Rogue [US] State Department

Foreign Policy ^ | This month? | Newt Gingrich

[alnitak]

Anti-American sentiment is rising unabated around the globe because the U.S. State Department has abdicated values and principles in favor of accommodation and passivity. Only a top-to-bottom reform and culture shock will enable the State Department to effectively spread U.S. values and carry out President George W. Bush’s foreign policy.

In Washington today, two worldviews on U.S. foreign policy are colliding. One view emphasizes facts, values, and consequences. The other believes in process, politeness, and accommodation.

Consider, for instance, the following statement: Libya chairs the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. The values- and fact-based advocates note immediately that Libya is a dictatorship with a history of terrorism, and they thus conclude that Libya cannot chair the commission with any moral standing or credibility. By contrast, the accommodation worldview contends that Libya won the vote in the United Nations and that contesting Libya’s moral and legitimate claim to the chair would be impolite and a violation of proper process.

I am convinced that U.S. President George W. Bush and a vast majority of the American people share the view that stresses facts, values, and consequences. The media and intellectual elites, the State Department (as an institution), and the Foreign Service (as a culture) clearly favor the process, politeness, and accommodation position.

In May 2001, when the United States was ambushed and voted off the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission’s inception in 1947, those people who focus on facts, values, and outcomes were justifiably outraged. But the State Department, admitting it was surprised, did nothing. Such passivity emboldened France to launch a campaign seeking to defeat U.S. foreign policy objectives articulated by Bush.

The State Department needs to experience culture shock, a top-to-bottom transformation that will make it a more effective communicator of U.S. values around the world, place it more directly under the control of the president of the United States, and enable it to promote freedom and combat tyranny. Anything less is a disservice to this nation.

Resisting Reform Initiatives and calls to create a more effective State Department have a long history—as does State Department resistance to such efforts. In 1979, Ambassador Laurence H. Silberman authored an article in Foreign Affairs titled “Toward Presidential Control of the State Department.” He described the recurring frustration of U.S. presidents with their relative inability to control and direct the State Department. Ambassador Silberman characterized the practice of Foreign Service officers (FSOs) serving in senior State Department positions as fundamentally inconsistent with U.S. democratic theory. He also explained that career FSOs tend to consider the president’s political appointees as rivals for senior department positions, thus creating a destructive resistance against following appointed leaders and therefore the direction of the president. These conditions are compounded by the difficulties the secretary of state traditionally has faced in firing FSOs. [See the sidebar below for my recommendations on how to reform the U.S. Foreign Service.]

[Joe Boucher]

State dept. filled with nothing but political hacks. Mostly liberal dems. What the hell good for the U.S. does this worthless dept. do with the best interests of the U.S. in mind? What Mr. Bush has failed to do is shrink govt and this is one of many depts, that should be disbanded and all of its emloyees fired.

[Imperialist]

"In May 2001, when the United States was ambushed and voted off the U.N. Human Rights Commission for the first time since the commission’s inception in 1947, those people who focus on facts, values, and outcomes were justifiably outraged."

More and more it seems like the rest of the world knew in advance of the outrage which arrived on 9/11/01.

[Diogenesis]

"This just in. That State Dept has proposed a Palestinian/Hamas/Islamic American holiday.
To honor their past murders of Americans, the US State Dept
will increase their terror/murder/quota limit.
According to anonymous loquacious US State Dept. Arab sources,
Islamic terrorists will be encouraged by the State Dept to continue to murder
as many as 30-40 Jews or Israelis per week, 15-30 Christians per week worldwide,
and up to 15 Americans per month (of course, not including nonfatal casualties).
This acceptable (to the State Dept) death rate will be expected to increase yearly."

[risk]

Yes, and many of them are Council for Foreign Relations drones who waffle, bob, weave, and circumnavigate freedom's call. It's time for a massive purge. I don't want people representing America overseas as statist, socialist, mercenary, and principle-less any more. I refuse to stand by when our good friends are ignored and our enemies receive payoffs and favor.

When we are truly afraid to stand up for the American Revolution overseas, holding back the fiery passion for freedom that knows no borders nor cultural boundaries, we will implode. How many uprisings has the State Department effectively allowed to be crushed? Poland and Hungary in 1956? The Czech Republic in 1968? Going all the way back to when we turned over eastern Europe to the Soviets without a shot fired, the State Department has been selling out American values.

