Video of the Week: Did You Know 4.0

This is an official update to the original "Shift Happens" video. This completely new Fall 2009 version includes facts and stats focusing on the changing media landscape, including convergence and technology, and was developed in partnership with The Economist. For more information, or to join the conversation, please visit http://mediaconvergence.economist.com and http://shifthappens.wikispaces.com.

In Afghanistan. We are the tourists.

Image by B Tal via Flickr

Air Force Reserve Major Richard C. Sater was activated for a one-year tour of duty in support of the war on terrorism in May 2003. He was initially assigned to 4th Air Force, March Air Reserve Base, California. In September 2003, he deployed to Afghanistan for seven months in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, assigned first to Combined Joint Task Force 180 at Bagram Air Base; and later to Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan, Kabul. He kept a journal during the deployment, from which the following is extracted. On the civilian side, he has been a college professor of English and the arts and a classical music announcer for a National Public Radio affiliate station.

Notes from a JournalAfghanistan, 11 Sept 2003-7 Apr 2004 was published in War, Literature & the Arts Journal (public domain material). Richard C. Sater is currently a Lieutenant Colonel in the Air Force Reserve.

I know nothing about their calendar. But then, so much of the culture here remains absolutely foreign to me.

We are the tourists.

We employ local Afghan men to work on our posts and camps. Hundreds every day, skilled (carpenters, masons, electricians) and unskilled. They work always under guard, a bored junior-ranked soldier or airman seated close by to keep an eye out for sedition. But there is none. The men need work and, in exchange, endure our ignorance.

Bearded black, swarthy, as thin and hard as want, their utter commonness in Afghanistan still seems exotic to me. They wear the traditional loose-fitting robe called a khalat and equally loose-fitting trousers that match; a rolled felt hat, a pakol; a patterned square scarf, and a fringed wool blanket that serves as cloak and protection from dust and winter’s instructive cold.

I can’t even speak to them beyond “salaam,” which equals hello, and “tasha­kor,” approximating thanks. The men will return my gaze but rarely my smile.

I watch them; they regard me with similar curiosity. Sometimes, guilty, I will show them my camera and raise my eyebrows, a mute question. May I? They shrug, nod. My greedy machine snaps the images with more clarity than I can decipher when I view the pictures later, each worth a thousand untranslatable words.

Their faces reflect the bewildering hard times they live in. They could be a hundred years old or a thousand, though many of those I see are probably younger than I. These are handsome men, dignified men, resigned to traveling a hard road. We have pledged something better. Schools, clinics, clean water, jobs, a stable and safe country, a viable national army that will protect it. The men mark the days—twenty-four hours by anyone’s calendar—and wait for us to keep the promise.

No amount of book-learning will fill the chasm between what I understand about this place and what truly is.

Rodearmel v. Clinton: Dismissed

On October 29 the three-judge panel composed of Karen Lecraft Henderson, Reggie B. Walton and James Robertson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted the US Government’s motion to dismiss Rodearmel v. Clinton “pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and denies FSO, David Rodearmel’s cross-motion for summary judgment.

The plaintiff, David Rodearmel, a Foreign Service Officer in the United States Department of State (State Department), brought suit against the defendants, Hillary Clinton in her official capacity as Secretary of State and the State Department, alleging that Clinton’s appointment and continuance in office as Secretary of State violates article I, section 6, clause 2 of the United States Constitution.

The court’s ruling says “we dismiss the complaint pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.”

The allegations:

Count I: “Clinton’s appointment and continuance in office as U.S. Secretary of State violates [the Ineligibility Clause]” and that he “is suffering and will continue to suffer significant, irreparable harm by reason of Defendant Clinton’s unconstitutional appointment and continuance in office.”

Count II: Rodearmel alleges that the defendants “are violating [his] rights under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by depriving [him] of his property right to continued employment as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer at the U.S. Department of State without due process of law.”

The ruling says in part:

“Rodearmel’s general interest as a citizen in the constitutionality of Clinton’s appointment does not give him standing. Nor does his employment as a Foreign Service Officer provide a basis for standing. He points to no specific duty or responsibility he has as a Foreign Service Officer that has been impaired—or even affected—by Clinton’s appointment.”

“Assuming Clinton unconstitutionally holds office as Secretary of State, it does not follow that a Foreign Service Officer generally serving under, taking direction from and reporting to Clinton performs an unconstitutional act thereby, especially in the absence of any allegation that his service is in any way different from what it was under Clinton’s predecessors in office.”

The Court further says that “We note that Rodearmel remains employed by the State Department as a Foreign Service Officer and his future loss of that position—whether by actual discharge or resignation under circumstances constituting constructive discharge—is entirely speculative. Thus, any injury to Rodearmel’s property right in continued employment, to the extent such a right exists, is not “actual or imminent” and does not support his standing. Lujan, 504 U.S. at 560 (internal quotations omitted). To the extent he has a property right in the “terms and conditions” of his employment and assuming thm to Courtese include the right not to be required to violate the Constitution, Rodearmel’s claim fails because, as noted, he has not asserted any action he either has taken or must take that is itself alleged to be unconstitutional.”

I guess I was wrong; we did not have to wait for 2012. Read the decision here.

Related Item: Civil Action No. 09-171: Rodearmel v. Clinton | October 29, 2009 Memorandum Opinion.

Related Post:

• Rodearmel v. Clinton: Linguistics PhDs Wade In
• Rodearmel v. Clinton, et al: DOJ Files Motion to Dismiss
• Dragging Foggy Bottom to Court

U.N. Can’t Account for Millions Sent to Afghan Election Board

Image by Canada in Afghanistan / Canada en Afghanistan via Flickr

By T. Christian Miller and Dafna Linzer, ProPublica - October 29, 2009 9:15 am EDT | Reprinted under Creative Commons license)

The United Nations cannot account for tens of millions of dollars provided to the troubled Afghan election commission, according to two confidential U.N. audits and interviews with current and former senior diplomats. (Read both [1] audits [2].)

