Thursday, November 14, 2002

You Think, Tom? According to the New York Times: The Senate's top Democrat said Thursday that the failure of U.S. authorities to capture Osama bin Laden raises questions about "whether or not we are winning the war on terror." Sen. Tom Daschle's remarks came as intelligence analysts concluded that a new audiotape almost certainly contained bin Laden's voice and is proof that he is alive. "We can't find bin Laden, we haven't made real progress in finding key elements of al-Qaida," the South Dakotan said. "They continue to be as great a threat today as they were one and a half years ago. So by what measure can we claim to be successful so far?" Given that the U.S. hasn't made any progress against al-Qaida, we're going to go after Iraq instead, because they're a much easier target. We'll leave aside the fact that they're much less of a threat. We really need a victory at this point. And if things don't work out in Iraq, the people of St. Vincent had better prepare themselves. We'll need someone we can beat, and Grenada's already had their turn. 10:15:01 PM     What do you think? ()

Why Are the Children the Ones Who Always Get Hurt? Chris worries that me and Eric fighting will upset his safe little world. Don't worry, champ. Just because we're angry at each other doesn't mean that we don't still like each other or that we're angry with you. We both still like you very much. Eric is just going through a rough time. First, he lost the ability to spell. Then, he developed delusions of street cred. And now, he's rambling incoherently about Bobby Brown, squash rackets, and some guy named Freddie. But we can help him through this with tough love. As I point these things out to him, as I must to undermine the delusions that have hold of him, it's to be expected that he'll lash out angrily. Sometimes, he gets the better of me, and I get angry myself. I apologize for that. I should be better than that. Right now, we have to keep our wits about us to help him see things as they really are. He must come to understand the implausibility of a hayseed who is effete and reads Proust. And while we're at it, we could point out to him that it's hypocritical to call someone who has lived in New York City for more than nine years a hayseed given his own inability to suck it up and move into New York himself. But together, we'll get through this. 10:05:34 PM     What do you think? ()

Is the U.S.'s Collective Inability to Speak Languages Other Than English and Spanish a Problem? Keith Olbermann has a very nice piece in today's Salon that discusses one of the many failings in the U.S.'s efforts in the Middle East: Fourteen months after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the CIA, FBI, and Defense Department readily admit to a continuing shortage of employees who speak the languages of the Middle East -- particularly Arabic, Dari, Farsi, and Pashto. There has been no acknowledged successful recruitment of bilingual would-be opponents of the Evildoers. That this collective bureaucratic shrug of incomprehension should have existed on Sept. 10, 2001, is tragic in a way that requires no words to explain. That it should still exist 14 months later is farcical in a way that may require those future historians to explain. Which is where Nick Zahab and Nader Zehtab come in. Nick Zahab and Nader Zehtab are the radio announcers for the Los Angeles Lakers' basketball broadcasts -- in Farsi. Over Southern California station KIRN, they have expanded the reach of what for three years has been an all-Farsi broadcast by this season bringing the exploits of O'Neal, Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson to those who call themselves members of the Persian community of Los Angeles. Contained in this -- and no offense is meant to Mr. Zahab or Mr. Zehtab, nor is their loyalty questioned; hell, I'd rather announce the Lakers games than work for Don Rumsfeld, too -- is a kernel of that corny old American pursuit-of-happiness thing. Our perceived security crisis must compete with our desire to hear hoops on the radio. ...as our successors contemplate the Bush Doctrine and our time's bid for empire, as they try to reconstruct our thoughts not about the worst-case scenario but about the best one, they will wonder how in the hell we thought we were going to try to pacify Afghanistan, rebuild Iraq, shape up Saudi Arabia, dismantle al-Qaida, and neutralize worldwide hatred of America when the smart guys who happen to speak one of the other side's languages are otherwise occupied because the Houston Rockets were in Los Angeles one night and they had to translate an interview with the imported center, Yao Ming, from Chinese to English to Farsi. When I was a consultant, one of our clients was an incompetently run Washington think tank (whose name I can't remember) whose mission it was to improve the U.S.'s aptitude for foreign langauges. When we went to work for them, they had utterly failed to convince anyone of the importance of their mission. They were struggling to find another line of business just to keep operating, but they didn't have much hope of doing the work for which they were formed. I wonder if they've survived, and if so, if they've managed to use this issue to convince people of the relevance of their work. 8:25:17 AM     What do you think? ()

© Copyright 2003 Morgan N. Sandquist. Last update: 11/2/03; 10:30:59 AM.

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