Quickie: The Bronze Star, not an ‘atta boy’ medal

Image via Wikipedia

David Tate of The Battlefield Tourist had trouble with how the Bronze Star is handed out these days. He writes:

“Four guys see combat and 21 get the Bronze Star? The problem is the “V” device. Get rid of it. The Bronze Star is a hero’s medal; not an ‘atta boy’ medal. Stop giving it for meritorious purposes. Redefine it I say! It just sucks that there’s this whole slew of Bronze Star license plates out there that have the same meaning to the general public. It’s almost a disservice considering the average person can’t distinguish between a man who single-handedly knocked out two machine gun nests on Tarawa versus an admin clerk who served the general a great cup of joe.”

Remembering John Stewart Service

Image via Wikipedia

On June 17, fifty-two years ago today, Service v. Dulles, 354 U.S. 363 (1957) was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. In the oral history collection of ADST, John Service talked about the released of the Supreme Court decision: "Anyway, this was a new day, the day of TV. Almost as soon as the Supreme Court decision was announced, TV people descended on us, both in my office and then later on out at our apartment. Fortunately, as I say, we had a statement ready."

STATEMENT OF JOHN S. SERVICE

I am thankful for the Court's decision and for our judicial system which gives each American the means to protect his rights and reputation.

For almost nineteen years I was proud to make my career in the American Foreign Service. Every chief under whom I worked and every competent and authorized review of the facts found my service useful and loyal.

In December, 1951, the world was informed that I had been summarily dismissed for "doubt of loyalty". Administrative appeal was refused, and legal action became my only recourse. Through it, the unfounded action of the Loyalty Review Board was declared illegal and expunged. The Government eventually conceded that my discharge was not based upon doubt of my loyalty or security and that its sole basis had been the illegal action of the Loyalty Review Board. Now the discharge has been declared illegal and the slate is clean.

My debt is great: to my attorney, Mr. Charles Edward Rhetts, who accepted the case of a stranger more than seven years ago and, without regard for his own interests, has since devoted his great ability to clearing my name; to the several attorneys who in association with him have contributed to this outcome; to a courageous employer who was willing to give a job to a man publicly defamed; and to hundreds of friends whose unshaken confidence supported my family and me in this long fight for vindication.

Read more in the Library of Congress Frontline Diplomacy Collection.

Video of the Week: James Nachtwey’s War Photos

Aiming his pictures at your best instincts

screen capture from ted.com

Accepting his 2007 TED Prize, war photographer James Nachtwey shows his life’s work and asks TED to help him continue telling the story with innovative, exciting uses of news photography in the digital era.

For the past three decades, James Nachtwey has devoted himself to documenting wars, conflicts and critical social issues, working in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, the Philippines, South Korea, Somalia, Sudan, Rwanda, South Africa, Russia, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo, Romania, Brazil and the United States.

Nachtwey has been a contract photographer with Time since 1984. However, when certain stories he wanted to cover -- such as Romanian orphanages and famine in Somalia -- garnered no interest from magazines, he self-financed trips there. He is known for getting up close to his subjects, or as he says, "in the same intimate space that the subjects inhabit," and he passes that sense of closeness on to the viewer.

In putting himself in the middle of conflict, his intention is to record the truth, to document the struggles of humanity, and with this, to wake people up and stir them to action.

From ted.com

AFSA Constructive Dissent Awards

I just saw this announcement from AFSA. This year's AFSA awards for intellectual courage, initiative, and integrity in the context of constructive dissent will be presented to the following Foreign Service employees who demonstrated the courage to speak out and challenge the system, despite the possible consequences. The announcement says that each will receive a certificate of recognition and $2,500 for their unique actions and courage.

