Debbie Schlussel: Special Treatment: Relaxing Intelligence Rules for Muslims, Arabs
Hmmm . . . Did they do this for the Irish, Italians, Germans, and Jews?
The Washington Post reported, this week, that incoming National Intelligence Chief, Navy Vice Adm. John M. McConnell, wants to relax rules requiring U.S. citizenship for the relatives of first-generation Americans, in order to get highly sensitive intelligence jobs. He wants to do this to get more Muslims and Arabs with language skills in these jobs.
Perhaps intelligence director is really not a job for which he's equipped, because he seems to be devoid of basic intelligence. Isn't McConnell aware of the vast problems the FBI, CIA, and other agencies have had with Arabic translators who are Muslim? Has he not read a paper in the last 5.5 years to discover a plethora of reports on how part of the backlog in document translation is because disloyal Muslims (mostly Arabs) have deliberately mis-translated documents? Hello . . . ?
Some of this information was made public by courageous former FBI translator Sibel Edmond, a Turkish Muslim who is one of the few translators that could be trusted. She turned in a fellow Muslim translator who was deliberately providing fraudulent translations, and in response, the FBI fired Edmonds.
So, let's just bend the rules for them . . . even though we've never done it for any other ethnicity or religious group. Because to hell with equal protection laws and due process.
The rules sound like necessities, not something to be thrown away in the name of PC for Muslims and Arabs:
They require citizenship verification for access to the most highly classified data, known as sensitive compartmented information. For the foreign-born, there must be verification of U.S. citizenship and legal status in this country of immediate family members, including "spouse, cohabitant, father, mother, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters," the directive states.Another element that must be considered when hiring is "foreign influence," according to adjudication guidelines that the White House adopted in December 2005. One section of the guidelines refers to "contact with a foreign family member, business or professional associate, friend, or other person who is a citizen of or resident in a foreign country if that contact creates a heightened risk of foreign exploitation, inducement, manipulation, pressure, or coercion."
An intelligence agency chief can waive these criteria, but McConnell said he wants to change them.
Relaxing these rules would make the intelligence services far more vulnerable to espionage and should frighten us all. Comforting to know that we now have a "Director of National Intelligence" of limited basic personal intelligence.
Thanks to nationally syndicated columnist and friend, Cal Thomas, for the tip.
Posted by Debbie on February 9, 2007 12:52 PM to Debbie Schlussel