View across the Outer Harbour of Stornoway

Sunday 13 September 2015

Refugee crisis, Assad and Putin

I feel for those people from Syria, who see no way out of their situation but to flee their country. They flee president Assad, not ISIS. Who is bolstering Assad? Vladimir Putin. Next question. Tens, hundreds of thousands of people is an invasion. It is going to destabilise Europe, something by which Putin has to gain. By bolstering Assad, ostensibly against ISIS, Putin will gain brownie points. He may well help to obliterate ISIS, something we would all benefit from. It would also show him to be stronger than the USA, which cannot make a substantial impact against ISIS. Who, meanwhile, is facilitating the transport of those tens of thousands across the Mediterranean to Greece and Italy? People smugglers. It is time we addressed the root cause of the refugee crisis. Can we, if its root cause is being supported by a major player on the world stage?