re: "I'll Bet I've Met More Diplomats Than Rick Perry Has."

Donna at Email From The Embassy ("It's a crazy sort of lifestyle, but it's working for us so far.") defended FSOs against an ill-considered remark by Gov. Perry.

Money quote(s):

"The U.S. Department of State looks for the smartest people it can find, and then, if it can interest them in a low-paying, lonely and dangerous job, somewhere in the far reaches of the globe, it hires them.We have Republican diplomats. We have Democratic diplomats. We have gay diplomats. We have diplomats who oppose gay marriage. We have Muslim diplomats and Jewish diplomats, and girl and boy diplomats. Single parents can be diplomats, as can childless singles."

The pay isn't low, exactly. But it is on the lowish end of the salary range that might be earned by people with the sorts of experience, education, and other credentials FSOs bring with them into the Foreign Service.

It can be lonely, at times, and certainly presents its own assortment of dangers, some of them from unexpected directions.

"We have just about every type of diplomat you can imagine, because we represent a fairly diverse cross-section of America."

That's by design, as you might expect. No more "pale, male and Yale" only Foreign Service; that stereotype lingers on generations after it became an institutional memory. The "state school" folks vastly out-number the Ivy League-ers.

"You won't find a single person in the entire State Department who joined solely to get rich, or to advance a personal agenda at some great cost to our nation. People don't always agree with each other in the Foreign Service, and people don't always get along on a personal level. But Foreign Service officers always advance the agenda of our government, without fail. And they work together, no matter their personal beliefs. Because that is what they were hired to do. Imagine that, if you will: Democrats and Republicans, all working together on behalf of our nation - it happens every single day in the Foreign Service."

The folks with personal agendas don't labor in the diplomatic trenches for a couple of decades until they reach the vicinity of a policy-influencing position. The folks with personal political agendas come in with every new presidential administration, with every new secretary of state. Working diplomats implement the foreign policy of the United States as articulated by the president and by the secstate, consonant with the federal laws and ratified treaties which govern our diplomatic relations.

"(T)here aren't a whole lot of them out there (I'm told it is still true that there are more military band members than there are FSOs)."

A bit over ten thousand FSOs total, plus a few thousand more Foreign Service Specialists who make their work possible.

"Diplomats support American ideals in every country across the globe, often at great risk to themselves and their families. Diplomats (and their boss, the Secretary of State) don't set their own policies. Rather, they serve as boots on the ground, the eyes and ears of the President in every corner of the globe. Diplomats report back what they see and hear and think in these countries"

While diplomats aren't spies, precisely, diplomats do provide what's called "diplomatic intelligence." They're on the ground, with local contacts, with their ears to the ground, with (mostly) appropriate language skills, with their finger on the local pulse. Their reporting provides local context to policy makers.

"They present the facts - and yes, they present their own educated opinions - so that our President has the information he needs to create and direct policy. Once the President decides on policy, these same diplomats work to advance his agenda. Not their own agendas, mind you. Never their own agendas.

If they feel strongly enough that they can't support the President's policies, they resign. It happens, on occasion. If you suddenly find that you can't support current policy, you resign, and you go look for a job in the private sector, where you are allowed to disagree publicly with our nation's policies, and where you probably make more money, too.

But the rest of those diplomats work for the United States of America. They don't work for the Republicans, and they don't work for the Democrats. They work for us, for our country. Always."

11/8

re: "Busy. Oh, But I'm Thinking A Lot About Blogging. State-Blogging, To Be Specific."

Donna at Email From The Embassy ("After three years in Beijing, we're headed to Amman, Jordan. For family and friends who want to follow our adventures, this is it...") posts some commonsensical rules for diplobloggers.

