In early 21st Century, politically-correct Britain, only foreign murderers, rapists and terrorists - such as those non-British Guantanamo detainees that the British Government is trying to pressure America into releasing and then allowing them to live in Britain - should be granted asylum in Britain. If you have served this country well,prepared to sacrifice your life for it - such as a British Army Gurkha or an Iraqi interpreter working for the British Army - then you shouldn't be allowed asylun.
'We owe a great debt to Iraqi interpreters seeking UK asylum'
by MAX HASTINGS
9th August 2007
Daily Mail
Bureaucracies are not fitted with hearts.
Deep in the bowels of the Home Office sit banks of men and women shuffling immigration claims.
A British military policeman and his Iraqi interpreter question a man in Iraq. Iraqi interpreters who worked for the British Army want the right to live in Britain, though the Government prefers giving asylum to murderers and terrorists
Every day of the year, they tick boxes to admit to Britain hundreds of relatives of existing residents, most from Muslim countries, who neither speak our language nor share our values.
These people want to come here simply because they want a stake in our wealth.
Yet when 91 Iraqis who have served as interpreters for British forces at risk of their lives apply for entry, the machine turns nasty. It rejects them flat.
Letters from British officers in support of their claims are dismissed. Convincing evidence that their lives could be forfeit if they stay in Iraq when we go is cast aside.
Grotesquely, the official refusal to accede to the interpreters' request for admission is revealed on the same day as the British Government's request to the U.S. for the release from Guantanamo Bay of five prisoners who are, by all accounts, people with nothing good to offer Britain.
At the very least, they are Islamic extremists.
We are reaching out to them because Guantanamo is a hate-symbol to the Left, while turning our backs on men who have served in our uniforms for our cause in Iraq.
Each of the two stories leaves a nasty taste.
Whitehall admits to this country each year several hundred thousand people with no plausible moral claim on Britain's goodwill.
Yet it now refuses pleas on behalf of people who speak English, who have served alongside British soldiers on the battlefield, and to whom it is plain that we owe a debt of honour.
It stinks, of course. Now that the story has made headlines, it seems likely that Gordon Brown will intervene to reverse the decision.
While he is at it, the Prime Minister should also address himself to the cases of 44 Gurkha veterans, who are appealing against the verdict of immigration tribunals not to admit them to Britain.
Since the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, all Gurkhas who complete four years' service under the Crown have an automatic right to remain in Britain if they choose.
But these 44 left the Army before 1997. Thus, they are ineligible.
Theirs are test cases. In all, some 2,000 Nepalese veterans could come here, if rights of residence are backdated.
However critical many of us are about Britain's open-door immigration policy, it seems obvious that men who have served this country in arms have a claim upon us which only a Whitehall skinflint could dispute.
Corporal Gyanendra Rai, for instance, suffered terrible injuries at Bluff Cove in the 1982 Falklands conflict.
It is suggested that if his request is granted to enter Britain for specialised NHS treatment, he will stay here.
Which of us would dare to suggest that, if he makes such a choice, he should be denied?
It is almost fantastic that we have admitted to Britain - for instance - thousands of Somalis on the grounds that their safety is at risk in their own country.
Yet we deny passage to men who have served, in many cases for many years, in one of the great regiments of the British Army.
It is easy to see why the Home Office is nervous of letting in the Gurkhas and the Iraqis. They are fearful of setting precedents.
It has always seemed likely that when U.S. and British troops leave Iraq, there will be open civil war.
A host of people will become desperate for refugee status.
The first countries they will look to will be those which have led the allied coalition which precipitated the collapse of their society.
The Americans will bear the brunt, but we, too, will face a dilemma about admitting some Iraqis.
More than 30 years ago, I stood in the compound of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon amid a great throng of terrified Vietnamese, desperate to escape the Communist host that was sweeping towards victory at the end of the long and terrible war.
All those people knew that, having served the Americans, their lives were imperilled.
The scenes that day have remained imprinted on the minds of every witness ever since.
Hour after hour we waited for the helicopters, each carrying to safety a pitifully small cargo of fugitives.
Eventually, of course, all the 'round-eyes', the white people, were borne away to the great U.S. fleet offshore in the China Sea.
But when the Americans finally abandoned the embassy, some hundreds of Vietnamese were left behind.
Their subsequent fate was bleak: death for some; years in re- education camps for the rest.