And where are we today? The insane roadmap to a deeper circle of hell for the Israelis. Abandoning Burma. Abandoning Venezuela. Leaving the Iranian students to be quelled by Arab thugs. Multipolarity with the Chinese. Massive payments to the Pakistanis. Endless efforts to maintain the status quo in a world gone mad decades before. Negotiations, endless negotiations over North Korean threats. Does terrorism work? We American people, we common people are strong. We are not afraid, but the world would not know it from our State Department.

President Bush, please reform State! It is the instrument of some timid, cowering government that seeks to appease its enemies. That is not my America. That is not who I am today. This is not what our forebears fought to establish here.

It's past time for a change! Kick the career bureaucrats, the spineless leftists, and the Ivy league elitists who care nothing about freedom out of State!

[TigerLikesRooster]

Re #5

Yeah, those at Foggy Bottom behave like French and Germans. They spawn giant tangled webs where all of us will be trapped. People with a smart brain but no sense of direction end up like that.

[Iconoclast2]

Don't forget the most recent outrage, Venezuela.

[risk]

It was in there! I know someone from there, and he gets more sad every day. It's not just about elitism and property rights. It's about day to day freedom to think and speak and behave. And anyway, property rights are essential to human freedoms.

[A Vast RightWing Conspirator]

Key to transforming the State Department’s culture is the adoption of the right vision—President Bush’s vision.

Is Newtie looking for a job? Or he simply can't help himself from brown-nosing?

[A Vast RightWing Conspirator]

Yes, and many of them are Council for Foreign Relations drones who waffle, bob, weave, and circumnavigate freedom's call.

And so is Newtie. Check out his priorities. From his article: Every person deserves safety, health, prosperity, and freedom. - Note which comes first and which comes last.

[risk]

A chunk of the article with study references looks useful.

---

Want To Know More?

The phase III report of the Hart-Rudman Commission, “Road Map for National Security: Imperative for Change” (Washington: U.S. Commission for National Security/21st Century, 2001) includes recommended reforms of the U.S. State Department. See “Secretary Colin Powell’s State Department: An Independent Assessment” (Washington: Foreign Affairs Council, 2003) for an examination of Powell’s first two years in office, available on the American Diplomacy Web site. For international perspectives on the current secretary of state, see the special essay collection “The Secretary at Midterm” (Foreign Service Journal, March 2003).

Newt Gingrich’s controversial speech “Transforming the State Department” (April 22, 2003) can be found on the Web site of the American Enterprise Institute. Coverage and commentary on the speech’s aftermath includes “Familiar Blast, Then Unfamiliar Silence” (Washington Post, April 26, 2003) by Edward Walsh and Juliet Eilperin, “Gingrich Takes Swipe at State Department” (USA Today, April 22, 2003) by Barbara Slavin, and “Mideast Road Trap” (Washington Times, May 6, 2003) by Frank J. Gaffney Jr. For an early call for comprehensive reforms, see Laurence H. Silberman’s “Toward Presidential Control of the State Department” (Foreign Affairs, Spring 1979). For a worm’s-eye view of life in the State Department, see “Too at Home Abroad” (The Washington Monthly, September 1991) by a Foreign Service officer writing under the pseudonym of Harry Crosby.

Strobe Talbott offers an alternative view of how the State Department should adapt to new global realities in “Globalization and Diplomacy: A Practitioner’s Perspective” (FOREIGN POLICY, Fall 1997). For an example of a call for large-scale reforms in another U.S. cabinet department, see then presidential candidate George W. Bush’s speech on Defense Department reform, “A Period of Consequences” (September 23, 1999), delivered at the Citadel.

For perspectives on how the United States and other Western nations should transform their global communication efforts, see Mark Leonard’s “Diplomacy by Other Means” (FOREIGN POLICY, September/October 2002). Also visit the Public Diplomacy Web site, sponsored by the United States Information Agency Alumni Association and the Public Diplomacy Council.

Back to Article

[risk]

>>>> And so is Newtie

Yep, exactly backwards. Is he appeasing someone in his audience? The soccer moms perhaps?

I don't know enough about Newt to be a fan. But State is a mess. If he's coming out of left field, at least he's shining attention on the simple fact that it's a hotbed of anti-Americanism, anti-founding principles, and anti-freedom thought.

[Dark Wing]

FYI

[American in Israel]

And anyway, property rights are essential to human freedoms.

All the more reason for the CFR to ban them...