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Billion Dollar Military And We Can't Speak Arabic

This is why we are continuously stupid ... we never build from the ground up...we start at the top and work down.

FBI Agents Still Lacking Arabic Skills

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...101001388.html

Quote:

Five years after Arab terrorists attacked the United States, only 33 FBI agents have even a limited proficiency in Arabic, and none of them work in the sections of the bureau that coordinate investigations of international terrorism, according to new FBI statistics.

Counting agents who know only a handful of Arabic words -- including those who scored zero on a standard proficiency test -- just 1 percent of the FBI's 12,000 agents have any familiarity with the language, the statistics show.

[QUOTE]The numbers reflect the FBI's continued struggle to attract employees who speak Arabic, Urdu, Farsi and other languages of the Middle East and South Asia, even as the bureau leads a fight against terrorist groups primarily centered in those parts of the world. The same challenge is facing the CIA and other agencies as the government competes with the private sector for a limited number of applicants with foreign-language proficiency, according to U.S. officials and experts[QUOTE]

Quote:

Daniel Byman, a Georgetown University associate professor who heads the school's Security Studies Program, said the FBI's continuing failure to attract Arabic-speaking agents is "a serious problem" that hurts the bureau's relations with immigrant communities and makes it more difficult to gather intelligence on extremist groups.
"With any new immigrant communities, they need these language skills, whether it's Vietnamese or Pakistani or Arabic," Byman said. "It also often gives you extra cultural knowledge and sensitivity. It makes you more sensitive to nuance, which is what investigations are often all about."

Re: Billion Dollar Military And We Can't Speak Arabic

I posted a similar thread yesterday about the FBI, wasn't this a criticism of why we were not more ready for 9-11 as we did not recognize or understand some of the chatter. Another apparent issue is, that as a country with all of its ancillary pieces, do not understand the culture of Iraq or the culture of the mideast. The quandary we are in right now has to do with not fully understanding the age old divisions between the Shiites, Sunni's and Kurds.. we attempt to understand what is going on with a western mindset, but that does not work as not only is language a barrier, but understanding the context of the language is as important.

Re: Billion Dollar Military And We Can't Speak Arabic

Quote:

Originally Posted by GJAJ15

Good points ... Even if or maybe I should say when we do a good thing in he Middle East ... our bad(mistakes) dooms everything good. Muslims are Muslims and blood is thicker than water. If any of them is suspected or caught helping us...they are as good as dead.

that goes for Muslims here and abroad. Let's face it...if we need these people so bad I would assume the pay is very, very enticing and good...but apparently not enough for even a good Muslim to turn in a bad Muslim in or outside of the Middle East.

This is a problem with our country that has transcended Preisdents. We drop the ball as much or more than we do good. The one time dropping the ball sometimes that does not even outweigh 10 good deeds.

We elect a President every 4 years ... somewhere between electing a President according to our Constitution and doing what's best for America we need to have some cohesive and good plans from term to term...this ever changing nature of choice of direction is dooming us to failure.

One would think we learned something during Reagan and the Contra Affair, the supporting of the Shah and raping Iran, Supporting Israel while they persecuted and showed racism to Palestinians, supporting the Taliban and OBL in their fight with Russia....I could go on all day as I'm sure many here could.

We are not consistant at all. Sometime the enemy of my enemy is my friend can be helpfull...but we tend to use that militarily while we profit economically and then we wonder why we get little love...the enemy of my enemy and of my friends is constant...it's always ourselves and our power hungry leadership supported by loyalty to corporate lobbyists over simple and everday peace loving Americans....rant complete...time to make some $$$ be back tonight.:eek:

Re: Billion Dollar Military And We Can't Speak Arabic

They probably don't want to "Require" the Agents to learn because it would violate their "Civil Liberties".

There is an event in Maine called the "Freyburg Fair" it is a pretty big deal with the locals, on the childrens amusment rides they had signs that said "don't talk to the rides attendent, they can't speak English, the only word they can understand is "STOP" in case your child gets in trouble"

Please dear God, "Don't let those batty f-cking liberal socialist democrats take over"
:bricks: