The army of analysts has started to work on the captured Iraqi documents.

This document is a letter written by a member of Saddam Intelligence apparatus (Al Mukabarat) on 9/15/2001 (shortly after 9/11/2001) where he addressed it to someone higher up and he wrote about a conversation between an Iraqi intelligence source and a Taliban Afghani Consul. In the conversation the Afghani Consul spoke of a relationship between Iraq and Osama Bin Laden prior to 9/11/2001, and that the United States was aware of such a relationship and that there is a potential of US strikes against Iraq and Afghanistan if the destructive operations in the US (most probably he is referring to 9/11 attacks) were proven to be connected to Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban.

I don't understand why the administration hasn't been working harder to get these documents analyzed and public. Also, this treasure trove just makes the actions of the government in firing Arab language experts for being gay look all the more stupid. We need all the translators that we can get right now. And what's even dumber is that, with everything else they have to worry about, the White House continues this nonsense.

President Bush's updated language says security clearances cannot be denied "solely on the basis of the sexual orientation of the individual."

If sexual behavior is "strictly private, consensual and discreet," that could lessen security concerns, according to the regulations that came as part of an update to clearance guidelines distributed in December.

This makes no sense. There are no intrinsic security concerns associated with someone's sexual orientation. Security concerns arise only in the context of the potential for blackmail. If someone is openly gay, there is no security concern. Sexual behavior that is "private and discreet" is in fact the behavior of someone in the closet, which would be a security concern. I don't often agree with the likes of Barney Frank and Henry Waxman, but I'd sure like to see a better explanation than this.

Its simple, Rand. Gays threaten America more than Islamo-fascism.

Get your priorities straight. Or stay straight, or something like that.

I've always thought that the problem with homosexuals in the military is the same (though slightly more complex) as women in the military - the lack of privacy. As a military enlisted person, you will be showering in a large tent with every other enlisted person during war and deployment. If there are openly gay people showering with you, you would probably be uncomfortable - which would break down the cohesion of the unit - which would cause deaths on the battle field. When women join the forces, it's easy to just get a second tent. But a homosexual pretty much has to shower alone to avoid embarassment, which is a logistical improbability in a forward deployed area.

There are ways around these problems (having a private shower for example!), but they presumably introduce complications. In a perfect world, these complications would be unemotionally weighed against aabout a 10% increase in the armed forces. In the real world, I'm afraid that the argument becomes emotional on both sides.

The purpose of this thread was not to debate gays in the military in general. The specific issue here is gays as Arabic translators, and security issues associated with that.

Repeated comments various places from current-service military types suggest that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" firings are primarily used by gay servicemen who want out early.

After all, the whole point is that they don't ask about it, and find out clearly enough to fire someone pretty much only if they're told by the person, or the person is ludicrously indiscreet.

I can't imagine the latter is responsible for most of the translators who were sent packing, being so sent; after all, the number of translators fired between 1998 and 2003 was... seven.

I suspect that the Army could probably send the documents out to, oh, the CIA or NSA for translation if the real problem was lack of fluent people with security clearances.

DADT is a stupid policy, but the problem it creates is, as near as I can tell from the comments of people in the service, that it lets gay people (or people willing to convincingly pretend to be gay) get out of the service at any time they feel like it, far more than running perfectly willing gays out - the servicemen are unanimous in saying there are plenty of gay people in the services right now.

But if you follow the link, it says that thirteen Arabic speakers were discharged in 2004, as well as four Farsi speakers.

Rand, you make an excellent point.

And I must say I'm astounded.

Encouraging people to be closeted is a threat to national security. I wonder what the CIA folks who actually understand blackmail thought about this directive.

You're astounded that I made an excellent point? Hey, even a blind squirrel will find the occasional acorn. ;-)

Rand, your second link "the army of analysts has started to work" doesn't work.

Sorry, it's fixed now.

Here's another area where the blog attitude might work in our favor. The assumption is that secrets in the enemies documents might be dangerous to us if let free. While there's merit to this assumption I think the administration would be surprised at the success if they just posted everything and let bloggers do their thing. Are we a free society or not? We seem so schizophrenic about openness.

