| Thursday,
April 29, 2004
On the language schools:
Dear Jerry:
The US Army Language School is now called the Defense
Language Institute and is located both in Washington DC and Monterey,
California. When I was in the graduates of this school were called "Monterey
Marys". A dismissive term that did not reflect the reality that some of them
would be working not just on the front lines, but behind them. I almost
became one of them. My original assignment beyond Basic Training was to go
there and learn Farsi. I had my gall bladder out instead, missed the start
date (the school was a year long) and ended up at Fort Devens , where I
ultimately did my Vietnam jungle training in 30 inches of powder snow. Terry
Karney took Russian at Monterey. The school never closed and I assume that
classes in various South Asian languages are going full tilt. These take a
long time to learn and using native speakers in the field creates other
problems. Otherwise we'd just go to Detroit and run an ad in the paper. I'm
not sure that classes can substitute for field experience in the language
and culture. One buddy of mine in Germany flunked German and was sent to us
as an OJT clerk. By the time his classmates showed up, he was speaking
pretty serviceable German while they were totally at sea at first.
If you read the papers today, you'll see that some
Army generals are no longer staying silent about the logistical and force
protection problems. Some of the new units rotating in left their armor
behind. Now it has to be shipped and that also means that the mix of spare
parts has to be changed. I'm looking forward to the next Republican
presentation of "A Christmas Carol". I understand that Rumsfeld will play
Scrooge and Eric Shinseki will appear as the Ghost of Christmas Future.
Nominations for the role of Tiny Tim are still open.
Sincerely, Francis Hamit
===================
Jerry
I am a graduate of the Defense Language Institute -
West Coast from the Russian language program. I attended there from 1971 to
1972 and it was an excellent program. But conditions were different. The
Vietnam War was hot and the draft was active. So many of us looked around
for programs that would tend to keep us alive.
To get into the language program you had to score at
least 30 out of 60 possible on the DLAT/ALAT exam. This was a test based on
a made up language with increasing complexity. Every wrong answer cost you 1
1/2 points. We had just 45 minutes to do the test.
When my class formed in March 1971 we had over 120
students. Most were college students with some in postgraduate studies. When
we graduated in March 1972 we had just 56 left. Some were dropped behind to
another class, some were sent to other specialty areas, and a few suicides.
Russian was a bit difficult, but I cannot even imagine
what Arabic would be like.
During this period the Vietnamese students at Fort
Bliss in Texas rioted. Their attitude was, "What the fuck can you do to us -
send us to Vietnam?" They were all broken to E-1 and allowed to continue in
the program. Their morale was very low.
Just two years later the draft was gone and we were
getting out of Vietnam. People were coming through the program with scores
in the low teens. The college students were gone and they had to try to find
candidates in the regular pool of enlistees.
Now what kind of people do you think the military is
going to get today. What kind of people would want to take Arabic and go
into the meatgrinder of Iraq?
Chris Landa
A year ago when we first began the war the military
had no recruitment problems, and finding applicants for Middle East language
training, and for military government training, would not have been
difficult. It might have involved a few bonuses. Aptitude for languages is
not all that highly correlated with IQ. People who are bilingual often have
an enhanced ability to learn yet another language.
But really, the point is that you can't have an
empire, or even a republic with long term overseas adventures, without
acquiring the resources to do the job: and it takes no great genius to
realize that if you are going to occupy a country, you need people who know
something about that country, about occupations, and about the languages
involved. Duh.
If you do gear up for occupation of a large
country, do you have any business trying to do that? See
below for more on language schools
===========================
Making Sense of Fallujah
Subj: Making sense of Fallujah
Does the following notional order of preferences help
make sense of what's going on in Fallujah?
In descending order from "Most Preferred", by the US
High Command, to "Least Preferred":
A. Iraqis take care of it all themselves.
B. Iraqis take care of as much of it themselves as
they can handle, Americans help where needed.
C. Iraqis provide the information, Americans provide
the violence.
D. Americans kill as discriminately as they can,
without much (or any) info from Iraqis.
E. Americans indiscriminately slaughter everything
alive.
The way I see it, the initial hope was for A. Perhaps
an insanely optimistic hope, but perhaps understandable, in view of how well
the "major combat" part went: remember, no chem/bio used against Coalition
forces, no large-scale oil-well fires, no house-to-house through Baghdad,
etc.
