Of the 1,000 U.S. employees at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, only 10 have a working knowledge of Arabic, according to the State Department.
That is still a slight improvement from last year when, according to the Iraq Study Group, six people in the embassy spoke Arabic.
You’d think this was eloquent enough to define the incompetence and arrogance of our White House Wizards?
In April, the director of the International Affairs Office at the GAO said the State Department had started taking action to correct the problems from last year’s report.
The geniuses running this country decided to invade the Middle East virtually from Day One of their “mandate” – and it’s taken till April of 2007 to comprehend that the absence of staff who can speak the language of the region is a problem.
I guess they’ll continue to rely on translations from the Saudi kingdom.
We don’t need to talk to them. If they talk we can just shoot’em, I mean, you know, they could be them there insurgents/quasi-Al Qaeda members/teurrists.
Don’t think of them as in coffins – think of it as pertinent micro-housing.
Don’t you think Barb and Jenna should be given a chance at such housing?
What? They’re addressing the problem with all due haste. This is, after all, a 67% increase in Arabic speaking personnel in just one year!
Didn’t G.I.Joe used to say “knowing is half the battle?
Not surpising. I thought to be in Bush’s government all you had to do was grunt and nod.
[edit: duplicate comment]
Like the Arabs don’t watch “The Beverly Hillbillies.”
RBG
#5 &6 (take your pick) –
You also apparently have to have graduated from Jesus University (a.k.a Regent University School of Law). If you teach Arabic to Jesus freaks then the terrorists win.
Yet another sick picture from the Bush haters. Makes you forget what the story is all about. heck, it isn’t even related to the story. I wonder why you even bothered to give it a title. You could have just put up a picture of a dead Iraqi baby with the title “More proof that Bush is worse than Hilter…”
Lack of Arabic speakers in Iraqi Embassy = Coffins picture. Great journalism, dude.
#9 –
I believe the symbolism is something to the effect that because the Bush administration is so incredibly incompetent, we might as well be installing machines in Iraq that simply chew up soldiers into meat and ships it back to the US in boxes. It could be debated whether the symbolism is in poor taste, but I thought the link was fairly obvious.
I wonder how many more translators would be there had they not fired all of the openly gay Arabic translators.
(refering to the pic)
That’d be an easy job…
Drape the flag, drop a “made in iraq” sticker on there, ship it out
Take it easy on Angus. He’s making that emotional transition from ruling WASP snarl to defeated neocon whine.
I have to say that the picture is in bad taste. If I have to explain why, then you wouldn’t agree with whatever I said. Just consider it, at least.
CAN I ASK YOU ALL 1 Question….
HOW mnay Laguages are SPOKEN in the middle EAST… And I dont think EVERYONE speaks the same.
Damn right, the photo is in bad taste! So is the war and the ‘elected’ people that created the contents.
15
Per Wikipedia, Middle Easterners generally understand each other. So, learning Arabic will help a lot.
9.
Get a clue, America hates unjust wars, but hates losers even more. Polk got us into an unjust war with Mexico, but he won it and got us out in 2 years. Lincoln almost lost his renomination because he wasn’t winning enough battles.
Bush not only gets us into the wrong war, but then doesn’t win.
Why should Americans speak arabic?
No Real American should have to speak a different language. We are Americans, we are superior to them. Let them learn our language.
16. I think 14 meant that it’s bad taste to mention of the President of the Senate when you’re trying to be partisan.
RBG
#14 & #16 Wrong, the photo is perfect, it really captures the whole issue with this WAR.
For the family of the fallen I can see how the photo could cause much grief, but at this point; the bigger issue is this unjust WAR and what the public needs to know!!!!!!!!!!
#17 is right and understands major aspects of American History.
#9 Angus, It’s the “totality of reality” that you seem to despise in peoples responses. The issue “Lack of Arabic speakers in Iraqi Embassy” wouldn’t exist if BUSH didn’t MANUFACTURE this WAR.
MANUFACTURED WAR = MANUFACTURED DEATH, that what the picture says to me!
To NOT hate BUSH = love of MANUFACTURED DEATH!!!!!!!!!!
Too think, BUSHIE had the gull to campaign his favorite philosopher is Jesus, another telling BUSHIE LIE. Who do you think he was fooling? The dumb ass AMERICAN people, that is who; and he still is desperately fooling people like #9.
