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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: All

Too bad the RINO's won't allow the "white flag" ad to be run again on TV

Pass this "white flag" ad from Dec 2005 around on the internet, it's from gop.com

http://www.gop.com/Media/120905.wmv

At least gop.com has not been taken over by the RINO's!


61 posted on 03/18/2006 12:15:20 PM PST by 68-69TonkinGulfYachtClub (I've supported the troops, each and every week, (#233) since Oct 2001, by actually doing their job)
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To: LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget

What is that?


62 posted on 03/18/2006 12:16:17 PM PST by jveritas (Hate can never win elections.)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion
Fort Leavenworth site:

Foreign Military Studies Office
Joint Reserve Intelligence Center

Operation Iraqi Freedom Documents


63 posted on 03/18/2006 12:18:48 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Is Mr. Shahada a Muslim or Christian? The reason I ask is where is the outrage from the American Muslim population for America.
I note that he says he loves America and, he and only he is willing to show it. I think he would not print a document on how to make a bomb or anthrax, there or others doing this same work.


64 posted on 03/18/2006 12:33:10 PM PST by buck61 (luv6060)
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To: jveritas
It is a program that assists translators in doing a translation.

I am a programmer, and wish to contribute to the effort. I am looking into optical character recognition for Arabic. I don't know yet if there is anything. I would like to feed the pdf's to some sort of OCR, providing people who do speak Arabic with a starting point.

There needs to be some sort of coordination like with open source projects. A Concurrent Version Server (CVS) with check in/check out might be handy.
65 posted on 03/18/2006 12:40:31 PM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget (God punishes Conservatives by making them argue with fools.)
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To: jveritas
http://www.translation.net/sakhr_automatic_reader.html

Expensive, but take a look at this. Might be able to get them to donate some licenses in exchange for plugs when anything huge is found crediting them some.
66 posted on 03/18/2006 12:49:27 PM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget (God punishes Conservatives by making them argue with fools.)
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To: LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget; HAL9000

Does BabelFish do Arabic?


67 posted on 03/18/2006 12:51:07 PM PST by Ernest_at_the_Beach (History is soon Forgotten,)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

Thanks for posting the link to the Hayes article. I have always suspected that the ransom money paid by Libya for the hostages held by Abu Sayyaf was a clever scheme to transfer money to the terrorists. We should also keep in mind that the Iraqi diplomat expelled by the Philippine government was directly involved in the incident that took the life of an American citizen.


68 posted on 03/18/2006 12:54:47 PM PST by Ben Hecks
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach

http://www.systranbox.com/systran/box

this does Arabic to English


69 posted on 03/18/2006 12:59:47 PM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget (God punishes Conservatives by making them argue with fools.)
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To: LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
http://aramedia.com/transphereocr.htm

This one looks even more promising. Feed it the PDF image, it OCR's the Arabic, and then does a preliminary translation to English.

The translator then would merely have to proof read and fix mistakes.
70 posted on 03/18/2006 1:09:36 PM PST by LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget (God punishes Conservatives by making them argue with fools.)
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
This is starting to look like a tidal wave heading for the Main Stream Media....

What a glorious mental picture you have painted!
Thanks - made my day!

71 posted on 03/18/2006 1:10:00 PM PST by Just A Nobody (NEVER AGAIN - Support our troops. I *LOVE* my attitude problem! Beware the Enemedia.)
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To: Txsleuth
Thanks Sleuth! Missed the show do to back to back phone calls and the live thread from NC.

from Bin Ladin to Mullah Omar...talking about using the media to get their message out...

And it has worked beautifully!!! Beware the ENEMEDIA.

72 posted on 03/18/2006 1:17:58 PM PST by Just A Nobody (NEVER AGAIN - Support our troops. I *LOVE* my attitude problem! Beware the Enemedia.)
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To: LesbianThespianGymnasticMidget
Thanks. However some if not many of the documents are handwritten and it will make it very difficult for any software to make the translation. These types of documents can be only translated by people with very good knowledge of the Arabic language.

PS: The two documents that I have translated so far are handwritten.

73 posted on 03/18/2006 1:26:35 PM PST by jveritas (Hate can never win elections.)
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To: Wasanother

In my opinion this is a great move by the administration. The internet is like the ultimate peer review. These may be the most accurate translations ever made.


74 posted on 03/18/2006 1:27:16 PM PST by Chaguito
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To: jveritas

Translations:Thanks for the help.I suspect those docs would have sat around collecting dust for a very long time.


75 posted on 03/18/2006 1:28:42 PM PST by Thombo2
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To: jveritas

I seldom post here, preferring to lurk and get the news, but feel compelled to express my admiration for your patriotism.


76 posted on 03/18/2006 1:40:35 PM PST by upcountry miss
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To: upcountry miss; Thombo2

Thank you very much.


77 posted on 03/18/2006 1:43:56 PM PST by jveritas (Hate can never win elections.)
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To: jveritas

Thanks for your efforts!


78 posted on 03/18/2006 2:25:21 PM PST by sgtyork
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To: Kay Ludlow

Bingo!


79 posted on 03/18/2006 2:32:18 PM PST by Left2Right ("Democracy isn't perfect, but other governments are so much worse")
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To: Ernest_at_the_Beach
Does BabelFish do Arabic?

Babelfish does not. However, it's based on Systran software, and apparently the systranbox mentioned above does do Arabic.

I haven't had much luck with these sites recently -

http://www.almisbar.com/salam_trans.html

http://translate.sakhr.com/sakhr/elogin_ET.asp

http://www.cimos.com/index.asp?src=try

80 posted on 03/18/2006 4:09:01 PM PST by HAL9000 (Get a Mac - The Ultimate FReeping Machine)
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