I'm right again dot com

An unincorporated division of the Anonymous Anything Society     November 20, 2013



REMEMBERING SAIGON

    The travail suffered by Mohammed Janis Shinwari, and scores of other foreign employees in Afghanistan and Iraq should discourage many other foreign nationals who might wish to be employed in the future by America's Global Peace Force. The manner in which we recently treated Shinwari, an Afghani interpreter for our military, evokes images of our embassy in Saigon, South Vietnam, on April 30th, 1975. 

    On that day and for decades since, we've suffered through countless viewings on TV of a handful of  U.S. Marines beating back a mob of panicked South Vietnamese governmental and military leaders, business owners, contractors, and Anti-Communists who were besieging the gates of the U.S. embassy - even as the last of the U.S. State Department employees were being lifted off the rooftop by overloaded helicopters.

    Circumstances were such, that despite the loss of over 58,000 American service members and untold billions of dollars, the inability to prepare for the climactic collapse in Southeast Asia doomed thousands of Vietnamese who had worked closely with U.S. Agencies. The Viet Cong had targeted Army of Viet Nam officers, intellectuals and religious leaders, long before tanks breached the walls surrounding the South Vietnamese government in Saigon, now Ho Chi Minh City. From one list alone that was left behind by the CIA, 30,000 living south of the 17th parallel were systematically killed by the Communist Cadre.

    38 years later, we read that only through the intervention of an American friend, was a promise kept to Mr. and Mrs. Shinwari and their two children. As an Afghan civilian interpreter, he had volunteered to accompany US. troops during numerous firefights in the past 11 years.  From the first, he and the lives of his family were under a constant death threat.

    This is the extreme jeopardy such volunteers find themselves. In return, they receive less than substantial pay, but an even greater incentive, the promise of life in America.

    After Mohammed and his young family waited two years to be awarded a U.S. Visa that was to permit them to immigrate to America, our embassy in Kabul revoked the Visa, citing the action on what eventually turned out to be an malicious tip, that even to this day has not been specified. Once one is on the "Blacklist," it is almost impossible to get off. 

    Fortunately, Shinwari has a good friend in the United States, with whom he had worked closely in Afghanistan. Former CIA Analyst Matt Zeller enlisted two U.S. Congressmen who interceded and broke the logjam in the State Department. Only then, were Mohammed, his wife and toddlers permitted to come to America.

    Apparently, this sort of red tape is common in the resettlement program, with long delays, arbitrary rejections and  bureaucratic bungling. To many of those stuck in a real purgatory on earth, it must appear that we are once again, by design, failing to fulfill our sacred promises to those who've risked so much on our behalf.

    After reading about the effort that was needed to be expended in the Shinwari case, we wonder how many others like them remain in limbo, with not enough being done to rescue them.

- Phil Richardson, Observer and Storyteller

  I've considered promoting a new Game Show: "Spin the Globe," whereby contestants randomly choose nations for the USA to bomb, invade and rebuild.


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