As Afghanistan prepares for a second round of national voting, the documents and interviews paint the fullest picture to date of the finances of the election commission, which has been accused of facilitating election fraud and operating ghost polling places. The new disclosures also deepen the questions about the U.N.'s oversight of money provided by the United States and other nations to ensure a fair election in Afghanistan.

"Everybody kept sending money" to the elections commission, said Peter Galbraith, the former deputy chief of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan. "Nobody put the brakes on. U.S. taxpayers spent hundreds of millions of dollars on a fraudulent election." Galbraith, a deputy to the senior U.N. official in Afghanistan, was fired last month [3] after protesting fraud in the elections.

The audits come as President Barack Obama is struggling to craft a war policy for Afghanistan that would establish a stable government in a country with few democratic traditions. Senior aides have made clear that Obama will not commit to sending additional troops until there is a legitimately elected government in Kabul. On Wednesday, insurgents stormed [4] a housing compound primarily occupied by U.N. election officials, killing eight people, including two election workers.

Afghanistan's Independent Election Commission initially reported that President Hamid Karzai had won the majority of votes in the August election. A recount was ordered after another U.N.-backed panel uncovered evidence of widespread fraud. After weeks of prodding from the Obama administration, Karzai agreed last week to a runoff.

The U.N. audit reports, which are near completion but still in draft form, are likely to fuel debate over the Afghanistan election commission's ability to carry out the new round of voting. Karzai's challenger, Abdullah Abdullah, has suggested he may boycott the elections unless Karzai dismisses the chairman and two other commissioners.

In interviews, senior U.S. and U.N. officials said that U.N. leaders had ignored warnings as far back as 2007 that the election commission was a pro-Karzai body with few internal controls.

Another top official in the U.N.'s Afghanistan mission, Robert Watkins, acknowledged in an interview that some commission employees had contributed to the fraud in the first round of voting.

"It's clear that some of the people" working for the commission at the polling centers "were complicit in fraud," Watkins said. "Some of the staff hired were not working in the best interests of impartial elections."

But Watkins said the United Nations is working to improve the commission's performance in the runoff. He said the U.N. planned to slash the number of poll workers and blackball any that may have been implicated in fraud in the August elections.

As of April 2009, the U.N. had spent $72.4 million supporting the commission, with $56.7 million of that coming from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the audit said. Total election costs are now estimated at greater than $300 million, with the U.S. providing a third to half the total funding, according to one senior U.N. official familiar with the elections process.

The draft audit reports indicate that as many as one-third of payroll requests from the Afghan commission to the United Nations included "discrepancies," such as incorrect names or amounts.

In another instance, the U.N. Development Program paid $6.8 million for transportation services in areas where no U.N. officials were present. Auditors found that the development agency had "inadequate controls" over U.S. taxpayer money used to fund the commission.

Continue reading here.

Related Item: U.N. Development Agency Audit of Afghan Elections and Development Spending Original Document (PDF)

US Visas for $12,000 in Ukraine?

Image via Wikipedia

The FBI Cleveland office has just announced the arrest and charges filed in a lengthy investigation involving members of a criminal organization that trafficked in fake documents and fraudulent US visas in Ohio and Ukraine.

The investigation was reportedly started in December of 2007 when information was received that individuals in the Cleveland Ukrainian community were involved in a scheme to bring foreign nationals to Cleveland, Ohio and help them fraudulently obtain real Ohio driver’s licenses for a fee, issued by the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles (BMV) by a Deputy Registrar working for this criminal organization.

The FBI says that an undercover FBI agent was able to fraudulently obtain a real Ohio Driver’s License in August of 2008 for $3000 from this criminal organization. The investigation showed that this criminal organization operated for at least four years, charging foreign nationals, most of whom are unlawfully present, between $1,500 and $3,000 for Ohio driver’s licenses, and Ohio state identification cards using either fraudulent documentation or none at all.

The FBI also says that during the course of the US-based investigation, the investigators in Cleveland discovered evidence that the criminal group in Ohio were working with criminal counterparts in Ukraine. Together, they fraudulently obtained United States non-immigrant visas for Ukrainian nationals who then traveled to Ohio and other points in the United States. The visas were obtained from the United States Embassy in Kyiv, Ukraine, allegedly through corrupt Ukrainian national employees of the US Embassy. The investigative team from Cleveland, the FBI’s Legal Attaché’s Office in Kyiv, and Diplomatic Security Service Special Agents assigned to the US Embassy in Ukraine investigated the Ukrainian criminal group jointly with the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Organized Crime Department over the course of many months. The criminal group allegedly charged each visa applicant $12,000.00. As a result of the joint international investigation, seven members of the Ukraine-based criminal organization, including two Embassy employees, were officially detained today in Ukraine by investigators of the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs for violation of Ukrainian laws.

I inquired from the press office of US Embassy Kyiv if they have an official statement, but zip, nada. Usually comes with the territory for bloggers in pjs, btw. From my experience, only the press office at US Embassy Kabul is accommodating. Even when they can't give you the info you want, they at least, take the time to write back. End of rant, moving on.

Read the whole thing here.

Related Item: Inspection of Embassy Kyiv, Ukraine OIG Report Number ISP-I-07-17A | March 2007

Call in the Civilians. Pray Tell, From Where?!

Ron Capps is a peacekeeping program manager at Refugees International. According to FP, he served in Afghanistan as a soldier and in Iraq as a Foreign Service officer. He writes about Washington’s treatment of “civilian support as an afterthought” in the post 9/11 world. As a result, he writes, “the State Department's ranks have been depleted and overstretched to the core. And the civilian half of warfare has suffered.” Read Call in the Civilians (Foreign Policy | October 26, 2009).