Right now, from what I've been reading on
strategyworld.com, and from what a few Fox News "analysts" have said, we
seem to be somewhere between B. and C. The US forces keep nudging things
towards B., often by offering D. as an unpleasant alternative for the Iraqi
tribal leaders in the Fallujah area to contemplate. But those tribal leaders
are really more comfortable with C., especially if they can provide the
information privately and deniably, so it's slow going, and often C. is the
best we can get.
The US media -- including the rest of the Fox News
"analysts" -- are reporting something between D. and E. Part of this is due
to how effective the Iraqi tribal leaders have been in hiding their
contributions of information: the US reporters don't find out it's
happening, so it must not be.
And al Jazeerah, and others of that ilk, are of course
reporting E.
Rod Montgomery==monty@sprintmail.com
A fair analysis.
Back when we first went in I said that we would
have to encourage local government. In Fallujah there were local governments
and sheiks who were in fact keeping order. Bremer had them arrested.
When the Union Army occupied the South, one rule
was that anyone who had been an officer in the Confederacy, or who had held
public office under the Confederacy, was ineligible to hold public office in
the Reconstruction local governments. The result is well known, and in many
places the Ku Klux Klan (the old Klan headed by Nathan Bedford Forrest and
disbanded by him as part of the Hayes/Tilden election compromise) was the
actual government, with the "official" government of carpetbaggers and
scalawags ignored or the target of Klan violence. Reconstruction succeeded
only when those restrictions were removed. As a young man in a Southern
rural school I actually learned the old song that ended with "I'm glad I fit
against them, I only wish we'd won, and I don't need no pardon, for anything
I done."
The analogy is nowhere near exact, but there are
parallels. And until the US can build local governments we won't get out of
this with much credit.
On those lines there are lessons to be learned from
the following:
Subject: Gallup goes to Iraq.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/
iraq/2004-04-28-gallup-iraq-findings.htm
-- Roland Dobbins
=======================
Which brings us to:
Subject: The -Iraqis- certainly had a plan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/29/politics/29ENEM.html?hp
- Roland Dobbins
Which was again not only foreseeable but foreseen.
Given that we knew this would happen, what should be have done? But in fact
we didn't act as if we knew this was coming, which is astonishing. The State
Department had contingency plans anticipating such events, but apparently
the Department of Defense didn't encourage study of any such plans, and may
have forbidden military officers to work with or listen to the cookie
pushers. Which is a mistake of gigantic proportions.
State didn't want us in there, but that doesn't
mean they couldn't contribute to going in. I didn't want us in there, but I
certainly could foresee many problems and had at least some glimmerings of
things we could do to avert them.
But all that is water under a bridge. We are there.
What do we do tomorrow morning?
Dear Jerry:
This morning on the Today Show, Lt. Gen William Odom,
former Director of the NSA and a man well respected in the military and
intelligence communities, expressed the opinion that the war in Iraq is a
failure. "We've already failed, " he said, "By staying you just fail worst."
He thinks we should get out and let the Iraqis settle it themselves.
The NY Times this morning has a story about how
Saddam's plan was , all along, to have the very conditions that are now
present. This is why stocks of heavy weapons and ammunition were left all
over the country and the prisons were emptied just before the invasion.
Certainly that would explain his current attitude and non-cooperation with
our interrogators. He is not defeated. As I pointed out before, no one there
ever surrendered. And if this is not major combat what is it? a "police
action"?
Tonight Ted Koppel is going to do a Nightline program
which smacks of the Vietnam era. Sinclair, which owns more television
stations than anyone else in the nation has ordered their nine ABC stations
not to run it, saying that they don't think it in the best interests of the
country. Koppel plans to read the names and show the pictures of all of the
military personnel killed in this war. Is this really Sinclair's call? Such
a decision casts severe doubt on the FCC rules which encourage media
consolidation. The First Amendment only applies to the government, but the
FCC controls the airwaves, not Sinclair. I'm hoping that someone, somewhere
will challenge Sinclair's licenses for those stations. Obviously they are
not a neutral provider of services acting in the public interest.
The fact that Odom felt compelled to speak out is
enormously significant. Even former Directors of the NSA keep a low public
profile and try not to draw attention to themselves. They are not political
operatives. I take it as a sign that the flag rankers, unable to get the
neocons and chickenhawks to listen, are now starting to take their case
directly to the public. This is not the done thing, but when faced with a
series of blunders and miscalculations of this magnitude and in the light of
their greater responsibility to the nation, they obviously feel that they
have no choice.
