It's been five years since 9/11, and the FBI has only 33 -- out of 12,000 -- agents who have even a limited proficiency in Arabic. The bureau relies on translators and linguists for that skill, according to the Washington Post, but questions have been raised about how efficient and reliable that practice is.
The numbers are similar when it comes to Urdu, Farsi and other languages of the Middle East. And other government agencies, such as the CIA and the Bureau of Prisons, are in the same boat. Example:
Three terrorists held in a Colorado prison were able to send some 90 letters to comrades overseas before officials caught on.
Americans have always lagged when it comes to multilingualism, for reasons that run a gamut from indifference and sloth to our national superiority complex. That failure has always been a problem, and now it may be putting us in greater danger.
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