'Combat Linguists' Battle on Two Fronts -LAT

[Rose Siding]

Interpreters, some U.S. citizens, face not just Iraqi insurgents but suspicious GIs as well.

snip>
During basic training at Ft. Jackson, S.C., scores of foreign-born recruits are warned that their backgrounds make them targets for Iraqi extremists who view them as traitors. But nobody warns them about the soldiers they're sent to assist.

In Iraq, some interpreters said, soldiers mocked their Arabic surnames and accused them of being "on the wrong side" of the conflict. Suspicious of his accent and dark features, some soldiers disdainfully labeled Tarik a hajji, a term of respect among Muslims that many American soldiers use with scorn.
...
"I don't care what you think of me," he recalled telling fellow soldiers after arriving in Baghdad in April 2004. "I'm wearing this uniform. I'm just as much of an American soldier as you are."
...
Although the need for native Arabic-speaking soldiers appears limitless in Iraq, let alone the rest of the Middle East, only 65 recruits have graduated from the 17-week program. Officials plan to send 100 more in the next year.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-interpret5jun05,0,6844885.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[DeepModem Mom]

1. What's that expression -- "cutting off your nose to spite your face"?

We can't afford this kind of stuff, when we need translators, and friends, from Arabic backgrounds.