Money quote(s):

"(V)arious factions in State seems to have worked themselves into a swivet over a few of my blogging pals. What gives, State? It might be time to put some specifics in the FAM, so people know what the rules are, sort of the way we know about cost constructing travel to CONUS and applying for special needs allowances. We could use some rules! As Diplopundit pointed out today, the letter writer in this month's FSJ suggested that we all go back to writing in diaries and stuffing them under our pillows (ummm... not recommended in China, I hope!), or apply for jobs with the Huffington Post (wouldn't THAT get people's attention, if all of us State bloggers suddenly picked up that sized audience!). I get it: the writer doesn't like blogs. But to try to pretend he doesn't want to ban them outright, and then offer those flippant suggestions as replacements, is a bit disingenuous."

The aforementioned letter writer in the FSJ is a senior-ish, and well-respected, consular officer. Not yours truly, you understand: more respectable than ichmo.

"We've built this community, and we turn to each other for advice and support and laughter. (Also, pictures of nasty gigantic spiders lurking in bathtubs - you know who you are....). Many of us, myself included, started our blogs as a way to keep far-flung family members in the loop. So not only do these blogs tie us into our communities, but they help us keep our ties to our families back home. We're not going away, even if the Huffington Post does come calling."

There are several broad categories within the U.S. diploblogging "community." One of them encompasses Donna's web log; it's about family and FS life and helps keep our far-flung community a little bit more close-knit than distance used to allow. Yay technology!

Here are Donna's suggested rules:

"First: Don't Bite The Hand That Pays You. We are all of us, employees, spouses and children alike, representing the United States government every time we walk out our doors. I might be "just" a spouse with a spouse job and not much say-so in the Embassy, but when I'm here, to many of my neighbors out in the wide world, I AM the US government. So as a blogger, I am not allowed to criticize the work that the Department of State is doing, in Jordan, in the region, in the world, even. That's not my place. I won't do it at a dinner party, and I certainly won't do it on my blog. Doesn't matter what I think of our position on Palestine: if it differs from the USG-position, I can't put it on my blog. Even if it's the same as the USG-position, I'm likely going to avoid discussing it, anyway. This is a personal blog, after all, not a government-sanctioned one, so those types of discussions really don't belong here."

Some of us don't quite color within the lines on this one; I brush up against them myself quite often. But most often, I'm only reporting on what others have said and commenting thereupon.

"Second: Use the Past Tense. If you're going somewhere tonight, don't tell me about it until tomorrow. It doesn't make sense to advertise your whereabouts to complete strangers, through your blog or any other means. It's like cancelling your newspaper before you go on vacation, so no one realizes you're gone. It's just safer that way."

This is a very good and common sense suggestion that promotes operational security. Don't publish your future movements or schedule. That makes it too easy for those who may chose to do you, or your colleagues and/or loved ones, harm.

"Third: Limit the Details. I might tell you my street is narrow and crowded and full of Land Rovers, but I won't tell you if it is three streets up from the Embassy, right side, next to the Mexican restaurant. That's too much detail. I'll show you pictures of my house (assuming it's presentable), but only from the inside. You won't see the front of my house. You won't see pictures of my alarm system. You won't see any of the measures that keep me safe here at post. And speaking of pictures:"

Again, just helping make it a little more difficult for dangerous amateurs to do you harm.

"Fourth: No Pictures Without Permission. Don't post pictures of non-family members without their permission! If your colleagues don't permit you to post their pictures, don't do it. And don't post their names, either. First names, I think, are generally okay, but again, with permission! If you're not sure if they'd like it, don't put it out there."

This is also good advice for FS Facebook users.

"Fifth: No Gossip. About those colleagues: watch what you say about them. I, for one, have had the privilege of working with some smart, talented, funny people over the years. There are some seriously smart people working on your behalf at most Embassies around the world. (Also some odd ones, but hey: you'll find those strange birds in any profession. Just don't call them out on your blog!) But, really, even if what you want to say about someone is a compliment, you really ought not talk them up without permission. There are loads of people who agree with our FSJ letter writer that blogs are scary things, and you don't want to draw attention to those types of people, or to your blog, by posting details about such colleagues."

