Re-Branding DipNote

DipNote, the "U.S. DEPARTMENT of STATE OFFICIAL BLOG," is looking to re-name itself and, towards that end, has solicited in-house suggestions.

Suggestions are due by tomorrow, Friday, November 30, 2012.

GWU/Foggy Bottom questions and observations

Why am I seeing all these Eastern European (female) exotic dancers dragging carry-on bags onto the George Washington University campus?

Also, how come I see so many male GWU students dressed like a cross between early-60's era "Animal House" and Hogwarts extras?  Pledging?

Fanmail

Recently, I had a reader (and prospective FSO candidate) ask me for some input in choosing between the Consular and Polical career tracks (or "cones," as we dinosaurs know them).

With his or her permission, I post the following:

My advice about choosing career tracks (or "cones") is to pick the one in which you think you will be happiest working during the next few decades.

Not everyone actually stays in the FS for a career, but if you're making the effort to join in the first place, that's how you should plan.

Some people give more weight to things like opportunities for rapid advancement (for values of "rapid"), likelihood of becoming an ambassador, &tc.

As for me, as a potential colleague, neighbor, and/or future supervisor, I would rather you picked the cone in which you would not be miserable working year-after-year-after-decade.

Not that there aren't "interfunctional" assignments.  Not that you can't work "out-of-cone" from time to time (although doing too much of that can detract from your chances for promotion).  But you should at least like your home career track.

Your specific questions, on the other hand, were more targeted:  "Please tell me why you enjoy the consular track, and what you feel are the advantages of it over the political track?"

I initially chose Consular because I wanted to be able to help my fellow citizens abroad.  Consular work has not only provided me with ample opportunities to successfully fulfill that ambition but, post-9/11, to materially contribute to national security through the visa process.

Consular officers (similar to MGT cone) also have opportunities to manage/lead people and resources much earlier than do Political or Econ cone officers.

You also stated "I have also read there are more positions for consular FSO's."

That is true in the entry level grades, but may not be true in terms of actual numbers hired.  Virtually every new FSO does at least one year of consular work during one of their first two overseas tours, many of them do two years or even two entire tours of consular work before getting a job in their actual non-Consular career track.  This is simply because, at the entry-level, consular work is where the need for officers is greatest.

But in consular work, like a pyramid, the cone is broadest at the base, among the vice consuls.  That pyramid narrows considerably as it tapers upwards, so that non-Consular FSOs aren't forced to work (or bid on) mid-grade (or higher) Consular positions unless they want to do so.

In Political work, the need is fairly narrow at the entry-level "base" of the cone before bulges outward in the mid-grades.  So most Political career track FSOs have very little opportunity to work in their home "cone" until they reach mid-grade ranks after receiving tenure.  This means they probably spend most of their first four years or so working in either Consular or Management positions.

Hope this helps!

Country Team

"Country Team" is supposed to be more than just a meeting.

Security Decisions, part the second

This earlier post discussed the application of security standards to existing buildings in terms of some of the limitations that reality imposed.  That is, that along with prohibitive expense, the practicality of such endeavors rests firmly somewhere in the range between Extremely Difficult and Bliddy Impossible.

Diplomacy, like politics, is an art of the possible.  Diplomatic security must matrix both the imperative to provide security, to protect, with the need to carry out  the diplomatic mission itself.  Sometimes that means that the security situation is so dire that the diplomatic mission must be abandoned; other times the diplomatic mission will be considered so imperative that security measures take a backseat.  Or are adapted to fit the situation.  Thus we have active and ongoing diplomatic missions, and have for years, in countries where we would otherwise have shuttered our embassies and evacuated our staff.  E.g., Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.

Libya might be considered a reasonable addition to that list.

States are responsible, under the Vienna Conventions and customary international law, for providing the protection necessary to secure those diplomatic and consular facilities which it has accepted within its territory.  Not being an area expert on Libya specifically or the Mahgreb generally (but not being completely ignorant of those regions either), the question of just how much control the new, post-Qhadafi, central government of Libya has beyond the city limits of Tripoli seems fairly relevent with respect to how much the U.S. should have relied upon them to provide adequate security to our facilities in Benghazi.

Just what the purpose of the U.S. mission in Benghazi was is still very much an open question, the opening of an “American Corner” notwithstanding.  But its purpose(s) were (was?) of sufficient importance to the accomplishing of the larger goals of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya that:

- It was established in the first place (to the accompaniment of whatever security waivers and exceptions may have been necessary to do so); and

- It remained upon until it was destroyed; and

- Amb. Stevens believed it necessary to travel there on as inauspicious a date as the 11^th anniversary of 9/11.

Now, CAA is going to pull back the gauzy veil that obscures some of the nuts-and-bolts of actual diplomacy with some observations and caveats.

Caveat #1:  CAA doesn’t know what the purpose of the Benghazi mission (beyond what little can be found at the embassy website) was because it is not now nor has it ever been part of my professional portfolio.  If there’s some especially classified aspect to that mission, as a professional matter CAA has had no need-to-know.  So I don’t know.

