;Posted on 01/11/2002 5:25:08 AM PST by Demidog
;
Mistranslated Osama bin Laden Video - the German Press Investigates
by Craig Morris
A GERMAN TV show found that the White House's translation of the "confession" video was not only inaccurate, but even "manipulative".
ON December 20, 2001, German TV channel "Das Erste" broadcast its analysis of the White House's translation of the OBL video that George Bush has called a "confession of guilt". On the show Monitor, two independent translators and an expert on oriental studies found the White House's translation not only to be inaccurate, but "manipulative".
Arabist Dr. Abdel El M. Husseini, one of the translators, states,
"I have carefully examined the Pentagon's translation. This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of Bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."
Whereas the White House would have us believe that OBL admits that "We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy…", translator Dr. Murad Alami finds that:
"'In advance' is not said. The translation is wrong. At least when we look at the original Arabic, and there are no misunderstandings to allow us to read it into the original."
At another point, the White House translation reads: "We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day." Dr. Murad Alami:
"'Previous' is never said. The subsequent statement that this event would take place on that day cannot be heard in the original Arabic version."
The White House's version also included the sentence "we asked each of them to go to America", but Alami says the original formulation is in the passive along the lines of "they were required to go". He also say that the sentence afterwards - "they didn't know anything about the operation" - cannot be understood.
Prof. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute at the University of Hamburg sums it up:
"The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it."
Meanwhile the US press has not picked up on this story at all, reporting instead that a new translation has revealed that OBL even mentions the names of some of those involved. But the item is all over the German press, from Germany's Channel One ("Das Erste" - the ones who broke the story, equivalent to NBC or the BBC) to ZDF (Channel Two) to Der Spiegel (the equivalent of Time or The Economist. More surprisingly, as I write the following site appears on Lycos in German: http://www.netzeitung.de/servlets/page?section=1109&item=172422 - but nothing under lycos.com in English.
Instead, we read in The Washington Post of Friday, December 21, 2001 (the day after the German TV show was broadcast) that a new translation done in the US
"also indicates bin Laden had even more knowledge of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon than was apparent in the original Defense Department translation.... Although the expanded version does not change the substance of what was released, it provides added details and color to what has been disclosed."
I'll say. Aren't there any reporters in the US who speak German (or Arabic, for that matter)? An article in USA Today of December 20, 2001 sheds some light on why the original translation might not be accurate: "The first translation was rushed in 12 hours, in a room in the Pentagon".
So why didn't the new US translation find the same discrepancies as the German translators did? Read the article in USA Today against the grain:
"Michael, who is originally Lebanese, translated the tape with Kassem Wahba, an Egyptian. Both men had difficulties with the Saudi dialect bin Laden and his guest use in the tape, Michael said."
Why can a Saudi translator not be found in a multicultural country like the US, especially with the close business relations between the US and Saudi Arabia? [George] Bush Sr. probably knows any number of them himself.
Of course, if we ever hear about the German analysis in the US press, the reactions will be that some will never believe that OBL is behind the attacks no matter what you tell them. But actually, Americans are just as stubborn in refusing to face facts.
One moderator on Fox News complained to his interviewee that the European media were focusing too much on civilian casualties in Afghanistan. (I wondered which European languages this moderator could speak; a few weeks later, he happened to say on his show that he had had "three years of German". This, he claimed, would allow him to "do the show in German.")
His interviewee responded that, yes, the Taliban were very savvy manipulators of the media. So there we have it: Europeans get their information straight from the Taliban Ministry of Propaganda.
Craig Morris is a translator living in Europe. The original broadcast of the German show can be viewed in German at [this link].
Related items on this website:
Article on German TV programme [in German] It's my understand that no fewer than 4 independent translators were used. Yes, one was Egyptian, but the others were Arabic.
The point made by this writer is a good one. bin Laden and his visitor were Saudi and dialect can make a big difference.
Sahih
Any proposed conspiracy where the conspirators would have to be brilliant to pull it off but stupid to have tried in the first place is probably bogus.
The article is interesting but I don't know that I'd trust their opinion. Did they offer their own translation? That'd be a telling thing to see, imo.
The article feigns to give more credibility to Craig by calling him a translator. While there are treacherous Americans, in Journalism and even on FR, European journalists are trouble looking for a date.
"I have carefully examined the Pentagon's translation. This translation is very problematic. At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of Bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic."
Whereas the White House would have us believe that OBL admits that "We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy…", translator Dr. Murad Alami finds that: "'In advance' is not said. The translation is wrong. At least when we look at the original Arabic, and there are no misunderstandings to allow us to read it into the original."
At another point, the White House translation reads: "We had notification since the previous Thursday that the event would take place that day." Dr. Murad Alami: "'Previous' is never said. The subsequent statement that this event would take place on that day cannot be heard in the original Arabic version."
The White House's version also included the sentence "we asked each of them to go to America", but Alami says the original formulation is in the passive along the lines of "they were required to go". He also say that the sentence afterwards - "they didn't know anything about the operation" - cannot be understood.
Prof. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute at the University of Hamburg sums it up: "The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it."
Demidog, since I don't speak or read Arabic, and I'm guessing you don't either, we're both left with the decision of whose translation we should trust.
The excerpt above from your article quotes an "Arabist," a "translator" (for whom?) with an Arabic name, and a German "professor" of Islamic and Arabic Studies. Their backgrounds don't inspire me with confidence. I generally don't trust Arabists or professors of ethnic and cultural studies, and I have no idea of the credentials of this Arab translator.
So, until I'm shown something compelling, and this article falls short of that threshhold, I'm going with the official story as my fall-back position.
However, I'm not closed-minded... what I'd like to see are the Arabic interpretations of the tapes side by side, and the corresponding translations, also side by side. That would be of interest.
You will allow this same standard of "proof" for others making claims? Two Arabic guys and an oriental specialist (what is that? a guy who studies orientals or an oriental guy who is "special")who may or may not be sympathetic to the terrorists. This sounds like a bad joke. Did you hear the one about the two translators and the oriental specialist?
<<<<<<>>>>>The tape was translated by a Saudi not a german. The US used an Egyptian. Why do you think? 9 posted on 1/11/02 6:38 AM Pacific by Demidog<<<<< I guess it depends on the meaning of "an"!
Am I missing something, or did you respond to me that you never said that?
"'Previous' is never said. The subsequent statement that this event would take place on that day cannot be heard in the original Arabic version."
If one removes the word "previous" from the translation the idea of the sentence is unchanged so long as the tense of the rest of the statement is accurate. The word "previous" only serves to specify a particular Thursday, rather than any Thursday prior to 9/11.
Allow me to speculate... Biblical Greek is complex compaired with english. A particular word can have modified meaning depending on its position in a sentence, and even the selection and position of the other words in that sentence. This makes the translation process much more complex than simply substituting word for word. Could this be a similar situation with much ado about nothing?
Me too. I'm trying to obtain one.
They didn't prove anything. They said that certain sentences were incorrectly translated, but give no alternate meaning to the sentences. Plus, they admitted to having a difficult time understanding the dialect Bin Laden used. Does that prove the five separate translators in the U.S. were incorrect? Hardly.
Enron: 'exposing what is wrong with the way the Bush administration is conducting itself these days.' (from the article Bush's whitewater/worse)
Guess this one 'fails the brillian idiot test',too. Right?
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