>>HOW mnay Laguages are SPOKEN in the middle EAST
Who cares how “mnay” in the rest of the Middle East? The overwhelming majority of people in IRAQ (where Dumbya started his misbegotten trophy war, and where the embassy is located) speak ARABIC. So, in yet another stunning example of his War President Genius, we have 0.1% of the people working at the embassy who can speak the language of the country they’re in. And the article doesn’t even say who these people are – they may be the janitor and the lady who waters the potted plants. Probably no one who has anything to do with embassy affairs, based on the Keystone Kop nature of the rest of Dumbya’s administation.
I wish this is the picture they use in every future High School American History book to describe this war, with the caption MANUFACTURED WAR = MANUFACTURED DEATH!!!
Bush has not ever, IMHO, demonstrated a conscience. How dare his people rail against people who do have a conscience, people who find this WAR UNJUST EVIL.
It’s those people who perpetuate this UNJUST EVIL WAR!!!!!
Just one more point.
Future history books need to describe the details and highlight how BUSHIE and PALs tried to HIDE the DEATH he MANUFACTURED by HIS MANUFACTURE WAR!!!
It is this HIDING that has LULLED the AMERICAN PUBLIC into acceptance of BUSHIE EVIL.
And don’t think BUSHIE and PALs don’t know this!!!!!!!!!!!
How dare BUSH hide his EVIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#18,
Why should Americans speak arabic?
No Real American should have to speak a different language. We are Americans, we are superior to them. Let them learn our language.
Comment by Winston Smith — 6/22/2007 @ 2:58 pm
And you, asshole, are the reason those “Arabs” flew airplanes into our buildings. The only thing you might be superior to is the dog crap I cleaned up tonight. Even then it is close.
#24 Whoa, boy, settle down. My comment was meant to be sarcastic.
But you are partly right. It is a common sentiment among Americans and is the cause of much antipathy towards us.
However, I take Bin Laden at his word when he says the reason he sent those guys to fly into our office buildings is because American armed forces were headquartered in Saudi Arabia. Most people forget that part.
They don’t hate our freedoms, they hate US foreign policy.
In point of fact there are no Arabic speakers at the American embassy in Saudi Arabia. The KSA forbids them, so naturally there aren’t any. After all the politicians don’t want to screw up their pension plan, not the pension plan we know about, the one where they join ‘think tanks’ and corporations paid for by the KSA.
http://www.sauduction.com/
The real question is this: how many spanish-speaking people are working at the McDonald’s in Baghdad?
26. “In point of fact there are no Arabic speakers at the American embassy in Saudi Arabia. The KSA forbids them, so naturally there aren’t any. ”
Are you including local Arabic speakers working at the US embassy?
An armed attack on the U.S. Consulate General in Jeddah occurred on December 6, 2004, resulting in casualties among the non-American staff and damage to consulate facilities.
http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_932.html
In Riyadh (search), U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Carol Kalin said two local staff members were injured, but all American staff were safe.
“We have accounted for all Americans in the compound in Jiddah and none of them are being held hostage,” Kalin said. “We have a local work force that was on duty and we are still in the process of accounting for [them].”
Kalin said four of the five employees killed held administrative jobs and one was a private contract guard on the consulate’s payroll. Four other embassy workers — all hired locally — were hospitalized, Kalin said.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,140574,00.html
RBG
>>Four other embassy workers — all hired locally — were hospitalized,
As I suggested before, these were probably the janitors and the person who waters the potted plants.
The point of this post is that Dumbya’s administration starts a war in a country, then builds an embassy and staffs it with people who don’t speak the language. Now there’s a Wartime President fer ya.
As if understanding the local populace or its point of view had anything to do with this war. Did they start it to get more oil for America or to destabilize the region, or maybe to prevent Saddam from selling oil on the cheap to refill his treasury when the Bushies wanted to keep oil prices artificially inflated? Destabilizing the region makes neocon sense and spiking the price of oil fits the character of the oil-connected Bush crime family.
But it doesn’t really matter – the people who live in Iraq didn’t have much to do with it. Lack of employees who speak Arabic was only a PR oversight, not anything important to whatever the real agenda was.