Refugee from Maryland Political Wars finds A$ylum at State Department
Ellen Sauerbrey is a failed politician from Maryland. As payback for running as a statewide office candidate there, against a rock-solid Democrat, she was placed in a sinecure as a political appointee at Foggy Bottom. She is the Refugee Boss for the United States Government, Assistant Cabinet Secretary in rank, and paid as an EX-04, which when based in Washington includes a Locality Pay supplement of 11%.
This is not an easy job. When the Republican Congress passed a feel-good law known as the North Korean Human Rights Act in 2004 without considering the criminal background check and espionage implications of providing refuge for those fleeing North Koreans, Ms. Sauerbrey issued instructions to consulates and embassies. Those instructions resulted in the steering of North Korean refugees to ANY other country, than the one which had just declared itself open to those huddled starving and oppressed masses, yearning to be free of Kim Jong Il and his militarized corrupt regime. But no one could be actually caught steering the wannabe Americans; that would subvert the intent of the feel-good, world-changing, American fundamentalist-pleasing legislation. So, every refugee who managed to make his/her way to our overseas diplomatic establishments engaged in a dance with American diplomats, to bring about that desired end: resettlement ANYWHERE outside of the United States.
Refugees were not long in coming- "Pass the Law, They Will Come". Aided by Christian activists and missionaries throughout the Far East, they invaded consulates and embassies. Once past the local police protection of the US offices, inside the compounds or on top of the buildings, having jumped from other neighboring structures, they could not be ejected. Some remained inside those office buildings for weeks and months, awaiting the process managed by the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
Fast-forward now to 2007. The North Korean "problem" has become manageable, by virtue of passing that thorny issue to the United Nations. Never mind that we pay our bills at the U.N. slowly if at all.
NOW, we have an Iraqi refugee crisis. The White House and Ms. Sauerbrey must once again dance around reality and the law. The reality is that Iraq is falling apart, a violent shambles disintegrating around the employees who have served the US well these last four years- and around their families. The danger to these enablers of US Imperial Foreign Policy, is palpable, whether they still call Iraq home or whether they are now living temporarily elsewhere in the region, Syria for example.
The US response? Around 100 refugee entries processed for Iraqi translators and other formal and informal employees of the Army, State Department, USAID, etc. Ms. Sauerbrey pleads in dualistic fashion, blaming this paucity of processing on resources and of course, "the changes since 9/11" The best appreciation of this immoral inadequacy can be captured by viewing the segment on Iraqi refugees, aired by 60 Minutes on Sunday August 27, 2007. You can access this, in transcript or video, at http://www.cbsnews.com/...
Net-net, and my take on this dangerous and shameful mess: To quote then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, "You broke it [America]. You fix it". But that is of course an adult perspective, involving personal responsibility: exceedingly awkward for those at the White House and the American Enterprise Institute with such a breathtaking vision of a brave new world.