Money quote(s):
"Perhaps it is comforting to some to hear that the State Department will finally get to penalize Mr. Van Buren for linking to two non-secret cables on WikiLeaks. But we gotta ask -- whatever happened to the 2010 Diplomatic Security investigation on the leak of two secret 2009 Eikenberry cables to the NYT in 2010?
Or for that matter, is anyone investigating the leak of Ambassador Crocker's top-secret cable to Washington in January this year, warning that the persistence of enemy havens in Pakistan was placing the success of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan in jeopardy.
Somebody really should check out the status of these investigations and see if anyone has been prosecuted yet. The public may get the wrong impression that linking to non-secret cables in a blog is more dangerous than the actual leaks of secret and top secret materials to the newspaper of record."
There're leaks, and then there are leaks. Different spanks for different ranks. Sometimes a leak is unofficially official, or perhaps just when it's to the New York Times, well, that's just okay then.
"The comment that we often hear is that, he should have done the honorable thing and resigned from his job before writing this book or before skewering his employer in his blog.
And we understand that sentiment; for the bureaucracy to “function,” it must have order. For order to exist, employees must follow the line and not be going off every which way. If employees disagree with a policy, there is what they call the “Dissent Channel,” to register one’s disagreement with official policy. As an aside, AFSA even gives out awards for what it calls “constructive dissent.” We have it in good authority, by the way, that Mr. Van Buren has been nominated by more than one person for AFSA’s William R. Rivkin Award for midlevel officials. Let’s see if AFSA can find an excuse not to give out the award this year.
In any case, it is worth noting that the State Department is not obligated to share the dissent received with the American public, nor is it obligated to report what action it takes in response to such a dissent. If that fails, resignation from one’s job has been the accepted course of action, a norm drilled into the heads of our State Department folks."
"While we understand what appears to be a prevailing collective desire that the employee who disagrees with policy leave in polite terms, we are wondering if the time has come to rethink that. Getting off the bus quietly is encouraged in that culture, and presumably from the perspective of the organization that’s the best course of action. It avoids controversy and the parties can pretend the separation is like a marriage that no longer works, etc — but is this necessarily good for the paying public? Should the employees ought to just be thankful they have a job and keep quiet? And for those who can’t keep quiet for whatever reason, must they give up their livelihood for pointing out the stinky elephant in the room?"
All good questions and ones going to the heart of the Foreign Service corporate culture.
"Instead of taking this case seriously as a good excuse to look inward and review the policy of reconstruction in war zones, and absent a change of direction, develop more effective metrics and accountability for these projects, the State Department took its fight to the messenger. And wasted time and resources there."
CAA hasn't read Brother Van Buren's book. CAA may never read his book. Not that it's an unworthy book, but.... while CAA's heart may feel that the work of PRTs and E-PRTs was/is good, worthy, and well-intended, CAA's mind has told him from the beginning of GW2 (Gulf War II) that the U.S. was never going to stay long enough, in either Iraq or Afghanistan, for nation-building (as such) to do much good in the long run.
So the money (and the lives) spent were going to go towards buying only temporary successes.
Now, there's a school of thought that posits things like good and evil, success and failure, if they're going to be measures or used as any sort of metric, must be matrixed against time or duration for them to have any sort of useful meaning.
So some temporary success, some lives improved (if only for a few years) are not things to be scoffed-at or disregarded; but they're going to be analyzed against dollars and cents they must include their duration as well.
"The State Department spends much money and effort to recruit and train the “best and the brightest” to represent America overseas, then proceeds to hammer and shape them into, I’m sorry to say, drones, who follow directions, not create waves and most importantly, whose stingers are without barbs."
CAA exists. Ponder that.
Diplopundit closes with a thoughtful question:
"I’m sure the State Department can argue that “enforcing” the rules, however selectively, is done to promote the proper functioning of the Service. But should the proper functioning of the Service trumps everything else? Whether you agree with Mr. Van Buren’s message or not, his method of delivery or not, his case has created a precedent. Throwing the sink and all fixtures at him would help ensure that nothing like this ever happens again. I suspect that would be good for the State Department. Order restored. Life goes on.
But are we, the American public better served?"
3/19
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