The migration crisis in its current iteration stems from the fall of Libya's Muammar Qaddafi. Under Qaddafi, Libya worked closely with Europe to control the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean. But the country's chaos has upended that. In 2010, Europe was moving quickly to normalize relations with the former dictator. Oil interests played a role, but so did the desire of many European nations to outsource migrant control to the North African country.
Mr. Qaddafi was well aware of European alarm at the rising tide of migrants in his final years in power. He used it as a powerful wedge to improve his own standing. Back to 2004, Qaddafi began making deals with individual European states to control the tide of migrants. In August 2010, he visited his friend Silvio Berlusconi, then president of Italy, in Rome and said Europe would turn "black" without his help.
The U.S.-NATO intervention that toppled Moammar Gadhafi has led to an Islamist state where young militant men with heavy firepower control the country’s airports, harbors and major roads. Militias roam the countryside. Former al Qaeda terrorists and Taliban fighters have infiltrated the country, targeting moderate Muslims and blacks. The nation is splintering along ideological, sectarian and tribal lines. This is not a victory for humanitarianism but anarchy.
Libya's chaos has once more made it a major way station for Africans seeking a better life, as the European Union grapples with the morality of cutting back on patrols to rescue migrants. The argument for doing less is that increasing the risk of crossing the Mediterranean would save lives. Word that there was no safety net would filter back to people, many of them fleeing persecution, and they'd stop coming.
“We do not support planned search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean,” British Foreign Office Minister Joyce Anelay said last year. Rescues have “an unintended ‘pull factor,' encouraging more migrants to attempt the dangerous sea crossing and thereby leading to more tragic and unnecessary deaths,” she argued.
Obama and NATO have a lot to answer for here. Melchett’s solution via Ex Cougar may be the answer.