"Haunting Image Of Drowned Boy Sums Up Consequences Of 'The Syrian War'"

snubbleste wrote: »

So after his family were refused legtimate passage to Canada. He skips the queue purely because of publicity and a media storm
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/syria-migrants-canada-drowned-migrants-1.3213772

Skips the queue? How? Regardless he declined. I would say he'd rather have his family. Now he has lost everything

Why are the US keeping so quiet? A large part of this problem is down to their foreign policy.

foggy_lad wrote: »

Where have they been when there were millions killed across Africa and even closer to home in Bosnia? There are thousands of children dying in china and India through neglect and poverty simply because they are the wrong "caste" and are seen as no more valuable than dogs on the street, where are the journalists reporting on this?

The person who took the photos of that poor little boy saw nothing more than the thousands of Euro they would make from the pictures and footage!

Again your post reminds me of Dougal

I remember harrowing images from Africa and Bosnia that spurred international support for the famines and genocide.

Something changed in me today. I had a newspaper thrust into my hand on my tea break, 'have you seen this?'

I would take a year off my life to be able to go back and not look at that haunting image. I have been walking around in a daze all day with a lump in my throat I have not felt since I was a young boy myself. It has returned to me throughout the day and I have been fighting back tears while trying to deal with customers, I could not get out of work fast enough to the sanctuary of my car. Sorry stuff for a man in his 30s.

'100 drowned in migrant tragedy!' '74 rotting corpses found in van,' 'more migrants drown as boat capsizes.' The headlines keep coming.

I have been aware of this going on and thought it was horrific but nothing prepared me for the brutal honesty of that picture I saw this morning, I keep picturing the nervous smile and the trusting eyes of a little boy getting into a dinghy with his family. Probably tired and hungry but excited at the adventure. Then the panic, the fear and that last desperate breath.

How small I feel today, how priviliged I am to not have these struggles. I despair at the world I live in and am ashamed of my lack of action but here I am, just another voice on the internet saying how I feel about this. Powerless to change the forces that have reduced the innocent to flotsam and jetsam.

I called out a co-worker today at lunch, the usual ignorant 'one less to come over here', 'all full of disease' etc, etc. I have been listening to his Islamophobia for years but today I had enough and told him that's enough. I won't stand idly listening to this ****e anymore. It is a small thing but if enough people do one small thing then big changes can happen.

ComfortKid wrote: »

And isn't it strange how we get this image sprawled accoss the papers and internet the very day Euro leaders are having a meeting about it? It's been going on for months now. There has been a few threads on boards about it already

It is an attempt to concentrate the minds. At least not like the sleazy journalists and editorials that want to make this into sensationalism. This if extremely serious and dangerous for the countries bordering the Mediterranean. The refugees will keep coming as long as places like Iraq continue to be breeding ground for sectarianism. An entire cities population fled Mosul, Baghdad is under threat from Islamist war lords and a genocidal army is fighting the gvt of Syria.

When the ISIS militants are effectively eliminated as a threat will the refugees begin to return to their homelands and the stream of refugees will begin to slow. Thus far the violence has remained over there and the extremists are having great success in the power vacuum but once a solid defence force is established they will melt away. These people are well trained and armed and are instilling fear and desperation into the local population.

ComfortKid wrote: »

So if Ireland is to take in a few thousand of these refugees, Where do we put them? We have a massive backlog in social housing, massive unemployment problem. Serious question, what do we do.

We had nearly double unemployment 5 years ago and we survived.

Taking in lets say 5 thousand isn't really gonna have too big an effect.

WakeUp wrote: »

perhaps so but a large portion of the Syrian people the sunnis in the main decided to rise up and start a civil war. the minorities the Christians and such they are hunkered down with Assad as they know if he falls well you can work that one out for yourself.

Seriously. Assad would be fine without western involvement in the Arab Spring.