State Department Internal Dissent Memos Continue as Usual (The Independent Can Reveal)

"As The Indpendent can reveal," there has been a virtual earthquake of internal protest within the State Department over the war in Gaza, resulting in a tsunami of dissent memos. 

An "unprecedented flood" of them to be exact. Read about it here: State department sees unprecedented flood of internal dissent memos over Gaza war

State department staff sent at least eight internal dissent memos to express disagreement with US policy on Israel and Gaza during the first two months of the war, The Independent can reveal.

A further memo was sent last month from the US embassy in Jordan, warning of increasing instability across the region due to Israel’s ongoing war, according to a person familiar with the matter, bringing the total number to at least nine.

Such a high number of internal dissent memorandums – a formal process by which staff can express concerns internally to a policy – highlights the widespread opposition within the department to the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s war in Gaza.

But, what's this? If you read 30 paragraphs into that 33-paragraph story you find some context:

There were an average of almost nine dissent messages per year sent to Washington between 1972 and 2017, according to the Foreign Service Journal.

So there have been nine internal dissent memos so far in the last half year, as the Independent can reveal, compared to an average of "almost nine" (so then, eight?) per year over the last half century. 

To ask the greatest of all philosophical questions: so what?

Three Cheers For Military Bands!

As many, many, commentators have pointed out, the U.S. military has more musicians than the U.S. State Department has Foreign Service Officers. Everybody knows that. Even the Secretary of Defense comments about that. And everybody finds that fact amusing and ironic.

Now, of course the Foreign Service needs more people. The staffing numbers speak for themselves.

But is it really so odd that the military should have so many musicians? I think not. Two recent bits of news have me reflecting on the value of military music.

First, Unredacted linked to the U.S. Army's Field Manual on Army Bands. That document provides historical context for military music, like how fifes and drums were vital for communicating on the battlefield from the ancient world up to the Napoleonic Age. More importantly, it defines the military music mission in terms that an FSO should appreciate.

For example:

United States Army bands provide music throughout the entire spectrum of operations to instill in our forces the will to fight and win, foster the support of our citizens, and promote America’s interests at home and abroad.

ARMY BANDS IN FULL SPECTRUM OPERATIONS 1-1.

Bands provide music for ceremonial and morale support within full spectrum operations to sustain warriors and to inspire leaders. Deployed bands are capable of reinforcing positive relations with host-nation, multinational, and joint forces. Army bands communicate through the broadcast and print media to foster support of American citizens, both while deployed and at home. Live performances in parades, concerts, and other public appearances represent the Army and our Nation while promoting national interests. Bands support the recruiting mission, provide comfort to recovering Soldiers, and contribute to a positive climate for Army families. Army bands of the 21st century are organized, trained, and equipped to conduct concurrent operations in supporting multiple objectives with targeted musical styles.

-- snip --

REINFORCING NATIONAL RELATIONS

1-8. FM 3-0 stresses the importance of success in ―shaping the civil situation. Inherently capable of providing a climate for international relations, bands serve as representatives of senior commanders in multinational operations or to the host-nation population. Their ability to project receptiveness supports commanders in dialog with civic leaders. Cultural exchange, including the artistic and the social elements, benefit the United States and its interests. Participation in civic activities encourages goodwill at the core level of international relations.

FOSTERING SUPPORT

1-9. When combined with FM 3-61.1, Army bands have a direct impact on mission success in shaping perceptions, attitudes, and opinions. Capable of producing programs for television, radio, and live performance, bands reach a diversified public with a positive message. While in the community, band members are often in face-to-face contact with the citizens, thus bands work to represent the Army values off the installation.

