Oh my God, look at what those in charge of the U.S. State Department have done! Did they piss-off Russia or China? No. Did they open direct diplomatic talks with the leaders of Iran and Syria? No. What they did was to piss-off hundreds of their own diplomats and other foreign service workers.
The State Department, which is nicknamed "foggy bottom", could not find enough volunteers among its employees to fill all the positions it needed to concuct its business in Iraq. So, it made the decision to force some of its diplomats and other foreign service officers to work at our embassy in Baghdad and on reconstruction teams in Iraq's outlying provinces.
When they heard of the decision, many of the foggy bottomers howled like stuck pigs. At a town hall meeting called to protest forced assignments, one of them alleged that the highly protected green zone in Baghdad was subjected to daily incoming fire and many agreed that assigning them to Iraq would be the equivalent of a "potential death sentence."
Having studied history in college, applicants for the foreign service had to know from the get-go that they could be assigned to work in dangerous places. During the Vietnam War, Saigon was a very dangerous place to work. In 1979, our embassy staff in Iran was seized by Islamists and held hostage for 444 days. In the early 1980s, Beirut, Lebanon was a dangerous place for Americans. All through the 1980s, Nicaragua, Honduras amd Guatemala were high risk areas for our foreign service workers.
Employers cannot afford the luxury of allowing their employees to dictate work assignments. Most teachers, if given the choice, would refuse to teach in any rough and tumble ghetto schools. Some veteran police officers may want to work only in safe high income-low crime neighborhoods and, if given the choice, would refuse to patrol dangerous low income-high crime areas.
The protesting foggy bottomers remind me of the soldiers who complained about getting sent to Iraq because they only joined the army to obtain educational benefits, not to risk their lives by fighting in a war. The bottom line is that many of our foreign service workers are scared shitless at the prospect of being assigned to work in Iraq.
It is very hard to fire any federal employee. However, refusal of an assignment would appear to constitute grounds for dismissal. State Department employees that refuse to accept an assignment in Iraq are nothing but a bunch of gutless parasites on the public payroll who should be terminated forthwith.
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