Because Poland

[Ivanhoe]

So it begins;

 

 

[Ssnake]

Ah, but how will the kangaroos sustain the invasion. They'd not only have to commandeer the help of the Australian Navy, but also other logistical support. The more the supply lines are operated by kangaroos, the fewer can be committed to the fight. Also, they'll need to acquire millions of boxing glove pairs first. Without doubt, the Uruguayan secret service will learn about the Kangaroos' war preparations well before the first beachhead is established.

Is strategic Kangaroo surprise even possible in this day and age?

[sunday]

What? Do you mean there are no kangaroos in Austria?

[Sardaukar]

51 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

Ah, but how will the kangaroos sustain the invasion. They'd not only have to commandeer the help of the Australian Navy, but also other logistical support. The more the supply lines are operated by kangaroos, the fewer can be committed to the fight. Also, they'll need to acquire millions of boxing glove pairs first. Without doubt, the Uruguayan secret service will learn about the Kangaroos' war preparations well before the first beachhead is established.

Is strategic Kangaroo surprise even possible in this day and age?

They'll sent Emus first.

Great Emu War didn't go too well either, so they are perfect distraction. 

[Ivanhoe]

3 hours ago, Ssnake said:

Ah, but how will the kangaroos sustain the invasion. They'd not only have to commandeer the help of the Australian Navy, but also other logistical support. The more the supply lines are operated by kangaroos, the fewer can be committed to the fight. Also, they'll need to acquire millions of boxing glove pairs first. Without doubt, the Uruguayan secret service will learn about the Kangaroos' war preparations well before the first beachhead is established.

Depends on the casus belli. One must tread lightly with the Ozzies, else things might deteriorate to a bare-knuckle brawl.

If things go from bad to worse, the Ozzies might unleash the Sheilas. 

[urbanoid]

2 minutes ago, Ivanhoe said:

Depends on the casus belli. One must tread lightly with the Ozzies, else things might deteriorate to a bare-knuckle brawl.

If things go from bad to worse, the Ozzies might unleash the Sheilas. 

[sunday]

Lacks hanging corks in the hat.

[urbanoid]

Who knew Polish state-owned TV could be so unfathomably based?

 

[BansheeOne]

So what's the word on the ground about the alleged Polish cash-for-visa scandal granting Schengen visa to African and Asian applicants for bribes? I'm saying "alleged" because any political scandal that breaks mere weeks before an election is immediately suspect (see the "Aiwanger affair" in Bavaria about an anti-Semitic school-time pamphlet over in the German elections thread). For the opposition, it's obviously most convenient to counter the government's Orban-style ploy of linking the election with a referendum on immigration. Their claim of 250,000 cases in 30 months also sounds rather fantastic.

OTOH I can see lots of obfuscation in the government statements happily spread by state media; and their counterclaim that it was only a couple hundred, most of which were rejected anyway, seems equally dubious. There's clearly something to it, since seven were charged and a deputy foreign minister who reportedly pushed for accelerated proceedings relieved, then promptly hospitalized after an alleged suicide attempt (at least he didn't drop from a high-story window).

Quote

Poland shaken by reports consular officials took bribes to help migrants enter Europe and US

Poland’s conservative governing party was hoping to make migration a key campaign theme ahead of the country’s Oct. 15 parliamentary elections

Vanessa Gera

Saturday 16 September 2023 05:10

Poland’s conservative governing party was hoping to make migration a key campaign theme ahead of the country’s national election. But not like this.

The Law and Justice party is being rocked by reports that Polish consulates issued visas in Africa and Asia in exchange for bribes, opening the door for migrants to enter the European Union — which some used as a launching pad to enter the United States.

Details about the corruption scandal are coming to light a month ahead of the country’s parliamentary elections Oct. 15, leaving Law and Justice struggling to control the damage.

On Friday, a former deputy foreign minister who was dismissed amid reports of his involvement was hospitalized after an apparent suicide attempt.

