The price of everything and the value of nothing
This story decrying the plight of interpreters abandoned by the withdrawing British Army in Southern Iraq is aimed at pointing a moral gun at Western politician's hearts with its heart-rending stories. But how effective are moral arguments -- really -- when it comes to politicians, so let's pose the question another way. How much will it cost the British defense establishment to throw these interpreters away?
In a war where information warfare and intelligence is as important, if not more important, than manufactured combat hardware how much money is the British Army/Coalition throwing away by essentially abandoning these interpreters to a fugitive existence or painful death? What metrics can be used to estimate the dollar value of what is being thrown over the side. The first is replacement value. If Britain had to reinvade Iraq or part of the Middle East for whatever reason in the near future, how much time and effort would it cost to reproduce this cadre of interpreters? Unless Western forces of the future are expected to fight without interpreters, how can this vital capability be regenerated rapidly again? They can measure that from how much and how long it took the last time, adjusted for inflation. And to it they should allow for a premium prospective interpreters are certain to demand as insurance against a second abandonment. A first betrayal radically tilts the odds in favor of a second. Accountants understand the effects of premiums on defaulting borrowers. They will understand that.
A second set of costs might be how much intelligence and propaganda mileage Britain's potential enemies will gain from torturing information from the abandoned interpreters, putting them on display before the media or forcing them into counterintelligence tasks. In this case the loss is must be counted more than once. Not only must money be found to pay for a replacement interpreter network but counter-intel assets must be emplaced to protect against fluent English speakers, familiar with the ways of the British Army now in the enemy employ. It's a little bit like demolition and cleanup costs that must be incurred before building a new house to replace the old one that was freshly constructed before it was abandoned.
Other costing methods may occur to accountants. And so they should. Costs on the credibility of future action, the effect on the "loss of prestige". Dollars and cents. Ka-chink. Ka-ching. Money is the language of politcians, the media and too many of us. Money is something Whitehall and even Brussels might understand. But pointing a moral gun at the heart of politicians is worse than useless. As Captain Renault in Casablance said, "that is my least vulnerable spot."
posted by wretchardthecat at 8/14/2007 02:16:00 AM
40 Comments:
Unfortunately, too many on the left consider these interpreters as traitors as well.
They let Muslim Trash and future Jihadis in freely, and do this to these people.
A sane, moral policy would give them free travel and citizenship in Britain or the US.
Allow me to repeat:
Their not being very smart and half-assed cunning gets people, always not them, killed by the millions; a fact they glide by without glimmer of recognition. They are not very smart...and they are not moral, which is the essence of their evil.
Added a little emphasis as to who winds up dead.
The United States (especially our military) should hire any Arabic translator with a past history of work for the British military.
Bajazed II sent a navy to Spain to ferry expelled Jews to the Ottoman Empire; the United States need not go even that far to gain the employ of some excellent translators.
How can you call Ferdinand of Aragon a wise king, the same Ferdinand who impoverished his own kingdom and enriched ours?
-- Bajazet II, in reference to welcoming Jews expelled from Spain
Was there a promise of sanctuary when these guys first signed on? I don't recall ever having heard that until the last 3 to 6 months.
What I *do* remember reading is that they were doing it for the money, it was a well-paying job and they were thankful to get it.
Oddly enough, the longer the interpreters worked with the Americans and the British, the more familiar they became with life outside of Iraq with unlimited cigarettes and air conditioning, the more we started seeing a moral insistance that "You *owe* me!!!" This over and above whatever their wage scale has been, and presumably the money they have been paid in return for their efforts.
For me, I'd rather see these interpreters coming to the West than Somali refugees and Pakistani's and the other Arab/Muslims that have been swarming us in the last decade or so and are causing so much trouble.
I'd institute a rule that an interpreter must have at least one military sponsor who had worked with him, and would be responsible for him as a new citizen in his new country. This military sponsor would be expected to watch for un-American or un-British) behavior like spouting Sharia law, beating his wife, or stealing copper wiring from construction sites. And then smack him upside the head and say, "We don't DO that here!"
