This Week in Babylon

Somalia: apply within

It seems that America's involvement in the ongoing conflict in the Horn of Africa may be more significant than has been recently reported. According to the website of ALC Inc., a Rockville, Maryland, consulting firm with close ties to the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, the company is currently seeking

Somali linguists who possess an active Secret clearance (Interim Secret is also acceptable) for a 30 day deployment to Africa to conduct mission related translations and interpretations for U.S. Government personnel.

The requirements of the position:

U.S. citizenship
Active Secret (or Interim Secret) clearance or the eligibility to obtain one
Physical fitness
Ability to pass a medical physical exam
Availability for immediate deployment

ALC's website lists a number of other positions that pay well and present the opportunity for international travel. In Iraq, the firm has jobs for “translators, interpreters, linguists, cultural advisers, role-players, and intelligence professionals.” Dari and Pashto speakers are needed to support Defense Intelligence Agency operations in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, and the company lists positions for applicants who speak Arabic, Uzbek, Pashto, Urdu, or Farsi/Dari.

You may also want to review the checklist for linguists, in which job applicants must state their willingness to deploy to a “potentially hostile environment” and live in a tent, and must also promise not to release any information about their assignment “without the prior written approval” of the government.

World Bank: account wanted

To all World Bank employees: I've been trying for many months to confirm a story that looks solid but might be apocryphal, and I'm asking you for help in order to substantiate or refute the story once and for all.

The basic details, as explained to me by two secondhand sources, are as follows: last year a senior Bank official caused the organization significant embarrassment when, during a trip to a South American country, he had to be retrieved from an unauthorized outing to a local hot spot.

Is the story accurate? All replies will be treated in strictest confidence, but bona fides will need to be established. Email ken@harpers.org or send a fax to 212-228-5889.

“Raven” about Pelosi

The Sleuth, a new Washington Post blog, has come out swinging with “Pelosi: No Harm, No Fowl.” The article reveals how the House speaker recently returned home to encounter

a bizarre, Hitchcock-ian scene—a beady-eyed, black bird flying around her posh Georgetown apartment . . . [This] was a scene written for Tippi Hedren, though truth be told, it was only one bird . . . and oh, OK, it wasn't pecking the Speaker to bits and pieces. But it was scary!

Someone trapped the “feathered fiend” in a bag, and Pelosi—“ever the San Francisco tree-hugger”—decided to free the animal (Oh, OK!). The Sleuth's cheerful tone is nearly identical to that of a piece run by the Onion , “Black Bear Attacks, Rapes Zookeeper” (sadly no longer in the newspaper's archive, though easily Googled):

Here's a little dog-bites-man tale we couldn't resist! Except replace “dog” with “850-pound black bear”! And “bites” with “anally violate”!

The zookeeper “had ‘claws’ for alarm,” wrote the Onion, when Barry the bear assaulted him in full view of astonished onlookers who “could ‘bearly’ believe what happened.” That story was published in 1996, and while it didn't have an ending as happy as that of the Sleuth story (a “full quart of bear semen” was extracted from the deceased zookeeper, and Barry the bear was destroyed), the piece nevertheless sets a new standard for cute stories about animals. The Sleuth has its work cut out for it if it intends to compete.

Meddlesome Iranians?

Two of this past week's Washington Post headlines caught my eye. The first, from Monday, was: “Bush Warns Iran on Iraq Action: President vows to ‘respond firmly’ if Iran steps up a campaign derailing democracy in Iraq.” Then, on Wednesday, the Post published an article about the Senate testimony of Admiral William J. Fallon of the Central Command: “Centcom Pick Warns of Iran Influence in Gulf Region.”

The idea that Iran is somehow “meddling” in the Persian Gulf pervades American news coverage. It is generally assumed that the United States has the God-given right to intervene anywhere, whereas Iranian attempts to exert influence in Iraq, which it borders, and the Gulf, where it sits, are illegitimate. Meanwhile, the Bush Administration, with the media's help, is framing the Iranian “problem” with the same terms it used to sell the invasion of Iraq: the rhetoric of “democracy.”

Iran has dubious geopolitical aspirations, and with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in charge the country makes an easy scapegoat. But blaming Iran for Iraq's (and America's) failures automatically puts Tehran in the crosshairs, right where the administration appears to want it. That's why it's troublesome to see the Post and other media outlets buying into the simplistic idea that Iran is the Great Destroyer of Iraqi democracy, even while the White House refuses to show its cards regarding Iranian involvement in Iraq.

John Negroponte promises intelligence

An unclassified version of the long-delayed National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq is scheduled to be released at 12:30 p.m. today on the website of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. And DNI head John Negroponte says that Congress will get a look at the classified NIE by next Monday “at the latest”—a mere six months after the Senate demanded it in response to an article on this site. (Keep in mind that in the past there have been significant differences between the two versions.) It would have been nice for lawmakers to see the NIE before President Bush announced his intention to increase troop levels in Iraq, but since the administration clearly doesn't care about the opinion of Congress, the delay probably doesn't matter all that much.

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