I read the article, which fails to name even one of the FSOs who supposedly refused orders to deploy. In fact, it's a bit weasel-worded, to wit:

"Many U.S. employees have outright refused repeated requests that they go to Iraq, while others have demanded that they be assigned only to Baghdad and not be sent outside the more secure Green Zone, which includes the American Embassy and Iraqi government ministries."

Couldn't you find anything at all more up-to-date than Feb. 2007?

The unnamed employees who've "outright refused repeated requests that they go to Iraq" aren't identified by agency, just as "U.S. employees"

So much for your attempt to smear FSOs; learn to read bias-media like the IHT a little more closely. You do know, by the way, who publishes the International Herald Tribune, don't you?

I've covered this media-generated "issue" in the past at my own web log; you can read up on it to your heart's content there. Bottom-line: the media (with moderate-to-great success) attempted to publicize a supposed "rift" between DOS and DoD, stipulating an imaginary "mutiny" of FSOs "refusing" orders to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The truth is less colorful and doesn't raise as many people's blood pressure; every FSO job has been filled, year in and year out, and it's been filled by a volunteer every single time. And the number of billets has done nothing but go up, as the new embassy has been established, as new PRTs and e-PRTs have been fielded.

You may kiss my "gravitas."

I read the article, which fails to name even one of the FSOs who supposedly refused to deploy. In fact, it's a bit weasel-worded, to wit:

"Many U.S. employees have outright refused repeated requests that they go to Iraq, while others have demanded that they be assigned only to Baghdad and not be sent outside the more secure Green Zone, which includes the American Embassy and Iraqi government ministries."

Couldn't you find anything at all more up-to-date than Feb. 2007?

The unnamed employees who've "outright refused repeated requests that they go to Iraq" aren't identified by agency, just as "U.S. employees"

So much for your attempt to smear FSOs; learn to read bias-media like the IHT a little more closely. You do know, by the way, who publishes the International Herald Tribune, don't you?

I've covered this media-generated "issue" in the past at my own web log; you can read up on it to your heart's content there. Bottom-line: the media (with moderate-to-great success) attempted to publicize a supposed "rift" between DOS and DoD, stipulating an imaginary "mutiny" of FSOs "refusing" order to Iraq and Afghanistan.

The truth is less colorful and doesn't raise as many people's blood pressure; every FSO job has been filled, year in and year out, and it's been filled by a volunteer every single time. And the number of billets has done nothing but go up, as the new embassy has been established, as new PRTs and e-PRTs have been fielded.

You may kiss my "gravitas."

Nice attempt at intellectual and sarcastic gravitas on your part. Really. However, your pitiable knowledge of the subject-at-hand is lacking. Why don't you try to learn something about what you try to disparage before you show your ignorance?

The military goes into war zones fully armed and ready for combat. That's what they do, and do very well. State Department officers, on the other hand, also go into some very dangerous places, like the PRTs in Iraq and Afghanistan, with much less firepower on call. It's not all cookie-pushing and lying in formal wear, nor is it all the Paris-Rome-Vienna "Opera Circuit", either. And, as Consul-at-Arms notes, the State guys don't get a tax break for serving in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Congo, or Pakistan.

"I remember that a lot of State Dept. personnel at first refused to deploy to carry out State's mission in Iraq, no wonder the military had to take it on for them."

Do you often share your delusions and false memories in public fora?

Every single FSO position in Iraq and Afghanistan, from day one, was filled by a volunteer for that job in that place.

That is still the case. And they pay their full federal income taxes while they're doing it.

This has resulted, over the past year, in the State Dept. having to leave unfilled more than ten percent of its total FSO positions worldwide, which means a shortfall in FSO deployments to over 260 posts overseas plus Washington, D.C.

If it comes down to rule by a draft-dodging liberal elitist like Hussein or a decorated patriot, I take the patriot every time.

So you voted for John Kerry over GWB?

No I'm not kidding. You think I'm kidding? Go to Alex Jones's website. There are more kooks out there than you think. And they all vote Republican, btw.

The current administration has also been guilty of lionizing our military, as a means of gaining support for their political goals. The military may have been complicit. There were certainly accusations that the military dragged its feet in response to Clinton, but given the strong Republican bent of the officer class, may have been less critical of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld that they should have been.

This last issue looks to be changing some. As I have followed publications from the military over the last twenty years or so, I note a recent change in tenor that is more critical of Republican philosophy, especially neocons.

Steve

If State is underfunded, that is not the DoD's fault.

Stability and security have to be in place before we can move forward, and in a COIN fight, it takes both DoS and Dod personnel to make it happen.

Disqualifying veterans from senior positions in government, sounds a bit discriminatory, I'm sure he supports the troops otherwise, I wonder if he's familiar with Kipling's poem "Tommy".

We need someone to protect us from the Chicago-style corruption that Obama has forced on the country.