The Foreign Service Journal, January 2008

stricted to diplomatic cocktail par- ties. We were proudly, even snob- bishly, distinct from the Civil Service, where one is transferred only if one requests it. We were much more like the military, with a new post every few years, depending on the needs of the Service. Few of us volunteered for Vietnam, but many of us went. And now Iraq. Foreign Service officers are protesting that they might get killed there. They are saying that because they disagree with admini- stration policies, they should not be asked to risk their lives for the needs of the Service. They have a point. But I think they are mistakenly blending two important and distinct precepts: dangerous assignments and dissent. If they strongly disagree with administration policy, they should have made their views known years ago. Some did, and some even courageously resigned. But if they’re simply worried about a dangerous assignment, maybe they don’t belong in the Foreign Service anyway. William B. Stubbs FSO, retired Ocala, Fla. Supersized Mission During the Cold War, when Germany was the front line looking out at the Iron Curtain, we justifiably beefed up our missions in Berlin and Moscow. The Cold War ended around 1990, yet we did not draw down our personnel in those posts until roughly 2005. We now have a supersized Iraq mission. Once you give a post those Full-Time Equiva- lent slots, it is difficult — particularly in our chronically understaffed For- eign Service — to take them away, even when the environment changes. It appears that we have decided that Baghdad will be our biggest U.S. embassy, bigger than Beijing, New Delhi, London, Cairo or Mexico City. There are those who call us unpatriotic for questioning this, let alone question- ing why we are sending hundreds of diplomats into a war zone that has yet to be secured. These critics are often the same individuals who would like nothing more than to eliminate USAID and merge State into DOD. Perhaps those who have criticized our right to dissent and blurred the distinction between civilian and military structures have done our democracy the greatest disservice. J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 8 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 21 L E T T E R S