We Can't Turn Them Away update (3)
The plight of the Iraqis who have risked their lives to help our armed forces, and who are now being left to the death squads is big news across blogs of all party political persusions and none. It is also being picked up in the mainstream media. If you have a blog and want to support it, Ministry of Truth has blog banners. You can also...
2. Write to your MP.
3. Let Justin know if you get a response.
4. Sign the petition.
5. Join the list of supporters
1. Watch the video.
2. Write to your MP.
3. Let Justin know if you get a response.
4. Sign the petition.
5. Join the list of supporters
Reading...Ben McIntyre asks 'What's the Arabic for we'll stand by you?'in the Times, Neil McKay 'Sentenced to Death' in the Sunday Herald.
And this is devastating - Phil Sands in the Independent
posted by Rachel at 9:37 am
When I joined the Navy, I did it for the perks (education, pay etc). That I could be sent to war and put my life on the line for my country was the risk I took to get the perks.
Similarly, the Iraqi translators volunteered to assist US/UK forces in return for cash and other perks. They accepted it knowing that part of the deal is that the enemy would target them. It is naive to think otherwise.
I object to your proposal that asylum in the UK will solve their problem on a couple of different levels:-
Firstly, as long as our soldiers are volunteering to risk their necks and become marked men and women to bring stability to Iraq, it is disappointing, to say the least, that these volunteers are now backing out before the job's done;
Secondly, these interperters appear to be exactly the educated guys that country needs to get on it's feet. A brain drain to a UK housing estate isn't the answer;
Thirdly, it is a case of wanting to have your cake and eat it. No one forced these guys to volunteer to serve US/UK forces. They did so for the cash and kudos. I'm sorry it hasn't worked out for them in the way in which they had hoped.
Luckily, I got my Navy perks without having to put my life on the line for my country. If it makes you and the interperters feel any better, my fellows serving today don't have that luxury either.
I can't quite get behind this. We are trying to take over a foreign country. I certainly have sympathy for the people concerned, but this seems like an immensely choosy way of determining who gets help. Quite frankly, everybody who has been in the slightest affected or lived in one of the warzones - i.e. everywhere - should be granted asylum and a lot more besides, ideally the ability to live in their own country without us continuing to make every effort to fuck it up in the hope that it will one day turn into something nice and peaceful and profitable by some magic spell which has never worked before, ever, in the history of the universe.
I can't get behind supporting just one group who happen to also be supporting the precise people that are causing the problem. What is so special about them?