Caveat #2:  As someone who’s held a top secret clearance since before he could legally drink hard liquer, CAA realized decades ago that the possession of certain secrets meant that forever after, with respect to some fields of endeavor, even my guesses could be considered to be classified information.  So there are quite a fews things about which, due to the meandering nature of what I laughingly describe as my “career path,” CAA does not speculate aloud.  And CAA certainly does not do so in public fora such as the internet.

Observation #1:  Technically, there are a few clearcut categories of U.S. diplomatic facilities located overseas:  embassies, consulates general, and consulates. 

(But real life is never that neat and clearly delineated.)

Observation #2:  Since the breakup of Yugoslavia (if not before) and U.S. intervention in the Balkans, the State Department came up with things called “U.S. Liaison Offices” (or “USLO”).  These were kinda/sorta consulates, in that they often performed the sorts of services usually associated with U.S. consulates, but were generally not intended as permanent facilities.  USLOs sometimes get upgraded into more-or-less permanent posts and become consulates or consulates general; other times they are eventually closed.  The U.S. has continued using this model in places like Iraq.

Observation #3:  Once upon a time, CAA used to go TDY from the U.S. and participate in surveys of various U.S. diplomatic facilities.  Never mind what kind of surveys:  the point is that my teams would visit every U.S. diplomatic office in a particular country.  Off the top of my head I did that in eight or nine countries around Africa and the Middle East.  In some of the countries where we had a largish diplomatic presence, we might have “official” Americans scattered in penny-parcels across a vast landscape, all of them falling under the authority of the chief of mission (i.e., the U.S. ambassador) and all of the going about the legitimate business of foreign affairs, international development, or military assistance (to list just three examples).

So I don’t find it especially mysterious or troubling that the U.S. had an official office-building in Benghazi that wasn’t formally flagged as a consulate (or consulate general) under a U.S. consul (or consul general).

Security Decisions, part the first

Before I wrote my "Foreign Service Family" post, I jotted down a list of possible topics to address concerning matters which I believed must arise from the Benghazi 9/11 attacks and their aftermath.

The topics were:  “Haste to Narrative,” “Calendar,” “War On Terror,” “Free Speech,” “Video,” “Intelligence Failure,” and “Security Decisions.”

Over the following weeks, most of these themes were addressed, in one fashion or another, by other bloggers, pundits, and commentators all around the blogosphere and in professional print and online media (to say nothing of TV and radio bloviators, bloviatrices, and bloviatrics).  Among others, I would direct you to We Meant Well, Diplopundit, DiploMad, and Life After Jerusalem.

Longtime friend and colleague TSB at The Skeptical Bureaucrat has covered topics relating to actual matters of security quite well.  Specifically, I commend for your reading the following:  "Did I Miss Much While I Was Gone?,""About That Non-Standard, Un-Fortress, Not-A-Consulate In Benghazi," "A Futile Exchange of Letters On Benghazi, But A Bit Of News About The ARB,""How Many Fortress Embassies?,""Benghazi - Not The Worst Place On The Planet,""A Couple Thoughts About the Benghazi Hearing," and "I Love the Smell Of Dip Notes In the Morning."

A great deal of confusion, unintentional if not otherwise, has cascaded from the events of last month.  Among those are the somewhat existential questions relating to the U.S. facility in Benghazi which was attacked and ultimately destroyed.  More than one TV talking head (but I repeat myself in a redundancy) called Benghazi an “embassy.”  An honest mistake, and one which is perfectly understandable given the miserably low levels of education and sophistication evident in today’s media “personalities.”

The U.S. Embassy in Libya is located in Tripoli.  A history of that mission may be found here.

There are no public links for the Benghazi facility but an article at the AmEmb Tripoli page calls it a “mission.”

I know:  what’s the difference?

Well, take it from me that there are a range of security standards and protection measures that apply to State Dept. facilities overseas.  While most are not actually classified, the standards and other regulatory documents themselves are not available for public dissemination.

Within the State Dept., there are two sets of documents which serve as regulations for how things are done.  They are the Foreign Affairs Manual(s) or “FAM” and the Foreign Affairs Handbook(s).  Essentially, the FAM sets out the regulations and the FAH explains in greater detail how to implement those regulations. 

Matters pertaining to diplomatic security are covered in the “12 FAM."

The specific handbook explaining physical security standards for overseas diplomatic facilities is 12 FAH 5.  Its contents aren’t for public dissemination but if you’re a State Dept. reader you already knew that or can research it on your own.

As TSB has pointed out, the procedures for obtaining waivers to security standards are explained in 12 FAM 315.

The point of all this errata is that several somebodies at various levels across more than one bureau (within State Dept.) had to go on record at various times to accomplish such things as deciding to have a DOS facility in Benghazi in the first place and then to sign-off as to what security standards were appropriate to that type of facility.

As as to “type,” that includes not just its purpose but whether its an existing facility (which it apparently was) or whether State built it “to code” (i.e., the highest possible security standards).

Reality rears its ugly head with regards to existing buildings.  There’s only so much that can be done to make a building more robust and attack-resistant.  And there are lots of ways to attack a facility, with there being to guarantees of absolute security no matter what you do to prepare.

