FBI Arab translators cheered Sept. 11

WND ^ | 1/7/04 | Paul Sperry

[af_vet_1981]

But since its a WND story, we should probably be talking about this in terms of hypotheticals.

Sure, let's say a hypothetical American citizen converts to Islam and hypothetically joins the Army. A hypothetical war breaks out with Islamic terrorists and supporting regimes. The soldier is hypothetically sent to an Islamic country where he hypothetically murders fellow American officers. You get wind of this hypothetical story in the media for a few days or weeks and it is hypothetically buried.

Now back to this hypothetical FBI story reported by WND. People with personal experience or knowledge of classified information are covered under various statutes and oaths. They will not usually tell you things like this. Sometimes the topic may leak in the context of some hypothetical FBI whistleblower case, at least until some hypothetical Federal judge rules the information should not be made public.

I believe we should be very concerned about bias and incompetence in the agencies. A word to the wise is often sufficient.

[af_vet_1981]

My guess if true they werent just "arab" translators..but Arab Muslims..ok though cause they are "moderates"

What if they were Americans Muslims who want America to be quite different ?

[petitfour]

That's ok. I don't think all Muslims are anti-American. However, if we have hired translators who are sympathizers to America-hating-terrorists, then we are really stupit. And instead of throwing a rug over the problem, we need to expose it, and clean it up.

[af_vet_1981]

Darn if we could only remove the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment!

You won't have to. They plan to take care of that while counting on you to defend their rights while they do it.

[af_vet_1981]

We can't develop a machine to do these translations?

LOL, back to MT now are we ?</p?

MT has its place as a tool of tranlators and research will continue but there is no current substitute for a qualified human translator when lives are on the line.

[af_vet_1981]

Are you mad? Do you have an inkling of the volume of data involved? What will they do? ignore the current hundreds of thousands bits of data to go back and verify perhaps millions of misinterpreted prior messages?

The first step towards solving a problem is having a firm grasp of its magnitude.

Yes, you understand the scope of the problem. There are too few gifted and talented translators to go around. The pay scales are not commensurate with the need.

[af_vet_1981]

My daughter was a Persian Linguist (Air Force), her best friend was an Arabic Linguist (both left service because of Clinton's military cutbacks resulting in back to back overseas deployments), when 911 happened and the FBI was advertising for linguists, both their applications were completely ignored (they were never even contacted). Maybe because they didn't fit the "mideast" minority descriptions. BTW, they both served over 6 years at NSA and in Saudi doing intercepts. Go figure.

Yep, yep, yep, and yep. It is heartbreaking that some people are in charge of our national security and all we get to do is die.

[MainFrame65]

I seem to recall that the conspirators deliberately used circumlocutions and indirect, idiomatic references while communicating their plans for destruction. Things like calling the event a "wedding" and describing the digits of significant numbers - dates and times - by their physical appearance, such as calling a "9" a "cake with a tail".

Translating such disguised meanings requires an idiomatic comprehension of the language, as well as extreme care not to dismiss apparently irrelevant chatter that is actually pertinent. Jews and Christian arabs with local knowledge of the language would seem to be ideal candidates for the task.

[Sacajaweau]

9-11 is more than 2 years past and this is coming up again NOW??

[WestCoastGal]

placemark to read later

[GOPJ]

No substitute when the translators are lying? Gimme a break. Machines can be back-up with redundant translations to catch fraud? Why not when lives are on the line?

MT has its place as a tool of tranlators and research will continue but there is no current substitute for a qualified human translator when lives are on the line.

[af_vet_1981]

No substitute when the translators are lying? Gimme a break. Machines can be back-up with redundant translations to catch fraud? Why not when lives are on the line?

You are mixing two different issues, competency and loyalty.

Machine Translation (MT) is not yet sophisticated enough in the languages we are discussing to translate, much less detect fraud. There is, as yet, no substitute for qualified human translators.

[af_vet_1981]

9-11 is more than 2 years past and this is coming up again NOW??

Did you think the agency employees would retire ?

[Jim Noble]

How many scholarships has the Department of Homeland Security put up for native-born Americans of non-Islamic families to major in Arabic? Or Urdu? or Pushto? or Farsi?

What do you expect?

[eureka!]

Thanks for the ping, sadly. Heaven help us in this war...

[freedomcrusader]

What's more, I know for a fact the federal gov't is heavily involved in MT research and application.

[Your Nightmare]

Not that I don't believe the crux of the story, but the headline said the translators "cheered" and I can't find in the article where someone is quoted as saying the translators "cheered".

It seems like WND may have stretched the truth a little with the headline.

Still, this deserves serious investigation.

[cyncooper]

I do NOT want to believe this story.

I do not, either, and I don't at this point.

[TheDon]

Edmonds said one translator said: "It is about time that they get a taste of what they have been giving to the rest of the Middle East."

Big surprise, they have Demorats in the FBI...

[cyncooper]

Why do I have this feeling in my gut that somewhere in the upper management level of the FBI someone wants to see the destruction of America. This isn't the first time either. It's almost if someone is deliberately undermining any effort to stop terrorism.

That is my thinking regarding the CIA and the Wilson brouhaha. A segment of the CIA sent Wilson on his bogus journey to Niger for a reason, and started anonymously planting stories with the BBC and other newspapers, undermining President Bush, our country, and the WOT, then going public when the ball didn't start rolling to their satisfaction. I am hoping that is the angle Patrick Fitzgerald is pursuing in his investigation.