Excerpt below:

Development and diplomacy, like defense, are clearly defined and specialized fields. No one would task a USAID agricultural economist with helping develop Afghanistan's or Iraq's internal defense strategy. But with the current deficit of Foreign Service officers (FSOs) at the State Department and USAID, the government routinely tasks U.S. special operations forces with implementing development and public diplomacy tasks. One exasperated officer asked me, "How am I, as a military professional, supposed to know what's best for the development of this country? That's USAID's job." But there is no USAID officer in the area, so she soldiers on.

Worldwide, the State Department and USAID need about 5,000 new FSOs to conduct core and public diplomacy, oversee foreign assistance, and manage stabilization missions. The State Department has been hiring about 700 new officers a year, a rate that barely beats attrition in the rapidly graying Foreign Service. USAID is 75 percent smaller than it was a generation ago, and despite bringing in 300 officers a year, it is still not meeting the global demand for development specialists.

A rapidly graying Foreign Service, for sure. It doesn’t help that the State Department kicks you out as soon as you turn 65 … Well, whatever. They must know what they’re doing.

He also writes that “Colin Powell, for example, increased the Foreign Service by about 1,000 people a year. But most of these newbies went to consular and diplomatic security positions, not core and public diplomacy jobs. Condoleezza Rice asked Congress for 1,100 more FSOs annually, but she got considerably fewer.”

Consular are not core jobs? Excuse me -- Madam le Consul, we need you here, right now! Okay, I will only politely quibble with the examples --

Actually, former Secretary Powell’ Diplomatic Readiness Initiative that began in 2001 hired 1,158 people above attrition.

According to AFSA, former Secretary Rice made the following staffing requests below. Note that these are not at “1,100 more FSOs annually.” She did not get to that solid round number until her last year in office:

FY-06: 221 requested, zero funded (140 created out of reprogrammed funds) FY-07: 102 requested, zero funded FY-08: 262 requested, eight funded FY-09: 1,095 requested, unknown number funded (I’ll have to look this up)

In one staffing debacle in the 90’s that you may or may not remember, there were hundreds of unfilled positions in the State Department. The agency’s response was to smartly eliminate all the vacant positions. Yep, even then there was smart power at work -- so then no more staffing holes. End of news story.

The 1990’s were lean years for the Foreign Service. This report says that deep staffing cuts under Secretary Christopher and Secretary Albright forced drastic reductions in professional and language training. Sure, we had a deficit but it had been steadily declining in the early part of the decade. In 1998, for the first time in 29 years, we enjoyed a $69 billion surplus. In FY2000, the estimated surplus was at least $230 billion. But it was not about the money. 1991 also saw the end of the Soviet Union. And the peace dividend reared its ugly head, had USAID for starters, then ate USIA as one of the main courses in 1999.

The Foreign Affairs Council Task Force Report in 2003 says that seven blue-ribbon panels between 1998 and January 2001 detailed the disastrous impacts of 1990s budget cuts that reduced funding for the administration of foreign affairs from $5.05 billion in 1994 to $3.98 billion in 1996 to $3.64 billion in 2000 (expressed in constant 1996 dollars). Ambassador Bill Harrop writes in American Diplomacy that the “neglect in the 1990s allowed our diplomatic system to erode nearly to dysfunctionality.”

You’d think it could not possibly get worse. And then it did. The decade of GWOT saw not just 9/11 seared forever into our collective memories but also two wars, one now going on its 7^th year, the other on its 9^th year. Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan which started in October 7, 2001 has now costs us $230,174,475,000.00. The Iraq invasion in March 20, 2003 and post-war reconstruction has now cost us $695,004,700,000.00. By the time I finished writing this, it’ll be much more –see here.

At the State Department, Colin Powell initiated a hiring surge in 2001. The Diplomatic Readiness Initiative (DRI) was reportedly the brainchild of then Foreign Service Director General Marc Grossman. It was a three-year push to hire 1,158 employees over and above those hired to fill gaps created by attrition. This report has the hiring breakdown:

FY 2002:

467 Foreign Service Officers hired (229 in FY2001) 680 Foreign Service Specialists hired (298 in FY2001) 633 Civil Service employees hired (473 in FY2001)

FY2003 399 DRI positions

FY2004 399 DRI positions

By 2004 of course, the Iraq mess was in full swing.

Fast forward to 2006 - on January 18 that year, Secretary Rice outlined her vision for diplomacy changes that she referred to as “transformational diplomacy” to meet the 21st Century world. This new kind of diplomacy was about democracy-promotion overseas. The CRS reported that changes were made under existing authorities, but no legislation or new authority was requested from Congress.

I wrote previously about transformational diplomacy and the devils in the details here. A big deal was made about the global repositioning of Foreign Service personnel then. But on the fiscal year when this new transformational initiative was announced, Secretary Rice requested just 102 positions. None were funded by Congress. Without new funding or staffing, I thought of TD/global repositioning as nothing more than, frankly, avoiding the manholes in the global chessboard.

2007 is still remembered by some as the year when a muddy “near-revolt” happened in Foggy Bottom and diplomats were publicly threatened with directed assignments to Iraq. Just about everyone enjoyed the target; this one was the only one I remembered who tried to understand the fuller picture.

In the waning days of Secretary Rice’s tenure at the State Department there was understandably a big do to separate facts from myths (it’s harder than you think). AFSA tried to help. In it's AFSANet message it also says that "Congress, at AFSA's urging and with this Administration's support, did include some FY-08 and FY-09 "bridge" funding for additional positions in the Iraq/Afghanistan War supplemental that was passed last summer. To our knowledge, State has not said how many new Foreign Service positions that funding permitted."

In the long life of a bureaucracy, a well resourced agency like the Defense Department has hundreds of proud parents and godparents who can claim responsibility for its successes; but who claims responsibility for an underfunded/understaffed agency that must constantly wrestle with -- well, people and paperclips? And when we call in the civilians ...and they're nowhere around, we start thinking, "how could that be?" They must be here somewhere, surely, they must be ... just hiding somewhere? ... After all, to admit that they're not here and were never around in the first place, is to open a whole can of critters that can bite just about everyone up and down this sorry road.

