Diplopundit’s Blog Index for October 2009

Video of the Week: Did You Know 4.0In Afghanistan. We are the tourists.Rodearmel v. Clinton: DismissedU.N. Can’t Account for Millions Sent to Afghan Elec...US Visas for $12,000 in Ukraine?Call in the Civilians. Pray Tell, From Where?!BlogNotes: Diplopundit on TwitterMatthew Hoh in His Own WordsUSAID/Egypt: $181 Million Later, Impact UnnoticeableUS Embassy Islamabad Suspends Consular ServicesThe State Dept on Matthew HohPRT Officer Matthew Hoh Resigns Over Afghan WarJack Lew on Civilian Staffing in AfghanistanWeb 2.0 Roundup: US Embassy ManilaQuickie: One Nation Under ContractJames Hogan: Missing Now for 31 DaysOfficially In: Philip S. Goldberg to INROfficially In: Betty E. King to US Mission GenevaQuickie: On State/USAID - There Will Be No MergerRodearmel v. Clinton: Linguistics PhDs Wade InIdle Curiosity, Once More – Bow!Sunday Tanka: At Embassy Port of SpainVideo of the Week: Androids, Not Sci-Fi AnymoreWeb 2.0 Roundup: US Embassy Jakarta Wows!Truth or Consequence: Linked AssignmentsPD Rapid Response Team to Pakistan?Insider Quote: A 24/7 ResponsibilityWho's Storming Which Office to Sink Al Franken’s ...All the Things We Are – Are Not LearnableThe Greatest Possibility of SuccessArrest in Kickback/Bribe Scheme on Iraq Reconst...Web 2.0 Roundup: US Embassy LondonQDDR: Transforming State/USAID for the 21st CenturyThe Diplomatic Wives: Tribute and ThanksJohn Kerry: Man of the Hour in AfghanistanWho Will Sink Al Franken's S. Amdt. 2588?Quote: Cocktail parties are death …From Valedictory Despatches to Twitter?“Don’t want to send them home dirty.”Quickie: They no respect the contract?It Happens: Divorce and the Foreign ServiceQuickie: Could UBL be on Twitter?Video of the Week: Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing ...Did You See That ACS Job in Kabul?Officially In: Anne Slaughter Andrew to San JoseIndictment on Kickback Scheme in AfghanistanInsider Quote: And Thou Shall be CautiousThe Ambassadors: Presenting Their CredentialsQDDR: Are You Putting Lipstick on a Very Old Pig?US Embassy Barbados: Paradise InspectedPeter Bergen’s Ultimate AfPak Reading ListQuickie: Where Caution is KingRocking the Boat is a Dangerous Thing, No?US Diplomat James Hogan: 19 Days MissingQuickie: Survivor Kabul, Episode #699Dissent Channel: USAID/Pakistan ProgramOfficially In: Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis to ...Officially In: Peter A. Prahar to KoloniaHorn v. Huddle: Settlement Reached?Video of the Week: Alain de Botton on SuccessHuh? News: Sudan StrategeryBarack Hussein Obama: Nobel Peace Prize 2009The Promotion Season Needs a Poem ...Insider Quote: Holbrooke’s Democratic CentralismOfficially In: David D. Nelson to MontevideoOfficially In: David Huebner to WellingtonQuickie: The Bronze Star, not an ‘atta boy’ medalInsider Quote: All FSOs in the world ...The UN’s Best and Worst Places to LiveSFRC Hearings: Nominees for European PostsThe Hunt for Madam le ConsulUS Embassy Conakry on Ordered DepartureIt's That Time of YearInsider Quote: Ranks and Pastry ForksDiplomat Thrown Under the Bus Refuses to Stay Under...We’re Building the Juba-Nimule Road in Sudan ...Snapshot: Top 10 State Dept Contractors (FY2009)Officially In: James B. Warlick, Jr. to SofiaDisasters in SE Asia & South Pacific - How to Help...DNA Match in James Hogan SearchVideo of the Week: Parag Khanna maps the future...Quickie: Too Old for Foreign Service Work?New Embassy Contracts AwardedUS Navy Joins Hogan Search in CuracaoInsider Quote: Competitive Nature in Diplomatic ...Diplomat Thrown Under the Bus in Afghan Election ...Officially In: John F. Tefft to KyivDiplopundit’s Blog Index for September 2009

