Greece, tired of being Muslim Asia’s illegal gateway to Europe, has decided to build a border fence with Turkey. It’s not a long border, but it will significantly raise the cost of sneaking into Greece from Asia. Greece already has trouble dealing with the 300,000 illegals there, and has asked the new European border patrol to help supplement their own attempts to control the border.
Greece claims that the fence will be modeled on the US fence with Mexico. Skeptics will wonder if that means that it will be budgeted for, but not built. More likely, it will resemble the fence in another way – forcing those sneaking across to be more creative. Take a look at the Aegean Sea, and you’ll see lots of islands. Islands that Turkey, for the most part, owns. Even today, this has to be a smuggler’s paradise. I haven’t seen any reaction from Bulgaria, but unless they’re willing to follow suit, I suspect that many Asians will start turning north, rather than west, when they cross the Straits.
Some will argue that this makes the whole exercise fruitless, but these are largely people who look at the world as a football game that, like Donovan McNabb, they believe can’t end in a tie. When you’re faced with opposition, one of the most important things you can do is to complicate their planning and raise the cost of their operations. It reduces their chances of success, forces them to take risks that might betray them, and in general, makes enforcement elsewhere easier.
I’m sure there are some that will say that this will just drive a wedge between Turkey and Europe, forcing Turkey to turn east. But the current Turkish government seems to have already made that decision, and with their prosecution of some 200 military officers, also seems to be consolidating its grip on the country, showing that they are no longer afraid of the military’s intervention in civilian affairs. The proposed fence and increased border controls are more of a response to this situation than a catalyst.
