What Were They Thinking?

By Bill West

Shortly after the 9/11 attacks President Bush could not have been clearer in stating what was supposed to be the firm American Government position concerning terrorists and terrorism supporters. He said you were either with America against terrorism or with the terrorists, and if you supported terrorism, you were America�s enemy. Within weeks of the 9/11 attacks, the United States invaded, conquered and occupied Afghanistan. We defeated the ruling Taliban who were very clearly supporters of the terrorist enemy al-Qaeda who had attacked us on 9/11. Very clearly, the Taliban had also become America�s enemy. Indeed, we sent our Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Airmen to kill, capture and conquer the Taliban. And they did.

Well before the invasion of Afghanistan, it had become very evident the Taliban was not much more than a group of backward-thinking Islamist thugs who had no interest in anything resembling modern democratic freedoms or even anything close to acceptable human rights within their heroin trade supported near-stone-aged country. Taliban entertainment amounted to flogging and executing women in the Kabul soccer stadium for offenses against society as severe as showing their ankles under their burquas. Those Taliban...what a crew. Arguably, beyond not killing OBL and all of his inner circle, not wasting every last one of the Taliban might have been the other mistake of our Afghan expedition, especially since remnants of the Taliban are now regaining strength in parts of the country and managing to kill some of our forces and our Afghan government allies. But, at least our valiant forces are still fighting and killing those Taliban thugs �over there�...

But wait. Just days ago we read media reports that at first seemed completely unbelievable. Surely the US Immigration and Nationality Act, specifically Section 212(a)(3) [at least several subsections thereof], being the national security provisions related to keeping terrorist and other security threat aliens out of the United States, would be ENFORCED by the toughest national and homeland security Administration we�ve ever had? Surely these news reports could not be true.

The reports, first run in the New York Times on 2/26, said that one Rahmatullah Hashemi, the former �roving ambassador� for the Taliban government, had been issued a US temporary visa and had been admitted as a foreign student attending Yale university. The article described in substantial (and notably sympathetic) detail Hashemi�s background. The report noted Hashemi received a �B-2" temporary visa from a US consulate in Pakistan, described as a �prospective student� visa, and was later admitted to Yale this past summer. Presumably that B-2 visitor visa might have been changed to the �F-1" student visa...but, who knows for sure?

The real point in all this is WHAT IS GOING ON ALLOWING THIS GUY INTO THE UNITED STATES IN THE FIRST PLACE? Are US universities so strapped for foreign student attendance that our Government...the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security...are now allowing former officials of terror supporting state regimes to enter the US on student visas? Could this person have �slipped through the cracks?� If that�s the case, what does it say for the much vaunted Intelligence-sharing systems that are supposed to protect our border security and visa-issuance process? We are more than four years past the 9/11 attacks, with an entire DHS created to allegedly �fix� those cracks. So, what happened in this case?

Did Hashemi become a �friendly� for the US Government and some spook foolishly decided to reward him with a visa and entry into the US? If so, and there would be questions about historic lessons learned for that one, having him interviewed for a feature article by the New York Times is a sloppy way of handling the guy, so that scenario is doubtful. Unfortunately, none of the potential angles on this case look good for how the Government did or did not perform.

As indicated above, there are at least several provisions of US immigration law that should have kept Hashemi from being issued a visa and being admitted into the US. It would only take one such provision to do the job. Now that he is here, it would appear there are equal provisions of US immigration law in Sections 237(a)(1) and (4) that would render him removable (deportable) from the United States. Hopefully, an appropriate inquiry from Congress in this matter will be forthcoming.

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