Diplomatic Call Up Riles State Department

It's a diplomatic call up.

State Department Foreign Service Officers are on notice they could soon be ordered to Iraq. And the diplomats don't like it one bit, as can be heard in an audio clip of what the State Department would call a frank exchange, reports CBS News national security correspondent David Martin.

"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, and I'm sorry but basically that's a potential death sentence," Jack Croddy, a senior Foreign Service officer, said on that call.

Foreign Service chief Harry Thomas reminded the angry diplomats they had taken an oath to serve their country.

"We cannot pick and choose where to go, when we want to go and how we would like to do that," Thomas said. "That is an obligation that we must do. We cannot shrink from our duty."

But the union which represent Foreign Service Officers contends Iraq should be for volunteers only.

"We have concerns, many of our members do, about assigning diplomats who are unarmed civilians, who are not trained for combat, to combat situations," said Steve Kashkett of the American Foreign Service Association.

If a diplomat refuses to go to Iraq, he can be reprimanded, suspended without pay or even fired.

Twelve hundred Foreign Service officers have served in Iraq. Three have been killed. Ambassador Ryan Crocker has been asking for more and better qualified officers, saying in one cable, "The issue is whether we are a department and a service at war."

It's an issue which, in the fifth year of war, you might think had long since been settled.

[GeronimoRex]

What a bunch of chickens___s! My son served 2 tours in Iraq and I know he didn''t make what these people are making.

I served both in the military and the government service and we swear an oath to do out duty.

Kick them out! Now!!

[gunnerv1]

We should Celibrate Aug. 6, 1945, by popping another one of those bad boys over Bagdad. I bet they''d knock off their *** then!

[iceman_1960]

"THAT is why our casualities are going down. I see this as good, don"t you ?"
- Posted by speakinup at 12:43 PM : Nov 01, 2007

It should have gone to zero a long time ago.

This is not a war worth fighting.

You don"t apply the "glass is half full" judgment to a war that isn"t worth fighting.

[cohen_729]

I think everyone is missing the point. A diplomat has no place in a WAR ZONE. The US govt. is always shutting down some embassy somewhere because of the security situation. Any other embassy under that kind of threat would have been shut down long ago. 250 diplomats in Baghdad is obscene and we should not/not have a mission there until the country is safe. The job of a diplomat is not to fight a war. I don%u2019t know if diplomats supported the war from the beginning but I do know that they could do precious little to stop it.

[cohen_729]

A diplomat has no place in a WAR ZONE. The US govt. is always shutting down some embassy somewhere because of the security situation. Any other embassy under that kind of threat would have been shut down long ago. 250 diplomats in Baghdad is obscene and we should not/not have a mission there until the country is safe. The job of a diplomat is not to fight a war. I don%u2019t know if diplomats supported the war from the beginning but I do know that they could do precious little to stop it.

[kansas1946]

They need to just close the embassy. The embassies are always closed if the situation is totally unstable. We have seen it happen many times, that the embassy was closed. It is just that Bush can not say it is dangerous in Iraq. You know, "Mission Accomplished." Kind of like McCain strolling around in a flack jacket, with 100 escorts on the ground, and Apaches in the air bragging about how safe it is.

[ov442]

"but these are cushy, high-paying jobs... "
--------------------------
Posted by photogeezer ....

Oh but Geezer, if they are sent to a combat zone as noncombatants and are clearly marked for death by hidden forces lying in wait for them, i dare say its no longer a cushy job... wouldnt you say?

[ov442]

What a Crock!
In every other location of the world where there is unstable violence and open threats to the lives of US personnel, they promptly remove their diplomatic Staff members.
In this case, they are forcing them into it.
This is a CLEAR departure from normal policy for the State department.

[oldprophet]

Most Americans just don''t seem to care that our nation, along with the Constitution upon which it was founded, is being flushed-down the NWO toilet by our nations'' ruling elite. While the Oligarchs warn and insite fear in the sheeple about the prospect of terrorism, they at the same time leave our border wide open, and fund and conduct illegal wars overseas that do nothing but encite the terrorism which their Draconian Laws like the Patriot Act and The Real ID Act pretend to protect us from. Think about it. What would you do, if someone invaded the U.S. for no reason, and took over. You''d be mad as hell, and you''d be making trips to their country in order to give a little payback. Wake up America! It''s not about protecting you from terrorism, or saving our planet from Global Warming, or any of that fear-mongering garbage the tube feeds you 24/7. It''s about feeding the military industrial complex and facilitating the ruling elite''s ability to ratchet-down control over the American people, placing us into a total control grid where they can surveille, track and control everywhere we go and everything we do. It''s the groundwork for totalitarianism. I weep for my country, and for those of you who are so distracted, dumbed-down, or outright brainwashed by mainstream media, which endlessly regurgitates scientifically-crafted streams of information aimed at keeping your eyes closed to the realities of the world around you, that you fail to recognize this. Go Ron Paul!

[ioweign]

How about the example set by former US Army Colonel Ann Wright - she resigned her State Department job when Bush moved on Iraq. If they don''t want to participate in this madness, then they should resign, in protest of our foreign policy and in protest of the whitewash of the Blackwater incidents. Oh, but these are cushy, high-paying jobs...

Posted by photogeezer at 01:16 PM : Nov 01, 2007

They are not that cushy and pay usually has little to do with it. These employees can spend years building a career and a specialty and because of higher political appointed incompetence there is a "shortage" in personnel. Rice has lots of "Air Miles" but nothing to show for it.