Because We Care
Reuters finds the most important tidbit in the ISG report:
Among the 1,000 people who work in the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, only 33 are Arabic speakers and only six speak the language fluently, according to the Iraq Study Group report released on Wednesday.
“All of our efforts in Iraq, military and civilian, are handicapped by Americans’ lack of knowledge of language and cultural understanding,” the bipartisan panel said in its report. “In a conflict that demands effective and efficient communication with Iraqis, we are often at a disadvantage.”
The report, written by five Republicans and five Democrats, recommended the U.S. government give “the highest possible priority to professional language proficiency and cultural training” for officials headed to Iraq.
Guys? It’s too late. The time to start to instill competency in the language and culture of the society you’re trying to sqare-quotes transform is not more than four years after deciding to take the place over.
The ignorance issue has two roots: Americans aren’t great at foreign languages and cultures anyway, not because we’re especially awful but because we generally don’t need to be. The second root is the “humiliate nad free” coalition: contempt and anger embedded with “benevolent hegemony” from the start. As with Judith Miller and MET Alpha, it could be difficult to tell who was leading whom. DOD tarred anyone with much knowledge of or sympathy for Arabic language or culture as an “Arabist” and kept them as far away from the project as possible. Ignorance was purity. Who needs a vocabulary when you’ve got armor?
Comment by Jackmormon —
December 7, 2006 @ 9:19 am
Sounds very much like the ideological purging of the old “Asia hands,” which crippled our dealing with Vietnam.
Comment by Grant —
December 7, 2006 @ 9:39 am
It just means they’ve started in on the “who lost China?”/”who sold us out at Yalta” games early. Everyone knows that’s the next phase, and the key to getting a quick start on it is to make sure the the people you’re arguing over aren’t actually there.
Trackback by Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator —
December 7, 2006 @ 10:16 am
Iraq Panel Report Gets Varied Reaction…
Reaction to the report by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which said the situation in Iraq is “grav…
Comment by Leo Strauss —
December 7, 2006 @ 3:47 pm
La plus ca change. We had the same problem dealing with the Soviets. So few could speak Russian even by the 1980s, 35 years into the Cold War.
The Neocon distrust for anyone (other than an Israeli) who speaks the language is legendary. But the whole mindset beyond the Neocons assumes American stand off detachment: “expeditionary strike groups”, “precision strike”, over-the-horizon capability, etc.
Of course, there is some low-level cruel revenge when the Buchanan Brigades go shopping at Best Buy and see some of cheap Chinese electronic goods also have Spanish labelling.
Comment by tros —
December 7, 2006 @ 5:49 pm
We need to get them Rosetta Stone: Combat Edition.
Because you know, we’re using advaanced technology to menuever around the enemy.
Comment by Brett —
December 7, 2006 @ 8:37 pm
Oddly enough, the purging of the old “Asia hands” that worked out so poorly in Vietnam worked out very well for the occupation of Japan after WWII. While deeply flawed, MacArthur’s strategy had unexpected benefits. The Meiji constitution would still be in force, and we’d never have the remarkable Article 9.
I’d argue that it’s not the language barrier that keeps us out; it’s not having a (philosophical) product to offer that people want. It’s the worst cultural misunderstanding of all.
Comment by Walt —
December 8, 2006 @ 12:33 am
Brett: I’m sure that the administration had the WWII example in mind when opting for their strategy. (I remember the book “Embracing Defeat” being mentioned a lot back them.) The big difference, though, is that while the people they appointed weren’t experts on Asia, they were at least experts on _something_, rather than a bunch of aspiring Heritage Foundation flunkies.
Comment by bad Jim —
December 8, 2006 @ 4:53 am
There are lots of fluent Arab speakers in the U.S. (We’re a nation of immigrants, after all.) It does seem that few of them want to work for the government at the moment. Why should that be?
Comment by Comandante Agi —
December 8, 2006 @ 9:13 am
Maybe the US military shouldn’t have fired those Arab linguists for being gay in 2002. Probably could have used their expertise right about now.
Comment by Brett —
December 8, 2006 @ 9:37 am
Walt: People really used Embracing Defeat to justify Iraq? What an unfortunate choice. I finally read it for the first time this year, and it’s honestly a good book, but any parallels aren’t there. It’s a pity that people used it that way.
Japan is an island that can be completely isolated, its economy was ruined, people were starving, and the Americans entered having just demonstrated how amazingly willing we are to kill people in other places. We left the Emperor in place and worked through the existing government structures to rebuild the country, yanking out those things that they didn’t like or opposed them, but not destroying it wholesale. Moral questions abound about this strategy (especially around Hirohito’s responsibility), but it did keep things together.
America had a better product to offer back then. “Instead of killing you all, we’ll set you free.”
In Iraq we demolished the existing government, banned all the people with Baathist ties from helping rebuild, didn’t ask for the help of our best and brightest, sent in companies to loot, and forgot to build the moat around the country.
Even years in to the war, I still don’t know what it was that we were really offering.
Comment by BruceR —
December 8, 2006 @ 12:34 pm
Arabists: we don’t want to be part of your “Big Push.”
Comment by Jackmormon —
December 8, 2006 @ 1:22 pm
The problem with hiring the already-existing Americans who speak Arabic is that the clearance process is biased against people who’ve spent time overseas or who have lots of friends and family who have spent a lot of time overseas. (Unless they were all Mormon missionaries.)