The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2008

G ratuitous, unfounded attacks on theU.S. Foreign Service are once again in season. A certain segment of themedia whohave spent years gleefully andmindlessly bashing the State Department eagerly awaited the launch of the assignment cycle for summer 2009 positions in Iraq in order to do the same hatchet job on us that they did last fall. Their headlines and edi- torial comments were written long in advance, all taking up the same tired theme: “State diplomats unwilling to serve in Iraq, so Secretary Rice has to order them to go.” It thereforemust have been terribly disappointing to the edi- tors at Fox News, at the Washington Times, and at the Weekly Standard when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior department officials, working closely withAFSA, kicked off the summer 2009 Iraq recruitment drive this past June (2008) without feeling any need whatsoev- er to suggest that directed assignments might be necessary. Instead,DirectorGeneralHarryK. Thomas and Sec. Rice, after praising the thousands of courageous, patriot- ic ForeignServicememberswhohave chosen to take Iraq assignments since 2003, simply put out a call for willing volunteers for next year. The depart- ment’s cable toall diplomatic andcon- sular posts expressed full confidence that itwill bepossible to staff every sin- gle position at Embassy Baghdad and on the Provincial Reconstruction Teamswithqualified volunteers—as the Foreign Service has done for the past six years. Sadly, these simple facts, which speak volumes about the high caliber anddevotion todutyof ourmembers, didnothing todeter our knee-jerkdetractors fromdeliberatelymisreporting the story with their predetermined anti-Foreign Service bias. AFoxNews “Special Report” immediately ran a piece on the call for volunteers, but focused almost exclusively on last fall’s in- houseTownHallmeeting, dredgingout seven-month-old footage of the one FS employee—out of 11,400—who had expressed personal concerns about the risks of serving in a combat zone. I provided lengthy quotes to Fox News to try to set the record straight; but, not surprisingly, those quotes were edited out. Then, within days of the opening call for volunteers, the Washington Times published an editorial making the following astonishingly groundless assertions: “The fact is, too fewForeign Service officers have volunteered for these challenging and dan- gerous positions. An estimated 300 vacancies remain for 2009 — and someoneneeds to fill them. ‘Soldier up.’ Or hit the private sector.” You might think that honorable, conscientious editors would hesitate to write such deliberate falsehoods, espe- ciallywhenwe—andStateDepartment management—have pointed out repeatedly to themthatmore than 2,500 Foreign Service members have volunteered for war- zone postings in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003, that we have filled every single State position at Embassy Baghdad and on the Iraq PRTs with willing bidders, and that not one single Foreign Service member has needed to be ordered to serve in Iraq. You might think that reputable journalistswould care about the utter dishonesty of decrying that “an esti- mated 300 vacancies remain for 2009.” Those 300 positions represent the entire2009EmbassyBaghdad/PRT staffing pattern in Iraq, and we have only just openedup these jobs for bid- ding—more than a year in advance. By all accounts, the response so far has been enthusiastic, and the likelihood is high that we will have another crop of talented, motivated volunteers yet again for next year. But this ideologically-driven seg- ment of the media seems only inter- ested inscapegoatingU.S. diplomats for everything that goeswrong overseas. These editors do a profound disservice to the brave men and women of our Foreign Service who today spendmost of their careers in hardship posts representing their country in conditions featuringdaily terrorist threats, political instability and violence, extreme poverty, harsh climates and unhealthy condi- tions. They insult the hundreds ofU.S. diplomats separated from their families right now because they are posted in countries so dangerous that spouses and children are not allowed. They dis- respect the thousands ofU.S. ForeignServicememberswhohave steppedup to the plate every single year to staff our largest diplo- maticmissions, those in the Iraq andAfghanistan combat zones. We have grown accustomed to these cheap shots from jour- nalists and editorswho themselveswouldnever bewilling to live in thekinds of placeswhereourdiplomats spendnearly their entire professional careers. But it still rankles. It is disgraceful. o V.P. VOICE: STATE n BY STEVE KASHKETT Open Season for Cheap Shots J U L Y - A UGU S T 2 0 0 8 / F OR E I GN S E R V I C E J OU R N A L 61 A F S A N E W S You might think that conscientious editors would hesitate to write such falsehoods, especially when we have pointed out repeatedly to them that more than 2,500 Foreign Service members have volunteered for war-zone postings in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2003.