Law and Justice has been the election frontrunner in a field of several parties, and it's not clear if the affair will dent its support. But opposition politicians have seized on the issue, accusing the government of corruption and hypocrisy, given its strong anti-immigrant rhetoric.

Critics say the governing party raised the specter of immigration to frighten Poles and then offered promises of keeping them secure, while a corrupt cell operating within the diplomatic corps opened a channel for migrants to enter the EU.

“This is the biggest scandal we have faced in the 21st century. Corruption at the highest levels of government, bringing a direct threat to all of us. And it’s because of people whose mouths are full of phrases about security,” Senate Speaker Tomasz Grodzki, an opposition politician, said in a televised address to the nation Friday evening.

Poland has opened its door to Ukrainian refugees, who are primarily white and Christian, but governing party officials have long made clear that they consider Muslims and others from different cultures to be a threat to the nation’s cultural identity and security.

Media reports allege Poland’s consular sections issued about 250,000 visas to migrants from Asia and Africa since 2021 in return for bribes of several thousand dollars. Poland is a member of the EU’s visa-free zone known as Schengen, and once those migrants arrived in Poland they could cross Europe's borders freely.

Szymon Holownia, who leads a center-right opposition party, said the governing party “jeopardized the safety of millions of Poles by conducting the disgusting, commercial practice of selling visas."

Government officials acknowledge some wrongdoing occurred.

The Foreign Ministry announced Friday it had dismissed an official "in connection with the ongoing findings regarding irregularities in the visa issuance process.” It said the official was Jakub Osajda, the director of the ministry’s office of legal and compliance management. It also announced an audit of its consular department and all consular posts.

That followed the dismissal of the deputy foreign minister in charge of consular matters, Piotr Wawrzyk, last month as the first reports of the scandal appeared in the media. Wawrzyk was hospitalized after a suicide attempt, Polish media reported Friday.

The state prosecutor's office said Thursday it charged seven people suspected of corrupt activities in accelerating visa procedures, with three of them under temporary arrest.

The prosecutor general, Zbigniew Ziobro, said authorities were working to bring the wrongdoers to justice and insisted the scale of the affair was smaller than what the media and opposition claim.

He said Wawrzyk had attempted suicide because he couldn't bear the hatred against him.

Wawrzyk had been responsible for preparing a regulation making it easier for foreign workers from countries including Iran, Pakistan and United Arab Emirates to enter Poland.

According to the Onet news portal, Wawrzyk personally insisted that temporary work visas be issued to groups of people from India who posed as crews working for the Indian movie industry, popularly known as Bollywood.

Onet said the Indians paid $25,000 to $40,000 for the visas hoping to use them to reach the U.S. It reported that U.S. officials had alerted Poland to the matter.

[...]

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/poland-ap-law-and-justice-europe-european-union-b2412664.html

 

Quote

Polish Foreign Ministry debunks allegations of mass visa distribution to foreigners

16.09.2023, 08:50

Poland’s Foreign Ministry published government statistics on Friday evening debunking the supposed mass issuance of visas to foreigners. According to the official data, the vast majority of documents that allowed foreigners to stay in the Schengen Zone in the past 2,5 years were issued to the citizens of Belarus and Ukraine, of whom many were fleeing from the persecutions by the Minsk regime and Russian aggression respectively.

The Foreign Ministry said that over the past 30 months, it has issued more than 1.950 million visas to foreigners allowing them to stay in Schengen countries, and more than 1.782 million national visas (allowing them to stay only in Poland). Citizens of Belarus were issued over 586,000 and over 534,000 such visas respectively, while citizens of Ukraine received over 990,000 and over 988,000 such documents during this period. The remaining nearly 375,000 Schengen visas and more than 259,000 national visas were issued to citizens of other countries.

