You're going into a hostile environment full of strange, alien beings you have never seen before. Okay, you've never wanted to see them before, but have been forced to, big diff. You don't want to know them or understand them. You need to communicate with them, so you reach for your Universal Translator. That way you can do what you need to do to these weird beings, and leave them (hopefully) without having those useless ideas, and their useless foreign language, bouncing around in your head.

In previous wars, remember, a lot of those aliens came back to America. And our boys were exposed to non-Christian, non-American ideas. Clearly, by limiting any emotional contact with these aliens, we would be saved that cultural pollution.

At least, that seems to be the operational procedure at work here. It fits the Bush/Republican/Christian mindset. That it doesn't work...well, is that a surprise to anyone?

Actually, it could very easily be argued that we're losing the war because our soldiers don't speak Arabic. I couldn't agree more that we shouldn't have been there in the first place, but that's not why we're losing. We're losing because they hate us so much they are willing to kill themselves and each other to get to us, and I would argue that the main reason they hate us is our imperialist behavior.

Many generals, Petraeus included, have long since concluded that we lost the 'hearts and minds' battle from the start, a battle that is crucial when trying to restore peace in an insurgency situation. Don't you think at least speaking the local language would go a long way towards alleviating that situation? The importance of communication when you've got this kind of culture clash really can't be overstated. I'd be willing to bet that for every insurgent who wants to kill Americans because of our decadent imperialist culture, there are dozens who are pissed because they had a run-in with a soldier who humiliated them.

I agree that the war in Iraq is not being lost because of lack of Arabic speakers.

However, with that said, I think if there were more people in the DoD who understood that at its roots, Iraq as a country is an artificial construct, we might be somewhere. Our American idea of nationalism, democracy, and one person, one vote, does not translate to a primarily tribal society based on family clans. Iraqis, generally, respect clan or tribe alliance (for lack of better words) as far more important than the country (which was artificially created by the British) or the individual.

These are extremely difficult concepts for westerners to bend their minds around. Bringing democracy to a society that doesn't value it is bound to fail.

Arabic training in general wouldn't go amiss though. I remember a radio report early in the war of several (young, very uneducated) U.S. soldiers manning some kind of a checkpoint on a road. Imagine the scene--traffic backed up for miles, the soldiers carrying out their orders (checking for bombs or guns or whatnot), the Iraqis strung out in long lines waiting, everyone with frayed tempers, and the soldiers asking questions in a language that the locals don't speak.

"Do you have any weapons?"

"What?" (in Arabic)

"I said, DO YOU HAVE ANY WEAPONS?"

"What?" (in Arabic)

Now try to imagine that it's your neighborhood, and some foreign power has sent its non-English speaking troops to set up a blockade for no reason you can discern... I'd be getting a bit hot under the collar too. Add in a few bombs, a few dead family members... one can see how a young Iraqi might join "the insurgency" just to get these yahoos out.

I would hope that the few, the culturally aware, the language corps, could add a bit of imagination to this situation, a bit of empathy, so we could begin to see ourselves through someone else's eyes.

But the war in Iraq is not being lost because the soldiers don't speak Arabic.

Well, there are lots of other factors, but that one certainly isn't helping. I would definitely argue that without the ability to communicate with Iraqis across the board the counter-insurgency is doomed to fail. (You'd also need about three times as many soldiers and a generally different strategy.)

The lesson from Iraq is that we should never have invaded the country on trumped-up false pretenses.

I think that can actually go without saying; even the war supporters don't actually argue that we SHOULD as policy go to war on trumped-up false charges. Regardless, I would also classify that as ONE lesson, not THE lesson. There's plenty more than can and should be learned from this debacle.

On the subject, I think this article is great:

http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/05/2635198

Mr. Leonard writes: the war in Iraq is not being lost because the soldiers don't speak Arabic.

I would humbly suggest we might have been able to stop the war if, as a nation, we had the language and cultural smarts to stay out of Iraq in the first place. As a former Peace Corps Volunteer and a translator and interpreter of forty years' standing, I have come to the conclusion that we're the dumbest people on the planet when it comes to language, never mind culture. Not only is the U.S. tone deaf to Arabic, Farsi, Pashto etc, what passes for mainstream culture willfully ignores or is actively hostile to the obvious fact that Spanish has become the country's de facto second language.

Back when I was getting my degree, I was taught the dirty little proverb "Anthropology is the handmaid of Imperialism."

From what we've seen here, this is what happens when Imperialism forgets her handmaid.

Of course, what happened here is that handmaid already told the queen that invading was a bad idea; if you were going to invade, don't burn the libraries and museums; and omigod, you just said "Crusade" in a speech Mr. POTUS? WTF? Do you have any idea what that means there?

Right about the point that Bush was snarling "Bring it on!" the handmaid was in the corner babbling "I told you... I told you so... No one listens to Cassandra... I told you so..."

And now the queen is calling for her handmaid to translate for her? Fine: "No, Your Majesty, those are guns, not rosepetals, and they're telling you to get your stupid ass out."

And the handmaid is being diplomatic with her translation. What the Iraqis are saying is far less polite.