Russia and Georgia

[Siegel, Jason F.]

Briefly:

Source: http://blog.nj.com/njv_jim_dooley/2008/08/russia_and_georgia.html

Relevance to language policy: The quote below discusses the 
implications of implementing a policy toward another country when few 
know how to speak its language (and therefore understand the discourse 
of the nation). It also criticizes language education focus at an 
educational institution run by the federal government.

"Look, this is a part of the world that not ma[n]y of us beltway folk 
know too much about, and it's complicated. There are about 5 people in 
this city that speak the Georgian language and not many more who speak 
Russian. The people who speak Russian don't count because they learned 
to speak the language in the Defense Language Institute where the 
vocabulary was mostly army, regiment, battalion, bomb, and despite 
appearances, we don't think that this is the language which is likely 
to defuse this situation which is troubling, if far from threatening to 
our national security."
--
Jason F. Siegel
Ph.D. Student, Linguistics & French Linguistics
Department of French & Italian
Ballantine Hall 642
1020 East Kirkwood Avenue
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405-7103
USA
siegeljf at indiana.edu


Quoting interpreterman at aol.com:

>
> Author?
> Relevance to language stuff?
> --Strikes me as more of the same tired "George Bush is a moron
> criminal genius who causes hurricanes" stuff.
>
> Color me Confused, please.
>
> Dan V.
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> Taipei, Taiwan
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Harold Schiffman <hfsclpp at gmail.com>
> To: lp <lgpolicy-list at ccat.sas.upenn.edu>
> Sent: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 8:50 am
> Subject: Russia and Georgia
>
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> Russia and Georgia
> August 17, 2008 4:26PM
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> Ineptitude in response to reality is anything but singular in
> Washington these past years, especially when reality has shown the
> unpleasant side of its face. Would that dismal failure were a one off
> kind of thing, but in government one stupid move always begets
> another, the other yet another, and pretty soon you wind up back where
> some of us began, facing off with a country that really does have what
> Bush nomenclature calls weapons of mass destruction.
>
> Even so, Washington's belated response to the events of the last 10
> days in Georgia struck me as particularly absurd, even for Washington.
> The decision to send humanitarian aid to Georgia in military transport
> accomplishes almost nothing good and a lot bad. To the Georgians it
> will come as an impotent gesture arriving too late with the wrong
> stuff. To Russians it will be perceived as more of the same American
> military posturing on its borders which has been going on for 10
> years, provoking them finally into doing what they are doing, now with
> vengeance. Nor will the Russians fail to note the hypocrisy of what
> has become the characteristic American touch, gunboat foreign aid. The
> soldier delivering the medicine never goes home. Considering that we
> have been bollixing up the world in so many ways these past 15 years,
> I for one would like to think that a response something along these
> lines would have been considered.
>
> Look, this is a part of the world that not may of us beltway folk know
> too much about, and it's complicated. There are about 5 people in this
> city that speak the Georgian language and not many more who speak
> Russian. The people who speak Russian don't count because they learned
> to speak the language in the Defense Language Institute where the
> vocabulary was mostly army, regiment, battalion, bomb, and despite
> appearances, we don't think that this is the language which is likely
> to defuse this situation which is troubling, if far from threatening
> to our national security.
>
> How did it all go down? The President of Georgia did a stint here in
> our ivy league which not surprisingly left him delusional. Take a look
> around down here DC side if you have any trouble understanding me on
> this score. Putin. Well, Putin is Putin. Putin is going to do what he
> thinks is in the best interests of Russia, we know that now. We tried
> to get him to be an American but for some odd reason he didn't want
> any part of that. We even offered to let Russia be like America, you
> know, be like us or else, but he we couldn't budge the buggers,
> especially after they started to reap the rewards from taking back
> their oil companies from the Russian wannabe Rockefellers who hadn't
> the good sense to give back 10% of what they were stealing.
>
> So our policy on this latest crisis may surprise some of you people
> out there in the malls of America, still doing your best to keep on
> shopping just as I wanted you to do after the tragic events of 9/11. I
> know it has been tough doing what you are doing without any money, and
> your ingenuity in this regard frankly has been amazing. I know that
> you would prefer that I unleash our Generals and get America moving
> again. But the fact of the matter is we are stuck. We are stuck in
> Iraq. We are stuck in Afghanistan. We are stuck period, just like you
> are stuck in the mall without any money. We have sucked up all the
> credit and the well is dry. It's probably a good thing too, because
> thermo-nuclear wars can get ugly, very ugly.
>
> Our new policy is that we are going to stay home, shut up, and let the
> Georgians and the Russians work this one out between themselves. Too
> much to hope for? In Megalomaniaville, you bet it is.
>
> --
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