
Drones replace patrol ships on Mediterranean - seapunk
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/04/drones-replace-patrol-ships-mediterranean-fears-more-migrant-deaths-eu
======
hugh4life
"Experts condemn move to aerial surveillance as an abrogation of
‘responsibility to save lives’"

The EU does not have a duty to just let in anyone who shows up. It's morally
irresponsible to encourage people to make the dangerous trek to pay smugglers
who put them on inflated crafts unable to make the journey that depend on them
getting picked up by the coast guard. As Australia's example shows, the way to
stop drownings is to give no benefits to taking the journey.

~~~
unethical_ban
It is a lot more complex than you make it seem.

Your position can be rephrased as "It is better to let refugees drown in the
Mediterranean than think Europe might welcome more of them." I agree - it is
likely over the long term that the more dangerous and hopeless the journey,
the fewer might attempt it.

So now, we pit the "moral responsibility" to Europe to minimize population
growth via immigration vs. the moral responsibility to save the lives of those
in your backyard who have risked it to get there.

OR the EU could make/force an agreement that Libya/Algeria/Morocco take back
migrants recovered in the Mediterranean.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
> OR the EU could make/force an agreement that Libya/Algeria/Morocco take back
> migrants recovered in the Mediterranean.

There is also a third option, which is to send them somewhere else. There are
a number of countries in Africa that are poor, but still aren't in the midst
of any active war or genocide. If you're from a country that is, why not go
there?

The answer is that the real reason so many want to come to the EU isn't the
humanitarian crisis at home, it's for the better money. But when that's their
primary motivation, and they have the same alternative as anyone from any of
the other countries they could live in, then their claim is no better than
anyone else's.

It's fair to not want to be in Libya right now, but when you have the option
to move east, west or south, there is a lot less moral force in the argument
that you have a right to move north.

~~~
stunt
Have you seen photos from these countries? Everything is destroyed in some
cities and they have lost everything they had Including family members.

Some countries in the Middle East are already hosting as much as total EU is
hosting and even more.

They just don’t complain as much as some of our politicians do to get voted.

~~~
thefounder
>> Everything is destroyed in some cities and they have lost everything they
had Including family members.

I think most of us agree that migrants traveling long and dangerous distances
to Europe don't have much to loose back home. Now the question is if their
lives are not in danger anymore why should Europe host them and pay them a
better life ? Is this supposed to be a solution to world's poverty? As we've
seen if support is provided or better said lack of counter-measures you may
experience a continuous stream of migrants(i.e millions). Even if we want, we
can't welcome everybody, I fear we can't coup even with the people who really
need help, let alone the economic migrants.

On the other side there is also the cultural issue. Millions of people change
the landscape for sure and the natives don't want to compete with migrants(why
would they?). UK is leaving EU because of european "migrants" so it's not
something to ignore.

~~~
stunt
Indeed that’s really a problem and there is even more to it. But perhaps
building a wall or letting them to die is not a good solution for it.

~~~
thefounder
>> But perhaps building a wall or letting them to die is not a good solution
for it.

Well I don't think "anyone" in Europe wants to send these migrants to the
bottom of the sea. A solution currently worked on is to pay other countries
closer culturally, socially and even geographically (i.e Turkey) to host these
people.

The lack of border security gives a sense of unease especially if you expect
people from a war torn country or a country where crime is high so I fully
support securing the borders.

However the deshumanisation of migrants and treating them as criminals (or
worse) is totally wrong and has no place in a civilised country. You can have
both border security and immigration. Just be honest who is allowed in and who
is not, put in place agreed quotas and that's it. At least everyone
knows(including the migrants) what your stance is.

~~~
frandroid
> Well I don't think "anyone" in Europe wants to send these migrants to the
> bottom of the sea.

[https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/08/14/let-them-drown-italys-
trum...](https://whowhatwhy.org/2018/08/14/let-them-drown-italys-trump-closes-
ports-to-refugees/)

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/09...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/05/09/italian-
forces-ignored-a-sinking-ship-full-of-syrian-refugees-and-let-more-
than-250-drown-says-leaked-audio/)

[https://inews.co.uk/culture/radio/caller-says-let-them-
sink-...](https://inews.co.uk/culture/radio/caller-says-let-them-sink-as-
answer-to-migrants-trying-to-reach-uk-leaving-labours-tom-watson-worried-for-
humanity/)

[https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/09/evidence-
shows-...](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2018/11/09/evidence-shows-us-
navy-ignored-sinking-ship-migrants-drowned-and-screamed-help)

------
stunt
It is not like EU is hosting most of the refugees. It’s just media coverage
and some politicians talking more than anyone about it.

