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 ...
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!
What is that?
Foreign Military Studies Office
Joint Reserve Intelligence Center
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.
Does BabelFish do Arabic?
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.
http://www.systranbox.com/systran/box
this does Arabic to English
What a glorious mental picture you have painted!
Thanks - made my day!
from Bin Ladin to Mullah Omar...talking about using the media to get their message out...
And it has worked beautifully!!! Beware the ENEMEDIA.
PS: The two documents that I have translated so far are handwritten.
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.
Translations:Thanks for the help.I suspect those docs would have sat around collecting dust for a very long time.
I seldom post here, preferring to lurk and get the news, but feel compelled to express my admiration for your patriotism.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for your efforts!
Bingo!
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
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