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Abandoning friends; Interpreters in Afghanistan deserve our help

pakistani342

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I think it is important for those of us who are US citizens to write to our representatives to press them on the plight of Afghan Interpreters and other Afghans who have helped the United States at great personal risk.

I've attached a sample letter template that you could use or customize for this purpose.

If you need to know how to locate and write to your representative - Google: How to write to your representative.

original article here

...

As U.S. military operations in Afghanistan wind down, the Obama administration must take care not to leave friends in the lurch. Thousands of Afghan interpreters who have assisted U.S. troops ably and honorably are special targets of the Taliban, and they're desperately seeking visas to come to the United States.

The end of U.S. combat operations are scheduled for late next year; time is running short. President Obama must rescue Afghan interpreters whose visa applications are stuck in the fudge at the State Department, requiring up to two years for processing and approval. One 27-year-old interpreter, who has survived two attempts on his life, tells The Washington Times he applied for a visa in February 2012, and didn't get an interview at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul until April of this year, and he's still waiting. Another, who applied in March 2011, hasn't heard anything, either. These visa applications must not be treated as work to be done at a bureaucrat's convenience.

Up to 7,000 Afghans are stuck in that backlog, says Kirk W. Johnson, author of "To Be a Friend is Fatal: The Fight to Save the Iraqis America Left Behind," scheduled for publication this fall. "The problem is the White House," Mr. Johnson says. "If President Obama said, 'OK, enough. Get our interpreters out,' do you really think the consular officer at the embassy in Kabul is going to say, 'Well, sorry, sir. This is going to take us two years to do this.'?"

Mr. Obama must also tell Afghan coalition-partner nations to step up to provide refuge for many of these interpreters, particularly those hired by the NATO coalition, who are ineligible for U.S. visas as prescribed in the Afghan Allies Protection Act. That program, established by Congress in 2009, authorizes 1,500 visas per year for Afghans and their families.

"These are not the pooh-bahs and the warlords with condos in Dubai," says Marc Chretien, a former State Department official who was an adviser to Marine Gen. John R. Allen when he was the coalition commander in Afghanistan. "They're in their 20s. They speak English. They work hard. They will succeed in our country."

For those Afghan interpreters, regarded by the Taliban as traitors or lackeys of the corrupt "puppet" government of Hamid Karzai in Kabul, a repeat of the fall of Saigon in 1975 is easy to foresee. The images of terrified Vietnamese employes of Americans on the roof of the U.S. Embassy there, trying desperately to board the last U.S. helicopter out as the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong overran Saigon, are indelibly etched in bitter memory.

Since the Supreme Court struck down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, the Obama administration has hurried to ensure the State Department expedites the processing of visa applications of foreign homosexual "spouses" of Americans, none of whom is at risk of life or limb. While the process is necessarily lengthy and complicated, those who have done our military good service are more deserving of priority attention. The president's boot applied to the right place would get it done.

...

Sample template to use write to your representative

Date
The Honorable ________
Office Address
United States House of Representatives/United State Senate
City, State, Zip

Dear Representative/Senator ______________:

As a constituent, I am writing you today to encourage you to take immediate action to support tangible policy steps to help the plight of thousands of Afghans, especially Interpreters, who have assisted U.S. troops ably and honorably and have thus become targets of the Taliban and are desperately seeking visas to come to the United States.

To remedy these issues, I encourage you to Accelerate the processing of Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) for those working for or with the U.S. government.

Sincerely,

Your Name
Your Title
Your Address
Your City, State, Zip
Your Phone Number
 
They might be accepted into the country and then the right wingers would criticize this on religious basis.

Stupid right wingers in the US, invade a country and when same people move to the US, they complain of immigration.
 
They might be accepted into the country and then the right wingers would criticize this on religious basis.

Stupid right wingers in the US, invade a country and when same people move to the US, they complain of immigration.

I suspect there would be supporters and opposers of helping Afghans who worked for US interests on both sides of the aisle.

The need of the hour is to write to our representatives to highlight the plight of Afghans who risked their lives to help the US.
 
