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42 Comments
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+43The Bush administration let go a few Arabic speakers because they were gay as you can see here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2479777.stm - iching, on 10/12/2007, -1/+34Meanwhile the new American Embassy being built with US tax dolllars@ $562 million, The 104-acre complex — the size of about 80 football fields — will include two office buildings, one of them designed for future use as a school, six apartment buildings, a gym, a pool, a food court and its own power generation and water-treatment plants. The average Baghdad home has electricity only four hours a day, according to Bowen's office. It is the largest embassy of any country any where in the world.
The current U.S. Embassy in Iraq has nearly 1,000 Americans working there, more than at any other U.S. embassy.
"The presence of a massive U.S. embassy — by far the largest in the world — co-located in the Green Zone with the Iraqi government is seen by Iraqis as an indication of who actually exercises power in their country," the International Crisis Group, a European-based research group, said in one of its periodic reports on Iraq.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-04-19-us-embassy_x.htm - bitteroldcoot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12My niece is a language major in Maryland. She's fluent in several middle eastern languages and a straight “A” student. She tried to get a summer internship (NSA if I remember correctly), but they turned her down.
I suspect her idealistic college student view of life killed her chances. They didn't trust her to keep her mouth shut. The government doesn't just want translators, they want translators that can stomach the corruptions and incompetence that is federal service. - payndz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13That's a real incentive for people in government service either to learn Arabic or admit to already knowing it, isn't it?
"So, you speak Ay-rab, huh? Pack up your ***** - you're going to Eye-rak!"
I remember reading something last year about NSA employees who knew Arabic being very unhappy because it meant a good chance they'd be transferred from their regular posts in Maryland to Iraq to do SIGINT and translation work, whether they wanted to go or not. - ahuxley, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Some more in "GOP loyalty dictated who would rebuild Iraq"
"...He discarded applications from those his staff deemed ideologically suspect, even if the applicants possessed Arabic language skills or postwar rebuilding experience."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2003262370_iraqcpa17.html - mbrane, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Why learn to speak a foreign tongue? All Americans know that if you speak English loudly enough, anyone will understand.
Besides, when it comes to international relations, the U.S. mother tongue is violence. - XMinusX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9Arabic man " I hate you Americans,i wish you invaders leave my country before i get jihad on your ass "
U.S Translator hears this " I love America,Bush is A O.K,oh here is some oil " - NarmaK, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Probably?
- kooft, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I'd typically call you crazy bitteroldcoot if it weren't for the fact that the US government often prioritizes bureaucratic red tape over national security. Just take a look at Sibel Edmonds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sibel_Edmonds
"Edmonds filed suit against the Department of Justice, the FBI, and several high-level officials, alleging that she was wrongfully terminated from the FBI in retaliation for reporting criminal activities committed by government officials and employees. On October 18, 2002, Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the State Secrets Privilege in order to prevent disclosure of the nature of Edmonds' work on the grounds that it would endanger national security, and asked that the suit be dismissed."
Go-Go-Gadget Ethics! - midnightmapper, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6I believe Benjamin Franklin spoke a couple of languages – he was our first ambassador. Things have gone down hill since. Indeed, having an embassy staff that is unable to speak the language of the nation of their assignment is neither new nor abnormal. Ask any Peace Corps Volunteer!
On the other hand, every single Peace Corps Volunteer (180,000 plus since 1962) must achieve a FSI language tested ranking of 2 or better after their training and prior to assignment. Further, a parallel training to understand the culture and its institutions is an integral part of the PCV training.
As volunteers, we were able to attain the FSI 2 level typically within 60-90 days. A FSI level of 2 means you can both understand and talk well enough to not make a Borat of yourself (Borat would have a FSI of no more than 1 on a 1-5 scale – five being an educated native speaker). Methods used by Peace Corps to achieve the second language skill vary but the process is very, very effective. Essentially it is total immersion - every day, 10+ hours a day, in a small group working with native speakers.
