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Our National Shame: Iraqi Refugees

By SusanUnPC on November 3, 2007 at 2:36 PM in Iraq

It’s rare that I hear a word about the plight of Iraqi refugees in the media. Over five million and counting. While I was in the hospital, I read a story in the Seattle Times that Iraqis who fled to Syria are running out of money and have to return to Iraq and highly uncertain, dangerous fates.

George Packer of The New Yorker has not let this issue go since his seminal piece last March, “Betrayed.” At his blog, Packer has more news, and it’ll make you sick:

Yesterday, Packer blogged about the exceptional efforts of one brigade commander to protect his Iraqi interpreters, and get them out of Iraq and to the U.S. The commander, Lieutenant Colonel Steven Miska, sent Packer an e-mail to bring him up to date on his efforts just as his 15-month tour is ending:

We have five Iraqis in the US, all interpreters. We have more than two dozen more with packets in various stages of completion. Even though this is the special [immigrant] visa streamlined process, I don’t think the Iraqis could have figured it out without my staff. It took a concerted effort to decipher the system and develop the points of contact at each echelon to work through the red tape. We have had more success than most. Still, the policy calls for the final visa approval to take place in Amman. Iraqis must come up with an alibi to get to Amman, as “I’m going to the U.S. Embassy” will get you quickly turned around at the Jordanian border.We set up a bit of an underground railroad from our location and it has worked.

Packer has praise for more U.S. military, and utter disdain for the State Department’s behavior:

So here is one soldier who has made it his last mission not to leave his Iraqi friends behind. Many other soldiers are doing the same thing, as individuals and through organizations like the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. In the case of the military, the reason is clear: an institutional ethos and shared dangers create a debt of gratitude and a strong bond. A handful of civilian officials from various departments are also pushing on behalf of their Iraqi friends. But the State Department, as an organization, has disgraced itself.

It lobbied against a Senate resolution that would increase the number of special immigrant visas for Iraqis by tenfold and allow applications to be reviewed inside Iraq. After promising to resettle seven thousand Iraqis here this fiscal year, it managed only sixteen hundred and eight. After promising to resettle twelve thousand in fiscal year 2008, it started off with just four hundred and fifty in October. The projected numbers are meaningless P.R., which is how the department treats the issue. … READ ALL (and I do mean read it!)

Yesterday, Packer updated his blog with this bit of news:

A coda to yesterday’s post on the State Department: a desperate department official wrote to me, describing the sluggishness with which refugee applications in Syria and Jordan are being reviewed:

“There is no excuse for this kind of mindless bureaucratic approach. I can’t find anyone here who seems to care that some of them seem to be on the verge of abandoning their cases. Know anyone who could do a one-page article somewhere to get the ball moving again?”

So conscientious people on the inside have nowhere to turn but the press.

I just have to add this from Packer’s first post, dated November 1, on the State Department’s behavior:

In the early years of the war, State was the agency where you found level-headed professionals who knew what a mess the ideologues at the Pentagon and the White House were making in Iraq. But now the same institution is defacing itself with a moral black mark that history will record next to the department’s refusal to admit more than a small number of Jewish refugees during the Second World War. Yesterday, a group of department officials complained about mandatory assignments to Iraq. If I were a foreign-service officer, I’d wonder instead how I could continue to work for an organization that is obstructing the effort to save our Iraqi allies from death. A few of those officers who served in Iraq and left behind friends might be asking themselves the same question.

I’m tired of writing about this. I’m sure you’re tired of reading about it. I wish the Administration would do the right thing so I could stop sounding like a self-righteous scold. …

What can we do, practically, to make this issue reported on more prominently?

And, if you never read it, do read Packer’s March piece, still timely, “Betrayed.”

Shortly after that piece was published in The New Yorker, Packer appeared on the Charlie Rose show and said that no other piece he’s ever written made him more ashamed to be an American. We should feel ashamed.

  • Delia

    I read Packer’s article when it came out. I’m already ashamed of my country on so many levels, I don’t know where to begin. I suppose it was never the place I was taught to believe it was in high school civics class, but the contradictions cut particularly deep right now. This is one of them.

    • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

      I kept that issue of the New Yorker in my car and read the article a bit every time I was sitting in line at the bank or pharmacy … it’s long and intensely moving.

      My heart aches for all of those brave Iraqis who risked so much to work for the U.S. military and departments in Iraq. They were treated SO shabbily, as Packer lays out in that piece.

      I hope people read the e-mail from the commander to Packer … what a great guy! In the link to Packer’s blog post, you can read more about that commander and other U.S. military officers who have gone to great lengths to honor their commitments to their Iraqi interpreters and other employees. They make me PROUD.

      • Shirin

        “My heart aches for all of those brave Iraqis who risked so much to work for the U.S. military and departments in Iraq.”

        If the United States were invaded and occupied by China, or Russia, would you refer to Americans who went to work for the Chinese or Russian military and departments to be brave Americans?

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  • http://cujo359.blogspot.com Cujo359

    I wrote about this issue a couple of weeks ago:

    http://cujo359.blogspot.com/2007/10/iraqs-refugees.html

    The problem is that the Jordan and Syria are small countries, and are now hosting huge numbers of refugees. They have a combined population of 25 million people, and are hosting more than 2 million refugees. That’s like the U.S. suddenly being swamped with 25 million refugees, and instead of being one of the richest countries per capita, we were dirt poor. Very little in the way of aid has come from countries outside the Middle East.

    Under the circumstances, it’s hard to blame them for trying to limit the number of refugees.

    • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

      Oh my god. Jordan and Syria have been enormously kind and generous in taking in all of those refugees! And, best I can find out, without an IOTA of support from the United States, which infuriates me.

      They can’t handle all of them … and the influx of refugees has created huge hardships on their own people. I recall reading one article — wish I could remember where — that in Amman, for example, inflation has soared. As a result of the demand from Iraqi refugees, rents have gone up astronomically, and made it impossible for ordinary Jordanians to rent a place to live! That’s caused big resentment, which is completely understandable.

      ::::

      Then there are the reports of Iraqi women who’ve run out of money and who’ve been forced to turn to prostitution to survive in Syria and (perhaps) Jordan. That is utterly tragic.

      It is unfathomable to me that the media aren’t on these stories constantly. I think that if the American people really knew, they’d demand that we do something for these refugees and for the countries who have taken them in. And that we go all out to help the Iraqis who courageously went to work for the U.S. and are in grave danger.

      • Shirin

        Scenario:

        Russia invades and occupies the United States, and Susan speaks passionately about Americans who courageously go to work for the Russians and are in grave danger.

  • mudkitty

    The same people who wanted to “liberate” Iraqis are the people who don’t want to take in any refugees.

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  • Shirin

    I agree that Iraqi collaborators and quislings definitely do not belong in Iraq, and that the United States owes them protection, and should reward their assistance by helping them to resettle in the U.S. They made their choice to commit treason against their own country by taking the side of foreign invaders, and even if their lives were not at risk, they should not stay in Iraq, or continue to call themselves Iraqis.

    This is a completely separate issue from that of the refugees, however. The refugees are victims of the Bush regime’s imperial project. The collaborators and quislings are its beneficiaries. The United States owes protection and citizenship to its collaborators. To its victims it owes support, compensation, and restoration of their destroyed lives in their homeland, not permanent removal from their homeland in the form of resettlement.

    • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

      Traitors? Dear god.

  • Shirin

    Susan, if the United States were invaded and occupied by, say, China, and if an American went to work in any capacity for the Chinese occupation, how would you view that American? What word would come to mind to describe that American?

    • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

      You’ve posted that about five times now. Point made. What would we do without you banging us all on the head constantly with your superior moral positions?

  • Shirin

    Susan, this is not about moral positions, superior or otherwise. It is about consistency, logic, fairness, and honesty. I was merely asking you to look at your very strong negative – and sort of dismissive – reaction to my use of the term traitors from the perspective of the occupied and not of the occupier.

    If you can honestly say that you would not consider as traitors Americans who went to work for a Chinese or Russian military occupation of the United States, and if you can honestly say to me that you would call those Americans brave and courageous for assisting a foreign occupier of the United States, then no one can argue that your position is inconsistent, illogicalm, or unfair. If you would, on the other hand, consider those Americans as traitors while still considering Iraqis who assisted in the foreign occupation of their country as brave and courageous, and my characterizing them as traitors, then there is something inconsistent there, that is all.

