[Peach]

I do NOT want to believe this story.

[Quilla]

It's hard to fathom the idiot who would let his emotions show in this instance. I wonder long long it will be before someone blames Robert Mueller for allowing these people to be employed by the FBI?

[Hostage]

Neither do I. And I would bet that even if true the impact is small.

From what I know the DOD maintains the world's top language school in Monterey California, the Defense Language Institute. I understand they have the capability to immerse an individual in a language for six months and have them speaking without accent.

If that's the case, backup translations should easily be vlaidated via recordings.

[cardinal4]

I do NOT want to believe this story.

You and me both..

[livius]

As a translator (not of Arabic) who has had contact with Arabic translators at various translation related events, I can assure you that it is true. It is also rather well-known in the translation world that this is a problem (and not only with Arabic translators - many foreign born translators are extremely anti-American, even though they live and work here).

Even Alfonso X, the 13th century Spanish king under whom the famous Escuela de Traductores flourished and translated works from Arabic, Hebrew and other languages into Latin, knew that translators could not be trusted. He had them work in teams of 3, 2 of them being native speakers who could be expected to check each other, and one of them being a native Spaniard who knew enough of the language to know whether the translation was reasonably accurate.

Relistically speaking, it is not possible to bring somebody to near-native fluency in six months, to the point where they could accurately translate highly idiomatic and often regional Arabic documents and transcriptions. However, it would be possible to teach American linguists enough in six months to a year so that they would at least have an idea of whether or not a translation was accurate or whether it should be extensively reviewed. They might also be able to scan documents for "pertinence" without relying solely on the judgment of the Arabic translators.

[mo]

I happen to know Mrs. Edmonds and her husband-he has served the DOD in many capacities for a long time-she is sincere in her concerns.

[ought-six]

"I do NOT want to believe this story."

You ignore it to the peril of our republic.

[rintense]

Me either. This is simply unreal, if true. It is long since time to purge the FBI, CIA, and Pentagon of all Clinton hire-es. Does anyone know when these translators were hired?

[Publius6961]

Former FBI translator Sibel D. Edmonds says translators of Middle Eastern origin working for the FBI's Washington field office maintain an "us"-versus-"them" attitude that's so strong it may be compromising al-Qaida investigations.

I expect the usual parade of incompetents and the ignorant and the 2+2 = 7 crowd to start a new refrain: Hate speech! Where's the proof?
The lethal inevitable result of the triumph of PC over common sense.

And a continuing total paralyzing state of collective cultural cognitive dissonance, the determined refusal to see what has been obvious for 1400 years: Islam is not a religion in the sense that westerners grasp it. It is an inseperable and fanatical militant invader, using all means including murder, but emphasizing our concept of religion as the means to achieve their ends.

Islam is an permanent meld of the religious and the secular, and there is no limit as to the means it uses to achieve its objective.
We can continue calling gunpowder "charcoal", if we insist, but it will not prevent it from blowing up in our faces. The question remains, how many times must it blow up before the message comes through?

[Publius6961]

I do NOT want to believe this story.

Nor do I. But we dismiss it at our peril. If this thread does not persist for several thousand posts, I will abandon all hope of national sanity.

[dirtboy]

I do NOT want to believe this story.

I'll believe it when I see it independently in an outlet other than WND.

[af_vet_1981]

I do NOT want to believe this story.

You had better believe it. The smug antiSemitism is real. Only now Americans die under their smirks.

I understand and expect bias from translators, especially if they are sympathetic to the targets. It would be naive to expect otherwise. The most egregious offense would be the mismanagement of those translators by the various agencies (all under the Bush administration by the way). That would be unforgivable. After September 11, there is no excuse. The Bush Administration should not tolerate antiSemitism in any of these agencies. Some of these agency people should stand trial when Americans die.

[MizSterious]

Me neither. Is Sperry reliable? All I know about him, really, is that incident with Clinton at a picnic.

[cyncooper]

I do NOT want to believe this story.

I do not, either, and I don't at this point.

[philetus]

http://www.meforum.org/article/353


Steven Emerson: Get Ready for Twenty World Trade Center Bombings

Steven Emerson is the author of four books on the Middle East and, since 1993, the foremost specialist on the subject of fundamentalist Muslim activities in the United States. Formerly a staff member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and a journalist for U.S. News & World Report and Cable News Network, he produced the documentary Jihad in America that PBS broadcast in November 1994 and won the George Polk Award for best television documentary. Daniel Pipes interviewed him on April 8, 1997.

THE THREAT

Middle East Quarterly: Do fundamentalist Muslims pose a threat to the United States?

Steven Emerson: No doubt. All the major terror groups of a fundamentalist orientation have established deeply routed, well-organized cells and infrastructure here -- Hamas Islamic Jihad, Hizbullah, as well as the Algerian groups, Islamic Salvation Front and Armed Islamic Group. They believe in the use of violence to carry out their doctrine and to achieve their goals. This is not just my assessment but the publicly stated view of top officials of the Central Intelligence Agency and Federal Bureau of Investigation who repeatedly state that deeply entrenched radical Islamic groups have the ability to strike here in the United States at will.1

MEQ: How do these groups intend to achieve their agenda in the United States?

