[ April 19, 2024 ]
Good riddance to bad rubbish. The State Department has long been compromised by foreign service careerists whose priorities and obejctives serve foreign governments, not America’s. The relentless dawah promoted as much as possible and “Palestinianism” was damaging to American’s self interest.
An exodus is underway. Those who have departed include Nancy McEldowney, the director of the Foreign Service Institute until she retired last month, who described to me “a toxic, troubled environment and organization”; Dana Shell Smith, the former ambassador to Qatar, who said what was most striking was the “complete and utter disdain for our expertise”; and Jake Walles, a former ambassador to Tunisia with some 35 years of experience. “There’s just a slow unraveling of the institution,”
Faster!
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Break out the champagne: State Department officials quitting over “complete and utter disdain for our expertise”
We can only hope that with the departure of these failed State Department officials, their failed policies will be swept out along with them. Chief among these is the almost universally held idea that poverty causes terrorism. The United States has wasted uncounted (literally, because a great deal of it was in untraceable bags full of cash) billions of dollars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Egypt, and other countries in the wrongheaded assumption that Muslims turn to jihad because they lack economic opportunities and education. American officials built schools and hospitals, thinking that they were winning over the hearts and minds of the locals.
Fifteen years, thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars later, no significant number of hearts and minds have been won. This is partly because the premise is wrong. The New York Times reported in March that “not long after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001…Alan B. Krueger, the Princeton economist, tested the widespread assumption that poverty was a key factor in the making of a terrorist. Mr. Krueger’s analysis of economic figures, polls, and data on suicide bombers and hate groups found no link between economic distress and terrorism.”
CNS News noted in September 2013 that “according to a Rand Corporation report on counterterrorism, prepared for the Office of the Secretary of Defense in 2009, ‘Terrorists are not particularly impoverished, uneducated, or afflicted by mental disease. Demographically, their most important characteristic is normalcy (within their environment). Terrorist leaders actually tend to come from relatively privileged backgrounds.’ One of the authors of the RAND report, Darcy Noricks, also found that according to a number of academic studies, ‘Terrorists turn out to be more rather than less educated than the general population.’”
Yet the analysis that poverty causes terrorism has been applied and reapplied and reapplied again. The swamp is in dire need of draining, and in other ways as well. From 2011 on, it was official Obama administration policy to deny any connection between Islam and terrorism. This came as a result of an October 19, 2011 letter from Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates to John Brennan, who was then the Assistant to the President on National Security for Homeland Security and Counter Terrorism, and later served in the Obama administration as head of the CIA. The letter was signed not just by Khera, but by the leaders of virtually all the significant Islamic groups in the United States: 57 Muslim, Arab, and South Asian organizations, many with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Muslim American Society (MAS), the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Relief USA; and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).
The letter denounced what it characterized as U.S. government agencies’ “use of biased, false and highly offensive training materials about Muslims and Islam.” Despite the factual accuracy of the material about which they were complaining, the Muslim groups demanded that the task force “purge all federal government training materials of biased materials”; “implement a mandatory re-training program for FBI agents, U.S. Army officers, and all federal, state and local law enforcement who have been subjected to biased training”; and more—to ensure that all that law enforcement officials would learn about Islam and jihad would be what the signatories wanted them to learn.
Numerous books and presentations that gave a perfectly accurate view of Islam and jihad were removed from coounterterror training. Today, even with Trump as President, this entrenched policy of the U.S. government remains, and ensures that all too many jihadists simply cannot be identified as risks, since the officials are bound as a matter of policy to ignore what in saner times would be taken as warning signs. Trump and Tillerson must reverse this. Trump has spoken often about the threat from “radical Islamic terrorism”; he must follow through and remove the prohibitions on allowing agents to study and understand the motivating ideology behind the jihad threat.
The swamp needs draining indeed. This news from the State Department, and the New York Times’ grief over it, are good signs that the U.S. is on its way back on dry land.
“The Desperation of Our Diplomats,” by Roger Cohen, New York Times, July 28, 2017:
WASHINGTON — On the first Friday in May, Foreign Affairs Day, the staff gathers in the flag-bedecked C Street lobby of the State Department beside the memorial plaques for the 248 members of foreign affairs agencies who have lost their lives in the line of duty. A moment of silence is observed. As president of the American Foreign Service Association, Barbara Stephenson helps organize the annual event. This year, she was set to enter a delegates’ lounge to brief Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on its choreography before appearing alongside him. Instead, she told me, she was shoved out of the room.
Stephenson, a former ambassador to Panama, is not used to being manhandled at the State Department she has served with distinction for more than three decades. She had been inclined to give Tillerson the benefit of the doubt. Transitions between administrations are seldom smooth, and Tillerson is a Washington neophyte, unversed in diplomacy, an oilman trying to build a relationship with an erratic boss, President Trump.