Social Media Related Tweets and Insights

From my Twitter account:

A Fundamental Secret to Happiness? Get Enough Sleep (and exercise in the morning) http://bit.ly/u7LR

How big is a carbon atom compared to a coffee bean? http://bit.ly/2e4mm9 from The University of Utah -- Learn Genetics portal from The University of Utah http://bit.ly/yJL4E

The Beatles' "Hey Jude" Flow Chart http://bit.ly/2Wa8X1

Michael Arrington: Don’t Be A Featured Loser: Facebook "Helps Out" The Unpopular http://bit.ly/xy91p

Who’s Talking About You on the Internet? http://bit.ly/4easza - Tips how to monitor your online reputation.

Write Comments on any Web Page with the Sidewiki Bookmarklet http://bit.ly/yw0yK - How to place your comment at the top if you own a site.

New Transparent Navbar Styles for Blogger-hosted blogs http://bit.ly/rNHvV - The Navbar should be opt-in or opt-out...

RT @Neil_Mehta "Schools need to create guidelines for use of social media to manage risk http://bit.ly/14jLcz"

(You can say I'm wrong but) I just can't think of social media experts as "rock stars"

Tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day:

Cell: Should scientists be tweeting? http://bit.ly/26r4Vh - Yes, of course they should be.

Graph: the more time people spend eating, the lower the rate of obesity http://bit.ly/aPr4Y

Doctor practices lose financial ground as recession outpaces productivity. Urologist: "We're working 12-13-hour days, and we get told we should work more and see more patients. We cannot". The number of patients seen dropped 11.3% and outpatient procedures dropped 9.9% in 2008. http://bit.ly/1JRZpb

Glatiramer is efficacious in delaying conversion to multiple sclerosis in clinically isolated syndrome/MRI lesions http://bit.ly/3tIhmc

Reliance on self reported smoking status underestimated true smoking by 25% http://bit.ly/4ebAjJ

Over the past 30 years mortality from liver disease has increased 6 times in the UK, rising 8–10% a year http://bit.ly/1SEVm1

Medical news tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Follow me on Twitter:

Video of the Week: Did You Know 4.0

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

Video: Clinical Pearls in Gastroenterology from Mayo Clinic

The social media department of Mayo Clinic is combining journal articles and videos from the lead authors. This is a useful approach and I suggested it to the NEJM editors during the NEJM Horizons Conference in 2008.



Dr. Amy Oxentenko, Assistant Professor of Medicine at Mayo Clinic, discusses "Clinical Pearls in Gastroenterology" (http://tinyurl.com/ydwqtk7 for complete article).

References:
Clinical Pearls in Gastroenterology. Amy S. Oxentenko, MD and Scott C. Litin, MD. Mayo Clinic Proceedings October 2009 vol. 84 no. 10 906-911.

Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day:

Two hours of tai chi per week can improve osteoarthritis symptoms in older patients http://bit.ly/3wcfC9

Children still shedding H1N1 virus 2 weeks after symptoms start, may not be synonymous with virus being infectious http://bit.ly/4plZH1

Millions of Americans Don't Get Enough Sleep - 7 hours of rest a night is important for good health http://bit.ly/4KuTE

A practical guide to interpretation and clinical application of personal genomic screening - BMJ Review http://bit.ly/4rXbiA

Postexposure Prophylaxis for HIV Infection - NEJM Clinical Practice http://bit.ly/2dnbF5

Medical news tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Follow me on Twitter:

In Afghanistan. We are the tourists.