-- The Tex Harris Award for a Foreign Service Specialist was awarded to Barron I. Rosen, a diplomatic courier based in Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Honorable mention is also given to three colleagues of Mr. Rosen: Kelli Cook, Kathleen Betso and Eileen School. Mr. Rosen spoke out against unsafe practices which impacted the duties of the couriers assigned to travel to Central American posts. Couriers were required to travel on unsafe cargo planes for up to 20 hours. The cargo company required all the couriers to sign a liability waiver. Mr. Rosen objected to this waiver which would not allow them to bring action against the company in the event of an accident or gross negligence. After considerable persistence on the part of Mr. Rosen, management cancelled the arrangement with the cargo company and the couriers now fly on commercial carriers.


--The William R. Rivkin Award for a mid-level Foreign Service Officer will be presented to two separate individuals. Jeffrey S. Collins, a political officer at U.S. Embassy Ankara, and Michael C. Gonzales, Political/Economic Counselor at U.S. Embassy Addis Ababa will each receive the award.

Jeffrey Collins worked hard to improve the protection of human rights in Turkey and to raise awareness of the need to reform and improve the State Departments system of human rights reporting. He challenged both the Embassy leadership and State Department officials on existing policies for meeting with human rights activists, and he made specific recommendations on how to improve the human rights reporting process.

Michael Gonzales worked diligently within the proper channels to rebalance U.S. foreign policy toward Ethiopia to better advance U.S. long-term interests. He challenged the status quo to draw attention to the authoritarian policies of the Ethiopian government despite significant resistance from the State Department and Africa Bureau and succeeded in having his recommendations included in the Embassy's report to the transition team.


--There were no winners this year of the Harriman Award for a junior-level officer, or the Herter Award for a senior-level officer.

Related Post:
Wanted: Patron Saint for Dissenting Diplomats

Related Item:
AFSA Past Award Winners

Quickie: Senior Officers and Intellectual Leadership

Excerpts from USAF Maj Gen Charles J. Dunlap Jr.'s piece in the Spring 2009 issue of the Strategic Quarterly Studies. A must read not just for officers in our military but also for those aspiring for leadership roles in our civilian agencies, including our Foreign Service:

[I]t is imperative that those of us involved in formulating and executing national security policy educate ourselves broadly about our service and our agencies, about other services, and about national security matters writ large. Advocacy is not, however, a risk-free enterprise; it is an intellectual contact sport of the first order. Leaders should expect their views to be hotly contested. In many instances the counterpoints will be expressed thoughtfully and at length—but also unsparingly. Such exchanges nevertheless can be productive, because it is often through engaging opposing perspectives that truth can emerge.
[...]
The reality for senior officers is that their advocacy puts more than just the individual officer at risk. It is the family, as well as all of those within the organization who are looking to that person for leadership and mentorship, who will likely suffer if a penalty is to be paid.

For all the well-intentioned rhetoric about encouraging “out of the box” thinking, it is naive to believe that the “system” necessarily protects innovators or intellectual iconoclasts. Being “right” is no insurance policy either.²⁶ In the real world, happy endings are not guaranteed. In his speech to the Air War College in the spring of 2008, Secretary Gates was candid about this truth.27 Using the legendary Air Force reformer Col John Boyd as a “historical exemplar,” the secretary eulogized Boyd’s contributions to airpower thinking while recognizing that he was “a brilliant, eccentric, and stubborn character” who engendered much resistance in the Air Force’s bureaucracy.
[...]
Leaders need to lead. In the case of generals especially, that sometimes means speaking and writing about doctrines which they find ill-serve the Nation by failing to fully utilize the capabilities of the whole joint team.
[...]
Why do I feel so strongly about this? In my nearly years of service I’ve experienced some terrible things—I can still recall, for example, the stench of rotting corpses in Somalia. Yet the most heartbreaking scene I’ve personally witnessed was at the Dover AFB mortuary. To see the bodies of young American Soldiers neatly laid out in their dress uniforms—but forever to be silent—is something that will haunt me forever. Do not we—all of us—owe such heroes our level best to try to find a better way?

The Contact Sport Senior Leaders Must Play (pdf)
Maj Gen Charles J. Dunlap Jr., USAF
Excerpted from Strategic Quarterly Studies

Quote: I'm actually a bad man who happens to have a limit...

