The State Department recently announced that it will force at least 50 diplomats to take posts in Iraq next year “because of expected shortfalls in filling openings there, the first such large-scale forced assignment since the Vietnam War.” Several hundred diplomats swiftly “vented” their “anger and frustration” over the forced posting, likening it to a “potential death sentence.”Nice. Isn't it interesting that the wingnuts are so eager for people to go to Iraq that they shove them forward.... but they never step forward themselves. Hmmm....
[snip]Yesterday, the State Department joined in the bashing. On its Dipnote blog, it published an open letter by career Foreign Service Officer John Matel. In the letter, Matel insinuates that diplomats who refuse to serve in Iraq are “embarrassing” “wimps and weenies”:
We signed up to be worldwide available. All of us volunteered for this kind of work and we have enjoyed a pretty sweet lifestyle most of our careers. I will not repeat what the Marines say when I bring up this subject. I tell them that most FSOs are not wimps and weenies. I will not share this article with them and I hope they do not see it. […]
We all know that few FSOs will REALLY be forced to come to Iraq anyway. Our system really does not work like that. This sound and fury at Foggy Bottom truly signifies nothing. Get over it! I do not think many Americans feel sorry for us and it is embarrassing for people with our privileges to paint ourselves as victims.
The State Department’s blog post appears aimed at providing fodder for the right-wing blogosphere, which has been ripping the “diplowimps” who refuse to serve in Iraq.
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
For those who think diplomacy is worthless
And that it is easier to persuade people at the point of a gun, this is what you do to your diplomatic corps, belittle them by calling them names:
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4 comments:
Too busy manning their keyboards and protecting the homeland from libruls.
Fascinating that they are unable to see the diplomats have the facts in their favor. We would have closed that embassy in any other country at any other time.
How deep in denial are they? Why don't THEY go, if it is so safe?
I wonder how many diplomats we're going to lose over this blunder?
"I wonder how many diplomats we're going to lose over this blunder?"
If you mean "lose" as in "lose them from the land of the living," perhaps not many: a lot of them will simply close out their careers. They wouldn't be the first since the start of the Iraq war; google James Brady Kiesling.
As in so many other domains, the Bushists are driving qualified, competent, experienced people out of government service. In most cases, they're replacing them with unqualified, incompetent people with zero experience. Well, actually, many of those replacements have one qualification: unquestioning loyalty to King Dubya. Whoever becomes the next president, s/he will have one helluva mess to clean up, at State as surely as everywhere else.
Well, as Shakespeare suggested, we should off all the lawyers... but no. We should fire every single person hired after 2001 and rehire all those who quit or were fired.
If there were only a reset button...
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