TSB explained this quite well.

Some of it can be boiled-down to just two bullet-points, PowerPoint-style.

- Ultimately, the host government is responsible for protecting diplomatic facilities within its sovereign territory.  Blather about embassies and consulates being “sovereign U.S. soil” are so much b.s.  Under treaty and customary international law, embassies are “inviolable.”  They are not extraterritorial.

- Security measures, whether they are physical, electronic, active, passive, or armed, can only provide a measure degree of safety in terms of delaying an attacker until host government forces can restore order.  If the host government doesn’t have effective control of the location in question, than some hard decisions need to be made about whether to have a diplomatic facility there in the first place.

Uncomplimentary Mention

Thanks to Lafadio, commenting at We Meant Well, for the mention (if not the link).

Foreign Service Family

The latest figures I’ve seen show State Dept. as having 16,631 Civil Service (i.e., GS or “General Schedule” and Senior Executive Service or SES) employees, 44,764 Locally-Engaged Staff (i.e., what used to be called “Foreign Service Nationals,”) who are predominantly foreign nationals but also FS family members employed at our missions overseas, and only 13,636 Foreign Service staff members, including both Foreign Service Specialists (FSS) and “Generalists.”

The Foreign Service is a very small corps, overall.  It’s been said, truthfully, in this and other fora that there are more Army bandsmen than U.S. diplomats, more military lawyers in the Pentagon, &tc.

Looked at through the other end of the telescope, it’s also something of a very large extended family.  We’re pretty spread out, it’s true, but we get our orientation, language, and professional training in the same place, through the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) at Arlington Hall.  Then we work in widely dispersed locations around the world or across the country, oftentimes living in the same buildings or on the same residential compounds with our co-workers (with your kids going to the same schools) before winging back to D.C. to work at “Main State” in Foggy Bottom (near the GWU campus) or one of the various State Annex facilities scattered around Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.

After awhile, the “degrees of separation” narrow down pretty far, so that if you don’t know someone in the Foreign Service personally, from having worked or trained with them, chances are pretty good that someone you have worked or trained with has worked or trained with them.  Or your spouse has.

So when something like Benghazi happens, where a senior foreign service officer/ambassador like Chris Stevens is killed, along with a long-time Information Management Officer (IMO) like Sean Smith and two of our contract employees, Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, it hits home.  It’s like four of your fellow citizens in small hometown were suddenly murdered.

There’s a sudden and visceral impact, something like hearing of casualties from another military unit within the same division.  You might not have known them yourself, but you know you’ve walked the same hallways, sat in the same classrooms, and have similar missions facing similar dangers.

Another of those factoids that comes up from time to time is how there have been more ambassadors killed in the line of duty, since World War II, than general officers or admirals.  That remains true.

(One columnist or commenter, I forget where, voiced the criticism that if, in a decade of warfare, not a single general has been killed, our senior military leaders are leading from too far behind.)

Much of Main State emptied out, apparently, in order to be bused to Andrews AFB for attendance at a sort of ceremonial or memorial reception of the four caskets containing our fallen diplomats.   It was pretty well-attended, by all accounts, although marred somewhat by the behavior of those who simply had, in contravention of their instructions, to raise their arms in a sort of fascist salute as they took cell phone pictures.

(And don’t quibble with about whether our two ex-SEAL colleagues count as diplomats.  If they were part of our diplomatic mission in Libya, that’s good enough for me.)

Ping

Just to be clear, CAA is not dead, injured, committed to an asylum, nor otherwise being held incommunicado.

Nor have the Tigers (or Black Dragons) eaten me.

CAA has been the victim of a horrible plot to "upgrade" my Blogger/Blogspot experience.

Oh joy.  My "experience" is now so upgraded that I'm seriously considering giving up on the whole thing entirely.

In other news, there's been lots of goings-on ongoing in CAA's world.  Which is your world, come to think of it.  So you likely have heard all about most of it.

There are many conflicting reports about the events of this year's 9/11 attacks.  Which is what I'm calling them.  Because that's what they were.

CAA has no special knowledge of those events, privileged or otherwise.  CAA's clearances and accesses simply don't run to those areas these days.  So if I opine just a bit, it's not like I'll be betraying any confidences.

So if, between my cranky home computer and this annoying-as-Hell "upgrade, I can manage to sketch out a more topical post, well, don't hold your breath.

Marking 9/11

CAA's observances of the eleventh anniversary of 9/11 began much like that fateful day itself. It was a normal, pleasant, sunny September day in Washington begun with the usual morning routine and ablutions, followed by a fairly typical commute involving sluggish traffic and/or crowded Metrorail cars.

That day, as did today, a brand-spanking-new A-100 class had just commenced the day before at the Foreign Service Institute: the 169th today and the 104th back in 2001. So the not-particularly-cloistered hallways and common spaces, not to mention the over-burdened parking lot and cafeteria, at the Schultz Center were clogged with the shiny, smiling faces of the newly-annointed.

By the end of today's workday, reports from two of our Middle Eastern posts, in Libya and in Egypt, would bring news of angry mobs, damaged or looted buildings, and casualties.

