We noted this conflict between career diplomats and the neocon nutballs running our government – just the other day. It’s starting to escalate.
Calling it “a potential death sentence,” several hundred diplomats expressed their resentment Wednesday over a new State Department policy that could force them to serve in Iraq or risk losing their jobs.
The sharpest comments came from Jack Croddy, a 36-year veteran of the Foreign Service.
To loud applause from his fellow workers, he asked how the State Department could protect people in Baghdad or the Iraq countryside when “incoming is coming in every day. Rockets are hitting the Green Zone.”
“It is one thing if someone believes in what is going on over there and volunteers,” he said, “but it is another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment. And I’m sorry, but basically that is a potential death sentence and you know it.”
Last week’s announcement said about 200 people would be informed this week they are “prime candidates” for assignment in Iraq, and those chosen would be notified later…Unless they have a valid medical reason to refuse, those who decline to go could face dismissal, it said.
Tee hee.
Let’s see now. You take an oath to serve in a job. You know ahead of time that you can be sent to serve anywhere in the world they need you, then when you get a shitty assignment you start whining like a fucking 3 year old.
I took an oath to serve in the military and I’ll be damned if they didn’t send me everywhere they wanted me to go only I didn’t have a choice.
Quit the job and just stop the whining.
Uh, so taking a job at City Hall has exactly the same rules and requirements as joining the police dept.?
Not even apples and oranges, dude. Even if they’re the same in your own mind.
If your president would actively take part in his war, then maybe forcing others to do so would be reasonable. Get on his hobby horse and lead the charge. But so long as he continues his tradition of hiding away having others die for his benefit, they should be given the chance to tell him to go piss up a rope.
#2 god – Did I say they were the same? No. I was referring to the oath and the job. They took an oath to serve and that means wherever the state dept wants them. If they didn’t want to take the chance of going to a hostile environment then they should not have joined.
#3 qsabe – They do have the chance to tell him to piss up a rope. Then when the state dept tells them they are going to a hostile environment they can quit or be fire if they refuse to go.
BTW This has nothing to do with the war, it could be any hostile place the whiners don’t want to go to. Maybe they don’t want to go France for all I care but if they don’t want to go then they should expect the consequences.
#2 They the those DOS employees aren’t called “Foreign Service Officers” service officer because it sounds good.
From the DOS website, career section.
Damn, the block quote didn’t work…
“Candidates should also bear in mind that Foreign Service Officers are expected to take assignments that can involve extremely difficult work, hardship, and even danger. We are looking for capable, healthy, dedicated candidates who are prepared to step up to the challenges the Foreign Service faces in today’s world.”
And neither did my cut & paste. Before that quote came this.
Where We Work
The work we do affects the world and is conducted in every country around the globe. In fact, we have over 265 embassies, consulates and missions: The Americas, Africa, Europe and Eurasia, East Asia and Pacific, Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia. If you are interested in a global career, the U.S. Department of State is where you want to begin your search.
Worldwide availability is both an affirmed willingness to serve anywhere in the world and a matter of being medically qualified to do so. Both the willingness and being medically qualified are essential requirements for appointment to the Foreign Service. Worldwide availability also means that members of the Foreign Service are expected to serve anywhere in the world, even in cases where family members cannot go to post due to political instability and/or other concerns, or when family members must leave post as conditions deteriorate (evacuations).
Candidates should also bear in mind that Foreign Service Officers are expected to take assignments that can involve extremely difficult work, hardship, and even danger. We are looking for capable, healthy, dedicated candidates who are prepared to step up to the challenges the Foreign Service faces in today’s world.
Steve >>Let’s see now. You take an oath to serve in a job. You know ahead of time that you can be sent to serve anywhere in the world they need you, then when you get a shitty assignment you start whining like a fucking 3 year old.
Their employer orders them to an assignment that may very well kill them, leaving their wife a widow and their children emotionally scarred.
And you curse and mock them for speaking up.
