JimofPennsylvan
Platinum Member
- Jun 6, 2007
- 869
- 512
- 910
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!
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!