Yes, I realize there is the danger that we sold an RPG to Sadam in the 80's and this will be the banner at the NY Times, but so what? I don't think we need be afraid of Iraq's secrets.

As for your main point, your logic is right on as usual Rand.

Also, this treasure trove just makes the actions of the government in firing Arab language experts for being gay look all the more stupid. We need all the translators that we can get right now.

Hmmm. Maybe I'm just being paranoid, but ... there have been reports of Islamist sympathizers within the corps of translators. Supervisors, even. Do we know how it came to pass that the disharged gay translators were outed? I would think that gay Arabic speakers would be intrinsically unsympathetic to the topple-a-wall-on-'em hardliners. Perhaps the Bush administration isn' the prime mover behind these firings.

I suggest that these documents have not been translated because they are essentually worthless. Even in the event that they are completely authentic, they will be dismissed as forgeries by whomever doesn't like their contents. It will be extremely difficult for the "army of analyists" to prove these haven't been manufactured by the CIA, or by the evil neo-con conspiracy gnomes of Helliburton. Perhaps 10 years from now, if the sources of information are intact and there are people to interview and diaries to check the documents authenticity will be verified. Until then, they will be in convenient and subsequently poo pooed.

Rand,

Also, this treasure trove just makes the actions of the government in firing Arab language experts for being gay look all the more stupid.

Can't you see? Its a cost-cutting move. Find a pretext to fire the Arab translaters. Then put the documents on the internet and the Army of Gay Davids will translate them for free!

Genius. Pure genius.

I'll jump in to say again that the "we fired all our gay linguists" meme is not only wrong in its presumptions, but generally inapplicable in this case. For the first, I'll refer to my collegues who have so well summarized the most common result of DADT, i.e. escape hatch for those who want out anyway. As to the second, you may have a point if we had executed them you rather than just dismissed them from service or if you were advocating conscription of all Arab linguists. Regardless of DADT or actions deriving from same, I don't think there would be anything precluding openly gay linguists from working with the CIA, NSA, DIA, FBI or any other part of the alphabet soup that contributes to the national intelligence structure. I can't say for certainty, and while in the past being gay was seen as a potential blackmail liability, especially for a closeted person with family, I don't believe it poses as much of a problem to obtaining a security clearance as it once did, especially if the person is open about it.

In summary, the vast majority of gay linguists that have been discharged pursuant to DADT were discharged simply as a result fo them not following the DT portion of the policy and, if they had wanted to continue using their linguistic skills to benefit the nation there was certainly the oportunity to do so.

BTW, your comment filter kicked back by previous post because of "questionable content." Specifically it seemed to object to the character string "b-l-o-g-s-p" (without the dashes, of course) in the URL block. Go figure.

Unfortunately, I don't allow URLs from blog spot in comments or pings any more, because there is so much comment spam emanating from that domain these days.

Look, what will it take to kill this story over gay linguists being forcably discharged from the military? I have said this to so many boards I've lost count, but I'll say it again. As a former Army linguist myself (Korean) who left in 2000, I can say that there were certainly gay servicemen in my field. I can also say that no soldiers I served with, linguist or not, were discharged for being gay unless that was what they wanted. I'm sure those numbers increased after 9/11 as those who didn't want to get deployed, or wanted to PCS but couldn't due to stop-loss, decided to exit this way. The whole thing is just a tale perpetrated by those opposed to the don't ask, don't tell, who apparently have no service background themselves, or who hope to fool the majority of the population who don't that the military is somehow on a witchunt to identify gay servicemembers and expel them, which is patently not true.

Oh, and if you think low-level military linguists are translating documents of this type then you are ignorant of the work we do. Most of this stuff would be done by civilian contractors or NSA staff with better language skills and more experience. They don't typically give this work to Spc. Snuffy to translate.

Actually, Barney Frank probably wouldn't be a good security risk. I seem to remember his boyfriend was running a prostitution ring out of Franks house.

The reason the admin doesn't tout these documents? The admin is absolutely resolute in its belief that it did, and will continue to do, the right thing, morally, humanely, strategically and logically in the handling of this war.
Let the punditocracy fight over this. It matters not.
The belief is strong and absolute. You don't hype proof when it validates your actions.