GALE Force – The Winds of Change
Dr. Tony Tether, Director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), recently testified before Congress on the need to fund his agency’s FY 2009 budget. In his testimony, Dr Tether outlined to the House Armed Services Committee the need to continue funding projects such as the Global Autonomous Language Exploitation (GALE), a translation system that will automatically translate Arabic into English in real time.
What makes Dr. Tether’s testimony so compelling is his rational for funding this multi-million dollar technology. According to Dr. Tether, “At the tactical level, there are not enough translators for each patrol or vehicle checkpoint.” In other words, there are not enough Arabic linguists in the military to guard critical checkpoints and the result is our men and women in uniform are left increasingly without the means to effectively communicate with Iraqis or Afghans. This is rather remarkable.
In the past five years the military has discharged more than fifty-eight Arabic linguists under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Are fifty-eight Arabic linguists enough to relieve Dr. Tether and his team of the need to continue researching automated transcription? Maybe not. But Dr. Tether’s testimony exposes another danger “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” is inflicting on our military.
Yes, we must continue to research and develop technologies, like GALE, but we must also recognize the urgent need for human intelligence gathering, and the loss America’s armed forces incur when highly trained men and women are discharged from the military for no other reason than they are gay. “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ is hurting America’s ability to fight the global war on terror and until we are ready to replace all translators with machines, let’s get on with repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Clearly, our country benefits from having these trained men and women fighting for our side.
It’s time to give common sense a chance.
-Aubrey SarvisLabels: linguists
-----05-13-08
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