The Mega "MIGRANT THREAT TO EUROPE" thread

[Jarnhamar]

I asked whether Sweden was considered the rape capital of the west or not and Bucky launched into a defensive tirade about conservative media &  fear-mongering  etc.. I'm pretty confident there is an agenda afoot here.

 

[Bucky]

I asked whether Sweden was considered the rape capital of the west or not and Bucky launched into a defensive tirade about conservative media &  fear-mongering  etc.. I'm pretty confident there is an agenda afoot here.

No agenda here, friend. I merely answered your (completely agenda-free) question, provided a few links to relevant news articles, and took a moment to reflect on why you might ask such a (completely agenda-free) question.

Look, I'm not here to make any enemies, really. I just can't help but notice a distinct trend towards uninformed opinions, or worse; opinions that were formed based on misinformation. The state of journalism today aside, it's far too common to see people parroting opinion pieces and anecdotal evidence obtained through social media as "real" news.

I'll leave you with this, since it might answer the question that you originally asked: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_Sweden

Cheers.

 

[George Wallace]

No agenda here, friend. I merely answered your (completely agenda-free) question, provided a few links to relevant news articles, and took a moment to reflect on why you might ask such a (completely agenda-free) question.

Look, I'm not here to make any enemies, really. I just can't help but notice a distinct trend towards uninformed opinions, or worse; opinions that were formed based on misinformation. The state of journalism today aside, it's far too common to see people parroting opinion pieces and anecdotal evidence obtained through social media as "real" news.

Then perhaps you should not rely only on one sole source for your validation.

 

[a_majoor]

Military historian Max Hastings makes some rather apocalyptic predictions.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3499652/Could-lead-war-Europe-Apocalyptic-yes-conflict-avoided-MAX-HASTINGS-says-unchecked-mass-migration-make-Europe-unrecognisable.html

Could this lead to WAR in Europe? Apocalyptic, yes. But even if conflict can be avoided, MAX HASTINGS says unchecked mass migration will make Europe unrecognisable
Predictions claim the seismic turbulence in the Middle East will continue
Washington think-tank claims an army of 450,000 men needed to stop it
Unprecedented stress of migration in Europe could lead to outright war
See more on the migration crisis at www.dailymail.co.uk/migrantcrisis
By MAX HASTINGS FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 23:49 GMT, 18 March 2016 | UPDATED: 16:51 GMT, 19 March 2016

Last week in Washington, I met an old friend who is one of the smartest strategy wonks I know. His business is crystal ball-gazing.
During our conversation, he offered some speculations about what could happen to our world over the next decade or two which made my hair stand on end.

He predicts that the seismic turbulence in the Middle East will continue, and indeed worsen, unless or until the West is willing to commit stabilisation forces to the region. He calculates that an army of the order of magnitude of 450,000 men would be necessary, to have any chance of success.

In the absence of such an effort — for which he admits the political will does not exist on either side of the Atlantic, and is unlikely to do so in the future — he believes that the tidal wave of migration to Europe from the Middle East and Africa will continue, with consequences much greater and graver than any national leader has yet acknowledged.

He suggested that war within our continent is not impossible before the middle of the century, as southern European nations are swamped by incomers, and Greece stands first in line to become a failed state.

We can defer for a moment the question of whether my friend’s most frightening scenarios are likely to be fulfilled.

What was sobering about our conversation is that here was an uncommonly well-informed man who believes that the earthquakes shaking the Middle East, together with the scale of economic migration from Africa, could undo all our comfortable assumptions about the stability of the society in which we live, including our confidence that Europe has turned its back on war for ever.

The most obvious lesson of history is that events and threats always take us by surprise.

Consider the shocks we have experienced in modern times. Almost nobody expected the Irish Troubles; the Argentine invasion of the Falklands; the collapse of the Soviet Union; the dramatic rise of Muslim extremism; the 9/11 attacks in New York and 7/7 bombings in London; the global banking disaster of 2007-8; the break up of the Middle East that began with the 2003 Iraq invasion.