The FM includes two success stories that involve international relations:

U.S.-Russian Relations - In 1996, the 1st Armored Division Band deployed from Bad Kreuznach, Germany, in support of Task Force Eagle in Tuzla, Bosnia. The band received a tasking to send the rock band, "Mo Better Blues," to play specifically for a Russian unit stationed at Camp Uglijevik in the dead of winter over snow covered mountain roads ... The U.S. liaison officer met the band upon arrival and showed the members to the performance venue: the mess hall. The liaison had been there for a month, but had had very little progress in ―breaking the ice with Russian cooperation ... The Russians jammed about 200 soldiers into the small mess hall. Most were conscripts and did not look particularly happy to be there. The band, led by Staff Sergeant Alvin "Mo" Morris, played a list of classic rock tunes as well as some country music, and the Russians enthusiastically responded with demands for multiple encores. The U.S. liaison officer stated that the band had done more for U.S.-Russian relations in 90 minutes than he had been able to do in 30 days.

The Shanghai International Wind Band Festival - In April of 2008, the 8th U.S. Army Band was invited by China to participate in the Shanghai International Wind Band Festival. The first American military band and the first American military unit in recent history to enter the country, they performed over 5 days for live audiences of over 500,000 and televised audiences in the millions. As U.S. ambassadors, they won the prodigious cheers and applause of the Chinese audiences as they performed American music of Elvis Presley and John Williams as well as traditional marches in a concert, a parade, and a nightly military tattoo. Association between the two countries’ bands was initially reserved and withdrawn, uncertain of how to conduct mutual foreign relations. However, a positive climate was built by the third day of living and eating together when conspicuous small, impromptu Chinese and American music groups began harmonizing.

With all that expeditionary full-spectrum supporting, shaping of perceptions, cultural exchange, and fostering of relations going on, I'm surprised the military isn't seeking even more musicians. Maybe Congress should be concerned that we have allowed a Military Music Gap to grow between us and our national adversaries?

The other bit of military music news that I have in mind is the death just last week of Bill Millin, the British Army bagpiper who played traditional Scottish quick marches as his brigade waded ashore on D-Day. It's a bit striking to realize that only one generation ago British troops on the battlefield were preceded by a piper who was wearing a Cameron tartan kilt and was armed with only a Skean Dhu, the Highlander's last resort knife.

Below is a photo of Millin stepping out of the landing craft, the pipes just barely visible over his left shoulder.















From the New York Times article on Millin's death:

The young piper was approached shortly before the landings by the brigade’s commanding officer, Brig. Simon Fraser, who as the 15th Lord Lovat was the hereditary chief of the Clan Fraser and one of Scotland’s most celebrated aristocrats. Against orders from World War I that forbade playing bagpipes on the battlefield because of the high risk of attracting enemy fire, Lord Lovat, then 32, asked Private Millin to play on the beachhead to raise morale.

When Private Millin demurred, citing the regulations, he recalled later, Lord Lovat replied: “Ah, but that’s the English War Office. You and I are both Scottish, and that doesn’t apply.”

After wading ashore in waist-high water that he said caused his kilt to float, Private Millin reached the beach, then marched up and down, unarmed, playing the tunes Lord Lovat had requested, including "Highland Laddie" and “Road to the Isles.”

With German troops raking the beach with artillery and machine-gun fire, the young piper played on as his fellow soldiers advanced through smoke and flame on the German positions, or fell on the beach. The scene provided an emotional high point in [the movie] “The Longest Day.”

So there you go. Military musicians have a long and storied history of supporting troops, fostering relations, and carrying out our national missions. So does the Foreign Service.

I say the two should join sides and lobby Congress for doubling both forces. If Congress would cut funding for just one new program like the FX-Boondoggle SuperAdvanced ÜberTactical 15thGeneration AirSuperiority fighter plane, we could have twice the diplomats and musicians, and would still have unchallenged air superiority over any other nation on earth. Who other than Boeing and Lockheed Martin could object to that?

