The Foreign Service Journal, March 2008

8 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 0 8 L E T T E R S allowed American personnel to return to the country and resume embassy operations, as they did in December 2001. We should not forget our dedi- cated local colleagues who, often at tremendous sacrifice and scant re- ward, look after our country‘s in- terests in places and times where it is deemed just too dangerous to put American lives in harm‘s way. David J. Katz FSO State Department Faculty Adviser, Naval War College Newport, R.I. Assistance for Afghanistan, Then and Now Kudos to Tom Eighmy for his article on USAID’s role in Afghani- stan (December). The USAID team for Afghanistan, based in Pakistan, was in many ways unique in the agency’s annals. The O/AID/Rep’s leadership and staff were remarkably innovative, dedicated to their mission of assisting the Afghan people, and both bureaucratically and sometimes physically courageous. As special envoy to Afghanistan, I relied heavily on their expertise and perspective. Eighmy rightly credits the team’s director, Larry Crandall, for the team’s accomplishments, though he himself deserves much credit. But Eighmy does not mention one area of the team’s work which was to my mind important: building from scratch a de- mining effort that undoubtedly saved many Afghan lives. Eighmy describes the team’s “good relations” with Pakistani intelligence (the Inter-Services Intelligence Di- rectorate). However, I recall frommy time there (August 1988 to July 1989) that the ISI, with full backing from the U.S. embassy, periodically sought to manipulate aid flows to serve political purposes. In the fall of 1988, there was ISI/embassy pressure to restrict provision of food to some of the mujahedeen parties deemed not to be sufficiently cooperative in the project to create the ill-fated Afghan Interim Government. I recall also that when the Kandaharis failed to rally to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a fundamen- talist who was the favored leader of both the ISI and the U.S. embassy, as he marched toward Kandahar, the flow of aid to the area was restricted in retaliation. This should not be read as criticism of the O/AID/Rep team, but rather as a testament to their dedication in the face of political pressures. Notwith- standing such pressures, the office’s leadership and staff accomplished their humanitarian mission. Eighmy is correct in assessing that the 1992 decision not to reopen Em- bassy Kabul was a very serious mistake that forfeited the opportunity O/Aid/ Rep had created and maintained. That choice revealed an overly risk- averse posture by the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, as he suggests. But it also constituted a truly short- sighted strategic decision by policy- makers and U.S. intelligence analysts at senior levels to leave Afghanistan’s fate to the tender mercies of Pakistan and, particularly, the ISI. Twenty years later, it is vital that we not abandon Afghanistan again. Edmund McWilliams FSO, retired White Oaks, N.M. Remembering Dick Scissors The appreciation of the life of Dick Scissors in the December Journal brought back fond memories. Mr. Scissors was consul general in Cape Town during the middle 1980s, when I served at Consulate General Johan- nesburg. I made several reporting trips to Cape Town during that period and Dick was invariably helpful and generous with his time. One sentence in what was other- wise a thoughtful and respectful obituary piece made me laugh out loud, however. The author stated that while in high school — obviously in the early 1950s — Dick “came to love film and music, especially classical, show tunes, jazz and anything by Stevie Wonder.” If my slightly pre- baby boomer memory serves me right, “Little” Stevie Wonder had his first hit record, “Fingertips (Part 2),” in 1963, when he was 13 years old. That would mean he was 3 years old when Dick Scissors graduated from high school. I know Stevie Wonder was a child prodigy, but I don’t think he was that precocious! Nicholas Stigliani FSO, retired Falls Church, Va. Utilizing Mental Health Services On balance, MED/Mental Health Service and the Employee Consulta- tion Service are to be congratulated for their steadfast attention and concern for employees suffering reactions from extremely stressful postings. I was most distressed, however, to read the account of unresponsive care back in 2006 as described in “Recovery: When Survival Isn’t Enough” by Rachel Schneller (January), who experienced exposure trauma while serving abroad. I hope more options were offered to her than are listed in the article. As a therapist and former ECS staff mem- ber, I offer a sincere apology to any employee who believes that their PTSD treatment needs have gone unheeded. From time to time the institutional memory of the State Department wavers, but there has been a con- sistent commitment to employee health and wellness by MED and ECS. During the years I served as a clinical social worker in the Employee Consultation Service, the other clini-