U.S. Failing to Help Iraqi Translator and Family Targeted for ExecutionBy Maura Stephens, AlterNet. Posted July 10, 2007.
He thought he could rebuild his country by helping the Americans. Now an Iraqi translator and his family have been targeted for execution, and instead of helping, U.S. officials have trapped him in an endless Catch-22. My dear friend Andy -- we're so close, we call each other brother and sister -- has a degree in English literature. He loves Shakespeare and Shelley, Byron and Dunne, and can quote from their works far better than most poetry professors I know. Andy loves beauty and harmony and tea and good food. He is simply gaga about his lovely young wife, Alysse, and their two little ones.
He's not the kind of guy you'd expect to want to serve the U.S. military, but just a couple of weeks after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Andy lined up to enlist. He couldn't wait to help the United States bring democracy to Iraq. Since April 2003 Andy has served faithfully with the Army despite being in dire danger almost all the time. He and his wife and two babies have been under sporadic but serious threat of execution because of Andy's work with the U.S. Army. The stress is wearing on Andy and Alysse -- physically and mentally. Andy is well aware that it is only a matter of time before his luck runs out. He is ready to get out of Iraq.
His army colleagues and commanding officers think the world of Andy, but despite his four-plus years of almost nonstop service, Andy can't get out of Iraq. The U.S. Army seems to be quite powerless in this case.
That's because Andy is Iraqi. He has been an interpreter/translator for the U.S. military this whole time. The commanding officers of his units have written letters attesting to his competence, loyalty, resourcefulness, reliability and utter trustworthiness -- please forgive the redundancy, I'm quoting from their letters -- as well as to the fact that he must be evacuated to the United States quickly before he and his family are killed because of his work with the U.S. Army.
His family has been threatened too many times to count, and two-and-a-half years ago the threats proved all too real. Their house was bombed. Andy's father and brother were kidnapped. They were butchered the next day, their bodies dumped back at on the doorstep of the house before the family had time to arrange some kind of ransom, had one been demanded, or even to patch up the house or evacuate to relatives' homes.
Now Andy and Alysse and their babies are in grave and ceaseless danger. Most of Andy's extended family put them up at one time or another, but eventually had to ask them to leave when they were threatened for harboring a U.S. military employee. Andy now stays with his sister and in other places, and Alysse and the children stay with some of her relatives. The danger is constant, and Alysse is traumatized to the point, sometimes, of paralysis. She is 21 years old. ......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.alternet.org/asoldierspeaks/56397/
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