State Department "Is No Place For Toadies Or Ideologues"

One of the more troubling aspects of the Trump Administration is the way it has damaged the State Department (which is the primary way we reach out to other countries). Here is what veteran journalist Dan Rather has to say on this subject:

One of the tragic ironies of our time is that in an age when we need a strong State Department, one that's well respected, well led, and filled with brilliant and committed public servants, we have instead seen chaos, rock-bottom morale, an epidemic of vacancies, and the dereliction of duty at the top. 

The brief and confused tenure of Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State may well go down as the most inauspicious and damaging terms of anyone to hold the office. It was a combination of his instincts and those of his boss, President Trump. But there are very worrisome signs surrounding his replacement. 

We should have learned during the George W. Bush era that foreign policy led by the Pentagon alone is a recipe for failure. It was a lesson that most of our presidents knew well, and led accordingly. The State Department has been one of the most cherished and respected arms of American strength on the world stage. It has not been perfect, but its track record over time has been pretty darn good. 

Today, the challenges are plentiful, serious, and complex. It isn't the binary world of the Cold War (although Russia is resurgent) or amorphous terrorism (although that remains a potent concern) or the rise of China (something Trump's policies are exacerbating) or our moral standing (something Trump's policies are shattering). It's also new challenges, first and foremost climate change which could wreak more havoc over time than any single item (or group of items) on the list above. And yet in the new Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, President Trump has picked a climate denier! That alone is a scandal. 

Let's be clear. American leadership and our standing on the world stage is not preordained. It is not bestowed by the Almighty. It is dependent on hard work and competence. It is done in meeting rooms, through non-governmental organizations, and the elusive art of statecraft. It is hard work just to keep the status quo, let alone to promote American interests. 

We deserve a State Department that is clear-eyed and responsive to the real world. It is no place for toadies or ideologues. This is a battle for America's soul, and her destiny. Every American, especially those in elected office, should demand better and hold the Trump Administration accountable.

State Department Report Actually Vindicates Hillary Clinton

The cable news channels had been making a big deal of the State Department report on Clinton's use of a private e-mail server while Secretary of State. They are acting like it should be a blow to her presidential campaign. That's nonsense.

Nothing new was revealed in the report, and Clinton didn't violate any regulation or law. The cable news networks are (as they usually do) trying to make a mountain out of a molehill.

Here's how Charles Tiefer at Forbes Magazine describes it (and Forbes certainly can't be labeled as liberal or pro-Clinton):

The report released Wednesday by the State Department Inspector General on its email records management is being reported as heavy-duty criticism of former Secretary Hillary Clinton. However, the report has more in it that vindicates Clinton than nails her.

It does not add any new serious charges or adverse facts. And, it shows she was less out of line with her predecessors, notably Colin Powell, than has been charged. Powell’s handling of his email was so similar, in fact, that when House Republicans drag this issue through hearings up to Election Day, Powell should be called as a witness – a witness for Clinton. To put it differently, she is having a double standard applied to her. Here are five key aspects of the report.

First, and foremost, it is simply not about classified email. It is about regular, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, unclassified email. Yet it is the classified email, not these messages, that are the focus of the FBI investigation of Clinton. In other words, the report does not, and cannot, talk about the most serious issues. It is about a sideshow. If you are serious about the email charges against Hillary, you should keep your powder dry until at least Clinton is interviewed by the FBI in a matter of weeks, and then until the result of that probe is released.

Moreover, it is no accident that this report does not deal with the most serious issues: The FBI expressly told the State Department IG to stay away from classified records. That would have involved the State Department IG interfering with and possibly foreshadowing the FBI criminal investigation. But, this meant the FBI left the State Department IG with a subject involving much less grounds for potential criticism of Clinton, as we see in this report.

Second, there is not that much new information about Clinton in it. Certainly, the widely-reported fact that it’s an 83-page report makes it sound like it is big. But half is appendices. Half of the rest is not about the Secretary’s emails, but about cybersecurity. Of the two-dozen pages that are even remotely about Secretaries’ emails, a lot is taken up by retracing the dreary history of records and archival policy. The remainder involves all the secretaries going back two decades – not just Clinton and Powell, who are alike, but also ones of no particular interest, like Madeleine Albright, Condoleeza Rice, and also John Kerry. There’s just not a lot of new facts about Clinton.

Look at the press coverage. You will not find mentions of major new facts in the IG report.

Third, where the report does add to our knowledge, is about Colin Powell, who served from 2001-2005. Powell did all his email business on a private account. All of his emails on official business were apparently in a private account. It is not clear why a great deal of what is said against Clinton’s emails, could not be said against Powell’s. Moreover, Powell’s similar practices can hardly be blamed on his being a novice about security. He not only had been Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he had been National Security Adviser. He had jurisdiction over all the intelligence agencies. Since Powell, with unimpeachable security credentials, felt fine using private email for official business, why are we climbing all over Clinton? It is, to be blunt, a double standard.