I never cease to be amazed by the continuing willingness of institutions all over the world to pay fat fees for speeches from the American academic Francis Fukuyama, who in 1992 published a ridiculous best-seller entitled The End Of History, which proclaimed that liberal democracy and free-market capitalism were now triumphant and unassailable, having shown their superiority to all alternatives.

Everything that has happened since shows that Fukuyama was as wrong as could be. Across large swathes of the globe, authoritarian regimes flourish like the green bay tree. Democracy has never looked rockier, even in the United States.

My think-tank friend in Washington observed last week: ‘Democracy only works where there is a broad consensus about the distribution of wealth and power.’ And it is because this consensus faces unprecedented stresses in consequence of migration in Europe, that he believes some factions may resort to violence, even outright war.

It seems foolish to dismiss this warning out of hand. The threat posed by mass population movement is huge and intractable, and it is hard to have much faith in the deal struck yesterday between the EU and Turkey which seeks to halt the huge numbers reaching the shores of Greece.

What it will actually mean is that 77 million Turks will have the right to travel all the way to Calais unhindered should they so wish.
Tens of millions of people in Africa, too, aspire to move to Europe in search of a better life, and huge numbers are already crossing the Mediterranean via Libya, Algeria and Tunisia.

The entire Middle East is in a ferment, and it is impossible to see any reason why peace should be restored any time soon. This week, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia’s forces are beginning to withdraw from Syria, where their aircraft have been conducting a murderous bombing campaign against rebels fighting the Kremlin’s client, President Bashir Assad.

Western governments are pondering the implications of this surprise move. British analysts think Putin judges that his air strikes have put Assad in a position to negotiate from relative strength. Yet whether he stays in power or goes, it is hard to believe that Syria will again function as a single state.

Most likely it will fragment as Libya has fragmented, with rival factions continuing to contest territory. There are no ‘good guys’ in Syria, which makes it hard to anticipate an end to the violence which has driven millions to quit their homes.

There are signs that the Kurds and Iraqis are making headway in the struggle against Islamic State which, sooner or later, will probably collapse. Yet such is the fervour of Muslim extremism across the region that some successor movement is sure to arise, with terrorist branches making mayhem in the West.

Meanwhile, the Saudis and Iranians are fiercely fighting each other through proxy forces in Yemen, while Turkey’s stability is under threat from millions of Syrian refugees on its soil, from Kurdish separatist violence, and from the erratic governance of its own despotic leader, President Erdogan.

Arguably the most sinister symptom of this vast region’s troubles is the flight of money.

I attended a bankers’ meeting this week at which much of the gossip was about the desperate flight of the rich, together with their money, from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and in lesser degree the UAE. Many of those able to liquidate assets and move them to Europe or America are doing so. They fear for the stability of local regimes, and also anticipate more inter-state wars.

Strife will continue, and spread across the Middle East. There is no single, over-arching course of action open to the U.S. or Nato governments that can resolve this alarming state of affairs. It can only be addressed piecemeal, through local diplomatic initiatives and modest military assistance.

For instance, though the West cannot promise the Kurds the independent state they crave in northern Iraq, it can at least provide them with sufficient military aid to resist ISIS, while at the same time seeking to persuade the Turks to stop bombing Kurdish forces.
For their part, the U.S. and European governments are doing their best to avert a military showdown between Iran and Saudi Arabia. They must also face up to the need to bargain with Russia for a dirty deal that will at least curb the violence in Syria, and drive back the forces of ISIS, even if the odious Assad continues for a time to crow on his dunghill.

None of this amounts to a ‘solution’, which does not exist, but it may at least help to contain the chain of crises.
We should recognise that the old state borders of most of the embattled countries, notably including Iraq and Libya, are almost certainly defunct. They will fragment into statelets dominated by the local tribe or warlord.

Moreover, it is hard to see any course of action that can stem the flow of migrants to the West, the foremost concern for most of the people who inhabit our continent. Only a proportion of the incomers are fleeing from the immediate consequences of violence. A far larger number, according to every survey conducted in Europe, come from places where there is no war. They simply seek better lives.

The physical difficulties of preventing them from coming are immense. When they are plucked from sinking boats in the Mediterranean, human rights law and the cynical attitude of North African governments make it almost impossible to return them to their ports of embarkation.