Image by B Tal via Flickr

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

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

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

We are the tourists.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rodearmel v. Clinton: Dismissed

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

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

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

The allegations:

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

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

The ruling says in part:

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

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

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

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

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

Related Post:

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

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

Image by Canada in Afghanistan / Canada en Afghanistan via Flickr

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Continue reading here.

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

US Visas for $12,000 in Ukraine?

Image via Wikipedia

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

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

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

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

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

Read the whole thing here.

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

Social Media Related Tweets and Insights

From my Twitter account:

Over 400 Hospitals use Social Media - see the list http://bit.ly/3gOTHC

X-rays: Top 10 Foreign Bodies http://bit.ly/qpAHS

RT @JohnSharp Cleveland Clinic now has same day appts in any specialty http://bit.ly/EfjWb

Listorious.com Has A Directory Of The "Best" Twitter Lists http://bit.ly/2WIfU7

Scoble: "Why I don't use Google Reader anymore" http://bit.ly/rw6NY

Check the new Google Music here: http://bit.ly/24DoPb - more info: http://bit.ly/4yRqSm

Tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day:

24 risk factors responsible for nearly half of annual deaths, says the WHO. 57% of cardiovascular deaths can be traced back to 3 risk factors—high blood pressure, high BMI, physical inactivity http://bit.ly/7Nujn

Time for a moratorium on vitamin D meta-analyses? http://bit.ly/zWrx4

Warnings about the validity of the oral glucose tolerance test in BMJ http://bit.ly/16IGha

"Doctor who focuses on the disease in the person, rather than the person in the disease" - BMJ http://bit.ly/a2uJJ

On-the-job exercise good for employee and employer: decreases cholesterol and job stress, improves attendance http://bit.ly/2tQaE2

Language of Smiles: When it comes to mood adjustment, is it possible that putting on a happy face might actually work? http://bit.ly/YEjpt

CNN: Bystander or Genovese syndrome http://bit.ly/48vF2A - Terrible.

Medical news tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Follow me on Twitter:

CNN Video: Psychostimulants popular on college campuses, easy to get

CNN Video: Psychostimulants popular on college campuses, easy to get.

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

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

Excerpt below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FY 2002:

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

FY2003399 DRI positions

FY2004399 DRI positions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BlogNotes: Diplopundit on Twitter

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

http://twitter.com/Diplopundit

Matthew Hoh in His Own Words

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

Excerpts below:

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

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

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

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

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

Matthew Hoh: Yes.

Ouch!

Related Posts:

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

USAID/Egypt: $181 Million Later, Impact Unnoticeable

…in indexes describing Egypt’s democratic environment

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

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

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

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

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

Read the whole thing here.

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

Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day:

Fewer than half of patients with fatigue get explanation for their symptoms within a year http://bit.ly/ZrtG1

"Smoking's Damage Swift, Irreversible" - inflicting damage on the arteries with the very first puffs http://bit.ly/7zqXG

Migraine is associated with a twofold increased risk of ischaemic stroke among people who have migraine with aura http://bit.ly/Qltjn

Many Tout Curative Properties of Titanium, Copper, Silver and Gold, but the Science Isn't There http://bit.ly/iapgg

Toxins Make Halloween Face Paints Scary: all products tested contained lead, 60% had nickel, cobalt or chromium http://bit.ly/21tmea

Arzerra (ofatumumab) has been approved by the U.S. FDA to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) http://bit.ly/4wsGsE

ESPN: "Andre Agassi used crystal meth while he was playing professional tennis, according to a new autobiography" http://bit.ly/ZEBe7

Tackling 5 factors could increase global life expectancy by 5 years: nutrition, unsafe sex, alcohol, sanitation, HTN http://bit.ly/1VsRrh

Medical news tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

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Hospitals mandating use of smartphones for affiliated doctors

From American Medical News:

63% of physicians already own smartphones and many have discovered that they can be a valuable work tool. Now some hospitals are buying smartphones for affiliated doctors and mandating use.