Fourth, the big criticism in the report is regarding the failure to print and file email in a retrievable way. But as the report shows, the Office of the Secretary of State has rarely succeeded in doing that. They either always have better things to do, or it is not a high enough priority, or there are technical difficulties, or turnover. Very likely a stingy Congress does not want to hire enough personnel to have crews doing that throughout the government. In any event, they rarely get that done. Since that is a general problem, why pin it particularly on Clinton?

Fifth, to the extent that she is criticized because “she did not comply with the Department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act,” the report is making a legal judgment that is not particularly strong. Note how she is not labeled as violating any statute, but rather, a real mouthful of mush – “the Department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act.” So we are talking about obscure, dull, bureaucratic policies. Not a criminal statute. Not even a civil statute – just the bureaucratic policies.

A report that says so little new against Clinton, amounts to a vindication.

A Veteran Speaks Out On Afghanistan

Matthew Hoh is neither a right-wing hawk or a left-wing peacenik, and he is certainly not a pundit speaking about the war from the safety of a Washington office. He is a former Marine captain who served two tours of duty in Iraq. After leaving the Marines, he signed on as a State Department Foreign Service officer.

But Mr. Hoh is not a fan of current United States policy in Afghanistan. On September 10th, he resigned his position in the Foreign Service as a protest to that policy, which he called a "cavalier, politically expedient and pollyannaish misadventure." Here are some of his feelings about his resignation and the war in Afghanistan:

"I've had a lot of Afghan-Americans contact me and say, 'Matt, you get it.' You understand -- yes, there is a civil war going on. You understand how Afghan society works. You understand this split within the Pashtuns. You understand valley-ism, or whatever you want to call it."

"I have received many many e-mails from active-duty military and some guys who just separated from the service. Some guys are here in the States. I've gotten many e-mails from guys in Afghanistan. Some are people I know. But a lot are people I do not know. Men and women who are saying, 'Thanks for doing this. Keep it up. We don't know why we're here. We're not sure why we're taking these casualties. We don't know what it's accomplishing.'"

"I fail to see the value or worth in continued U.S. casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war."

"I believe that the people we are fighting there are fighting us because we are occupying them. Not for any ideological reasons, not because of any links to al Queda, not because of any fundamental hatred towards the West. The only reason they're fighting us is because we're occupying them."

"In Iraq, even though it was stuck in the '80s, it had infrastructure, it had human capital. It had doctors and lawyers and educators. And they had an established system of government, they had an infrastructure we could build on. Afghanistan has none of that."

"I do not believe any military force has ever been tasked with such a complex, opaque and Sisyphean mission as the U.S. military has received in Afghanistan."

"Increasing troops is only going to fuel insurgency. We need to stop our combat operations in areas where we are fighting people only because they are fighting us. Otherwise, it's going to be 2013, we're going to look back four years and we're going to say, "What did we accomplish? What did we get? What was this worth? What did we get out of this?"

Obama's Passport Files Illegally Breached

Are the Republicans already starting their "dirty tricks"? It sure looks that way. The State Department's passport files are confidential, and are available only on a need-to-know basis. Every regular and contract employee of the department knows this. In fact, their computers tell them that every time they log on.

But that didn't stop three "contract" employees from illegally accessing the files of Barack Obama. The files were viewed by employyees who no legitimate reason to do so on January 9, February 21 and March 14. Two of the employees were terminated and a third has been disciplined.

It is not known why the files were accessed. The State Department said it was just "imprudent curiosity" and that there was "no political motivation". I'd like to believe that, but the past history of Republicans and the Bush administration make me believe that is unlikely.

It's also strange that it took the State Department over two months from the first breach to tell Mr. Obama about it. Why on earth did it take so long? Is this just sheer incompetence, or was someone trying to hide something?

Obama spokesman, Bill Burton, was properly outraged. He said, "This is an outrageous breach of security and privacy, even from an administration that has shown little regard for either over the last eight years. Our government's duty is to protect the private information of the American people, not use it for political purposes. This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach."

This smells like a Karl Rove-type dirty trick. It makes me wonder if it's even possible for Republicans to go through an election without doing something illegal.

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Meanwhile, it looks like Clinton is again on the low road. While she has made a great show of staying above the melee about Obama and his former minister, her staff have not.

Members of Clinton's staff have been telling the superdelegates that Obama's minister makes him unelectable. This whole thing of Clinton saying one thing while her staff does something else is getting a little tiresome.

When reporters asked her about it, she didn't even bother to deny it. She just shrugged and went on to the next question. A couple of years ago, I respected Senator Clinton. That's getting harder to do with each day that passes.