2010 MLK Day Technology Challenge

Reprinted in part from Serve.gov | We are calling on educators and web professionals to join our new effort – the 2010 MLK Day Technology Challenge. The purpose is simple: to connect schools and non-profits that have technology needs, including skills training and mentorship, with web professionals, developers, graphic designers and new media professionals who are willing to volunteer their skills for the common good.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "Life's most persistent and urgent question is: what are you doing for others?” We ask that you answer his call in 2010 by participating in the MLK Technology Challenge.

Typical projects include:

• Refurbish computers for schools


• Teach students how to use popular software or online services


• Build a database for a nonprofit


• Help out in your school’s computer lab


• Become an online mentor for students across the country

Read more at Serve.gov, an online resource not only for finding volunteer opportunities in the community, but also creating your own.

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

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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

Quote: Bob Gates on Public Service

"Each person in public service has his or her own story and motives. But I believe, if you scratch deeply enough, you will find that those who serve – no matter how outwardly tough or jaded or egotistical – are, in their heart of hearts, romantics and idealists. And optimists. We actually believe we can make a difference, that we can make the lives of others better, that we can make a positive difference in the life of this country and the world."

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates
University of Washington Commencement
Seattle, Washington
Saturday, June 13, 2009

Preparing for Transition at State

Sean McCormack, Spokesman at State indicates in his DPB on October 21 that the preparation for the presidential transition has started. The Secretary has appointed three individuals to head up the Department-wide transition effort. They are Under Secretary Bill Burns, who is Under Secretary for Political Affairs; Under Secretary Pat Kennedy, who is Under Secretary for Management; and the Executive Secretary, Dan Smith. All are career Foreign Service Officers.

“So these three individuals sit atop the Department-wide structure that’s going to be responsible for making sure that there is a professional, efficient, smooth transition from this team to the next team as they come in. At some point along the way, we’ll take you all – for anybody who is interested – a tour for the transition spaces that are already being set up on the first floor of the Department. I think you all know where they are, down in the southwest corner.

These things are designed to help people out with everything from administrative to security to policy support. The Department is already starting the process of generating all the papers that are required for a transition if – for any of you out there who don’t know the State Department, this is a Department that still runs on paper. So it’s – we do a lot of things well and one of them is produce paper. So we’re producing a lot of transition papers for the incoming team. And I would expect that on November 5^th, we will have our first set of books ready to hand over to whomever the incoming transition team leads will be.

All of that said, we still have a lot of work left to do between now and January 20^th, and the Secretary is certainly concentrating on that, but I also wanted to let you know that we are also concentrating on the fact that we are going to be turning over responsibility for the Department as well as U.S. foreign policy to a new team coming here in a few months.

[…] And the President also recently signed, I think, within the past two weeks, a new executive order that sped – that was designed to speed the process of security – granting security clearances and having individuals in transition teams, both transition teams, be able to access sensitive information so that, you know, on November 5^th, you know, there is a president-elect – well, not – well, there will be somebody the American people have chosen as the next president, and a transition team, and so they can start their work immediately. And the idea is to make sure that it is as seamless and is efficient and as professional as possible.

The State Department's Sammies Recipients

2008 Federal Employee of the Year

USAID’s Richard Greene is this year's Federal Employee of the Year. He is the Director of the Office of Health, Infectious Diseases and Nutrition at the Bureau of Global Health at the United States Agency for International Development in Washington, D.C. Mr. Greene designed and launched the President’s Malaria Initiative, which has provided potentially life-saving services to more than 25 million vulnerable people.

An excerpt from the Sammies award narrative says that "Malaria claims the lives of 1 million people each year. Eighty percent of these deaths are children under five, and 80 percent are in Sub-Saharan Africa. What makes these losses even more tragic is the fact that malaria is both preventable and treatable. The U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Richard Greene is the day-to-day manager of an unprecedented government effort to fight this deadly disease. And it’s succeeding. Within its first two years, this effort provided services to 25 million children and pregnant women, and these services are having the ultimate impact: they are saving lives.

Greene’s dedication and leadership were critical to the program’s early success. He led the day-to-day implementation of the plan, and is credited with mobilizing programs and helping to launch services in record time while tailoring different approaches to fit the needs of each individual country. He has led his own team from USAID, coordinating their efforts with staff at CDC as well as government officials in host countries and multinational institutions.

Greene’s work on the PMI is the pinnacle of a life spent in service to others around the globe. He began his career as a Peace Corps volunteer in the Ivory Coast in 1978. After taking a job with USAID in 1984, he spent 15 consecutive years overseas in places ranging from Sudan to Cameroon to Bangladesh. He eventually settled in as the head of USAID’s Office of Health, Infectious Diseases and Nutrition in the Bureau for Global Health, and he has put the agency on the cutting edge of addressing key global health issues."