Sincerely, Francis Hamit
Perhaps. But the situation is not irretrievable,
and neither major candidate for office has given any hint of wavering: we're
in Iraq to stay. Given that, the question becomes what do we do now. And the
following is relevant:
Subject: Taking Chance Home
http://www.blackfive.net/main/2004/04/taking_chance.html
--- Roland Dobbins
If blood be the price of admiralty, lord God we ha'
paid it in full.
Subject: Would you buy a used war from this man?
"...Mr. Kerry's assurance that he will not cut and run
from Iraq..." is, based on his record, no assurance at all.
Greg Hemsath
=======================================================
On another subject
Subject: Real Science used in Slashdot 'Global
Warming' discussion
In a Slashdot discussion
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/28/1539238&mode=thread&tid=134&tid=146&tid=99
which praised the new NAS Museum in Washington City
http://www.koshland-science-museum.org/
the debate, inevitably, turned to 'global warming'.
One chap actually (gasp) did some calculation, went
back to source documents, and found the CO2 buildup *lags* behind oceanic
warming. He therefore posited that atmospheric CO2 concentrations are likely
not a cause of whatever's going on.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=105698&cid=9000722
===== -- John Bartley K7AAY http://celdata.cjb.net
http://livejournal.com/users/clackablog "Clearly, latrines are the forgotten
Last Amenity of the Apocalypse. (Other signs.. Michael Jackson as your Best
Man (?), Christina Aguilara as your makeup consultant & Cher as your
personal shopper.) - ginmar
=================================
Subject: Forma Urbis Romae
http://formaurbis.stanford.edu/index.html
--- Roland Dobbins
===============================
Subject: Government - FCC fines for informal complaint
It seems the government need nothing more than an
informal complaint to fine broadcasters now
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/South/04/28/castro.prank.reut/index.html
The last line is the most telling.
Long time reader and Byte subscriber (mostly just so I
can read CHAOS MANOR)
Thanks Dave Krecklow
Rules are rules, you know. When a stupid man is
doing something he knows is wrong, he always insists that it is his duty.
=====================
Rod McFadden sends this story of the Sea Scouts in
action:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/04/29/national/main614644.shtml
==============================
=========================
And sometimes I wonder just
who reads this page. Or maybe I know.
Subject: Garrison troops.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=
story&cid=1521&u=/afp/20040429/pl_
afp/us_military_foreign_040429194831&printer=1
- Roland Dobbins
If we are to continue our overseas adventures, this
is certainly a necessary step.
===============================
Subject: Sun Rise, Sun Set
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/Business
/SiliconInsider/SiliconInsider.html
Roland Dobbins
=====================
Subject: A DNA Computer for internal
drug delivery
Science fiction coming true?
Wired reports at http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,63265,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_8
"Scientists program the world's smallest computer, made of DNA molecules, to
detect and treat prostate cancer. They hope the mini machine will one day be
administered as a drug, where it could search for and combat disease in
every cell."
I'd vote for the DNA computer as an alternative to the
current "digital examination process".
Rick Hellewell
Wow. Me too! That's the one that will get you in
the end. As my friend Poul Anderson used to say.
==================================
More on the
Language Schools
Subject: DLI/Army Language School personal experience
Hi Jerry,
I studied German for 8 months in 1975 at the Defese
Language Institue in Monterey, California. At the time, in the post-Vietnam
era (I was at DLI when the war came to it's' final end in April of 1975), we
had high quality people studying in all of the langauges there, despite the
disparaging commetns made by one of your corresponents who was there at
about the same time.
I recall being pleasantly surprised by the level of
intelligence, learning and humanity among the students AND the instructors.
At the time the concentration was on European and East
Asian languages. I know Arabic was taught, but it may have been a tthe East
Coast DLI, rather than Monterey.
The technique used for German (and Russian, which a
girlfriend at the time was studying, so I got an insider's view of that
program also) was not quite total immersion, but for the six hours of daily
classes no English would be spoken unless desperately needed ("I gotta go to
the latrine/head NOW, sir!"), and we would often sit about the barracks
(which were more like college dorm's) and "immerse" ourselves in the
language.
