“The move to directed assignments is rare but not unprecedented. In 1969, an entire class of entry-level diplomats was sent to Vietnam. On a smaller scale, diplomats were required to work at various embassies in West Africa in the 1970s and 1980s.”

Meaning—to repeat what I noted above—that it takes an awful lot of danger before we are unable to recruit FSOs in sufficient numbers. (We don’t seem to have ever suffered from a shortage of them in Lebanon, for instance.)

And as for there “not having been a single moan from the 1200 who did serve”: let’s quote another passage.

” [FSO Dir. General Harry] Thomas responded by saying the comments were ‘filled with inaccuracies.’ But he did not elaborate until challenged by the head of the diplomats’ union, the American Foreign Service Association, who, like Croddy and others, demanded to know why many learned of the decision from news reports.

“Thomas took full responsibility for the late notification. But he objected when the association’s president, John Naland, said a recent survey found only 12 percent of the union’s membership believed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was ‘fighting for them.’

” ‘That’s their right but they’re wrong,’ Thomas said, prompting a testy exchange.

” ‘Sometimes, if it’s 88 to 12, maybe the 88 percent are correct,’ Naland said.”

In short, there’s been a whole lot of moanin’ going on—from those same cowardly diplomats who were more than willing to take positions in the rest of the Mideast.

As for Amb. Crocker’s Charge of the Light Brigade line: that was regarded as cretinous even when Tennyson came up with it. I can hardly wait to see how many new recruits the FSO gets that way. (Not that there was anything else Crocker himself could say at this point, given the irresponsible halfwits who are giving him his own orders.)

And (why do I have to explain any of this to an adult?) there are plenty of postings for FSOs that are much riskier than “Barbados”, but which they go to with hardly a whimper precisely because they think something CAN be done there. Like, say, all the rest of the Middle East.

So, although the piece you linked to describes the security situation as “precarious” and points out that there are rockets hitting the Green Zone periodically

Sure, it’s potentially precarious, and if that’s what he’d said, I’d have had no problem with that statement.

Foreign Service Officers have virtually nothing they can accomplish if they DO run the risk of moving there

I’ll let Ambassador Crocker take that one:

Joining the foreign service “does not mean you can choose the fight,” he told reporters in Dubai. “It’s not for us to decide if we like the policy or if the policy is rightly implemented. It’s for us to go and serve, not to debate the policy, not to agree with it.”

So you don’t get to join up and only request duty in Barbados. “No danger for me, thanks!” Any further questions?

it was silly of that diplomat to complain about “a potential death sentence” (which is the phrase he actually used, EEEL having thoughtfully clipped off the key word).

Please…I’m pretty sure the key words in that phrase were “death sentence,” since I’ve seen fifty headlines that said “death sentence” and not a single one included the word “potential.”

And since flying in a plane or crossing the street is a “potential death sentence,” yes, it was silly language to use. As I said, his over-inflammatory rhetoric is not very “diplomatic,” is it?

Look, it sucks that we have such a bunch of weak, sniveling diplos, but 1500 of their compatriots have served, and we hadn’t heard a single moan. I guess we’ve reached the bottom of a pretty shallow barrel.

The most demoralizing aspect of the violence may not be the physical risk, but rather the isolation and sense of futility the violence engenders. Most diplomats leave the Green Zone only rarely, and never simply to socialize with ordinary Iraqis or explore the city.

Well, I guess “death sentence” just doesn’t mean what it used to mean. It used to mean, you know, death.

And come to think of it, if a diplomat (a job where you’d think words were fairly important) throws around hyperbolic terms like “death sentence” when no one has ever actually died, he’s probably crap at his job, anyway.

As for the Mysteries of the Comment Hyperlink (which I didn’t understand at first either—in fact, I accidentally blew up John’s site a couple of times)—you:

(1) Switch to the page you want to link to in your comment, and clipboard-copy its URL (using, of course, your right-click button)

(2) Write your Balloon Juice comment (WITHOUT including that URL);

(3) Highlight the section of your typed comment that you want to serve as the hyperlink to that URL;

(4) Hit the “Link” button in the row of small buttons just above the screen on which you’ve typed the comment (if the buttons aren’t visible at the moment, hit that one double-arrow-button at the upper left corner of the comment-typing screen, which is always visible and will make the others pop into view);

(5) Paste the URL that you copied into the little “Link” box that will then appear at the upper left corner of your computer screen (making sure that you don’t include the “http//” part twice); and hit the “OK” button there—at which point the URL will suddenly be enclosed, along with the hyperlink passage that you chose, in two angled brackets within the text of your typed comment;

(6) Hit “Submit Comment” in the usual way.

