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State Dept. Has Few Who Speak Language of Area Where Taliban Operates
WASHINGTON - Complicating the Obama administration's plan to ramp up civilian aid to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the State Department employs just 18 foreign service officers who can speak the language of the region where the Taliban insurgency rages, according to records and interviews.
Pakistani soldiers over look the Swat valley from their bunker on top of Baine Baba Ziarat mountain in Swat district, during a trip organized by the army, May 22, 2009. Pakistani aircraft bombed Taliban militants on Sunday in the Orakzai ethnic Pashtun region, killing at least seven, while soldiers battled insurgents in the main town of the Swat region, government officials said. (REUTERS/Mian Khursheed) Two of them work in Afghanistan, both in the capital, Kabul, according to the State Department's Bureau of Human Resources. Five are in Peshawar, Pakistan.
"It's a grim illustration of two problems," said Ronald Neumann, a veteran diplomat who was U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan from 2005 to 2007. "First, there is no money, and second, there are no people."
The Pashto language is the main tongue of the mountainous Pashtun region that straddles the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where the Taliban and al-Qaeda recruit and operate. Afghan President Hamid Karzai is among the estimated 35 million Pashtuns in both countries.
The State Department has long failed to meet its language needs. In 2006, the Government Accountability Office found that nearly 30% of State Department employees based overseas in "language-designated positions" could not speak and write the local language well enough to meet basic requirements.
The language deficit is one reason the United States has turned to contractors to deliver foreign aid, a practice that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says she wants to curb. Clinton is asking for billions in the coming budget to hire 1,226 additional diplomats, but it will take time to train them.
After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the U.S. military and the State Department boosted their training in Afghan languages, but the military commands vastly more resources. Seven years into the Afghanistan war, the Defense Department says it has trained 200 people in Pashto and 300 in Dari, the primary language of the non-Pashtun areas of Afghanistan.
The California-based Defense Language Institute has given 10,000 people some basic exposure to Pashto through mobile training units, spokesman Brian Lamar said. The Defense Department gave a half-million-dollar grant to Indiana University to train ROTC candidates in Pashto.
The State Department's efforts have been more modest. In addition to the 18 foreign service officers who are proficient in Pashto, 82 speak Dari, State's Bureau of Human Resources said in an e-mail. It said 20 Dari speakers are in Afghanistan.
Those figures will improve, said Ruth Whiteside, who directs State's Foreign Service Institute, which is training 13 diplomats in Pashto and 37 in Dari. A larger 2010 budget will expand those numbers, she said.
The U.S. Agency for International Development, responsible for billions of dollars in aid programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was unable to say, despite repeated requests, how many of its employees speak Afghan languages.
In addition to the ROTC program, Indiana University trains military members of Provincial Reconstruction Teams that are an integral part of the Afghan counterinsurgency, said Paul Foster, who runs the program. The teams include State Department and USAID personnel, but "those people have never come to us," he said.
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18 Comments so far
Show AllThat's just pathetic.
Darn, who would have thought there are not that many 'allies' adept at speaking the taliban language, whatever that is, and isn't ironic that a bunch of pseudo terrorists pull off what the U.S. did in wwII by tricking some of the native americans to communicate in their language to 'save' america only the taliban don't have to trick their own people to do it?
That the US State Department has a significant shortage of personnel who can not speak or write the language of the area they are assigned is disturbing.
First, it is an indictment of the US educational system, which is amongst the worst when it comes to foreign language instruction in the First world (there is also America's cultural xenophobia about "English only" as well). Additionally, most of the foreign languages offered in schools (if at all), Spanish, French, & German, are for the most part, globally irrelevant (with the exception of Spanish). The replacement of French and German with Arabic and Mandarin in school catalogs should be a first step.
Second, despite a long involvement in the Middle East, the US State Dep't was for too long, oriented towards the Soviet Union (which was a boon to Russian speakers), and the long overdue clearing out that dead wood never occurred (though it should be pointed out that the botched relationship with Russia that has led to a prickly Czar Putin may put these folks into play again in the near future). That at this late date there is still a dearth of Pashto and Dari speaking personnel bespeaks poorly of those whom have been upper and middle management of the US State Department during the Bush error (though Clinton era management should not be let off the hook either).
Right. How can even bright kids be motivated to learn something as 'arcane' as a foreign language or really learn anything in the sciences, linguistics, HISTORY, or true political science(not this BS rubbish that is the actual criminal subversion of a government, as in our case, our democracy)or business(which that has turned to a complete criminal method and system of 'control fraud' whereby lobbyists, regulators, investigators and auditors are bribed and influenced to help in breaking and ignoring laws that create the economic disasters of today).
