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Why? Given that in 2010, nearly a decade after 9/11 and almost 7 years after the invasion of Iraq, the US military, State Dept, domestic law enforcement agencie
by MichaelSalib 16y ago
Why? Given that in 2010, nearly a decade after 9/11 and almost 7 years after the invasion of Iraq, the US military, State Dept, domestic law enforcement agencies and presumably intelligence agencies still have a severe shortage of Arabic-speaking staff, why do you find the statement stupid? The UK before 9/11 was much less focused on terrorism than the US is now. Developing robust foreign language capability in large organizations is very hard. That's why we often fail at it.
Plus, in my experience, Arabic is a difficult language for people who grew up speaking romance languages to learn. Perhaps not as difficult as Japanese, but still much more difficult than German or French.
- billswift 16y agoOf course most police forces and so on will not have speakers available, but the comment said "British intelligence". Every intelligence agency has translators for all major languages, and have for decades (Arabic was an important language in the Cold War almost from the start). And they have translators for minor languages on tap - I bet they could find a Basque, Lapp, or Chukchi speaker if they needed one quicker than most universities.
- baha_man 16y ago"I bet they could find a Basque, Lapp, or Chukchi speaker if they needed one quicker than most universities." That's probably where they get them.
- junkbit 16y agoThe one thing we are good at is SIGINT. We may have a stifling bureaucracy and an overstretched military, but at least the British Foreign Office actually has local knowledge and people who speak the language.