From academic uber-blog Language Log, this news about the state of our anti-terrorism intel:
Ah, the FBI now has, hold on to your hats, a total of 33 agents with even a limited proficiency in Arabic, reports Dan Eggen in a Washington Post article on October 11, 2006, “…and none of them work in the sections of the bureau that coordinate investigations of international terrorism, according to new FBI statistics.” Pumping this number up to include “agents who know only a handful of Arabic words–including those who scored zero on a standard proficiency test,” yields a minuscule percentage of Arabic users among their 12,000 agents. The article reports that only four agents in the government’s two International Terrorism Sections (ITOS) have even elementary proficiency in Arabic…
The FBI says we’re in no danger because they can make use of translators who are available within 24 hours. Whew! That’s good news. Despite this distinct advantage, they say they’re trying to hire some Arabists (well, maybe not gay ones). But there just aren’t many of them around to hire and those that are have the misfortune to have Arabic families, friends and acquaintances — and some of them were even born in foreign countries. Trying to hire Arabists seems like an odd thing to do, however, if, as the head of ITOS says, there are no positions at any level that utilize the language. Maybe someone should look into that one.
Roger Shuy mocks the idea that translators are an adequate replacement for agents that are actually trained in Arabic – there are issues of ticking timebombs and realtime intelligence to be considered. If Language Log wasn’t so militant about how there’s no connection between ways of speaking and ways of thinking, he might also have pointed out that learning how to speak a language helps a person learn how to think in the norms and structures suggested by that language, but he didn’t.
The other problem with translators – one that is not discussed enough – is that they present an overwhelming security gap. Not having American-born Arabic speakers means that (obviously) we have to go to other countries to get them. Over to you Claire Berlinksi of the Weekly Standard (lexis):
Simply put, our government does not trust native speakers of foreign languages and makes it nearly impossible for such volunteers to obtain security clearances. Prospective employees of the CIA, for example, are required to list the names and addresses of every foreigner with whom they have a close or continuing relationship. Someone who speaks Dari with native fluency almost certainly will have relatives and friends in Afghanistan, and will probably be acquainted with Islamic fundamentalists… If he knows many of them, it is very unlikely that he will receive a security clearance. If he knows only a few of them, he is probably not from Afghanistan.
Awesome. Berlinksi’s point is that we should lower security clearance standards for translators because that’s the only way to get competent, native-speaking translators into the ranks. That we have to choose that side of the Catch-22 to fight militant Islam is, also, awesome.
