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2007-11-05 Home Front: WoT
Austin Bay on State Department and 'forced' assignments
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Posted by Steve White 2007-11-05 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11124 views ]  Top

#1 Hey, you pay this government 3 trillion a year - often for jobs that are hard and dangerous. If they are not selfless enough to do the hard stuff, FIRE THEM ALL and find someone with intestinal fortitude. This state department is a shame. Hear me rice?

How can you run the NFL - a run me beat me sport if you cannot run SD?

My military is tired of "filling in" for your short falls.
Posted by newc">newc  2007-11-05 05:12||   2007-11-05 05:12|| Front Page Top

#2 I am damn sick and tired of "public servants" who know not what servitude is.

This government needs an enema.
Posted by newc">newc  2007-11-05 05:13||   2007-11-05 05:13|| Front Page Top

#3 Hire Soldiers instead of these pathetic linton appointees.
Posted by newc">newc  2007-11-05 05:16||   2007-11-05 05:16|| Front Page Top

#4 I wouldn’t want a man like Croddy in my Area of Operations, no matter how intelligent or experienced he is. For that matter, I don’t want him in our State Department– he is a terrible example. Character and courage matter in diplomacy. Mr. Croddy exhibits neither. Rather, he is a profile in whining.

Right on!
Posted by Mike 2007-11-05 06:25||   2007-11-05 06:25|| Front Page Top

#5 Hopefully the whining is because the enema is finally being given.
Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife  2007-11-05 06:46||   2007-11-05 06:46|| Front Page Top

#6 You knew the job was dangerous when you took it!
Posted by bruce 2007-11-05 07:12||   2007-11-05 07:12|| Front Page Top

#7 I disagree on the need for increased pay. That is precisely one of the problems: high pay tend to attract people more interested in what the country can do for them than on waht they can do for their country.

(Notice; Low pay has otyher drawbaxks: like forcing peole who are good and like their job to quit because they have children and can't provide them the best).
Posted by JFM">JFM  2007-11-05 08:01||   2007-11-05 08:01|| Front Page Top

#8 
Low pay also makes the Saudi offers more attractive.

Then again, so does high pay.

:(
Posted by Seafarious">Seafarious  2007-11-05 08:44||   2007-11-05 08:44|| Front Page Top

#9 Austin overlooks the obvious. In any bureaucracy or organization - work flows towards competency regardless of what the 'wire diagram' shows.

Just as some intel functions were moved or retained at DoD because of ineffective and non-responsive behaviors in other agencies, the same goes here. Maybe instead of trying to fit square pegs in round holes or trying to make 'systems' fit desire over function, we need to step back and rearrange things to fit based upon real world behaviors.

When the situation warrants it, the diplomacy is the responsibility [to include funding and manpower] of the man in theater. Nothing prohibits cross attachments or supplementing. However, while the work is interesting and wooly, best left to the boys willing to do violence without interference. After the settlers have moved in and are ready for statehood, then the 'professional' bureaucrats can come in and 'manage'. Till then, the popinjays can sip their lattes and read their NYTs on the Potomac.
Posted by Procopius2k 2007-11-05 09:12||   2007-11-05 09:12|| Front Page Top

#10 
Croddy. Hole. Ass. New!
Posted by Hupoluck Ghibelline7531 2007-11-05 09:54||   2007-11-05 09:54|| Front Page Top

#11 …”Incoming is coming in every day, rockets are hitting the Green Zone,” said Jack Croddy, a senior foreign service officer who once worked as a political adviser with NATO forces.”…”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,” Croddy said. “I’m sorry, but basically that’s a potential death sentence and you know it.