The people on these odysseys are driven by motivations and passions more intense than most of us can imagine. They see our societies offering a wealth and security unimaginable in their homelands. They embrace the most desperate dangers to reach our shores.
At present, the governments of Europe have no credible and coherent policies for checking or halting the flood, beyond creating some frail fences on the Eastern margins.

Mass migration now poses the gravest threat to Europe’s stability and tranquillity since the end of the Cold War, and arguably since 1945.
Unless it is checked, over the coming decades it promises to change the character and make-up of all our societies on a scale to make past immigration seem trivial.

One policy to which David Cameron’s government is rightly committed is to work to ameliorate the conditions of refugees and economic migrants in their own countries, or at least nearby. Britain is a generous donor to the UN’s international refugee programmes.
It would be naïve to imagine that aid alone can stem the migration tide, but it can help.

Those of us bitterly critical of Cameron’s insistence on ring-fencing the foreign aid budget might feel better if our money was directed squarely and explicitly to countries from which the principal refugee flow is coming, both in Africa and the Middle East.
Of course, the West cannot aspire to enable Nigerians, Ethiopians or Afghans to enjoy the standard of living that exists in west London. But we must do everything in our power to diminish the incentives for migration. Fences and border controls at Calais will not suffice.
None of the answers is easy. This crisis can only grow in the months and years ahead. Leaving the EU may well help Britain to control its borders, but will not alone solve this historic problem.
The principal charge against Europe’s leaders today is that none of them, including David Cameron, has begun to come clean with us about the enormity of the challenge.
Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared a towering figure until August, when she made her disastrous unilateral commitment to open her country’s doors.

Those of us bitterly critical of Cameron’s insistence on ring-fencing the foreign aid budget might feel better if our money was directed squarely and explicitly to countries from which the principal refugee flow is coming, both in Africa and the Middle East.

Of course, the West cannot aspire to enable Nigerians, Ethiopians or Afghans to enjoy the standard of living that exists in west London. But we must do everything in our power to diminish the incentives for migration. Fences and border controls at Calais will not suffice.
None of the answers is easy. This crisis can only grow in the months and years ahead. Leaving the EU may well help Britain to control its borders, but will not alone solve this historic problem.

The principal charge against Europe’s leaders today is that none of them, including David Cameron, has begun to come clean with us about the enormity of the challenge.

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel appeared a towering figure until August, when she made her disastrous unilateral commitment to open her country’s doors.

Today some EU members, especially in the east, are striving to reverse the consequences of this policy, and to stem the flow. They are achieving only limited success: it is frightening to behold the numbers of newcomers pouring into Greece and Italy.

I have no doubt that after reading all this, a spokesman for the compassion industry would demand: where is your human sympathy for the millions suffering terribly in their own societies? Fair enough. My words sound harsh. But I would in turn ask that spokesman: where should human sympathy stop?

We are witnessing the beginning — and it is only the beginning — of a game-changing shift of populations, which if it continues unchecked will over the next half-century change all our societies for ever.

Maybe our children’s generation will be content to live with such a transformation. Maybe we can avoid the wars my friend in Washington fears. But our politicians should at least be telling the nation just how profound the coming upheaval threatens to be.

The political establishment is still in denial about the scale and scope of the resources needed to deal with these issues. A stability force of almost a half million men under arms is not going to be a half million blue berets; many of the actors in the ME are armed with top of the line Russian ATGM's, most armies and militias can access large stocks of tanks and AFV's (even old Soviet era T-55's can cause a lot of problems if you are not prepared to deal with them) and of course many regimes have been experimenting with making WMD since the 1980's, so the deployment of chemical and nuclear weapons should be no surprise (and if they don't have them now, they can probably buy crude ones from Pakistan and the DPRK if the money and conditions are right).

And if we don't get in gear and deal with the problem over there, there are plenty of ways for the problem to spill over here as well.

We will live in interesting times.....

 

[Jarnhamar]

No agenda here, friend. I merely answered your (completely agenda-free) question, provided a few links to relevant news articles, and took a moment to reflect on why you might ask such a (completely agenda-free) question.

