The Bush administration persists in snubbing Syria for failing to control the 1,000,000 or so Iraqi refugees it has absorbed since the 2003 US-led invasion. Syria gets negative points for opening its borders to those who can flee the humanitarian disaster the neoCons have made and shrilly insist on aggravating (realism and popular demand to the contrary, be damned).
What of our friends in Iraq? What are we doing for those whose lives are in danger because their status as "locally engaged staff" ("LED") has been exposed? The LA Times reports:
there are also no formal policies or mechanisms to help Iraqis such as Y [an LED whose life depended upon remaining anonymous]. Though the USAID might have wanted to do more, the best it could offer Y was a short-term stay within its Green Zone compound, a non-solution that would likely exacerbate his situation.
The U.S. Embassy might have granted him a visa, had it ever opened a visa processing center. But probably not. Though Congress passed legislation last year to grant special visas to those who serve as translators for the military, there are no provisions made for Iraqis who have worked with distinction on the civilian side.
So, with little more than a "good luck" from us, Y and his wife packed what they could carry, hugged their loved ones goodbye and fled the country.
No "graceful exit" for these two, nor for the
more than 1.6 million people [who] have fled Iraq since the invasion...recent estimates show their numbers increasing by about 100,000 each month. More than 1.5 million Iraqis have been displaced by violence within their country, a number growing at the staggering rate of 50,000 per month.
President Bush and Congress bear a moral responsibility to those Iraqis whose lives are imperiled because of their willingness to help us. We need to move swiftly to expand the special immigrant status beyond the military translators to permit these Iraqis asylum in our country. The U.S. Embassy should be equipped to issue such visas to Iraqis who already have obtained security clearances to work for our government.
But, of course, were the US to accept even a trickle of the cataract of refugees its aggressive folly has generated; that might be viewed as an admission of something other than victory. You know, an admission of the other thing.
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