# America Shouldn't Abandon Its Iraqi Staff!



## JimofPennsylvan (Oct 19, 2011)

The situation in Iraq seems to be shaping up so that what will occur is that all American Armed Forces will leave Iraq by the end of this year as called for by the Status-of-Forces Agreement between the U.S. and Iraqi government.   Most Iraqi people recognize that the American people have been great friends to the Iraqi people over the last eight years we made great sacrifices so that Iraqi people could have the prospect of a good, democratic and prosperous country which it appears they are on the path to achieve.  However, there is a significant number of Iraqis who just plain hate America or hate America for the "assistance in nation building" work we did in Iraq, to name a few groups would include the Muqtada al Sadr Shiite followers, the al Qaeda supporting Sunnis and northern occupants of Iraq that don't want the status quo changed that existed prior to the ouster of the Saddam Hussein regime in that northern region.  The relevance of this is that many of these American hating Iraqis transfer that hate to many of the staff of the American Armed forces in Iraq who are Iraqi citizens this could include translators, base workers, etc..  This hate has manifested itself in the death, threats and/or harassment of many of these Iraqi staff members and their families.  Many of these Iraqi staff members were extraordinarily brave and provided indescribably valuable service to the American armed forces in working on the American military staff in Iraq, they placed their lives and the lives of their loved ones in grave jeopardy in helping our military!

          The bottom line is even now and especially when our military leaves Iraq at the end of this year many of these loyal and heroic Iraqi staff members will be in grave jeopardy for helping America.  America can protect and keep safe these Iraqi staff members by allowing these Iraqis and their family members to emigrate to America.  This is the least we can do for these Iraqis America's most important character traits are on the line here do we remember the people that fight for us do we remember the people that help us by putting themselves and their families lives in jeopardy are we a people of character or aren't we!  Congress has authorized a pool of twenty-five thousand visas for these Iraqi staff members and their families!  The problem is that the State Department has been incredibly slow at approving these visas claiming the cause is the challenge of security and back ground checks, most months the number of visa approvals has been well under one-hundred.  This is completely unacceptable it is a scandal of historic proportion, America doesn't abandon its friends which is what is going on here.  Frankly, this is quite surprising for an organization lead by a women of such outstanding character which Hillary Clinton has allowing her organization to operate with such appallingly bad character in not approving a dramatically higher number of visas for crying out loud we trusted many of these Iraqi staff members to imbed in U.S. military units in combat zones where they held the lives of Americans in their hands and now there is an issue on whether we can trust them to live in American civilian society many of these Iraqi staff members have character references from highly decorated American war heroes this is an absurd situation this visa approval backlog.  

      A few select Americans have been trying to rouse public outrage and public support to move the American government to stop stumbling here and do the right thing by America's Iraqi staff members in Iraq.  The American people should answer this call and write their Congresspersons and the Whitehouse asking them to speed up this visa approval process and not abandon these Iraqis who have been loyal to America serving on its military's staff.  If the State Department can't get their act together and successfully process the needed number of visas maybe Congress for these special Iraqi visas needs to give the job of processing these visa application to the U.S. military obviously they have the system to do quality background checks on Iraqi citizens and America's reputation for remembering and sticking by our friends will be kept intact.  It's also been suggested which is an excellent idea and the right thing to do is that if all the visa applications of our Iraqi staff members have not been processed by the end of the year when the U.S. military leaves Iraq the U.S. military airlift these unprocessed Iraqi staff members and their families out of Iraq to American military bases around the world so that they can wait in safety and protection for a decision on their visa applications.  Some of our allied countries who fought with America in Iraq when they left Iraq utilized this airlift option in bringing their Iraqi staff to safety, the American military takes great pride in that when they enter into a military engagement they hold as inviolate the value that no one gets left behind I respectfully submit that these Iraqi staff members have earned the right to have this value applied to them!


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## High_Gravity (Oct 28, 2011)

Only thing we can do is try and get them green cards to the US or immigration to another country, I do agree they will be in danger once the troops leave.


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## DDU (Nov 14, 2011)

Like.


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## R.C. Christian (Nov 20, 2011)

It's really difficult for me to find sympathy for a future contingent of 15 thousand staff many of of which will be hired thugs with immunity.


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## Sunshine (Nov 20, 2011)

Jim, you didn't write that yourself.  Where's your link?


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## p kirkes (Dec 15, 2011)

I think that by fleeing they show no confidence in their new government. They risked all to help the West give them a chance at democracy, for them to leave repudiates all that.  If they feel like they will be persecuted then the war was in vain.  If we let them immigrate en mass we subscribe to that notion.  