There's an "Old Army" rule about all the men being brave and all the ladies virtuous. The internet is tailor-made for spreading gossip, some of it even having a little bit of truth at the core of it. Just don't. Even if you're mad at something, or someone, that seems senseless, that's vexing you at your post, because as often as not you don't have all the facts about it anyways.

It does no one any good to post about who's incompetent or lazy, drinks too much or has an eye for the ladies (or lads). If it rises to the level of a problem, then it's the post's RSO or DCM who needs to be put into the loop, not the entire internet.

"(I)f no one will make the rules for us, maybe we need to make them ourselves. It should be basic common sense, in most cases. But your ability to blog should not and cannot depend upon the kindness of your boss. If you are following the rules, you shouldn't get slammed simply because your new boss doesn't approve of blogging. They cannot tell you that posting a picture of your baby at a doctor's appointment is a violation of your child's medical privacy rights, because that's simply not true (trust me: I asked a lawyer). But they can restrict things you want to say if those things contradict the work of the Department. Of course they can. They do it in the private sector, too."

This new media stuff is still something of a frontier, at least it is for not-new organizations like State. So diplobloggers are a sort of pioneer, which can be a good thing if handled right.

"Don't discuss policy; don't endanger yourself or others by posting details of upcoming events; don't post pictures that show the front of your house, or the school, or the car; don't talk about colleagues; don't post photos of colleagues without permission."

Nice summary and it probably belongs on the sidebar of every diploblog.

re: "My Letter to Congress Regarding Overseas Comparability Pay"

Four Globetrotters ("The (most likely) incoherent ramblings of a sleep-deprived single mother living overseas with her trio of kiddos.") has written to her congressional representative.

Money quote(s):

"I used a template provided by AFSA here, via Life After Jerusalem and modified it to make it more personal. I urge all of you to take the time and write in. It's long, I know, but I hope that some staffer will take the time to read it. This isn't ill-will on the part of our leaders in Congress. I honestly believe there's no desire to "stick it to the Foreign Service." This is ignorance. This is a product of our own modesty, as Donna at E-Mails From The Embassy stated so eloquently. DOD and other government agencies don't hesitate to toot their own horns and share their life stories. It's time we do the same."

It's a truism within the U.S. Foreign Service that the Department of State is perhaps the only federal department in the executive branch without a domestic constituency. That is, aside from the domestic passport production centers, there aren't any huge contracts being let which employ registered voters back in any congressmen's home districts. Since there are only about 11,000 of us, FS generalists and specialists together, and our home towns (and voter registrations) are scattered across all 50 states, we don't pack much of an electoral punch.

At the working level, at my last post whenever I had a happy and appreciative American citizen bubbling over at the prompt, courteous, and thorough assistance or service he or she had received from our Consular Section, I'd give them a little speech.

I'd tell them that when people didn't like how they were treated or when they didn't get what they wanted (generally because what they wanted was, shall we say, extra-legal; remind me to tell you about my death-threats sometime), they'd often threaten to write their congressman. To which I'd always say it's the right and privilege of every American to write or call their congressional representative and encourage them to do so.

So when I got a happy or satisfied "customer," I'd politely suggest that if they were serious and really liked how they were treated, to think about maybe telling their congressman, because otherwise their congressman won't ever know about his constituents' experience with us and whether their tax dollars were being spent productively out in the far beyond of Country X.

And I'd make sure they had the correct spelling of whomever's name who'd helped them.

"I understand why we will not be receiving cost of living adjustments over the next two fiscal years. However, I am concerned by current legislative proposals that call for reversing a carefully considered bi-partisan plan to modernize the pay system of the Foreign Service that is in the process of being implemented. I have to assume that it is because our mission and our sacrifices are not sufficiently known to Americans, and even to our own representatives in Congress."

"I spent my first Christmas in the Foreign Service at the morgue identifying the body of an American citizen who had been killed in a home invasion. I spent another Christmas in the putrid morgues of a small sub-Saharan African country searching frantically for the wife and two children (ages 4 and 7) of an American citizen who had been aboard an aircraft that crashed upon take off. I loaded my children onto a plane bound for Sierra Leone --where my parents were stationed -- when the situation in Togo, my second post, devolved rapidly after the death of President Eyadema. We may actually be the only people ever to evacuate family to Sierra Leone.