Related Post: Separating Fact From Myth II: For the Record

Related Items: One Hand Clapping: The Sound of Staffing the Foreign Service

BlogNotes: Diplopundit on Twitter

Just figured out how to do a few things on Twitter. Don’t be misled by the photo. That’s cropped from Lorenzo Lott’s oil on canvas work c.1550 (public domain). I was going to put up Ben Franklin, or my cat's mug, or a barking owl's - but in the spirit of a semi-tamed vanity (gods help me), I finally settled on Lott's.

http://twitter.com/Diplopundit

Matthew Hoh in His Own Words

Matthew Hoh, the US official who resigned in protest over the Afghan war did a Q&A over at the Washington Post. It's unfortunate that the issues he raised seemed to have been overshadowed by his employment status. But the Q&A is a good start. Why are we in Afghanistan and how long we should be there ought to be part of a broader discussion about this "good war." You can read the whole thing here.

Excerpts below:

Washington, D.C.: Could you explain the nature of your employment with the State Department? I understand you were hired to work in Afghanistan on a limited, one-year contract. Are there a lot of people there under similar contracts?

Matthew Hoh: Yes, I was hired as a limited non-career foreign service officer. I was sworn into the foreign service as as foreign service officer for at temporary period of time. The US government "deputizes" people in such manner to make up for shortfalls in manning or to bring in people with specialized experience. Much of the "civilian surge" that you may have read about in Afghanistan consists of temporary government hires. Although it is a contract these positions should not be confused with contractors filling various logistics, security and intelligence positions.

Washington, D.C.: Would a little more thought go into the why of going to war, if the Congress actually had to declare war and that upon a declaration of war, the military draft was reinstated for the duration of said war?

Matthew Hoh: Absolutely. As a former professional military officer I am against the draft because I don't believe it leads to an effective military. However, as a private citizen I feel that a draft would engage our population in the debate. I don't believe we would have invaded Iraq if we had a draft and I don't believe we would still be in Afghanistan if we had a draft.

Philadelphia, Pa.: Do you know of other Foreign Service officers who also don't think we should be in Afghanistan, but don't have the guts to resign or even to express their reservations?

Matthew Hoh: Yes.

Ouch!

Related Posts:

• PRT Officer Matthew Hoh Resigns Over Afghan War
• The State Dept on Matthew Hoh

USAID/Egypt: $181 Million Later, Impact Unnoticeable

…in indexes describing Egypt’s democratic environment

I did not know this – but apparently since FY 2004, USAID/Egypt has designed democracy and governance programs valued at $181 million to be conducted until the end of FY 2012. USAID’s OIG just released its audit report on its democracy and governance activities in Egypt. Excerpt below from the report:

Despite USAID/Egypt awarding more than $181 million for program activities since 2004 and the mission’s acknowledgment of the restrictive political environment in which it conducts programs, the Office of Democracy and Governance has achieved limited results for 13 judgmentally selected awards. Valued at $62.3 million, the programs support rule of law and human rights, good governance, and civil society. Based on the audit results, USAID/Egypt’s Office of Democracy and Governance achieved only 52 percent of its planned results for the 13 awards and successfully completed only 65 percent of its activities during fiscal year (FY) 2008.

Based on the programs reviewed, the impact of USAID/Egypt’s democracy and governance activities was limited in strengthening democracy and governance in Egypt. Furthermore, in separate recently published reports, independent nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) ranked Egypt unfavorably in indexes of media freedom, corruption, civil liberties, political rights, and democracy. Egypt’s ranking in these indexes remained unchanged or declined for the past 2 years. The overall impact of USAID/Egypt’s programs in democracy and governance was unnoticeable in indexes describing the country’s democratic environment.

USAID/Egypt had the authority to take corrective action when an implementer was not achieving its results. But in some instances the mission did not take appropriate action, because the staff was unaware of problems due to weak management controls.

USAID mandatory standard provisions and an acquisition and assistance policy directive establish the legal responsibility for USAID recipients to include antiterrorism clauses in all subawards and comply with a certification regarding terrorist financing. Despite the requirements, four USAID/Egypt implementers did not include mandatory clauses in agreements with subrecipients, and one implementer did not sign the antiterrorism certification. This occurred because technical representatives did not periodically verify the implementers’ antiterrorism measures to ensure that required actions had been taken. As a result, USAID/Egypt has little assurance that its programs do not inadvertently provide material support to entities or individuals associated with terrorism.

Read the whole thing here.

Related Item: Audit of USAID/Egypt’s Democracy and Governance Activities OIG/USAID Audit Report No. 6-263-10-001-P | October 27, 2009 | PDF

US Embassy Islamabad Suspends Consular Services

Image by Omer Wazir via Flickr

Routine consular services will be temporarily suspended from Monday, October 26 through Friday, October 30.

Its latest warden message says that the Embassy will continue to provide emergency services to Americans requiring such assistance. Americans interested in routine services such as passport applications are requested to contact the Embassy on Monday, November 2. Immigrant and non-immigrant visa interviews will be rescheduled.

Earlier yesterday, a separate warden message advised American citizens that the Diplomatic Shuttle into the Diplomatic Enclave would be closed for the day. Due to this, the American Citizens Services unit was also closed except for emergency services (arrests, death or injury, victims of crime, etc.).

The State Dept on Matthew Hoh

Image by The U.S. Army via Flickr

…and the Art of the Benevolent Push Back

Here is the official word from Foggy Bottom on the resignation of Matthew Hoh, the U.S. official who resigned over Afghanistan. The short short seems to be that State admire, respect, and took him seriously – but he’s not one of theirs for the long haul ‘cuz he was not a career member of the Foreign Service. And by the way we’re on track on Afghanistan. Yes -- and as I write this, the news screen flashes that Taliban militants have gone boldly into Kabul, attacked the UN Guest House, killing six employees.