Gotcha! So, assignments should be based upon personal agendas? Every man jack of these upper class twits must be clamoring for attachment to the Paris delegation. All of this—from the Oval Office on down—is a direct byproduct of the Ivy League intellectual elitism that has infested our government. It is much like the situation in America's corporate culture where the board room no longer looks to those who have risen through the ranks and instead worships the Harvard MBA as a standard of excellence. Our government and industry are crowded with wankers who've never had to get their hands dirty doing any real heavy lifting. These privileged academes pretend to be our intellectual betters as they cherry-pick their way through moral dilemmas.
Posted by Zenster">Zenster  2007-11-05 10:18||   2007-11-05 10:18|| Front Page Top

#12 Need I add that Croddy should be ranked A1 - #0001 on the Iraq roster?
Posted by Zenster">Zenster  2007-11-05 10:20||   2007-11-05 10:20|| Front Page Top

#13 Imagine all those State Department employees who did volunteer to work in Iraq. Now they are to be tarred by association with the dregs to be assigned to the post.

Time to start firing people at State. Most probably starting with Dr. Rice.
Posted by Excalibur 2007-11-05 10:25||   2007-11-05 10:25|| Front Page Top

#14 Time to start firing people at State. Most probably starting with Dr. Rice.

Amen! She has been a BIG disappointment!
Posted by Phurong Prince of the Apes6029 2007-11-05 11:20||   2007-11-05 11:20|| Front Page Top

#15 I protest! They are Ivy League snobs, not elitists. Elitists have real and significant successes that they can point to. Snobs are proud merely of where they've been and who they are, as evidenced by the silly things and people they know. I speak as a matter of personal expertise, being a snob married to an elitist. (You'd be surprised at how snobby I can be about having thrown imaginary tea parties for you-all!)
Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife  2007-11-05 11:38||   2007-11-05 11:38|| Front Page Top

#16 profile in whining

Suggest it be translated to Latin and carved over the Foggy Bottom entrance. I think the solution is to eliminate the State Dept as an independent bureaucracy. Integrate it into the only functioning worldwide command structure the US has and assign it's members as a branch to that area of responsibility (e.g. CENTCOM, AFRICOM, etc.). Only when the State Dept. Dips report to the area commanders, who are held responsible for the day to day operations of their area, and get immediate feedback will their performance improve.
Posted by ed 2007-11-05 11:43||   2007-11-05 11:43|| Front Page Top

#17 I protest!

You don't have to get all snooty about it. Well ... actually, I suppose you do.
Posted by Zenster">Zenster  2007-11-05 12:03||   2007-11-05 12:03|| Front Page Top

#18 State has long been staffed by entrenched Ivy League leftists with their own political agenda.

It's time for a clean sweep!
Posted by usmc6743 2007-11-05 14:57||   2007-11-05 14:57|| Front Page Top

#19 If memory serves, wasn't it Madeleine Albright's "limp and unmanageable hair" response to Saddam Husseins' inquiries that encouraged him to invade Kuwait?

Seem's to me that the state department needs to understand the consequences of their actions.
Posted by flash91 2007-11-05 15:25||   2007-11-05 15:25|| Front Page Top

#20 ;-)
Posted by trailing wife">trailing wife  2007-11-05 15:28||   2007-11-05 15:28|| Front Page Top

#21 i think there could be some middle ground here. Give these people choices. if you don't want to go to Iraq. Fine. Totally understandable. Hell might be hiring. Why don't you try filling out an application and see how it goes?
Posted by Tyranysaurus Unoluth6411 2007-11-05 16:03||   2007-11-05 16:03|| Front Page Top

#22 wasn't it Madeleine Albright

April Gillespie, U.S. ambassador to Iraq at the time.
Posted by ed 2007-11-05 16:11||   2007-11-05 16:11|| Front Page Top

#23 The best solution would be canvassing all State employees and see which ones object to mandatory tours of duty in Iraq. Use that list as the first round of candidates to be sent and make sure they are assigned the diplomatic equivalent of street sweeping jobs to keep them from making trouble.

These mincing little gits need to understand that serving your country is just that, serving. Not bellying up to the trough, not cherry-picking your assignments but responding to the needs of your country.
Posted by Zenster">Zenster  2007-11-05 19:39||   2007-11-05 19:39|| Front Page Top

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