Migrants crisis more than a humanitarian crisis... and again the US let Europe down

One minute of silence to open an emergency meeting of the European Council and the 28 EU leaders declared “war” on human traffickers. It was on Thursday April 23^rd, it was in Brussels.

Statistics have made headlines for days. So far, in 2015, 1800 boat people, migrants fleeing their impoverished and war-torn countries, from Africa, the Middle East or further away have died in the Mediterranean Sea dreaming of Europe.

Understanding what is at stake

Let’s leave apart the valued question of the doubtful validity and expected efficiency of the various measures announced yesterday in Brussels. We know for sure that few vessels patrolling the deep sea and even some bombing on the Libyan shores won’t solve this unprecedented crisis. And one legitimately wonders whether we are not facing the danger of getting the arguments completely wrong? I suspect we are but I understand that admitting the truth leads us, collectively, in scary, unknown territories…

On the Frontline

So we are at war. We are at war but not just any more against some mafias of human traffickers taking advantage of some poor souls heading north and west in hope of a better future. Migrants in 2015 are not just fleeing poverty and more and more among them escape the seemingly ever-extending tyranny imposed by Daesh and its accomplices.

We are at war, we have to name the enemies and address the threat as such. We are at war against Islamist radicalism, the Islamo-fascists, all those fighting, from Syria and Iraq to Nigeria, Mali and Libya, and to the streets of Paris, to destabilize the modern civilized world and impose their totalitarian dystopia of a global Caliphate.

Europe is challenged and weakened

Taking advantage of the perceived “European dream” still vigorous outside the Continent, human traffickers contribute to destabilize Europe and its democracies. The migrants crisis adds to the unprecedented pressures faced by national governments and the European Union to preserve social unity, economic welfare and political stability. One more challenge – and one to do with our sense of humanity – in a series of challenges to which we’ve been finding pretty hard to respond.

So Europe is to try to bring some solutions. But what is to be done to respond to the broader challenge that are the ongoing attacks on our way of life, on what symbolizes and implies our modern civilization?

A global response

The broader challenge is a global challenge and a global challenge requires a global response. Outside Europe, silence has been deafening over the course of the past few days. And before, the demonstrations of unity in the aftermath of January’s terror attacks in Paris seem to have been follow by no good concrete plans to fight the battle forced on us all.

Déjà vu

And on the international stage, Europe has special expectations from a “special” relationship. But where are the United States? Where is Barack Obama? Surely, US troops are leading the International coalition targeting Daesh at the core of its self-proclaimed Islamic State but it is not good enough. Not good enough as air bombing appears to be deeply insufficient to annihilate the threat and not good enough as the threat has been since spreading through a collection of franchised “companies”.

What about Libya ? What about the Mediterranean nightmare and the pressure on Europe? If the United States are to let a frontline Europe deal all these issues, they are just postponing the time when the gathering storms will reach their own shores. Déjà vu…