Soon, there will be a new Arabic-speaking diplomat in the State Department's bureau of Near Eastern affairs:
A senior U.S. diplomat has criticized his country's role in Iraq as President George W. Bush said the United States is still expecting to win the war, but is changing its tactics. "We tried to do our best but I think there is much room for criticism because, undoubtedly, there was arrogance and there was stupidity from the United States in Iraq," Alberto Fernandez, an Arabic-speaking diplomat in the State Department's bureau of Near Eastern affairs, said on Al-Jazeera television on Saturday.
Comments
Ben (The Tiger) - October 22, 2006 11:55 AM
Well, diplomats are supposed to pour oil on troubled waters, not to take that same oil and strike a match...
Gordo - October 22, 2006 10:32 PM
Yup. There's definitely no room in the ruling class for someone who tells it like it is.
Ben (The Tiger) - October 22, 2006 11:14 PM
If you want to tell it like it is, you can stand for political office, hold down a professorship at a decent university, write for a prominent newspaper or magazine -- all great places in the so-called ruling class (the Establishment, at least) that allow one to exercise one's conscience.
If you're an officer or a diplomat, you should make those statements in your letter of resignation. (As more than one foreign service officer did in March 2003 -- I believe those were published in the New York Times or some other such public forum.) Open criticism of the elected administration is not part of the job description, and if one feels one must be an active critic and a public citizen, one should leave the civil service.