No agenda here, just vigilance 

Europe is a mess, I don't want to see that happen to Canada. 
I've already read the caveat about rape statistics in Sweden. For example if a man rapes his wife 300 times in a year then in Sweden that counts as 300 cases of rape. Honestly why wouldn't it? If you were raped 300 times by someone I doubt you would just count it as one instance of rape, right?

In recent years, several revisions to the definition of rape have been made in Swedish law, to now not only include intercourse, but comparable sexual acts initiated against someone passive—incapable of giving consent—because they are in a vulnerable situation, such as a state of fear or unconsciousness.

Seems like another no brainier to me, why wouldn't having sex with an unconscious person be rape? Good on Sweden for that.

But I know you're implying those are some of the reasons rape statistics in Sweden seems so high. So lets say that's the reason rape statistics in Sweden are so high and for the sake of argument lets say Sweden actually has a lower than average number of rapes per capita than other surrounding countries.

Stats show a disproportionate number of rapes are committed by foreigners in Sweden. There's stats indicating there is between a 5.3 and 5.5 times higher chance that a rape will be committed by someone foreign born than born from two Swedish parents.  Of course you can't forget the issue of Swedish police trying to cover up cases of sexual harassment and assault by immigrants. Why is that I wonder?

Sweden has a rape problem Bucky and a disproportionate number of those problems are caused by foreigners.

Look, I'm not here to make any enemies, really. I just can't help but notice a distinct trend towards uninformed opinions, or worse; opinions that were formed based on misinformation. The state of journalism today aside, it's far too common to see people parroting opinion pieces and anecdotal evidence obtained through social media as "real" news.

Didn't assume you were looking to make enemies, it's not like you drew an offensive cartoon or something murder-worthy like that  I pulled my stats from the same sources as you.

 

[George Wallace]

Sweden does have some serious problems, and those problems are not restricted to Sweden and are not new.  Migrants have been moving into Europe for several decades and often are impoverished and resort to crime to survive.  Here is a video of a News crew interviewing migrants in Sweden:

https://www.facebook.com/ILuvFreedom/videos/1668866083364453/

or this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42jpuXJPk0w

 

[a_majoor]

A multitude of pressures will come bubbling to the surface sooner rather than later:

http://pjmedia.com/instapundit/229840

INDEED: Belgium attacks renew focus on Europe’s Muslim enclaves.

UPDATE: Europe Is Again at War: It’s time to admit the extent of Europe’s problem with Islamic radicalism. This isn’t mere terrorism any longer, this is guerrilla war.

Belgian intelligence has long been short of funds and personnel and above all any political will to do anything substantive about the country’s vast jihadist problem. Belgium’s chronically dysfunctional politics have played a toxic role, as has the general Western European tendency to avert eyes and hope for the best regarding the growing radicalism of whole swathes of young people in the Muslim ghettos that exist in most of their cities now.

As I’ve explained before, there is no intelligence solution to this problem. Although more funds and better information sharing will surely help prevent some terrorism—and especially catch terrorists after they kill innocents—the threat is now so great, with Europe possessing thousands of homegrown radicals bent on murder, that mere spying cannot prevent all attacks “left of boom” as the professionals put it.

Maintaining 24/7 human and technical surveillance on just one target requires something like two dozen operatives, and even the larger European security services can effectively watch only a few handfuls of would-be terrorists at one time. Even then, mistakes will be made. To say nothing of the alarming progress made by Europe’s jihadists recently in communications security—this was a big reason why November’s Paris attackers were not stopped in time—that is blunting the effective Western counterterrorism methods that have been honed since 9/11. The depressing bottom line is that even the best intelligence cannot compensate for political failings on an epic scale.

Simply put, Europe has imported a major threat into its countries, one that did not exist a couple generations ago. It can be endlessly debated why this problem has grown so serious so quickly—for instance, how much is due to Europe’s failures at assimilation of immigrants versus the innate aggression of some of those immigrants (and their children)?—but that the threat is large and growing can no longer be denied by the sentient.


Just a couple of years ago, people who said this were alarmists, and probably racists, too.