Thanks for clarifying what GW Bush meant by “compassionate conservatism.”
qsabe, are you still blathering about the TANG fraud? “Hiding out”, heh. Flying one of the trickiest and deadliest planes the US military has ever been suckered into buying, volunteering to go to Viet Nam, and grabbing extra hours (even if it means flying flowers around) to increase the risk of being sent to Viet Nam, is hiding out from danger?
You know why the military and ex-military did not jump on Bush with both feet? Bush started slaking off /after/ the TANG pilots with more seniority started coming back from ‘Nam. The ex-military would have “swift boated” him if he really did what the loony left claims.
“god” (Good thing I’m an Apathiest, don’t give a ####) The Diplo corps did not sign on to sit in City Hall. They signed on to go where they are told. Your “apples and oranges” is more “apples and bannannas”. Yellow bannannas.
Doesn’t a country have to have a viable government before we start staffing the embassy?
#10, No, we have an embassy in Itally.
Greg, you mean these people who are supposed to know what words mean and how dangerous different parts of the world can be did not read or did not understand what they agreed to do?
Any country requires some people to go into danger in order to reduce danger to the rest. The military is some, the Diplo Corps is the rest.
Now the Diplo Corps are trying to hide out.
Boo, freaking, hoo. (It’s not a Bush thing, I recall the Diplo Corps doing the same crybaby act when Clinton was in office.)
I’m betting that all 200 of these candidates are registered democrats.
#8 Greg – Yeah that’s basically it.
I’ll be they didn’t whine the whole time collecting the check, well, except for maybe the other times they didn’t want to go somewhere.
You’d think professional diplomats would be better at bridging the gap between disparate viewpoints.
I suspect the debate about whether these folks are obligated to go or not is moot- it is probably covered in their employment agreement. The interesting issue is how much the debate has escalated. I wonder how significant a portion of the departments population “several hundred” diplomats is. If most of them resigned, how big a problem is it? I’d guess it is a big problem. The news here is that there is an escalating fight within the government over this, between (as Eideard aptly describes it) the career diplomats and the neocon nutballs…
So. What should these ‘Foreign Service Officials do?
Dead easy mate. The US of A is the most litigious country on Earth.
Let them sack you, then, choose from the queue of lawyers who will be harassing you to let them take your case (for nothing out of your pocket of course). It is not a condition of employment, nor a contractual agreement that you can be compelled to place your life into a known (to your employer) danger of physical injury unless you are in the armed forces or in one of the ‘funny’ services (CIA, FBI, etc) or, of course, a police force – but they only operate on home territory.
Personally I’m in favour of the Plato principle that all those seeking high political office serve a long period of time in the army.
Kills off most of ’em don’t you see.
>>volunteering to go to Viet Nam,
Hah! Hah hah! Tee hee hee! You’re every bit a dumb as you look, aren’tcha?
And I STILL want to know what the “rectangular object” was that Little King Georgie had under his jacket during the debates.
Answer that one, if you dare. Or will that remain yet another one of Dumbya’s scandals (like his military “service”) that the Bush dynasty’s PR machine manages to sweep under the carpet?
This is hilarious:
From Time
Why Diplomats Won’t Go to Iraq
Most discouraging of all, the danger and discomfort do not seem to be in service of a successful strategy. Croddy, the veteran diplomat, implied that the shortage of volunteers was a function of diplomats not believing in the American mission in Iraq. It’s a fair point. Violence has dropped in recent months, but there has been little substantive progress on key issues from disarming Shi’ite militias to deciding how to distribute the nation’s oil revenue. As the Bush Administration ratchets up its rhetoric against Iran it is American diplomats who must deal personally with Shi’ite politicians, who have closer ties to Tehran than to Washington.
19 Phillep – Sounds like exactly why they need diplomats there in the first place.
Steve, my thoughts exactly. As it is, the Diplo Corps is leaving diplomacy to the Marine Corps! Oh, now, isn’t /that/ going to work out good.
Hilarious. And the Diplo Corps has the brass to complain about the results?
22–One commentor said that “danger” is part of the job yes, BUT, standard protocol of Foreign Service is to remove the diplomats during times of armed conflict/danger.