Still, that shove captured the rudeness and remoteness that have undermined trust at Foggy Bottom. Stephenson began to understand the many distressed people coming to her “asking if their service is still valued.” The lack of communication between the secretary and the rest of the building has been deeply disturbing.
An exodus is underway. Those who have departed include Nancy McEldowney, the director of the Foreign Service Institute until she retired last month, who described to me “a toxic, troubled environment and organization”; Dana Shell Smith, the former ambassador to Qatar, who said what was most striking was the “complete and utter disdain for our expertise”; and Jake Walles, a former ambassador to Tunisia with some 35 years of experience. “There’s just a slow unraveling of the institution,” he told me….
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66 Comments
6 years ago
I’ve had to work with these people at universities. Reminded me of Louis XVII .
6 years ago
They define success as to how much aid they can get for their assigned countries, NOWHERE in the equation is the return on the investment we make figured into their calculations.
6 years ago
Good riddance swamp creatures, and don’t let the door hit ya’.
6 years ago
The Hill dog must have set a good example for the warmed-over Obama groupies still there.
6 years ago
Reply to
Ebayer
The swamp isn’t draining too quickly. The first thing Trump should’ve done from day one was to immediately terminate all holdovers from the Obama admin.
6 years ago
Reply to
caliroxanne
I’ve read that it doesn’t work like a regular job, apparently a lot of these positions are more protected contractually than a regular job, and the only way to get rid of them is to ‘discourage’ them (assign to Lower Slobovia, to use an Al Capp creation) somehow and get them to resign. It looks like marginalization is working, albeit not as quickly as some of us wish. I want it done six months ago too, but it looks like flushing them out is going to be a long haul struggle.
6 years ago
Reply to
famouswolf
Right, but Obama had a “pen and a phone” and used executive orders, regardless of legality, like any Third-World tyrant. Trump already has a popular, well-liked saying that he used frequently on his TV show and the campaign trail, and he should be using now, as well: “YOU’RE FIRED!”
6 years ago
Reply to
famouswolf
Seems to me I read somewhere that Odamit put these people in place just before he left to make it more difficult to get rid of them. I could be mistaken, but wouldn’t be surprised if he did.
6 years ago
Reply to
IzlamIsTyranny
Couple of drainage canals , a couple of tub mills to grind up anything bigger than a leech .
6 years ago
Goodbye fools.
6 years ago
GET OUT all of you SLIME.
6 years ago
Their “expertise” helped get us into this mess. Purge them ALL.
6 years ago
no room for science in the devil’s koran
6 years ago
Hasta la vista baby.
6 years ago
If they resign to they lose their lucrative lifetime medical and pension benefits? After all, can’t their muslum paymasters bankroll their retirement on their own?
6 years ago
Reply to
IzlamIsTyranny
Unfortunately , they get to keep the frills . In California a state senator was convicted of a felony , fled the country to avoid prison . He got to keep his retirement , don’t know about health , but probably did .
6 years ago
Reply to
aebe
And Governor Brown-stain called Caliphornia taxpayers “deadbeats”. Unreal. When I get out of this hellhole state I’m going to stop paying my state taxes.
6 years ago
Reply to
IzlamIsTyranny
Ca is still in my wallet – I’m in Oregon and have to pay tax to both states on my retirement income .
6 years ago
Reply to
aebe
That is the pits. I don’t like Oregon much more than Caliphornia, but at least your governor in Oregon doesn’t call you deadbeats while jacking up gasoline taxes.
6 years ago
Reply to
IzlamIsTyranny
She doesn’t care enough to properly insult anyone , and taxes are going up anyway .
6 years ago
Just a handful who are retiring, most will just hunker down and wait for another liberal administration. 755 will be coming back from Russia cluttering up offices and doing mischief. Our country would be better off exiling them to warehouses in Alaska with no phones or computers.
6 years ago
Reply to
cylde
Please, please don’t send them here. We love our Alaska. So, it seams, does the federal goberment since they own most of it. We don’t need to give goberment any more space.
6 years ago
THEIR EXPERTISE INCLUDES SUCKING UP TO EVERY DAMN DICTATOR AND ISLAMIC TERRORIST PUKE THEY CAN GET CASH FROM . THE WHOLE STATE DEPARTMENT HAS BEEN A HOT BED OF UN-AMERICAN ACTIVITIES SINCE 1932 WHEN IT WAS INFILTRATED BY THE SOVIETS . 80% OF THEIR EMPLOYEES SHOULD HAVE BEEN FIRED ALONG TIME AGO .
6 years ago
Considering these and many other state department employee’s expertise is promoting islam while making America look like amateurs in the world of international diplomacy. No champagne, jeroboam’s of camel piss are definitely more appropriate.