Plus:



We should expect more guerrilla-like attacks like Brussels yesterday: moderate in scale, relatively easy to plan and execute against soft targets, and utterly terrifying to the public. At some point, angry Europeans, fed up with their supine political class, will begin to strike back, and that’s when the really terrifying scenarios come into play. European security services worry deeply about the next Anders Breivik targeting not fellow Europeans, but Muslim migrants. . . .

When that violence comes, a practically disarmed Europe will be all but powerless to stop it. To take the case of Belgium, at the Cold War’s end a generation ago, its army had seven brigades with 18 infantry battalions, plus some 30 more battalions in the reserve. Today, Belgium’s army has only two brigades and six infantry battalions, some 3,000 bayonets in all. That tiny force would have trouble exerting control over even one bumptious Brussels neighborhood in the event of serious crisis.

Back in 2012, Switzerland conducted military exercises premised on conditions in Europe getting out of control, between migration, radicalism and economic decline. They repeated those exercises the following year, and since then the Swiss, who have a knack for preparing for all contingencies, have warned that Europe’s burgeoning interlinked crises may result in major war. Such warnings were pooh-poohed by EU bien-pensants at the time; now they seem prescient.

Funny how so many things that were pooh-poohed by EU bien-pensants now seem prescient.

And: “It’s difficult to miss that Central Europe, whose illiberal leaders have been castigated by Brussels for their unwillingness to accept Muslim migrants, singularly lack the terrorism and radicalism problems of their EU neighbors to the West. Their standing fast on the migration issue seems wise now.”

MORE: Belgian security official named “Mohamed N.”: Kill Each And Every Jew.““The word Jew itself is dirty. If I were in Israel, frankly, I would do to the Jews what they do with the Palestinians — slaughter each and every one of them.”

Actually, the Jews haven’t done that with the Palestinians. If they wanted to, they would have done it and succeeded.

 

[Jarnhamar]

Maybe Belgium should have spent more money on security instead of phone booths.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjAtRjFgmF8

 

[Jarnhamar]

A woman in Greece stopped by some refugee's to apparently donate food and supplies. For her efforts she was swarmed and robbed (reminds me of wadi kids).  The refugee in red at 13 seconds in seems surprised that the woman didn't want the refugee taking her bag.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_AyaIv7xe4

 

[Jed]

A woman in Greece stopped by some refugee's to apparently donate food and supplies. For her efforts she was swarmed and robbed (reminds me of wadi kids).  The refugee in red at 13 seconds in seems surprised that the woman didn't want the refugee taking her bag.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_AyaIv7xe4

Ha ha. I experienced that first hand a few years back. One needs to be vigilant.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I always looked for the big kids that seemed to have sway over the others. An extra portion of whatever I was giving out normally sufficed to keep the others in an orderly lineup.

 

[a_majoor]

Looks like Chris Pook for the win:

http://observer.com/2016/04/how-the-kremlin-manipulates-europes-refugee-crisis/

How the Kremlin Manipulates Europe’s Refugee Crisis
Russian intelligence is detectable in the huge migration wave hitting Europe. What does this mean for Western security?
By John R. Schindler • 04/06/16 9:30am

None can now deny that the refugee crisis that descended on Europe over the last year has changed the continent’s political landscape. The arrival of millions of migrants, mainly from the Middle East and Africa, with the encouragement of some European leaders, has birthed a political earthquake that promises to reshape Europe’s politics in important ways.

Even Europeans who initially supported the efforts of Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor and the most powerful politician in the European Union, to welcome millions of refugees have begun to express public doubts about this enterprise. This week, Austria’s foreign minister, whose country only months ago was welcoming tens of thousands of migrants, expressed Vienna’s position concisely: “The concept of no borders is not going to work.”

This statement has profound implications for an EU that has already begun to recreate national border checks, which disappeared in most of the European Union with the birth of the Schengen Area two decades ago. In order to stem the burgeoning migrant tide, border security is reemerging inside the EU. The prospect of millions more migrants attempting to enter the EU through the Balkans this spring fills politicians and security officials all over Europe with dread.