Summary:

Resignation of Matthew Hoh /Admire Mr. Hoh and Respect Sacrifices Made for His Country / Take His Opinions Seriously / Senior Officials Have Spoken With Him / Respect His Right to Dissent /Had Limited, Non-Career Appointment / Political Officer in PRT in Zabul/Believe We're on Track to Achieving Goals President Has Set Before Us/No Resignations By Career Foreign Service Officers Over Afghanistan/Allegation of Desecration of Qu'ran Denied by Pentagon

* * *

QUESTION: Can I just – now pick up the question about – the resignation of Matthew Hoh, who was working for the State Department in Afghanistan and has made public a somewhat depressing three-page letter about the reasons for his resignation, and he talks about his loss of understanding and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States presence there.

Is this – how does the State Department view this? Is this an embarrassment of sorts, the fact that it’s become so public? It’s on the front page of the Post today. MR. KELLY: Well, first of all, we admire Mr. Hoh. We respect the sacrifice that he’s made for his country, both in Iraq and signing up to join our effort in Afghanistan. We take his opinions very seriously. Senior officials on the ground in Afghanistan and here in Washington have talked to him, have heard him out. We respect his right to dissent. This is an old and respected tradition in the Foreign Service, that Foreign Service personnel have the right to express their dissent.

Just to give you a little more background on his affiliation with the State Department, he signed on for a limited appointment. It is a non-career appointment. He signed on March 29^th of this year and his employment lasted up until September 28. He submitted his letter of resignation a few weeks before that. He was signed on as a political officer in a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan in Zabul. And his role as a PRT political officer was to monitor and report on political and economic developments in his province.

As I say, we take his point of view very seriously. But we continue to believe that we are on track to achieving the goal that the President has set before us, and that’s – you heard Deputy Secretary Lew lay out some of those objectives: improving Afghan governance; providing security, infrastructure, jobs, basically giving the Afghan people an alternative to the very negative vision of the Taliban and al-Qaida. And this is the strategy, and as I say, we believe we're on track reaching the goals. Kirit. QUESTION: Just a couple of things from the article about his meeting with Eikenberry and with Holbrooke. Could you tell us a little more about this, and what happened in those meetings? MR. KELLY: Well, I think he was upfront with his own chain of command, and had the opportunity to discuss with his immediate boss who is the supervisor of the PRTs. And he also talked to the Deputy Chief of Mission out there, Mr. Frank Ricciardone. And it was very much an open and transparent process. As I say, we value his service, we value his background and his skills. This is why we appointed him to this limited non-career appointment to be a political officer, to be our eyes and ears on the ground in Zabul. In the end, he made his own decision, that he decided to resign, and we respect that. QUESTION: Do you wish he hadn’t gone public with it? MR. KELLY: I'm sorry? QUESTION: Do you wish he had not gone public with that? MR. KELLY: It’s really his decision. I mean, we don’t – it was a – obviously, a very personal decision, and I think he even told the post that it was a very painful decision. I’m sure it was, but we respect his right to act on his views. QUESTION: So his tour – his job would have ended on March 29^th of 2010? MR. KELLY: It was a one-year appointment, yeah. QUESTION: That would have ended on March 29, 2010? MR. KELLY: It was supposed to end next March, yeah. QUESTION: And then what would have happened? MR. KELLY: At that point, he would have – his employment would have been over with the State Department. These appointments can be extended as well. I – there have been some appointments that have been extended up to 18 months, I know. QUESTION: And the – okay, but then that’s it? MR. KELLY: And that’s it. Yeah, that’s it. QUESTION: So there – MR. KELLY: He signs an agreement that he’ll – that he agrees to stay for a year and then his employment ends. QUESTION: So that you can’t re-up it at that point. MR. KELLY: Oh, I said we can extend him, but he has no – it’s a non-career appointment. So he doesn’t have any re-employment rights, per se. Of course, he can compete for other jobs. QUESTION: Then I’m not – I’m unclear as to how he actually fits into the Foreign Service. MR. KELLY: It’s – there is a provision of the Foreign Service Act that gives the Secretary the right to designate certain positions as limited with a time certain end date in order to fill positions that have not been filled through the normal Foreign Service process. And so this was one of them. We have, I think a total in the world, about 16 of these type appointments. It’s not – it’s fairly rare. QUESTION: Is that the same thing as the 3161 or is that different? MR. KELLY: No, that’s different. QUESTION: It’s different, right? MR. KELLY: I don’t know all the ins and outs of 3161. I think that’s more of a Civil – I think that’s for Civil Service appointments. QUESTION: So this is under Foreign Service, but he is not considered -- MR. KELLY: This is under Foreign Service. QUESTION: -- a Foreign Service officer, he’s not commissioned as a Foreign Service officer? MR. KELLY: He’s not commissioned as a Foreign Service officer, yeah.

Yeah. Related Post: FSO Matthew Hoh Resigns Over Afghan War

PRT Officer Matthew Hoh Resigns Over Afghan War

WaPo's Karen DeYoung just broke the story on the resignation of Foreign Service Officer and former Marine Captain, Matthew Hoh, over the war in Afghanistan.

According to his LinkedIn profile, Matthew Hoh joined the Foreign Service in March 2009 as a Political Officer. He previously served as a Combat Engineer Company Commander for the US Marine Corps Reserve (March 2006 — June 2007), worked briefly in the Iraq Policy and Operations Group at Bearing Point, was Regional Programs Coordinator for the US Department of the Army (May 2004 — June 2005) and served as Action Officer and Writer at the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, US Marine Corps from November 2002 — April 2004. He graduated from Tufts University in 1995. Read Matthew Hoh’s Resignation Letter (PDF).

Somebody has already posted his resignation letter in Scribd, so I'm embedding it below.