AND we'd have to have some really serious discussions on who the interpreter is allowed to bring along with him, so that we're not getting extended families of 50 people coming along for the free ride.
But I hate the emotional/moral blackmail that they're attempting trying to wiggle their way in when they haven't been invited.
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It is immaterial. Britan will never again fight a foregn war. All resources are currently being devoted to maintain domestic support, while the military is being largely cutback to form a coastal defense. Pathetic end to a once great civilizing force.
These 'traitors' would certainly be useful to the CIA here in the US, you think?
imho a moral argument like this is aimed at a housewife or casual observer rather than a politician.
These folk vote.
The strategy for the democrats in the USA is to force bush to lose the war and then blame the war's loss on the republicans.
this strategy is further along in Great Britian.
Doug said...
They let Muslim Trash and future Jihadis in freely, and do this to these people.
A sane, moral policy would give them free travel and citizenship in Britain or the US.
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I want all emigration from the middle east Moslem countries stopped.
These folks have promised to deliver unending trouble forever to the USA.
There is not upside to their presence in the USA. Slam the door shut to more Moslems coming to the USA forever.
"There is no upside to their presence.."
Israelis are coming to a similar realization.
I still dip into Iraqi-written logs occasionally to see if they've found anything new to whine about. Three of the four that I currently read are spending great amounts of time on how very badly Jordan is treating the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi's trying to swarm into their country. And in fact, it seems that no one in the whole Middle East is eager to welcome even "well-educated" Iraqi's with their life savings of bribes carried with them.
These Iraqi's have come to a stunning conclusion that very possibly no one in the whole entire world sees them as human or as salvageable. They are amazed, in their victimhood, that they've managed to get themselves such a rep in the last few years.
THey see themselves as victims escaping an intolerable situation, and evidently all their neighbors see them as lazy do-nothings who at a minimum harbor terrorists and at a maximum may very well be car bombers, face-cutter-offers, or paper-shredder-feeders their very own selves.
I guess they've worn out their welcome in the Middle East, and like so many other Muslim "victims" have determined that their brand of self-righteous blood-shed can best be imported to Britain, America or Australia. And, they've plunked on the best possible way to accomplish that: putting their teary Queen for a Day stories out for a gullible media to snap up, when it really doesn't want to write aboout the latest victories of Allied forces.
For some reason Wretchard seems to also be pushing the translators' side. I wonder why.
There is a term that is used in reference to the supposed anti-war crowd in the current fight, they're called leeches. This is defined as living off of the benefits of someone else while castigating the source of their benefits. One could say that of those who employed the Gurkas and argued against their inclusion into the society that the Gurkas put their ass on the line for. In the current fight we evidently have another bunch of suckers that we can use up and throw away all the while decrying the avarice and venality of their attempts to exist as they save the lives of our young warriors who BTW, would probably sponsor them in a heartbeat. Good thing that we're as pure as we are, we might be called the l-word. BTW II, the Montaignards love us too.
If they have no intention of returning, most of these costs are sunk costs. There is, however, a bargain on offer to either the Americans or to the British themselves. We have a population of people who remain after the intensive screening that several years of direct contact can provide. These people know the British, they can relate and get along, and they have probably made dangerous enemies with members of their own society. If they desire to come to the West, as Hammer would, just themselves and immediate family, then they have been further screened at low expense. In Britain they will help dilute the radicalism of the British Muslim population. They know what the enemy is like and they could also help separate the sheep from the goats in Londonistan.
The chance to use them for these purposes would be a wasted opportunity. A politician who was willing to champion their cause could pick up a some new political support as well.
Wretchard --
Britain has already chosen to SURRENDER so it doesn't matter.
British workers have been forbidden from eating at their desks and lunch trolleys banned because Muslims at Ramadan threaten violence.
Britain is no more capable of fighting than the inhabitants of a convalescent home. Maybe less so. Unless or until the BNP or similar unsavory organization takes power. If that ever happens. Which is possible but at this stage unlikely.