Volunteers live in the villages and receive around $150US a month depending on the country of assignment. We also received a “readjustment” allowance that accrues every month – I received $250 a month back in 1975. Generally, your in-country pay allows you to live well in relative terms but you never have enough that you can afford a car or fancy home… maybe a motorcycle. You eat the local food and you drink the water.
During my three year assignment I received 16 tetanus shots, another16 for typhoid, plus 20 for cholera/yellow fever. We also were inoculated: two each for measles, polio, and smallpox as well as a BCG for TB. For my assigned country, I also had to endure gamma-goblin(sp?) every tow months or whenever you might come into the HQ for hepatitis – a real incentive not to ever come-in IMHO! Add in the green-elixir for parasites and, well you get my drift. I doubt embassy staff are as well injected, have the language, or the cultural training?
Peace Corps was formalized by John Kennedy and has always been more strongly funded by Democratic presidents and Congress. Maybe less money for the Blackwater's and other hired hands and more for Peace Corps might be an alternative? Heck Iran has had 1600+ volunteers prior between 1962 to 1978(?).
FYI
MidNight Mapper
Aka Neil - justinmt7, on 10/12/2007, -5/+96 in 1,000? That's probably a better ratio than the American populous.
- Scarblac, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Duh, of course it is.
It's just much much worse than the ratio of local-language-speakers you'd expect in an Embassy. - blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Maybe they had hundreds of people speaking arabic at the embassy in 2003.
But since they could understand what "please leave" meant in arabic, they left. - hawkeye17, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Does everyone feel safer now?? Can Bush and the Republicans be any more incompetent at running this 'war on terror'??
- Scarblac, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Pay for the language training of a few hundred supposedly professional Embassy workers?
- gammasts, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2That's funny, because when I was in Spain, the only one at the US Embassy that spoke English was the security guard.
- AhmedOmran, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Babylon was ***** up??
- XMinusX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Song"Mexican-Americans go to night school and take spanish and get a B"
-Cheech - martalli, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2http://www.allied-media.com/Arab-American/Arab%20american%20Demographics.htm
There may be as many as 870,000 Arab Americans out of 300 million Americans. Thats 0.87/300mil = 3 out of a 1000 Americans. I'm sure that not al of these folks know Arabic, but it is a huge untapped resource. Someone will instantly comment that we don't want the terrorists doing our tranlsating for us, but you might find it interesting that much if not most Arab Americans are Christians. - e68895f, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3The war in Iraq is a Farsi from the start ......
- cntp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1One thing - being able to communicate with someone in arabic and being fluent in it is a big difference. But yeah - ideally they'd be able to communicate better - I think that's a big problem over there.
- timtimes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1In all these years of war we have done a GREAT job training and arming the Iraqis (so they can better kill us btw), but we've done NOTHING about the language issues???
Our government could have schooled (four years of specialized college education by now) a whole contingent of arabic speaking folks. Another example of the incompetence of this administration and Republicans in general.
Enjoy. - PsychoticClown, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Why would they need to learn Arabic? After over 600,000 Iraqi deaths, it seems the military has been adopting "termination with extreme prejudice" as the only way to speak to the Iraqis. The military's logic here is that the more Iraqis you kill, the less you'll need to speak their language.
- f3l1x, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@bitteroldcoot
There are plenty of "senior" positions open in the US government where no prior experience in required. The only prerequisite is fluency in Arabic.
http://www.dc3.mil/dc3/home.htm - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Because it's been "***** up" even more now?
- dboylon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I'm suprised congress just hasn't passed a law forcing all Iraqis to speak English. Problem solved. Of course the Democrats would argue that they haven't been eductated in English...those crybabies...so we'd have to spend a couple hundred billion on re-education camps. But hey...who said ruling the world would be cheap.
- chatty82, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Duh, I didn't know anybody knew that Arabic was the language of Iraq. If so, they didn't train the troops about this.....Ask the troops, are there "crazy street signs" in Iraq too? Some of them may have learned in middle school ancient history about ancient Babylon. The ones that went to school, that is. Iraq was the capital of Bablyon on Tigris...duh...the barbarians came to Babylon and had group decisions of juries of more than 12...
- marcool, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1that is so american...