Meanwhile, Europeans who were skeptical of Ms. Merkel’s opening the floodgates to millions of migrants are indulging in told-you-so’s on a grand scale. Major political controversy has followed, abetted by migrant crime and the reality that absorbing large numbers of newcomers—many of them unskilled and illiterate even in their own languages—will be much more time-consuming and costly than European publics were told just last year.

To say nothing of the reality that most of the migrants are Muslims, whose values mesh poorly with the largely secular, postmodern EU, while some of them are convinced radicals. In the aftermath of jihadist terrorist atrocities like last November’s Paris attacks and the slaughter in Brussels last month, many Europeans feel that letting in even one more terrorist is one too many. Average citizens in EU countries care about security now, even if much of their political class has been slow to realize this.

Some politicos are making the most of this new threat, however, and few of them come from mainstream parties. In France, the far-right National Front (FN) is surging in polls thanks to its tough line on migrants and terrorism, while even in Germany, where the far-right has been politically beyond the pale since 1945, anti-immigrant parties are rising fast. Particularly important has been the breakthrough of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) in recent state-level elections. They can no longer be considered a fringe movement, and they are making a serious effort at stealing votes from the ruling center-right coalition in Berlin, many of whose voters are disgusted by Ms. Merkel’s permissive and expensive refugee policies.

Not content with the actual level of crime among migrants, Russian media outlets have taken to inventing more of it.

A new era of right-wing politics has emerged in much of the EU over the last year, carried on the back of the refugee crisis. Tendencies toward nationalism and xenophobia, building for years over frustrations with micromanagement by Brussels, have exploded in the open and seem unlikely to dissipate anytime soon. This means European politics will be focused on the significant cultural, economic and security impacts of the migrant wave for years to come.

Cui bono? is a key question that’s been asked by more than few Europe-watchers in recent months as migrants have helped shift EU politics decisively to the right. It’s difficult to avoid noticing that many of the far-right parties reaping the whirlwind now across the EU have positive views of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. The EU’s rising right admires the Kremlin for its unapologetic emphasis on traditional values, state sovereignty and zero tolerance for jihadism. Anti-immigrant rallies in Germany have featured protestors brandishing Russian flags prominently, as well as German ones.

This extends beyond mere sympathy. France’s FN has accepted millions of dollars in funding from the Kremlin, while Germany’s AfD seems to have benefitted from Russian largesse as well. It’s therefore not surprising that the leaders of those parties have warm, praising things to say about Mr. Putin and his regime, viewing Russia as a bulwark of conservatism and an ally against migrant invasion.

Secret Russian funding for Europe’s far-right isn’t entirely new (and it should be stated that Russian intelligence also provides clandestine support to certain left-wing parties in the EU too, a Cold War legacy) but it’s taken on real importance now that the FN and the AfD may finally have a shot at governing thanks to political ferment caused by the refugee crisis. Friends of Russia, only recently considered politically marginal, matter now in several EU states, including key ones like France and Germany.

The Kremlin has also been active with its customary propaganda games. State outlets like RT and Sputnik prominently feature stories on violent migrants to the EU, the more lurid the better. It’s in Moscow’s interest to stoke European fears, since scared citizens may vote for pro-Russian parties. Not content with the actual level of crime among migrants, which none can deny is a real problem now, Russian media outlets have taken to inventing more of it.

This is an old Kremlin trick, known as disinformation in the spy business, and to be successful it must at least be partly grounded in truth. A recent case illustrating the problem was the sordid saga of a thirteen-year-old girl in Berlin who was allegedly kidnapped and gang-raped by Arab migrants. The horrifying tale became a media sensation in January, allowing Moscow outlets to portray Germany as teeming with Muslim rape-gangs—but a tale it was. The crime never happened, but this did not stop the Russian foreign minister from publicly accusing Berlin of a “cover-up” while Russian TV ran fake video to embellish the fraudulent story.

A major concern is that the Kremlin has seeded the migrants with secret operatives who will be activated once they reach Europe.

This was all old hat to Western counterintelligence hands acquainted with Kremlin agitprop. The public was willing to believe a lie since migrant crime—including sexual assault—is hardly a figment of the imagination, while promoting the lurid story non-stop on the Internet and TV, creating a climate of hysteria, meant it took several days for authorities to establish there was no crime committed. By then, the political damage had been done, as Moscow intended.