Henry Ford Medical Group in Detroit purchased BlackBerry phones for all 1,204 of its physicians. The BlackBerry has become a "tremendously popular time-saver, for example, physicians can give patients their direct cell phone numbers rather than the number to an answering service."

While Henry Ford's physicians have the ability to access patient records via their BlackBerry phones, few do because of the limitations of the small screen. Every physician has the drug reference application Epocrates.

References:
Smartphone use pushed by hospitals.American Medical News, 2009.
Image source: BlackBerry 7250. Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License.

Social Media Related Tweets and Insights

From my Twitter account:

Social media is not for everyone http://bit.ly/FSDXF - True. Social media use by physicians should not (and cannot) be an "obligation".

The genius brothers behind Google Wave - CNN http://bit.ly/3KQ7vi

Gmail account security tips http://bit.ly/26iOAR

Gmail address/contact list is showing that it can be a powerful tool for connecting you to your social contacts http://bit.ly/17bYcz -- RT @steverubel The Next Great Social Network? Your Address Book http://ff.im/-aAUq8

Internet Speeds and Costs Around the World, Shown Visually http://bit.ly/2vxHJQ

Review: The Best Smartphones On The Market http://bit.ly/4soD4C

The new Yahoo search includes social networks by default when searching for a name http://bit.ly/13aXBX

2010 Software Security Suites: The Best and Worst - a PC Magazine review http://bit.ly/1HHODx

Tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

US Embassy Islamabad Suspends Consular Services

Image by Omer Wazir via Flickr

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

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

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

The State Dept on Matthew Hoh

Image by The U.S. Army via Flickr

…and the Art of the Benevolent Push Back

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

Summary:

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

Health News of the Day

Health News of the Day is a daily summary made from the selected links I post on Twitter. It is in a bullet points format with links to the original sources which include 350 RSS feeds that produce about 2,500 items per day:

Benefit of Perioperative Beta Blockers Confirmed in Large Study - Medscape http://bit.ly/2fHOcI

Cell Phone May Reduce Bone Density in Hips http://bit.ly/4sloSy

Dopamine, as a neurotransmiter, is less about pleasure and reward than about drive and motivation http://bit.ly/3n4d6Y

BBC: Secret to a happy marriage for men is choosing a wife who is smarter & at least 5 years younger. If the wife was 5 years older than her husband, they were more than 3 times as likely to divorce (comp. to same age) http://bit.ly/1xskH5

Medical news tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.

Follow me on Twitter:

Social Media Related Tweets and Insights

From my Twitter account:

Survey: 79% of American adults use the internet, 85% carry cell phones, 56% have a wireless connection. 48% of African American & Latino adults go online using a mobile device, compared with 28% of white adults. Pew Internet surveys find that 35% of adults use social network sites like MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn http://bit.ly/DF07V

Google Social Search: add a link to your Twitter page & Google will find people you follow & content they produce http://bit.ly/fanmx

Video: 11 Years of Google in 2 Minutes http://bit.ly/3SzP48

Google Social Graph API - Find Your Social Media Connections http://bit.ly/4ihx5c

One of the nice things about Twitter is that it makes people who would not blog tweet.

Google not trapping users’ data: by making it easy to leave Google, people are actually less likely to leave Google http://bit.ly/4fzIpj

Google Social Search shows search results from your "social circle" http://bit.ly/3IgIgD - Try it here: http://bit.ly/nD2aC

10 things Google has taught us - CNN http://bit.ly/1X5m1E - Among them, "Life is long but time is short."

"Day (or night) in the life of a nocturnist" - Musings from a hospitalist http://bit.ly/5ScuJ

Tweets are not research articles - they are 140-character messages - please always go to the original source, links, etc. Tweets and links do not represent endorsement, approval or support. Image source: OpenClipArt.org, public domain.