During our war of independence Americans were faced with a different situation.  When the British left the Loyalists had to choose, immigrate to England or stay and swear allegiance to America.  There was no occupying force, Americans were all the King's subjects at the beginning.  What would have happened if Washington surrendered.  A mass hanging?   The civil war's outcome did not entail revenge per se just occupation of the south for a while.   

There is no unified Iraqi it's still sectarian and will probably remain so.  One will have to find comfort and safety within your sect.  This is a new experiment hope for the best.


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## LilOlLady (Dec 15, 2011)

If Iraq cannot stand on their own after 8 years they never will be and we cannot be there premanentlly as our presence is the problem. what happen now is up to Iraqis. It is the duty of Muslims to fight the presence of infidels on their land. Just as Israel was commanded to rid their land of the infidels. If we were invaded and occupied by another country we would never stop fighting their presence. Iraq did not ask for this. Saddam dictagtorship were better than a have assed democracy that will never tatally be accepted. Shia law rules and have for thousands of years. Tribal differences is not like dems and reps. They kill each other that believe different then they.
we have wasted 8 years and cannot afford to waste 8 more.


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## LilOlLady (Dec 15, 2011)

What Iraq needs and will probable regress back to is another dictator. Inevitable. Destiny. It is what the coutnry needs and they know it but we don't


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## p kirkes (Dec 15, 2011)

That certainly is a possibility, a view that many hold.  The Muslim cleric Muqtada al Sadr is waiting in the wings, but will he work to destroy democracy or work within a democratic government?  Postings on Yahoo don't give a very clear picture of this very charismatic priest.


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## Mr. President (Dec 15, 2011)

We should have split the country into 4

Kurd
Sunni
Shiite

US oil district GIGGIDY GIGGIDY GOO ALRIGHT


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## lizzie (Dec 15, 2011)

We shouldn't have been there in the first place imo. If the Iraqis want a democracy, then they should have been able to achieve it on their own. It's hard enough to gain it, and will be much harder to maintain it. It's not our responsibility to save countries from dictators when the people don't have the will to do it themselves. We've just created another love-hate relationship with another country of children.


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## High_Gravity (Dec 16, 2011)

Mr. President said:


> We should have split the country into 4
> 
> Kurd
> Sunni
> ...



I am down with creating a country for the Kurds, the Kurds don't really consider themselves Iraqis anyways, they fly the Kurdish flag in Irbil, they don't speak Arabic they speak Kurdish, and they are the most grateful people in Iraq they we took down Saddam,no US Troop has been killed or wounded in Kurdistan.


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## Caroljo (Dec 16, 2011)

JimofPennsylvan said:


> The situation in Iraq seems to be shaping up so that what will occur is that all American Armed Forces will leave Iraq by the end of this year as called for by the Status-of-Forces Agreement between the U.S. and Iraqi government.   Most Iraqi people recognize that the American people have been great friends to the Iraqi people over the last eight years we made great sacrifices so that Iraqi people could have the prospect of a good, democratic and prosperous country which it appears they are on the path to achieve.  However, there is a significant number of Iraqis who just plain hate America or hate America for the "assistance in nation building" work we did in Iraq, to name a few groups would include the Muqtada al Sadr Shiite followers, the al Qaeda supporting Sunnis and northern occupants of Iraq that don't want the status quo changed that existed prior to the ouster of the Saddam Hussein regime in that northern region.  The relevance of this is that many of these American hating Iraqis transfer that hate to many of the staff of the American Armed forces in Iraq who are Iraqi citizens this could include translators, base workers, etc..  This hate has manifested itself in the death, threats and/or harassment of many of these Iraqi staff members and their families.  Many of these Iraqi staff members were extraordinarily brave and provided indescribably valuable service to the American armed forces in working on the American military staff in Iraq, they placed their lives and the lives of their loved ones in grave jeopardy in helping our military!
> 
> The bottom line is even now and especially when our military leaves Iraq at the end of this year many of these loyal and heroic Iraqi staff members will be in grave jeopardy for helping America.  America can protect and keep safe these Iraqi staff members by allowing these Iraqis and their family members to emigrate to America.  This is the least we can do for these Iraqis America's most important character traits are on the line here do we remember the people that fight for us do we remember the people that help us by putting themselves and their families lives in jeopardy are we a people of character or aren't we!  Congress has authorized a pool of twenty-five thousand visas for these Iraqi staff members and their families!  The problem is that the State Department has been incredibly slow at approving these visas claiming the cause is the challenge of security and back ground checks, most months the number of visa approvals has been well under one-hundred.  This is completely unacceptable it is a scandal of historic proportion, America doesn't abandon its friends which is what is going on here.  Frankly, this is quite surprising for an organization lead by a women of such outstanding character which Hillary Clinton has allowing her organization to operate with such appallingly bad character in not approving a dramatically higher number of visas for crying out loud we trusted many of these Iraqi staff members to imbed in U.S. military units in combat zones where they held the lives of Americans in their hands and now there is an issue on whether we can trust them to live in American civilian society many of these Iraqi staff members have character references from highly decorated American war heroes this is an absurd situation this visa approval backlog.
> 
> A few select Americans have been trying to rouse public outrage and public support to move the American government to stop stumbling here and do the right thing by America's Iraqi staff members in Iraq.  The American people should answer this call and write their Congresspersons and the Whitehouse asking them to speed up this visa approval process and not abandon these Iraqis who have been loyal to America serving on its military's staff.  If the State Department can't get their act together and successfully process the needed number of visas maybe Congress for these special Iraqi visas needs to give the job of processing these visa application to the U.S. military obviously they have the system to do quality background checks on Iraqi citizens and America's reputation for remembering and sticking by our friends will be kept intact.  It's also been suggested which is an excellent idea and the right thing to do is that if all the visa applications of our Iraqi staff members have not been processed by the end of the year when the U.S. military leaves Iraq the U.S. military airlift these unprocessed Iraqi staff members and their families out of Iraq to American military bases around the world so that they can wait in safety and protection for a decision on their visa applications.  Some of our allied countries who fought with America in Iraq when they left Iraq utilized this airlift option in bringing their Iraqi staff to safety, the American military takes great pride in that when they enter into a military engagement they hold as inviolate the value that no one gets left behind I respectfully submit that these Iraqi staff members have earned the right to have this value applied to them!