Back on that fateful day, the trouble came much closer to home.

Even at this decade-plus remove, it is still difficult to put the 9/11 attacks into a bloodless, intellectual perspective. It's just too soon, the wounds are perhaps scabbed or scarred over but remain all too fresh.

So we remember our fallen, remember that many of them did not fall but had to jump to their deaths rather than burn alive, and are thankful for the many who survived. We remember the fire fighters and other first-responders, the police, the veterans-turned-private-citizens, and the passengers and crew of Flight 93 and while we mourn their loss we also celebrate their sacrifice and count ourself fortunate that such men and women yet live among us.

We also look at the last eleven years and marvel at the hundreds of thousands of American and allied soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, and others who rallied to their colors and fought (and still fight) the wars their countries asked them to fight. CAA will take quiet (okay, sometimes not-so-quiet) pride in having once been among their number.

Are there lessons we should have learned from our experiences of the last 11 years? Almost certainly. But today the lesson that's over-shadowed my every interaction has been rage.

CAA isn't done being angry. While that's undoubtedly a huge personal failing on my part and something I should pray upon to Jesus most sincerely, it's not simply that I'm stuck somewhere between denial, grief, and acceptance. There's a bit more there that the subconscious is trying to get the intellect to comprehend.

America's enemies are still trying to hurt, humiliate, and if they can manage it, kill us. That much is clear.

What's also clear is that our enemies have a really hard time managing that anywhere close to our home shores and cities. Our enemies best efforts seem to be possible only in those places where we're trying to make nice with Janus-faced local government whose most impressive accomplishments seem to be their marvelously exact calculation of just how much mayhem they can plausibly get away with perpetrating against us.

CAA reads the news every day and wonders how anyone not blindered by wishful thinking can imagine the war is over yet. That's yet another reason he's so angry today.

The "Northern Virginiastan" web log returns

After a more-than-two-year interregnum, the Northern Virginiastan web log ("Monitoring how Islam is subverting public institutions in Northern Virginia and the greater DC Metro Area") has resumed posting.

(That is all.)

re: "What do you do with a "problem" like Peter Van Buren? Take away his badge, escort him out, bar the door, throw away the key and ...."

Domani Spero at Diplopundit (" one of the best niche blogs for Foreign Service folks ") considered Mr. Van Buren's situation last October.

Money quote(s):

"Mr. Van Buren was escorted out of the State Department on Monday and barred from returning while officials there decide what to do next with him. Our own source said that Mr. Van Buren has been placed on administrative leave for the next couple of weeks. Admin leave is like “we’ll pay you so we don’t have to see you.” I supposed that’s until they can find the citation in the FAM that would fit this “problem.” Mr. Van Buren’s current assignment reportedly had also been curtailed. If true, that means they just took away his desk and chair, too. So even if he is allowed to return after his admin leave, he won’t actually have a job to return to."

&

"Mr. Van Buren’s book is highly critical of the State Department’s work in Iraq, the accompanying blog, just as critical. Not sure if the punishment is for the book, the blog, or for both. No one would speak on the record. The suspension letter did not cite the book, but did cite as one of the author’s faults, “an unwillingness to comply with Department rules and regulations regarding writing and speaking on matters of official concern.”

This is the first time, as far as memory goes, that the State Department had actually yanked somebody’s clearance over “publishing articles and blog posts on such matters without submitting them to the Department for review.” Whereas, in the past, I was aware of the shock factor in threatening bloggers with this in-house version of the “nuclear” option, this is the first time where somebody actually pushed the red button. And in a very public way. "

&

"(A)lthough Mr. Van Buren is the first ever blogger escorted out of the building, he was only the latest casualty in the tigers can bite you escapades inside the State Department. Some FS bloggers have been unable to get suitable ongoing assignments – or even normal responses to their bid lists. As one recently told me, “these officers have not asked for extraordinary favors: just regular, humdrum postings that fall comfortably within the bidding rules, that are not heavily bid or bid on by superstars, and for which they are completely competent. ….they have heard only silence.”

Assignment issues, blogger disappearances and PVB’s case undoubtedly will bring a big chill to the FS blogosphere. Don’t be shocked if folks go back to the 50′s and start hiding their journals under their pillows, as was quaintly suggested elsewhere."

CAA has not, to date, suffered any noticeable adverse career impact due to blogging.

"I think it must be said that the State Department handled the book clearance badly. Somebody should have owned up to the snafu instead of gunning after the author. The 30-day timeline for clearing the book lapsed. It was not the author’s fault regardless of whether or not the person responsible for clearance had a meltdown, a baby, was sick or was on vacation. But State like any old and cumbersome bureaucracy is loath to admit to its own mistakes. They cleared Condi’s book within the 30-day timeline, yet Mr. Van Buren’s book was not afforded the same courtesy. The State Department, in short, broke its own clearance procedure. And when Mr. Van Buren published the book as allowed under its own regulations in the Foreign Affairs Manual (FAM), a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State accused him of “unauthorized disclosures of classified information,” and asked his publisher for redactions six days before the book hit the stores. Can you imagine them doing that to Secretary Rice’s book? Nope. Big fry, small fry; are there different rules?"