Poland not a leader in Schengen visa issuances

According to the ministry, France issued the largest number of documents permitting the stay in the EU – 480,057 visas in 2021, and 1.428 million in 2022. The second country that issued the largest number of such documents was Spain – 337,000 in 2021 and 912,000 in 2022. The third country that issued the most Schengen residence permits was Germany – approximately 268,000 in 2021, and 817,000 in 2022.

Meanwhile, Poland only issued about 39,000 such visas in 2021, and approximately 73,000 a year later.

High visa application refusal rate

The Foreign Ministry also stressed that visa applicants received their visas only after a thorough verification. It pointed out that as much as 90 percent of all applications submitted from a given destination could be turned down.

Among the applications submitted in 2022 for work visas, 90 percent of Iraqis and Nigerians trying to obtain such a document were turned down. Furthermore, 80% of visa applications from citizens of Tajikistan, Pakistan, Algeria, Tunisia, and Syria were also turned down. The refusal rate for citizens of Uzbekistan and Bangladesh stood at approximately 50%.

The MFA said that between 2012 and 2014, 39,660 visa applications were turned down, while visa refusals issued between 2020 and 2022 stood at 114,272.

According to the ministry, most visas granted between 2021 and June 2023, with the exception of citizens of Belarus and Ukraine, were given to citizens of Turkey (51,135), Russia (44,633), Kazakhstan (17,189), and Uzbekistan (16,386).

The ministry also noted that Russian citizens were issued 20% of all visas granted in 2012, 16% in 2013, and 10% in 2014. Meanwhile, in 2020, the percentage of visas issued to Russians dropped to 4%, 3% in 2021, and 2% in 2022.

https://tvpworld.com/72764623/polish-foreign-ministry-debunks-allegations-of-mass-visa-distribution-to-foreigners

[BansheeOne]

It was clear that as soon as the German government asked the Polish about "clarification" of the abovementioned allegations about Schengen visa fraud, the latter would scream about "meddling in internal affairs". This is of course the same government that a month ago called the rape of a (male) drunken Polish language student by an Afghan asylum seeker in a Munich subway station "the result of an open-door immigration policy" and demanded that Polish prosecutors be involved in the case. 😄

Quote

Poland accuses Germany of meddling over visa allegations

26 minutes ago

Poland is accusing Germany of attempting to sway the result of an upcoming election. Germany's Olaf Scholz had said Warsaw should clarify opposition claims that its consulates sold visas to migrants.

Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau accused Germany of seeking to interfere in his country's internal affairs after comments from Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The German leader said Warsaw had questions to answer over allegations that Polish consulates in Africa and Asia sold fast-tracked temporary work visas for thousands of dollars each to migrants.

What the Polish foreign minister said

With migration a central campaign theme ahead of Poland's closely-contested mid-October elections, Rau accused Scholz of overstepping a boundary with his clarification request.

"The competence of the German Chancellor clearly does not concern the ongoing proceedings in Poland," Foreign Minister Rau wrote on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.

"Statements in this regard indicate an attempt to interfere in the internal affairs of the Polish State and the ongoing electoral campaign in Poland," he said. 

Rau's nationalist Law and Justice Party (PiS) is campaigning on an anti-immigration platform, and has previously sought to use anti-German sentiment to its electoral advantage.

What are the visa allegations?

Scholz had called for clarification to the accusation that as many as 350,000 migrants bought EU Schengen visas from Polish consulates.

"I don't want people to just be waved through from Poland and only for us to have a discussion about asylum policy afterward," the German news agency DPA reported him as saying.

The consulates allegedly processed the visas at an accelerated pace and without proper checks after applicants paid intermediaries. Such Schengen visas often allow holders to travel to other parts of the EU, such as Germany.

Germany's government is under increasing pressure to limit migration across its eastern borders. German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser last week said that Germany might introduce short-term border checks with Poland and the Czech Republic to reduce the number of migrants entering.

[...]

https://www.dw.com/en/poland-accuses-germany-of-meddling-over-visa-allegations/a-66914317

 

Quote

Poland wants to participate in probe launched into rape of Pole says PM

(PAP) AT/JCH AUGUST 23, 2023

Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister, has said that Poland will ask Germany to immediately allow Polish prosecutors to take part in an inquiry into the rape of a young male Pole in Munich.

