The Wayback Machine - http://web.archive.org/web/20040218000446/http://badattitudes.com:80/MT/archives/000797.html
October 29, 2003
Can We Talk Money?

We’ve all heard foreign diplomats being interviewed on radio and TV. Can our diplomats penetrate the Arab and Muslim media in the same way? No.

The report also raised serious concerns about the deficiency in personnel who can speak the languages of the region. The group found that the State Department has only 54 Arabic speakers with a reasonable level of fluency, and only a handful of those are able and willing to participate in media discussion on Arab television and radio. The report calls for 300 fluent Arabic speakers within two years and another 300 by 2008.

The report cited is Changing Minds Winning Peace: A new Strategic Direction for U.S. Public Diplomacy in the Arab & Muslim World, by the U.S. government’s Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab & Muslim World.

How about turning a fraction of the $87 billion loose on an effort to get us some damn Arab speakers in the U.S. government and military? Shouldn’t we be offering $100,000 bonuses to any government employee who can pass an Arab fluency test two years from today?

By the way, one off-topic footnore: you should check out the actual PDF of the Djerejian Report here, simply to admire the beauty of the layout and typography. Really first rate. In fact, it is on a par with this blog, which is in design and visual terms by far the best one I have seen. (I am free to say this, because I have nothing to do with this aspect of Bad Attitudes.)


lawrence.jpg

Webding3.jpg

Posted by Lead Balloons at October 29, 2003 05:04 PM
Email this entry to:


Your email address:


Message (optional):


Comments
Post a comment
Name:


Email Address:


URL:


Comments:


Remember info?