Updated: 10/28: Post title updated Related Item: The State Dept on Matthew Hoh…and the Art of the Benevolent Push Back Matthew Hoh first US official to resign over Afghan War

Jack Lew on Civilian Staffing in Afghanistan

Yesterday, Jack Lew, the Department's Under Secretary for Management and Resources gave a briefing on progress made in civilian hiring for Afghanistan. He said that the Department is on-track to meet staffing goals in Afghanistan. In the Q&A that followed, Secretary Lew gave the staffing goal at this point:

The 974 is the goal. What I’ve been trying to express is that as the plan is implemented and as there are needs for additional experts, we are not saying 974 is the end of it and if you need 10 more agricultural experts, it’s over. We’re open, as the deployment takes effect and is fully implemented on the margins, to be flexible.

[…] civilians come in ones. They don’t come in battalions. So it’s a different concept to assign civilians. We’re really matching people to tasks. So as the Embassy identifies additional tasks, we are open. It’s not an unlimited openness. I mean, obviously, we’re limited by appropriations and available resources.

Of course, how can anyone talk about war zone staffing without bringing up the "near-revolt" in Foggy Bottom in 2007? "Secretary Rice was trying to compel Foreign Service officers to go to these places, and now you’re saying you’re having no trouble at all." DEPUTY SECRETARY LEW: I don’t want to say it’s easy. This is very hard. I mean, they’re hard assignments. These are hard decisions for people to make to go over, and it’s hard work when they get there. So it’s challenging, and I think we have to be kind of conscious of the fact that it gets harder as you do it year after year, because people who are inclined to take assignments like this have already done it once or twice. So it’s a challenging undertaking.

I think that what I attribute the relative enthusiasm of the Foreign Service in the State Department to sign on for this mission really gets down to its core strategic importance and the leadership both from the Secretary, the Ambassador, Ambassador Holbrooke – the team that’s on it. Look, even the fact that I am managing the recruitment of the 974 people, I mean, I’m told that that wasn’t the way Iraq was handled. It wasn’t at a level – the Deputy Secretary level. There’s a lot of visibility to this, and there’s a lot of sense of calling, that it’s a mission that people, if they’re able to contribute, feel they should try to. I think that it’s not for everyone. Some people sign up, and by the time they get through training don’t decide it’s for them. Some people go out and come back. But that’s really very few compared to the total. And there’s nothing – there’s no compulsion in this. I mean, we still have the tools that were contemplated then should we ever need them, but -- QUESTION: Meaning forced to serve? DEPUTY SECRETARY LEW: Yeah. The tools exist and everyone who is in the Foreign Service knows that that’s an option that’s available. But I’m very proud of our Foreign Service that it hasn’t been necessary to talk about that. Having been there several times now, I have a great deal of admiration and respect for people who are leaving their families behind, going to places where they’re in harm’s way, and doing work that isn’t always glorious and grand, but it’s important and they have to do it day after day.

An alternate video source is here at c-span. The transcript of his briefing is available here.

Web 2.0 Roundup: US Embassy Manila

From US Embassy Manila via Facebook

Last week, the US Embassy in Manila had “Twitter Week.” The occasion marked the official launch of the embassy’s twin sites in Twitter and Facebook. In announcing the new online engagement, the US Ambassador to the Philippines, Kristie Kenney writes in her blog:

"At the U.S. Embassy in Manila, we use all sorts of modern technology to stay in touch, and we want more people to have virtual access to us and our activities. We have a new U.S. Embassy Manila Facebook page, along with our Embassy website, to share stories, news and photos with you."

Ambassador Kenney is one of the very few US Ambassadors with an official blog, and the only one with a blog hosted in America.gov. As can be expected the topic she addresses in her blog are normally selective, noncontroversial and usually tied to her official events like US Navy ship visits here and here, USAID projects, the passing of President Aquino and marking 9/11. But in late September when Typhoon Ketsana caused widespread flooding in Metro Manila and nearby areas, and in the relief operation that followed, she was able to use her blog here and here, to give insight into the calamity on the ground and share online what the USG was trying to do to help. And none of it looked like boiler-plate language that you see in cables or in press releases. In one of her blog posts she writes:

“I have to start this blog entry by telling my mother, once again, that I am fine. Yes, Manila was flattened by major floods. Yes, typhoons followed the floods. Yes, many people suffered. Yes, the U.S. Embassy was flooded. But I am fine. And very lucky. Many others were not so fortunate.”

I don’t think we can realistically expect our ambassadors to write about foreign policy issues in their blogs. We certainly can’t expect Ambassador Kenney to write about the RP-US Visiting Agreement in this medium because there are other venues what would lend more effectively to the discussion of such matters. But as she has shown, a blog can be a great tool in public diplomacy; no, not as a public relations-lobbying tool but in personalizing our government’s top representative in a foreign country, and in showing empathetic engagement. Whoever works online officially as part of the public diplomacy outreach must bear in mind what Edward R. Murrow, former director of the USIA, once said: “Truth is the best propaganda and lies are the worst. To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; to be credible we must be truthful. It is as simple as that.”

Internet stats for the Republic of the Philippines below:

Population (est. 2009): 97,976,603

Internet Users (2000): 2,000,000

Internet Users (latest data): 24,000,000

Penetration: 21.1 %

User Growth (2000-2009): 932.5 %

User in Asia (%): 2.9 %

In addition to the ambassador’s blog and the mission website (that has so far evaded the fate of a canned website template), the US Embassy Manila is on Facebook and Twitter. It is also on Flickr although its extensive photo gallery has not been uploaded to it. Ambassador Kenney is on Twitter with over 700 followers (including basketball star, Chris Tiu). That’s how you know she had “dinner with embassy pals and manny pacquiao” or that she watched the Smart Gilas versus Ginebra game. As an aside, the game, that’s the basketball game -- is important. In 1898-1900s, the United States introduced basketball in the Philippines. Today, it is the most popular sport in the country.