Now it seems the green zone gets shelled everyday–ie, in accepted practice, the diplomats serving there would be REMOVED until the violence/(ie–danger not normally contemplated as part of the daily job) subsides.==Haven’t heard it, but I would assume “diplomats” would be a TARGET of the vile islamofascists?
So, theres is danger, and then there is stupidity. There is foreign service to our country, and then there is BushCo.
#22. yes. No one wants to spend 444 days duct-taped to a chair ala Tehran 79-80, or taken hostage and tortured to death ala Lebanon 1980s. then, there’s the possibility of being caught up in some Blackwater-triggered massacre, or shot by a drunken merc at a Christmas party.
Yeah, they are crybabies all right.
and in typical Bush-Admin heckofajobBrownienotmyproblem fashion:
“Rice did not attend the meeting.”
If I had my 36 years in like the guy they quoted, I tell the bastards to go pound sand, and enjoy my retirement.
Steve & Phillep,
You both missed a big piece of the puzzle. Career diplomats are civilians, they are not military or paramilitary. They are unarmed and not expected, let alone trained, to fight. In every other embassy or consulate, non combat personnel are removed whenever there is a threat of hostilities. In areas of constant hostilities, the staff is reduced to a bare handful at most.
Except in Baghdad. Here the neo-cons are in denial that there is any violence to begin with. Bush loves to crow about how there is a duly elected Iraqi government. Then ignores that government and does whatever the hell they please.
Did anyone read the article? The guy claims that being forced to go to Baghdad is **a death sentance**………..what a crock. Since Saddam fell, we have had over 2000 state department employees working in Iraq and only 3 have been killed. You don’t have to go to Iraq to be killed, try Athens, Greece, or Amman, Jordan.
This sounds like the Democrat’s at the state department joining their teams efforts to undermine Bush as much as possible.
Embassy work has always had a risk to it……ask the folks who served in Tehran, Iran in 1980, or the ones serving in Niarobi just before Clinton obliterated the empty tents’ in Afganistan and showed them Muslim’s he meant business.
#25, Joshua,
Still smoking that wacky tobacky?
Since Saddam fell, we have had over 2000 state department employees working in Iraq and only 3 have been killed.
So let’s try another tact. There are over 300 million Americans and less than 4 thousand have been killed in Iraq. Therefore everyone should be volunteering to go to Iraq. Have you signed up yet?
This sounds like the Democrat’s at the state department joining their teams efforts to undermine Bush as much as possible.
Say what ??? Do you really have any idea of how stupid that sounds? Simply because someone is protesting being sent to a war zone automatically makes them a Democratic puppet?
… ask the folks who served in Tehran, Iran in 1980,
So the innocent victims of terrorists attacks are now to blame? The State Department was very negligent in Tehran in the late 1970s. The majority of diplomats there should have been removed. However, for your information, there was no American Embassy in Tehran in 1980.
…or the ones serving in Niarobi just before Clinton obliterated the empty tents’ in Afganistan and showed them Muslim’s he meant business.
Apparently the cruise missiles missed bin Laden by a matter of hours. I find it extremely discomforting that you would be cheering for bin Laden’s escape. For sure I thought you would be supporting bin Laden’s permanent removal from the face of the earth. As I recall, your hero McCain was stridently pestering the President at this time over a private matter in the Oval Office. None of the Republicans wanted Clinton to go after al Qaeda.
BTW, no American diplomats were killed in Nairobi. All the dead were Kenyan citizens employed at the Embassy.
#26…smarter than a neocon……I was wrong…there have been over 1500 state department people rotated in and out of Iraq since 2004….not over 2000…..3 have died there.
We had an embassy in Iran until 1981 when we offically broke off all relations following the release of the hostages. If you want to quibble about less than 2 months, thats fine….the point is still made. We had no reason to remove our people from the embassy as we had a working relationship with the new Iranian goverment. The capture happened without any real warning, over a matter of a few days after demonstrations.
Clinton sending cruise missle’s at an empty ttraining area of Bin Laden dosen’t say that I wanted him to escape. But Clinton did….even his own people admit they had him, but Clinton and Albright nixed the hit because a Saudi Prince was present and might be killed as well. When the terror attacks happened a lot of Kenyian embassy employees died. Clinton’s response was to blow up an Asperin factory in the Sudan and a cruise missle attack against an Al Quida training camp that our own intell told us was abandoned at least 36 hours before. We killed some goats.