I have mixed feelings about this.  If ANY of the Iraqi's wanted us to keep some of our military there (like Obama wanted to) then something would have been worked out so that the Iraqi govt  would approve immunity from Iraqi prosecution for our military while there.  They denied it...so we have no choice at all but to get them out of there.  And i don't really blame our govt for dragging their feet about bring 25000 Iraqi's to the US without the background checks needed.  We have enough problems, and to take a chance like this without covering their asses would be pretty stupid.  Maybe the Iraqi's that worked with our soldiers are already cleared, but what about everyone in their families?  Do we know none of them are terrorists?


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## High_Gravity (Dec 19, 2011)

U.S. pullout leaves Iraqi interpreters out on limb









> I am an Iraqi citizen who worked as an interpreter with the U.S. military for two years. It was an honor to serve, and I did it because I believed that bringing freedom to Iraq required brave people to stand up and try to make a difference. Now, as a result of my service, I find myself in a dangerous limbo.
> 
> Before 2003, I thought of the U.S. primarily as the home of Bruce Willis, Hollywood and Las Vegas. But it was also a dream, a dream of freedom.
> 
> ...



U.S. pullout leaves Iraqi interpreters out on limb - latimes.com


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## georgephillip (Dec 21, 2011)

When Major General Steve Johnson, the US commander in Anbar province, heard about a Marine squad slaughtering 24 people including a 76 year old man in a wheelchair and a 3 year old child, he saw no cause for further action.

"It happened all the time  throughout the whole country. So you know, maybe, if I was sitting here [in Virginia] and heard that 15 civilians were killed I would have been surprised and shocked and done more to look into it. 

"*But at that point in time I felt that it was just a cost of doing business on that particular engagement."*

Iraqi victims of illegal warfare prove again "the cost of doing business always seems more reasonable when someone else pays the price."

The US is Blind to the Price of War That is Still Being Borne by the Iraqi People | Common Dreams


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## Sunni Man (Dec 21, 2011)

JimofPennsylvan said:


> *Most* Iraqi people recognize that the American people have been great friends to the Iraqi people over the last eight years we made great sacrifices so that Iraqi people could have the prospect of a good, democratic and prosperous country which it appears they are on the path to achieve.


If "most" of the Iraqi people love us soo much and are grateful for our sacrifices of blood and money.

And are thankful that we have given them a wonderful democratic government to rule their country.

Why do we need to call these people refuges and bring them to America?

After all, we won didn't we?

We should just let them stay put in their home country of Iraq and help nurture their  budding democracy.


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## georgephillip (Dec 21, 2011)

"*'Amnesia and indifference are the privileges of the powerful.* 

"'It is for the Kenyans and Algerians to recall the atrocities committed by the British and French under colonialism while *the colonizers remain in flight from their history*. 

"'The essential characteristic of a nation is that all its individuals must have many things in common,' wrote the 19th-century French philosopher Ernest Renan, '*and must have forgotten many things as well.'*"

America is well on its way to forgetting Iraq, and that will only make it easier for those who profit from war to launch our next, great humanitarian intervention. 

I'm guessing Mexico...

The US is Blind to the Price of War That is Still Being Borne by the Iraqi People | Common Dreams


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