Different spanks for different ranks. It's sort of like the Air Force that way.

"(G)iven the potential fallout from a book about reconstruction in what has always been an unpopular, contentious war, and given how much money we’re spending on reconstruction projects over in Iraq, somebody higher than a Deputy Assistant Secretary should have read the book, cleared his/her calendar and spoke privately with the author. Instead of sending the tigers with sharp teeth. I have not meet Mr. Van Buren in person, and he may be far from cutesy and cuddly, but he has written a vivid, engaging account of our reconstruction debacle in Iraq seasoned with absurdities, great and small. To dismiss him as nothing but a disgruntled employee is just plain brainless. Public opinion is already against the Iraq war. Add to that the rest of the domestic headaches that the American taxpayers have been suffering in the last several years. And what do you get? A public relation disaster, with the State Department as the big, bad growling tiger in a starring role. It does not help that State appears to be acting like a big, bad growling tiger trying to eat an angry mouse. "

Overkill much?

"(S)omebody from the Seventh Floor should have attempted to speak with him. He, after all, spent 23 years with the State Department and cared enough to write the Iraq Experience down in a book. With his name on it. Not even the folks interviewed by USIP were willing to put their names down in that Oral History Project. But no one bothered to speak with him. A DAS alleging his disclosure of classified info did eventually write to him, albeit belatedly, and not really to listen to what he had to say.

It’s as if the State Department is proud of all its smart people except for those with the guts to speak up, or write a critical book. Or are they only proud of our smart diplomats when they dissent in private, in a channel that the American public never ever gets to hear, and that which the organization is free to ignore? The guy who talks too much not only gets a good hearing in my book, he or she should be afforded an opportunity to contribute in fixing the problems that he cites. No, we do not shoot the messengers in our book. Most especially if they are bearing bad news. But that’s us. Unfortunately, that is often the case in the bureaucracy, the State Department perhaps more so than most. A dead messenger is a good messenger, no news is good news. "

BTW, the "Seventh Floor" is the part of Main State where all the under secretaries, deputy secretaries, and the secstate have their offices.

10/28

re: "Iraqi Irony"

Prof. Victor Davis Hanson at Private Papers provided the longer perspective of the historian.

Money quote(s):

"Amid all the stories about the ongoing violence in Syria, the most disturbing is the possibility that President Bashar Assad could either deploy the arsenal of chemical and biological weapons that his government claims it has, or provide it to terrorists.

There are suggestions that at least some of Assad’s supposed stockpile may have come from Saddam Hussein’s frantic, eleventh-hour efforts in 2002 to hide his own arsenals of weapons of mass destruction in neighboring Syria. Various retired Iraqi military officers have alleged as much. Although the story was met with general neglect or scorn from the American media, the present US director of national intelligence, James Clapper, long ago asserted his belief in such a weapons transfer."

Weapons of mass destruction = WMD

That classification, borrowed from former Soviet terminology rather than having a Western provenance, can include what Europeans used to call ABC (atomic-biological-chemical), the U.S. used to call NBC (nuclear-biological-chemical), and which are now more commonly expanded to CBRN (chemical-biological-radiological-nuclear) weapons.

In other words, WMD was never just about nukes.

"The Bush administration fixated on WMD in justifying the invasion of Iraq while largely ignoring more than 20 other writs to remove Saddam, as authorized by Congress in October 2002. That obsession would come back to haunt George W. Bush when stockpiles of deployable WMD failed to turn up in postwar Iraq. By 2006, “Bush lied; thousands died,” was the serial charge of the antiwar Left. But before long, such depots may finally turn up in Syria."

There were 23 writs, but more than one of them had to do with WMD.

"Many Americans understandably questioned how civilian and military leaders allowed a brilliant three-week victory over Saddam to degenerate into a disastrous five-year war before the surge finally salvaged Iraq. That fighting and reconstruction anywhere in the Middle East are difficult under any circumstances was forgotten. The press preferred instead to charge that the singular incompetence or malfeasance of Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld led to the unnecessary costs in American blood and treasure."

CAA would have to be numbered among those "Many Americans." But no matter how good a plan we might have developed (which we didn't), in any events Iraq turned into at least three different wars, some of them over-lapping in time and space, with some former enemies morphing into allies.

"George W. Bush’s problems in conducting difficult wars in the Middle East were inherent in the vast differences between cultures"

True that. None of the countries in that region are going to look like post-reconstruction Germany or Japan no matter how long we stay there.

"For all the biases and incompetence of Nouri al-Maliki’s elected government in Iraq, the Middle East’s worst dictatorship now seems to have become the region’s most stable constitutional government. Given Iraq’s elections, the country was relatively untouched by the mass “Arab Spring” uprisings. And despite sometimes deadly Sunni-Shiite terrorist violence and the resurgence of al Qaeda, Iraq’s economy, compared with those of some of other nations in the Middle East, is stable and expanding."

