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US Government Gave Airtime to Terrorists, Official Admits    [

    Hearing Sought Over Linguists' Discharge
    By Lolita C. Baldor
    The Associated Press

    Wednesday 23 May 2007

    Washington - Lawmakers who say the military has kicked out 58 Arabic language experts because they were gay want the Pentagon to explain how it can afford to let the valuable specialists go.

    Seizing on the latest discharge, involving three specialists, House members wrote the House Armed Services Committee chairman on Wednesday that the continued loss of such "capable, highly skilled Arabic linguists continues to compromise our national security during time of war."

    Former Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class Stephen Benjamin said his supervisor tried to keep him on the job and urged him to sign a statement saying he was not gay. Benjamin said his lawyer advised against signing because the statement could be used against him later if other evidence surfaced.

    In an interview with The Associated Press, Benjamin said he was caught improperly using the military's secret level computer system to send messages to his roommate, who was serving in Iraq. In those messages, he said, he may have referred to being gay or going on a date.

    "I'd always had been out since the day I started working there," Benjamin said. "We had conversations about being gay in the military and what it was like. There were no issues with unit cohesion. I never caused divisiveness or ever experienced slurs," said Benjamin, who was in the Navy for nearly four years.

    He was fired under the "don't ask, don't tell" law passed in 1994. It lets gays serve if they keep their sexual orientation private and do not engage in homosexual acts. The law prohibits commanders from asking about a person's sex life and requires discharge of those who openly acknowledge they are gay.

    Rep. Marty Meehan, who has sought a repeal, organized the letter to Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., asking the committee hold a hearing about the Arabic linguists.

    "At a time when our military is stretched to the limit and our cultural knowledge of the Middle East is dangerously deficient, I just can't believe that kicking out able, competent Arabic linguists is making our country any safer," Meehan said.

    The letter, signed by about 40 House members, says that the military has discharged 58 Arabic linguists under the policy and that Congress should decide whether "don't ask, don't tell" "is serving the nation well."

    For Benjamin, 23, the discharge ended a military career he had hoped to continue.

    He said he was among about 70 people investigated at Fort Gordon in Georgia for using the computer to send personal notes. He said others who are not gay kept their jobs even though they were caught sending sexual and profane messages.

    Benjamin said investigators from the Defense Department's inspector general's office pulled the message logs for one day and reviewed them for violations. Some people, he said, received administrative punishments for writing dirty jokes, profanity and explicit sexual references.

    According to researchers at the California-based Michael D. Palm Center, which tracks these issues, three Arabic linguists were fired as a result of the computer reviews. Their names were not released. Benjamin agreed to discuss the incident publicly.

    The center's director, Aaron Belkin, said, "There is simply no common sense reason for the military to fire Arabic linguists in the midst of a dire shortage of translators. Translating al-Qaida cables is more important the making sure that the military is free of gays."

    Marine Maj. Stewart Upton, a Pentagon spokesman, said the Pentagon is enforcing the law.

    The Defense Department, he said, "must ensure that the standards for enlistment and appointment of members of the armed forces reflect the policies set forth by Congress," he said.

    Benjamin said the computer review was done last December, but his discharge was not finalized until the end of March. His roommate, he said, was allowed to finish out his tour in Iraq and came home in February, then was discharged in early April.

    "I was always discreet, I never considered it would be an issue," said Benjamin, when asked why he joined the military knowing the policy existed. "I thought if I don't say anything, they're not going to ask me. But, it was more aggressive than I thought."

    Meehan's bill to repeal the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law has 124 co-sponsors, but efforts to get Congress to take another look at the issue have not yet been successful.

    Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said he was not reviewing the policy.

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    US Government Gave Airtime to Terrorists, Official Admits
    By Justin Rood
    ABC News

    Tuesday 22 May 2007

    Al Hurra television, the U.S. government's $63 million-a-year effort at public diplomacy broadcasting in the Middle East, is run by executives and officials who cannot speak Arabic, according to a senior official who oversees the program.

    That might explain why critics say the service has recently been caught broadcasting terrorist messages, including an hour-long tirade on the importance of anti-Jewish violence, among other questionable pieces.

    Facing tough questions before a congressional panel last week, Broadcasting Board of Governors member Joaquin Blaya admitted none of the senior news managers at the network spoke Arabic when the terrorist messages made it onto the air courtesy of U.S. taxpayer funds. Nor did Blaya himself or any of the other officials at the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which oversees the network.

    "How does it happen that the terrorists take over?" asked Rep. Gary L. Ackerman, D-N.Y., at a hearing last Wednesday of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee he chairs. "Is there no adult supervision?"

    Blaya conceded that the top officials in the network's chain of command could not understand what was being said on al Hurra broadcasts.

    Also, the network's news division also had no assignment desk, he said. That left decisions over al Hurra's content in the hands of its reporters and producers, who are, according to Blaya, hastily-hired Arabic-speaking journalists with insufficient understanding of Western journalistic practices or the network's pro-Western mission.

    Blaya's comments were first reported by Congressional Quarterly.

    It has never been al Hurra's policy to "provide an open, live microphone to terrorists," Blaya assured lawmakers. "It should not have happened."

    The station's gaffes have included broadcasting in December 2006 a 68-minute call to arms against Israelis by a senior figure of the terrorist group Hezbollah; deferential coverage of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial conference; and a factually flawed piece on a splinter group of Orthodox Jews who oppose the state of Israel, according to the Wall Street Journal, which has reported the network's travails for months.

    At the hearing, Blaya and other officials assured lawmakers that some of the staffers involved in the controversial broadcasts had been fired. They also said the network now has an assignment desk, staffed by Arabic-speaking editors. And the network's vice president of news has hired an Arabic speaker to help monitor its broadcasts and ensure the material is consistent with al Hurra's mission.