The Foreign Service Journal, May 2006

the absence of high-priority lan- guages. Here are some population com- parisons (in millions). The first country in each pair got at least one new outstanding State Department language expert; the second country apparently did not: Finland: 5.2/Iraq: 26 Albania: 3.6/Turkey: 70 Poland: 38.6/Brazil: 186 Estonia: 1.3/Tanzania: 36.8 Lithuania: 3.6/Tokyo: 10 Korea: 48.4 (no complaint here) Israel: 6.3/Iran: 68 Bulgaria: 7.4 /Kenya: 33.8 Philippines: 87.9/Indonesia: 240 I did not bring into the compari- son nations such as Bangladesh, India, China, Morocco, Egypt, etc. Perhaps the FSJ and AFSA could do a follow-up report on how many people are now in what language training programs? Shine more light in such places! David Fredrick USAID, retired Waverly, Iowa Seeing the Light? Ambassador L. Paul (“Jerry”) Bremer has repeatedly talked about the “situation on the ground” in Iraq. Presumably that is different from the situation up in the air? Now I am waiting for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to say he can see the “light at the end of the tunnel.” David Henderson FSO, retired El Paso, Texas On Diversity Catching up on my reading of the Journal , I note that Secretary Rice has set forth increased diversity hir- ing as her first priority (administra- tively, I hope). I happen to think that Sec. Rice is a cut above her last few predeces- sors, but after about four decades of diversity in all its guises, and the increasingly serious challenges of today’s world, isn’t it about time we tried meritocracy? Albert Krehbiel FSO, retired Fredericksburg, Va. Pay Discrimination Case Several months ago the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit heard a case in which I alleged that the State Department’s mid-level minority recruitment program unlawfully dis- criminated in pay against me, as a non-minority, when I started with the department in 1992, and that the department continues to unlawfully discriminate with each paycheck. The department claimed that the complaint of discrimination was untimely, as the complaint was based on its actions in 1992. The court decided that the pay discrimination complaint was timely, finding that each week’s paycheck that delivers less to one person than a similarly-situated person of anoth- er race is a violation of law, regard- less of the fact that this pattern of discriminatory pay was begun years before a complaint was filed. The decision of the Court of Appeals sends the case back to the lower court for trial. Anyone who believes he is today receiving less pay than he would be receiving if he had been eligible for the minority mid-level hiring program should seek the services of an attorney if considering joining the case as a plaintiff. This letter is not intended as legal advice. You may find the decision, Shea v. Rice , 409 F.3d 448, at: http://pacer. cadc.uscourts.gov/docs/common/ opinions/200506/03-5325a.pdf William Shea FSO Consulate Matamoros What’s in a Name? Americans seem to have an irre- sistible urge to adopt doctrines and slogans, and now it appears the Department of State has joined the throng with “Transformational Diplo- macy.” Like slogans of the past, from the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny on, it will probably peter out in time, but it is still discouraging to see the practice taken up by an insti- tution that has been relatively immune to the ailment. This is par- ticularly so because the new slogan has a slightly imperialist-interven- tionist — even messianic — edge to it: we are going out to slay dragons, to “transform” others by our diplo- macy. This is especially the case in light of Iraq, where our justification for invasion is now retroactively reduced to the problematic objec- tive of establishing Western-style democracy in the country. As I read it, transformational diplomacy is just a high-sounding name for doing what we have always done: adjusting our posts and our allo- cation of personnel and resources to meet changing circumstances and needs. During my five-plus years as management under secretary (the first, and I guess the last, career offi- cer to have the position), my staff and I closed and created posts and new missions continually. We con- ceived the mini-embassy idea. We strove for, but were never able to get, funds, personnel or space to finance the language and leadership training we knew we needed. We always envied the ability of the Department of Defense to find ways to finance and create space for training in its large resource base. We always needed our people on the front lines, and ballooning security requirements time after time pre- empted our resources. Also, it seems to me that the idea of a plethora of one-person posts ignores 8 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A Y 2 0 0 6 L E T T E R S u