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International-UN-NGOs
US moves diplomats out of Europe
2006-01-19
The US is to reduce the number of its diplomats posted to Europe, and will send more to other countries, including China, India, Nigeria and Lebanon.
"Mon dieu!"
"America must begin to reposition our diplomatic forces around the world," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday. She said it was an anomaly that the US had the same staff levels in Germany as in India, more than 10 times the size. She said the redeployment would help foster democratic and economic change. Ms Rice told students at Georgetown University that President George Bush's administration was committed to "transformational diplomacy". The philosophy was an attempt "to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world," she said.
Even the tyrannies with the really good restaurants, ready cash, and willing wimminz?
"Transformational diplomacy is rooted in partnership, not in paternalism," she said, adding that it was based on "doing things with people, not for them."
Talk about a disturbance in the Force...a million International Relations students just screamed out in pain...
Although the state department has 7,440 diplomats in foreign countries, there are nearly 200 world cities of more than a million people in which the United States has no formal diplomatic presence, she said. "This is where the action is today, and this is where we must be."
Here's a link to the full text of Condi's speech. Good stuff.
Posted by:lotp

#12  RD, mac, you are darlings. I'll stick to getting my caffein the old fashioned way, as you suggest - room temp Diet Coke straight out of the can. ;-)

JFM, I wept reading Misha I's love letter to America. I commented, too -- you may need to vouch for me over there (please lie as necessary to give me a good character... mercy buckets!)
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-01-19 21:32  

#11  Out of Africa Eurabia, a good thing I'd say.
Posted by: Besoeker   2006-01-19 20:22  

#10  Condi is just trying to reduce the State Department workforce. Transfers from Paris, Rome and Copenhagen to Thimbu, Bujumbura and Bishkek will generate some healthy turnover.
Posted by: DoDo   2006-01-19 20:01  

#9  It was funny to watch/hear the Spooks go nuts about leaving Europe for other areas of the world. Funny because given the HUGE effort they had in Europe not one of them predicted or knew about the Soviet collapse. Most of the old gang probably blames Reagan/Bush for the Soviet collapse and their clueless ness. Personally I think they became so complacent that they had a working relationship rather than an adversarial one (which was their job). Heck most of them made careers writing political and military estimates on Soviet union rather than engaging in espionage against them. I still remember sitting in Hawaii reading a classified report about Gorbachavs “Great moderation” of the Soviet bloc into a modern economic and military power that would “compete with the west well into the next century.” Too bad we can’t get stuff like that declassified, because I bet that most of those soothsayers are the naysayers of today.
Posted by: Cyber Sarge   2006-01-19 10:47  

#8  Perhaps I should not have been so emphatic JFM. While diplomaticly and militarily Europe as a whole is yesterdays news, it does not mean that the U.S. is going to retreat into Fortress America.

Quite the contrary. We are going to be even bigger pests in the future than we are now. I was commenting on the fact that we have limited resources (manpower, money). So we will focus our efforts on the immediate problems that are trying to kill us.

Remeber, unlike the servants of the ruinous powers...er, fanatical Muslims, the various European states don't see the US as a existential threat. Just a major power to be managed. This relationship can be managed with fewer diplomats.

(Yes, I've been playing Warhammer 40k. Why do you ask?)
Posted by: N guard   2006-01-19 10:24  

#7  Not to worry, TW. We love you anyway, even if you do sometimes post when you're not quite awake. Would that was the worst commentary we'd see here on the 'Burg!
Posted by: mac   2006-01-19 09:57  

#6  Maybe I should just start mainlining caffein as soon as I awaken.

You might want to reconsider that plan TW, as IV-coffee is a bad trip and way habit forming. Nine out of ten Drs. say you'll be driven on to the shoals of bacon and eggs no time.

Posted by: RD   2006-01-19 09:37  

#5  Europe has become a backwater. The end of the cold war was the end of the last reason to pay much attention to the place. The Euros are contracting, not expanding. They are not a military threat

It could be that Europe is not a military threat but it has some technology who could be put into bad guy hands. Chirak (may a million pigeons shit on him) is trying hard to provide Rafales (equal if not superior to the F15 or F16 between other things because it is 15 years newer) to the Chinese and while the Raptor is superior (between other things because it is 10 or 15 years newer) fighting a Rafale-equipped Chinese air force on Rafales will be _much_ harder than a Chinese air force flying the crap they are presently flying.

Isolationism is not a solution: while you don'ty pay attention the bad guys are forming a coalition that even America cannot defeat. The bastards like Chirac (may he die smothered by teh sit of amillion pigeons) are dreaming of an alliance withn China and Russia against you just like Hitler did with Japan and planned to create trouble in South-America. The solution is not isloationism but to do an ideological D-Day: land on the hearts and minds of Europeans and drive out the bad guys. The same that America slept while Bin Laden prepared 9/11, the same America has slept while both the leftists and teh Euro-supremacists (those who dream with Europe ruling the world) have been hard at work poisoning minds both in REurope but also in South-America.

But for that it is crucial that you first drive out of business the two bit "intellectuals" a la Chomski, Ward Churchill or Genocide Fonda who make big $$$ on denigrating America.

BTW: When I told America had to fight the ideological battle in Europe I was not telling you should reach for them and try to be like them otr other non-sense. More on the opposite: you should show them how the European way is in fact a scam aimed at keeping a self-appointed elite in power while the serfs strive to feed it and democracy is voided by pseudo-democratioc electoral systems.

Read this (magnificent) text about the conversion of a European into an American

http://no-pasaran.blogspot.com/2006/01/since-day-1-in-land-of-wild-west.html
Posted by: JFM   2006-01-19 09:15  

#4  Maybe I should just start mainlining caffein as soon as I awaken.
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-01-19 08:40  

#3  Can you imagine the leaks that will be flooding out of State?0

Let's watch that closely, as I'm sure their boss will be doing. I wonder how many leakers will still be employed, afterward?
Posted by: trailing wife   2006-01-19 07:38  

#2  howls of pain from Langley

Yeah, and then the spooks tripped over each other to be the first to the phone booth to leak to the NY Times.

Can you imagine the leaks that will be flooding out of State?
Posted by: Seafarious   2006-01-19 00:41  

#1  IIRC, the CIA went thru this a few years back. The howls of pain from Langley over the lost cushy postings reasons for being there were exquisite. It will be even worse with the Diplos from Foggy bottom. But it was/is necessary and past due.

Europe has become a backwater. The end of the cold war was the end of the last reason to pay much attention to the place. The Euros are contracting, not expanding. They are not a military threat. Most of "old Europe" has the smell of death on it. The trade issues will essentialy take care of themselves. We have higher priorities, like survival.

It may become an area of major interest in the future when the AlQ wannabees in the housing projects take over, and the various states like france becomes al-Franjistan for instance. But it won't be nearly as pleasant duty station then.
Posted by: N guard   2006-01-19 00:34  

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