BLACKFIVE: Now I'm Going To Get Ugly

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Now I'm Going To Get Ugly

Posted By Subsunk

State Department employees differ from Defense Department employees. How do they differ, you might ask? Good question!

Both Foreign Service Officers and Members of the US Military take an oath to follow the Constitution and to serve their country. It just appears that some folks place more weight on their oaths than others. The example is quoted in the Washington Post today. It does not paint State Dept Foreign Service Officers in a good light in my humble opinion. I'll let you be the judge, however, I do have some things to say on this and I intend to say them.

State Dept personnel serve at the pleasure of the President elected by the People of the United States. Their JOB, their MISSION, their CHARGE is to carry out the directives of the Secretary of State and to advance the interests of the United States of America. Their loyalties lie to the People of the United States, not the people of the country they are posted in.

Sometimes these jobs are hazardous. Sometimes they involve lots of parties in a civilized yet foreign land. Any reasonable person would choose the latter post. However, the former post must be manned as well. And the duties and responsibilities of that office performed by someone. It is a State Dept post. Therefore the State Dept has responsibility for manning that post.

The example today, of unwillingness to do their job, is the embassy in Iraq. Some less stalwart members of the Foreign Service appear to be, shall we say, "reluctant" to do their duty in dangerous areas or under hazardous conditions. They are being mortared "every day" in the Green Zone, and can't venture out untroubled by security details and the attendant complex and sometimes FUBARed coordination required of them and their security details (military and ex-military) to get to their meeting sites. This makes them reluctant to DO THEIR JOB.

How many times have we heard in the WaPo and NYTimes and Congress that reconstruction is a disaster in Iraq due to the violence and corruption? How many times have we heard this blamed on the Bush administration (of which the entire Dept of State is a portion. Notice how the article says poor management was caused by Bush election campaign employees given the job after the elections... funny how that works when they are the only ones willing to go serve their country and career Foreign Service Officers won't, even when it was their job)? Is the corruption worse than in Nigeria where 80% of US aid lines the pockets of local bureaucrats and charlatans in order to get 20% of the money to those who actually need to be paid to do a job? Is the violence worse than in 1937 Nanking after the conquering of that city by the Japanese Army and subsequent rape and murder perpetrated upon Chinese citizenry over the protests and wildly hazardous yet heroic actions of European diplomats to rescue Chinese citizens from further abuse at the hands of Japanese soldiers? If diplomacy is required before armed conflict is to be initiated, I think the American people would prefer our diplomats be made of sterner stuff than that exhibited here by our Foreign Service Officers at their town hall meeting.

I've been to some bitch sessions in the Navy. I've contributed to the discord and I've run some of them. In the end, my sailors and I understood it was our Duty to follow orders and to uphold the oaths we had taken. To follow the orders of the Officers appointed over us. Failure to do so is mutiny. Officers failing to follow orders and fomenting rebellion in the ranks is barratry. Both are equally distasteful and equally heinous offenses. In the military, they are punishable by Death. In the Foreign Service, I'd be happy if they were punished by a severance notice, final pay, and a "don't let the doorknob hit you where the good Lord split you on your way out."

I'm not saying there aren't improvements to be made in training, personnel compensation and benefits and medical treatment for the folks. I'm sure most of these loyal State Dept officers want nothing more than to do their duty. But those who are against the current policy in Iraq have done more to be responsible for the need to serve there than any other event in this war. Either they believe reconstruction and institution building is important and the needs of the United States to accomplish this are important (and then they go where their State Dept detailer sends them), or they aren't important (and they resign because they no longer can uphold their oath to the country and have actively worked to undermine the policy through news leaks and sabotage of reconstruction projects in Iraq anyway).

Whining that the job is dangerous makes them look less and less like diplomats and more and more like the Girl Scouts. My 19 yr old Corporals in the Army and USMC are doing a better job than these Foreign Service Rats at changing attitudes in the Muslim world, for all the lamentations about how we have to know and respect Muslim culture from these FSO nitwits anyway.

Hey, young Lady. You in the Green beret and Girl Scout uniform. You wanna serve your country? I know where you can get a job and do better than the incumbents right now! Whataya say?

Subsunk out.

(I told you I was gonna get ugly. My sincerest apologies to the Girl Scouts for demeaning their reputation by comparing them with the weaker and more ineffectual US Department of State, which is still far superior to the diplomacy effected by the United Nations. That is saying something, ain't it?)

PS,

For you State Dept wienies out there reading this. This is what happens when you choose which President you will follow and which policy you will support. You don't get to choose. The People of the United States get to choose. You swore an oath. Ignore that at your peril. DoD knows better. Maybe you should all turn your jobs over to our 19 yr old diplomat Corporals who are doing a better job on their worst day than your organization does in a week of good days. Undermining US policy is a dangerous way to keep your country safe, and makes soldiers grow to resent your mealy mouthed platitudes ever more. Don't piss 'em off. They have guns! Next time you want to talk to the press, KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT!