by Kenneth J. Theisen
Even U.S. Diplomats do not want to go to Iraq
The Bush regime faced a mini-rebellion in the ranks of the State Department on October 31, 2007. The Department of State, which is not being flooded with volunteers who want to serve in Iraq, wants to force foreign service officers to take postings in Iraq under the threat of dismissal. At a meeting on Wednesday a few hundred angry U.S. diplomats spoke out to their superiors about the new policy which will require service at the embassy in Baghdad or in outlying Iraqi provinces.
Apparently these State Department employees do not buy the Bush regime
propaganda about how security is improving in Iraq. At the meeting Jack
Crotty, a foreign service officer, stated to the applause of other
employees that serving in Iraq is “a potential death sentence and you
know it.”
The State Department expects at least 48 vacancies for diplomats next
year in Iraq. Two to three hundred diplomats have been identified as
“prime candidates” to fill these vacancies and if not enough accept the
postings, some diplomats will be forced to go or be fired it they
refuse. Since the U.S. invasion about 10% of the 11,500 Foreign Service
officers have worked in Iraq. The U.S. embassy staff in Iraq is the
largest in the world for the State Department. But increasingly the
Department is having trouble filling vacancies. Back in 1969 the State
Department has a similar problem in Vietnam, when an entire class of
entry-level diplomats was sent to Vietnam when they could not otherwise
fill vacancies.
In response to the mini-rebellion of diplomats, State Department
spokesman Sean McCormack described the session as “pretty emotional.”
He also stated that State Department diplomats sign an oath “to serve
the country.” He claimed that obligates them to serve anywhere in the
world, including Iraq. He went on to say, “It’s a pretty sensitive
topic and understandably, some people are going to have some pretty
strong feelings about it. Ultimately, our mission in Iraq is national
policy, it is the foreign policy set out by the secretary as well as
the president of the United States.” But the Bush regime is having
problems getting its own State Department employees to go along with
its policy agenda.
Another Bush Crony Resigns as her Lies Failed to Fool the Public Abroad
Karen Hughes, a long time Bush crony, announced that she will be
leaving her job as undersecretary of state at the end of the year.
Karl Rove, Alberto Gonzales, and she were three of Bush’s closest
advisors going back to his days when he misgoverned Texas.
Hughes has one of the most difficult jobs in the Bush regime. It is
her task to improve the U.S. image abroad and this takes a tremendous
amount of lying. But despite all the lies she told to the media and
doubling the public diplomacy budget within the Department of State to
nearly $900 million annually, polls show no improvement in the world’s
view of the U.S. since she took the job 2 years ago. Just one example
– favorable opinion of the United States in Indonesia went from 75
percent before Bush took office in 2000 to 30 percent in 2006.
Among the attempts to improve the image of the Bush regime were
increasing the number of Arabic-speaking interviews by U.S.
spokespeople with the media in Arab countries. Hughes quadrupled such
interviews with Arabic media. She also set up three rapid public
relations response centers overseas to monitor and respond to news. But
regardless of this propaganda offensive, it is clear the people of the
world saw the true Bush regime agenda and rejected it. It is hard to
disguise the Bush regimes true motives in the Middle East and its
intent to maintain hegemony over the world.
We are happy to see Hughes go and hope to see the rest of the regime join her as soon as possible.