The hand of Russian intelligence behind some European far-right politicians and sensationalist news stories can be detected by those with the skilled eyes to see it, but there have also been nagging questions about whether the Kremlin is stoking the migrant crisis itself. It’s undeniably true that Syria, a Russian client state, has been perfectly happy to export its huge refugee problem to Europe, while Mr. Putin’s military intervention in that bloody civil war last year has only increased the flows of desperate Syrian refugees seeking sanctuary in the West.

But does Russian intelligence play a more direct role in encouraging migrants to head for the EU? Several Western security services have hinted at this reality, but only recently have any European governments been willing to go on the record with their concerns. In mid-February, Finland’s defense minister bluntly stated that the flow of migrants into his country via Russia was “our most serious challenge.” Now, with refugees taking an Arctic route into the EU from Russia in unprecedented numbers, Helsinki is openly accusing the Kremlin and its intelligence services of flooding Finland, and therefore the EU, with refugees as a political weapon to destabilize Europe.

This notion, which may sound far-fetched to neophytes, is taken very seriously by leading EU and NATO members, particularly those unlucky enough to be located close to Russia. “This is all the FSB,” explained a senior security official from one of NATO’s border states, referring to Russia’s powerful Federal Security Service. “Migrants go where the FSB sends them, many of the human traffickers are FSB agents,” adding that for the Kremlin this is a “win-win since it gets the migrants out of their lap and drops them in ours.”

Western security services are also worried that the FSB and other Russian intelligence agencies are exploiting the refugee crisis for espionage purposes. A major concern is that the Kremlin has seeded the migrants with secret operatives who will be activated once they reach Europe. The use of deep cover spies, what the Russians term Illegals, was a specialty of the KGB that has continued to the present day, as revealed by the roll-up early last year of an Illegal of the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service, or SVR, who was operating in New York City, spying on Wall Street.

Illegals, who are an elite spy cadre, pose a particular problem for Western counterintelligence since, unlike most Russian spies abroad, they have no official “cover” job with, say, a Russian embassy or trade mission. Illegals who keep their nose clean and work hard at their cover story—their false identity they call their “legend”—can be nearly impossible for even competent Western security agencies to uncover.

Therefore news out of Poland this week raises troubling questions for NATO. As reported by the newsmagazine Wprost, Polish intelligence determined the Kremlin has seeded the vast ranks of migrants with Illegals who, once they reach the EU and get settled into their new lives, will serve as Russia’s secret eyes in Europe. Warsaw has “credible multi-source information” on this, including intelligence from U.S. and British spy partners, indicating that Russian intelligence services have sent Illegals to Syria, then on to Europe, posing as Middle East refugees. They are destined for several EU countries, including Germany, France and Britain. Possessing high-quality fake documents provided by the Kremlin, as well as proper espionage training, these Illegals will be nearly impossible to detect, even with careful security vetting.

Western counterintelligence is already concerned by the Islamic State’s ability to infiltrate Europe with jihadists posing as refugees, but Russia possesses espionage tradecraft vastly superior to anything ISIS can muster. “We’ll never be able to select SVR Illegals out from the masses of refugees,” explained a Pentagon intelligence official. “They would beat our immigration vetting, and we’re stronger there than most of Europe.”

Warsaw is similarly sanguine. “We’re familiar with this Kremlin game,” stated a senior Polish intelligence official who noted that Poles who were repatriated home after decades in the Soviet Union, where Stalin had deported them, included many KGB Illegals. Polish security had a devilish time detecting those spies, “and these were our own people. We have no idea who these Arabs even are.”

Poland possesses excellent security services—among the best in NATO—but it’s no wonder that Warsaw has been so reluctant to accept refugees, despite repeated EU demands that they do so. Polish security officials know that they really have no idea how to determine who the newcomers actually are. In the meantime, the Kremlin will keep playing its cynical spy games to manipulate Europe’s refugee crisis to its political advantage.