Besides, the 'entertainment' industry is doing a bang up job of capturing and distracting these young minds by making them and their parents think 'how intelligent those kids are because they can turn on a computer, stick an ipod in their ear, play a video game to get the highest score or just plain 'text message' some worthless empty dribble to a friend while driving a car or talking on their cell phone to another friend.
And then there is the old axiom that 'educated' people are a threat to the cozy world of the .01% , the 'elite', but it would just fine to out source the need for those that can speak other languages instead of giving our people a chance to learn about other peoples and how they live instead of labeling any foreigners as terrorists.
French is not globally irrelevant. French and English are the two official languages of the Olympic movement (as well as Canada) and the languages of international diplomacy.
French is still one of the official languages of the IOC for two reasons: Baron Pierre de Coubertin (the founder) was French, and French used to be the language of diplomacy (but not anymore, as that has been taken over by English).
It is a general thought in linguistics that due to mainly globalization, only four languages will survive in the next two to three hundred years: English (400 million native speakers, world's favorite second language, language of international business and diplomacy), Spanish (first language of 350 million speakers & most spoken tongue of Catholicism), Arabic (the language of Islam plus 280 million native speakers & 250 million non-native speakers), & Chinese (1 billion plus native speakers). French has only 175 million native speakers & is generally useless outside the Francophone world.
and Russian. Don't forget Russian.
Apart from being the six official languages of the UN, English, Russian, French, Arabic, Chinese, and Spanish, all of these six languages are growing in numbers.
Additionally, there are several "nationalist" language movements in various countries. First to come to mind is Belgium and the Flemish cultural renaissance or revolution depending on one's opinion on how the country is handling its cultural resurgence. But with the EU came also a revitalization of Basque language, but let's not forget the Welsh language showing strongly. Many Indigenous languages of North America which are showing a great surge of interest in younger generations. From Alutiiq, to Navajo, to Tsalagi.
While you argue there will be only four languages, ironically since around 2001 all the evidence points to resurgences of indigenous languages and cultures around the globe. However counter-intuitive this may seem, globalization tools like the internet assist in strengthening language comprehension.
Why talk to people when you can just shoot them?
Yah, perhaps 'know-nothingism' is not a great thing if one wishes to have a positive influence in the world.
Besides, people who know a second language might be gay.
Joe
The author refers to a lack of personal with "proficient" language skills desired by the State Dept. Yet the author fails to address what qualifies as proficient in regard to State Dept demands. If one were to take this at face value, one might think there was no basic understanding of culture and languages among the ranks of FSOs.
A "working knowledge" of a foreign language that meets the basic proficiency ratings requested by the State Dept is S-2. Therefore, if the applicant doesn't meet a minimum of S-2, they are not rated as proficient. A similar event occurs within the DOD where DLI students are required to meet a L2/R2 on the DLPT to graduate.
US empire kills enough Pashtuns for the Pashtuns to have got the message.
Response will be in much the same language.
State Deptartment Has Few Who Speak Language of God's Honest Truth.
Just posted today, on LinkedIn group, American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL)an announcement:
"Looking for schools to pilot new service. EdCast supplies bilingual virtual math, sci, and world lang instructors (globally) that support classroom teachers in the U.S.--via webconferencing."
The Texas-based company includes a quote on its Website:
"Learning somebody else's language is a kind gesture, and a gesture of interest. It is a fundamental way to reach out to somebody and say, 'I care about you'. I want you to know that I'm interested in not only how you talk but how you live."
President Bush
January 6, 2006
I responded:
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I suggest they reconsider the use of the quote.
International Public Opinion surveys have consistenly shown high negatives for the Bush-ist policies.
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http://pewglobal.org/reports/display.php?ReportID=263
America's image gap is the central, unmistakable finding from surveys conducted over the course of this decade by the Pew Research Center's Pew Global Attitudes Project..
Mounting discontent with U.S. foreign policy over the last eight years has translated into a concern about American power. In the view of much of the world, the United States has played the role of bully in the school yard, throwing its weight around with little regard for others' interests.
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So...when "the bully in the schoolyard" has his team learning the diverse languages of the school yard, it can easily be seen as NOT a "kind gesture" but as a means of expanding CONTROL.