"A young male Pole was raped by an Afghan refugee. This is the result of an open-door policy," Mateusz Morawiecki wrote on social media on Wednesday.

"We will ask the German side to immediately allow Polish prosecutors to take part in the investigation," Morawiecki added.

German media reported on Tuesday that a young male Pole had been raped at one of the Munich subway stations. The alleged attacker, who is currently in custody, is a 20-year-old Afghan migrant.

According to German police, the victim, an 18-year-old German language school student, had been on his way home from a party. The perpetrator took advantage of the fact that his heavily intoxicated victim had fallen asleep. 

The suspect also stole the Pole's wallet and mobile phone. Police, however, were able to locate the culprit through a location tracker on the phone.

"This is the result of an open-door policy which has been conducted by the European Union, Mr. Manfred Weber and his representative in Poland, Donald Tusk," the prime minister wrote.

"Do we want such a Europe in Poland?" Morawiecki asked.

[...]

https://www.thefirstnews.com/article/poland-wants-to-participate-in-probe-launched-into-rape-of-pole-says-pm-40740

[Markus Becker]

Well, what passes for a free press here seems to be not that interested in this narrative. Probably because they wouldn't come via Poland if Germany wasn't rolling out the red carpet for them. 

[urbanoid]

Poland will temporarily introduce border controls on Slovakian border, while Germany might do that on Polish and Czech border. 

The 'visa affair' looks like may concern a few hundred cases of illegally bought visas, as opposed to the claims of hundreds of thousands. 

Quote

According to the Federal Government's current knowledge, it can be said that the immigration of asylum seekers with Polish visas goes well beyond individual cases and is tending to increase, but is not a mass phenomenon. According to a response from the federal government to a request from the AfD in the Bundestag available to WELT, “to the knowledge of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, 1,230 people who applied for asylum in Germany in the period from January 2021 to May 2023 were in possession of one issued by the Polish authorities Visa”. There were 273 people in 2021, 606 in 2022 and 351 people in the current year from January to May 2023.

https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article247660070/Migration-So-viele-Migranten-reisen-mit-polnischen-Visa-nach-Deutschland-ein.html

I doubt the route for illegals going through Poland to Germany is particularly relevant in the grand scheme of things, especially compared to the Southern route, which Germany actually enables:

 

[BansheeOne]

The current German debate on border controls is definitely election-related ahead of next month's state polls in Bavaria and Hesse, too. There has been discussion about rising illegal entries for about two years, since the Belarus border crisis, and the legal stream of Ukrainian refugees for the last one-and-a-half has depleted ressources for accommodation to the point where municipalities have protested that they're at the breaking point for the last half or so.

With the Ukrainians, immigration numbers are actually way higher than during the 2015/16 refugee crisis even though illegal entries are much lower. It flew a bit under the radar, because despite attempts by the pro-Russian Right to scandalize it similar to back then, there have been less undertones of cultural conflict, and a greater effort by civil society to take them in. But the upcoming state elections and the poll hike of the AfD have now focussed minds. 

The Bavarian conservatives have always been happy to make immigration a campaign topic. State premier Markus Söder already re-established the Bavarian Border Police in 2018 with much fanfare, but little practical effect, since he didn't enter into an administrative agreement with the federal government to gain the latter's powers on border security (or he would have had sole responsibility for the entire Bavarian border, with the associated cost). Now he has revived the old demand for a hard cap on annual numbers of asylum seekers to be admitted, which is flat-out unconstitutional.

The one actually responsible for border security is federal interior minister Nancy Faeser of the SPD, who now happens to run for state premier of her native Hesse. There have been calls on her to enact stationary controls on the eastern borders rather than the usual roving patrols in the proximate areas, like it has been done in Bavaria where a checkpoint for random vehicle controls has been established on Autobahn 3 since 2015, and two more were added this year. Which, along with stricter controls in Austria and Croatia, has contributed to the traditional Balkan route moving towards Slovakia, Czechia and Poland.