That spring of 1975, 125,000 Vietnamese fled their country, and most went to make new lives in America.
In the years which followed, some two million more migrants joined them, risking everything aboard frail boats on which many drowned in their desperation to reach the West.
Today, 1.5 million Vietnamese live in the U.S., many more in Canada, others in communities around the world.
I recall that story because I am sure that today the Vietnam memory creates nightmares along government corridors both in Washington and London.
If there is anything like that kind of mass exodus when Western forces quit Iraq, the U.S. and British governments will face an acute moral dilemma about how to respond.
A British civil servant might ask: 'Remember 1973, when we had to accept 23,000 Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin? Don't we have enough immigration problems born out of "obligations" to people from our own empire?'
Yes and no. Most of us believe that, half a century and more after we quit the empire, it is more than time to call a halt to immigration based on Britain's supposed duty to former colonies.
But it is a different story when we consider the causes of people who have fought under the British flag, or served our armed forces in war.
A cynic could suggest that the Gurkhas have always been mercenaries, who serve the British Army for the same reason many Nepalese battalions today fight in the Indian Army: as a living, a career, not because they care a fig for the Queen or for this country.
I do not think that argument will do.
There was a case for disbanding the Gurkhas when we left Hong Kong, because they have always been most notable as jungle fighters, at the forefront of our Asian wars.
Instead, however, we chose to maintain the Gurkha units, because the British Army is desperately short of infantry soldiers, and the British public loves them.
When we made that decision, we established an obligation.
We have a debt to those Nepalese warriors, which must be paid. We cannot discard them merely because they have served their turn.
As for Iraq, it would be na've not to acknowledge that if the 91 interpreters now in the headlines are admitted to this country, more cases are likely to come forward of local people who have served the British in Basra, and now seek sanctuary.
Whatever our views about Britain's immigration policy, and indeed about the disastrous folly of Blair's Iraq war, we must surely display generosity.
Interpreters who have worked for years with British troops in the field are far more likely to become good citizens of this country than many of those who come here shamelessly for our money, and want no part of our culture or lives.
If we cannot recognise where our national duty lies here, then we shall not deserve the help of local people on future battlefields to which our soldiers are committed, as they surely will be.
These Iraqis and the Gurkhas must be made welcome, in the name of Britain's honour.
dailymail.co.uk
'We owe a great debt to Iraqi interpreters seeking UK asylum'
by MAX HASTINGS
9th August 2007
Daily Mail
Bureaucracies are not fitted with hearts.
Deep in the bowels of the Home Office sit banks of men and women shuffling immigration claims.
A British military policeman and his Iraqi interpreter question a man in Iraq. Iraqi interpreters who worked for the British Army want the right to live in Britain, though the Government prefers giving asylum to murderers and terrorists
Every day of the year, they tick boxes to admit to Britain hundreds of relatives of existing residents, most from Muslim countries, who neither speak our language nor share our values.
These people want to come here simply because they want a stake in our wealth.
Yet when 91 Iraqis who have served as interpreters for British forces at risk of their lives apply for entry, the machine turns nasty. It rejects them flat.
Letters from British officers in support of their claims are dismissed. Convincing evidence that their lives could be forfeit if they stay in Iraq when we go is cast aside.
Grotesquely, the official refusal to accede to the interpreters' request for admission is revealed on the same day as the British Government's request to the U.S. for the release from Guantanamo Bay of five prisoners who are, by all accounts, people with nothing good to offer Britain.
At the very least, they are Islamic extremists.
We are reaching out to them because Guantanamo is a hate-symbol to the Left, while turning our backs on men who have served in our uniforms for our cause in Iraq.
Each of the two stories leaves a nasty taste.
Whitehall admits to this country each year several hundred thousand people with no plausible moral claim on Britain's goodwill.
Yet it now refuses pleas on behalf of people who speak English, who have served alongside British soldiers on the battlefield, and to whom it is plain that we owe a debt of honour.
It stinks, of course. Now that the story has made headlines, it seems likely that Gordon Brown will intervene to reverse the decision.
While he is at it, the Prime Minister should also address himself to the cases of 44 Gurkha veterans, who are appealing against the verdict of immigration tribunals not to admit them to Britain.
Since the handover of Hong Kong in 1997, all Gurkhas who complete four years' service under the Crown have an automatic right to remain in Britain if they choose.