Emerson: They use the United States as a sanctuary in which they can raise funds, recruit new members, directly control Middle Eastern operations, and initiate terrorists attacks. They also use it to spread da`wa [i.e., to propagate Islam].

MEQ: Did the fundamentalists assess the World Trade Center bombing of February 1993 as harmful to their interests?

Emerson: Yes, at this point Islamic fundamentalists are withholding attacks inside this country, so the current threat is much more to Americans overseas and other Western targets. Not only have funds from the United States paid for the terrorist attacks, but actual recruits have been sent from here on actual missions to fight "infidels" and set up jihad battlefronts in Algeria, Bosnia, Israel and the territories, Lebanon, Chechniya, and the Philippines.

MEQ: At some future point things here will change for the worse?

Emerson: The rage against the United States is increasing. In an environment that not only sanctions terrorism but mandates terrorist attacks against "enemies" of Islam, the question is how long the quiet can remain.

MEQ: The absence of attacks in America since 1993 does not mean the problem of fundamentalist violence has abated?

Emerson: Not at all. If anything, the threat is greater now than before the World Trade Center bombing as the numbers of these groups and their members expands. In fact, I would say that the infrastructure now exists to carry off twenty simultaneous World Trade Center-type bombings across the United States. And as chemical, biological, and even nuclear weapons become available to them, the threat becomes ever more ominous. Just because someone holding a gun to your head doesn't pull the trigger should not be understood as the threat not existing. It would be suicidal to permit our national security to depend on the good will or rationality of radical fundamentalists.

MEQ: And in the meantime, what are they doing?

Emerson: They use the United States as a base to spread the word of extremism, to proselytize, and to recruit new members to their interpretation of Islam. They also make efforts to become entrenched and legitimate so that they can provide a base here for the entire panoply of radical policies inimical to the democracy, pluralism, and respect for the individual that characterize Western political life.

MEQ: Might the radical groups limit their violence to American interests outside the United States?

Emerson: No, because these groups are unable to restrict their hatred for the United States to certain geographical regions.

MEQ: You told Congress a year ago that "both Hamas and Islamic Jihad have not only raised considerable ... funds in the United States but have also set up operational headquarters in the US where terrorist attacks and military strategies are orchestrated."2 What proof do you have?

Emerson: Example one: Court documents video tapes seen and other intelligence material relating to the investigation by law enforcement officials of Islamic Jihad in Tampa, Florida. Prior to his assuming leadership of Islamic Jihad in Damascus in October 1995, Ramadan `Abdallah Shallah had been an instructor at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Equipped with several search warrants, the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization Service retrieved tens of thousands of documents showing that his Florida office had served as the major operational arm of Islamic Jihad outside Syria.

Example two: law enforcement has identified the Islamic Association for Palestine as the primary Hamas front group in the United States. Its December 1996 conference in Chicago included Islamic extremists from the Middle East, Hamas commanders based in the United States, and radical supporters of Hamas from all parts of the United States. Several of the more secretive sessions included a discussion about killing Jews and other "enemies of Hamas."

Example three: the activities of Hamas in the United States were revealed when materials relating to the case of Musa Abu Marzook, its operative arrested at JFK airport in July 1995, were publicly released. These documents clearly established that Abu Marzook had been dispatching agents to Israel to carry out terrorists attacks. Investigators even found the checks by which he paid his U.S.-based couriers.3

[Coroner]

Neither does Luis!!

[jpl]

I do NOT want to believe this story.

Believe it. We may not prosecute treason anymore in theis country, but that doesn't mean there's no such thing as traitors. Remember the FBI Agent who just recently was convicted of selling classified info to the Russians? There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that we remain compromised at very high levels.

[Happy2BMe]

Trust me - you CAN believe it!

"There were those who openly divided the fronts as 'Us' – the Middle-Easterners who shared certain views – and 'Them' – the Americans who were the outsiders [whose] arrogance was now 'leading to their own destruction."

LOOK WHAT WE

DID TO THEM ! ! !

What they're saying about "Onward Muslim Soldiers" - An expose of militant Islam.

The FREEPERS Guide To Islamic Terror Websites - CYBERTERRORISM (And It's Sponsors)

[tiki]

This makes me sick at my stomach and furious if it is true. Talk about "biting the hand that feeds you"!

I'd run a few tests by having two or more independent translations and compare the outcomes and see how closely they matched.

[VOA]

"She says she caught a Turkish translator intentionally blocking intelligence
from being translated by labeling it as "not pertinent." The translator also
intentionally mistranslated documents and other information, she says. And
she alleges the same linguist, Melek Can Dickerson, was granted security
clearance by the FBI despite ties to targets of FBI investigations."

########################
Like you I don't want to believe the story.
But I'm fairly certain that I read about the above quoted incident in posts here
on freerepublic maybe a year or more ago.

So this isn't just "tin foil hat" from WorldNetDaily; Paul Sperry seems to be one that
rare breed: a trustworthy journalist.

[eno_]

I do NOT want to believe this story.

NOW do you see why many people here are VERY VERY critical of the domestic component of the War on Terror? Maybe the clowns at the FBI and HSA deserve criticism.