‘They Will Kill Us’: Afghan Translators Plead for Delayed U.S. Visas by Emmarie Huetteman, New York Times
Zar Mohammad Stanikzai remembers the promise made to him when he became a translator supporting the United States military in 2012: Help us, and we will keep you safe. Four years later, his fear of Taliban reprisals has made him a prisoner in his Afghan home, he said, and he is still waiting for the Americans to honor their commitment.
Instead, Congress is bickering over the program meant to be his deliverance.
Republican infighting, infused with nativist tones, has left in question whether a special visa program for translators and interpreters who assisted the military during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will be renewed, a potentially devastating blow to approximately 12,000 Afghans whose immigration applications are in limbo.
“We’ve really been trying to reinforce the fact to Afghans that we are committed to you, and this gives the enemy some propaganda to say, ‘Hey, these people really aren’t committed to you,’ ” said Brig. Gen. Charles H. Cleveland, spokesman for the American command in Afghanistan.
“It’s our credibility that is on the line,” he added…
Comments
Any promises made should be kept but they never should have been made. Any program that removed educated modern pro-western people from Afghanistan served the purposes of the jihadis. The rush to take "middle class moderate" Syrians out of the region does the same thing on a grander scale. It aids ethnic cleansing.
Beyond taking enemies of the jihadis out of the region in many cases we're taking doctors, dentists and teachers. The people we've underemployed translating gravel and rug purchases since 9/11 are removed from their countries and brought to the west where they can't work in their professions, perhaps if not ever then for years. Helping the translators move here sounds good. It sounds compassionate. In reality it was yet another mistake.