Diplomatic angst over mandatory postings(State holds a "town hall meeting")

[maddezmom]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON - Several hundred U.S. diplomats vented anger and frustration Wednesday about the State Department's decision to force foreign service officers to take jobs in Iraq, with some likening it to a "potential death sentence."

In a contentious hour-long "town hall meeting" called to explain the step, these workers peppered the official who signed the order with often hostile complaints about the largest diplomatic call-up since Vietnam. Announced last week, it will require some diplomats - under threat of dismissal — to serve at the embassy in Baghdad and in so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams in outlying provinces.

Many expressed serious concern about the ethics of sending diplomats against their will to serve in a war zone, where the embassy staff is largely confined to the so-called "Green Zone," and the safety outside the area is uncertain while a review of the department's use of private security contractors to protect its staff is under way.

"Incoming is coming in every day, rockets are hitting the Green Zone," said Jack Crotty, a senior foreign service officer who once worked as a political adviser with NATO forces.

Employees directly confronted Foreign Service Director General Harry Thomas, who approved the move to so-called "directed assignments" late last Friday to make up for a lack of volunteers to go to Iraq.



Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071031/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_embassy

[lapfog_1]

1. Didn't Sec State Rice just testify

that the Green Zone was NOT a safe place to be and that "accidents" happen in a war zone, even inside the Green Zone (in reference to the BlackWater killing a bodyguard of an Iraqi minister)????

So... is it safe for anyone inside the Green Zone?

As for the Provincial Reconstruction Teams... I think I'd just resign the State Department rather than take that assignment.

[tblue37]

5. I think it will be very embarrassing for State if there

is a huge exodus of long-term employees resigning over this BS.

[Strelnikov_]

13. "Provincial Reconstruction Teams"

Sorta has that 'Russian Front' ring to it.

[lapfog_1]

14. Yup or rather "Jawohl, mien commandant"

Rumsfeld would have made a good "Klink" too! And Cheney as Burkhalter, and Gonzo as Hochstetter.

[Ian David]

2. Bush to Diplomats: Blow me. Victor Ashe to Bush... okay! (Some people say). n/t

[Ian David]

3. Bush is using them as bait. n/t

[Eugene]

4. New headline at link: Some US diplomats angry over Iraq posts

Some US diplomats angry over Iraq posts
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071031/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq_embassy

[tblue37]

6. Check out this comment by one diplomat at the meeting:

"You know that at any other (country) in the world, the embassy would be closed at this point," Crotty said to loud and sustained applause from the about 300 diplomats who attended the meeting in a large State Department auditorium.

Of course, the only reason they won't close the Baghdad embassy is that they would then have to admit the truth of the reports about what a hige f***-up the whole thing is.

[robinlynne]

9. excellent.

[gratuitous]

7. They volunteered, didn't they?

Nobody says these people have to work at the State Department, right? So if they're going to be insubordinate and refuse to obey their superiors, they should be dismissed en masse without pay or benefits, right?

Or does that logic apply only to 18-year-olds who were lied into military service?

[peace13]

8. Not sorry at all for these folks.

It is fine for the troops to be decapitated but you are too good for that. Bring the troops home, knock the crap out of your pants and get back to work! I have seriously lost all patience with the folks in DC that think they don't have to follow any rules and that they report to no one. Peace, Kim

[robinlynne]

10. Actually, I think anyone who supports the war should be mandated to go

live in Iraq and clean the streets for the Iraqi people, pump water by hand, tend to the sick...

[peace13]

11. Yea on that.

Can you imagine thinking that Iraq was a good idea but being too afraid to go and help with the cause?

[RamboLiberal]

12. Will Limbaugh call them "phony diplomats"

:nopity: Be kind of fun to watch the exodus. Gee what about the soldiers who got stop-lossed and sent to Iraq?

[Rebellious Republican]

15. But your party says it's safe.........

“’Never have I been able to go out into the city as I was today,” Mr. McCain puffed after his brief walking tour of the Shorja market. He remarked that he had left his helmet in his escort Humvee and felt utterly safe in the marketplace. Wearing a flak jacket, he neglected to mention that the pedestrian mall was patrolled by 100 heavily armed American soldiers and watched over by attack helicopters and snipers.
One of Mr. McCain’s colleagues on the visit to the Baghdad market was Rep. Mike Pence, an Indiana Republican, who marveled at the peaceful scene and compared it to a “normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.” He, too, was mocked for those comparisons. Mr. Pence later said that he knew things were dangerous in Baghdad but he believed the United States was making some progress there.
Baghdad residents expressed astonishment at Mr. McCain’s remarks and Democrats and anti-war bloggers ridiculed him for willful blindness, or worse.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/mccain-admits-baghdads-daily-reality/

Fuckin Hypocrits