Most Britons who can are fleeing. The Navy and RAF and Army are jokes. They won't exist in a few years and I'm sure some poor Muslim countries in North Africa will simply colonize them along with Spain or Portugal. Backed by Iranian nukes. Brown or his ilk would certainly surrender.
Fundamentally, the Left does not want to preserve Western Civilization but destroy it.
Gay advocates know that overt expression of homosexuality will be punished by death, but Muslim rule will take most men out of the marriage market and force them into substitution, particularly with pornography forbidden. A nation of prison-sex in other words. A huge win for Gays and it explains their backing Muslim Sharia attempts.
Feminists of course view (probably correctly) middle class monogamous marriage a drain on women, and want to replace it with polygamy with powerful men. For them Sharia while inconvenient in dress and other freedoms offers a huge plus in the most important objective: sex and money from powerful men. This is why Feminists support Sharia Law and Islamist aggression. Well along with the undeniable fact that fighting Islamist aggression would move power from Feminists to soldiers.
The Left wants a feudal social hierarchy. Something like Castro's hereditary regime, with opportunities for "revolutionary violence" i.e. brutal killing for it's own sake unconstrained by any morals or standards. Not the least of which is the opportunities to seize property and become princelings. Fisk and TE Lawrence writing about their meetings with Osama and Faisal respectively might have well been describing the same event and man. The model for Leftists of society is a Pride of Lions, each young lion circling the aging lion waiting for his chance to drive off or kill the old one and seize all the females and resources.
Against this coalition of Leftists/Media/University people, Feminists, Gays there are unorganized and intimidated ordinary people. Who have been deliberately excluded from government, media, and politics. In European countries they have the choice of fleeing or turning to the only alternative: rightist politics.
But clearly Britain surrendered a long time ago. They won't fight so the sunk cost has already been written off.
So when Rick leaves Casablanca with the good Captain for vacation, what do you think really happened?
There are so many examples, even here in American history, of what happens when you keep people stupid, when you control their education, life support systems, etc.
I often wonder what "game plan" our American government is now employing toward this war on terror, and in particular Iraq (and let's not forget dear Afghanistan too)?
How far from those original plans are we trying to operate today? How many lives have been lost and forever damaged?
Now our good General tries to create a victory from the bottom up (grass roots), hoping that somewhere will come natural Iraqi leaders who will "rapidly" work their way to the central government, replacing "generation one" Iraqi, so called leaders.
Will America's elected leaders give him the time for this dream to become reality, if it ever could?
And over there in Afghanistan, will the game play out with those who want real government versus those who know the drug trade is their key to survival?
Will the Iranians and others receive Iraqi oil before Americans?
American blood and treasure are being spent at a fast clip, no?
Is it possible that Clooney's movie Syriana may contain some kernels of truth after all?
Will Americans be given the chance to really understand those dynamics that have been at play in the Middle East and those realities that have been in existence for centuries withing the Islamic religion?
Does maintaining a breeding stock have anything to do with this game of terror? Excess males need to find something to do, right?
Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?
Haven't we all heard this line before?
Where is the truth for these matters? How will I know it when I see and hear it?
The Red Coats are leaving, just like Elvis, and now Karl Rove.
Who's to turn out the lights?
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r,
I just put up a bunch of links re Afghanistan/Pakistan in the previous thread.
Pakistan President Seeks Mainstream Taliban
What's next? Calls for a politically mainstreamed Al-Qaeda?
This illustrates how imperative it is for America to remember why they are at war and with whom. What is the next step after America's tolerance of the
September 5, 2006 Waziristan Accord, and yesterday's calls by President Musharraf for a
mainstreamed Taliban?
American acceptance of the Taliban as a political ideology?
Or is the Taliban the enemy, based on the Taliban's role in the 9/11 attacks and enemy status of such groups as defined by the AUMF ?
Much of the challenge comes back to war strategy and definition of the enemy. Who is America fighting and why?
On July 15, 2007, the New York Times reported that "United States plans to pour $750 million in aid into Pakistan's tribal areas over the next five years as part of a 'hearts and minds' campaign to win over the lawless region from Al Qaeda and Taliban militants." What hearts and minds, specifically?