Sad News Released Today

Statement on State Department Family Members Killed in Earthquake

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton today [January 26] paid tribute to members of the State Department family killed in the earthquake in Haiti. Speaking to State Department and USAID staff at a town hall meeting, the Secretary honored the memories of Victoria DeLong, a Cultural Affairs Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, and the family of Andrew Wyllie, a decorated State Department officer working for the United Nations in Haiti. He lost his wife Laurence and his two young sons Evan and Baptiste in the disaster. A transcript of her remarks follows:

"I thank all of you from throughout the Department, our colleagues from AID who have been working literally around the clock since January 12th. The needs are overwhelming. We are trying to meet the humanitarian needs in this period, while at the same time working with the Haitian Government, the UN, and other countries and organizations to plan for the longer term. When I spoke to family members who had lost loved ones – Victoria DeLong – and then I spoke with Andrew Wyllie – they both thanked me as Secretary for the outpouring of support that they had received from colleagues. In Victoria’s case, from people who had served with her, who knew her, who had reached out to the family, who had really demonstrated the closeness of community that exists among us. And for Andrew Wyllie, who inconceivably, unimaginably lost his wife on her birthday and his seven-and-a-half and five-year-old children, he mentioned specifically the names of those who had been working with him in these very difficult days to recover the bodies of his wife and children. And again, the sense that it was not even just a community, but a large and extended family came through in everything he said to me. That certainly is the way I feel after a year here, working with many of you, but of course, many, many more with whom I do not work on a daily or a weekly basis, but who I know are toiling in offices and posts and missions and projects across the world on behalf of our country, our values, our interests, our security, to build that better future that we think every person deserves and to create the opportunity for every child to live up to his or her God-given potential."

I understand that several members of the embassy's locally engaged staff in Haiti were also killed or injured, but so far I've seen no reliable numbers. A co-worker who is helping with the recovery effort tells me that almost half of the LES are not currently at the embassy, which is an ominous sign.

E$tremely Qualified Ambassadors

The Wall Street Journal has taken notice of the large number of political donors and fundraisers who have been appointed to ambassadorial posts (Donors Find a Home in Obama's Ambassador Corps). A few quotes:

Mr. Obama's choice of Mr. Roos [TSB note: John V. Roos, the Silicon Valley lawyer and Democractic Party money bundler who is going to Tokyo], along with other political boosters -- from former investment banker Louis B. Susman, known as the "vacuum cleaner" for his fundraising prowess, to Pittsburgh Steelers owner Dan Rooney -- has raised eyebrows among some who thought the president would extend his mantra of change to the diplomatic corps.

"We're not only insulting nations [that] we're appointing these bundlers to, we're risking U.S. diplomatic efforts in these key countries," said Craig Holman, a government-affairs lobbyist at watchdog group Public Citizen.

This tension can be traced back to Mr. Obama's claim during last year's campaign that President George W. Bush engaged in an "extraordinary politicization of foreign policy." Mr. Obama said he instead would ensure that hires are based on merit, rather than party or ideology. The American Academy of Diplomacy, an association of former diplomats, seized on the comments in lobbying him to lower the portion of ambassadors drawn from outside the foreign-service establishment to as little as 10% from the 30% average since President John F. Kennedy's tenure. (Mr. Bush's score was 33%.)

Of the Obama administration's 55 ambassadorial nominees so far, 33 -- or 60% -- have gone to people outside the foreign-service ranks, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

That ratio is almost certain to tilt back toward career diplomats as dozens of the remaining posts are filled.

"The president said in January that he would nominate extremely qualified individuals like Mr. Roos, former Congressman Tim Roemer, and Miguel Diaz, who didn't necessarily come up through the ranks of the State Department, but want to serve their country in important diplomatic posts," said White House spokesman Tommy Vietor.

So there you go. No one ever said that the people "extremely qualified" for important diplomatic posts would necessarilly be those who are qualified by virtue of professional preparation. Obama promised he would appoint ambassadors according to "merit," and so he has. It's just that all of his political fundraisers have merit, and not all of his senior Foreign Service Officers do. Is anyone actually surprised by this?

Apparently, some really are surprised. The American Academy of Diplomacy and other admirers of Obama jumped to the conclusion that the people Obama would find "extremely qualified" to fill his ambassadorial posts would be, you know, diplomats. The Academy of Diplomacy had especially unrealistic hopes ("President-elect Barack Obama has repeatedly stated his intention to change the culture of Washington. He promises to drive the money changers (the lobbyists) from the temple, to reduce the partisanship and to appoint people who can actually do the job -- not just his political supporters.") Ouch! Reality bites. At least, it does if you believe political promises.