Consider BELOW, regarding Columbia U.:
www.campus-watch.org/article/id/5014
MEALAC DisOriented: Edward Said and the CIA battle for the soul of ...MEALAC DisOriented: Edward Said and the CIA battle for the soul of a department ... When Edward Said put his thoughts on studying "the East" to paper in Orientalism, he referred to Area Studies as the imperialist knowledge-gathering endeavor of the modern era.>>
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/26-6
Published on Tuesday, May 26, 2009 by USA Today
State Dept. Has Few Who Speak Language of Area Where Taliban Operates
"WASHINGTON - Complicating the Obama administration's plan to ramp up civilian aid to Pakistan and Afghanistan, the State Department employs just 18 foreign service officers who can speak the language of the region where the Taliban insurgency rages, according to records and interviews."
REALLY?
See the articles by Dahr Jamail that I posted links for in the following page; there are two articles and I excerpted from both, while providing the URL's for the original articles, but these are in two different posts, among more that I used for additional resource links that should be of general interest. Dahr Jamail speaks of the U.S. employing highly unethical anthopologists, sociologists and socio-psychologists, wearing military uniforms and armed like soldiers, ready to kill like soldiers, and these people are to provide their expertises in order to try to convert the locals of Afghanistan (and Iraq, possibly eventually Pakistan) against the Taliban. It's "counter-insurgency" ops of the Pentagon's HTS, Human Terrain System, program and it reminds very much of two programs the U.S. employed for evil purposes in the Vietnam War. It's the CIA that started recruiting these "academic scholars" in 2005 and the U.S. military began employing them, apparently in the field, in 2007, I believe Dahr Jamail said.
Given that their purpose is to "massage" the locals into being against their national resistance forces, at least some of these "academic scholars" must surely know the languages of the locals; I believe.
To jump to where I provided the URL's for and excerpts from Dahr Jamail's articles, simply expand the reader comments part of the page and then search for "Dahr Jamail", minus the quotes. (Search, f.e., using the search feature in the browser Edit menu or using CTRL+F.)
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2009/05/25
He refers to David Price, who's an anthropology expert who said that we [must] expect for western "news" media to be producing deceitful propaganda about these aforementioned "academic scholars" embedded with U.S. troops in the war zones and that we need to also expect lies of omission, that is, lack of reporting on this topic.
I haven't yet read more than the opening paragraph, but already believe that this above USA Today article is an example of what Dahr Jamail and David Price said. The USA Today piece certainly seems to be omitting this above topic, but I might add more, if I had read the whole article, which won't be done until later in the day.
The US has a long and sordid history of not speaking the languages of their "enemies" or those they are "liberating"...
They didn't bother to learn the languages of the indigenous tribes during the "Indian wars"...
At the close of WWII... The OSS had virtually no translators for russian... When the CIA and NSA were founded, they couldn't find folks to translate Korean for our invasion of that country, which cost many lives of US soldiers on the ground... The korean communication codes were cracked by the NSA, but it took days, sometimes weeks to get the messages translated...
Soldiers in Vietnam would interrogate the native civilians in English, and assault or kill them for not responding in english...
Nowadays, some soldiers on the ground have iPods with translation software for the local dialects...
As a graduate of the Defense Language Institute East Coast back in 1969, I can say that the US has had this problem for a LONG time. Even back then, the instructors were told NOT to teach the military students colloquial slang or profanity, which put us at a great disadvantage when trying to translate intercept. For many critical translations we had to rely on native people who spoke English and trust that they were on 'our side' so to speak, and that they understood English enough to be accurate.
Other countries start teaching foreign languages as early as eight years old. Since the US Congress has refused to enact a law for an official language for the United States, we should accept that we need to teach our youth to speak several languages.
Does anybody remember how very many speakers of Arabic and other languages were dumped out of the military because of the truly stupid "don't ask, don't tell" principle?
Given the "gotta be the official English hysteria" we keep hearing, why not gather up a bunch of Pashtuns, Chinese and others house them in a nice hotel and teach them English for a year or two.
As Gingrich and other GOP cretins organise to oppose Obama's new Court appointee, will they make sure her English is good enough? If appointed, she will have to debate the brilliant but evil Scalia and stupid but evil Thomas. Neither of whom are probably very conversant in Spanish.
Actually lots of Afghan-Americans could teach Pushtu. Problem is many of them are first generation American and have no formal teaching experience but they could be trained to teach. They also aren't aware of employment opportunities in this area. Finally others may lack the English skills. But there are still some out there. State Dept. should advertise the need for Pushtu instructors. Plenty of Afghan-Americans would be happy to teach here and many do not want to go back to Afghanistan to translate and teach given the dangers there right now even though the pay is high. Its all a matter of advertising.