My blog this week talks about Afghan interpreters for the
United States military. The Taliban is trying to kill all eight thousand or so
Afghan interpreters simply because they worked for the United States military.
The Taliban sees any Afghan that tries to aid the United States an “enemy” of
the country. The eight thousand interpreters for the United States military has
risked their lives over and over again to facilitate communication between the
locals and the Afghan military and United States military flow better. The
Taliban has killed off some of the eight thousand interpreters for the United
States.
When the United States pulled the military out of Afghan’s homeland
without taking the interpreters somewhere safe from the Taliban, it stranded
the interpreters and the interpreters fear for their safety and their families’
safety. Sulaiman is an interpreter that has worked for the United States military
since he was 16. Now that the United States military has been pulled out he is
at even more risk than before. He fears for his family. The State department of the United States
only compounds matters worse by not issuing enough visas. The State department
has a backlog of these visas. Sulaiman thinks that one visa application got
lost in the computer ethers. If the State department doesn’t get itself busy
with reviewing and granting visas to those Afghan interpreters then the
department will be in trouble in the near future. The State department should
act fast because these people have nowhere to go in peace.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/world/asia/american-visa-delays-put-safety-out-of-afghan-interpreters-reach.html?pagewanted=all
