On Last Week Tonight, John Oliver raises awareness of the plight of translators who risked their lives to help our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. These brave folks seem to be living proof that no good deed goes unpunished. The translators and their families are in grave danger in their home countries, but cannot escape, enmeshed as they are in U.S. bureaucracy and red tape which can take months and even years to clear. Authorities say they have a better chance of winning the lottery than of being approved for the program which Congress authorized for their safety…Unless they are donkeys who know Marines, but that’s a different story.
“Catch 22” was written for just such a situation. When the U.S. throws paper road-blocks up, they are penetrable and insurmountable, and worse – the Taliban is on an active campaign to part translators and their families from their heads. In the case of Mohammad, who appears on the show, his father was killed by the Taliban, his mother and sisters have fled, and his little brother was kidnapped and held for $35,000 ransom before the former translator could clear the hurdles and leave the country.
The promised act of pulling these people out of danger could be accomplished in a timely manner. We even have a location where the translators would be safe from the Taliban while they leap over stacks of U.S. documentation. Leave it to a Brit – Oliver reminds us that we did it with refugees from Viet Nam! Safely ensconsed in Guam, we processed 140 thousand in four months!
I hate to say it, but John gives us reason to hate and resent an adorable donkey who schmoozed up to some Marines and beat the system. That donkey became an American citizen in record time – and I know he can’t say the Pledge of Allegiance. It always pays to have friends in high places.
For more info on efforts to assist U.S.-affiliated refugees in Iraq and Afghanistan see http://thelistproject.org , and http://refugeerights.org .