Last year, the Czech border was the hottest zone, with 12,000 illegal entries registered until the end of September. By now Poland has become the main transit country. In the first quarter of 2023, about 4,000 crossings were registered on the Polish border, 3,700 on the Austrian, 3,100 on the Swiss, and 1,500 on the Czech; the "Welt" article cited above notes that by now, the number for the Polish border is about 18,000, with an unknown dark field.

East German state premiers, also facing elections with an ascendant AfD next year, have demanded stationary controls like in Bavaria there for some time. The sense is disputed even between various police associations, but at any rate Minister Faeser has now suddenly embraced them after previously denying their effectiveness (though this evening, the talk is just of "increased" controls again). Clearly the impact of asylum seekers who enter legally with Polish visas is rather negligible within the overall scope.

But I guess taking a swipe in passing at the PiS government which has been blaming Germany for everything including inclement weather and untimely bowel movements while sucking up the equivalent of the entire German net EU payments as the biggest net recipient to curry domestic favor was just too seductive, and in turn probably hoped to get some sympathy points from voters irrespective of the migration topic. Particularly since the PiS could reliably be expected to react with more apoplectic hypocrisy to a throwaway line, increasing the entertainment value. 😁

[urbanoid]

Looks like not only Poland, but also the Czech Republic will introduce controls on Slovak border, after Germany announcing the same on Polish and Czech border. Since the migrants traveling to Germany through Slovakia and PL/CZ come from Hungary, one can expect the Slovaks to do the same on the Hungarian border.

[Stuart Galbraith]

 

[Ivanhoe]

I wasn't paying attention, but the brouhaha about Poland being NATO's flank vs center has memesters involved;

[BansheeOne]

15 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

 

That's my kind of cake. 😋

[urbanoid]

One of the parliamentary candidates from the party 'Third Way' has presented herself as 'a candidate of the Third Reich', I'm absolutely laughing my ass off.

 

[urbanoid]

 

[Ivanhoe]

5 hours ago, urbanoid said:

 

I knew it! 

This whole military buildup isn't about Russia, its about World Domination™.

[R011]

1 hour ago, Ivanhoe said:

I knew it! 

This whole military buildup isn't about Russia, its about World Domination™.

I , for one, welcome our new Polish overlords. I'd like to remind them I can be helpful in rounding up others to toil in their underground keilbasa caves.

[Ivanhoe]

If this is what Polish colonization looks like, I too will welcome our new Polish overlords;

 

My research indicates that the Polish "food pyramid" is pork, potatoes, and cabbage. We may die overweight and suffering from CVD, but we will be happy.

Photo from https://polishfoodies.com/polish-comfort-food-recipes/

That said, for me to perform well as a Polish operative, I'll need to learn to speak and read Polska. Thus I'll need Izabella Miko as teacher. 

 

 

 

[sunday]

Herring too!

[Markus Becker]

 

 

 

 

 

Polish Imperialism is indeed becoming a problem. Thanks to German technical support Polish air forces are also spreading, their culture and politics too. 

 

And on the far side there's a protest brewing. Probably about the lack of Polish beer in the fridge.

 

Than again, serves me right. I mean they put "Greater" Poland on the headline and I ignored it. Maybe a couple of bottles of Zubr appease them. 

 

 

 

[sunday]

Any comments by our Polish members on this?

Quote

Two of Poland’s top military commanders resign days before election

Two of Poland’s top military commanders, including the chief of the general staff, have tendered their resignations just days before a crucial parliamentary election that will determine the future political course of the country.

The army confirmed on Tuesday that Gen Rajmund Andrzejczak, the chief of the general staff, and the operational commander, Lt Gen Tomasz Piotrowski, had submitted their resignations.

(...)