at the State Department HR Department.
This...is...CNN.
Rice tries to quell staff dissent over forced duty in Iraq
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- State Department officials should serve where they are needed -- even in war-torn Iraq, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says that "people need to serve where they are needed."
Rice was responding to foreign service officers' objections to the possibility of "directed assignments" in Iraq. The issue has caused an uproar in the State Department, resulting in a contentious town hall-style meeting Wednesday.
The new directives would be needed if enough qualified foreign service officers don't step forward to fill open positions at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
If the State Department enforces directed assignments, it will be the first time since the Vietnam War era.
One official called the order to serve in Iraq "a potential death sentence" during the town meeting.
The State Department already has begun notifying about 200 people considered prime candidates. Those chosen will be given 10 days to respond, according to last week's announcement. Unless they have a valid medical reason to refuse, those who decline could face dismissal, it said.
...
Of course we know that these people are probably just all insane. Probably all just yella, or victims of Bush Derangement Syndrome, or just a bunch of fops and nancy men.
After all, as you will no doubt remember noted verity-spewer Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) long ago lifted his mighty nipple of Conservative comforting goodness to our truth-parched lips to reassure us that Baghdad is now just “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.”
This...is...Think Progress.
Pence: Baghdad Bazaar Is Like ‘Any Open-Air Market In Indiana In The Summertime’
On Monday, Republican lawmakers visiting Iraq tried to argue that President Bush’s escalation in Iraq has made Baghdad — especially the Shorja market — safer. Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) told reporters that Shorja — where a suicide bomber killed 88 people in January — is now “like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.” On his blog, he wrote:
And so it went, up and down the street, in between tents and tables, squeezing past pedestrians to inspect the offerings in one booth after another, we milled around this marketplace in downtown Baghdad for more than an hour. I told reporters afterward that it was just like any open-air market in Indiana in the summertime. I didn’t mean that Baghdad was as safe as the Bargersville Flea Market; I just meant that that was what it looked and felt like…lots of people, lots of booths and a friendly relaxed atmosphere.
Ahh, how well I remember how much sounder I slept that very night knowing that was all cleared up now.
Because, c'mon, it's not like Republicans have degenerated into a party now made up of nothing but a core group of desperately lying traitors...and a much larger group of cowardly enablers of desperately lying traitors.
Who, by making duty in the Hell on Earth they created in Iraq compulsory, are turning US foreign service into a career track less attractive than spending a weekend in the "1984" rat-mask wearing salami spectacles and a Stilton goatee.
Or anything.
5 comments:
can a draft be far behind?
pwapvt
If State is like every other department in the federal government it's staffed with dimwitted Regent University graduates who've sworn an oath to George W. Bush, Jesus Christ, and the Republican Party (in that order).
I say let them go. Jesus himself went into the desert for forty days. Why shouldn't all these Bible-thumping Bush loyalists do the same?
Usually I just have good things to say but that ending "or anything" was really clunky.
I gotta say, Frank, that the way Driftglass crafts his posts, his command of the language, his original turns of phrase, his brilliant observations exquisitely presented, makes me pretty certain that, when he ended his post with "or anything", it said exactly what he meant to say.
Mermaid
pwapvt,
No draft I think, but this crew will leave us tottering (I forget who used the analogy, but it really fits) like a Jenga stack ready to collapse.
res ipsa loquitur,
Short term, if what you posit is correct, I's agree with you.
Long term, we need a functional State dept. And it is frankly very useful to see insiders break the code of silence about Iraq when it's their own asses on the line.
Frank,
The muse leaves when she leaves.
Sometimes she finishes me off like a pro.
And sometimes she grabs her purse and dances off into the night while I'm still all bothered and teased.
But I am always glad of her company.
Mermaid,
You say the nicest things :-)
12:21 PM
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