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“Angry US ‘diplomats’ lashed out” … does this sound like an oxymoron to anyone?

http://www.boston.com/news/world/article…

WASHINGTON – Angry US diplomats lashed out yesterday against a State Department plan that would send them to Iraq against their will, with one likening it to “a potential death threat” and another accusing the department of providing inadequate care to diplomats who have returned home traumatized…

Oh nozzz! Cushy white collar professionals living off of my tax dollars are being expected to travel to places normally reserved for the icky-blue-collarish grunts, and while there, live in heavily fortified, well-air-conditioned be-Starbucked Green Zone.

Oh nozzz!

And to top that off, they’re being forced to do it, with the only alternative being ritual suicide transferring from one cushy GS-18 job in the State Department to another one in some other department.

The State Department has struggled to find Foreign Service volunteers to fill 48 of the 252 diplomatic posts that will become vacant next summer in Baghdad

Oh, God, the human cost! Forty eight – do you hear me God ?!?!? FORTY EIGHT of our best and brightest, Ivy Grads and polisci majors one and all, are being asked to sleep on beds that might not have 200-thread-count linens on them.

WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO DESERVE THIS?

Jack Crotty, a senior Foreign Service officer who has worked overseas, told his superiors that being forced to serve in Iraq is a “potential death sentence and you know it.”

Jack Crotty, would you care to bet your next year’s salary on the following proposition: “the death rate among State Department officials in Iraq is less than that of, say, professional loggers in the continental US” ?

“It’s one thing if someone believes in what’s going on over there and volunteers,” he said, according to the Associated Press, “but it’s another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment.”

The official motto of the State Department:

Create a more secure, democratic, and prosperous world for the benefit of the American people and the international community.

The unofficial motto of the US State Department:

Our department burns $1,109 per second…but certainly you don’t expect us to work, or deliver results, do you?

These people disgust me.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2007 at 10:51 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

3 Responses to ““Angry US ‘diplomats’ lashed out” … does this sound like an oxymoron to anyone?”

  1. Kelly Says:
    November 1st, 2007 at 11:01 pm

    I’ll have you know that our better sorts of white-collar professionals now feel 400-600 thread count linens are de rigeur. Less than 200 is simply barbaric.

  2. Kevin Says:
    November 2nd, 2007 at 12:04 am

    Unbelievabke. That this meeting happened, and that these people were willing to be quoted on the record. Working for the State Department might involve overseas assignments being forced upon you – who knew!

    Yesterday, at a packed meeting to discuss the plan, foreign service officers spoke out passionately against it, an unusual display of internal dissent.

    Unusual, yes. The usual practice is just to undercut the administration’s foreign policy sub rosa, at home and abroad.

    “The Foreign Service is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the highest priority foreign-policy issue winning in Iraq because it has refused to take the one step that would guarantee it a key role, demonstrate seriousness of purpose to the military, and develop a cadre of true area specialists with extreme diplomacy skills,” he [Harry Ensher] wrote.

    This guy, I like.

    Anyone want offer me odds on whether or not the diplomats quoted in this article are in the habit of expressing the opinion that things would have gone smoother in Iraq if the Bush administration had been more diplomatic, and that in general problems are better resolved by diplomats than by the military?
    That, perhaps, they’ve even complained that colonels and captains in the field in Iraq are doing work that properly belongs to diplomats?

  3. Noah D Says:
    November 2nd, 2007 at 12:10 am

    “I ________, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God.”

    You took an oath before God, bitches. Go ahead and quit when it’s actually difficult.

    Tell them if they don’t do their jobs and stay right on the mission that the Executive has set for them, their positions/departments will be eliminated and turned over to the Public Affairs office of the DoD.