The ambassador's union is putting a good spin on the bad news:

Ronald E. Neumann, president of the Academy and a retired Foreign Service officer, cautioned that it is far too early to tell how the Obama lineup will look. When administrations turn over, the first ambassadors to leave their posts often are the prior president's political appointees; those spots are first to be filled, in turn, with new political appointees. Mr. Roos's predecessor in Tokyo, in fact, was a former business partner of Mr. Bush, although he had served as ambassador to Australia before the Japan post.

The president's slate of nominees thus far, Mr. Neumann said, "tells you it's not change, but it doesn't yet tell you what it is."

Maybe I'm a cynic, but, if it isn't change, then I'd say that it's The Same Old Thing.

And then there's this:

The Swiss media aired some concerns about the choice of car-dealership magnate Don Beyer for the Geneva posting.

They're talking about my homeboy, Don Beyer junior, son of the real Don Beyer who built a Falls Church, Virginia, Volvo dealership into the automotive empire that junior inherited. Basically a rich-kid dilettante, Don junior got into Democratic politics as a money raiser; he was Howard Dean’s national treasurer before raising money for Obama. He never ran for any local or state office until he bought the Virginia Democratic Party nomination for Lieutenant Governor back in the 90s. He served four pointless years in an otherwise Republican administration with a Republican-majority legislature, then ran for Governor and lost. His most commendable achievement is that his family business runs the absolutely very best radio commercials I've ever heard. [Here’s an archive of those one-minute masterpieces; I particularly like the Oxymoron and Latin Words ads.]

Beyer might be a political lightweight, but he's honest and harmless, which means he compares favorably to the "extremely qualified" appointees who preceded him in the last few administrations. What did Switzerland ever do to us that we've sent them such a string of crooks and cronies?

We have sent the Swiss: Peter Coneway, a Goldman Sachs partner who was a major donor to the Bush campaign; Pamela Willeford, a Texas socialite and hunting partner of Dick Cheney; Mercer Reynolds, Bush's 2000 Ohio finance chairman; Madeleine Kunin, a former Vermont Governor appointed by Clinton upon the death of his first appointee Larry Lawrence, a Friend of Bill who contributed about 20 million to Democrats over his lifetime, sometimes in excess of legal limits, and who extended both his generosity and his poor regard for financial disclosure requirements to his fellow Ambassador Richard Holbrooke.

That last appointee was enough to embarrass even Bill Clinton, assuming that is possible. After Lawrence's death it was rumored - all too believably - that he had been under investigation by the State Department's Office of the Inspector General for financial irregularities when he passed away. Lawrence caused one last scandal when Clinton approved his burial in Arlington National Cemetery based on a false claim - which Lawrence had perpetuated even during his Senate confirmation hearing - to have served in the U.S. Merchant Marine during World War II. As it happens, merchant mariners are not entitled to burial in Arlington in the first place, but Clinton wasn't one to let rules, or a regard for the truth, stand in his way, especially not when Lawrence's widow was keeping the money flowing and insisted on the Arlington burial. When that outrageous fraud was exposed, Lawrence's body was disinterred.

This country could do better than an Ambassador Don Beyer, and we could do worse. That makes him typical of the political appointees we send abroad as ambassadors. If you're the kind who believes in campaign promises - whether explicit or implicit - you might find that a bad thing. Personally, I'll settle for it.

Hey FSOs, Let's Get the Band Back Together

Consul-at-Arms points out that the phrase "Stone Cold Professional Diplomats" would make a great name for an in-house State Department rock band. I agree.

Good instincts, CAA. I've checked and found out that some variation of that name is already being used by at least two groups (this one and this one) as well as in the title of a song by Queen (Stone Cold Crazy) that was later covered by Metallica.

Since I know there must be lots of FSO garage bands out there somewhere, here are a few suggestions for names no one has taken yet.

