By PHK
Hasn’t the American MSM learned anything since its lemming-like follow-the-no-nothing neocon approach to Iraq reporting in 2003 that got us into the worst US foreign policy disaster in recent times – if not ever? Guess not.
Why did The New York Times, for instance, recently publish front and center – Max Boot’s wrong-headed, one-sided, jargon-laden and factually questionable OpEd “Send the State Department to War?” Who on the Times editorial staff made this publication decision? Why didn’t the supposedly “centrist” "all the news that's fit to print" New York Times instead give Max Boot the boot?
Way past time to get off the neocon-siren-song fix
Where, pray tell, did Boot get his information about the workings (or non-workings as the case may be) of the State Department and its substantive officers? Or of Condi’s supposed astute understanding of the Department’s role and resources? Where did this Technicolor, opium-inspired dream come from? For starters, Mr. Boot, Rice’s “transformational diplomacy” is an under-funded bad joke that has moved mid-level substantive positions from places like Moscow (not just Berlin or London) to China and the Central Asian Republics – just as Putin demonstrates how democratic he really is – and as increasingly scarce and questionably qualified Foreign Service personnel are thrown into the sink hole known as Iraq to do what - is still beyond me.
It’s crystal clear that Boot has zero knowledge of the working of Foggy Bottom. But that doesn’t stop him from writing about it. What’s most troubling, however, is The New York Times complicity in providing a mouthpiece for a small band of right-wing ideologues to the exclusion of people who really do know of what they write.
I guess that Boot doesn’t even realize that State has never had strong management –with a short respite under Colin Powell – and that Rice’s tenure is just another example of the department’s chronic managerial weakness problem and lack of Congressional support. Why didn’t Boot write about State Department personnel policy under Rice as it really is - especially her placement of more and more requirements on the Foreign Service but simultaneously refusing to “upsize” personnel numbers or officer qualifications and skills to meet those increased demands?
Why didn’t Boot mention that another piece of the management problem is that Rice continues to retain inept and/or corrupt political appointees in top level, high salary management positions when it’s clear they should have been gone long ago – or better yet never hired given their abject lack of qualifications. Did Blackwater and Dyncorps shootings of innocent Iraqis really have to have happened, for instance, if State had, in fact, been under decent management?
Militarization of public diplomacy
Why didn’t Boot explain the reasons for the US military takeover of significant public diplomacy aspects of US foreign policy largely based on recommendations in the September 2004 "Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication?"
He instead reported that some unidentified – naturally - soldiers have grown weary of taking on tasks that rightly belong to civilians. They’re right, but it seems to me that this latter complaint stems from the Bush administration’s over-militarization of US foreign policy spurred on by private contractor avarice and Boot and his own neocon colleagues’ ill-conceived foreign policy dreams of grandeur ala tanks and fighter planes. Had the Bush administration been smart – and had Bob Gates been Secretary of Defense at the time – perhaps the civilian side would have been strengthened in at least two of the ways Boot now proposes.
This means substantial reinvigoration of USAID for nation-building tasks and recreation of USIA for projecting America’s multifaceted image abroad – both recommendations with which I strongly agree. I too think the US would be far better off with smaller more nimble, better managed civilian government agencies than having either function “run” by endemically weak management at State or subsumed by the humongous Pentagon.
But why didn’t Boot admit that USAID’s nation-building side of the house was crippled and USIA’s speak-to-the-people approach to diplomacy was destroyed by a bipartisan Republican-majority Congress and Democratic Executive effort during the 1990s?
Or more significantly that the Bush administration’s policies of over-militarization and extreme private sector outsourcing of US foreign policy has almost killed whatever civilian foreign affairs implementation capabilities the US government had left after 2000?
What State Department Officers do, do
Boot’s ignorance of what he writes extends to his lack of understanding of how State Department Foreign Service Officers have operated and should operate overseas. For the record, they do meet, and have always met, with a variety of people in the countries to which they are assigned abroad – not just government officials. So, by the way, do foreign diplomats here in the US. Or if they don’t, they aren’t doing their jobs. That Boot OpEd faux-pas alone is just another example of his total ignorance of essential operations and requirements of the Foreign Service and yet another reason why The New York Times should have looked for someone else with better credentials and credibility.
Ambassador Peter Bridges recently described some of these experiences as a mid-level and senior State Department Foreign Service Officer in a thoughtful, must read article in the California Review.
Military jargon and poetry don’t mix
I can also attest that I was involved in and often helped arrange countless sessions and other events that included Ambassadors, Deputy Chiefs of Mission and State Department political and economic officers in face-to-face meetings with foreign journalists, academics, cultural figures, environmentalists, independence leaders, dissidents, economists, students and other non-governmental officials when I worked in Europe and Asia for USIS overseas. I knew any number of foreign government officials as well.
That’s what being a Foreign Service Officer is about. It’s part of the game of information gathering, information sharing, confidence building and mutual influence. That’s why we have Foreign Service Officers posted overseas – and it is why advanced foreign language, area and cultural studies as well as people skills are so crucial for political, economic and public diplomacy officers alike.
It’s also why we need a robust civilian side to US foreign policy making and its implementation. Sending in the military to talk with writers, poets, religious leaders or democracy advocates in most countries just doesn’t cut it. Military jargon, uniforms and poetry don’t mix.
Finally, why does Boot seem to think that “requiring” civilian bureaucrats to serve tours in other agencies is a new, novel and onerous idea? Nonsense. Such excursion tours - including assignments on the Hill and as diplomats in residence at universities throughout the country including here at the University of New Mexico - have been around since before I joined the Foreign Service in 1970. People enjoyed them and many out-of-agency assignments and training were sought after. Conversely, we always had a few military officers assigned to USIA.
But to make this work, the State Department and whatever's left of civilian foreign affairs bureaucracies elsewhere also require enough personnel so staff can take advantage of such opportunities (right now the Foreign Service is so stretched that about one-quarter of all positions in US Embassies are vacant) – as well as ensure that such out-of-agency experiences benefit, not hurt a person’s career.
Please, New York Times, is it too much to ask that you get the Foreign Service story straight for a change?