The Service to America Medals are presented annually by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service to celebrate excellence in our federal civil service. To read more about the 2008 Sammies and previous recipients click here.

2008 National Security and International Affairs Medal Recipient

Mary Katherine Friedrich is the Special Advisor to the Under Secretary for Democracy and Global Affairs at the Department of State. She is rewarded for her leadership in the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council, a major public/private effort to enhance the economic, social and political status of Afghan women.

An excerpt from the Sammies award narrative states that: "Afghanistan has made great progress on the path to becoming a free and democratic society since its liberation from Taliban rule in 2002. Few areas have seen greater improvement than the conditions of women, and few people outside of Afghanistan have done more to drive these positive changes than Kate Friedrich. As the head of day-to-day operations for the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council, she is empowering Afghan women to build better lives and engaging powerful partners to support the efforts of these courageous women.

Friedrich is known as “the pillar of the U.S.-Afghan Women’s Council,” a public-private partnership launched in 2002 by President George W. Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, which was designed to help mobilize public and private resources to assist Afghan women in regaining economic, social and political status. Friedrich has managed every aspect of the Council, from fundraising to overseas travel logistics to the coordination of the various public- and private-sector players. She has made countless trips to Afghanistan where her diplomatic skills are described as “formidable” by her peers. Friedrich’s creativity and ability to get things done under difficult circumstances have been remarkable throughout the development and implementation of the Council and its projects, which today total more than $70 million in programming.

With Friedrich’s persistence, the Council has been able to improve the prospects for countless Afghan women in need. She launched a micro-finance program with Daimler Chrysler, which began with three female enrollees. One year later, the number of women participating increased to 80. Today, the program has served more than 30,000 Afghan women. With support from the Council, Time Warner and USAID, women’s resource centers have been opened and equipped throughout Afghanistan, funded by more than $3.5 million for training in literacy, small business administration and management of nongovernmental organizations. A one-time training program for Afghan women entrepreneurs at Thunderbird University has grown into an annual course, graduating women in management skills and partnering them with American mentors. A project by Public Broadcasting Service to train Afghan women journalists led to the filming of the award-winning documentary “Afghanistan Unveiled.” And, with assistance from USAID, a Women’s Teacher Training Institute was opened at Kabul University."

The Service to America Medals are presented annually by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service to celebrate excellence in our federal civil service. To read more about the 2008 Sammies and previous recipients click here.

In Defense of Ryan Crocker

The number #1 most emailed article from the New York Times today is a blog entry by Dick Cavett posted three days ago entitled: “Memo to Petraeus & Crocker: More Laughs, Please.” Cavett writes in part:

“Back to poor Crocker. His brows are knitted. And he has a perpetually alarmed expression, as if, perhaps, he feels something crawling up his leg. Could it be he is being overtaken by the thought that an honorable career has been besmirched by his obediently doing the dirty work of the tinpot Genghis Khan of Crawford, Texas?”

I’ve never worked for Ambassador Crocker, nor have I ever meet the man but I take exception with the preceding comment because it shows an ignorance of what Foreign Service officers do in the service of this country. In 1983, François de Laboulaye and Jean Laloy had this to say about dissent and ambassadors (I’m quoting here from Charles Freeman, Jr.’s Diplomat’s Dictionary):

“There are strict limits, dictated by common sense and the realities of the situation, to how far an ambassador can go in opposing a position of his own government. If a compromise is not possible and once the final decision has been made, he must of course loyally and scrupulously implement it even if it goes against what he had recommended. But until the final decision is made an ambassador owes his government the frankest and most unvarnished advice.”

Whatever you might think of the “tinpot Genghis Khan of Crawford, Texas,” or how he got here, he is the elected president of this country. And whether you personally know Ambassador Crocker or not, you should know that all Foreign Service personnel like the Ambassador, not only must agree to worldwide availability -- that is, they may be called on to serve anywhere in the world, they must also agree to publicly support the policies of the United States Government regardless of their personal sentiments. That’s right! You’ve got to do the job even if you don’t agree with Uncle Sam.

And if you disagree with our Government’s policy, you have two options: 1) you use what is called the “Dissent Channel,” a serious policy channel reserved only for consideration of responsible dissenting and alternative views on substantive foreign policy issues (you can read more about that here) or 2) you quit and walk away (like what Brady Kiesling and two other officers did).

Sometime in 2002, prior to the Iraq invasion, then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell reportedly tasked Ryan Crocker and Assistant Secretary of State William Burns with exploring the risks of military intervention. That resulted in the now famous six-page memo they entitled "The Perfect Storm," which, and I quote from WP’s Robin Wright, “bluntly predicted that toppling Hussein could unleash long-repressed sectarian and ethnic tensions, that the Sunni minority would not easily relinquish power, and that powerful neighbors such as Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia would try to move in to influence events. It also cautioned that the United States would have to start from scratch building a political and economic system because Iraq's infrastructure was in tatters (you can read the entire article here).”

