Scientists have long been fond of a theory known as The Butterfly Effect: One event, no matter how small, can have lasting repercussions on a large scale.

Think of the outcome, then, of much larger changes in the present time. Disastrous changes.

There can be few more tragic developments in today’s world than the continuing deaths of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of would-be migrants to Europe from the beleaguered nations of Northern Africa. Just off the coast of the small Italian island of Lampedusa, the warm spring waters of the Mediterranean are teeming with the bodies of African refugees, who pledged their lives to unsafe paddle boats and then died in any of a number of sudden accidents.

The most recent incident, which occurred over the weekend of April 19, may have claimed as many as 900 lives.

Why are they fleeing their homes in Northern Africa? There is no simple answer, but there is one important factor that often goes unnoticed.

A significant number of the sunken refugees have come from the nation of Libya. The U.S. backed ouster of the dictatorial Prime Minister Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 effectively dismantled the country. Libyans, who inhabit a superbly oil-rich region, have now experienced several years of shifting leadership, nearly random drone strikes by U.S. Special Forces, and internal fighting on a grand scale.

U.S. intervention in Libya is a key factor, perhaps the most important factor, in the crisis that has driven thousands of refugees into the torpid, bloody waters aboard unsafe vessels.

Yet see how often this connection is made in the mainstream media? Almost never.

Pope Francis visited Lampedusa in 2013 to decry the staggering loss of life. He defied the view that these migrants’ lives are somebody else’s problem, not ours.

“We have become used to other people’s suffering,” he said. “It doesn’t concern us, it doesn’t interest us, it’s none of our business.”

Pope Francis was speaking mainly to Europeans, who express their hostility to African refugee immigrants more and more loudly with each passing year. However, there have been no meaningful offers of asylum from the U.S government. As the aggressor responsible, directly or indirectly, for overthrowing governments in the region in question, even a token of reparations would stand to reason.

And yet, the proposals currently being heard are to survey the waters with drones, to arrest the boat captains and to target human traffickers in Libya with bombing campaigns.

The American butterfly, its wings beating somewhere over Libya, is nowhere to be found in the news.