Germany starting to reestablish border controls, ‘thanks’ to refugee crisis.

I don’t know what’s more fascinating: that Germany is reestablishing border security with Austria, or that The Guardian thinks that it’s a good idea.

Germany’s decision to re-establish national border controls on its southern frontier with Austria deals a telling blow to two decades of open travel in the 26-nation bloc known as the Schengen area.

The abrupt move to suspend Schengen arrangements along the 500-mile border with Austria will shock the rest of the EU and may spur it towards a more coherent strategy to deal with its migration crisis. Yet there will be little sympathy for Berlin from Hungary, Italy or Greece, which are bearing the brunt of the mass arrivals of people from Syria, Iraq, Eritrea and Afghanistan.

It’s a fascinating time to be a Pan-European, nu? The Austrians are insinuating that the Hungarians are Nazis. The Swedes are yelling at the Danes because the latter is firmly moving refugees right along to Sweden (which is apparently a popular refugee destination spot). The French (and most of central Europe) are dealing with mutterings from its own populace that maybe they should be accepting Christian refugees first. The Italians (who have lots of ports, remember) are screaming for everybody else to start taking refugees like they’re supposed to. And the British are digging in their heels on refugee quotas while support for leaving the EU entirely continues to grow.  In short: it’s not really going well for the aforementioned Pan-Europeans.

The entire thing would be quite the knee-slapper, except that I have children who will be of military age in about, oh, ten years or so. I would rather that we not be faced with yet another general European war in that time – and, no, I don’t think that we can avoid getting sucked into one. We have yet to avoid getting sucked into a general European war. Why would we change our losing streak in that regard now?

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: I have sympathy for Europe with regard to their refugee problem.* However, if Europe would like my advice, here it goes: next time, mind your own business when it comes to our election process. You’re in this mess because Barack Obama doesn’t know how to fight a war properly. So maybe you shouldn’t have been so accommodating in 2008 when he wanted to use your countries as backdrops to his campaign commercials?

*I also have a great deal of sympathy for the refugees themselves (including the young males, or at least the ones who are just trying to get away from being forced to join Islamic State).