By Peter Marshall
It goes almost without saying that it is deeply tragic for refugees from a war-torn country to feel the need to travel abroad to find security and comfort. No one wants to be forced out of their home, their region or their country. But there comes a time, particularly for the elderly, mothers and children, to leave if they are to survive.
It
is therefore just, humane and simple kindness to help refugees from
these countries at the time of their greatest need. We should therefore
welcome them with open arms and try to help them recover their lives.
Their terrible plight is largely a consequence of the military actions
of governments in the past, of chickens coming home to roost.
We should not wait until we see an image of a drowned toddler being
held tenderly on a beach, or of a woman deliberately tripping over a man
with a child in his arms who tries to flee from a line of aggressive
police simply in order to get a better shot with her camera.
A people should be able to overthrow their own dictators, as was
tried in the so-called ‘Arab Spring’, before all oppressive governments
and rulers get help and arms from abroad.
The clear moral of
this disaster is that the United States of America and NATO should not
adopt a policy of neo-liberal intervention in other countries and
attempt to be the policemen and soldiers of the world.
