US puts Iraqi documents on the Web ~ MSM acknowledges ...Goal is to speed up translation of files

Boston Globe ^ | March 18, 2006 | Hiawatha Bray, Globe Staff

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Joseph Shahda of Randolph earns his living as an engineer. But in his spare time, he's an intelligence agent, working to ferret out the truth about the regime of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

When the US government on Thursday began publishing captured Iraqi government documents on the Internet, Shahda eagerly began to translate the files into English and publish them on a conservative website.

''I feel a sense of duty," said Shahda, a native of Lebanon who supports President Bush's decision to invade Iraq. ''I think it's a duty for people who know Arabic to translate the documents."

US officials hope that thousands of other Arabic speakers feel the same. Goaded by Congress, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte has begun to release millions of pages of captured files online in an unprecedented effort to harness the Internet to disseminate raw intelligence material. There, anybody with a knowledge of Arabic can download the files and translate them for the world.

It's the same ''open source" principle that drove the successful development of the Internet and of powerful free software like the Linux operating system. Instead of hiring a team of brilliant professionals to analyze Iraqi documents in secret, the open source systems will use hundreds of clever amateurs, who'll publish their work for anyone to analyze and improve upon.

''Workers control the means of production, but without all that tedious communism," said Glenn Reynolds, a law professor at the University of Tennessee and author of ''An Army of Davids," a book that shows how the Internet encourages public activism.

[jveritas]

Thank you very much, just doing my duty.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

We truly, truly deeply appreciate your efforts...

They are huge!

[Criminal Number 18F]

Hiawatha's a good guy. One of the few minority tech experts in the media, which is interesting. Also a man receptive to our point of view, which got his blog strangled by the Globe in 2004.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F

[jveritas]

Thank you very much Ernest. I am just a paying back little of the debt to this great USA that I am forever in debt and grateful for.

God Bless America.

[jveritas]

I agree with you. Mr. Bray was very nice when he interviewed me over the phone and as you said he is receptive to our point of view, I am not saying that he fully embraces it but he definitely will listen to it.

[maine-iac7]

LOLLOTFLHHO (_{little ole lady laying on the floor laughing her hiney off}

Great job in supimposing the pj's!

thanks for the chuckle...was in great need of one!

[maine-iac7]

Here is the lefts attempt to discount the docs:

thanks for the link - read some but got a chill - it's frightening to think so many people look at these documents as a threat to them! They would rather NOT know what Saddam and Binny boy and the rest were really up to - even if it may protect us from future attacts - if they would prove Bush right.

The unbridled, irrational, corrosive hate that these people operate on is mind-boggling.

I am truly beginning to realize that these people would help to sink this country if it would hurt Bush or put them in power.

Our biggest enemy may well be within

[maine-iac7]

Notice how the MSM has turned into turtles. ...could Bush have been right all along?

They aren't questioning if Bush has been right all along - they know he has. They just don't the truth to come out in such a way as they can't bury it

[Smartass]

I don't agree with Bush 100%. But, as an American President, he has taken us on a path that can only have one conclusion, and that is total victory over al Quaeda, and world wide terrorism. If for no other reason, we must support him and our military. Because if we fail in Afghanistan or Iraq, we're through as nation. Islamofacists would love to see us leave either country with our tails hanging. What is most troubling, is the Democrats appear to want the same outcome as the enemy. Just doesn't make sense!

[Shortstop7]

You got it, Ernest. Take it to the people........and leave the media out of it. Poor poor Kos.

[justa-hairyape]

This is starting to look like a tidal wave heading for the Main Stream Media....

Or possibly a Tsunami. Picture the MSM sitting on the beach while working on another meaningless article about some overhyped celebrity. They bark at their waiter for another glass of French Champaign and then the Tsunami warning begins to blare. The waiter drops his tray and starts running away from the beach. The MSM hears the warning, but reminds itself just how important these meaningless articles are to its barely coherent readers. The MSM decides to continue working on the article even though the champaign glass has run dry. Then the ocean near the shore starts to quickly recede. The MSM begins to think, thats odd, must be low tide. Then the ocean rises up and swallows them whole. For maximum effect think 'Perfect Storm' and picture George Clooney going down with that ship.

