Betrayal

Upyernoz has a great post linking to an LA Times oped piece. The basic thrust of it is that we have the moral obligation to grant asylum to those Iraqis who have risked their lives by daring to work with Americans. If you have been living under a rock for the past year, you may not know that Iraqis who are exposed as collaborators are routinely captured, tortured, and killed. These are patriots who take the fate of their country very seriously. We owe them safety at the very least. They have been doubly betrayed by George Bush, first because they're basically thrown to the wolves once their identity is uncovered and, secondly (and this is perhaps the more profound betrayal) because Bush has never been serious about the fate of Iraq.

If only to encourage more Iraqis to help us over there, it would be wise to have an asylum program in place. But since that would be a policy that would actually cohere to stated American goals for Iraq, it has next to zero chance of happening.