Pro-Taliban?
Because, as President Musharraf claims, that the "Taliban are a part of Afghan society"?
R --
The Peace Movement is made up of mostly middle aged white women with no sons in the all-volunteer military.
This is about POWER. Fighting, any fighting at all, against any enemy shifts power from Gays, Women, various minority groups, and of course elitists to Joe Average.
Heck the money spent on both Afghanistan and Iraq is almost nothing, historically speaking. In WWII 40% of GDP was spent, around 15% in the 50s, around 8-9% in the 1960s, around 5% in the 1970's, around 6% in the 1980's, and around 3% in the 1990's. The 2003 figures show 3.7%
NEVER has US military spending per GDP been so low in the Post-WWII period.
If anything we are spending too little. Because power would shift away from the liberal interest groups.
Clooney's Syriana as a product of a Hollywood elite A-Lister who loathes/hates/fears the average person recommended a surrender to Sharia demands from Muslims instead of fighting against Terror. Because fighting is evil and wrong (because average guys rise up in power and influence), except of course when Muslims fly planes into buildings or drive on fire into airports screaming Allah! Allah!
The society that George Clooney would want and the society that Osama bin Laden would want are not that far apart. They are broadly compatible with each other not the least of which is the restriction of the average guy.
This is all about power: elites who know defending the nation would require them to give power up so would rather submit to Islamists. After all both Clooney and Osama share the same enemy: the average guy in America.
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$150 million USD per year for the Taliban, for the next five years.
$220 million USD for Iran in 2007 and $870 Million over the next four years, '08-'11, via the US funded World Bank.
So, tell US, jingoistic drum beaters, who is the "war" against, again?
That is, what, almost $370 million USD per year to subsidize various forms of jihad, budgeted for the next four years since as we all know,
MONEY IF FUNGIBLE
As if 100,000 missing weapons in Iraq were not enough, now we're just going to send the Enemy cash. Gotta luv it.
It seems to be true. I have had several conversations with Europeans vacationing in the U.S.A. recently and I asked them about the "Muslim" problem.
I spoke with a couple of Nederlanders and they stated native emmigration last year is higher than ever and has been on the rise for some time. I asked them if the trend meant those people who won their land from the sea are unwilling to take it back from the "Muslims" they invited in. I wanted to ask them if their testes had shrunk.
They told me the European problem is bad because these "Muslims" were invited in to perform jobs Europeans were unwilling to do. They mentioned illegal immigration. I liked the irony sine illegal immigration is such a big issue here in U.S.A.
The Euros said U.S.A is better off because the Muslims there are better educated, assimilate better, are more moderate and seem to appreciate the peace and freedom of U.S.A. There are exceptions, there always are.
I wonder if these Europeans are not really on vacation but doing a reconaissance for immigration.
Good comments everyone!
Salaam eleikum!
dRat,
Business is business! Now, if you were smart enough to figure out the business angle, then there'd be a reason to worry.
R - since all of your posts are invariably nothing but navel-gazing questions, can we assume that you are a know-nothing and disregard everything you post?
* * *
Redneck - one other difference between Americans and Yurps and our treatment of the "Muslim" problem is that we're each individally armed and fully capable of shooting back at someone trying to behead us. I wonder if your Nederlanders had contemplated that fact of life as part of the equation, too.
Desert Rat -- paying factions of your enemies is an old and effective practice. The only question is what is the money buying in terms of access and information?
I would have no objection to paying Ahamdinejad himself a billion if it got us information we knew was solid.
Redneck -- I suspect the key difference in Europe and America's response to immigration is that the elites have total control in Europe whereas here in America Talk Radio, blogs, and grass-roots organizations have an effect. La Raza talk of Reconquista and "Whites go back to Europe" provokes a fight instead of a surrender because the elites do not have total control.
People take them at their word and react accordingly.
Dearbornistan and other Muslim enclaves are dangerous, not the least of which is the pandering to anti-Semitic, anti-American sentiment, along with outright support for terrorism (Cair is an unindicted co-conspirator of Hamas). ACLU surrenders on footbaths, other special treatment for Muslims (including korans in a toilet as a hate crime because Muslim police demanded it) are troubling. As is the Intifada Madrassa in NYC. Both indicate aggressive surrenders to Muslims by elites.
