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

Tax Breaks for Foreign Chain-Smokers

The Office of Foreign Missions, an organization that monitors, licences and polices all alien diplomatic activity in the United States [not unlike the Men in Black, whose motto was: "Protecting the earth from the scum of the universe," except that OFM would never use the word "scum"] has decided to exempt foreign diplomats from having to pay U.S. Federal, State and local taxes on tobacco.

Given the large number of diplomatic personnel that the U.S. hosts in hundreds of foreign embassies, consulates and UN missions, and the fact that most foreigners smoke like fiends (as experienced travellers can attest), I expect this will cause a significant loss of tax revenue.

The only upside of this decision is to "facilitate relations between the United States and foreign governments [and] to improve or maintain the availability of tax exemption privileges for the United States." In other words, we'll make some foreign diplomats happier, and keep open some reciprocal tax loopholes for our own diplomats abroad. Hum. I suspect most U.S. citizens would rather have the cash than the gratitude.

Here's the notice in the Federal Register:

DEPARTMENT OF STATE [Public Notice 6495]

Designation of Benefits Under the Foreign Missions Act; Diplomatic and Consular Exemption From Tobacco Excise Taxes

After due consideration of the benefits, privileges and immunities provided to missions of the United States under the Vienna Diplomatic and Consular Conventions and other governing treaties, and in order to facilitate relations between the United States and foreign governments, to improve or maintain the availability of tax exemption privileges for the United States, and by virtue of the authority vested in me under the Foreign Missions Act, 22 U.S.C. 4301 et seq., and Delegation of Authority No. 214, Sec. 14, dated September 20, 1994, I hereby designate as a benefit under the Act, to be granted to foreign diplomatic and consular missions and personnel in the United States on the basis of reciprocity and as otherwise determined by the Department, to include personnel of international organizations and missions to such organizations who are otherwise entitled to exemption from direct taxes, exemption from Federal and State or local excise taxes imposed with respect to tobacco products (as defined in 26 U.S.C. 5702) manufactured, packaged or sold in the United States. Procedures governing implementation of this benefit will be established by the Department of the Treasury.

DATES: Effective Date: January 28, 2009.

Dated: January 14, 2009. Eric J. Boswell, Ambassador, Director of the Office of Foreign Missions and Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security, Department of State.

[FR Doc. E9-1723 Filed 1-27-09; 8:45 am]

George Clooney Takes a Meeting at the White House

An impromptu summit conference on the Darfur crisis took place at the White House yesterday, according to ABC News. President Barack Obama and Vice-President Joseph Biden met with George Clooney, the Special Envoy from Hollywood, and they had a frank exchange of views followed by a fruitful dialog capped off with an assurance of White House support.

ABC News' Karen Travers reports: George Clooney met with President Obama and Vice President Biden separately tonight at the White House and they told him they would appoint a full-time, high-level envoy on Darfur that would report directly to the White House, he said.

“They assured me and wanted to assure the rest, whoever else is listening, this is high on their agenda,” the Academy Award-winning actor told reporters following the meetings. “This is a huge policy step for us.”

Clooney said that Obama and Biden told him that before the White House can send an envoy, there needs to be a full policy in place on Darfur.

Clooney has been an outspoken advocate on the issue of Darfur for several years and has traveled to the region a half dozen times. He was appointed last year as a United Nations Messenger of Peace and is a founder of “Not on Our Watch,” an organization that was started to bring awareness and resources to the conflict in Darfur.

Clooney came to the White House tonight to meet with Biden to discuss his trip this month to Eastern Chad, where he visited Darfurian refugee camps with New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, and to lobby the Obama administration to make Darfur one of its top foreign policy priorities.

“The vice president informed Mr. Clooney about the Administration’s ongoing review of Sudan policy and welcomed his observations from his trip. The vice president thanked Mr. Clooney for his work on this issue, which he believes is an important contribution to the public’s understanding of the conflict in Darfur,” Biden spokeswoman Elizabeth Alexander said.

Clooney was not scheduled to meet with Obama, but after running into him, the president invited him to sit down and talk in the Oval Office.

Clooney said Obama and Biden both said Darfur is one of several key foreign policies issues on the administration’s agenda.

“That’s good to hear because there was some concern this could fall off the radar. As you know there are quite a few other things going on in the world,” Clooney said.

During the campaign, Obama frequently spoke out on the Darfur crisis and criticized the Bush Administration for not doing more to prevent and stop genocide there. Around 300,000 people have been killed in the six-year conflict in Darfur and nearly 2.5 million people have been displaced.

Clooney said he brought with him to the White House 250,000 postcards signed by people from all across the United States urging the Obama Administration to work to end the crisis in Darfur.

“The administration has assured me that Darfur is one of a small handful of foreign policy reviews being undertaken at the senior most level,” Clooney said. “This is important -– it’s not about government money, not about government troops. It’s about involvement.”

