West interventionist policies fuel refugee crisis: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Jan Oberg, the founder of Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research in Lund, to discuss the ongoing refugee crisis in Europe.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: We could talk about the refugee crisis but that has kind of been beaten in terms of some of the core issues. What is now being somewhat looked at more deeply is how this is really leading to the disintegration of the EU, I do not know if you believe the ones who are stating that. Is the Schengen one of the reasons why some analysts are talking about the EU being so shattered at this point that may lead to its disintegration?

Oberg: I think that is one reason, yes, and that also goes for the Dublin Convention on how asylum seekers shall be treated but there is also, and I think that is more important than legality, there is also this very clearly revealed lack of management and leadership in the European Union of Europe and of the countries in the European Union.

There is no vision, there is now this awful illegal deal with Turkey where we try in Europe to pay our way out of ..., or I should not say ours because it is not my policies, but paying Turkey for taking off the problem from our shoulders that we should have been proud and compassionate to take because they are basically a consequence of the bombings and the destruction of places like Syria and so I think there are many factors coming together here.

And one thing I would like to hope is that the refugees streaming into Europe will be a kind of wake-up call for European citizens, I do not give much hope to the governments but for citizens to show compassion, to open their homes and all the good things that are happening is so important whether we talk about the union keeping together or not but for being Europeans and Westerners and highly developed economically and wealthy we have a duty to show where we stand and show compassion even if our governments do not do it or do the opposite actually.   

Press TV: But one of the things that is perplexing here is the fact that if we want to take a look at the world, and do a cross section of some of the wars that are going on, there are wars that are at this point going on in almost every corner when we look at - looking at Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, then we look at Africa as a whole.

As a matter of fact there was an interview that was held by one of the reporters who said there is almost 80 wars that the US is involved with either covertly or directly altogether and it does not look like that is going to end any time soon, so this is going to be ongoing problem. How is Europe going to be able to deal with this because another report indicated that up to 400,000 asylum seekers are waiting to reach the shores of Europe from North Africa?

Oberg: That is where I with my greatest respect for Pope Francis would say he does not go far enough in his genuine humanism and compassion for people. He should denounce not only private small group terrorism such as al-Qaeda or ISIS (Daesh) or al-Nusra, whatever or cells in Europe, he should denounce state terrorism too.

There are two types of terrorism. No matter what definition you use of terrorism but it means hating the innocent who are not part of the conflict. There is state terrorism and that is done by governments and there are private non-governmental terrorism and he should I think morally, intellectually mention both and there is no way out of this problem until the West including the NATO and EU countries led by the United States in terms of NATO will stop the militarism, stop the interventionism, stop the arrogance, stop the cultural dominance, stop the insensitivity of other cultures.

The day we do that these problems will be more easy to solve. I am not saying they will be easy because there is hatred and traumas now on all sides but that can be done and I am a little bit more optimistic than you are. All empires go down. There is no empire that has lasted forever. The United States as an empire not as a society or republic but as an empire is an all indicator on its way down. The only thing that really go that comparatively to the rest of the world is militarism, its military, its bombing, its precision, its military technology. No empire can survive on being hated, having a bad economy, losing legitimacy and trustworthiness and only being strong in military terms.

The US is on its way down. The next few years before it really happens may be very painful for the whole world because we do not know how eventually it would react when the United States finds out that its empire is gone and it will be ... like any other country. After that things will be much better because we will have a multipolar world and the United States will become something of an ordinary fascinating cultural whatever republic that we would all appreciate but without an empire.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk