"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.