I don't yet know how this summit was perceived in the diplomatic community. Bono is traveling in Africa and is unavailable for comment, and Angelina Jolie's spokeswoman did not return my calls.

I must say that George Clooney sure does look exactly like an Ambassador should, and looking the part is half-way there in this mass media age. He projects sincerity well, and has just enough grey at the temples to appear distinguished. And he's obviously mastered the patter: "this is high on their agenda" ... "there was some concern this could fall off the radar" ... "one of a small handful of foreign policy reviews being undertaken at the senior most level" ... "it’s not about government money, not about government troops." Why doesn't he just go for it and ask Obama for an appointment?

It would not be unprecedented. President Reagan appointed John Gavin, an actor friend, Ambassador to Mexico. I ran into Gavin several times at the embassy and he always appeared impeccably Ambassador-like. But I really saw what skills Gavin brought to the table when he was visiting the construction site of a new consulate office building in Hermosillo. He was wearing a business suit when he arrived at the work site, but then, the instant he spotted a local TV news crew coming down the street, he whipped off his suit coat, rolled up his shirt sleeves, loosened his tie, put on a hardhat, snatched up my sunglasses, and went strolling about pretending to be unaware of the news crew. I realized he had done a costume change in the blink of an eye and was now wearing inspecting-the-construction-site garb that was perfect for unposed action photos. Pro is pro, and he hadn't lost any of his performance abilities even though he hadn't made a movie in ages. Truly, these actors are not to be underestimated.

Clooney is old enough and wealthy enough to spend a few years in public service. Who better for Obama to appoint as that promised high-level envoy to Darfur? Or, better yet, appoint him Ambassador to Something or Other. It would be worth it just to see the resume the 'H' Bureau would have to write for his - no doubt fawning - confirmation hearing.

Films of D-Day Practice Landings Located

The Daily Mail has a story today (here) about the discovery of 38 reels of film that depict parts of Exercise Tiger, the 1944 D-Day practice landings in Southwest England. During the exercise, 946 U.S. soldiers and sailors were killed when German torpedo boats attacked a convoy of landing ships.

Secret footage of U.S. soldiers training alongside British troops for D-Day in South-West England have been unearthed from a dusty archive and seen for the first time in 65 years.

The 38 reels - lasting ten minutes each - show a variety of images including tanks rolling across beaches and soldiers wading through waves. In another sequence, troops are lined up in make-shift landing barges.

Here's a link to one of the films, which shows troops deploying out of a simulated Higgins Boat landing craft (photo above).

Exercise Tiger was one of a number of pre-invasion exercises that took place in April and May of 1944. It took place at Devon's Slapton Beach, which was selected for its similarity to the portion of Normandy's coastline that was assigned to the U.S. Army's 4th Infantry Division in the D-Day invasion and designated "Utah" Beach. The disaster that took place during the exercise was not exactly covered up, but it certainly was officially minimized, due to both official embarrassment and pre-invasion security concerns. The residents of coastal Devon had been relocated inland as a wartime measure so there were really no civilian witnesses, and the casualty statistics from Tiger were not released until August 1944 along with the casualties of the actual D-Day landings themselves. There was little official interest in the whole sad episode after the war was over.

There's a good book about the incident (The Forgotten Dead) by the late Ken Small, which describes both the exercise itself and the author's process of discovering and memorializing what had happened at Slapton Beach, a process that began when he became curious about the large number of American military artifacts and personal belongings that he kept finding on and around the beach.

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.

Google Earth Spots High-Tech Falconry Base in Pakistan

Senator Feinstein blurted it out last week, and the Washington Post wrote about it last March, but it looks like it was Google Earth that first told the world the U.S. was flying Predator drones from bases in Pakistan.

Predator reconnaissance drones were visible in Google Earth images of the Shamsi airbase in Pakistan's southwestern province of Baluchistan as early as 2006, according to the Times of London today (here).

The Google Earth image now suggests that the US began launching Predators from Shamsi — built by Arab sheiks for falconry trips — at least three years ago.

The advantage of Shamsi is that it provides a discreet launchpad within minutes of Quetta — a known Taleban staging post — as well as Taleban infiltration routes into Afghanistan and potential militant targets farther afield.

The association of falconry with Predator drones is absolutely perfect. Both types of bird glide high in the sky, show great patience as they stalk their prey, employ incredible long-range optics, have human ground controllers, and swoop down very suddenly to take their targets unaware. What could be a better analogy? And what place could be a better base than Shamsi for aerial hunting?

There's a New Sharif in Town

King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has shaken up the Kingdom's religious establishment by inter alia dismissing Sheikh Ibrahim al-Ghaith as chief of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which controls the religious police, and replacing him with Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Hamin (or "Abdul Aziz al-Humain" in al Jazeera's romanising of his name).

This was one of a series of personnel changes that King Abdullah has made in the last few days which just might indicate a reformist trend.