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Recent Publications by New English Review Authors
In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas
by Theodore Dalrymple
Defending The West:
by Ibn Warraq
Nations, Language and Citizenship:
by Norman Berdichevsky
Romancing Opiates
by Theodore Dalrymple
Which Koran?
by Ibn Warraq
Our Culture, What's Left of It
by Theodore Dalrymple
What The Koran Really Says
by Ibn Warraq
Life at the Bottom
by Theodore Dalrymple
The Origins of the Koran
by Ibn Warraq
Why I Am Not Muslim
by Ibn Warraq
Spanish Vignettes: An Offbeat Look Into Spain's Culture, Society & History
by Norman Berdichevsky
Leaving Islam
Edited by Ibn Warraq
Thursday, 1 May 2008
The Translator Scandal Ripens

by Jerry Gordon

For over a year, we have been waging a relentless, nearly solitary battle in apprising the Congress and the American public about a billion dollar boondoggle and scandal: the lack of credible Arabic translators for our national security and intelligence agencies. As a result hundreds have been killed in Iraq from infiltration of our military and civilian intelligence agencies by agents of Islamist terrorists. Our FBI and CIA have been infiltrated by Muslim linguists who have successfully evaded polygraph tests and been able to pass on vital information to terror groups in the Middle East such as Hezbollah. Tens of thousands of documents, containing vital information on potential threats have gone untranslated in large measure because of bias in hiring practices against qualified Arabic, Farsi and Urdu speaking Christians, Jews and apostate Muslims. The result has been “chaos” according to a knowledgeable counter terrorism source. The problem is one of political correctness. Our government has been gulled by the argument that only Muslims can translate accurately their “holy language.”  This is pure taqiyyah or religious dissimulation sanctioned by Islam.  more...

Posted on 7:35 AM by NER
Comments
1 May 2008
Hugh Fitzgerald

A new, because literal, meaning can now be given to the old phrase "traduttore -- traditore."



3 May 2008
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This is typical of America's national aversion to foreign language study, as well as our real cultural blindness, all at a time when we are encouraged to be "multicultural."  The situation is doubtlessly similar vis-a-vis China.  It is worth pointing out that, in the days when Britannia ruled the waves, it had a supply of loyal subjects who knew the languages of the empire's trouble spots and were intimate with their cultures.  I would recommend our leaders read _Gentlemen Spies_, a history of Arab-speaking British agents in the same region as Iraq a century ago.

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