Merkel Let in Refugees ‘to Avoid Border Clashes that Would Look Bad on TV’

Merkel let in refugees ‘to avoid border clashes that would look bad on TV,’

claims insider book

A new book by a political journalist says that German leader Angela Merkel was on the verge of closing the borders instead of welcoming refugees, but was persuaded not to out of fear that images of violence would make her government unpopular.

'Driven by Events: Merkel’s Refugee Policy' by Robin Alexander, a journalist with Die Welt, was published this week. It claims that as late as September 2015, the peak of the migrant influx into Europe, the German chancellor had still not formulated a policy.

According to excerpts from the book, quoted in the Sunday Times, the situation came to a head when officials warned that as many as 40,000 migrants moving from the Balkans could enter Bavaria in a single weekend.

In secret – the media was informed but told to avoid publishing the news – thousands of police were deployed at the Austrian border, ready to physically protect it from the newcomers. A special order had been prepared by the police, denying entry to those who had no visas.

But Chancellor Merkel was hesitant, and according to Alexander, used her Interior Minister, Thomas de Maziere, to ask the police the questions, “What happens if 500 refugees with children in their arms run toward the border guards? Can we live with the images that will come out of this?”

“For historical reasons, the chancellor feared images of armed German police confronting civilians on our borders,” Alexander writes.

Cultural suicide as penance for sin

It's not clear from this article whether 'historical reasons' is a reference to how future generations would look back on such a border confrontation, or if it refers to something far more profound. There is, I believe, still a feeling of guilt associated with Hitler and his atrocities that haunts German society. This grand gesture of humanity may have seemed like a way of expunging that guilt - cultural suicide as penance for sin.

Despite objections from the police commissioner that the force would act within the scope of the law, Merkel, also worried about the legal implications of a border ban, spiked the original document, and forced a redraft, saying that "third-country nationals with an asylum claim are to be permitted entry even without legally binding documents."

This meant that the police would be powerless to stop almost anyone wanting to enter the country, as long as they said they were a refugee.

© Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

In the end, the influx produced a positive media reaction, not least because of the publicity of the drowning of three-year-old Alan Kurdi earlier that month, and “Refugees are welcome!” banners appeared in most German urban centers.

© John Macdougall / AFP

Merkel rode the wave, visiting the newcomers and taking photos with them, and reiterating the “We can do it!” slogan, first used a fortnight earlier, when the Chancellor assured the electorate that Germany was capable of absorbing the influx.

“The selfies were not planned, the border opening was not planned. But then came a wave of incredible rapture in Germany — and she went with the public mood as ever. Merkel governs by the polls,” writes Alexander.

The border stayed open for another six months, though they had to be shut eventually, but the figures for 2015 showed that Germany had welcomed 1.1 million migrants – more than the rest of Europe put together.

“In the end, Merkel refused to assume responsibility, even as everything was in place to close the borders, so they remained open — without an explicit decision,” writes Alexander, who says in his book that Merkel’s generosity helped to create the “anxiety about migration” that contributed to the rise of right-wing Alternative for Germany, Brexit, and eventually, the election of Donald Trump.

That last statement seems like quite a reach when you first read it, but if you think about it, it is probably quite accurate. The effects of Merkel's actions, or perhaps, lack of action, has been profound throughout the western world and very little of it is positive. It simply could have been handled so much better.

To help Refugees, Stop Arming Terrorists – Rep. Tulsi Gabbard

US Representative Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii) © / RT

Representative Tulsi Gabbard called again for the US to stop aiding terrorists like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, while her guest at the presidential address to Congress, a Kurdish refugee activist, called for an end to the US policy of “regime change in Syria.”

While many Democrats invited immigrants as their guests for President Donald Trump’s speech to the joint session of Congress on Tuesday, Gabbard, a Democrat from Hawaii, hosted Tima Kurdi, whose 3-year-old nephew drowned on the shores of Turkey in September 2015. Photos of Alan Kurdi’s body quickly became the symbol of Syrian refugees’ plight – and led the US to step up efforts to overthrow the Syrian government, actually magnifying their suffering.

On Wednesday, Tima Kurdi joined Gabbard at a press conference on Capitol Hill and called on Trump “to end the regime change in Syria.”

“The most important question is, how do we address the cause of these people fleeing their homes,” said Gabbard, pointing to the bill she submitted in this session of Congress. Her “Stop Arming Terrorists Act,” or HR 608, would ban the use of US taxpayers’ funds to aid terrorist groups affiliated with Al-Qaeda or Islamic State.

“For years, our government has been providing both direct and indirect support to these armed militant groups, who are working directly with or under the command of terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS, all in their effort and fight to overthrow the Syrian government,” Gabbard told RT.

Gabbard traveled to Syria in January on a fact-finding mission, meeting with President Bashar Assad. She also visited Aleppo, liberated in December from Islamist rebels led by Jabhat Fatah Al-Sham, a re-branded Al-Qaeda affiliate formerly known as Jabhat Al-Nusra.

The Pentagon’s $500 million effort to train and equip “moderate” Syrian rebels to fight against IS and Damascus met with disaster in 2015, as the majority of the fighters either surrendered or defected to Al-Nusra, with all of their US-funded weaponry. In the end, the program produced only “five or six” trainees, to the consternation of Congress.

