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To: Modernman
You're suggesting having Israelis doing the translating would be better than arabs? Don't you think it would be best for American citizens to do our translating? If we don't have enough citizens to do it then we should train them - fast.
26 posted on 02/11/2004 9:09:56 AM PST by ladyjane
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To: ladyjane
You're suggesting having Israelis doing the translating would be better than arabs?

Sure, they're dual citizens of both the US and a friendly nation (under US law, it's perfectly legal to be both a citizen of the US and Israel). There is no issue as to whether they will have conflicting interests, since the US and Israel have the same interests when it comes to terrorism.

Don't you think it would be best for American citizens to do our translating? If we don't have enough citizens to do it then we should train them - fast.

Ideally, yes. However, there are very few American citizens who speak Arabic who are not originally from an unfriendly nation. It takes about 4 years of training for a person to become fluent enough to translate Arabic to English. I agree there should be a lot more government-funded Arabic language programs. However, until we get to that point, we've got to work with what we've got. Refusing to hire someone to serve as a translator just because they are dual citizens of the US and a highly friendly country is just foolish.

29 posted on 02/11/2004 11:42:53 AM PST by Modernman ("When you want to fool the world, tell the truth." -Otto von Bismarck)
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To: ladyjane
You're suggesting having Israelis doing the translating would be better than arabs? Don't you think it would be best for American citizens to do our translating? If we don't have enough citizens to do it then we should train them - fast.

Preferably US citizens, but in a pinch I'd say Israelis are less apt to mess with us than Arabs.

48 posted on 02/20/2004 6:40:22 AM PST by Salman (Mickey Akbar)
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