If only we had more translators

July 28, 2005

On Sept. 10, 2001, the National Security Agency picked up suggestive comments by al Queda operatives, including, “Tomorrow is zero hour.” The tape of the conversation was not translated until after 9/11. Soon after, as Newsweek reported, FBI Director Robert Mueller established a 12-hour rule: all significant electronic intercepts of suspected terrorist conversations must be translated within 12 hours.

Unfortunately, it’s not going well.

The FBI has failed to review more than 8,000 hours of audio wiretap recordings related to counterterrorism investigations, a backlog that has more than doubled in size since last year, according to a new report issued yesterday.

The audit by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine also found that although the FBI has made progress in improving its translation program, the bureau is still struggling to analyze recordings quickly enough and to hire and retain qualified translators.

“The success of the FBI’s foreign language translation efforts is critical to its national security mission,” the report said. It added that “key deficiencies remain, including a continuing amount of unreviewed material, instances where ‘high priority’ material has not been reviewed within 24 hours and continued challenges in meeting linguist hiring goals.”

If only we knew of a large number of highly-trained, Arabic-speaking linguists who could help us translate sensitive, intercepted messages. Oh wait…

[T]he Pentagon continues to dismiss trained linguists — people whose skills are desperately needed in Iraq and elsewhere around the world — for being gay. In fact, newly obtained data from the Department of Defense reveals that these firings were far more widespread than previously known. Between 1998 and 2004, the military discharged 20 Arabic and six Farsi language speakers under the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The new data are not broken down by year, but additional figures from other reports suggest that about half the Arabic discharges came after September 11.

I’m curious, can the linguists dismissed from the military make the transition to FBI and CIA work, or are they banned from service altogether? Is this reckless discrimination really more important than national security?

They can make the transition, assuming they get the proper clearances and what-have-you–in fact, FBI and CIA chase after them, b/c Arabic speakers are hard to find.

  • I don’t see why they can’t move to the FBI or some other agency. As far as I know they don’t have “don’t ask, don’t tell” policies which is what the “problem” was over at the DoD.

  • yes cause once you are dismissed from the milatary you really really want to work for the government…….

  • CB wrote: “I’m curious, can the linguists dismissed from the military make the transition to FBI and CIA work, or are they banned from service altogether? Is this reckless discrimination really more important than national security? ”

    Now, CB, I dispute your question’s premise. Gays ARE a threat to national security. Didn’t Falwell say that the reason the terrorists attacked us was because we’re overrun with fags? So if we get rid of them, America will be morally purified, God will smile upon us again, and we would thereby immune from attack. You can’t argue around Falwell’s trenchant logic here.

    In short, we don’t need translators. If we just get rid of the gays, we’ll be safe agin. Yup.

    (/sarcasm)

    Seriously, why aren’t we asking Falwell, Dobson, and Robertson why they hate America?

  • Is this reckless discrimination really more important than national security?
    I’ve asked myself this 1,000 times. I used to think (silly me) who would care if gays got married? Well, the 2004 election told me. But, for the life of me I just can’t come to terms with how and why this effects anyone. Ditto the translators.

  • Dan, This “….chasing after”…the images in my mind. I, speaking only for myself, being listed in the “429” area directory, that gets the weekly Newsletter, who can’t resist adding, “…for Queers” when people at a party toast, “Cheers”

    …what was my point? Oh yeah, being chased by some of the FBI specimens…oh my heart!

    :-;

    Thus, ends sadly any belief / thought that I have any germane comments to add…

  • They should go to New York, I read that New York Police started their own intelligence division because they lacked confidence in national intelligence. Imagine that.

    http://www.nycpolicefoundation.org/programs.asp

    LANGUAGE TRAINING PROGRAM
    NYPD personnel received extensive foreign language training to increase their proficiency to that of native speakers, and are now assigned to counter-terrorism and Intelligence commands.

    Hopefully they would be accepted because of their skills and not discriminated against because of their personal life.

  • I assume that things have changed since I was in the intelligence field, but “back in the day,” people lost their security clearances for being gay because it supposedly made them more susceptible to blackmail, especially if they were “in the closet.” I certainly don’t advocate pulling peoples’ clearances or jobs because of sexual orientation, but it might still be the policy to do so.

  • How do you say “catapult the propaganda” in Arabic?

    What good would those linguists do with Bush’s stuff?

    Yeah, I know. It’s the other way around. We need to
    know what they’re saying. But wouldn’t it be great
    if the Iraqis could only know what Bush is saying?
    Then they’d know we’re really the good guys.

    By the way, is he still saying “nukular?” Someday,
    there will be software on televisions that
    automatically substitute “nuclear” in the blue
    states.

  • Speaking of Iraq, why don’t we hire a few of them to come over to America and do some of the translating?? I’m sure they would prefer a cush job in America to dodging car bombs. Hell, not only do we now have access to millions of barrels of oil to solve America’s energy problem, we have a whole fleet of Arabic translators waiting to solve America’s intelligence problems.

    God bless Mr. Bush! He has solved America’s greatest problems and made America strong again!

    (//Sarcasm (to the nth degree))

  • I have a degree in classical Arabic, but since the civil wars in Lebanon and then Iraq, have been wondering if there is an Arabic translation of “carpetbagger”. The German translation is awful – plain old “Schwindler”. I should have thought the word for “locust”, in both Arabic and German, would be a better translation although it too loses the vividness and exactness of the American civil war metaphor. My question is not idle, or anti-American: I feel it would help Arabs to know how terribly Americans suffered during their Civil War. And after it, in the ruins it left.

    • Comments are closed.