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U.S. envoy to Pakland sez to hell with it...
The US ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlain, has asked to return home after less than a year in Islamabad because of the disruption to her family life caused by the security situation there. Chamberlain, who is a single mother, has been frequently separated from her school-going daughters China, 14, and Jade, 12, since she moved to Pakistan last summer. The girls went to Islamabad last August to be with their mother and study there but were evacuated in September following the 9/11 catastrophe. They returned to Islamabad in January but were evacuated again after the March 17 church bombing that killed a female US diplomat and her daughter. That made the kids intercontinental yo-yos and destroyed any kind of stable home life. It also damaged Chamberlain's ability to concentrate on matters at hand, which were of pretty high import the whole while. A person — man or woman — can be a sharp, even ruthless diplomat and negotiator, but they remain parents and (sometimes) spouses. Chamberlainâs recall will seriously undermine US diplomatic activity in a country where the American ambassador enjoys enormous clout, unparalleled access, and is often referred to as the viceroy of the country. Compounding her exit will be the departure also of Michelle Sison, the Deputy Chief of Mission in Islamabad, who is completing her tour of duty and returning to Washington. In fact, the US embassy in Islamabad and the consulates in Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar have been gradually depopulated with dozens of US personnel being recalled due to the deteriorating security situation in the country. The missions are now running on emergency skeletal staff, not counting the spooks and spies operating in the war on terrorism. You can't really expect foreign service officers, who are civilians, to function as targets in the kind of country where Daniel Pearl was murdered. Not without a lot better security than was evident at the last church bombing, anyway, which was in a diplomatic compound. The idea of diplomatic immunity seems to have dissipated entirely, not only for Americans but for anybody the Hard Boys don't like. Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2002-04-29 |
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