Afghanistan Needs the Terps to Stay by Ryan Evans, War on the Rocks
… Recently at War on the Rocks, Rusty Bradley – a retired U.S. Special Forces officer – wrote a moving article arguing for visas for those interpreters who have worked with U.S. forces. “Afghan interpreters are throwing themselves at the altar of freedom only to be left to die,” he writes, insisting they deserve and should be given visas to come to America. He joins a chorus of interpreter advocates – many of them combat veterans like Bradley – who have pushed hard for visas for their own interpreters and their comrades. It seems the U.S. Congress heard their pleas. Today, members of the House and Senate are introducing a bill that would extend the Afghan Special Visa Immigrant Program, which was due to end this fall, through 2015 and expand it to 3,000 more interpreters, to include those who worked for the news media and NGOs. The bill and the program are specifically targeted at those interpreters and their families who are in danger.
In my heart, I sympathize deeply with this argument. Bradley would gladly offer his own home to his interpreters until they get on their feet, and if Mohammad were able to come here, I know I would offer him the same. But in my head I know that we should try to separate our own personal feelings from what is, in reality, a decision with strategic consequences.
How do we square Mohammad’s ambitions and Hashmatullah’s plight with the needs of Afghanistan? With our own hopes for the country?...