    I saw that you did not respond at all the first time I posed the question to you, and I was not sure whether you had missed it or were simply not willing to answer.

  • Shirin

    PS Susan, I notice that you still have not answered my questions. It would be nice if you would, but mostly I would like you and others to think more carefully about your point of view that anyone who assists the United States in invading, occupying and taking over their country is a brave, courageous, wonderful citizen of that country and not a traitor.

  • justsomeone

    Shirin, If even half of the stories about the atrosities Saddam committed against his own countrymen are true… if he killed or tortured my family, conspired to force me & mine into an abject life of poverty in fear & subjugation in a slum, drained my swamp, etc I’d welcome just about anybody that I thought would take him out. However if I were an Iraqi on his A-list & lived a life of idyllic leisure or socio-economic privledge maybe I’d have more sympathy for your loyalist issues & hence share your disdain for the “quizzlings”. Out of curiosity, may I inquire Why you became a citizen of the U.S? I trust you know you’re free to renounce your U.S. citizenship at anytime. The door here swings both ways…you better start practicin’ up on being nice to those “quizzlings” or when they get green cards they’ll get a lawyer & sue you for hate speech. I just hope some of them are in the restaurant business

    • http://noquarterusa.net/ SusanUnPC

      Honestly, I always wonder why Shirin chooses to live in this country and became a U.S. citizen too since she seems to hate everything about this country.

      And now I’m worried for the safety of the Iraqis who worked for the U.S. in Iraq and are being brought to the U.S., supposedly to live in safety. Will they be hunted down here too because they helped the Americans? Really. It is a worry.

  • Shirin

    Susan, for heaven’s sake!

    First, you are making assumptions about me and my history and my feelings and beliefs that that you know nothing about and have no basis to make. You simply do not know enough about me to say these things.

    Second, all I have done is ask you to rethink your horrified reaction to my considering Iraqis who worked for an invading and occupying foreign power as traitors. I asked you to rethink that by considering how you would view Americans who worked for foreign invaders and occupiers of the United States – a very reasonable think to suggest. And you not only refuse to respond or acknowledge this very reasonable suggestion, you seem to be very hostile toward it, and now it seems you find it anti-American.

    You know, I find it difficult to imagine that you, who DO have an ability to see things from another point of view, and to think logically are unwilling to consider that any person who works for a foreign invader and occupier of his country is a traitor even if that invader and occupier is the United States of America.

    I am disappointed to see you holding such a one-sided view and being so unwilling to see the reality of things.

    And by the way, you can worry about those traitors who assisted in the invasion and occupation of their country, but I will not hunt them down and kill them or even say a harsh word to them. All I have said is that they should be in the United States and not in Iraq because they do not belong to Iraq anymore.

  • Shirin

    PS Your collaborators are not braver or more courageous than the Iraqis who have chosen to resist the foreign invasion and occupation of their country. And I daresay if it were the United States that had been invaded, you would be cheering the resistance fighters, and not the collaborators.

    • http://noquarterusa.net/blog/ Leslie

      Sure we would probably BE the resistance fighters. Collaborators would probably be viewed as traitors—Benedict Arnolds.

      But because we’re Americans talking about US troops, our loyalties are with the troops. Even though we don’t support the war and view it as a war crime. Even though the troops are volunteers. Even though, on the orders of the Bush administration, US troops are killing thousands of innocent people, which is abhorrent. It’s one of the tragedies of this war Shirin.

      The war should never have been. It’s not right. But we still support the troops. It may not be the right decision, it may not be the moral decision, but the troops are family members, friends and neighbors. We support them. We want them to come home.

  • Shirin

    First, Leslie, thank you for having the honesty to acknowledge this reality.

    But I am not talking about “supporting the troops” here. What I am talking about is Susan’s obviously appalled reaction to my statement that Iraqis who collaborate with the foreign invaders of their country are traitors, as is anyone who does that. To me that should be obvious to any reasonable person, no matter how you feel about your American troops. A person who aids and abets an invading force in carrying out its activities is a traitor, independently of your gratitude or whatever it is for their assistance in the subjugation and destruction of their own country and its people.

