Tens of Thousands of Syrian Refugees caught in Bureaucratic Red Tape as Children Die

.

Warning: this article contains images

that readers may find distressing

Meet three-year-old Aylan Kurd and his five-year-old brother Galip.  This was before they were caught in a cross fire of the war between the Islamic extremists and Kurds in Syria.  Survival depended on their families reaching the shores of Europe before getting killed in the bombing.

Here is Aylan Kurd yesterday, on the beach in Greece, where he, his brother, and mother all died when they were in sight of freedom.

   

We are in the midst of a refugee crisis exasperated by politics that is killing thousands of people while bureaucrats hide behind EU laws wholly unsuited for the world of today.  I say "we" because our United States policy toward Iraq and Syria and our military action is the cause for the 11 million people fleeing those countries and landing in no man's land.

Look at the numbers of Syrians alone fleeing the war zone for a better life for their families.  These are the latest estimates of the human carnage.

300,000 Dead

1,200,000 injured

11,000,000 Displaced

America has been surprisingly quiet about the tragedy unfolding in the EU while Pope Francis and other world leaders have sounded the alarm.  All the more surprising since we built the coalition to go to war against Syria and ISIS.

However, the time for talking is over.  We must pressure the EU to suspend or modify their rules requiring the registration of refugees at the borders and allow the immediate and free movement of the thousands of families caught in the bureaucratic snafu, to get to the countries where they are welcome.

The people of Europe are among the most generous in the world.  They are prepared to house and feed the starving refugees.  Germany, France, and other countries stand ready to save a generation of Middle Eastern children if the bureaucrats would just allow them to pass through border countries to the destinations waiting to help.

We cannot stand by and watch.  Demand action.  Save lives.  Protect our children!

.

God Bless the People of the Ukraine for Taking Care of Themselves

.

Friday, February 28, 2014

Maybe it's time to leave the Ukraine to the Ukrainians

Three months ago I wrote the above story and there has been nothing but chaos in the Ukraine since as Russia, the European Union, NATO and the USA have undertaken a battle of wits, sanctions, threats, land grabs and political posturing that left the people of the Ukraine in dire straights.

Sunday, May 25, the people of the Ukraine finally took control of their own destiny by holding an election under very difficult circumstances and may just have taught all those trying to tell them what to do that the people of the Ukraine can take care of themselves if we just leave them alone.

I salute the people of the Ukraine and the rest of the world should learn more about them and their long battle for independence that included invasions by Hitler and Stalin, millions of deaths, survival within the Soviet Union and from outside terrorists, anarchists or whatever you want to call them.  All the while the Ukraine remains the breadbasket for the world and the conduit for Russia natural gas to fuel Europe.

Here is a report on the election from the CBC (Canadian) News Network and the results, well stock markets throughout Europe are up today.  When the people with money are happy that means things may be good for awhile and when people can speak for themselves that is even better.

CBC News Canada

Exit polls suggested candy tycoon Petro Poroshenko won Ukraine's presidential election in the first round Sunday, a ballot that took place amid weeks of fighting in eastern regions where pro-Russia separatists have seized government buildings and battled government troops.

The rebels had vowed to block the ballot in the east and less than 20 per cent of the polling stations were open there. But nationwide, about 60 per cent of the electorate turned out, the central elections commission said.

Poroshenko, viewing the exit polls as definitive evidence of victory, said his first steps as president would be to visit the eastern industrial region of Donbass — home to Ukraine's coal mines — and "put an end to war, chaos, crime and bring peace to the Ukrainian land."

Long lines of voters snaked around polling stations in Kyiv, the pro-Western capital, but heavily armed pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine intimidated locals by smashing ballot boxes, shutting down polling centres and issuing threats.

Putin vowed to recognize new leader

The exit poll for Sunday's election, conducted by three respected Ukrainian survey agencies, found the 48-year-old candy tycoon Poroshenko getting 55.9 per cent of the vote.

After the polls closed, Poroshenko appeared on a stage beside former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, who at one point last year was leading in national polls for president. He later decided to support Poroshenko and run for Kyiv mayor instead. Results of that race were not available Sunday, but Poroshenko told journalists that their own private survey showed Klitschko winning the race.

. 

Will the USA & EU save the Ukraine & Poland this time? 75 years ago we did not!

.

As the chest thumping and threats of sanctions fly back and forth between the US and Russia, between Obama and Putin, and between, to a far lesser degree, the EU and Russia to end the threats of a Russian invasion of the Ukraine and then Poland perhaps, let us not lose site of history.

This is the 75th anniversary of one of the darkest hours in Polish history, and the 73rd anniversary of one of the darkest hours in Ukraine history, when pledges of protection from the countries of Europe and the United States were silenced by massive invasions of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russian troops.

In 1939 it was Poland and in 1941 it was the Ukraine that virtually disappeared off the face of the earth under the Nazi and Communists attacks that would leave millions of Polish and Ukrainian innocents dead before the end of the war in 1945, and the end of the Communist occupation in 1991.