@pakistani342

The best way to ensure their safety and well being , is well to take them back to the states , before the withdrawal . I see no other way , how these people could be safe and sound .
 
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Yes, there are special visas that are set aside for such folks but it seems they are not being processed - actually the media has written about Ambassador Karl Eikenberry's explicit attempts to stall these visas because he thought it would lead to a significant brain drain.
 
BBC News - Afghan interpreters petition to be delivered to Cameron


Former Army officers will visit Downing Street later to demand the option of UK resettlement for all Afghan interpreters who aided British forces.

The UK has offered some interpreters the right to live in the country.

But campaigners will deliver a petition of 27,500 signatures calling for all former interpreters to get that offer.

Otherwise, the UK is condemning them to "almost certain death", they said. The MoD said it had a range of measures for ex-staff.

The UK is offering resettlement to about half of the 1,200 Afghan staff who were working directly for the UK on 19 December 2012, when Prime Minister David Cameron announced a "drawdown" of British forces in Afghanistan.

Some of these staff were interpreters, but any who left before that date - except those who stopped working because of combat injuries - will not qualify.

The exact number who have worked as interpreters is unknown, but the MoD said about 550 of the 1,100 local staff currently working for the British government in Afghanistan are interpreters, and "many thousands" of Afghans had worked for the UK in some capacity since the 2001 invasion.

'Embarrassed'

Major James Driscoll, one of the former officers behind the resettlement campaign, said interpreters had taken "great risks to both to themselves and their families" to help British troops

By denying entry into the UK the government is condemning them and their families to persecution and almost certain death," he said.

Maj Driscoll said the campaign represented many current and former soldiers who felt ex-interpreters should be protected from Taliban reprisals.

"Knowing that all Iraqi interpreters were offered UK resettlement, and given that other nations serving in Afghanistan have agreed to resettle all of their interpreters, these soldiers are embarrassed by the UK's lack of loyalty to those that fought for this country," he said.

A legal challenge for several of the interpreters was submitted to the High Court on 6 August, Maj Driscoll added.

Among those presenting the petition will be former Scots Guards Captain Alex Perkins, a great-grandson of Winston Churchill, who left the Army less than a year ago.

He said his great-grandfather, who had spent a large part of his career in the Army, "would have been shocked by the way our government is treating men who risked their lives to help British forces".

The campaigners are most concerned about interpreters who did "particularly dangerous" work in Helmand from 2006 onwards.


One of those was Baryalai Shams, a translator from 2008-09, who fled after his father and brother were killed by the Taliban.
He reached Germany on a false passport but was arrested and spent two years in immigration detention, before being granted asylum two weeks ago.

Maj Driscoll said it was "disappointing" Mr Shams had been forced to seek protection in another European country after serving Britain.

Protection measures

The UK's offer, which applies only to staff who had been working for at least 12 months up to 19 December 2012, is five years of training in Afghanistan with financial support, or a redundancy package worth 18 months' salary.

A "third option" - resettlement in the UK - will be offered only to those who worked in "particularly dangerous and challenging roles".

An MoD spokesman said this "very generous" redundancy scheme did not replace its pre-existing intimidation policy, which applies to anyone who worked for British forces at any time.

The spokesman said this policy "offers a separate range of protection and handling measures depending on the seriousness of the threat, including in extreme cases the option of relocation to the UK".

But BBC defence correspondent Jonathan Beale said only one Afghan had been allowed to move to the UK under this scheme.

In a statement issued in June, Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said he must consider "the potential impact on the UK and on Afghanistan of resettling large numbers of people".

The statement added: "Having invested so much already, the government wants to encourage local staff to stay in Afghanistan and to use their skills and knowledge to make it stronger."
 
If these chaps don't get some sort of visa or rsettlement package, they will be dead within a year.
 
In Russia people helps invaders called collaborators. What did you expect? To them flowers and medals were awarded? Americans out there do not understand what they are doing. In addition to the sharp increase in opium - no effects.
 

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