Define "Snafu"

U.S. Army recruiters use World Cup to attract Arab translators.

"Arab." Not "Arabic."

FORT MEADE, Md. – To promote the Army’s Arabic Translator Interpreter recruitment program, recruiting officials launched an all-Arabic recruitment advertising campaign airing exclusively on Arabic television during the World Cup games.

Since the ad campaign began airing June 9, nearly 160 phone calls have been taken from potential applicants who site [sic] the ad as the reason for calling, according to Chief Warrant Officer 4 Jack Bailey, chief of the Special Missions Recruiting Division.

The ad has so far generated 28 leads from potential applicants who have been pre-screened by call-center operators, Bailey said.

Pleeeease tell me the Army, like Microsoft and Dell, has outsourced their call-centers to India. Centuries of jihad against Hindjooos have given Indians a bigger clue than these PowerPoint Rangers have.

The leads have been forwarded to recruiters for follow-up and further screening. Of those 28 leads, seven were collected June 11, the same day as the Iran-Mexico match.

And this is significant because . . . ? It's just that, umm, Iranians speak Farsi, not Arabic.

If the trend continues, U.S. Army Recruiting Command will amass more than 100 pre-screened applicants by the end of the campaign’s run. Recruiters need approximately 250 09L Soldiers to meet this year's goal.

Geez, maybe they could, you know, go ask all those Sephardic polyglots the FBI turned away after 9/11.

The quest to make contact with the elusive audience began when the 1st Army Recruiting Brigade, headquartered at Fort Meade, Md., held its first-ever 09L Conference in Washington, D.C., last month. Local Arab-American community influencers participated.

D.C.-area "community influencers"? I'd love to cite just one article on the radicalization of D.C. mosques, but there happens to be an entire blog devoted to the subject: Northern Virginiastan.

“The conference became a strategy session looking for ways the Army can get the ‘word’ out to this target audience,” explained Tom Owen, the field marketing representative for McCann-Erickson Worldwide Advertising, assigned to 1st Brigade.

Arab-American community members sent a clear message to the recruiters: If you want to deliver this information to the Arabic speaking community, advertise on what they love to watch –

beheading videos?

- soccer.

Oh. Right. Of course.

The 30-second ad will air 260 times over 64 televised games. Additionally, a separate 10-second spot, primarily to announce the Army’s sponsorship of the World Cup games, will air 540 times.

. . .

The ad features images of 09L Soldiers interacting with Iraqi and Afghan nationals, police and children. Translated to English, the script reads: “I am a bridge between two cultures. I am an American Soldier and an Arabic interpreter. I build schools and bring running water. I make the children smile because I can speak with them. I am making changes in the world. Join me in the Army and you may qualify for a $10,000 bonus and expedited citizenship.

What-what-whaaaat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To find out more, go to goarmy.com/translator or call toll-free 866-635-8450.”

The ad can be viewed at http://amcproduction.com/us_army_video.

And then, please buy three copies of anything by Robert Spencer, Bat Ye'or, or Ibn Warraq. Donate one to your nearest ROTC program, one to your nearest recruiting center, and send the third to the dingbats running the Pentagon.