When a member of Congress and her staff were abandoned during this unrest at a downtown hotel by their Government of Togo hosts, I was the only American besides my then-husband, the Regional Security Officer, who could drive an armored vehicle. The Ambassador dispatched me, and I drove through barricades and crowds to reach her and her staff and transport them safely to the Embassy. My husband couldn't go because he was off responding to a distress call from one of our Embassy families. Their house was being invaded.

The mother and two children were holed up in the safehaven while a frenzied group of thugs destroyed their home and personal belongings and worked to break into the safehaven where they were hiding. All of us at the Embassy listened as the frantic calls for help came in over the radio, the children crying in the background. My colleague wept as he heard his wife and children, helpless. My husband knew he had to try and help, even though it would come at great personal danger. He arrived at the house, unarmed due to a policy that did not permit him to carry his service weapon, and engaged at least two dozen thugs. Relying on his training as a former marine, he quickly disarmed one person and used that weapon to disperse the remaining looters. There is no doubt in my mind that had it not been for his intervention, the wife would have been raped or worse, and there is no telling what would have happened to the two children. I waited, bordering on hysteria, by the radio to hear that my husband was okay and that our three children would not be left without a father. He rightfully received the State Department's Heroism Award for his actions on that day.

I, like countless of my colleagues, have defended the United States and had close encounters with those who wanted to do us harm. I remember vividly the day I, a second-tour junior officer, gazed across the bullet proof consular window at a young Nigerian man who simply wanted to go the United States to "visit". I determined he did not meet the standards to qualify for a visa to the United States, and denied him. His name was Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a.k.a the underwear bomber." (Typeface bolded by CAA.)

Every FSO has stories like this. Every single one. Four Globetrotter's are a little scarier than some because of her African postings as well as her evacuation from Tunisia, but they're pretty much of a piece with the rest of ours.

As I mentioned recently, this past month marked the year anniversary of a plane crash case I worked as a consular officer, where several American citizens were fatalities. One thing I didn't mention was that the pilot, also killed, was the father of a personal friend of mine. That was not the first time I visited that particular Third World morgue nor was it the last. As unfailingly kind and courteous as the morgue staff always was, I was never happy to be there. But I'd go again in a heartbeat if that's where my duty took me, and expect that it will, at some other post.

"At the height of the revolution, the streets were packed with rioters, soldiers and tanks. Every night for a week my children cowered in a corner listening to the shooting going on around us. There is no 911 over here. If people had chosen to attack our home we -- a single mom with three children -- would have been helpless. Our own armored security vehicles were unable to respond to distress calls. When I was finally able to drive to the Embassy for our evacuation flight, I was stopped at a military check point and had a rifle pointed at my head by an overly eager young soldier.

The Federal Employees Pay Comparability Act of 1990 was adopted as a way to reduce the government-wide disparity between the public and private sectors and is a basic component of salary for all civilian Federal employees, based on annual survey data collected by the Department of Labor. As a result of this law, every federal government employee working in the United States received “locality pay” as part of their salary. Until 2009, the only United States government civilian employees who did not receive this part of their salary were entry-level and mid-level Foreign Service personnel serving their country overseas. All others, including senior level State Department officers, and other agencies represented overseas, such as CIA officers under State Department cover, DOJ and DHS, have locality pay factored into their base salary.

Locality pay for Foreign Service personnel and other federal employees serving in Washington, D.C. is now approximately 25%. Under the law prior to 2009, Foreign Service personnel serving abroad sacrificed this part of their salaries and took large pay cuts to their base salaries. Those posted in Washington earned more money than colleagues posted in Pakistan, Yemen, and Beirut to name a few. As a result, because retirement packages are based upon base pay (including “locality pay”), Foreign Service officers representing their country abroad received smaller retirement packages than their colleagues who stayed in Washington. This was not sustainable and in 2009 a bi-partisan solution was found to correct this policy problem. Closing the pay gap is not a pay raise -- it is a correction of a 17- year-old unintended inequity in the worldwide Foreign Service pay schedule—an inequity that grew every year."

