Tough Noogies
So the poor widdle petulant babies at State, who seem to think that it is they who are in charge of US foreign policy as opposed to our elected officials, don’t like their potential new assignment?
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.
The solution is very simple, and it is one that those of us in the private sector are quite familiar with: if you don’t want to do what your employer requires, you find a new job. Their job is to support and staff embassies, and be the everyday public face of the US abroad. So instead of working on “White Papers” go, you know, do it.
Or find another job.
Politics | Mr. Bingley | 
November 1, 2007 7:24 am
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I have such an intense lack of pity . . .
Maybe if they had done a better job with the political side of this war, instead of messing around with Plame issues there wouldn’t be quite so much danger.
I have little respect for the state department.
“But WAIT! I’ve had this desk for 52 years and NEVER had to go anywhere!! How DARE you?!”
Hmmm.
What a wonderful way to clear the dead wood.
I can only imagine what GIs serving in Iraq think of this.
Or the large number of civilian employees in other agencies who VOLUNTEER to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan: DoD (name the sub-agency, and you’ll find volunteers) and Agriculture come to mind, but I’m sure that there are others.
Time to belly up to the bar, State.
The whiners should be assigned to North Korea (via airdrop).
“But WAIT! I’ve had this desk for 52 years and NEVER had to go anywhere!! How DARE you?!”
No one at State stays in DC for more than a few years. They all rotate all over the place. They mostly shoot for cushy assignments in big glitzy cities, though they also will wear “hardship” assignments to places without all the modern conveniences as a badge of honor…but not generally places where there’s a chance of being shot at.
Most of the relatively good people at State, of course, actually work for the CIA and just pretend to be diplomats. And since the Agency hasn’t exactly been a paragon of quality for decades, one can only imagine what the rest of the striped-trousers set who AREN’T spies are like.