Arabic Linguist Firings
This is old news, but something that I wondered about when it came out (no pun originally intended.) Recently the Daily Show did a bit about it which you can see now on YouTube.
Why are/were so many of the military’s Arabic linguists gay? This MSN article says that around 20 linguists were fired for being gay. Is the percentage of gay men in the military somehow higher in their linguists unit? Why is that? Does anyone else think it’s strange? My conspiracy theorist brain says that the military wants to keep as much misinformation going as they can and keeping skilled linguists out (by whatever means) is one way to do it. (Interestingly, a few Farsi translators were also fired.)
Anyone have any other info on this?
When I worked in the DoD I knew some of the translators. I wasnt aware of them being gay, but then again in such an environment, that wouldnt be unusual.
I would think they might have a hard time keeping them anyway as the pay for a linguist is much higher in the private sector, however, given the poor state of the military linguistic programs, especially with Arabic, they might not last long in the private sector.
Aren’t all people who study things like languages instead of football gay? Just kidding.
I think that a lot of people are dismissed from the military for being gay (thousands per year). The linguists make the news because our government is already so understaffed in Arabic, Farsi and other Middle Eastern languages that to fire a couple dozen of them because they don’t fall in love with the right kind of people is downright treasonous. And just to back up some stupid bigotry.
Alas. We can’t just blame Bush for this one.
:-P I guess you’re right, the other dismissals might not make the news as often. I’ll have to read some more..
FYI, there were 742 Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell casualties in the military in 2005. Up from 668 in 2004. That must be because the Iraq war is going so much better that we can afford to worry about such crap.