Similar to Indonesia, I think there is an opportunity for innovative PD engagement in the Philippines that no one has grabbed unto yet. Filipino mobile phone users currently number more than 70 million out of the total population of 97 million. Its penetration rate hit 75 percent in 2008; double that of Indonesia’s. More than radios, more than the Internet, mobile phones have more reach than anything else in this country of over 7,100 islands. The Philippines is also widely called the text-messaging center of the world for a reason; they send one billion text messages a day. According to WaPo, when President Joseph Estrada was forced from office in 2001, he bitterly complained that the popular uprising against him was a "coup de text." (It was widely reported that the protest was coordinated with SMS chain letters). "This is a development for democracy," was how text messaging was described by one protest leader, five years later, organizing against Estrada’s successor. If a “coup de text” was possible, how can making this work for public diplomacy be impossible? "Once we rid ourselves of traditional thinking we can get on with creating the future.*" There is a way to put this to great use – find it!

See more Web 2.0 Roundup here. *James Bertrand quote

Quickie: One Nation Under Contract

On October 25, Mickey Edwards, a former Republican congressman who is now vice president of The Aspen Institute writes about Allison Stanger’s new book in the Boston Globe (One Nation Under Contract: The Outsourcing of American Power and the Future of Foreign Policy | Yale University, 256 pp):

In her new book, “One Nation Under Contract,’’ Stanger, director of the Rohatyn Center for International Affairs at Middlebury College, documents in stunning detail the extent to which the United States has turned much of its most important work over to private contractors whose motivation is profit and level of public accountability near zero. […] “For-profit foreign aid,’’ Stanger says, “is now a booming business, with billions of US government dollars flowing into sketchy projects.’’ She points to a 2005 congressional study that found that of 286 schools that were to be rebuilt by a private contractor with funds from the US Agency for International Development, “only 8 had been completed and . . . only 15 of 253 planned health clinics were operational.’’ With as many as five subcontractors on each job, “each charging a substantial fee’’ a school that could be built by Iraqis for $50,000 costs the American taxpayers five times that much. [...] There’s plenty of scandal, and she calls it such, plenty of concern about cost, lack of accountability, fiscal irresponsibility. But she also sees contracting out as a wave of the future, in large part probably because the elimination of the draft makes unavailable the large numbers of uniformed personnel to drive trucks, peel potatoes, build buildings, or do the laundry. Her concern is not with the idea of farming-out but with the mismanagement of it, the lack of transparency, the lack of effective monitoring and evaluating.

Read the whole thing here.

James Hogan: Missing Now for 31 Days

US Vice Consul James Hogan was reported missing by his wife on September 25 in Curacao, the Netherlands Antilles. Today marks a month since he went missing. There seems to be no new developments on the search conducted by local authorities in the islands. I unearthed the video below from YouTube (sorry, no translation available) and another one here, both talking about the search and the police’s effort in soliciting the public’s assistance in their search. It includes snippets of James Hogan on video.

Digger of Life After Jerusalem pointed out recently that James Hogan just made the promotion from FS-04 to FS-03. The promotion list was dated October 9.

An AP report dated Oct 12, 2009 cited James Hogan’s brother, Paul saying that the family would not comment out of concern for the privacy of the diplomat’s wife and his five children.

On October 18, FS blogger, Globetrotter came back from a three-week TDY in Curacao. He understandably does not have a lot to say except that “It has been an interesting experience, but a difficult one under the circumstances. I'm glad for the opportunity to serve and help out at a trying time.”

This is such a gut-wrenching occasion, I can't even begin to imagine what this must be like to the family and the small community at the US Consulate General in Curacao. What makes me feel really bad is how his disappearance seems to have fallen off the face of the earth just like that ... no more news coverage updating us on the search ... Related Posts:

• US Diplomat James Hogan: 19 Days Missing
• DNA Match in James Hogan Search
• US Diplomat Missing in Curacao

Officially In: Philip S. Goldberg to INR

Image via Wikipedia

On October 23 President Obama announced his intent to nominate Philip S. Goldberg to be Assistant Secretary at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). The WH released the following official bio:

Philip S. Goldberg, a career member of the Senior Foreign Service, is the United States Coordinator for Implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolutions on North Korea. Mr. Goldberg has served as Ambassador to Bolivia; Chief of Mission in Kosovo and Charge d’affaires and Deputy Chief of Mission in Chile. He is currently coordinating implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1874, an assignment he will continue pending confirmation by the Senate when a successor will be designated. His earlier assignments include: acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs; Executive Assistant and Special Assistant to the Deputy Secretary of State; Bosnia Desk Officer and member of US delegation at Dayton Peace Negotiations; Political-Economic Officer in South Africa, and Consular and Political officer in Colombia. Mr. Goldberg is a graduate of Boston University.

* * *

If his name sounds familiar, that’s because he was in the news a lot last year. President George W. Bush nominated Philip S. Goldberg as Ambassador to Bolivia and his nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate on August 3, 2006. On September 10, 2008, the Bolivian Government expelled Ambassador Goldberg, after declaring him Persona Non Grata.

As an aside -- there is a long list of alphabet soup at the State Department. But the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) is one of the dozen or so offices that reports directly to the Secretary. According to the Historian’s Office, An Act of Congress (P.L. 99-93) of Aug 16, 1985, authorized the appointment of an Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research. Prior to this date, the Secretary of State designated all Directors of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. Since Aug 1986, all incumbents have served as Assistant Secretaries of State and been commissioned by the President. If confirmed Ambassador Goldberg would succeed, Randall M. Fort who was appointed A/S of the INR Bureau from 2006-2009. Previous appointees to this position are listed here.

