My gut reaction to the State Department staffers rebelling at the notion of having to serve – say, someplace other than Paris – was that they were jerks and ought to be fired. I tempered my reaction, and waited to see what more reasonable people might have to say on the subject.<\/p>\n
Phil Carter<\/a> has weighed in, and says:<\/p>\n However, I’m with Abu Muqawama<\/a> on this one – suck it up folks<\/b>. Our nation has been asking an awful lot of its men and women in uniform for several years now, and it’s time for the rest of the government to step up. This illustrates the civil-military divide within the federal government itself! Rarely have we seen clearer evidence in support of the statement that “America is not at war; only America’s military is at war.<\/b>“<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Deep down, I think that there are bigger issues than that afoot. I think the State Department is as deeply flawed as the intelligence community; we seem unable to understand or communicate well with other countries around the globe. As much as it would be nice to blame that on the Cowboy in Chief or whatever they are calling Bush these days, the hard reality is that the latest generation of diplomats and spies isn’t doing what needs to be done.<\/p>\n There are doubtless a lot of reasons for it, and there is a blog post or two in it.<\/p>\n