You guys so seldomly speak another language
Sometimes you don't realize how hard it can be to not be able to say exactly what we mean just because of the language gap. I'm sure this is a problem very few english speaking people have actually faced.
Some day we'll face the problem with chinese... they don't give a ***** about english. - vbuczak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0very well said.
- blackjack75, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3I guess someone like you must have made the decision to go for iraq instead of iran...
BTW, it's stupid to call the iranian language 'farsi'. In english we call this language persian. Farsi is the persian word for persian. It would be like saying, the official language for France is "français" instead of 'french'. - martalli, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1nange kannada gottu
- flink405, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1How many American Digg visitors speak a 2nd or 3rd language fluently?
How many non-Arabic American Digg visitors speak Arabic or Persian?
What schools in the U.S. even teach a second language anymore?
My old high school taught Spanish, French, German and Latin. Today it is Spanish only and most of the kids taking it are Mexicans who already speak Spanish.
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And what was the government supposed to do - not open the embassy unless every American spoke Arabic?
For the record, I speak English and German. - vbuczak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0US has the worst educated society!
They can't find their own country on the map!
No surprise there. - vbuczak, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Look and listen to Bush butchering English...
How his followers can even dream of learning another tongue?
Every visitors memory after visiting US is: ...they're as fat as ignorant..." - AliaClaire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm currently in the gov't foriegn language program...and it's HARD. 7-8 hours a day of nothing but language for a full year--and boy, does your brain hurt after this.
There are a lot of problems with what the gov't want to do in Iraq. First, when they're looking for people to go there, they usually look to FSOs who are former army, NOT Arabic speakers. Second, Arabic takes 1-2 years to learn (2 years for a 3/3, or "working competancy)--compared to six months in French or Spanish, or a year in Russian or Thai. The government can't get enough people to go there, so they keep making the tours shorter--right now, they're one year. Can't get anyone to go in the first place, they're definitly not going to spend 2 years preparing. Third, security never actually lets you talk to people who spek Arabic. You onl get to talked to cleared gov't people who think they speak English (on former experience, they usually don't).
The biggest problem is that the FS wants people to take several unaccompnied tours in their career--new in the last 10 years. You have to leave your spouse and family behind, with NOTHING like the support the military gives them--I think the "seperate maintance allowance" is something like $5000. For a year. There's almost no training of how to be in a high danger zone, much less on how to protect yourself. Most dips signed up--no, not to work receptions in Paris!--but to do hard work in countries with bugs and gunshots outside our wallls (btdt, btw), but NOT to have people shooting AT us. If you want to be shot at, you usually join the military. And until State and Defense figure out how to recruit and train a hybred; someone who understands the dangers of war but it willing to learn diplomatic relation skills, it's not going to get better.
FWIW, I think the CJTF HOA people out digging wells in the Somali region of Ethiopia are doing a hell of a lot more for our image in Somalia than all of us burocrats sitting around in Addis. They make it so hard for us to get out of our offices! We need MORE peace corps and analysis work in the foreign service, and a lot less reporting on what the prime minister thinks about China's relations with India (from small country in Africa). Most dips are journalists with clearances these days, and the top likes it that way. There are some FABULOUS people who really do amazing work, but it's amazing how hard they make it for us to do that.
Hope my boss doesn't read this... :-) - ahuxley, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2Fun to think of young Americans rushing to learn Arabic, only to find they need Farsi :-)
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0Well...if the Iraqis would learn some English then there would be no problem. Anyways, it would do them good to learn a real language instead of speaking that Arabic crap.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0Fuc Arabs we should just leave them alone. If they want to live in a cave let them and kill each other let them. We should just get out discount oil and get out, if there is a discount.
- stovak, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0sorry, no, I was wrong. Farsi is Iran.
- f3l1x, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3Not that anyone gives a ***** but a lot of Iraqis can speak English.
- stovak, on 10/12/2007, -8/+0THEY DON'T SPEAK ARABIC IN IRAQ. The language of iraq is Farsi.
-t - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -16/+3Who cares ?
Iraq is a country with thousands of years of history of being a ***** up country, why should we care now ?
