Lost in Translation

I somewhat knew about a personel shortage in translators, but this articles says its a lot bigger than originally thought. This article coupled with Rumsfeld's recent admission makes the US look really bad.

I aslo find the cultural issues interesting. Foriegn born muslims self-censor homesexuality, etc. to make the targets "look better." The US war machine is no good at managing cultures. So these efforts aren't going to work. What can be done?

"They have the same vital job: to translate supersecret wiretaps of suspected terrorists and spies. But the 150 or so members of CI-19 (for Counterintelligence) segregate themselves by ethnicity and religion. Some of the U.S.-born translators have accused their Middle Eastern-born counterparts of making disparaging or unpatriotic remarks, or of making ?mistranslations??failing to translate comments that might reflect poorly on their fellow Muslims, such as references to sexual deviancy. The tensions erupt in arguments and angry finger-pointing from time to time. ?It?s a good thing the translators are not allowed to carry guns,? says Sibel Edmonds, a Farsi translator who formerly worked in the unit."

www.msnbc.com...

edit- this makes more sense now, the stiff security requirements turn applicants away. Does anyone have any idea what they are? Sleep around the clock, tell no one?

"The FBI has no shortage of applicants who want to be translators. In the month after 9/11, some 2,000 queued up. But three of four applicants drop out when they learn the stiff requirements. Security has been a touchy issue ever since the bureau discovered in 2001 that one of its top counterintelligence officials, Robert Hanssen, had been a Russian mole for almost two decades."

[Edited on 22-10-2003 by ktprktpr]

Great post

I have to say, I havent thought about this problem at all before. I didnt realise the significance of it until I read this article.

What the FBI should do is change the requirements. There is always the fear of somebody infiltrating the FBI, but thats the risk they have to take if they want to solve the problem. These translators could be given some kind of low level clearance and access only to the documents that have to be translated.