However the scale of the US and the large strain of populism un-associated with fascism remains a safety-check on elite agendas. I suspect that is the key difference. Short of violent revolution for ugly nationalist parties there is nothing to be done to stop the Islamic takeover of Britain, Netherlands, and Sweden. Denmark, France, and Germany may fight. Italy and Spain and Portugal are of course sitting ducks for outright territorial annexation and I expect it soon.
Tens of thousands of millions of dollars disappeared down ratholes in Iraq - under Saddam - and under the US occupation. The schmoozers always leech off the rulers.
The US was a dumb golem not only for the neocons, but for all the "dealers" in Iraq that promised all sorts of deliverables then failed to deliver as bales of American taxpayer 100 dollar bills (cost is no object, Dubya & Co.)and Iraqi oil revenues disappeared down ratholes.
Now the same vermin want UK or USA passports for them and hundreds in their tribes to complete the fraud.
They didn't help us win, now they want to pour millions of useless or downright dangerous Muslim masses into the West because "we Americans lost" the war they chose not to risk and fight for themselves.
It's pure emotional backmail.
There is a case to be made for letting vetted Arabic interpreters who hate radical Islam and their immediate families in.
The rest of the parasites or those who spent years killing us? Let them rot in a Jordanian desert or if like Chalabi and other mega-millionaire con artists/exiles - let them bribe their way in to some other schmuck country with all those bales of 100 dollar bills and oil revenue diversion into Swiss bank accounts.
And, it's times like this that it is sort of a shame that we can't be a little like Stalin and line up all the Neocons and Open Borders globalists that have betrayed the country against a wall, shoot them, and be done with them.
And as for refugee status for all the noble purple-fingered democracy hungry freedom lovers in the Irqi Gov't who just spent their vacations trying to get refugee Visas in case the Surge fails?
Fuck them.
I'd love to shoot their freedom-loving asses myself and make Bush watch.
Seize back their millions in US taxpayer money.
Then appoint military strongmen to cleanse, then rule the 3 parts of Iraq.
nahncee, I see that you have taken a serious "shot" at my posts, at me...
You're the kind of person who sits there and tries to mesmerize all who listen with your brilliance, right? Right!
And you know that I am the kind of person who comes in with the knife to cut right through your bullshit!
I ran across your kind of arrogance decades ago. When rendered, you are a coward; always expecting someone else to do the fighting for your protection and personal needs.
Leave me alone, you don't want the picture of reality I sense you fear.
My navel does just fine without your nitpicking!
Sorority girls punctuate with exclamation points. I guess they're marginally better than question marks.
I think many will know I speak the truth in saying that in dangerous enterprises money counts for something but not for everything. People will go only so far for money. They will go much further for personal loyalty, shame, friendship and belief.
Consider the US Armed forces. Does anyone actually believe that people will risk their lives for the pay? I don't doubt that some interpreters did it entirely for the money, and that, as Nahncee argues, we are quits. Interpeting paid, but crime would have paid better, and in Iraq at least, there's a future in it.
A plain understanding of universal human nature should suggest that there must have been some people who sincerely hated Saddam; who wanted nothing to do with radical Islamism and who signed up, as employees its true, but volunteers too. It's not entirely true to think that armies consist of poor men paid to stop bullets the way busboys are paid to wait tables. It demeans their actual intent.
What a strange world that remembers the infamy of the day-laborer and forgets the infamy of Judas.
Wretchard,
I'm sad for you. It isn't often that my opinion of people falls on the basis of their comments here, but it's happened here today for some of your commenters.
It is a strange world, but it's because--all protestations notwithstanding--way too many of us have bought into the emotional structure of postmodernism, regardless of political posture. The artless essay urging a decent foreign policy or appealing to 'a plain understanding of universal human nature' doesn't elicit anything any more except a cynical sneer from way too many. It's not that we're all Keynsians, we're all tribalists now, apparently. To see the infamy of Judas requires a guileless acceptance of some universal moral standard, whereas the infamy of the day laborer requires only hypocrisy and self interest.
I read the interpreter's interview you linked to a few posts back and was reminded of my old business partner, an ethnic Chinese from Saigon who helped the Americans and was able to come to the U.S. as a college student. There isn't a more loyal American around. When I read the dismissive comments about the Iraqis (all of them, done in a broad brush) I see his face. I am disgusted.
Ed said...
I read the interpreter's interview you linked to a few posts back and was reminded of my old business partner, an ethnic Chinese from Saigon who helped the Americans and was able to come to the U.S. as a college student. There isn't a more loyal American around. When I read the dismissive comments about the Iraqis (all of them, done in a broad brush) I see his face. I am disgusted.
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I live inside the beltway of washington dc. Most of the whites left Washington DC after WWII when the blacks moved in. They moved to the burbs. When the vietnamese came out of vietnam the non white population inside the beltway of washington dc was 5%. Now its 45% and rising. In the grade schools the nonwhite population is 55% and rising. The nonwhite population is mostly foreign. They'll be the majority in under 10 years. You can see whole neighborhoods change in two years. Typically there's a tipping point and then things happen quickly.
This sort of thing is happening all over the country.
A couple of salient points are in order, the first is that the Europeans came to a balkanized country and established a predominate legal system with a central language and a bunch of different cultures (Spanish, Amerind et al. and British). We've never been a homogeneous culture but we've been an organized culture. We've also paid people for their relative worth, e.g. the foreign person, who comes to these shores on a visitors non-work visa and enlists in the armed forces, after his enlistment is accomplished in an honorable manner is considered for citizenship. Today they are being sworn in in situ on the battlefield. The relative value of the interpreters is no less than theirs. As long as assimilation is a functioning process the interpreters should be welcome.
Wretchard,
I am so vhemently against open borders and illegal immigration because of the corruption, exploitation and dehumanization of the illegals by the coyotes and their employers.
As for day laborers, I have actually lived that life for a few weeks. What an enlightening an edifying experience it was! I admired the work ethic of the legal immigrants who made mistakes that they paid for and continue to pay for, like dui, assault, domestic violence and drug offenses. They are on parole and convicted felons. They are desparate and can only be exploited and underpaid.
This drives the wages down for workers who did not make mistakes like that or were not caught. Most of that group (non immigrants of all ethnic groups) are drunks and druggies. The day labor halls love to hire them because, if they get hurt on the job, they can not qualify for workman's comp because they fail blood alcohol or drug tests.
Others who commented,
Thank The Most High we have the Second Ammendment!
Salaam eleikum!
Mike H. said...
As long as assimilation is a functioning process the interpreters should be welcome.
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Assimilation is mostly what's not happening today in the USA today. You can go to a lot of neighborhoods in the DC area today and there are not enough americans around to assimiliate into. Rather, Americans in many neighborhoods in the DC area are about like Mark Twain's Injun Joe.
Something from another era.
A plain understanding of universal human nature should suggest that there must have been some people who sincerely hated Saddam; who wanted nothing to do with radical Islamism and who signed up, as employees its true, but volunteers too.
The problem is, it's impossible to tell the difference until they're here and showing their true colors. That is why I'm advocating a military sponsor who knows them. Obviously, the church sponsors who bring in all the Laotians and Micronesians, and Pakistani's and Somali's have *not* been helpful in weeding out the murderous and/or anti-Americans they so helpfully opened a door to our country for.
Read Michael Totten's latest, too, where he talks about the craziness of Iraq and the people there ... and then ask yourself again if you *really* want to bring too many of them here to be ours (or your) neighbors.
Ed,
A fool learns from his mistakes. A wise man learns from fools. See my 10:28:00 AM, and don't be a fool.
Metuselah,
Saw 1028 post. Google and study d-n-i.net. Very interesting perspectives. Wrethard has link as well.
Salaam eleikum.
Crazy Majnoun,
Best google genus 'Melanocetus'. You be much closer to reality.
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