Regardless of one's opinion about U.S. presence in the Middle East and the War in Iraq, it should be clear that the inability of U.S. forces to communicate with the local populace in Arabic has tragic consequences, with innocent lives lost because soldiers cannot talk to the people they have to deal with. The shortage of skilled interpreters in combat units is a major problem. Although I do not know how many Arabic speakers are in the U.S. military now, a decade ago a friend of mine was one of only three individuals in the entire military who could deal with both Arabic and Farsi, a rather important combination of languages in today's world.
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