The State Department is warning U.S. diplomats they may be forced to serve in Iraq next year and says it will soon start identifying prime candidates for jobs at the Baghdad embassy and outlying provinces, according to a cable obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

A similar call-up notice last year caused an uproar among foreign service officers, some of whom objected to compulsory work in a war zone, although in the end the State Department found enough volunteers to fill the jobs.

Now, the State Department anticipates another staffing crisis.

. . .

Some diplomats have privately expressed unease about volunteering for Iraq duty amid deep uncertainty over how the administration following President Bush will deal with Iraq, and how that might affect security or change Washington’s focus on the country.

Read my old post for my comments on this. Nothing has changed. Whiny FSOs.

It reminds me of that quote from Kurt von Hammerstein:

I divide officers into four classes — the clever, the lazy, the stupid and the industrious. Each officer possesses at least two of these qualities. Those who are clever and industrious are fitted for the highest staff appointments. Use can be made of those who are stupid and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy is fit for the very highest command. He has the temperament and the requisite nerves to deal with all situations. But whoever is stupid and industrious must be removed immediately.

I once thought Bush fit in the clever and lazy category which is good for a President. After a while it became clear that stupid and lazy was closer to the mark which is a bad thing but not the worst. But it’s clear that around him are serried ranks of the stupid and industrious and the sooner the whole lot are gone the better. Is this the worst, most willfully blind wartime leadership in American history? I think it is.

[Hotel Tango: Kings of War]

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.”

Oh, boo-fucking-hoo. Half the problem in Iraq is the fact that we’re asking military personnel to perform the jobs of other government agencies — the State Department, USAID, et cetera. The armed forces aren’t built for diplomacy, nation-building and extensive public affairs — they’re built for fighting and winning wars. So stop your crying and pack your gear, bitches.

And death sentence? Talk to a military member recently? At least you bastards get to stay inside the wire most of the time.

“It’s one thing if someone believes in what’s going on over there and volunteers, but it’s another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment,” [Jack Crotty, a senior foreign service officer who once worked as a political adviser with NATO forces,] said. “I’m sorry, but basically that’s a potential death sentence and you know it. Who will raise our children if we are dead or seriously wounded?”

You know, you signed up to serve your country. Feel free to resign. I bet you like the benefits, though, don’t you. The benefits of traveling around the world for free, getting great government wages, free health care, and on and on and on.

I seem to remember telling the FSOs who interviewed me during my attempt at the entrance exam that I was there to serve my country. In fact, that’s the thing — you serve the interests of your country; not yourself. Just because you “don’t believe in it” doesn’t mean you get out of it. Just like our soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines. And who takes care of their kids? Whiny bastards, all of you.

American Foreign Service Association President John Naland said that a recent survey found that 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,” [Foreign Service Director General Harry Thomas] said, prompting a testy exchange.

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

“88 percent of the country believed in slavery at one time, was that correct?” shot back Thomas, who is black, in a remark that drew boos from the crowd. “Don’t you or anybody else stand there and tell me I don’t care about my colleagues. I am insulted,” he added.

Ooooooh, burn!

Guess what? The State Department isn’t a democracy. Put up or shut up.

Ugh. This shit pisses me off. Do your job, State. Not everything is the military’s responsibility. When State finally starts doing something right, their FSOs cry like little babies. Get. Over. It. Or. Get. Out.

UPDATE 05 NOV 2007 1411: A couple of other folks have picked up on this story and agree with my sentiments. I’m sure there are a helluva lot more where those came from.

Abu Muqawama has always been a big fan of the late French intellectual Raymond Aron. Aron, writing in his newspaper column for Le Figaro, believed it was the responsibility of the public intellectual to make a careful study of the issues at hand — economics, military strategy, etc. — before putting pen to paper and presuming anyone should read what you have written.

Then he takes Maureen Dowd to task for her latest column on the Petraeus/Crocker reports:

Shut up. Shut up now. There is nothing in your cleverer-than-thou repertoire of pop culture references and mildly amusing 8th-grade literary devices that prepares you to even open your mouth to say anything about the war in Iraq. Just be quiet. Transport yourself back to the 1990s when the biggest issue facing the country was the president’s extramarital sex life, because for those times you were perfect. Now, you’re worthless. As a matter of fact, you’re worse than worthless. Because you, writing on the allegedly-serious op-ed page of the New York Times, give everyone else an excuse to treat this war and the debate surrounding it as flippantly as you do. If you want to be taken seriously, take the issue seriously. Study it. Learn about it. Talk to people who might know something.

And if you still don’t have anything of substance to say, keep quiet. This is why you don’t see Abu Muqawama writing anything about Manolo Blahniks. That’s your territory.

