linguists

¡Oigan NSA! Estamos aquí mismo hijos de puta!

William M. Arkin · 04/02/15 10:30AM

You'd think that with all of the problems in the Middle East, thousands of Russian nuclear weapons pointed at us, and over a billion Chinese people, the most prevalent language specialty in the U.S. intelligence community would be Arabic or Russian or Chinese. But a birdie recently told me that it is Spanish. Not Spanish because there are so many Spanish-speaking Americans (10 percent of the U.S. population, or more than 37 million), but intelligence quality Spanish, that's intended for a special world. Linguists and translators and liaison officers are needed not only to wage war against narcoterrorism, apparently, but also for that big contingency when Mexico becomes the next ungoverned pin on the geostrategist's map.