Government examines FBI translator program after whistle-blower's post-Sept. 11 allegations

AP ^ | 6/8/02 | John Solomon

[Native American Female Vet]

WASHINGTON (AP) The FBI and the Justice Department are investigating a whistle-blower's allegations of security lapses in the translator program that has played an important role in interpreting interviews and intercepts of Osama bin Laden's network since Sept. 11, officials said.

[Dialup Llama]

Why are terrorists even in the US such that you can make so many tapes of them?

[monkeywrench]

All I can figure is that we, the American people, are basically bait.

[Native American Female Vet]

Good question

[sixmil]

All I can figure is that we, the American people, are basically bait.

That is so right on the money, thanks for putting it into words.

[Francohio]

Bump-a-roo! In regard to translating Arabic: Arabic is not a literal language. It is allegorical, figurative, stratified and pre-codified. Unless Arabs are face-to-face, and/or actually know each other, even THEY sometimes can't figure out what the hell's going on. Yeah, I/m exaggerating here, but not by that much!

Educated Arabic speakers don't so much as converse as exchange religion and literature based allusions which could mean, like the Q'uran ... jeez, almost anything. It's all contextual.That's why they (have to) study the sciences and economics in western languages.

Example: "Children" literally means "hungry fledglings chirping in the nest for food." So the Arabic speakers using this word could be talking about (a) Children (My, your, His, Hers, their children) (b) Little birds (c)Nests (d)The family food budget (e)Cousin Achmed's Chicken Market (f)Osama's guerillas in their mountain aerie. (g) Or he could be expressing hunger and the desire for a sandwich. (No Ham)

A lot depends on class, geographic origin, culture, etc. How the hell is some guy from Toledo supposed to be sitting in a room in Chicago with tapes coming into earphones, supposed to interpret this stuff. It's harder than it looks.

Perhaps native-born Arabic speakers should be returned to Arabic speaking lands until their bloody religion matures enough for prime-time countries. That way we wouldn't have to bother with translating their innuendo.

[monkeywrench]

Interesting. Thanks.

[TwoStep]

**BUMP**

[paolop]

I worked many years for the FBI and many other Federal agencies as a contract simultaneous interperter/translator, and as such can state that unfortunately the whole structure of linguistic services in the Federal Government is insufficient to the task at hand. Starting with the qualification exams, which assume (in the case of Italian and French), an ignorant subgroup of speakers, to the lack of advancement in the (language) specialty field, to many more issues best not discussed here (LLSS), unless and untill the structure of language services here in the USA is re-vamped, there will be further difficulties. Paolo

[widowithfoursons]

I agree with your summation, but a year or two in the heartland of the dialect (with a sufficient base of grammar, etc.) should be enough time to get the nuances. I have done this in record time in Greek, Italian, Spanish, Hebrew.

[medzork]

So, why did the government even need Arabic translators after the April 19th bombing if it was domestic terrorism, masterminded and entirely carried out by a U.S. citizen?? w/no middle eastern involvement? I live in Oklahoma City, and immediately following the bombing, and they knew almost immediately (and released) sketches of 2 caucasian men and a middle eastern man...