&

"The moral of the story is that history cannot be written as it unfolds. In the case of Iraq, we still don’t know the full story of Saddam’s WMD, the grand strategic effects of the Iraq War, the ripples from the creation of the Iraqi republic, or the relative degree of incompetence of any American administration at war in the Middle East — and we won’t for many years to come."

8/1

re: "Discretion, Not Amnesty"

Andrew C. McCarthy at The Corner (" The one and only. ") had evaluated former-Speaker Gingrich's approach to immigration enforcement reform.

Money quote(s):

"A successful immigration enforcement policy, easily implemented under current law, would secure the borders; use the capability we have to track aliens who enter on visas to ensure that they don’t overstay; and target our finite law enforcement resources at (a) illegal immigrants who violate federal or state criminal laws (i.e., other than the laws against illegal entry), and (b) employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens and therefore provide the incentive that induces them to come. (An even better policy would deny illegal immigrants various social welfare benefits, but some of that would involve changes in the law so I put it to the side for present purposes.)

Such a policy would materially reduce the number of illegal immigrants in the U.S. — if they can’t work, many will leave and many won’t come in the first place. Such a policy would also call on government lawyers to exercise discretion (as they do in all aspects of law-enforcement) to decide which cases are worth prosecuting. Obviously, if an alien has been here illegally for a number of years but has been essentially law-abiding (again, ignoring the fact that it is illegal for him to reside and work in the U.S.), and if his deportation would have the effect of ripping apart an intact, law-abding family, you don’t bring that case. Such a case is not worth the Justice Department’s time when there are plenty of more serious criminals, including more serious immigration offenders, to pursue." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Unfortunately, although DHS was tasked with implementing a means of tracking entry and exit by visa-holding temporary visitors, it's never been fully implemented at every port/point of entry/exit. It's just too hard, apparently, even with a decade's worth of funding and effort.

What they did put together, U.S. Visit, isn't bad and has proven a very useful tool in visa work, but it's just not comprehensive enough to reliably tell us whether any one visitor is (or is not) still in the country past his or her supposed departure date.

(I suppose it sets up a form of Schroediger's Alien.)

"The Obama administration currently exercises its discretion by not only refraining from any meaningful enforcement of the immigration laws but also preventing states (e.g., Arizona) from enforcing the laws." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

&

"Newt was quick to point out last night that he was talking about a humane enforcement policy. He was not proposing that the illegal aliens who were not prosecuted be given citizenship. They just wouldn’t get prosecuted as long as they didn’t make a nuisance of themselves."

This approach tackles the problem from the two critical directions, that of "push" and "pull."

Diminish the "pull" by cracking down on employers of illegal aliens and cutting social benefits that make America such a lucrative proposition, as well as providing the safety net that allows illegal workers to send millions and millions of dollars out of the country in remittances.

And at the same time, increase the "push" by enforcing deportation and other penalties on those illegal aliens who commit criminal offenses above and beyond their immigration violations.

11/23

re: "The "Natural Born Citizen" Issue Rides Again: Revisiting Wong Kim Ark"

Kepha at Uncle Cephas (" A blog devoted to an American's ramblings on religion, culture, and politics. ") revisited the "birther" issue, but with some legal inaccuracies.

Money quote(s):

"Once again, in questions posed to candidate Rick Perry, the issue of whether or not President Barack Obama is a "natural born citizen" has surfaced. It strikes me that the birther movement, our conservative answer to the truthers, has gone out of control and has derailed many.

I have said before that to prove that President Obama is not a "natural-born citizen" would require proof that his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was not a US citizen with eligibility to transmit citizenship, even if, by some hook or crook, it could be proven, as Obama's grandmother claimed,that Barack Obama, Jr. was indeed born in Mombassa, Kenya. Never, to my knowledge, has the birther movement offered statutory or case law proof that "natural-born" means anything other than being born a US citizen by either jus soli or jus sanguinis." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Mrs. Barack H. Obama, Sr. (née Dunham) was a U.S. citizen, which no one (to my necessarily incomplete knowledge) disputes.

However, Uncle Cephas' knowledge of current U.S. nationality law does not take into account what the requirements necessary to transmit U.S. citizenship as the law existed prior to amendment in 1986.

And since Pres. Obama was born some decades prior to 1986, this puts the hypothetical question into a different perspective.

"Wong Kim Ark (the Hoisan Yue pronunciation of Huang Jinde) was born in San Francisco, Chalifornia, to Chinese parents who were not naturalized as US citizens. His return to the US after a youthful visit to China was not questioned, even after passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, due to his birth in the USA. However, in 1895, after returning from another trip to China, he was detained at San Francisco due to the fact that his parents remained subject to the Emperor of China, and were not citizens at the time of Wong's birth in the 1870's. Wong therefore sued for habeas corpus.

