George Packer has another great and heartbreaking story out in this week's New Yorker. It's about the Iraqi translators and workers who signed up for the American rebuilding project in Iraq but who are now being thrown to the wolves by the United States. I mentioned this a couple of posts back, but George's full story is worth a full and thoughtful read.
As he puts it:
Between October, 2005, and September, 2006, the United States admitted two hundred and two Iraqis as refugees, most of them from the years under Saddam. Last year, the Bush Administration increased the allotment to five hundred. By the end of 2006, there were almost two million Iraqis living as refugees outside their country -- most of them in Syria and Jordan. American policy held that these Iraqis were not refugees, that they would go back to their country as soon as it was stabilized. The U.S. Embassies in Damascus and Amman continued to turn down almost all visa applications from Iraqis. So the fastest-growing refugee crisis in the world remained hidden, receiving little attention other than in a few reports from organizations like Human Rights Watch and Refugees International.
Of course, the reason the Iraqis are being treated like this is because the Bush administration refuses to admit that Iraq isn't a abattoir of its making. And there is insult to the injury the Iraqis are facing. At least one Iraqi employee of the U.S. embassy in Baghdad was refused entry to the U.S. because he had paid a ransom to kidnappers, violating the "material support" clause of the Patriot Act.
One of the heroes of the story is a USAID worker named Kirk Johnson, who grew disillusioned with life in the Green Zone and asked to be transferred to Fallujah. I think I met Johnson when I was in Fallujah in Nov. 2005, but I'm not sure. Regardless, he has been a driving force in getting the U.S. to open its doors more to Iraqi refugees, with the highest priority given to those who worked for the U.S. and are now in the most danger.
“This is the brink right now, where our partners over there are running for their lives,” he said to George. “I defy anyone to give me the counter-argument for why we shouldn’t let these people in.” He then quoted something President Gerald Ford once said regarding his decision to admit a hundred and thirty thousand Vietnamese after the fall of Saigon: “To do less would have added moral shame to humiliation."
“I defy anyone to give me the counter-argument for why we shouldn’t let these people in.”
I can think of one, which is that the DHS and the FBI are completely incompetent and incapable of screening these people to separate legitimate refugees from jihadi sleeper agents.
Do you know of any way to support Mr. Johnson’s efforts?
It is so good to have more and more people screaming about the fate of the refugees we’ve created.
And let’s name what underlies the mistreatment the occupation doles out to its Iraqi employees: good old American racism there. They are just gooks after all.
admitting more refugees would be a tacit admission from the bush administration that things aren’t quite going according to plan in iraq and that the people are not better off now than they were under saddam.
Could these interpretors get US visas if there were job offers? Why cant we drum up job offers? I can offer one.
Am Iraqi woman with 2 kids (my husband was killed cause he was caught in a shooting between US army and insurgents),I used to have a very decent job,house and a good living.I had been applying to all visas and to each embassy, but nothing has came out yet,am I or my kids are responsible or deserve the suffering and deprivation we are living now outside Iraq?
They cheered the U.S. invasion; they offered to help, signed on as translators, risked everything they had to work for the United States. But when they had to run for their lives, America slammed the door
as I have a very special friend who was an Iraqi interpretor, and that his life right now is inextreme danger, I think it is an atrocity that we have turned our backs on them. They wanted to help our troops, they wanted to help their country, now they’re paying the price. I for one am in favor of bringing them here. They fought for their freedom, give it to them, they will never have it in Iraq.