I think your earlier correspondent slightly (!)
underestimates the sense of duty (and self-respect) the typical
soldier/sailor/marine/Coast Guardsman/airman had at the time, not to mention
today. We were all volunteers, we all wanted to elarn the langauge, we all
wanted to go on and do the job we had signed up for, and we all knew that if
we flunked out we would get a quick trip across the bay to Ft. Ord for a
quick tour at either Truck Driver or Cook's School. (if you really pissed a
company clerk off, though, they might cut your orders for Mortar Baseplate
Bearer School at Ft. Polk in Louisiana. Happened to one poor slob who
flunked MI school).
I think today you could find similar young men/women
who would sign up for similar jobs in the "meatgrinder" (using that phrase I
think is a clue to the worldview of the user) of Iraq, whether as linguists
or as Military Government types.
I never heard the term "Monterey Mary" in three years
of Army service, and I was in MI, where nearly everyone had been to one of
the language schools. Maybe the term was something that was used during the
Vietnam War draft era and was lost quickly when that ended. Considering that
in my section of 8 students we had one navy SEAL and an Air Force fighter
pilot who was the toughest and nicest "Polack" I ever knew (his family had
fled Hitler, and refused to return to a communist Poland), and a former
Marine combat veteran (who for some reason became a soldier?), it would have
been "interesting" to see what would have happened had some clown called one
of us that. I doubt it would have gone down well...
Take care, be well, and keep writing!
Kim Owen Smith amparion@sbcglobal.net
The German instructors were fascinating, most of them
had lived through the Second World War, and the male ones of that age had
all served in the Wehrmacht. One instructor had been the Luftwaffe
Intelligence chief for the entire Eastern Front for the last two years or so
of the war. Another had been in the Gross Deutschland division (an elite
formation, roughly on a par with the Big Red One), fought at Kursk in July
of 1943, then was assigned to the "Wacht Battallione" (an elite unit within
an elite unit, detailed to ceremonial guard duty in Berlin), and served
there right up until the Russians shot him in the ass in Berlin in May of
1945. He was still pretty pissed at the Russian after thirty years, as I
recall,
and
Subject: You were righter than pehaps you knew - need
Army Language Schools as distinct from the Defence Language Institute -
DLI comes with a great deal of intelligence baggage
(clearances for students and instructors and concerns for identification and
simple face recognition in after years and what to do with folks who wash
out after clearance) and does not share priorities with serving Infantry,
Artillery and Armor branches. Fighting the last war again. Berlitz would be
better than ignorance.
For what it's worth notice the number of serving army
types who find their common language with Iragi contacts is Russian.
Clark Myers
Indeed.
=========================
On Diversity
As part of a discussion in another place of Tom
Sowell's latest works on the actual effects of affirmative action and
diversity action, I got this from a correspondent:
1) No one *really* believes in the fundamental credo,
except for a small minority of fanatics with the power of the state behind
them. Even those who mouth lip service and *kinda* believe in "diversity"
don't keep their kids in Harlem's schools. Like the mini-entrepreneurs in
Russia or Sailer's recent NoCal vs. SoCal comparison, they talk left and
live right.
2) The ideological credo is increasingly discredited
by popular events. 9/11 was a *big* break in that it suddenly became
possible to criticize Muslims. Madrid contributed to that. From Muslims --->
immigration is becoming a legitimate topic for criticism. Holland has pulled
a U-turn. France and Britain will see big gains for the National Front and
the BNP.
which struck me as having a predictive value. And
elicited this comment from another participant
It is an awful thing to say, but it may be that
a gross US failure in Iraq could help tip the balance.
The working premise of the Wilsonians in the admin is:
Iraqis are really just Americans in fancy dress. They want democracy and a
constitution! Just like us!
This doctrine has obvious theoretical connections with
the "diversity" and "multiculturalism" ideologies -- We are all the same
under the skin!
Well, perhaps we are and perhaps we aren't; but if it
dawns on Americans that for Arabs, the humiliation and killing of their
enemies is priority No.1, while law and constitutionalism are priority No.
27,849, another great wedge will have been driven into the diversity/multiculti
rock.
You will all recall my screed on the assumptions on
the nature of man involved in the President's speech.
And then this comment:
I agree with this argument. I've been noting all sorts
of shocked reactions by both liberals and neoconservatives to the events in
Iraq. The events there are definitely a challenge to their worldviews. There
are even Guardian articles which show recognition that the Iraqis are not
like Guardian readers in ways that are really important. The Iraq invasion
and occupation may be worth the money for the educational value alone.
Imagine what fantasies that Krauthammer and Wolfowitz would still be
spinning and believing and convincing others of without the events of recent
months.
So every cloud has a silver lining?
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