US air war on Islamic State creates 500% increase in Syrian refugees

According to this story at the Council on Foreign Relations website, there has been a five-fold increase in the number of refugees entering the EU from the Middle East compared to last year. Most of the refugees are Syrians.

So what is it these Syrians are fleeing? Assad's barrel bombs? Islamic State head-choppers? Or America's war on Islamic State in Syria?

What's changed in Syria in the past year? Assad's been dropping barrel bombs for four years. Islamic State has been lopping noggins for at least two. Why the sudden uptick in refugees?

The only significant change is that last August the US and a tiny consortium of half-hearted allies began bombing Syria. According to the US Department of Defense website, the US has bombed Syria about 2400 times since then. America's six coalition partners, Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi, UAE, Canada, and Australia, have added a further 120 air strikes between them.

My question is this; could adding seven or eight US/coalition air strikes per day lead to a 500% increase in refugees fleeing the hell hole that is Syria? Even allowing for the fact that a USAF Paveway 500 pounder or a Hellfire missile is likely to cause a lot more carnage than a "barrel bomb," this seems a bit of a stretch.

So what else could account for the exponential rise in the number of Syrian refugees?

Could it be possible that our erstwhile NATO ally Turkey has been quietly opening the gates of the refugee camps and encouraging their inhabitants to seek greener pastures in the EU?

"Go west, young man! Take your wives and children too!"

And why might the wily Erdogan pursue such a strategy?

Here's why.



Not that long ago Assad and Erdogan were pals. Then that odious "uprising" came outta the blue, and Erdogan allowed his NATO overlords to convince him that if he just stabbed Assad in the back, the Syrian regime would crumble, and Erdogan would be a hero, not to mention the man of the day among his NATO peers.

That was four and a half years ago. Erdogan did his part. He stabbed Assad in the back.

Since then, pretty much everything has gone wrong. Instead of being heralded as a hero, Erdogan is stuck with billions of dollars in expenses for the millions of Syrian refugees that his misguided adventure has created.

Flooding Europe with Syrian refugees is Erdogan's way of paying back his NATO betters who have hung him out to dry.

Harper claims Canada is number one for accepting refugees; CBC fact check reveals we're actually number forty-one

Check it out for yourself.

More and more often the mainstream finds itself in agreement with what the pot-addled think-tankers here at Falling Downs have been saying all along; Harper's Holy Rollers are a pack of lying weasels!

Canada: half a million temporary foreign workers but no room for refugees

Big Steve and his side-kick Citizenship and Immigration Minister Chris Alexander have seriously misread the Canadian street viz the European refugee crisis.

Seems most Canadians just want to help hurting refugees, especially those who find themselves in the headlines now, thanks to the tragic death of three year old Aylan Kurdi.

The Syrians.

Thanks to the photo of Aylan that went viral, Syrian refugees are the cause du jour.

Mr. Harper addressed the issue by re-announcing talking points that he has announced several times before; that Canada will accept up to 10,000 Syrian refugees over the next three years.

In the three years since he first made that promise, the number of Syrians who have actually arrived here has been negligible. In fact, government spokespersons get downright huffy when that question is posed.

It might be 2,000.

It might be 2.

We don't know because the Harper gang won't tell us.

This niggardliness with providing sanctuary to refugees is the worst performance by Canada since the refusal to accept Jews during WWll, documented in Irving Abella's book None is too many.

Since then, every Canadian government, Liberal and Conservative, has atoned for that by offering compassion and generosity to the world's huddled masses.

Hungarians arrived here in their tens of thousands after the 1956 uprising.

The "boat people" of Viet Nam also came in by the tens of thousands in the seventies.

Clearly Canada can accommodate and successfully integrate tens of thousands of refugees in a relatively short time.

The think tank here at Falling Downs has a draft plan pencilled up; we send home half a million temporary foreign workers at the end of their contracts, and replace them with refugee immigrants who are going to make a commitment to Canada.

Not just from Syria, but from Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya and Eritrea and Somalia.

Sounds like a win-win to me.