Arabic-L:GEN:Response to army job posting

[Dilworth Parkinson]

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Arabic-L: Wed 13 Dec 2006
Moderator: Dilworth Parkinson <dilworth_parkinson at byu.edu>
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1) Subject:Response to army job posting
2) Subject:Response to response

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1)
Date: 13 Dec 2006
From:"David Wilmsen" <dww22 at georgetown.edu>
Subject:Response to army job posting

I would rather that the list not post announcements like this.  The
assumptions behind it border on the obscene.  The US government
clearly has no idea what it needs or can accomplish in matters
respecting Arabic and the Arab world.  By crafting a job description
such as this, it betrays it complete lack of sophistication - never
mind sensitivity - to the complexities of any human society, Muslim or
otherwise "advising the United States Army on ways to leverage
cultural and religious awareness to our advantage" indeed.  Even its
expectations for a suitable candidate are unrealistic:  a naturalized
citizen of the US whose origins are in the Muslim world cannot gain
top security clearance because of family relations remaining in their
natal country, and a native-born US citizen cannot either, because in
order to have gained the kind of expertise requested, such people
would have had to spend years in the field, thereby redering
themselves nearly impossible to clear.  Our profession should not be
enabling the government to persist in its folly by humouring it in
posting such ill-informed announcements.

--  
David Wilmsen, PhD, Arabic language and linguistics
Visiting Associate Professor of Arabic
Dept of Arabic and Islamic Studies
Georgetown University

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1)
Date: 13 Dec 2006
From:moderator
Subject:Response to response

I agree that the job posting was unusually stupid.  However, in  
posting it I followed a procedure which I intend to continue  
following, and which would allow such postings to slip through.  Here  
is the confession: I don't read through job postings that are sent to  
me.  I get a lot, and I don't really have time.  I glance through  
them to see if they are minimally appropriate for the list, and just  
copy and paste them in.  I figure that most are going to be somehow  
appropriate, and if a few 'inappropriate' ones slip through then at  
least the readership has the advantage of knowing that such things  
are out there (if only for discussion purposes).
Dil


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End of Arabic-L:  13 Dec 2006