But these 44 left the Army before 1997. Thus, they are ineligible.
Theirs are test cases. In all, some 2,000 Nepalese veterans could come here, if rights of residence are backdated.
However critical many of us are about Britain's open-door immigration policy, it seems obvious that men who have served this country in arms have a claim upon us which only a Whitehall skinflint could dispute.
Corporal Gyanendra Rai, for instance, suffered terrible injuries at Bluff Cove in the 1982 Falklands conflict.
It is suggested that if his request is granted to enter Britain for specialised NHS treatment, he will stay here.
Which of us would dare to suggest that, if he makes such a choice, he should be denied?
It is almost fantastic that we have admitted to Britain - for instance - thousands of Somalis on the grounds that their safety is at risk in their own country.
Yet we deny passage to men who have served, in many cases for many years, in one of the great regiments of the British Army.
It is easy to see why the Home Office is nervous of letting in the Gurkhas and the Iraqis. They are fearful of setting precedents.
It has always seemed likely that when U.S. and British troops leave Iraq, there will be open civil war.
A host of people will become desperate for refugee status.
The first countries they will look to will be those which have led the allied coalition which precipitated the collapse of their society.
The Americans will bear the brunt, but we, too, will face a dilemma about admitting some Iraqis.
More than 30 years ago, I stood in the compound of the U.S. Embassy in Saigon amid a great throng of terrified Vietnamese, desperate to escape the Communist host that was sweeping towards victory at the end of the long and terrible war.
All those people knew that, having served the Americans, their lives were imperilled.
The scenes that day have remained imprinted on the minds of every witness ever since.
Hour after hour we waited for the helicopters, each carrying to safety a pitifully small cargo of fugitives.
Eventually, of course, all the 'round-eyes', the white people, were borne away to the great U.S. fleet offshore in the China Sea.
But when the Americans finally abandoned the embassy, some hundreds of Vietnamese were left behind.
Their subsequent fate was bleak: death for some; years in re- education camps for the rest.
That spring of 1975, 125,000 Vietnamese fled their country, and most went to make new lives in America.
In the years which followed, some two million more migrants joined them, risking everything aboard frail boats on which many drowned in their desperation to reach the West.
Today, 1.5 million Vietnamese live in the U.S., many more in Canada, others in communities around the world.
I recall that story because I am sure that today the Vietnam memory creates nightmares along government corridors both in Washington and London.
If there is anything like that kind of mass exodus when Western forces quit Iraq, the U.S. and British governments will face an acute moral dilemma about how to respond.
A British civil servant might ask: 'Remember 1973, when we had to accept 23,000 Ugandan Asians expelled by Idi Amin? Don't we have enough immigration problems born out of "obligations" to people from our own empire?'
Yes and no. Most of us believe that, half a century and more after we quit the empire, it is more than time to call a halt to immigration based on Britain's supposed duty to former colonies.
But it is a different story when we consider the causes of people who have fought under the British flag, or served our armed forces in war.
A cynic could suggest that the Gurkhas have always been mercenaries, who serve the British Army for the same reason many Nepalese battalions today fight in the Indian Army: as a living, a career, not because they care a fig for the Queen or for this country.
I do not think that argument will do.
There was a case for disbanding the Gurkhas when we left Hong Kong, because they have always been most notable as jungle fighters, at the forefront of our Asian wars.
Instead, however, we chose to maintain the Gurkha units, because the British Army is desperately short of infantry soldiers, and the British public loves them.
When we made that decision, we established an obligation.
We have a debt to those Nepalese warriors, which must be paid. We cannot discard them merely because they have served their turn.
As for Iraq, it would be na've not to acknowledge that if the 91 interpreters now in the headlines are admitted to this country, more cases are likely to come forward of local people who have served the British in Basra, and now seek sanctuary.
Whatever our views about Britain's immigration policy, and indeed about the disastrous folly of Blair's Iraq war, we must surely display generosity.
Interpreters who have worked for years with British troops in the field are far more likely to become good citizens of this country than many of those who come here shamelessly for our money, and want no part of our culture or lives.
If we cannot recognise where our national duty lies here, then we shall not deserve the help of local people on future battlefields to which our soldiers are committed, as they surely will be.
These Iraqis and the Gurkhas must be made welcome, in the name of Britain's honour.
dailymail.co.uk