“I’m actually a bad man who happens to have a limit beyond which I wouldn’t go,” [he says]. “The strange thing is that a lot of people who are very good men — who have never been unfaithful to their wives, always go to bed by ten and even go to church — didn’t have any trouble with the torture bit. That’s the thing I really don’t get.”

Craig Murray
Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan (August 2002 - October 2004)
Quoted in The Sunday Times, September 21, 2008
“Craig Murray on sex, murder and intrigue”

Tomas Perez: Diplomatic Courier Honored for Heroism

Foreign Affairs Day seems like an appropriate day to remember not just retirees who are back at the State Department for the annual homecoming event, but also current employees who have done more than what is asked of them. One of them is Tomas “Andy” Perez, a diplomatic courier who was honored this past February with the State Department’s Award for Heroism.

As a Diplomatic Courier, Perez routinely accompanies classified diplomatic pouches in support of the U.S. Department of State’s mission, ensuring that equipment and materials arrive securely at diplomatic posts. However, on May 25, 2008, the job was anything but routine.

That morning Perez was strapped into the jump seat of a Kalitta 747-200 cargo aircraft, traveling with a four-member crew from Brussels. As the aircraft began takeoff, Perez and the crew heard a loud noise. The pilot aborted liftoff and tried to stop the aircraft, but, as the landing gear failed, the airplane skipped the runway and plunged into a field. The crash caused the fuselage to break apart. The aircraft’s nose section, which included the cockpit holding Perez and the four crew members, broke off from the rest of the plane and dropped to the ground, stopping just 26 feet from high power lines and railroad tracks.

Despite sustaining injuries, Perez jumped into action to help the others on board. In the chaos, the air filling with the smell of jet fuel, and two of the escape hatches damaged by the crash and rendered unusable, Perez was able to locate a working hatch, open it, and lead the crew to safety. However, the group then faced a steep, dangerous descent, and the crew was understandably hesitant to jump from the plane. Perez again led the way, demonstrating how to use the escape slide to slow their steep descent and land safely.

Once the crew was safely on the ground, Perez attended to the injured and quickly alerted authorities at the Department about the accident and his need for support. Never forgetting his duty as a Diplomatic Courier, Perez refused to leave the site for medical treatment so that he could maintain surveillance of the diplomatic pouches—enough material to fill an 18-wheeler truck. Crews from U.S. Embassies around the world flew in to take shifts guarding the cargo continuously for eight days while HAZMAT personnel cleared the leaking jet fuel and investigators combed the crash site.

For his valor under life-threatening conditions, Perez was presented with the Department of State’s Award for Heroism. In a ceremony on February 17, 2009 at the U.S. Department of State’s Annex in Rosslyn, Virginia, Assistant Secretary for Diplomatic Security Eric J. Boswell presented Perez with a medal set and a certificate signed by the Secretary.

Perez became a Diplomatic Courier in 2005 and worked in the Washington, D.C. office. He began working in the Frankfurt Regional Diplomatic Courier Division in September 2008. The presentation of the Award for Heroism is not the first time the U.S. Department of State has honored Perez. In 2007, he received the Meritorious Honor Award for outstanding efforts in office modernization and dedication to the mission of the U.S. Diplomatic Courier Service. Prior to coming to State, Perez served in the United States Army for eight years; he was a Russian linguist, and he received two Army Achievement medals.

Torturing Democracy: How Did We Get to This Place?

The video is 90 minutes divided into three segments: Part 1: From 9/11 to Waterboarding - The Inside Story; Part 2: From the CIA to Guantanamo and Part 3: Immunity of US Officials.


It is painful to watch -- about what has been done in our name, the American People -- I thought it's worth 90 minutes of my life to watch it. You can watch the videos here; the annotated transcript in pdf format is here. Quick excerpt below:

NARRATOR: In other words, the President has the power to suspend - or simply ignore - the fundamental laws of war. That includes Geneva and its guarantees of basic human rights to prisoners and civilians alike.

