The Foreign Service Journal, January 2012

was head of the office in the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Af- fairs charged with production of the re- ports. Mr. Roberts’ essay circulated somewhat surreptitiously at the time, as he notes in his introduction, and I must confess that I did not know then who had written it. He is absolutely correct that far too many drafts coming to us reflected ef- forts to soften criticism of host govern- ments, sometimes to a ludicrous extent. I sympathized with the ambassadors and reporting officers who had to deal with unhappy, even resentful, official and unofficial contacts after publication of critical human rights reports. But I also recognized that the weaseling and squirming spoke poorly of too many of our Foreign Service col- leagues. One memory that stays with me was a report declaring that the local tyrant “quite correctly” placed eco- nomic development ahead of civil rights for his people. We did what we could with those re- ports, fighting to negotiate wording that would at least not spark congressional and media ridicule. It was an interest- ing but not particularly proud time in my career and, I expect, in the careers of others involved in the process. Robert S. Steven FSO, retired Springfield, Va. Don’t Endorse Smuggling! I am both delighted and aghast at the Journal ’s publication of Keith Mines’ October feature, “Leave No Pet Behind.” As a pet owner who uses im- port/quarantine regulations as criteria for bidding on positions and has paid thousands of dollars to ship her two dogs around the world, I applaud the writer for his family’s commitment to take their pets with them wherever they go, and salute the Journal for pub- lishing an article on this issue. However, when I reached the end of the article I became alarmed. Mr. Mines admits to “smuggling” his son’s pet snake into and through multiple countries, and uses this exact word in describing an episode at a German air- port. At best, these actions are an ex- treme lapse in judgment and lack of integrity; at worst, they constitute a vi- olation of international laws. In a time when the phrase “How would this look in the Washington Post ?” is commonplace, this article is a lapse of judgment on the part of the writer and the Journal . As diplomats, we are not above laws and regulations. In fact, as representa- tives of the United States worldwide, we have a duty to behave with the ut- most integrity and represent our coun- try in the best light possible. Publicly flaunting the smuggling of an animal across international lines is not behav- ing with the utmost integrity. I hope that in the future the Journal will more closely review its submissions. Nicole Mock FSO Consulate General Ciudad Juarez Change from Within Nearly a decade after its original publication in the February 2002 issue of the FSJ , the late Ambassador Hume Horan’s article, “The U.S. and Islam in the Modern World” (November), still exposes the essential flaw of Islamic culture: giving all the uncertainties of religious faith and its all-too-human agents an excessive role in governance and society. This is a fatal flaw, for it inevitably brings about that “tyranny over the mind of man” (and of woman!) that Thomas Jefferson so rightly deemed the greatest danger to human progress. And as Winston Churchill observed, in the case of Islam’s all-pervasive and ex- clusively Islamic God it also breeds both “fatalism and fanaticism” — not a happy combination. It took our own Western tradition more than 300 years of struggle to break the dominance of the Catholic Church, to shift religion to a matter of personal choice and faith, and to bring science and reason into the forefront of human endeavor. (Yes, there are still too many among us who haven’t gotten the message, but never mind.) It can only be hoped that contemporary Islam will quickly find equivalents to the Ren- aissance, Reformation and Enlighten- ment to direct its own still-problematic evolution. (The irony of the Islamic world’s great contribution to the Ren- aissance is not to be missed here.) Such change can indeed come only from within. But given the growth of academic and other exchanges, and the explosion in communications technol- ogy, it should certainly be possible for the world’s democracies to sensitively aid those indigenous forces seeking a new direction. Gunther K. Rosinus Senior FSO, retired Potomac, Md. Civilian-Military Cooperation in Afghanistan I worked in Kapisa province, Af- ghanistan, as a member of a U.S. Army Special Forces unit, Operational De- tachment Alpha, during the period (2009-2010) discussed in your January 2011 cover story, “Microdiplomacy in Afghanistan.” I only recently learned about that article and was disappointed to find that co-authors Dana D. Deree, an FSO, and Matthew B. Arnold, both L E T T E R S J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 2 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 7