US diplomats potentially facing forced deployments in Iraq lashed out during a meeting over the issue. Jack Croddy, a senior Foreign Service officer, said:
It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers, but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment, and I'm sorry but basically that's a potential death sentence
Audio of the meeting was broadcast on network television. Read on for the response by bloggers.
Technorati Tags: Iraq, State Department
Steve Benen at The Carpetbagger Report, in a post called Hell, no, they won't go, wrote:
After staffing key diplomatic roles for years with inexperienced ideologues, the U.S. embassy in Iraq, and Amb. Ryan Crocker in particular, are desperate to have competent State Department officials in Iraq. ... It appears the Bush administration lost the hearts and minds of Iraqis, and is close to losing the hearts and minds of State Department diplomats, too.
On Davids Medienkritik - a European blog campaigning against anti-American coverage - the blogger, who attended the "elite school of Foreign Service" but never considered joining the State Department, writes:
Just a message to our State Department complainees: Every American Soldier and Marine sent to Iraq has far greater and more legitimate cause to ask him or herself the same questions - yet they don't cry and complain to the media. They do their duty quietly and proudly. When you sign up for the Foreign Service, you know that you can be sent anywhere to serve your nation and you don't whine about it and embarrass your nation in the process.
On the milblog hub, Mudville Gazette, blogger Buck Sargent does not have much sympathy for those he calls the Foggy (or Soggy) Bottom boys. For those of you not steeped in inside the Beltway insider puns, Foggy Bottom is the part of Washington where the State Department is located. And the Pentagon and the State Department have a long-running inter-agency battle. Another favourite name those in the military have for State is the House of Fog. But I digress. Buck Sargent says:
Silly government worker, global villages are for kids. Haven't you heard who's running for Nanny-in-Chief?
If my heart were capable of human emotion, it might bleed a little for these hard-knock lifers. But sadly, no.
Meanwhile, Steve Soto at the Left Coaster in a post called Wrecking Foggy Bottom accuses the Bush administration of dismantling yet another government agency.
First, Cheney destroyed the Agency. Then Alberto destroyed the Department of Justice. Now Condi and Bush's foreign policy are destroying State. If no one but the young snot-nosed lunatic fringe are left to advocate for this country overseas, you can imagine how easy it will be to fall into the next foreign policy catastrophe.