    What I am talking about second of all is the one-sided blindness of even very progressive and strongly anti-aggression Americans to the fact that these Iraqis are NOT courageous wonderful Iraqi heroes, but collaborators and quislings who would be viewed as traitors and subject to execution for treason anywhere else in the world, including the United States.

    I find it offensive that these Iraqis are viewed as wonderful heroes. I also find it offensive that the United States government and the United States military seems so far to be willing to use these people and then just throw them out and leave them to the fate that usually greets traitors everywhere.

    Each of those people had their own reasons for doing what they did – in the beginning some of them even had good motives. A few at least actually believed the United States really was there to liberate them, and thought they were doing something good for their country (I actually know one person like that, but he quit as soon as he understood the reality). Some, after their means of livelihood was destroyed or taken from them by the Americans took jobs with the invaders because it was the only way they could support their families. Some were simply misguided, and others were motivated by greed or ill will toward some of their fellow Iraqis.

    I don’t wish any of those people any harm, and I don’t judge them as human beings. I DO judge their actions. I want the United States to take responsibility for them and to take care of them and their families. I want them out of Iraq for their own protection and because they have betrayed their country and their people, and do not belong there anymore. The best place for them is the United States now that they have proven their loyalty to that country.

    • http://noquarterusa.net/blog/ Leslie

      Absolutely, the US should take responsibility for Iraqi collaborators. The US should also be doing a lot more for the refugees we’re creating. Doubt many here would disagree with you on that.

      Your definition of collaboration may be harsh, though? I’m not sure it’s that black and white. [Although, if the situation were reversed, I probably would agree with your definition.] Some of the “collaborators,” however, may just be trying to survive during a war, trying to get work to feed their families, trying to prevent more bloodshed, etc.

      • Shirin

        Well, Leslie, I did acknowledge that some of the collaborators were just doing what they had to do to support their families, and I know for a fact that at least a few of them were ashamed of what they were doing, but saw little choice in the matter. Most of them had lost their sources of income as a direct result of American actions, too.

        Nevertheless, I don’t think that has ever been an effective defence in a case of treason, and I doubt it would be effective if the U.S. were in the situation Iraq is in now. At best it might be used to get prison time in place of a death sentence.

      • Shirin

        As for the refugees, it is a permanent blot on the history of the United States that it will not even acknowledge this issue and its responsibility for it.

        The whole history of the United States’ involvement with Iraq is a very dark and filthy dirty one that spans decades and numerous administrations, and about which most Americans know very, very little. As I have pointed out before, the best periods in Iraq’s history were during times that the U.S. had the least involvement, and the more involved the U.S. became, the worse things would be. I do not think that is a coincidence at all.

  • Shirin

    PS Leslie, while I do not and cannot pretend to “support the troops” ©, I do not wish any harm to come to them either.

    Those who prefer, rather than to try to understand my position, to resort to nasty, cheap, and – dare I say it? – racist (and very presumptuous for people who do not really know anything about me) ad hominems like “why did she choose to become a citizen since she hates everything about this country”, and so on, I am sorry you are unwilling to consider what it might be like for someone to watch one of their countries tearing the other to pieces.

    • http://noquarterusa.net/blog/ Leslie

      I know that about you Shirin, regarding wishing no harm.

      And, although I’ve never been in your situation, I understand that you’re in an awful position. You’re watching helpless from afar as the country of your birth is destroyed by your adopted country. Your friends and family are there, getting bombed on.

  • PrchrLady

    yes Leslie, what you said… Shirin, you contribute so much here, as in other places, I am sure. I have never felt that you wished anyone harm, in any situation. As a matter of fact, I do not believe, after reading your words, that it would be possible for you to intentionally harm any one, and I am not talking about ‘feelings’. so many people haven’t learned to separate actions from feelings or beliefs. As I think back to bushie boy’s speachifying moments, he always told what ‘he believed’, or what he wanted people to ‘understand’. Only problem, be didn’t believe many of those things himself. LIES, plain and simple… nothing has changed.