I would argue that Ambassador Crocker had given his “frankest and most unvarnished advice” in 2002, and I think it would be unjust to fault him now for doing the best he could in what Mr. Cavett calls “dirty work.” Somebody’s gotta do this “dirty work,” and frankly, we’re better off having a professional on the ground who speaks the language, and understands the region than one who doesn't.

A Newsweek Exclusive asks: “No American diplomat seems better qualified than Ryan Crocker to turn Iraq around-but can he do it?” Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that question, but I do know this -- Ambassador Crocker deserves our respect for doing the difficult job he was tasked to do, not the public's scorn.

The Public Servant and the Internet Beast

Right after the news of the passport breach at the State Department hit the web the night before last, conspiracy aficionados had a field day online. The Huffington Post did a brief news update on its site quoting an MSNBC news item and citing “Mora Hardy” as the person who was in charged of the passport office when the breaches occurred. There was not much on the report; it was approximately 250 words (it’s not online anymore and has now been replaced with this) but it did mention that “Mora Hardy” was am ambassador appointed during the Clinton administration and left readers to draw their own conclusions from what was still breaking news. And that they did, quite unfairly towards a dedicated public servant. Tsk! Tsk! Did not even bothered to fact-check her name.

One post alleged that Paraguay where Ambassador Harty was posted from 1997-1999 was a “prestige post” given to political contributors. According to the CIA World Factbook, Paraguay’s economy had rebounded between 2003-2007, but on “a per capita basis, real income has stagnated at 1980 levels and most observers attribute Paraguay's poor economic performance to political uncertainty, corruption, limited progress on structural reform, and deficient infrastructure.” Paraguay is far from Paris, and has a GDP of $4,000 but that’s not really relevant, is it? It is a foreign country that sounds exotic, it must be a prestigious post, never mind that it has a 10% hardship differential and a 10% cost of living allowance bundled with it. Another alleged that Ambassador Harty is a Clinton supporter and implied that she must be involved. After another post indicated that Ambassador Harty had retired in February, still one more poster, alleged that she must have seen this coming, that’s why she quit her job at 49!

I spent some time reading through the online posts and came away with the realization that the regular American public has no idea how the State Department works. I have never seen such ignorance and such great willingness to believe everything so quickly without any supporting facts. I understand that this is the price we pay for the 24/7 barrage of information that comes with technology but isn’t this quite disturbing? Do we think so lowly of our public servants that we cannot afford them the courtesy of waiting until the facts are in before drawing virtual blood? The feeding frenzy reminds me of sharks feeding, really!

Just for clarity - Ambassador Harty was a career Foreign Service Officer; she earned her “stripes” within a very competitive organization through hard work. You can read more information about her career in the State Department here and here.

Her impending retirement was announced in November last year, but her actual retirement did not occur until this past February. She was a career Ambassador, a rank equivalent to a General in the military. She was not only well-respected but also genuinely liked by the people who worked for her.

As for those “prestige” assignments given to political contributors – those are the non-career ambassadors, political appointees nominated by the White House and approved by the Senate. For historical context, I refer to U.S. Diplomacy which states:

“Until passage of the Rogers Act of 1924 all ambassadors (then generally called “ministers”) of the United States were non-career political appointees. However, since the Second World War the great majority of those positions have been filled by career FSOs. In recent years approximately 70% of U.S. ambassadors come from the ranks of the professional Foreign Service, while the other 30% are from the private sector. Nominations of non-career ambassadors are made by the White House. Career officers are nominated by the White House upon recommendation by the Department of State.”

Foreign Service Officers (our diplomats) are commissioned by the President of the United States. Since Ambassador Harty joined the State Department in 1981, she must have been commissioned by President Reagan. She continued her career within the State Department through the administrations of Bush I, Clinton and Bush 2. But there’s nothing odd about that; all our career professional and civil servants continue working for Uncle Sam regardless of which party occupies the White House.

I must also add that Foreign Service Officers like all Federal employees are precluded from engaging in political activities under the Hatch Act. Federal employees may not-

• be candidates for public office in partisan elections
• campaign for or against a candidate or slate of candidates in partisan elections
• make campaign speeches
• collect contributions or sell tickets to political fund raising functions
• distribute campaign material in partisan elections
• organize or manage political rallies or meetings
• hold office in political clubs or parties
• circulate nominating petitions
• work to register voters for one party only
• wear political buttons at work

The penalties can be a 30-day suspension or removal from office, so folks are extremely careful about that just as we are careful and mindful of all the rules and regulations that govern our lives inside and outside the office. If you are thinking about the Bill Clinton passport flap in 1992, please bear in mind that the culprits then were political appointees not career professionals.