His case ultimately reached the US Supreme Court, which, in 1898, ruled in a 6-2 decision that Wong was indeed a US citizen. It was observed that his parents had been involved in commerce rather than official business on behalf of the emperor of China; that they were legally in the USA during the 1870's; they were subject to the jurisdiction of US law (the language of the 14th Amendment); they clearly were not connected to a hostile occupying power in wartime; and that they were clearly not of a recognized Indian tribe (then theoretically their own jurisdictions and separate "nations" rather than officially part of the USA). Wong's citizenship later became the basis for allowing three of his own sons born in China whose relationships could not be questioned to enter the US during the period of Chinese Exclusion (in those days, many Overseas Chinese maintained wives in their ancestral places in China, and only occasionally visited)." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

This was a very nice two-paragraph summary of the Ark case, which had an extremely determinative impact on the subsequent interpretation and implementation of U.S. nationality law.

"(T)he USA, as an independent power, had the right to establish its own rules for citizenship."

Yer darn tootin'!

This is something I've had to explain more than once, usually in conversation with those who think that the actions of Pres. Obama's Indonesian step-father, Mr. Soetoro, somehow tainted or obviated the president's standing as a U.S. citizen.

Repeat after me:

Other countries don't get to tell us who our citizens are.

Obama's step-father, no matter what his actions, had no legal right under U.S. law to do anything which would have altered the citizenship status of his American citizen minor child step-son in the slightest sense.

"The Wong case has long been understood to ensure the jus soli citizenship of children of legal immigrants or other foreign parents not in diplomatic or visiting head of state status (the children of foreign students, for example). Indeed, in view of the language of the 14th Amendment, which defines those born in the USA and under the jurisdiction thereof, it is very hard to justify the denial of citizenship to such persons.

The issue of whether the Wong decision allows the US-born children of those illegally in the USA to be counted as citizens has been disputed in legal journals. However, until now, it does not seem that the citizenship of US-born children of illegal immigrants has been challenged either by statute or case law." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

There's a case, at least politically if not judicially, to made that illegal aliens, as unlawful invaders intent on evading U.S. law in most respects (except where it is to their benefit), aren't really under U.S. jurisdiction in a way meaningful enough that their U.S.-born children deserve American citizenship.

(It might fly, or it might not.)

"As for our president, it seems that as the US-born child of a US citizen parent (Stanley Ann Dunham), Barack Obama's citizenship cannot be questioned; and it is unlikely that anyone would be ready to deny citizenship to countless out-of-wedlock children sired by visiting foreigners (tourists, students, etc.) and born to US citizen mothers. Further, given that the requirements for jus sanguinis citizenship to children born abroad to US citizen parents (the citizen parent needs to have been resident in the USA for five years, two of which have to have been over the age of fourteen years) would have guaranteed Obama citizenship even if Stanley Ann Dunham had given birth to him on a trip to Kenya." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

See above.

Under INA Title III "Nationality and Naturalization," Sec. 301g (8 U.S.C. 1401), which applies to persons "born outside the geographical limits of the United States and its outlying possessions of parents one of whom is an alien, and the other a citizen of the United States" the U.S. parent had to have completed a "required period of United States residence" of ten years, at least five of "which were after attaining the age of fourteen years."

The problem with the Dunham/Obama hypothetical is that the former-Miss Dunham was not yet nineteen years old when Pres. Obama was born, so that it's mathematically impossible for her to have resided anywhere for five years after her fourteenth birthday.

10/28

re: "SQUIRREL!"

Mike at Cold Fury ("Harshing Your Mellow Since 9/01") might be one of thosepeople who actually know what WMD are.

Money quote(s):

"Hey, remember those Iraqi WMD stockpiles that didn’t exist, that Saddam never ever pursued getting and didn’t use on his own people and in the war with Iran, that Bush lied us into his phony war for oil over?"

These aren't the WMD you're looking for?

"(T)hey’re still not there, and the Brits are not going to be helping out with not destroying them. Because they don’t exist, and never did. So shut up, awright?"

Shut up, he explained.

7/31

re: "The Responsibilities of Civilian Policy Advocates: Syria, R2P, and the Obligation of Honesty"

Peter J. Munson at the Small Wars Journal blog ("facilitates the exchange of information among practitioners, thought leaders, and students of Small Wars, in order to advance knowledge and capabilities in the field") deconstructs some of the Syrian fantastists.

Money quote(s):

"My views on the responsibility to protect concept and its advocates cavalier promotion of their cavalierly acronymed (R2P) construct previously boiled over into a debate on civil-military relations. When I rhetorically asked on Twitter if they were ready to head down to the recruiting station to back up their convictions, I was accused of stepping afoul of the dictates of civilian control of the military. I had no such intentions, as I subsequently stated. Instead, I was asserting that R2Pers' moral certitudes were not backed up by a sufficient and sober counting of the costs. Thinking of the "sacrifice" in the sterile terms that have accompanied a decade's worth of airport thank-yous and sporting events kickoffs is not the same as the heart-rending, gut-wrenching feeling of losing someone close to you; the flesh-tearing, life-changing pain of being maimed or killed by war; or the numbing, mind-altering experience of searching for parts of bodies, pulling dead children from rubble, and the like. These are not a prerequisite for policy prescription, however the very terrible realities of war should not be glossed over in an attempt to sell lethal policy. The advocates will state that these things are on-going in Syria, that they have contemplated them, and that we have a responsibility to stop it. They will also state that the military has signed up for such things and that it must stand ready to make such sacrifices." (Bold typeface added for emphasis. - CAA.)