The business model that makes it financially ruinous for a diplomat to take overseas assignments pretty much screams out for correction, don't you think?

"Our oath is pretty similar to another oath I know you are familiar with:

"I do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion, and I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

Assignments overseas are increasingly challenging, difficult and in many instances, dangerous. There has been strong bipartisan recognition that it is time to invest in diplomacy and development. Penalizing Foreign Service employees -- specifically those of us at the junior and mid-level -- whose mission is to serve overseas to advance and protect our national interests by cutting our base pay undervalues the importance of our work, widens the gap between those of us serving in the United States and those of us facing hardships and sacrifices overseas and creates real disincentives to serving on the front lines of American diplomacy and development."

No whining, but to put it another way, why would you want to pay "inside-the-beltway" bureaucrats more than your diplomats taking tough posting abroad? Do you perhaps sense there's an insufficiency of inside-the-beltway bureaucrats in Washington?

(Which is not exactly how I see the political winds blowing this year.)

re: "Small World"

Donna at Email From The Embassy ("After three years in Beijing, we're headed to Amman, Jordan. For family and friends who want to follow our adventures, this is it...") tells it like it is.

Money quote(s):

"Another friend, currently in Chinese classes at FSI, has just written an excellent post about what it's going to mean if Congress moves forward on their plan to cut locality pay for State employees. For my family, it will mean an immediate 15% pay cut. That's no small amount when you're a one-income family living in an expensive city. To hear the rhetoric, it seems our politicians think State Department employees aren't regular, middle-class Americans, and we are somehow leaching off the American public by collecting our pay. I guess they don't know that my husband regularly puts in 12-hour days (in fact, by law, he's required to work at least 10 hours per day). I guess they don't know he works weekends. I guess they don't know that he has literally put his life on the line to keep other Americans safe. I guess they don't care that our whole family works for the government, every day, merely by putting ourselves out there, presenting an American face to a foreign public, even in countries where it might be dangerous to do so."

re: "Current Events (Or Why We Deserve This Pay Cut)"

Donna at Email From The Embassy ("After three years in Beijing, we're headed to Amman, Jordan. For family and friends who want to follow our adventures, this is it...") has a great summation and some alarming ideas.

Money quote(s):

"In a nutshell: our pay is on the line. Life After Jerusalem and several other bloggers covered the details, which amount to this: Foreign Service officers currently have to take a steep pay cut when they move from DC to their overseas posts, due to something called "locality pay." Several years ago, when the powers-that-be were convinced this was a problem (why should I move to Yemen, or Libya, or Beijing, or really anywhere, if I'm going to make 25 cents on the dollar more to stay in DC?), they moved to phase in overseas locality pay so that this disparity would disappear over time. But now, led by Mr. Reed, some of our politicians have decided to call this an "automatic pay raise," and they want to do away with it. Only for State Department employees, mind you: other agencies overseas get this locality pay, and no one's talking about touching it."

Great summary. Covers all the bases. Well, doesn't mention that the pay gap doesn't apply to members of the Senior Foreign Service; for some reason they never lost out on this.

Who are the SFS? They're the Foreign Service equivalent to the Civil Service's Senior Executive Service (SES); in other words, State's flag officers (i.e., the equivalent of generals and admirals). It is from this group that principal officers (when they are not political appointees) such as ambassadors and consuls general are chosen.

"all you FSOs out there, are you ready for this? Here's what I think: This is all your fault.

Seriously. Your. Fault.

And here's why.

