform using vehicles as suicide bombs. Quite obviously a civilian car.
You're asking me to explain a statement that you came up with. That's for you to explain.
I mentioned in earlier post that these were real refugee columns full of women, children and the old.
I got personal abusive message from one of the cheerleaders of the shytology where we had so called refugee column snaking it's way through Europe a number of years ago made up of something like 70% to 80% young men, the vast majority men on dinghies from Libya or the vast majority young fellows from the so called jungle in Calais.
The young men in Ukraine are staying to fight for their country, not legging it claiming to gullible fools they are kids needing to go to school.
And some of the ones that fell over themselves for the bogus refugees and asylum seekers are the very ones refusing to really screw Putin and get behind NATO/EU efforts.
Indeed, but I don't want to get my hopes up, many areas are flat open ground, not suitable for infantry (where Ua are strong), Ukrainians are losing valuable military vehicles and armor they can't afford to lose, the Russians will adapt their tactics accordingly, their cruise missile and rocket strikes are potent, if Russia get air superiority then it will become exponentially harder for Ua
Yes you are right, you can. Brexit is connected back to geopolitics of all of this, much as people who still find the idea attractive or just have an instinctive dislike of/distaste for the EU, and want to see it weakened or broken up and European integration set in reverse don't wish to admit that or look it in the eye. Anyway, sorry should probably leave my Brexit "hobbyhorse" for other threads.
An elderly couple trying to drive home. Bastards. TBH I actually doubt the glorifed kids in those tanks would have killed elderly people if they'd known, however it shows that a) the gloves are off for the invading Russian scumbags and b) they're now jumpy as fúck because they've been hit and hit hard so everything is a target. The problem adding to their long list of problems is that footage like that will steel the defenders to butcher every last man jack of them they can find. And steel their allies into continuing to aid them.
I'd suggest that they aren't the bulk of the refugees, but rather they are the refugees that got furthest. If you're a man or woman with a family, you will a) get priority and b) take the most conservative choice for getting any kind of 'home' outside of the warzone (e.g. a refugee camp). If you are a young woman you are also a much greater risk of sexual exploitation etc. and are also likely to take the first safe option. That's likely why we see unattached men get the furthest from the warzone.
Sickening. As is the aftermath video which I won't share on here. By the way, it was an elderly couple in that car.
I'm not sure what Brexit has to do with the refugee problem. One can support Brexit AND take in war refugees.
Of course young men can be refugees, I wouldn't expect them to make up the bulk though, I would expect them to stay and fight for their country and for the women and children to leave, basically what is happening in Ukraine. I know Quokkas throw their young at predators to escape, but it isn't a behavior we normally see in humans.
Wait, what?
Explain to me again how men cannot be refugees?
Fun fact: the USSR could make carbon nanotubes and supersonic passenger jets before they could make toilet paper.
It's land that very recently was theirs so they feel that gives them the right tbf (whether it does or doesn't is a bit subjective). I doubt that Russia would be the only one to react like this. Imagine if Russia were building up military operations and weapons in Canada and Mexico, and the US reaction to it. Or even closer to here, our reaction if UK started stockpiling military in NI. You'd have a right to feel a bit paranoid when your long standing enemy are circling your borders and building up militarily on it.
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