6 years ago
Reply to
Mahou Shoujo
The State dept. (spit) is stealing US tax dollars to fund the construction of mosques, which I believe violates the 1st amendment’s prohibition on establishment of a state religion. I think most US federal government agencies/departments should be disbanded entirely they can’t be trusted to uphold their oath to support the US Constitution.
6 years ago
People with “power” tend to do everything to keep that “power.” To me that is the essence of the problem. While I agree that poverty cannot be blamed for terror, as stated in this article, those who believe it are the ones in power. Whether Trump and his chosen leaders recognize that underlying problem remains to be seen. Certainly poverty may result in envy by the have not’s seeking to reach a higher status, and to try and do so by industrious and lawful/peaceful means should be their motivation; it does appear that it is not envy that motivates the terrorists, it is pure unadulterated hate. I can only hope that this country now understands those factors, and begins taking what steps are necessary to crush the psychic that motivates the crazy terrorists.
6 years ago
Reply to
Dennis
Yes. Your first sentence applies to the Moslems themselves as well as the blindered and/or greedy pols in the West. Essentially we are involved in a true existential struggle…if the Moslems don’t destroy the West through immigration and agitprop they will go away simply because the West offers a superior lifestyle. Think about it…the imams in Iran were seeing their women in skirts twenty years ago. Fast food places, the kids going to dances, and all of that. The power the imams and petty chiefs and dictators (the latter more the Sunni style) wielded was being eroded away by contact with the West. The two cultures cannot be reconciled and assimilated, one or the other will be eradicated . It’s us or them, and there is little room for any sort of reconciliation of the two. At the very least huge portions of the Koran and other writings of islam would have to be moderated and disregarded as ‘mythology’ or symbolism vs. literal interpretation, and the moslems don’t seem likely to go that route. Then there are the elements of islam that are downright damaging to the adherents, starting with the way they treat women and children ordinarily. Many of those are felony class crimes in the West, so they must replace our legal system with their sharia. These people with the power can’t control islam, but we can definitely beat it…if we wake up in time.
I wonder if DJT realizes fully what a joke the phrase ‘radical islam’ is too. I surely hope he does, because he probably represents our ‘last best hope’. He seems to like to appear affable and give foes enough rope to hang themselves and it could well be that is what he is doing. I’m pinning a lot of hope on him. I hope this country does as you say as well, because ‘crushing the psyche of the crazy *moslems*'(notice I replaced terrorist with moslem) is what we have to do, or they will crush ours.
6 years ago
Reply to
famouswolf
We are involved in the islamic world caliphate by immigration. The muslims did not have to fire a shot and are taken and cared for, even though they rob, rape and murder. They are treated as kings in Scandinavia, given money, luxury housing, etc. Plus, the norse women love that dark stuff.
If humans do not wake up, this planet will be a muslim crap hole.
6 years ago
Reply to
Craig
Heh, well, look on the bright side. Considering their nature and the many, many nukes that you essentially just have to push a button or two to launch, if the muzzies win out it will be an Extinction Level Event by muzzie. Not much of a bright spot, but there you are. At least the world will never, ever be a muzzie crap hole no matter what happens. Nuclear cinder, maybe.
6 years ago
Reply to
Craig
For pete’s sake, that is what their aim is…..take over of the world. The mullas(sp) admit this and encourage it.
6 years ago
Keep ’em movin,’ movin,’ though their disapproving,’
6 years ago
Reply to
lostlegends
I have that album with those cowboy songs. GREAT! Frankie Laine is one of a kind.
6 years ago
I hope this includes the sandies at Foggy Bottom who insist on putting only white people as pedophiles, on State Dept. literature, as if Mooslimes would never do such as thing.
6 years ago
Reply to
Craig
I have fostered 14 Mexican children (Salinas, CA being taken over years ago by illegals), ALL the girls (10) & half the boys (4) were raped (molested is too nice a word), many by their own family; sickening arseholes don’t deserve to live in the same world as any child!
6 years ago
Reply to
CentralCaliGal
Living in that town is what caused my DH and I to leave CA and never moved back. Now I won’t even go visit.
6 years ago
Oh, Man! “expertise” from lying anti-American democrat scum.
6 years ago
Their “expertise” begins with the belief that poverty causes terrorism. MAYBE that should be the first clue to these “experts” that they are not worth listening to if you have any kind of logic or intelligence. It is understandable therefore that they are upset because there are no leftists in power telling them they are brilliant. Just the opposite; we have POTUS letting them know they are IDIOTS!!
6 years ago
Weasels
Quitting now, before they are fired for cause.
Trying to keep their pensions and good names, before the SHTF.