Of course, there were way more than 5 or 6 trainees, most of those who were trained and equipped ended up fighting the American supported groups. Another example of America providing weapons to both sides of a war.

With that fiasco in mind, Gabbard proposed the first draft of her bill in December 2016. Her subsequent trip to Syria was met with outrage from the US foreign policy establishment and in the mainstream media, who denounced her as “Assad’s mouthpiece.”

Of course, the US establishment likes war - it keeps the inventory of death moving.

Representative Tom Garrett (R-Virginia), a US Army veteran, spoke out in support of HR 608 and said that the goal of US policy in Syria should be peace.

Iconic photo of little Alan Kurdi changed everything

“Tulsi understands that arming the so-called ‘rebels’ in Syria has only led to more bloodshed, more suffering, and created more refugees,” Tima Kurdi said in a statement on Tuesday. “A military solution in Syria is not the answer. I hope that President Trump will stop arming terrorists and commit to a political solution in Syria—it is the only way to restore peace.”

Supporting this bill is so easily the 'right thing to do' but with Congress in the pockets of arms merchants, its likelihood of passing seems pretty remote.

video 5:40

Aylan Kurdi's Tragedy Just Got Worse

Alan Kurdi’s father worked with human smuggler and captained boat that capsized, survivor says

The Canadian Press

Zeinab Abbas, the mother of Haidar and Zainab, two Iraqi children who died during a trip from Turkey to Greece when a boat carrying illegal immigrants sank off Turkey earlier this month, mourns following the return of their bodies to Baghdad. EAHMAD AL-RUBAYE / AFP / Getty Images

The father of a three-year-old Syrian boy whose body washed up on a Turkish beach is denying allegations that he was the captain of the vessel that capsized killing at least 12 people, including his family.

An Iraqi couple who lost two of their three children in the tragedy have alleged that after the accident, Abdullah Kurdi begged them not to tell Turkish police that he was operating the boat.

Abdullah Kurdi stands in Alan's room on Sept. 6, 2015 in Kobane.

Zainab Abbas and Ahmad Hadi shared their story with reporters at Baghdad’s airport, where they arrived earlier this week carrying the small coffins of their dead children, aged 10 and 11.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the family had travelled to the Turkish coastal city of Bodrum from Iraq hoping to find smugglers who could take them into Europe.

They told the newspaper they almost changed their minds about the voyage when they looked at the 4.5-metre rubber boat, but a smuggler reassured them the vessel was safe. The smuggler also introduced them to Kurdi, who was described to them as the boat’s captain.

Kurdi’s wife and children would also be aboard, the smuggler told them. Which is a reasonable thing to say when you are trying to convince someone that they will be safe.

Only minutes after departing the coast, the boat began to take on water, the couple told the newspaper. One of Kurdi’s sons started to cry, distracting his father just before the boat smashed into a wave, they said.

Kurdi, who lost his two sons — Alan, 3, and five-year-old Ghalib — and his wife Rehanna in the tragedy, has maintained that he paid smugglers 4,000 euros for the deadly voyage.

Western media insist on calling him 'Alan' while eastern media have called him 'Aylan' from the beginning.

There is not much reason for Abbas and Hadi to make up a story like that unless they were jealous of the publicity Aylan was getting and their children were not. Still, it's an unlikely story to fabricate. If it is not true, it adds another layer of suffering on a man already grieving terribly. If it is true, and he is responsible for the drownings of several people including his own family, it becomes an even worse tragedy.

One can speculate that Abdullah negotiated a deal with the smugglers for a discount for captaining the boat. But, we may never know what really happened.

In a telephone interview with the Wall Street Journal from Syria, where he returned to bury his family, Kurdi disputed the Iraqi family’s account of events. He said the boat had a Turkish captain who jumped into the water and abandoned the vessel shortly after the engine stalled. This account seems pretty far-fetched.

“I lost my family, I lost my life, I lost everything, so let them say whatever they want,” he told the newspaper.

 Paramilitary police officer carries the lifeless body of Alan Kurdi, 3,
after he died trying to reach the Greek island of Kos AP Photo/DHAA

Kurdi’s brother-in-law, who lives in Coquitlam, B.C., with Kurdi’s sister, Tima, called the Iraqi family’s claims “simply untrue and made up.”

“My wife spoke to Abdullah earlier this morning and can’t understand why anyone would make up such a story,” Rocco Logozzo told The Canadian Press in an email.

“We certainly feel for the woman on the boat, who also lost her children. We hope people help her with her plight and help her leave Iraq. She and her family did not deserve this tragedy.”

Abdullah Kurdi has blamed the Canadian government for the tragedy, saying authorities had denied his application for asylum, although Citizenship and Immigration Canada has said they received no such application.

This simply looks disingenuous now.

Tima Kurdi has said that she only submitted an application for her other brother, Mohammed. She intended to sponsor him first, and subsequently to apply to sponsor Abdullah and his young family as well.

In the meantime, she said, she also sent Abdullah Kurdi money to pay for the perilous maritime journey from Turkey to Greece.

Although no official application was made for Abdullah, Tima Kurdi said his plight was brought to the attention of Immigration Minister Chris Alexander when her local NDP MP handed over a letter to him in the House of Commons earlier this year.

The photo of a drowned Alan — wearing a bright-red T-shirt and blue shorts — has put a heartbreaking human face to the humanitarian crisis, both globally and in Canada.