This goes for MoveOn and any number of other op-ed writers and bloggers.

Inform yourselves before you start talking shit. Otherwise, you’re no different from the ideology-driven folks marching in lock-step behind Bush.

Threatened abroad, U.S. diplomats have been hit with unprecedented security restrictions, confining many to fortress-like compounds and frustrating Bush administration efforts to get out and counter anti-U.S. sentiment.

Lockdowns and prohibitions on travel now apply to Americans posted to embassies and consulates in at least 28 nations, according to an Associated Press survey of State Department warnings, internal directives and officials. More than half the nations are identified as key to curbing the spread of militant Islam.

Karen really wants to do her job. She just can’t. It’s hard. Didn’t President Bush tell you people that at a State of the Union? It’s difficult. She really does want to make people love us — she just doesn’t have the balls to (and, no, that’s not anti-woman).

It’s really Condi’s fault anyway. She won’t let Karen leave.

The number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, newly released figures show, raising fresh questions about the privatization of the war effort and the government’s capacity to carry out military and rebuilding campaigns.

More than 180,000 civilians — including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis — are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Including the recent troop buildup, 160,000 soldiers and a few thousand civilian government employees are stationed in Iraq.

The total number of private contractors, far higher than previously reported, shows how heavily the Bush administration has relied on corporations to carry out the occupation of Iraq — a mission criticized as being undermanned.

Of course, 118,000 of those contractors are Iraqi, which is a good thing if you ask me. Rather than contracting out services to Americans or other foreign nationals, better to give Iraqis jobs and money.

Note that it is unclear if the numbers above include contractors hired by the Department of State as well as the Department of Defense. The U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) contractors are not included in the above.

Unfortunately, and ultimately damningly:

Private security contractors, who are hired to protect government officials and buildings, were not fully counted in the survey, according to industry and government officials.

Continuing uncertainty over the numbers of armed contractors drew special criticism from military experts.

“We don’t have control of all the coalition guns in Iraq. That’s dangerous for our country,” said William Nash, a retired Army general and reconstruction expert. The Pentagon “is hiring guns. You can rationalize it all you want, but that’s obscene.”

Anyway, beyond what little I’ve posted, there’s a ton more to learn in the quite long article. I’d write more on the subject (because I have serious problems with contractors taking over military duties), but I’m too inebriated from celebrating Independence Day to continue in this vein. If I did, this post would be far too long.

While there is some discussion of the internal political machinations within the White House, DoD and DoS, the vast majority of the program is devoted to our evolving strategy — and its failures and successes — in Iraq.

From the Small Wars Journal Blog:

On Dec. 19, 2006, President George W. Bush said for the first time that the United States is not winning the war in Iraq. It was a dramatic admission from a president who had insisted since the start of the war that things were under control.

Now, as the U.S. begins what the administration hopes is the final effort to secure victory through a “surge” of troops, Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), Col. William Hix, Col. H.R. McMaster, Maj. Thomas Mowle, State Department Counselor Philip Zelikow and other military and government officials talk to FRONTLINE about both the military and political events that have led up to the current “surge” strategy. Endgame is the fifth film in a series of Iraq war stories from FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk, including Rumsfeld’s War, The Torture Question, The Dark Side and The Lost Year in Iraq…

Watch the full program online. Endgame Interviews: Michael Gordon, Col. William Hix, Frederick Kagan, Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.), Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich (Ret.), Col. H.R. McMaster, Thomas Ricks, Col. Kalev Sepp (Ret.)

The last quote in the program, given by Dexter Filkins, a war correspondent for The New York Times, sums up my own feelings and worries about the current stage of the Iraq War.

Here’s a snippet of it: “In this particular narrative, the hero has gathered himself and seen his errors and tried to get everything right. And maybe it’s too late.”

[Hotel Tango: SWJ Blog]

Looking for a distinctive vacation home? There are 29 U.S. embassies for sale worldwide, several with prices under $500,000.

“From Kinshasa to Katmandu, Bangkok to Bogota, U.S. embassies, ambassadorial residences and other diplomatic digs are up for sale as the State Department moves its employees to more secure locations, upgrades facilities and combines operations in multipurpose compounds.Some 29 properties worth more than $205 million are now on the market in 21 countries, including a huge and historic embassy annex in the heart of London, large chancery buildings in Panama, Nicaragua and Nepal and homes fit for envoys extraordinary in Belize and Venezuela.”…”A pair of four-bedroom townhouses in Warsaw’s trendy Mokotow district are available for $400,000 each, as are nearly twin homes in Lima, Peru for $215,000 a pop.”

I gotta get in on one of these. Might make up for my failing the Foreign Service Oral Exam last year.