The Foreign Service Journal, April 2013

the Foreign Service journal | April 2013 9 young woman long enough for her male accomplice to lower the American flag by the entrance and make off with it. (It was recovered in Sweden some days later.) Meanwhile, around the corner, the Soviet embassy stood secretively behind high walls, its entrance protected by grim-looking guards. We Americans used to loftily boast that our open, welcoming embassies reflected our society, while Soviet embassies accurately reflected theirs. Sadly, we cannot make that boast today. Rather, we appear both fearful and fearsome behind our new walls and moats. We are now often located far from the center of the capital, where we used to hold prime real estate that served as a positive statement about our rela- tionship with the host country. Think of the beautiful Canadian, Swedish and Finnish embassies in Washing- ton, for example. I cannot accept the assertion that host-country nationals are unconcerned with how our embassies look and how dif- ficult they may be to enter on official business. (Regrettably, visits to American libraries are already a thing of the past.) Back when our current embassy in London was built, it provoked howls of protest about its massive size. It was even topped by a fierce eagle seemingly ready to dive into Grosvenor Square. There was no real security issue then, but aesthetics did, and do, matter to the local popula- tion. The fortress concept may well be nec- essary in places like Kabul and Bagdad, but its strict worldwide application does American values a disservice. Harvey Leifert FSO, retired Bethesda, Md . Fortress America I write in praise of the December 2012 Journal , in particular “Beyond Fortress America” by Jane Loeffler; “Building the Bonds of Trust” by Joshua Polacheck; and “Reasons for Hope in the Israeli-Palestin- ian Conflict” by Kristin Loken. I’ve just returned from a country where I served many years ago. While the U.S. mission is still in the same place, it appears from the outside to have been transformed into a Fortress America with a highly unfriendly appearance. I did not attempt entry. Compounding the poor impression were the tales of woe I received from visitor-visa applicants, including com- plaints that the enormous application fees required each time they applied were not refunded when they were denied a visa. I have heard the same from another country, and assume the problem is general. Maybe too many embassy person- nel are hunkered down in their respective forts to be able to go out and learn what’s really going on outside. At the very least, a large portion of the stratospheric visa fees should be returned to unsuccessful applicants. The whole non-immigrant visa issuing systemmust be sanitized and made rational. The immigrant visa sector requires major reform, too. Turning to policy, much of our current fortress mentality derives from the Middle East enigma, now extended to Central and South Asia. Everyone (at least in the U.S.) seems to have forgotten that Britain, not we, more or less created the modern Middle East when it exploited the defeat of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.