By Dakota Meyer and Bing WestFour years ago, a bleeding Afghan interpreter, Fazel, staggered out of an ambush in Ganjigal Valley in eastern Afghanistan. Trapped inside the valley were four Americans. Asked to help rescue them, he said, "I have a wife and baby. But I will go back." Fazel returned to the battle, killed several Taliban fighters and carried out the bodies of the fallen Americans.
Since that fight, the Taliban has been determined to kill Fazel, who has served with U.S. units for five years and has received 15 certificates and letters of commendation attesting to his work record. Shortly after the ambush, Fazel applied for a visa to the United States.
Since he applied, the State Department has issued almost 2 million visas to immigrants. The visa section at State was repeatedly informed that the Taliban was hunting Fazel. But for four years, there was no movement. Last month, Fox News reported the neglect, and Gen. Joseph Dunford, the senior commander in Afghanistan, insisted that Fazel receive a visa "as soon as possible." A few days ago, an overjoyed Fazel got his visa.
On the one hand, this is a happy ending to a nearly five-year odyssey. But it is depressing that a four-star general had to personally intervene to resolve the case of someone clearly loyal to the United States. Fazel risked the lives of his family because, in his mind, he was an American, fighting alongside his fellow grunts. Ask any company commander returning from Afghanistan, and he can tell you about another Fazel, equally deserving of a visa.
What's happening is a failure to keep faith with those who fought beside us. The State Department has defied Congress by denying visas to thousands of interpreters who, like Fazel, fight alongside our soldiers. Congress has authorized 1,500 visas per year for Afghans who have assisted us; the State Department annually approves about 200. In a letter to President Obama, more than a dozen members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans, complained that in the past five years, State has issued only 12 percent of the available visas. An analogous program for Iraq has been similarly stalemated.
To qualify for a visa, Afghan interpreters must provide recommendations from U.S. officers and be interviewed and approved by the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The next step is the bottleneck: If approved there, the application must be reviewed by security committees in Washington. These panels have no incentive to say yes and a huge incentive to say no in order to avoid blame for any future incident. For example, two Iraqi refugees living in Kentucky were arrested in 2010 for shipping weapons to Al-Qaeda in Iraq. But the refugees in Kentucky had not laid their lives on the line for American soldiers; they weren't recommended by U.S. officers who had served alongside them.
Dakota Meyer, a retired Marine sergeant, was awarded the Medal of Honor fighting alongside Fazel in the battle of Ganjigal. Bing West, a former assistant secretary of defense, embedded as a media correspondent with Meyer and Fazel shortly after that battle.