Replies

"They obviously have a pro-Israeli agenda," says Raeed Tayeh, spokesman for the American Muslims for Global Peace and Justice."

Yes, they obviously say and do these things because they're Israelis (sarcasm). I believe C.S. Lewis called this type of thing "Bulverism". In other words, "evading the issue".

"They're trying to drive a wedge between the Western world and the Muslim world."

No. You are all doing this quite nicely amongst your small and like-minded selves.

.."U.S. officials say the translated texts sometimes are unnerving."

Some of the speeches are very unnerving, I was at this site today and found this speech below.

'Why We Fight America' The Entire Earth Must Be Subjected to Islam

The Middle East Media Research Institute | 6/19/02 | Suleiman Abu Gheith

Posted on 6/19/02 8:12 PM Pacific by Mom_Grandmother

I think as part of the war effort a portion of the war funds should go to translate on a daily basis all major Arabic media stories from television and newspaper and then publish/broadcast those in the American media or perhaps a new channel devoted solely to that. The American people would see first hand what type of mentality we're dealing with and the apologists of these murderers would have a whole lot harder time trying to defend these countries.

In London news stands and kiosks there are many Arabic language newspapers that call for the destruction of the US and the West on a regular basis but the average Londoner walks right past these papers and their headlines without giving it a thought because they can't read the Arabic script/language. How different would their reaction be if they could see it in plain old English- the calls for Britain to be turned into a Muslim state and a Muslim flag flown on Downing Street Number 10.

In the end this would be a weapon with two prongs. On the one hand, it would serve to better educate and unite American and Western opinion on the evils of the enemy we're dealing with and on the other, if the Arabs were smart they'd have to tone their rhetoric down and change the way they do the news which would have a dampening effect on radical Muslim/Arabic opinion.

I seem to recall that during the Afghan bombing, we took out the local Talban/al-Jazeera TV studio with one smart bomb, even though it was in the middle of a block of buildings. The station owner's son-in-law was left standing there with a smoking camera tripod in his hand, babbling about how they had no idea our weapons could be so accurate. Well, maybe it's time we started once again aiming a few of them at satellite dishes, antennaes and studios in the Arab world.

Clearly, MEMRI is using the Islamic militants' own rope to hang them. What a lovely irony! The Islamists have copious government support from several states, and at least one such state has conducted a propaganda blitz on these shores, yet five faceless private citizens operating on a pittance can undo it all, simply by translating the Islamists' own words for our domestic consumption.

Now, if we can just keep MEMRI from getting any government grants!

five linguists can create a media stir simply by translating, accurately, Arabic-language news stories on their black Dell computers.

Question for you computer techs. Aren't there computer programs that translate one language for another? When I go to the Intern. Herald to read Greek news, I can specify Greek or English. Or does that mean that both languages have been downloaded at the site?