Whenever Mr. or Ms. Important Politician decides to come to post, you all leap to help out. I've seen this happen at every single post where I've lived. You get a cable that Congressperson So-And-So is coming next week. It's probably a national holiday. Or a weekend. But they're coming. They're flying in business class, and when they arrive, you scramble to meet them. With a motorcade. You take them to meetings with other important people at your post. You sit at their fancy dinners at the Foreign Minister's palace so you can take notes. After you drop them off for the night at their fancy hotels downtown, you slog back to the Embassy to write your cables before making the long trek back to your home in the suburbs somewhere. You kiss your sleeping kids, argue with your spouse about why you couldn't come with her to her doctor's appointment (she doesn't speak the language well, but you do). Then you go to bed.

You wake up before dawn so you can get back to the Embassy and pull cables for the congressperson, who needs to be up on the news as she breakfasts in her hotel. And then you set off for another day in motorcades, running from meetings to lunches to parties to concerts, ignoring the calls from your kids' school, because you know your spouse has that covered and you don't even have time to eat.

While you're doing this, someone else at the Embassy is taking the congressperson's spouse shopping for pearls, and then maybe to a fancy lunch at a local hotspot. It could be the CLO; it could be your wife. But someone is out sightseeing with the congressperson's hangers-on. Maybe a quick visit to the Great Wall, or Petra, or the pyramids. This could be a weekday, or it could be a weekend. Either way, whoever is taking these folks out has cobbled together extra childcare and cancelled that dentist appointment in order to be available.

The visit is over, and the motorcade races to the airport, where Important Person waits in the VIP lounge. Even after Important Person takes that business class ticket and boards the plane, you still sit, and wait. You wait until wheels-up, because that's what you do."

Because it just wouldn't do for there to be a mechanical problem and the plane towed back to the gate and unloaded and an entire congressional delegation stranded at the airport with no local cellphone anymore. Actually describing this gave me a chill, and not in a good, Chris Matthews sort of, way.

I've often maintained that we do ourselves a serious disservice by building and maintaining this sort of artificial bubble for our VIP visitors such as congressmen and STAFDELs. It only creates an unrealistic appreciation on their part for our roles, conditions, and capabilities abroad.

Donna gets this.

"Meanwhile, Important Politician stretches out in his business class seat and listens to his wife talk about the pearls! And the silk scarves! And the amazing food! And IP thinks back to that Foreign Service Officer he just met. And he thinks: what a great life that guy has! He goes to parties at the President's mansion. He drinks fancy wine. He drives around in air conditioned motorcades, with people saluting him as he walks into government buildings. He goes hiking - in the middle of a work day, even! - on the Great Wall. What a cushy life he leads, thinks Important Politician.

So you see, all you Foreign Service Officers out there, it's your fault all of these congresspeople think you deserve a pay cut. They have no idea what work you put into that recent visit. They don't know what you just gave up in order to make sure their visit was a success. They don't understand that your life isn't all cocktail parties interspersed with awesome trips to exotic locations. They don't know that you live in a place where your every move is recorded. Or maybe you live in a place where the locals want you dead. Or you live in a place where your baby has nightmares from the malaria medication. Or your spouse isn't allowed to work because the host government forbids it. Or maybe you're black, and the locals don't like black people. Or maybe you're gay, and that's a punishable offense in your host country. Or you're a woman, so you have to cover up when you walk outside. Or the signs are all in Arabic, so every time you leave the house, you're lost, and you can't ask for directions. Or maybe you went permanently deaf in one ear while you were serving in a country without proper medical care. Important Politician didn't see any of this from the window of the Prime Minister's residence."

&

"(T)hey don't get it, these Important People. They don't know just how hard you work for them, and for your country, because when they show up at your post for a long weekend in December, you work your asses off and not a one of you ever tells them you need to go to your daughter's Christmas pageant, or you need to help your spouse find wrapping paper, or you need to get your sick kid to the doctor. You don't even point out that you're working weekends for these people. You just do the work you're supposed to do, regardless of the weather, the date, the personal sacrifice.

And so they don't know, even when they should, and they just see an easy way to cut some money from the budget that won't impact their constituents. When they make these financial calculations, they don't even see your faces."