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Who really killed Ailan?

This week's editorial tackles questions of who is responsible for the refugee crisis.

Who is responsible for the drowning deaths of two beautiful little boys, Ailan and Galib Kurdi and their mother Rehan?

Is it Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is trying to hang on to his seat using his military and employing all sorts of savagery against the people of his own country?

Is it Islamic State, the jihadist entity trying to expand its territory in both Syria and Iraq, and succeeding despite the allegedly efficient air strikes of US-led coalition? Or is it Al Nusra Front or the others, the opposition groups fighting against the Assad regime with the support and arms provided by the US and other Western governments?

Is it the Gulf sheikdoms, led by Saudi Arabia and regional countries like Turkey that have supported Islamic State until recently in pursuit of their own domestic and regional interests, among them hurting Iran by weakening Bashar Assad, the only ally of the Shiite regime in Tehran?

Or is it the West, led by the US, which knew and tacitly gave the green light to the Saudis and their followers by doing nothing to stop the efforts to undermine the Syrian leadership?

Now that the smiling eyes of the two young boys have been closed forever, there is suddenly an increased awareness of the plight of the hundreds of thousands of refugees; those little children have done more to create that global awareness than the United Nations, international NGOs, government spokespeople and the media combined.

Germany now says it will accept 800,000 migrants (for some reason the language in the world media changed and the new description for refugees has been transformed as if to say that these desperate people are willingly being displaced), Britain very reluctantly agreed to take 20,000 over five years and France said it would take a few thousand more than Britain although in a shorter period of time.

US appears to be in no mood to help the people it is at least partially responsible for whose forced migration and in Canada, there is a lot of goodwill and enthusiasm to help ease the desperation, although not from the authority which matters, at least until October 19.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says accepting more refugees will not solve the problem and he is right, but the accuracy of his diagnosis ends just there. Yes accepting more refugees will not solve the problem but bombing Islamic State won’t resolve it, either; actually it will only worsen it. Furthermore, the fact that accepting more refugees will not end the problem does not mean that the current disastrous situation should not be addressed to ease the suffering of the already displaced thousands.

It will be interesting to see whether the announcements by some provincial leaders and mayors of big Canadian cities to the effect that they will accept refugees will be followed through or forgotten once the international outcry from little Ailan’s picture on the shore fizzles out.

What needs to be understood is that the current problems of the Middle East are the direct results of the Western/US strategy of using religion as a tool of foreign policy, dating way back to 1950s. During the Cold War, that tool was employed to weaken Moscow’s control over the Asian part of the Soviet territory and following the end of it, the same tool is being used to create conditions conducive for US/Western intervention in Middle East with the ultimate goal of controlling the region’s energy resources.

In the meantime, those in the military-industrial complex keep drooling and ecstatically rubbing their hands.