The bottom line is that, the more they lie, the smaller is their share of the coherent audience. After that Tsunami hits, they may not be called the MSM anymore.

[aculeus]

Excellent. How amusing that the NY Times-owned Globe is reporting the work of an Army of Translators while it ignores Armies of Reporters ... the bloggers and FReepers who are producing superior news products, products that will end the dominance -- existence? -- of the MSM.

[aculeus]

I was off line yesterday so come a little late to this wonderful thread.

Many thanks for your work and for sharing so much with us humble Freepers.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

To understand the left, I believe this book helps:

**********************************************

Unholy Alliance : Radical Islam and the American Left (Hardcover)

*******************************

And a review:

****************************************

Communism is dead. Long live Islam!, September 30, 2004

Reviewer:

Kevin Beckman (Sacramento, CA) - See all my reviews

It sounds absurd: why would Leftists make common cause with a religion that is diametrically opposed to everything the Left stands for? David Horowitz explains that it is really quite logical given the Left's first principle: America is evil and anything or anyone opposed to America is good.

Part I of the book is a brief history of 9/11 through the end of major combat operations in Iraq, and the Left's behavior during this time. Horowitz includes the reaction of Katha Pollitt of The Nation magazine: "The flag stands for vengeance, and jingoism, and war." Anthropology Professor Nicholas De Genova of Columbia University said he hoped for "a million Mogadishus." His colleagues objected, not to the despicable sentiment, but because of the bad publicity it brought their "teach-in." Our tax dollars at work!

Part II is the heart of the book: a history of the American and international Left. Horowitz calls them Neo-Communists or Neocoms. The Neocoms of old believed in the Soviet Union the way religious people believe in God. Those who spied for the USSR didn't see themselves as traitors to their country, but rather loyalists to humanity and an ideal of America that's never existed. When the Soviet Union fell, a few of them stopped for some introspection but most pressed on as if nothing happened. Communist historian Eric Hobsbawm put it nicely: "Without the Revolution, my life and my work are meaningless."

Now that they no longer have to defend an indefensible regime, modern Neocoms are simply nihilists. They know what they oppose but they have no plans for the aftermath of the revolution which they still believe will happen. They don't know what they want, but they know what they hate: the United States, capitalism personified.

So why are they allying with radical Islam? Horowitz says that the Neocoms still believe in Marx's dictum that "religion is the opiate of the masses." Once private property is abolished, the need for religion will vanish, and Islamic radicals will stop being Islamic and radical. The only thing standing in the way is the United States.

Sound insane? It is. They are. I highly recommend this book. Horowitz makes the insanity understandable.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Flat footed is a kind way of putting it.

[1035rep]

marked

[Smartass]

LOL, I don't believe anyone could write anything to fully understand the left! Further, I don't believe the left even understands themselves. Communism and socialism are tried and failed ideologies, so for the left to hang onto something that died, is liken to sleeping with, and making love to a decaying mummy. The old mantle of Adolf Hitler has been passed onto radical Islam, so why the left in this country embraces and works to undermine the U.S. is kind of puzzling. The world wide war on terror is different than anything this earth has experienced in the past. If the right loses this war, even the left is not safe from losing their heads!

[jveritas]

Thank you very much, it is my duty to translate and my pleasure to share it with you my fellow freepers.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I guess Nihilism has it's own logic.... LOL!

Google found this:

NIHILISM
The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age

[eleni121]

It's costing lots of money for the govt to translate documents---how about 85,000 for a 6 month tranlation tour in Afghanistan? or 135,000 for a one year translation tour in Iraq? Those are offers that were taken which I am personally aware of.