Here though is something to ponder: We have turned to increased air raids to help keep down troop casualties. (See clumsy link below for lots of good info and linkage on this issue; sorry John, don’t yet know how to embed a link on a Mac-Safari system; help anyone?)

http://blog.wired.com/defense/.....r-the.html

Are the air raids creating more civilian casualties/civilian anger? Let’s turn it over to the good Col. Boylan (scroll down into above link for his fuller citation) for an answer:

“As for [air] strike[s] generating local adverse reactions, that i[s] of course possible, but to put it into context, you have to know how many of those strikes were in areas that were populated enough to be impacted which neither Fred, you or I know. So the basic research has not been conducted as yet to come to any conclusions.”

Note recognizably turgid syntax. Note fact that we HAVE NO CLUE whether the momentary reduction in spilled U.S. blood is being accomplished by—in addition to the things Bruce notes—a rise in civvie deaths unlikely to generate longterm warmth toward an American presence. And so of course the answer is, We’re yet winning again!

Fine! Great! You were right, I was wrong. Can we bring the troops home now?

I still maintain that if George Bush had any sense at all he would do just that, declare victory and pull out, to a glorious victory parade. His approval ratings would surge, the Democrats would cave on everything, and he would assure a landslide Republican victory in 2008. He would be the new Truman/Reagan, right all along if only others had more faith. In fact, it would even be easier for him to bomb Iran if Iran couldn’t retaliate against some 160,000 US solidiers.

“The most demoralizing aspect of the violence may not be the physical risk, but rather the isolation and sense of futility the violence engenders. Most diplomats leave the Green Zone only rarely, and never simply to socialize with ordinary Iraqis or explore the city.

“....Most discouraging of all, the danger and discomfort do not seem to be in service of a successful strategy. [Jack] Croddy, the veteran diplomat, implied that the shortage of volunteers was a function of diplomats not believing in the American mission in Iraq. It’s a fair point. Violence has dropped in recent months, but there has been little substantive progress on key issues from disarming Shi’ite militias to deciding how to distribute the nation’s oil revenue. As the Bush Administration ratchets up its rhetoric against Iran it is American diplomats who must deal personally with Shi’ite politicians, who have closer ties to Tehran than to Washington.”

To which Drum adds: “Foreign service diplomats routinely serve in backwater ratholes, and dangerous postings are often part of the bargain too. But when you combine that with a setting in which there’s literally almost nothing they can accomplish, a revolt is hardly surprising.

“I’d add one other thing, too. As near as I can tell, Ryan Crocker is well-liked and highly respected. If even he can’t manage to attract enough people to fill up all the open slots in Iraq — especially when a Baghdad posting also offers higher pay, the career boost of serving in a critical embassy, and a choice of assignments after your hitch is up — then service in the Green Zone must be a rathole squared. Apparently, there’s just no one left who thinks there’s any chance of making serious political or diplomatic progress there.”

This meshes well with one of Greg Djerejian’s commenters, who seems to have inside information on the subject.

http://icasualties.org/oif/

Now of course that’s a very good thing, but I wouldn’t draw sweeping conclusions about the war being won on that basis—was the war won in March ‘06?

Over 200 of the 250 State positions were staffed voluntarily.

The “death sentence” that has these diplomats trembling in their high-polished Cole-Haans and forsaking the duties of their employment

Well, that means that 20% weren’t voluntary, which doesn’t seem too great for a high paying job with great benefits, if you ask me.

Course, I guess I’ve been too busy polishing my Cole-Haans to really care, huh?

That’s apparently the new meme from the 101st Fighting Keyboarders – those weasely State Dept. types who are too chicken to go over to Iraq are just typical wimpy elitists with fancy shoes. But considering their big boss is Condi “Ferragamo” Rice, that’s not so surprising.

Really, the eagerness with which the RWNM sends others off to die and be tortured is amazing. And the disdain they have for those not eager to undergo the benefits of the Bush Regime is repulsive. (Their own stay-safe-on-the-homefront benefits seem to involve multiple layers of rubber and sheathed plastic devices, which do seem to have it all over getting hit by rockets or IEDs, I guess….)

Still, we can console ourselves that we have LOTS of time to try to work the situation out: ” ‘In terms of true reconciliation, as in absolute peace and acceptance of everything my enemy has done, that’s a generational thing,’ [Col.] Stanton said. ‘To get these guys where they instinctively don’t distrust and hate each other is gonna be generational.’ ” And of course, once we finally get the job done, it will all turn out to have been worthwhile, no matter how much the entanglement of our military in Iraq has reduced our ability to deal with military crises involving those nations that, you know, actually do have the Bomb or are working energetically on acquiring it.