RICHARD ARMITAGE – Deputy Secretary of State (2001-05): Our views were well known in this matter. We were not on board.

NARRATOR: Richard Armitage served three combat tours in Vietnam.

RICHARD ARMITAGE: For the most part, the Department of State was left out of this discussion, I think precisely because we'd have no part of it.

NARRATOR: The State Department’s top lawyer called John Yoo’s legal reasoning “seriously flawed” 39 - and warned that if heading to the dark side meant violating Geneva:

“This raises a risk of future criminal prosecution for US civilian and military leadership and their advisers, by other parties to the Geneva Conventions.” 40

NARRATOR: That is, if officials - including President Bush – were accused of torture or inhumane treatment, they could be prosecuted for war crimes.

40 “Your Draft Memorandum of January 9th.” Taft, William H. IV. January 11, 2002.

The conclusion that the Geneva Conventions do not apply could be the basis for actions that otherwise would violate the Convention, including conduct that would constitute a grave breech. This raises a risk of future criminal prosecution for U.S. civilian and military leadership and their advisers, by other parties to the Geneva Conventions.

The draft memo sent to the State Department's Legal Office was dated Jan 9, 2002. A 40-page draft memo responding to Yoo at DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel was sent back two days later by State's Legal Adviser William Taft IV, saying that “both the most important factual assumptions on which your draft is based and its legal analysis are seriously flawed.” More here.

Two principals from the State Department are included in the video. Richard Armitage who was Deputy Secretary of State under Secretary Powell had a lot more to say in his extended interview here. The interview of Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was Secretary Powell's Chief of Staff is here.


When I hear about a "Truth Commission" or something similar being talked about, my initial reaction has been -- just let it be. I'm sure I am not the only one who feels that we need to turn a page. Like many others I think that it is important to look forward and not backwards, and yes, it is important to remind ourselves that we live in dangerous times and that there are real security threats out there. But I must admit that after watching this entire video and reading the related documents and interviews, I can't say that we should just ditch the idea of a commission. The narrative that what happened here was the work of a few "bad apples" has now moved into the realm of fiction. We teach our children that actions have consequences, but in this case -- what are the consequences?


When you come to think of it, there is another reason why we need to look at how we came to this place -- we need to, because this happened in Washington after all, and Washington insiders never really go away. Mr. Rumsfeld was SecDef in 1975 and came back to the same job in 2001. Mr. Cheney was WH Chief of Staff in 1975 and came back many different times. We are now seeing former Clinton staffers come back to serve in the new administration. How many Yoos, Gonzaleses and Addingtons are out there, waiting in the wings for repeat engagements in 2012, 2016, or 2020 and beyond? Folks in their forties now, may still show up inside the beltway in the next 30 some years down the road --- because they never really go away.


I think we need to know how we got to this place; we don't want to be asking the same question 20-30 years from now: how did we get here? But will Congress find its spine to look hard -- not just at what happened but also at what they had failed to do? Foreign courts should not have to render judgment on our mess ... isn't that what we do to third world countries and their dictators?


The larger question becomes -- ought we not, as the bright shining city upon a hill, shine some light on this darkness in our national soul?

Insider Quote: Why Didn't You Quit?

"Fault Lines" host Avi Lewis pressed Armitage about remaining in the administration. "So when you knew that the administration of which you were a part was departing from the Geneva Conventions and sidelining them, why didn't you quit?"

"In hindsight maybe I should've," said Armitage. "But in those positions you see how many more battles you have. You maybe fool yourself. You say how much worse would X, Y, or Z be if I weren't here trying to do it? So torture is a matter of principle as far as I'm concerned. I hope, had I known about it at the time I was serving, I would've had the courage to resign."

Richard Armitage
Deputy Secretary of State (2001-2005)

Quoted in Al Jazeera Interview
(will air at 2:00 a.m. eastern time April 16th)