Here is a report of the tragic consequence of the invasion in Poland taken from a history book I wrote in which previously classified records from the US, Europe and USSR were discovered that shed new light on the real history of the 20th century.  The following appeared October 11, 2012 in the Coltons Point Times.

 

SAVIORS OF THE 20TH CENTURY
HITLER & STALIN

Poland - Armageddon of WW II

Monday October 11, 2010

.

SAVIORS OF THE 20TH CENTURY - HITLER & STALIN
The war of annihilation between the Nazis and Communists

ISBN 0964599317
LCCN 2004095812

Available worldwide through Amazon Kindle books

http://www.amazon.com/Saviors-20th-Century-Hitler-ebook/dp/B0040ZNU76/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1285077808&sr=1-1

Poland - Armageddon of WW II

Poland, the Armageddon of World War II, the proverbial scene of the decisive battle between good and evil. In the history of civilization it is doubtful any country faced the dire conditions and the deadly consequences faced by Poland from 1939-1945.

Sandwiched between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, it was the only nation to be partitioned without a vote between the Nazi and Communist Empires as a result of the 1939 non-aggression pact between Hitler and Stalin. Poland was a geographic buffer between these two menacing monsters, a buffer that vanished off the face of the earth during the month of September 1939.

Both Hitler and Stalin had reasons to hate the Poles. Fact is both felt justified in ravaging the nation for their own purposes. After World War I Poland humiliated the Germans as a result of the severe conditions of the Treaty of Versailles. Over one and one half million Germans were forced to abandon their homes to Poles because of the treaty.

In 1939 Poland was the fastest growing industrial nation in Europe and was much needed to support the German war machine. Both Hitler and Himmler had rejected their Catholic upbringing and there were more Catholics in Poland than any other country, making it a convenient target for religious persecution. It was also the gateway for the inevitable invasion of the Soviet Union and of vital strategic importance.

More ominously, it was the home to nearly three million Jews before the war. Ever since Catherine II established the Pale for Jews they had moved into Poland and had recently represented nearly eight percent of the population, the most of any nation in Europe.

Earlier in the 20th century, before World War I, there were over thirty million Poles, but four million were killed in World War I, thirty-four times the American loss in the war. Almost all the fighting of that World War took place on Polish soil. Yet deaths were not the only suffering by the Poles. Devastation was astounding as over 1.7 million buildings were destroyed, 6,969 churches, and 40% of all railway bridges and stations during the First World War.

The Soviets also had reason to dislike Poland. When the Communists swept to power in Russia and successfully won the Russian Civil War, the Soviet leaders decided to continue rolling right over Europe with their revolution. The mighty Red Army attacked the Poles in August of 1920 driving to the very gates of Warsaw.

A miracle of sorts happened when the embattled Poles fought back valiantly August 15 in the Battle of Warsaw outmaneuvering the stunned and vastly superior Red Army and routing them on August 18, thus saving Europe from Soviet conquest. It was a setback that reverberated throughout the Kremlin and caused the Communists to slow down the worldwide revolution they advocated. In time it came to be known as the day of the Polish Miracle.

 Yet there was more, for though the Soviets were a new nation dominated by Jewish-Bolshevik leaders and committed to stopping anti-Semitic actions, they were also committed to driving the opposition Jewish groups from influence, adversaries such as the Jewish Zionist and Bund nationalist parties.

Because of its proximity Poland had become a haven for Jewish outcasts from the Soviet Union after the revolution and civil war - those on the wrong side of Judaism who became enemies of the Bolshevik State. It also was a safe haven for all those fleeing Communist persecution throughout the Soviet Empire. To the Soviets, Poland was a nation harboring many dangerous fugitives and traitors.

Poland also was a hotbed of another faction of Jewish revolutionaries who were committed to the Communist Marxist revolution and the Soviet Bolshevik leadership. Thus some Polish Jews were enemies of the Soviets and many more were allies. Ironically Jewish participation in the Marxist revolution in Poland earlier caused the Poles and Ukrainians to distrust them as well. Active Jewish involvement in the revolutions that swept Europe after World War I would come back to haunt them.

Beyond the desire of the Soviets to save some Jews from Nazis and punish some for opposing the Bolsheviks, the Soviets were also in desperate need of access to the Baltic Sea north of Poland. A treaty with Hitler gave Stalin freedom to overrun the Baltic States and gain that ocean access.

 By 1921 the Polish population dropped to twenty-seven million, then grew to thirty-two million by 1931, the last official census before World War II. It was a diverse population as Ukrainians and Belorussians were the majority, Poles made up one third of the population, and Jews were about eight percent.

Germany and the Soviets announced to a stunned world the signing of the non-aggression pact at the end of August 1939 and on September 1 the Nazi invasion of Poland from the west was launched. It was to be a coordinated attack with the Red Army attacking from the east.

Over 1,800,000 German soldiers poured across the border with 2,600 tanks and over 2,000 aircraft supporting the invasion. Typical of the new German strategy designed by Hitler personally, it was to be a rapid and deadly strike. The Poles, like the rest of the world, were caught unprepared and less than a third of the Polish military was able to mobilize against the Nazi invasion.