 

[Jarnhamar]

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/04/07/police-raid-social-media-posts/

Berlin Police completed a large scale raid on internet users Wednesday. The officers ransacked ten separate apartments in the German capital in the suburbs of Spandau, Tempelhof, Marzahn, Hellersdorf and Pankow.

The force confiscated mobile phones, narcotics and weapons. Nine suspects were arrested, aged 22-58, and are accused of posting messages critical of migrants, migrant helpers and some anti-semitic slogans on social networks like Facebook, WhatsApp, and Twitter, reports Berliner Morgenpost.

The Berlin police have told media that they already knew of the suspects and said that many of them have what they consider a “right-extremist” background. Police spokesman Stefan Redlich said that while many of the men shared anti-migrant views, “the men do not know each other according to previous findings,” and there was no evidence of any planned conspiracy to commit crime among them.

In some of the homes searched police were forced to admit they hadn’t found anything at all, but Redlich justified the raids saying they were maybe, “people who just once expressed their hate-opinion.”

And I thought the army.ca warning system was strict  ;D

 

[The Bread Guy]

Looks like Chris Pook for the win:

http://observer.com/2016/04/how-the-kremlin-manipulates-europes-refugee-crisis/

How the Kremlin Manipulates Europe’s Refugee Crisis ...

Aide memoire to Putin's strategy, via Twitter:

1 Fund Assad's slaughter to make refugees
2 Fund anti refugee parties in EU
3 Get Pro-Putin fascists popular
4 Get them elected

1 Fund Assad's slaughter to create refugees.
2 Fund anti refugee parties in EU.
3 Criticize EU refugee policy.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

And I thought the army.ca warning system was strict  ;D

So they are going after people that post anti refugee opinion.

Instead of checking on all the would be terrorists they just let in.

In the fight to prove to the world that they are no longer Nazis, they've gotten things ass backwards. Again.

Methinks Merkel and her ilk better start looking for new jobs come next election.

 

[Jarnhamar]

In the fight to prove to the world that they are no longer Nazis, they've gotten things ass backwards. Again.

That's the impression I get.

 

[mariomike]

17 August 2016

Terrified British motorist is attacked in Calais by gang of chainsaw-wielding migrants who hurled concrete boulders at his car
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3745717/British-motorist-attacked-Calais-gang-chainsaw-wielding-migrants-hurled-concrete-boulders-car-warns-holidaymakers-stay-away.html
A British motorist is warning tourists to avoid Calais after migrants wielding chainsaws smashed up his Mercedes and hurled petrol bombs in the road.

 

[Jarnhamar]

17 August 2016

Terrified British motorist is attacked in Calais by gang of chainsaw-wielding migrants who hurled concrete boulders at his car
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3745717/British-motorist-attacked-Calais-gang-chainsaw-wielding-migrants-hurled-concrete-boulders-car-warns-holidaymakers-stay-away.html
A British motorist is warning tourists to avoid Calais after migrants wielding chainsaws smashed up his Mercedes and hurled petrol bombs in the road.

Are you sure those weren't just workers using the chainsaws to clear away those trees that were spread across the road?

 

[mariomike]

Are you sure those weren't just workers using the chainsaws to clear away those trees that were spread across the road?

I just know what I read in the papers, 
https://www.google.ca/search?q=calais&sourceid=ie7&rls=com.microsoft:en-CA:IE-Address&ie=&oe=&rlz=1I7GGHP_en-GBCA592&gfe_rd=cr&ei=BHO2V4yCMKaC8Qec8ZZw&gws_rd=ssl#q=calais+chainsaws

 

[Lightguns]

So they are going after people that post anti refugee opinion.

Instead of checking on all the would be terrorists they just let in.

In the fight to prove to the world that they are no longer Nazis, they've gotten things *** backwards. Again.

Methinks Merkel and her ilk better start looking for new jobs come next election.

Friend of mine had a theory on the Germans.  Because 9/10 of the males were in POW camps or dead at the end of WW2, women were forced to raise the next generation of leaders without the male parent figure during the generation's formative years.  The result is the present Germany, he says the same theory can be superimposed on Black American society in the US and Canadian First Nations society. The result is s society unable to understand consequences of actions or accept individual responsibility.