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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

Posted on 03/18/2006 10:24:23 AM PST by 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.

(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: documents; iraq; iraqiintelligence; prewardocs; saddam; waronterror
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach; All
I'm putting all the links, quotes, etc., I find on this here:

The Iraq Documents

...but note this little nugget I found, and the date:

Stephen Hayes most recent article in the Weekly Standard is a real eye-opener too.

 
I would also remind everyone of the documents found by Mitch Potter of the Toronto Star. ( Apr. 27, 2003. 09:58 AM )

In the minutes to come, we regained composure, biting our lips as Amir worked away at the rest of the document with the knife blade, as if performing open-heart surgery. A second blob of corrective fluid came off, revealing another "bin Laden." And then a third.

21 posted on 03/18/2006 10:56:22 AM PST by backhoe (Just an Old Keyboard Cowboy, Ridin' the Trakball into the Dawn of Information)
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To: jveritas

You are doing a great service for our country.


22 posted on 03/18/2006 10:57:55 AM PST by ARealMothersSonForever (Political troglodyte with a partisan axe to grind)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
I have mixed thoughts on the issue of just who should provide the translation services. Language translation is a science in some respects. With all the various forms of written and spoken Arabic, unless one is very well studied in this field one could easily let important things go un-noticed.
Plus, unlike say an US Army translator, who one would assume is pretty well vetted, one would have to assume the translations and interpretations are honest presentations of what is written. Things could get royaly out of hand in no time.
23 posted on 03/18/2006 10:57:59 AM PST by Marine_Uncle (Honor must be earned)
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To: Spunky

Wide dissemination. "Real smart move."

On the 16th I read an FR post entitled "Document: Afghani Taliban Consul Spoke of a Relationship Between Iraq and Bin Laden." This had been translated and posted. I suggested that the translator send it back to the source (Foreign Military Studies Office: Joint Reserve Intelligence Center)
so it could be posted by them in English as well as Arabic, but when he tried he could not do it. Is this more incomplete planning by the Administration, or his lack of computer skills?


24 posted on 03/18/2006 11:03:07 AM PST by gleeaikin (Question Authority)
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To: Freee-dame
I and others are doing the translation for free and I do not intend to charge for translations when it is my duty to help our great nation in time of war by revealing the truth about Saddam regime and Al Qaeda. It took me little effort to translate some of the documents from Arabic to English, however the great efforts and great sacrifice are being done on a daily basis by our brave troops to whom we should send our immense thanks and gratitude.

God bless our troops.

25 posted on 03/18/2006 11:03:09 AM PST by jveritas (Hate can never win elections.)
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To: Marine_Uncle
Well the documents are not being altered....and the "GOOD STUFF"

will get a lot of eyes looking at it.....

26 posted on 03/18/2006 11:03:21 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: johnny7; Marine_Uncle

Right....SADDAM nailed!!!


27 posted on 03/18/2006 11:04:43 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: backhoe

Thanks for your excellent efforts....


28 posted on 03/18/2006 11:06:17 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Someone could unearth photos of Sadaam and Bin Laden exchanging money and the MSM would yawn. It's just too darn bad that Bush lacks Reagan's rhetorical skills, because selling a policy has become as important as having a policy.
29 posted on 03/18/2006 11:06:36 AM PST by veronica ("A person needs a sense of mission like the air he breathes...")
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To: jveritas

Thank you for your efforts and your great attitude!


30 posted on 03/18/2006 11:08:58 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: ARealMothersSonForever
Thank you, the translations that I made really pale in comparison to the great sacrifice of our brave troops.

God bless our troops

God bless America.

31 posted on 03/18/2006 11:09:36 AM PST by jveritas (Hate can never win elections.)
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To: Dog Gone

I suspect the WH knows what is in most of this stuff.


32 posted on 03/18/2006 11:11:04 AM PST by Eric in the Ozarks (BTUs are my Beat.)
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To: Elsiejay
President Bush explicitly and affirmatively ordered the release of the contents of this document dump,

Thank you for saying this. I said the same thing a day or two ago and provided the links. Of course, I received no reply. ;*)

After the President began calling for the release, a couple of critters jumped on the band wagon and "made it happen" dontchaknow

33 posted on 03/18/2006 11:11:10 AM PST by Just A Nobody (NEVER AGAIN - Support our troops. I *LOVE* my attitude problem! Beware the Enemedia.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
"Well the documents are not being altered....and the "GOOD STUFF" "will get a lot of eyes looking at it....."
Fair enough E. I hope what I mentioned does not become a key note by the L/MSM to discredit any important revelations.
34 posted on 03/18/2006 11:12:48 AM PST by Marine_Uncle (Honor must be earned)
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To: jveritas
I haven't taken the opportunity to thank you yet, so.....

Thank you for this great service to our country!

35 posted on 03/18/2006 11:12:56 AM PST by Just A Nobody (NEVER AGAIN - Support our troops. I *LOVE* my attitude problem! Beware the Enemedia.)
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To: backhoe; Cindy; Peach; Mo1; onyx; Brad's Gramma
Stephen Hayes most recent article in the Weekly Standard is a real eye-opener too.

We have got to highlight that for our readers:

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

SEE THIS:

Saddam's Philippines Terror Connection
And other revelations from the Iraqi regime files.
by Stephen F. Hayes 03/27/2006, Volume 011, Issue 26

***************************************AN EXCERPT *********************************

SADDAM HUSSEIN'S REGIME PROVIDED FINANCIAL support to Abu Sayyaf, the al Qaeda-linked jihadist group founded by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law in the Philippines in the late 1990s, according to documents captured in postwar Iraq. An eight-page fax dated June 6, 2001, and sent from the Iraqi ambassador in Manila to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad, provides an update on Abu Sayyaf kidnappings and indicates that the Iraqi regime was providing the group with money to purchase weapons. The Iraqi regime suspended its support--temporarily, it seems--after high-profile kidnappings, including of Americans, focused international attention on the terrorist group.

The fax comes from the vast collection of documents recovered in postwar Afghanistan and Iraq. Up to this point, those materials have been kept from the American public. Now the proverbial dam has broken. On March 16, the U.S. government posted on the web 9 documents captured in Iraq, as well as 28 al Qaeda documents that had been released in February. Earlier last week, Foreign Affairs magazine published a lengthy article based on a review of 700 Iraqi documents by analysts with the Institute for Defense Analysis and the Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Virginia. Plans for the release of many more documents have been announced. And if the contents of the recently released materials and other documents obtained by The Weekly Standard are any indication, the discussion of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq is about to get more interesting.

36 posted on 03/18/2006 11:13:05 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: Justanobody

Thank you :) I am just doing my duty.


37 posted on 03/18/2006 11:16:09 AM PST by jveritas (Hate can never win elections.)
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To: Recovering_Democrat; backhoe; Justanobody; Marine_Uncle; NormsRevenge; Grampa Dave; Dog Gone; ...

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


38 posted on 03/18/2006 11:18:19 AM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: Mad_Tom_Rackham
it's a duty for people who know Arabic [and English, BTW] to translate the documents.
One or two Israelis might fit that bill . . .

39 posted on 03/18/2006 11:22:23 AM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters but PR.)
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To: jveritas

Good work!


40 posted on 03/18/2006 11:22:26 AM PST by M203M4
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