Related Item: President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts, 10/23/09

Officially In: Betty E. King to US Mission Geneva

Image by US Mission Geneva via Flickr

On October 22 President Obama announced his intent to nominate Betty E. King to be Representative of the United States to the Office of the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva, with the rank of Ambassador. The WH released the following official bio below:

Betty E. King served as the United States Representative to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush. In that capacity, Ms. King worked on human rights, children, development, aging and population issues. She was the principal U.S. negotiator on the Millennium Development Goals. Ms. King has an extensive background in philanthropy, having served as the Vice President of the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore, Maryland, the Senior Advisor to the CEO of the California Endowment in Los Angeles, CA and an advisor to the Atlantic Philanthropies in New York. She was the Deputy Commissioner of Mental Health in the District of Columbia, the Executive Director of the Southwest Society on Aging, the Director of the Arkansas Department on Aging and an Assistant Professor at the University of Arkansas. She currently serves on the boards of Refugees International, the United Nations Association of the United States, Phoenix House, and on the Advisory Board of the Annenberg School of Public Diplomacy. Ms. King earned a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Windsor, Ontario, Canada, a Masters degree at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and was a National Humanities Fellow at Harvard University.

Related Item: President Obama Announces More Key Administration Posts 10/22/09

Quickie: On State/USAID - There Will Be No Merger

Image via Wikipedia

Spencer Ackerman did a lengthy post last week on the Department’s QDDR process (see State Dept Project Signals Foreign Policy Shift | Washington Independent | October 22). The piece also delineates the composition of the five Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review working groups with senior officials from across both State and USAID.

Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of State for East Asia, and Karen Turner, director of USAID’s office of development partners, head the group responsible for “Building a Global Architecture of Cooperation.”

Maria Otero, the undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs, and Gloria Steele, USAID’s global-health chief, work on whole-of-government solutions.

Johnnie Carson, State’s top African-affairs official, and George Laudato, USAID’s Mideast chief, handle “Investing in the Building Blocks of Stronger Societies.”

Conflict prevention and response is under Eric Schwartz, State’s assistant secretary for population, migration and refugees; Susan Reichle, USAID’s senior democracy and humanitarian assistance official.

Ruth Whiteside of State’s Foreign Service Institute and Jean Marie Smith, Jack Lew’s special assistant, are in charge of “Building Operational and Resource Platforms for Success.”

The piece includes something that would help our USAID folks let out a sigh of relief. It said that “only one policy option has been ruled out: dissolving USAID and moving development work to the State Department.” Anne-Marie Slaughter, the director of policy planning is quoted as saying, “There will be no merger. Secretary Clinton has made clear she wants a strong AID, a well-resourced AID, [and] wants diplomacy and development well-integrated.”

There she said "no" to the "M" word. Read the whole thing here.

Rodearmel v. Clinton: Linguistics PhDs Wade In

Image via Wikipedia

Seven professors of linguistics have filed an Amici Curiae in support of the U.S. Government’s motion to dismiss FSO David Rodearmel’s complaint.

The new filing provides a quick summary of the case:

The Ineligibility Clause—also known as the Emoluments Clause—prohibits the appointment of Senators or Representatives to “any civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during [the time for which they were elected.]” Plaintiff seeks a declaration that this provision renders Hillary Clinton ineligible to serve as Secretary of State because Cabinet secretaries (along with other federal employees) received cost-of-living increases in their salaries during Ms. Clinton’s most recent Senate term. The increases in the Secretary of State’s salary were wiped out by statute before Ms. Clinton’s appointment, so that the Secretary’s salary was returned to what it had been when Sen. Clinton’s term began. But the plaintiff insists that Ms. Clinton nevertheless remained disqualified from being Secretary of State and that her appointment to that position violated the Constitution. The plaintiff contends that the reduction in the Secretary’s salary is constitutionally irrelevant because it does not change the “historical fact” that the previous increases had occurred.

The brief filed says that “the plaintiff’s interpretation represents only one of several possible readings. The clause can also be reasonably read in a way that permits a Senator or Representative’s eligibility for appointment to be restored by reducing the salary of the position in question to what it was when the Senator or Representative’s term began.”

It also says: "The ambiguity in the Ineligibility Clause relates to the phrase shall have been encreased. Plaintiff’s argument assumes that a position’s salary has been increased during a Senator or Representative’s term if at any point in that term the salary went up, even if it later went back down by the same amount. This interpretation corresponds to what linguists would refer to as an EXPERIENTIAL reading. But the language can also be understood to have a RESULTATIVE reading. On the latter interpretation, the salary can be said to “have been increased” only if it went up and stayed up through the time of the appointment. This reading of have been encreased is comparable to the interpretation of I have caught a cold as meaning that the speaker had gotten sick and was still sick."

The friend of the court filing based its argument on two things --

A. The phrase shall have been encreased during such time can be interpreted “resultatively”—i.e., as meaning that the state of increase continued in existence through the time of Sec. Clinton’s appointment.

“The phrase shall have been encreased is in what is conventionally called the FUTURE PERFECT TENSE. This is a compound tense, which means that it has two components: FUTURE and PERFECT.”

B. Encreased can also be understood as an adjective, and under such a reading it can be interpreted resultatively.

“As we have noted, increased can be interpreted as an adjective as well as a verb. Under such an interpretation, it is subject to much the same ambiguity as the verbal interpretation. An adjectival reading is therefore consistent with the conclusion that Secretary Clinton’s appointment was valid.”

The brief provides examples using texts from Rodearmel's filing, Judicial Watch’s website, even from James Madison’s notes of the debates at the Constitutional Convention. It also carries the following appendices:

• Appendix A: The English Resultative Perfect and its Relationship to the Experiential Perfect and the Simple Past Tense
• Appendix B: Examples of the resultative perfect
• Appendix C: Examples of adjectival use (may be ambiguous between adjectival use and use as resultative perfect)

Now Judicial Watch has a "Plaintiff's Opposition/Response to Linguists' Amicus Curiae - September 8, 2009" posted online but it is a dead link right now. It would be interesting to see how many linguists of its own it can come up with to counter these linguists' argument.

And here I thought this would be settled by President's Day. Perhaps we should not be surprise if this court case would run on until 2012?

Related Item: Rodearmel v. Clinton: Linguists Amici Curiae | PDF

Related Posts: Rodearmel v. Clinton, et al: DOJ Files Motion to Dismiss Dragging Foggy Bottom to Court