The Black Passports
Immunity
Chargé d'Soul
Headbangin' Cookie Pushers
The Band Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary
Attachés of Funk
Foreign Policy Fever
Rage Against the Démarche
Dipnotes N' Roses
The Red Hot Vice Consuls
CD/DC [that stands for Corps Diplomatique from the District of Columbia]
D.C.M. [Diplomatic Corps Musicians]
Pea and Gee'd
Back-channel Blues Band
Constructive Ambiguity
Smart Power and the Bilateral Experience
The Foggy Bottom Boys [for a Bluegrass group]
Reclama!

and my favorite,

25 Percent Differential

Ambassador Nominees Get Richer, if Not More Professional

The Obama administration hasn't actually appointed any ambassadors yet other than for UN Ambassador Susan Rice, so it's still possible that Obama will appoint no one but stone cold professional diplomats to fill all those vacancies created when the Bush administration's ambassadors were dismissed, just like his admirers in the foreign affairs community (such as here and here) expect he will. But the rumors so far can't be making them happy.

Last month it was a Pittsburgh sports owner going to Ireland, now it's Chicago money bundler Louis Susman, the recently retired vice chairman of Citigroup Global Markets, former campaign finance director for Kerry in 2006, and major fundraiser for Obama in 2008, to the United Kingdom's Court of St. James.

From the Telegraph today:

Barack Obama has been embroiled in a cronyism row after reports that he intends to make Louis Susman, one of his biggest fundraisers, the new US ambassador in London.

Mr Susman's reputation for hoovering large amounts of cash from deep pockets saw him nicknamed "the vacuum cleaner" when he raised more than $240 million for John Kerry's White House bid in 2004.

He was one of Mr Obama's biggest campaign cash "bundlers", fundraisers who collect contributions from hundreds of others. He also gave $300,000 to the president's inauguration fund.

At least Obama is picking a much wealthier political-appointee ambassador than the last one Bush settled for.

Robert Tuttle, the US ambassador in London since 2005, was a California car dealer who raised $100,000 for George W Bush's 2004 election campaign and another $100,000 for his inauguration.

A car dealer who kicked in only $200,000? He sounds like a piker compared to Louis Susman.

A Well-Credentialed (?) Ambassador

From the Irish Times:

DEAGLÁN DE BRÉADÚN, Political Correspondent

PROMINENT IRISH-AMERICAN businessman Dan Rooney, owner and chairman of the Pittsburgh Steelers football team, is widely tipped to be the next US ambassador to Ireland, in succession to Thomas C Foley.

The appointment is expected to be announced on or near St Patrick’s Day, in line with tradition. Other names featuring in speculation are Caroline Kennedy, daughter of the late president John F Kennedy, and leading trade unionist John Sweeney of the AFL-CIO.

In an interview with a local TV station in Pittsburgh this week, Mr Rooney, a co-founder of the Ireland Fund charity with Dr Tony O’Reilly, was asked if he would like to be appointed to the job. He replied: “It would be interesting.”

When it was put to him that he had all the right credentials, he answered: “I have the credentials, there’s no doubt about that.”

A well-placed Irish-American source commented last night: “If Dan wants it, Dan gets it.”

Now aged 76, Mr Rooney is hale and hearty and flies his own plane. He was an early backer of Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency.

According to the Irish Voice newspaper, “He was so impressed by Obama’s oratory back in January that he called his son Jim and told him he was going to work for the Democratic candidate.

“At the time Obama was an outsider, looking as if he was going to get crushed by the Clinton machine. Rooney, however, saw something he really liked.

“In April he wrote a long letter to his friends and associates backing Obama, at a time when Clinton was vastly more popular in Pennsylvania.

“Then in late October, during Obama’s last trip to Pennsylvania, Rooney presented him with a Steelers jersey, a move that drew criticism from some life-long conservative Steelers fans.”

With his deeply-held traditional Catholic views and opposition to abortion, Mr Rooney is not a typical Obama supporter but he has a much-praised record of hiring African-Americans in Pittsburgh.

U.S. Consulate Jerusalem's Lost Files

So far, this incident appears to be more embarrassing than damaging. Judging by what can be seen in this video, the lost files consist mostly of mildly interesting administrative info, including leave and earnings statements [i.e., pay slips], Marine Security Guard Detachment mess fund records, and account ledgers. There was also one nugget of possibly sensitive information regarding payments to a local activist group. The only classified item was a contact report involving a Marine Security Guard and a local woman.

It's low-level stuff but still potentially exploitable by a hostile intelligence service, which makes this a serious compromise.

The records were lost when the Consulate sold old filing cabinets at a local auction in 2005. The purchaser of the cabinets evidently kept the files until sometime after September 2008 when, out of anger over a (mistaken) news report that a car used in an attack on Israeli soldiers had also been sold at auction by the U.S. Consulate, she took them to Fox News in Jerusalem. Fox News viewed the files before they were returned to the Consulate.

This is by no means the first time sensitive U.S. government materials have been lost when furniture and other surplus items were disposed of. I know of far worse cases, such as these, which occurred so long ago that it's no longer a problem to mention them:

-- In 1986, if I recall the date correctly, WTTG Metromedia News in Washington DC reported that Top Secret documents from the State Department were found at Lorton Reformatory - a now defunct Federal facility for prisoners from the District of Colombia - inside safes that the prisoners were refurbishing under a contract with the General Services Administration.

-- In 1992 (?) the General Accounting Office reported that the Department of Justice had disposed of computers whose hard drives still contained files of the U.S. Marshal Services's witness relocation program for the northeastern United States.

-- One day in 1988 I was having dinner with the U.S. Consul-General in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, when the Consulate duty officer called him to report that a very responsible Mexican citizen was asking how he should return a dozen or so Light Anti-Tank Weapons that he had discovered inside 'empty' shipping containers he had purchased at Fort Bliss, Texas, earlier that day and had unwittingly brought back with him to Mexico.

Nothing nearly so serious was lost in Jerusalem, nevertheless, any sensitive information that goes out of U.S. government control in an overseas environment is potentially damaging. File it away under Lessons Learned, only, next time remember to remove that file before you sell the cabinet.

U.S. Diplomat Battles Warlord in 1949 Flick

It's Vice Consul Ken Seeley versus Marshal Yun Usu in the 1949 film: State Department: File 649, which can be viewed or downloaded here.

I suppose it isn't a realistic depiction of the Foreign Service back then. At least I don't think post-war diplomats normally pulled pistols on Mongolian warlords and sabotaged their trailers with dynamite bombs. But, if they did, that would be exactly the kind of diplomacy I'd have wanted my taxes to pay for.

Foreign Service Oral Histories On-Line

I've just discovered that the U.S. Library of Congress makes its Foreign Affairs Oral History Collection of the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training available for browsing online. You can search the collection by subject or author.

It's great stuff! I've been browsing it by looking up interviews with those Ambassadors I had some interaction with over the years, such as the late Charles Anthony Gillespie Jr . His interview really brought back into vivid relief for me the wild late-1980s in Colombia, when the U.S. Embassy and its officers, no less than the host government authorities, were under severe threat of attack from narco cartels. (I'm starting to feel like an historical artifact myself at this point, having first gone to work for the State Department in 1986.)

Amid all the important foreign policy and national security stuff that was going on then, Bogota was also the scene of my minor masterpeice of protective ingenuity. In response to Ambassador Gillespie's special request, I figured out a way to have operable (opening) ballistic windows made and installed in one of our facilities. He wanted fresh air, plus he needed a way to get out through the windows in case of a fire, so I came up with an unconventional solution that actually worked pretty well. I would never get away with that sort of thing today, but back in the Miami Vice era everything was more laid-back.

Can't the Foreign Service Get Some Love?

Popular interest in the Great Foreign Service Rebellion of 2007 hasn't waned yet. Raucous contempt for those wussy diplomats seems to be that rare bi-partisan thing that unites Americans of all political leanings. As a Civil - not Foreign - Service employee at State, I'm just an interested observer.