In fact countries hosting much more refugees aren’t complaining as much.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_the_Syrian_Civil...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refugees_of_the_Syrian_Civil_War#Statistics)

~~~
thefounder
I believe the "burden" is felt differently by countries closer geographically,
socially and culturally. How much do they get paid in benefits compared to the
UK for example? What are the housing costs and conditions offered there?

~~~
stunt
Considerably lower but probably it matches to GDP-PPP margins.

Perhaps illegal immigrants who are just seeking economic benefits should be
returned after checking their cases even if their skills are needed simply
because they have entered illegally. But, Mediterranean sea is not the right
place to filter them.

------
wtdata
Saving someone that is about to drown, if directly faced with the situation,
is clearly a moral (and probably legal) duty.

But I world argue, that supporting a solution to actively prevent someone from
putting themselves in a situation where they can drown, is not a duty.

I.e.: I have the duty to help my neighbor if I see that she fell off the
stairs and needs medical attention. But I don't have the duty to go check on
her door every hour to see if everything is fine.

EDIT: Disagreeing with someone's comment because it goes against your
political ideology, is not supposed to be a reason to down-vote a comment in
HN.

~~~
gamblor956
1) Under EU law, if they had been using boats, they would have had a legal
duty to save drowning migrants. This is why they switched to drones--no legal
duty.

3) This actually depends on where you are. In the US in most states, your only
duty is to call 911 so that she can be attended to by professionals. In 3
states, the duty extends to actually rendering aid to the best of your
abilities. Outside of the US, Australia, and the UK--which all have "Good
Samaritan laws", I'm not sure many other countries have laws protecting
"rescuers", and correspondingly no duty to "rescue" a person in need of aid.

That last bit is correct. There's no affirmative duty to checkup on someone
else unless you have a legal duty to do so, such as if you are a _paid_
caretaker.

~~~
thefounder
Who pays for so many boats? The drones are used to make the security more
efficient. If the drones see migrants they alert nearby ships that turn the
migrants back. If they see them drowning you can be sure they send boats
anyway. It's really an efficiency solution, I'm not sure why you try to make
this an evil conspiracy.

~~~
gamblor956
I'm not making this a conspiracy, you are. They've stated they don't use boats
because drones are cheaper and don't trigger rescue responsibilities.

------
soneil
I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this. It's a work-around, not a solution.
There is a legal duty, when at sea, to render aid as necessary to ships in
distress. If EUFOR or the coastguard don't have an asset nearby, this doesn't
absolve the responsibility, it just transfers it. We're going to end up with
commercial shipping being diverted to render aid instead (as long as they've
already left Libyan waters). It's not solving anything, it's just shifting the
cost and burden.

~~~
thefounder
I think the plan is to cut costs and intercept these boats before they enter
European waters. Flying multiple drones is definitely more efficient than
patrol boats.

------
despera
EU and each european country are responsible for the deaths of thousands
refugees and migrants in Mediterranean sea and many more rot in concentration
camps.

The EU has financed walls (yes the same EU that makes fun of Trump) like the
one at Evros river at greek-turkish borders, a place that could be used as a
safe passage, away from risky sea smuggling.

While supposedly it's illegal to return migrants back to countries that could
risk their life, still the EU made a deal with Turkey to do exactly that.

Same wise they paying the Libya to keep refugees and migrants in awful
concentration camps away from the EU, yes the same Libya that is under civil
war is considered by EU a safe country. In fact a few days ago such a
concentration camp was bombed and many lost their lives.

EU's Frontex and local forces keep pushing back the boats with refugees,
something that's totally and universally illegal.

It is high time to stop this immunity that EU enjoys to the public talk,
childhood's end has arrived long ago for that particular organization.

~~~
thefounder
These migrants have to stay somewhere(in a EU country), be fed and taken care
of for a long time. Is you or your country willing to do that? It seems that
Frontex does a good job at stopping shaky boats taking dangerous journeys,
thus less people die so I'm not sure why this bothers you. Securing the border
seems a sensible thing to do especially after the terrorist attacks, however
as far as I'm aware once the people reach the border they are treated
humanly(i.e not put in cages, separated from children etc).

People who come here for economic benefits should be returned(unless they have
skills that can bring a positive contribution).

Everyone is responsible for its own life especially when the risk is known.

