A good idea makes the rounds

June 26, 2007

We learned last week that of the 1,000 U.S. employees at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, only 10 have a working knowledge of Arabic. I suggested that perhaps the State Department could address the problem by reaching out to some of the dozens of well-trained Arabic linguists the Pentagon threw out of the military for being gay.

Apparently, the idea is catching on.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos (D-Calif.) and Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) urged the State Department Monday to hire homosexual military translators discharged under the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy.

The lawmakers called the policy “absurd and highly biased” and said it “cripples our national security.”

“We are writing to urge the Department of State to take a specific step — the hiring of our unfairly dismissed, language-qualified soldiers — so our nation might salvage something positive from the lamentable results of this benighted policy,” Lantos and Ackerman wrote in a strongly worded letter to Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte.

Lantos and Ackerman also touched on an interesting point I hadn’t seen elsewhere: many of the trained linguists thrown out of the military turn around and work for private contractors who — you guessed it — offer their translation services back to the government at a higher price.

In other words, here’s the series of events:

* The U.S. government recruits these patriotic gay Americans;

* the government spends millions training them to speak Arabic;

* the government then kicks the linguists out of the military;

* and then those same public officials hire the exact same linguists back at a higher price and with less accountability.

I desperately want someone — anyone — to explain to me why this is not only a good idea during a time of war, but is also absolutely necessary as an effective government policy, which is the Bush administration line (embraced by every GOP presidential candidate).

There’s nothing stopping the State Department from hiring these discharged linguists — gay people can’t openly serve in the military, but they can openly serve at State — so maybe the Lantos/Ackerman letter might help a bit.

But here’s a thought: if you’re one of the gay linguists who was humiliated and insulted by the Bush administration, how anxious would you be to take a pay cut in order to help these officials out? In effect, how can we expect these men and women to do the administration a favor after the way they’ve been treated?

if i were one of the gay linguists who was humiliated and insulted by the bush administration, i would use one of dickhead cheney’s all-time favorite expressions – go f**k yourselves.

  • Too little, too late. There should have been discussion between the military and the State Department to work out transfers with retention of benefits, seniority and pay in order to keep this area fully staffed.

    Maybe the linguists should hire themselves out as private contractors and offer to do the job for double what they were making before.

  • In Arabic, go f*ck yourself is… uh… Wow, guess this goes to show why you need qualified people to speak Arabic to Arabic-speaking people…

  • Who needs to speak the local language? Everyone knows that if you yell loud enough, hand out enough bricks of cash, and drop enough bombs on them, foreigners can understand English.

    Pfeh.

  • I’m not necessarily saying we have any special need to tell people to go fuck themselves in Arabic, just that- look, if you want to say something to someone in Arabic, you’re going to need someone who knows how to say it.

  • * the government spends millions training them to speak Arabic;
    * the government then kicks the linguists out of the military;
    * and then those same public officials hire the exact same linguists back at a higher price…

    I haven’t heard it lately, but surely someone has griped that gay translators are running some kind of scam. Get trained, come out, then make a buck using DoD training.

  • “I desperately want someone — anyone — to explain to me why this is not only a good idea during a time of war, but is also absolutely necessary as an effective government policy”

    It is a great idea and it is absolutely necessary for effective government policy, THEREFORE the Bush administration won’t do it.

    But you already knew that, didn’t you?

  • It appears the real policy interest is helping the contractors (probably all various subsidiaries of Halliburton) make more money from the federal trough.

  • Actually I’m not too sure that the State Dept would want to have openly gay employees working (and representing the US) in a Moslem country.

    Just sayin’

  • I’ll side with Ethel-to-Tilly on this one; homosexuality is a capital crime in many Muslin nations, and US State Department employees who are fluent in the language could be targeted simply as a matter of default.

    Does this make me “homophobic?” Nope. I’m just pointing out that if you’re gay, and you’re in a Muslim nation that adheres to the tenet that homosexuality is an abomination punishable by death, then you might not want to be identified as—or even suspected of—being gay in a Muslim nation—especially Iraq….

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