Too bad, now the taxpayer has to support these people for years. In jail, they could at least make license plates, or something.
6 years ago
Yes, all the good training materials on Islam and jihad need to be put back in service. It was that fool Mueller, who has been idiotically praised as a paragon of integrity, who got this material removed on the demands of Islamic groups:
6 years ago
Good, time to clean UP our State Department after decades of “legal” Criminals in charge of our Foreign Policy and our MON$Y which has been wasted on it’s cronies and on kickbacks from Foreign Governments, primarily Third World Dictatorships!
6 years ago
Really a Shame that when we purchased Alaska from the Russians we didn’t purchase Siberia, would be a great place to banish Liberal Politicians and former Leftist Government Employees! (‘-))
6 years ago
EXPERTISE???
More like their TREASON. Save BILLIONS and kick their Demoncrap asses out of there Don’t forget to lower our taxes. Much of it is ILLEGAL, anyway.
6 years ago
Would that be the same expertise that gave us Benghazi ?
“Utter disdain” doesn’t even come close.
6 years ago
Aw , look at the wee poor trolls . The creatures sat on their thumbs while the passed presidunce and the clintoon made a mockery of American diplomacy ( And quite a bit of money ) . So they are suddenly upset because the President is not a professional weasel , or even a plain ‘ol politician . Oh , well .
Validate your 2nd Amendment Rights.. Carry
6 years ago
There is plenty of house cleaning for a new broom to do.
6 years ago
great news, they are leaving. Lets fill these jobs with real caring Americans who care for Americans first. Forget people who are not Americans. We conservatives do not have an obsession with Islam. In fact, we do not want Islam in our world. We understand Islam/Muslims are not going to assimilate and become Americans. Muslims hate Christians. They believe it is their duty to murder every Christian who refuses to submit to Allah. So, we conservatives say, leave those people in their own countries where they can be with other Muslims.
6 years ago
I was suspicious of Tillerson’s nomination from the moment I heard about him, suspicious that an oil man had edged out a tested, reality-aware pro like John Bolton for the nomination.
And suspicious any oil man might be too friendly to petrostate kings, emirs, and other one-man rule types, especially of the Muzz persuasion.
But if this is what is happening, maybe Tillerson is not as bad as I thought.
6 years ago
“complete and utter disdain for our expertise”…If their expertise is so great, why are we in the situation we are in?
6 years ago
Good riddance. Foggy Bottom is absolutely infested with Deep State liberals. It always has bee,
Drain the swamp.
6 years ago
Think we can get Rex Tillerson to run for President? If you’ve ever heard the man speak at a convention, or met him personally you should already know, this is the type of person who should be President. I wouldn’t care if he were instead a woman, black, pink, plaid or otherwise he’s the type of person who should be leading. The issue for most of us out here is that when there are true leaders out there, they can’t get past the destruction caused by the media picking their person and the never ending landslide of mud that is slung at candidates. You want to know what happens to the likes of Hillary and other political animals like her, they just get used to the slings and arrows and become so ego driven and arrogant that they never see what the rest of us see. It’s time to choose leaders by ability not camera ready looks, witty combacks or the ability to lie to our faces. The truth is tough but without it there is no goal toward working together or improving.
6 years ago
Good bye and good riddance. Overpaid and over “perked” and “holier than thou” assholes.
Get a real job..
6 years ago
If tillerson has a problem with this he can get the Foxtrot out.
6 years ago
All self-serving elected politicians who place their special interests above national security should be investigated and voted out of office. Obama, Hillary, John Kerry, McCain and several others have known that Muslim Brotherhood operatives are in America with plans to destroy our freedoms from within. Basically, refusal to identify the enemy is treasonous and in reckless disregard of the sworn duty to protect our nation against her enemies, foreign and domestic
The Muslim Brotherhood is a global Islamist organization founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna that seeks to establish Sharia governance (Islamic laws) in every nation.
CITIZENS’ PETITION TO 115th CONGRESS of The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Designate The Muslim Brotherhood A Foreign Terrorist Organization
Click the link, below, to access the On-Line Petition and Add Your Signature
This is an open participation for all concerned citizens throughout the United States to unite, regardless of partisan affiliation, and to urge Congress to approve S.68, H.R. 377: the Muslim Brotherhood Designation Act of 2017
6 years ago
Clarion: Tillerson Standing Between Muslim Brotherhood and Terror Designation
http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2017/07/28/clarion-tillerson-standing-muslim-brotherhood-terror-designation/
6 years ago
Make them account for all the money that went missing during Clinton’s stint before they leave. Funny how all the money has disappeared during Obama’s reign.
6 years ago
Champagne is in order FOR SURE !!!!
6 years ago
Would that be “expertise” or betrayal?