Stalin, to the chagrin of Hitler, did not attack immediately as promised but waited to see what kind of resistance the Germans would encounter. He was also wary of the reaction of England and America to the invasion, as he needed Churchill and Roosevelt to be allies if he were to have any hope of defeating Hitler and Germany.

By waiting until the Germans destroyed the Polish army, he could proclaim the Soviets were invading Poland to protect the Ukrainian and Belorussian populations living in Poland from the Nazis, a tactic that infuriated Hitler when he learned of it.

The Soviet war machine finally did roll across the eastern border of Poland September 17 as Hitler's forces had secured the German half of the country and were rapidly moving into the Soviet territory. For a time it appeared as if the former bitter enemies and now allies might start fighting each other as they laid claim to the Polish nation.

One of the most intriguing comments of the dilemma faced by the Poles came from their decorated General Wladyslaw Anders, Polish Commander, speaking to General George Patton later in the war. Anders said:

"With the Nazis, we lose our lives; with the Soviets, we lose our souls… If I found my army between the Nazis and the Soviets, I would attack in both directions."

By October 5 Poland could hold out no longer against the onslaught from the Nazis and Red Army, and finally surrendered. Poland ceased to exist. Still in just a few weeks of fighting the Poles inflicted heavy losses on the Germans, 50,000 men, 697 planes and 993 tanks and armored cars, while thousands of Polish soldiers and civilians were able to escape to France and Britain.

The defeat in battle was just the beginning of the Polish suffering. In the 20 years following World War I Poland had rebuilt her industry and railroads. She now had over 5,500 railroad locomotives, 11,350 passenger cars, and 164,000 freight cars. Over 1,250 miles of new railroad track had been laid and Polish highways had been expanded by over 30%.

All of these resources were needed by the Nazis in their ambitious plans to reunite the German Empire. A vast network of nearly 200 concentration camps were soon developed throughout Poland and the surrounding area first for the purpose of providing labor, and later as the sites of the Nazi death camps. The need for industrial output was the priority and over two million Poles were among five million prisoners sent into forced labor.

When the occupation was completed Germany controlled about 13 million Poles including 2.1 million Jews, and the Soviets controlled about 13 million Poles including about 1.2 million Jews. Over 600,000 people fled from the German to Soviet sector including over 350,000 Jews during the next year. Of the total population in Soviet occupied areas about one tenth were Jewish, one third were Poles, and the majority were Ukraine and Belorussian.

Germany immediately threw 1.2 million Poles from their ancestral homes for resettlement in ghettos to make room for Germans who lost their homes after World War I. The Soviets and Polish were bitter enemies and the Soviets captured 230,000 Polish soldiers including 25,000 Jewish soldiers. Millions of Poles died in the hands of the Germans and Soviets.

Before the Nazis were driven out of Poland nearly 2.5 million Poles were murdered in camps and another 500,000 were starved to death. Millions more died during forced labor, resettlement and deportation.

As for Poles living in the Soviet lands, 1.6 million Poles were deported to the gulags and prisons of Russia including over 130,000 Jews sent from the Soviet occupied area of Poland to Siberia as "enemies of the state." Ironically this deportation probably saved them from the Nazi holocaust. In addition to the Polish citizens imprisoned or forced into labor camps the Soviets murdered many thousands of Polish military.

Soviet treatment of the Poles changed only when Hitler violated the non-aggression treaty and attacked the Soviet Union using Poland as the launch point in June of 1941. This action caused some positive events to take place in the midst of the carnage.

On August 12, 1941, with the German army advancing on Moscow, the Supreme Soviet granted amnesty to all Polish citizens and released all Polish prisoners from gulags and prisons in order to help in the fight against Nazi Germany. The millions of Poles sent to Soviet prisons were now free, unlike the fate of most Russian citizens sent to the deadly Soviet gulag prison system.

A total of nearly six million Poles died (civilian and military) during the war, ranking Poland third behind the Soviet Union and Germany for the most deaths in the European sector of World War II. This represented nearly 22% of the entire Polish population before the war.

When the dust finally settled on the deadliest conflict in history over fifteen million people had died in Polish concentration camps. Most were Soviet and Communist prisoners captured when the Germans overran the Soviet occupied Poland, the Ukraine and western Soviet territory extending all the way to Moscow. Tens of millions of Soviet military and civilians, Communists and Communist sympathizers were exterminated. Poland once again lay in ruins and it was to remain a Soviet state for the next half century.

As destiny would have it, Poland made history in quite another way. On the very same day as the Polish Miracle, May 18, 1920, when the Poles stopped the mighty Soviet Red Army and captured Kiev, in Poland a baby boy named Karol Jozef Wojtyla was born.

This young boy grew up and helped organize a secret theater group during the Nazi occupation. By 1944 he became a Catholic priest in a secret order in Poland. Soon the equally murderous Communists under Stalin drove out the murderous Nazi regime.

The priest became a Cardinal, and then the Cardinal became the first Polish Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope John Paul II. In time he would use his influence as Pope to help the Solidarity movement in Poland oppose the Communist rule, and would help lead the Polish people out from under the shackles of Communism into a new life of freedom.
.