You can't be too careful
Caroline Glick of the Jerusalem Post tells us of reports that the FBI refused the offers of Jewish Arabic speakers to serve as translators for the Bureau. "The story is that when, in the aftermath of September 11, the FBI made a public call for Arabic-speaking translators, over 90 Sephardic Jews from New York applied. According to the Sephardic New York community leaders questioned in the story, many of these applicants – all American – had prior professional experience working for Israeli radio in Arabic and serving as linguists in the IDF. Indeed, for most of them, Arabic was their mother tongue. The FBI has offered no official comment on its rejection of the applicants. Sources familiar with the FBI's vetting process have claimed that the sense was that the Jews 'were too close to Israel' and might, according to the report, fail to translate documents in an objective manner."
Glick acknowledges that it is too early to tell whether this story is true. However, we do know that Muslim military and civilian personnel working at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay have been arrested on suspicion of committing espionage for al Qaeda and Syria. And two weeks ago, Abdulrahman Alamoudi, the Muslim-American responsible for for vetting and accrediting candidates for Islamic chaplaincy positions in the US military, was arrested on terrorism-related charges. Thus, Glick seems justified in concluding that "America's attempt to enlist what it believes is the 'moderate Muslim leadership' in the war on terror is fraught with risk. It is also clear that, in people such as the Sephardic Arabic speakers whose applications were apparently rejected by the FBI, the US has a valuable store of human capital for its war on terror. Better it be used than squandered for the sake of pandering to radical Arab groups."
HINDROCKET adds: Amen. I read somewhere recently--I can't remember where or I'd link to it--that well over half of the Arabic speakers in the U.S. are not Muslims. I can understand the slight possibility of error in choosing Muslim chaplains, but how we can wind up with treasonous translators is beyond me.