Here's a link to a letter posted on Dipnote from a U.S. Foreign Service Officer serving in Iraq. He addresses his State Department colleagues on the highly overwrought subject of involuntary (or "directed") assignments. It's the most sensible public response that I've seen on this matter.

Also of interest is this dissection of a typically confused news report on the subject of directed assignments. It's posted by Consul-at-Arms, a former solider turned Foreign Service Officer (and, incidentally, someone with whom TSB has shared a cubicle a couple of times over the years).

Hell No, We Won't (All) Go!

You've no doubt seen the media coverage of the State Department's 'townhall meeting' to discuss Department plans for some involuntary assignments to Iraq. The money quote was provided by a senior Foreign Service Officer, Mr. Jack Croddy (photo above), who appears to have been cast as La Passionaria of the Great Foreign Service Rebellion of 2007:

"It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment," Mr Croddy said."I'm sorry, but basically that's a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?"You know that at any other [country] in the world, the embassy would be closed at this point."

Predictably, it was the "potential death sentence" phrase that got all the attention, and has led to endless and repetitive denunciations from internet-land of all those State Department pussies who fear to go to Baghdad. From what I've seen, there is a right/left split in the exact terms of those denunciations, with the right-wing bloggers most often calling diplomats unpatriotic civilians, wimps, and Clinton administration hold-overs, and their left-wing counterparts usually calling them Neo-Con chickenhawks.

Just FYI, the chances of a diplomat being killed during a tour in Iraq are approximately 1 in 500, since about 1,500 State Department employees have served in Iraq since 2003 and three of them have been killed [a ratio of 1:500]. By comparison, about 500,000 troops have been deployed to Iraq since 2003 and about 4000 of them were killed, or one in 125 [1:125]. That proves it is more dangerous to be a troop than a diplomat, as one would expect, but it's not exactly safe to be a diplomat, either.

Chances of death aside, it was Mr. Croddy's comment about how 'any other embassy would be closed' that I found much more significant. I suspect that really gets to the heart of the very genuine Foreign Service reluctance about the enterprise in Iraq. The fact is that there really isn't much, if any, diplomatic work to do when hunkered down in the Green Zone. This Time magazine piece gets it right:

"The most demoralizing aspect of the violence may not be the physical risk, but rather the isolation and sense of futility the violence engenders. Most diplomats leave the Green Zone only rarely, and never simply to socialize with ordinary Iraqis or explore the city."

Today's diplomats experience more than their fair share of hazardous duty stations. Someone who came into the Foreign Service in 1971, as Mr. Croddy did, has seen the embassy environment drastically changed by mob take-overs starting in 1979 (Tehran, Tripoli and Islamabad), suicide carbombers starting in 1982 (Kuwait, and Beirut twice), and more or less constant assassinations, riots, hostage-taking, wars, and civil disturbances. That's on top of the traditional embassy threats of violent crime and disease.

Most Americans have an out-dated and ridiculously glamorized image of embassies and diplomats. The first embassy I ever visited was Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in the aftermath of a military coup. I was fresh out the U.S. Army at the time, and the embassy compared very unfavorably to any Army base I had ever experienced. It was a shock to my TV-and-movie derived image of the plush diplomatic life. Since then, I've visited about 45 embassies (some of them even worse than Haiti!) and have had a ring-side seat from which to observe the Foreign Service both abroad and in Washington. I completely reject the idea that diplomats are unwilling to serve in unpleasant or dangerous places.

So, how many Iraq positions have to be filled? The news media has done a terrible job of reporting the basic facts of this story. State isn't drafting diplomats wholesale, and it doesn't lack volunteers for Baghdad or the Provincial Reconstruction Teams. Here are the facts: there are about 260 diplomatic positions in Iraq now, all filled with volunteers; Ambassador Crocker has asked for an additional 48 positions to be created in the next few months, 15 of them in Baghdad and 33 in the PRTs. State has notified 250 officers that they are prime candidates for filling those 48 positions, and that they will consider directed assignments if enough officers don't volunteer. As of Friday, 15 officers have already volunteered. In short, there is no crisis here.

You can read all about it at this State Department press conference.