00:00What if I told you that Europe's migration crisis isn't really about Africa at all?
00:06That the people drowning in the Mediterranean aren't really fleeing failed states.
00:10They're fleeing the wreckage of Western wars.
00:14Hi everyone, this is APT Opinion.
00:17And before we get started, make sure to hit subscribe and drop your views in the comments.
00:22Here's the question.
00:23When you see yet another overcrowded boat sinking off the coast of Italy or Greece,
00:29whose fault is it?
00:31Do you see a tragedy or a consequence?
00:45Because here's the uncomfortable truth.
00:48Europe's migration crisis is not an accident.
00:52It's the blowback from decades of Western intervention, regime change and resource wars.
00:58Iraq, Libya, Syria, each one turned into chaos by the very nations now building walls and detention centers to keep their own victims out.
01:10Let's start with Iraq.
01:12In 2003, Washington and London invaded a fully functioning state under the banner of freedom.
01:18What they left behind was sectarian war, mass displacement and an entire region on fire.
01:26Fast forward a decade, ISIS rises from the ashes of that invasion and millions flee.
01:32Where do they go?
01:34Europe.
01:34Then came Libya, the richest nation in Africa, turned overnight into a failed state after NATO bombed it in 2011.
01:44Muammar Gaddafi once warned Europe,
01:46if you destroy Libya, you destroy the barrier stopping migrants from Africa.
01:51They laughed at him then.
01:53Well, they're not laughing anymore.
01:55And Syria?
01:56The so-called Arab Spring was weaponized into a proxy war.
02:01The US, Britain and France poured billions into arming rebels.
02:06Russia stepped in to protect its ally Assad.
02:09The result?
02:10Half of Syria's population displaced, millions flooding into Turkey, Lebanon and Europe.
02:16So, when you hear European leaders talking about border pressure, remember, these are the borders that were broken, deliberately broken, by Western bombs.
02:28Now, fast forward to 2025.
02:31The European Commission has just released its first annual asylum and migration report.
02:36Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus are classified as under migratory pressure.
02:41That phrase, migratory pressure, is Brussels Creek for being overwhelmed.
02:48Last year, these nations saw a disproportionate level of arrivals, including those rescued at sea.
02:54So, in 2026, they'll receive help through something called the Solidarity Pool.
03:00Sounds like it's sorted, right?
03:02In theory, every EU member has to help out either by accepting asylum seekers or by paying up.
03:08But here's where Europe's moral crisis meets its political one.
03:13Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have flat out refused.
03:18Donald Tusk, Poland's Prime Minister, said,
03:20Poland will not be accepting migrants under the Migration Pact, nor will we pay for it.
03:26Hungary's Viktor Orban, same story.
03:29We didn't cross this problem, he says.
03:31We won't pay for it.
03:33So, what's Brussels doing?
03:34But hold on, solidarity with whom?
03:46With the victims of their own wars?
03:49Or with the system that created them?
03:51Every child who drowns in the Mediterranean is a monument to Western hypocrisy.
03:57Because it's Europe which built the crisis that it is now pretending to manage.
04:02Look closer and you'll see how this system works.
04:05The Solidarity Pool sets a minimum of 30,000 relocations and 600 million euro in financial contributions.
04:12Each country, except those under migratory pressure, has three choices.
04:17First, take in a certain number of asylum seekers.
04:21Second, pay 20,000 euros for every person that they refuse.
04:26Third option, fund operational support in frontline states.
04:30In short, Europe has turned morality into a spreadsheet.
04:35Lives are now line items, either relocated, paid for or outsourced.
04:41The Commission also lists 12 other states at risk of migratory pressure.
04:46That includes Belgium, Germany, France and Poland.
04:49Yes, Poland, which refuses to cooperate, is also listed as facing its own migration risks.
04:56Irony doesn't even begin to cover it.
04:59And then there's a third category.
05:01Countries facing a significant migratory situation.
05:05Like Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia.
05:08These nations can apply for exemptions, but only if other EU members all agree.
05:14It's a bureaucratic maze and one that reveals Europe's paralysis.
05:19Here's what Brussels doesn't want to admit.
05:22It's not that Europe lacks a migration policy.
05:25It's that Europe's wars have made any policy meaningless.
05:29Because no wall is high enough, no patrol boat is fast enough to stop the tidal wave of consequences
05:35that started in Baghdad, Tripoli and Aleppo.
05:40And while Europe bickers over quotas, others move in.
05:43So yes, migration is being weaponized.
06:07But hardly by Russia or China, as Brussels claims.
06:11Russia and China are not the main players here.
06:14Migration today is being weaponized by the same Western policies that destabilized entire continents.
06:21Europe's divisions over migration are not just moral.
06:25They're geopolitical.
06:26When Warsaw and Budapest refuse to take in refugees,
06:30they're defying Brussels, yes.
06:31But look at the big picture.
06:33They're exposing the cracks in a crumbling project.
06:37The European Union.
06:38It wanted to be a moral superpower.
06:41What it's become instead is a fortress.
06:44One that cannot decide whether it's protecting democracy
06:47or just protecting itself from the consequences of its own hypocrisy.
06:52Because let's be honest,
06:53the refugee in the tiny boat did not start the war in Iraq.
06:57The mother on that overcrowded raft did not bomb Libya.
07:00The child washed up on the beach did not fund the Syrian insurgency.
07:05But all of them are paying the price for the West's appetite.
07:10For control, for resources, for power.
07:14And now, Europe is paying too.
07:16Not in lives lost at sea, but with its own identity.
07:20Its identity that is now coming to be defined by its paralysis, its fear.
07:25So next time a European leader says we must protect our borders, ask them this.
07:31Protection from whom?
07:32From desperate families running from the fires that we lit?
07:36Or from the truth that the West's moral compass no longer points north?
07:41Europe's migration crisis isn't about migration.
07:48It's about memory.
07:49It's about accountability.
07:51And it's about denial.
07:53It's about a civilization that cannot look in the mirror without seeing the ruins that it left behind.
07:58If you've stuck with me this far, I really want to hear from you.
08:03Do you think Europe's migration crisis is a product of bad policy or poetic justice?
08:09What should be done now?
08:11Who needs to pay?
08:13Drop your comments below.
08:14Subscribe for more APT opinion.
08:16And remember, behind every border, there's a story.
08:20Behind every refugee, there's a war.
08:22And almost always, that war is ours.
08:28We'll see you next time.
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