As to protesting being sent to the job you signed up to do and signed a loyalty oath to the goverment is asinine. State department officals have always shown their disent by RESIGNING their positions. If you have a problem with policy, then have the balls to back it up with action, not whining, then going back to work in your cushy Washington office job.
The gentleman who organized the *protest town hall* is a registered Democrat, who has raised his voice before about the war, but never enough to cost him his nice, well paid position at foggy bottom.
1 American embassy offical was killed in Nairobi. But I notice you didn’t go after the other one’s I mentioned….like our Ambassador to Jordan killed in 2002 and the killing in Athen’s, Greeece and many others. Typical left wing ploy….raise a big stink about the spelling or a date 2 months off or a number(not mentioned by me, as my point was that our Embassy’s are dangerous wherever they are) and try to cover with bullshit the facts of the other person’s arguement.
I actually am against the war, based on how we got there and the way it was pursued until recently. But reading stories from the AP, Ruetor’s and BBC, CNN and others it appears Bush may have finally got it right. Iraqi’s are returning to Baghdad because it’s safe again, new businesses are opening in all Iraqi cities, and the death toll is way, way down, less than 200 died last month and American lives lost dropped from 81 a month 2 months ago to less than 35 this month, 32 last month. The surge is working, and so are Pretorious’s plan to get the insurgents on our side. This is of course NOT the news certain people want to hear, like the Democratic leadership in Congress and die hard leftist’s.
And I don’t need whacky weed to read the facts Mr. Not as smart as he thinks.
Joshua,
So 81 dieing is bad, but 35 dieing is good? Or 32? Or 200 civilians? I’m not sure where that number comes from either, you have never backed up your wild claims. I would think that ONE death, American or Iraqi is too many. Only assholes have this knack of justifying deaths in a meaningful way.
Clinton’s response was to blow up an Asperin factory in the Sudan and a cruise missle attack against an Al Quida training camp that our own intell told us was abandoned at least 36 hours before. We killed some goats.
Claims like that are the reason I call bullshit on you. The intelligence said the government run Sudanese factory was producing chemical weapons. You remember the CIA? Ya, them guys.
“…the U.S. intelligence community obtained physical evidence from outside the al-Shifa facility in Sudan that supported long-standing concerns regarding its potential role in Sudanese chemical weapon efforts that could be exploited by al Qaeda.”
http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing8/cohen_statement.pdf
The same as with the Al Qaeda training camp. Apparently bin Laden was there a few hours earlier.
The Khost camp, Zawhar Kili, was reportedly the scene of a meeting of “senior leaders of Islamic militant and terrorist groups linked to bin Laden,” and was regarded by Pakistani intelligence as a “summit” convened by bin Laden. Whether bin Laden would definitely attend was uncertain to the Americans, but the attack was made partly in hopes that bin Laden would attend and be killed. After the attack, the CIA heard that bin Laden had been at Zawhar Kili but had left some hours before the missiles hit.
Steve Coll (2005) Ghost Wars (paperback ed.) 409-10. Penguin: ISBN 0-14-303466-9.
The gentleman who organized the *protest town hall* is a registered Democrat,
Like I said, you never back up your wild claims. So what does it matter what ONE FUCKING PERSON’S political registration is. You implied every one unhappy at going to Iraq is a Democratic operative. Hey, several of the guy’s top bosses are Republican Party appointees. That means they got their jobs because they ARE Republicans, not because they are neutral civil servants who must pass an exam to earn their jobs.
I actually am against the war, based on how we got there and the way it was pursued until recently.
But now the war is OK because only 35 American troops and 200 Iraqi civilians died this month.
And I don’t need whacky weed to read the facts Mr. Not as smart as he thinks.
Then how on earth do you come up with such wild claims?
Joshua, you are a moran if you think you can continue to create bullshit and have others believe it. Try a little research first. Oh right, home schoolers don’t do that kind of crap.