Reprinted from RT
It is a thread we can find in many other stories, many of which were covered by Western media. The difference is the latter media omit or lose the all-important thread of how Western powers have created or exacerbated major, pressing international problems.
Crisis made by the EUTake the European Union's immigration crisis. Up to one million refugees have been recorded entering EU borders this year, according to the United Nations. Thousands perished while crossing the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas on rickety boats to reach the shores of Italy or Greece. EU nations held several top-level summits on the emergency, but no collective response was forthcoming, leading to much recrimination between the 28-member states. Countries such as Britain and France were accused of not doing enough to take in refugees, while "front line" states Greece, Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia complain they are being overwhelmed by the influx.
Internal EU tensions have threatened to unravel the founding principles of the bloc, such as the free movement of citizens under the Schengen Agreement. Germany, under Chancellor Angela Merkel, has emerged as the most generous of EU states, taking in the largest numbers of asylum seekers. However, Merkel's ruling Christian Democrat party has incurred a backlash from anti-immigrant groups. Elsewhere Europe has seen the rise of right-wing, anti-immigrant and anti-EU political parties, from the National Front in France to the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in Britain. Similar gains for ultra-nationalists have been made in Denmark, the Netherlands and Belgium.
The bitter irony of the EU immigration crisis and its pressure on the foundations of the bloc is that most of the would-be immigrants have come from war-torn Syria. As astute observers -- published by RT and other alternative media, but censored out of the Western media -- have noted, the conflict in Syria precipitating the refugee crisis has come about from unlawful interference in the Arab country by the EU. Britain and France have given military support to an insurgency against the elected government of President Bashar al-Assad, along with support from the US and its regional allies, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Heresy of truth: Terrorist blowbackMost of the insurgent groups in Syria are in fact comprised of foreign mercenaries espousing radical Islamist ideologies, associated with internationally designated terrorist groups, such as Al-Qaeda and the so-called Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL). The latter claimed the massacre in Paris on November 13, when some 130 people were killed in gun and bomb attacks. But to say "blowback" in the Western media is tantamount to outrageous thought-crime. It is verboten.
The EU has previously sanctioned the Syrian government, saying it is responsible for the violence in the country. In 2014, Brussels aided the insurgency by lifting an embargo on oil exports from Syrian areas under the control of anti-government militants, whose dominant faction is the IS terror group. Thus, in a very real way, the EU has fueled the conflict in Syria by aiding and abetting illegally armed militants, which has boomeranged into the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War -- a crisis that is straining the very existence of the EU.
Wake up, Europe: Russia is not the enemy (Op-Edge by @DanielleRyanJ) http://on.rt.com/6whw
Russia's game changer
Russia's military intervention in the Syrian conflict in support of its long-time ally beginning on September 30 has transformed the dynamic. Russia's intervention, along with that of Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah resistance movement, is the only lawful foreign contingency in the five-year-old war, because it has been requested and approved by the Syrian government.
All other foreign interventions in Syria from the United States and EU members, Britain, France and Germany, are in violation of international law. Russia's intense aerial bombardment against all illegally armed militants, including the IS and Al Nusra Front, is not encumbered with the false dichotomy articulated by the US-led military coalition, which disingenuously divides militants into extremists and moderates. In three months of Russian aerial operations, the losses suffered by anti-government militants in Syria have been much greater than during 16 months of bombing by the US-led coalition. That is because Russia is working in close liaison with the Syrian Arab Army, which is now making sweeping ground advances. Also, the US and its allies are accused of not being fully committed to combating terrorist groups in Syria, because these militants are at the same time being used by Washington and its partners as proxy forces to illegally achieve regime change in Syria.
The US, Britain and France have reportedly supplied weapons to so-called "moderate rebels" only for these weapons and indeed fighters to end up with the known extremist brigades of IS and Al Nusra. Saudi Arabia and Qatar have also funded Islamist networks, such as Jaish al Fatah and Ahrar al Shams, which are known to be involved with IS and Al Nusra.
Top Duma official: US 'shocked' by Russian military might in Syria http://on.rt.com/70ab
Russia's dramatic intervention in Syria has exposed what can only be described as a charade in which the US, European powers and their regional allies have been involved in trying to destroy a sovereign country through covertly supporting an array of illegally armed mercenary networks.
A central part of the charade is how NATO member and EU aspirant Turkey has been involved in smuggling oil and weapons across the Syrian border. Russia's concerted airstrikes have exposed the Turkish connection to the Western-backed illegal regime-change operation in Syria, and no doubt that was a factor in why Turkish fighter jets shot down a Russian warplane on November 24.
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