The real tragedy is the refusal of Western leaders to acknowledge the cause of the refugee crisis: Western imperialism’s genocidal and never ending wars on the people of the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa. There are now more refugees than at any time since World War 2 and the number of refugees has increased markedly since the start of the Global War on Terror. Wherever the US and its imperialist allies have intervened, whether through direct military action or indirect proxy wars, economic sabotage, and coups, in the name of “democracy”, the “war on terror”, or the “responsibility to protect”, death and despair have been forced upon millions of innocent people who have been left no other choice than to abandon their native lands to embark on a dangerous future of desperate struggle. In Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Mali, Korea, Vietnam, East Timor, Sudan, Ukraine, and elsewhere the livelihoods of millions have been destroyed by the forces of US and Western imperialism.
In the 1980s, Afghanistan had a “genuinely popular government”, according to Professor John Ryan, that was implementing widespread reforms. Labour unions were legalised, a minimum wage was established, hundreds of thousands of Afghans were enrolled in educational facilities, and women were freed from age-old tribal bondage and able to earn an independent income. US and Western imperialism, fearful of that kind of equitable distribution of wealth, supported the feudal landlords and fundamentalist mullahs to sow chaos across the country, bringing rise to elements that later formed al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The Afghan people were once more dealt a severe punishment by the forces of Western imperialism following 9/11, despite a lack of conclusive evidence linking either the Taliban or al-Qaeda to the attacks. Years of US intervention in Afghanistan have left the people of Afghanistan impoverished, traumatised, and desperate. The conflicts in Libya and Syria are eerily similar to the Western destabilisation of Afghanistan. In 2011, when the Arab Spring protests swept across the Middle East and North Africa, Western imperialism hijacked legitimate grievances of the masses as a pretext for intervention in the name of the “responsibility to protect” and “democracy promotion”.