~~~
despera
I think i was pretty clear right from the beginning. "EU and each european
country"

As for the rest of it how sensible closed borders policies are i will rephrase
old Smullyan, it's only sensible to your satisfaction and to the satisfaction
of those who share the same right-wing values, but without hearing the
argument of why this is a sensible policy i can assure you that it carries not
the slightest conviction to the people of the left.

Open borders and free, safe passage.

~~~
thefounder
>> open borders, safe passage

Safe passage to where? Bringing people in is the easy thing to do, taking care
of them and keeping the same standards of living for the "natives" is not so
easy. I'm all on board welcoming as many people as possible as long as there
is a plan for them once they get here. Nobody provided a such plan.

We've seen what happens with open borders: countries that welcomed massive
numbers of migrants found themselves unable to coup and started looking at
their neighbours to distribute them. Good plan, right? That's what I call
"responsibility".

>> i can assure you that it carries not the slightest conviction to the people
of the left.

Yeah sure, until their benefits are hit or when they see migrants doing better
than them in their own country. Tell that to the people who voted Brexit and
UKIP and keep in mind they voted against "european migrants" who made a net
positive contribution to the economy.

My point is that people change their stance on "open borders" when the reality
hits(i.e they no longer get access to benefits, get mugged by a migrant, loose
their low skilled job to a cheaper migrant etc).

~~~
despera
Uhm, those countries that got "some" amount of migrants which wasn't massive
(only Jordan has more than 600k refugees) and certainly they weren't welcomed
despite the rhetoric by EU (i mean they are welcome AFTER they survived and
weren't drowned?), they NEVER tried to integrate migrants and refugees. At the
entry countries most of them simply thrown in concentration camps financed by
EU, later on they were getting returned back to Turkey, Libya etc.

Now of course there was a plan about distributing some migrants BUT let me
remind you that those quota NEVER achieved, most european countries never
received the amount of refugees they were "obligated" to.

The distribution plan wasn't because refugees gathered for example here in
Greece and they wanted to stay here, not at all, most of them wanted to leave
the country. It was only a passage for them to other countries. Many people
had family waiting for them. What happened? Walls were raised. Borders were
closed and Greece almost kicked out of schengen (informally it was suspended).
Obviously the government was forced to accept the EU plan about keeping the
migrants in concentration camps and distribute some people around the europe
(that again never really happened other than a small extend). Later on the EU-
Turkey deal happened.

Nowdays that xenophobic, anti-immigration feelings are in rise you can hear
that plain and simple even by moderate politicians that when syrian war is
over refugees are out of here.

In other words, there never was an open borders and integration policy that
failed. It is the same fascist policy by EU that getting people killed or rot
in prison.

~~~
thefounder
Most of them had no family in the country seeking asylum. If they had family
members there they could apply for visa at any embassy in the world and most
likely won't arrive by boat. Truth is they were looking for better conditions.

>> Uhm, those countries that got "some" amount of migrants which wasn't
massive (only Jordan has more than 600k refugees)

Germany got about 1.5 million migrants. The question is what is the plan? Most
of the EU governments dodged the question and thus the reason people voted far
right. In Germany they have tried to integrate them[1] but the truth is that
not all of them integrate and of course all this integration comes with a
cost. Now keep in mind that not all the countries are run like Germany and
even Germany has found itself overwhelmed by the task thus asking for
"solidarity" from the other member states. Greece can't manage its own
unemployment let alone train, educate and integrate migrants.

I think you confuse refugee camps with concentration camps which are entirely
different things. There is no need to dramatise it any further.

>> In other words, there never was an open border...

There was an open border policy but it didn't work[1]. It proved that letting
people in freely won't end the migration issue, it only makes it worse. I
would even say this open border policy is the reason why migration from Africa
through mediterranean sea intensified and we see so many drowned now.

>> It is the same fascist policy by EU that getting people killed or rot in
prison.

I think it's just not fair to say that. You can see anti-immigration feelings
all over the world where you have mass immigration. I don't even mention the
leader of the free world(U.S). Even in Turkey, Istanbul which is closer
culturally with the migrants they started deporting illegal immigrants with
the exception of Syrians(due the EU agreement). Truth is that I don't see why
anyone would want to integrate millions of unskilled immigrants from conflict
zones. Some of them don't even want to integrate. We have a responsibility to
offer food and shelter but not to make them european citizens. There is a
different path for that(i.e skills based visa).

[0] [https://www.thelocal.de/20181214/germany-integrating-
migrant...](https://www.thelocal.de/20181214/germany-integrating-migrants-
quickly-business-chief)

[1] [https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-germany-merkel-
re...](https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-germany-merkel-
refugees-20190212-story.html)

~~~
despera
I think you really mix things up, refugees, migrants, numbers. I think you
just hiding behind that excuse for an integration plan for something that has
happened before again and again even to countries with pretty much no
infrastructure.

