plawolf
Lieutenant General
That's a slippery slope you are on my friend.
In my view, its never a good idea to make any sort of generalisations about entire peoples like that.
Governments, fair enough, as you can assess their past choices and determine a pattern of behaviour.
But you simply cannot do that with a group as large and diverse as an entire population since everyone is going to have their own views and opinions for different reasons, and those views and opinions are both constantly changing, and untested. People often say one thing, but do something very different when the chips are down.
A perfect example to caution against generalisations would be the reports in the news a little while back of at least some Iraqi refugees who massively regret making the trip to Finland, another Scandinavian country not very dissimilar to Denmark or Sweden.
By and large, from what the refugees have been saying to the press, they want to get to Europe because it is richer, and they often have a far rosier idea of what life is like in Europe than the reality thanks to western "soft power".
The harsh reality has hit many of them hard.
If I was in charge of European security, that would concern me gravely. The shattered dreams and bitter disappointment of displaced, disillusioned and desperate people make the perfect breeding ground for radicalisation.
Shutting our doors and our hearts to these desperate fleeing masses is the worst thing Europe could do. Same with "weeding out" men of military age and keeping them trapped in refugee camps on our boarders where conditions are poor to appalling, and hope and dreams are crushed and destroyed. That is creating a terrorist recruiter's wet dream come true.
What Europe should be doing is welcoming these fleeing masses with open arms and open hearts.
I would have built entire communities for them, to first allow them to feel at ease and safe amongst familiar surroundings, but made integration with society at large a mandatory requirements.
Set up decent, well resourced semi-permanent camps, where the people could live with some dignity and a modest degree of comfort.
Set up schools for children and adults like to help them with language and skills so they could integrate properly once they have been processed and integrated within the wider local society. Organise work gangs from the refugee population to keep them busy and help with the costs by getting them to do as much of the work as possible. That will also help them to develop a sense of community and self worth.
I would also get trusted naturalised citizens of the same or similar ethnic, religious and cultural backgrounds to the refugees to go in as community leaders to ensure the "right" attitude and views hold sway.
The best way to weed out the radicals is not with intelligence agents in suits behind computer screens, but a co-operative local population.
Get the masses on your side, and they will out the dangerous elements within their midst far more effectively and comprehensively than the best intelligence analysts could dream of doing.
There will be terrorist sleeper agents and sympathisers amongst the refugees. The best way to weed them out is to make sure you control the refugee camps and the prevailing view in them. That means European governments should be rushing to set up and run refugee camps to the best of their abilities.
Hope, love and kindness are the best weapon against the hatred and prejudice the terrorists preach. But there are far too little of the former and way too much of the latter in how Europe has been handling the refugee crisis thus far.
That is playing into the hands of the terrorists and doing their work for them!
