|
Bush sez Arab TV gives wrong impression of the US
President George W. Bush complained on Thursday that Arabic television often gave a false impression of the United States, saying Americans needed to do a better job of communicating their ideals.Launching a National Security Language Initiative to boost the teaching of foreign languages, Bush said it was a way to help combat the notion that the United States was bullying in imposing its concept of freedom. "You can't convince people unless you can talk to them," Bush told a State Department audience. The language initiative, which aims to boost learning of Russian, Chinese, Hindi, Farsi, Arabic and other languages, was part of a strategic plan to protect the United States and spread democracy, Bush said. "You can't figure out America when you're looking on some of these TV stations -- you just can't -- particularly given the message that they spread," he said. "Arabic TV does not do our country justice." "They ... sometimes put out propaganda that just isn't right, it isn't fair, and it doesn't give people the impression of what we're about." State Department officials said the aim of the plan was to to get children involved in learning foreign languages from kindergarten and to fund more programs through university-level and beyond. Assistant Secretary of State Barry Lowenkron expressed hope that it would "ramp up the mastery of these critical languages, not solely for national security reasons but also in terms of America's standing in the world." The White House will ask Congress for $114 million in the 2007 budget to initiate the plan, involving a number of agencies including the education and defense Departments. "We view this as serious seed money to get this thing launched," said Lowenkron. Some of the money would be used directly to fund teaching in schools and some for more advanced learning abroad. Especially since the Sept. 11 attacks, the Pentagon, CIA and other agencies have bemoaned a shortage of experts in Arabic and other "exotic languages," particularly for translating security information. "We need intelligence officers who, when somebody says something in Arabic or Farsi or Urdu, know what they're talking about," Bush said. Memories are still fresh of two messages intercepted from suspected members of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network on Sept. 10, 2001, that said, "Tomorrow is zero hour," and "The match begins tomorrow." They were translated on Sept. 11 and only given to policy-makers on Sept. 12. Lowenkron said fewer than two percent of high school students in the United States studied Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Farsi, Urdu, Korean, or Japanese. In a separate program, the Pentagon said it intended to spend $750 million over five years beginning in fiscal 2007, which starts Oct. 1, on efforts to increase foreign language proficiency within the military. U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan have been complicated by the fact that nearly all the U.S. personnel serving there do not speak or understand the local languages. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-01-06 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=139132 |