>> Greece can't manage its own unemployment let alone train, educate and
integrate migrants.

It's funny you saying that because Greece is a good example of open borders
back to 90s and the influx of hundreds thousand of migrants from Albania. Was
there any plan? Absolutely nothing. There were tensions and racist attacks but
in perspective they did have a positive effect to the greek economy that
wasn't back then any better than it is now. And they did integrate to society.

>>I would even say this open border policy is the reason why migration from
Africa through mediterranean sea intensified and we see so many drowned now.

That's exactly what right wingers are saying. And makes absolutely no sense.
Offer to those people safe and guaranteed passage and they will not be
drowned, won't be killed, won't be raped on their way to wherever they want to
go. Why do people have to make this complicated?

"As mood sours, Syrians report forced deportations from Turkey"
[https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-syrians/as-mood-
so...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-syrians/as-mood-sours-
syrians-report-forced-deportations-from-turkey-idUSKCN1UK1QE)

"Greek Coast Guard caught on video pushing a boat full of refugees back to
Turkey"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k2THtF9h6M](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1k2THtF9h6M)

"EU border force Frontex implicated in migrant abuse"
[https://www.dw.com/en/eu-border-force-frontex-implicated-
in-...](https://www.dw.com/en/eu-border-force-frontex-implicated-in-migrant-
abuse/a-49892097)

[https://twitter.com/_sophiamaier/status/1151484044095496192](https://twitter.com/_sophiamaier/status/1151484044095496192)

~~~
thefounder
Why don't you clear up these numbers? I think you are a denier and simply
refuse to see the other side of the coin. Even refuse to accept that Europe
has faced a massive immigration issue. Turkey got almost 4 million refugees.
Were not the EU agreement these people would be heading towards Europe.

The issue it's not really complicated. You just have to admit that massive
immigration has some social and economic costs. Maybe not for the wealthy but
surely for the leas fortunate "natives". Right wing wins because of deniers
like you who can't provide a compromise solution. "Let them all in and we see
afterwards how we handle it" doesn't put people at ease. Not to mention the
security risk.

~~~
despera
UNHCR - 2018 report [1]

"During 2018, the refugee population in Germany continued to increase,
numbering 1,063,800 at the end of the year. More than half were from Syria
(532,100), while other countries of origin included iraq (136,500),
Afghanistan (126,000), eritrea (55,300), the islamic Republic of iran
(41,200), Turkey (24,000), Somalia (23,600), Serbia and Kosovo (S/ReS/1244
(1999)) (9,200), the Russian Federation (8,100), Pakistan (7,500) and nigeria
(6,400)."

Do you see anything weird in those data? 24.000 turkish people have been
granted asylum by Germany. The same country that EU acknowledge as a safe
place for refugees to return them back. I think that speaks a lot about EU's
totally despicable deal with Turkey that has been criticized again and again
by so many organizations. [2] [3]

Sadly, we always return back to Smullyan. Whatever i show or tell you won't
change your mind about how the little way of life of natives must be protected
over human rights of others.

I only hope that pro-europeans, left or right, stop ridicule themselves by
criticizing Trump's ICE while they are responsible for far worse atrocities.

Same pig, different color.

[1] [https://www.unhcr.org/5d08d7ee7.pdf](https://www.unhcr.org/5d08d7ee7.pdf)

[2] [https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/06/20/eu-dont-send-syrians-
bac...](https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/06/20/eu-dont-send-syrians-back-turkey)

[3] [https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/03/eu-turkey-
ref...](https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2016/03/eu-turkey-refugee-deal-
a-historic-blow-to-rights/)

~~~
thefounder
>> 24.000 turkish people have been granted asylum by Germany. The same country
that EU acknowledge as a safe place for refugees to return them back. I think
that speaks a lot about EU's totally despicable deal with Turkey that has been
criticized again and again by so many organizations.

I think you deliberately ignore the details for these asylum seekers. We all
know that after the failed coup Erdogan started to persecute political
opponents. Does this mean is an unsafe country for syrian refugees? Maybe you
should ask yourself why the west supported the military coup(media included)
in the first place?

There are 50-70 million refugees over the world. How many should Europe take
to be considered a good protector of human rights? Should we go all in? Let
them settle in and see how we handle it afterwards?

------
astrodev
Didn’t read the article, but the title sounds very much like something I would
support.

No need to add to the gigantic amount of money Europe wastes on social care.

