ABSTRACT
The aftermath of the tragic September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States was a historical moment that revealed how linguistically unready the country was to deal effectively with the new enemy at hand. The US government established the National Virtual Translation Center in February 2003, an idea first proposed in Section 907 of the USA PATRIOT Act. As much as the US government has turned to translation to help the prosecution of cases of alleged terrorism, it has sometimes criminalized translation on behalf of the defense. America's post-9/11 concern with issues of language and translation was by no means limited to Arabic and the Middle East; it extended to the wider zone of combat against terrorism. Consequently, as America's monolingualism was publicly criticized as part of renewed calls for shared information, mutual understanding across cultural and religious divides, and multilateral cooperation, translation moved to the fore as an issue of major political and cultural significance.