Stating that such attitudes make my blood boil greatly overestimates my capacity for understatement.

Those without "skin in the game" are always eager for someone else to make the "necessary" sacrifices.

A pox on their house!

"They also believe, against the weight of recent experience and longer historical example, that this will somehow be different. That nifty technology will somehow make it easier, cleaner. That aseptic corridors will be acceded to by a dictator determined not to find his end in a roadside ditch under the blows of his once-subjects, a gunshot, and the slow bleed, in great pain, during which he knows he is dying. This image is undoubtedly seared into Assad's mind and that of his coterie. But, surely, he will play fair with us."

This time will be different. Just like socialism imposed from the top down, this time, will work and not cause a society to implode into an abattoir.

Pay no attention to every single time we've intervened with high-minded motives rather than those selfish sorts of national interest-y ones which would cause us to stick around and finish the job.

"They do not see that their desire for a limited and humane intervention faces the vote of a determined enemy that will want to draw us into the quagmire, will want our precision-guided munitions to fall into the ambiguous targets of war, where cameras capture the wreckage of children, bright clothes smeared with blood and dusted with the gray remnants of a home collapsed upon them."

No, it'll the those red-stater baby-killers who had, after all, "signed up for such things" with the actual blood on their hands, rather than the R2P folks upon whom the guilt will morally reside.

"We will stand, the lines now vanished, trampled by the movement of patrols into the ambiguity, not wanting to press beyond our conception of a limited intervention, but unable to leave. The R2Pers will not be in the midst of this. They will be writing from their study, incredulous that military and civilian officials could have botched such a simple mission once again. Wondering why we hadn't learned all the lessons of the better wars we could throw.

Surely, it cannot be as bad as all that, you might say. True. It may not be as bad as I say, but it will surely be more messy than the glib op-ed that Anne-Marie Slaughter threw together for the New York Times last week. CNN reports that the military is looking at using as many as 75,000 troops just to secure potential Syrian chemical weapons sites. The realities of a Syrian intervention are far messy than Dr. Slaughter is willing to countenance in her infantile fantasy masquerading as policy prescription. Therein lies the rub. Dr. Slaughter is a respected policy elite and people take her ideas seriously. Therefore, she has a responsibility to be honest and open in her advocacy with regard to the risks and complexities of her proposal." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)

Happily, Prof. Slaughter has left her high-ranking position at State Dept. so at least she won't be able to directly screw things up for us anymore.

"Slaughter states that simply arming the opposition would lead to destabilizing civil war. However, arming the Free Syrian Army to create "no-kill zones," that is enabling the FSA to control swathes of territory just within the sovereign borders of Syria would somehow bring an end to the butchery. Not mentioned is how the FSA would take or hold this territory against the likely violent disagreement of the regime. We are talking about battle here. Not potshots against regime forces, but the taking and holding of territory. This is not just glossed over in the Slaughter plan, but completely ignored. She speaks blithely of the use of special forces to enable the FSA, and how they could enable the FSA to cordon population centers and rid them of snipers. What you don't see here is the bloody battle and likely airstrikes needed to push the bulk of the regime forces away from these population centers to be cordoned. Nor does it discuss the brutal and psychologically exhausting game of counter-sniper operations.

Slaughter next discusses locating tank and artillery units. What she does not discuss is what is to be done once they are located. Will they be showered with leaflets? Or will she expect us to neutralize them? That is a clean term. It involves using aircraft, which means destroying an extremely capable integrated air defense system (IADS). While there has been commentary to the contrary, this is much different than slipping through once or twice on raids as the Israelis have done. Rest assured, any use of air in Syria will require an elaborate take-down of the IADS that will shock the bleeding hearts in our midst. Even with the use of new technology to electronically disable the system temporarily, any attacker will use bombs to take them out permanently. Also, no matter how precise the weapons, whether used against IADS, tanks, or artillery, the amount of explosive and shards of metal required to destroy such targets creates a deadly bloom that extends well beyond their intended target. When missiles, artillery pieces, or tanks are located in and amongst civilian structures, collateral damage (as described above far more messily) will occur."

Mr. Munson went into some considerable detail pointing out the absolute idiocy of Prof. Slaughter's concept of operations for Syria.

He concluded:

"I do not believe that only those with military experience are qualified to advocate military intervention. Nor do I object to the primacy of civilian control over the military. I do object to policy advocation so simplistic and incorrect as to be deliberately misleading. War and military force is a brutal and imprecise instrument. It is ugly, destructive, wasteful, and stupid. It makes no clean cuts, creates no neat solutions. Sometimes it is the only option and sometimes the terrible horrors of war are required to prevent catastrophe. We must be brutally honest and circumspect, however, in our advocacy of policy. If the benefits truly outweigh the costs, let us discuss and air the best estimates and make an informed decision. Advocacy like that of Anne-Marie Slaughter, however, is so disingenuous and so powerful with the pulpit that she commands as to be its own sort of evil. It is an evil that I hope she corrects."

3/4