An article in the Washington Times this morning, titled “EXCLUSIVE: Lack of translators hurts U.S. war on terror,” caught my attention.
Not because it is a surprise that our nation is woefully short of linguists and translators.
Not because such shortage does indeed hobble our ability to effectively fight the war on terrorism, especially in the Pakistan-Afghanistan regions.
It caught my attention because the otherwise timely and factual article, in my opinion, left one critical factor out in its commentary on this important issue.
But more about this in a moment.
First, what the article does say.
It tells us that the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence finds that the necessary cadre of U.S. intelligence linguists skilled in regional languages such as Pashto, Dari and Urdu “remains essentially nonexistent.”
In its 2010 budget report, the Committee warns: “Persistent critical shortages in some languages contribute to the loss of intelligence information and affect the ability of the intelligence community to process and exploit what it does collect.”
The article tells us that “the gap has become critical in the war effort, especially in the Afghanistan-Pakistan theater, where al Qaeda and Taliban operatives text message, e-mail and talk in languages that the intelligence community had largely ignored before 2001.” and that “intercepting phone and radio calls in the region’s native tongues is critical to monitoring terrorist camps and movements in Pakistan’s tribal areas.”
The article also tells us about the financial incentives used to try to “lure” more people with foreign language skills—“including hiring bonuses and additional pay for current officers”—and about problems with some “attractive candidates” passing the review for security clearances.
Some other reasons given for the shortages:
There are many recent immigrants and first-generation U.S. citizens with needed language skills, but they cannot pass the security background checks.
A top-secret security clearance is required to “listen and translate al Qaeda telephone calls, or interrogate a suspect,” but investigators often found that the candidate belonged to a mosque where extremism was preached, or had relatives back home deemed ‘not trustworthy,” according to a former intelligence officer.
While native speakers are preferred, the intelligence community also relies on trained Americans. “But Pashto, Dari and other dialects are difficult to learn and take years to master. Americans cannot duplicate the intricate knowledge of native speakers,” and, according to the former intelligence officer, “Once they are trained that well they can make more money elsewhere.”
One possible reason for our current shortage of linguists and translators kept coming to mind—and I kept looking for it in the Washington Times, to no avail.
Could one reason possibly be the fact that an untold number of potential linguists are already “weeded-out” during background investigations because they are gay?
Could it be because many talented language students at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) and at other language learning institutions are eliminated—after enormous expenditures of personal effort, manpower, time and funds—because they are discovered to be gay?
Could it be because many more experienced linguists and translators—with language skills critical to our national security and who are doing a superb job of protecting it—are purged because they are caught in “the clenches of the homosexual discharge machine,” as Nathaniel Frank tells us in excerpts from his book “Unfriendly Fire,” in a March 18, 2009, New York Times article?
And, as Frank says, “because the added burdens, that gays alone had to bear, were too much.”?
Frank cites the example of Jarrod Chlapowski, who…
Was so proud of finishing the army’s basic training just months before September 11th, 2001, that he had the Chinese character for “honor” tattooed on his shoulder…Chlapowski studied Korean at DLI and graduated as a cryptologic voice interceptor, finishing second in his class. He served in Korea as an interpreter for the 3rd Military Intelligence Battalion on sensitive reconnaissance missions. Eventually he earned the Army achievement medal and an Army commendation medal for leadership and training.
But,
As time wore on, Chlapowski watched friends and other soldiers get caught up in the clutches of the gay ban, and it led to a deepening paranoia. “You’re always going to be paranoid,” he said, that someone who knows your open secret could “take issue with it.” When he transferred to a new unit at Ft. Lewis, WA to train soldiers, he didn’t know anyone there and was unsure of the climate. “I opted to put myself back in the closet and I was miserable,” he said. “Within a few months I knew this was something I couldn’t continue.” Chlapowski chose not to re-enlist and left the army in November, 2005.
There are many more stories similar to Chlapowski’s, but, according to Frank.
More damning…is the number of similar stories that have piled up since “don’t ask, don’t tell” took effect. And they were not stories that the military wanted to share. The firing of gay Arabic language specialists during America’s war on terrorism is a particularly stark illustration of the gay ban’s costs to national security. And so it’s no surprise that the Pentagon has not been forthcoming about the number of linguists fired.
With respect to such numbers, Frank says that it took a Freedom of Information Act request and pressure from members of Congress to release the incomplete figures of 73 discharges of language specialists from the Defense Language Institute between 1998 and 2004. Of these, 17 were Arabic speakers, 11 spoke Russian, 18 studied Korean, 6 were training in Persian-Farsi, and the rest studied other languages.
And, in February, 2005, a GAO report was released that included figures dating back to 1994 and which showed that “757 troops with ‘critical occupations’ were fired under the policy. These included voice interceptors, interrogators, translators, Explosive Ordinance Disposal Specialists, signal intelligence analysts, and missile and crypto logic technicians. Three hundred twenty-two fired service members had skills in what the military deems ‘an important foreign language.’”
Finally, back to the Washington Times article:
CIA Director Leon E. Panetta, who has vowed to change the culture at Langley, sent out a message in May to employees announcing “an aggressive plan to build the truly multilingual work force we need.” He said he wants to double the number of analysts and clandestine service officers who speak foreign languages and “dramatically transform the way CIA trains in foreign language capability.”
While Panetta is referring to the CIA specifically; while the Washington Times article refers to the critical shortage of foreign-language speakers and translators at U.S. national security agencies in general; and while Frank focuses on “the ongoing purges of gay soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines with language skills critical to waging the war on terrorism,” a real change in culture with respect to homosexuals serving our country—whether in our security agencies or in our armed forces—would certainly go a long way towards easing such shortages—and many other problems and injustices.
Nathaniel Frank’s book “Friendly Fire” addresses the entire insidious “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. It is published by Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, LLC.
