The following is from fellow State Department blogger The Skeptical Bureaucrat. I agree completely with his assessment: it is nice to have our experiences acknowledged.
Good Reminder
Yesterday, Fox News reported that approximately half of the houses used by the U.S. embassy staff in Haiti were destroyed in the earthquake. And tonight, I heard one of their TV anchors remark that our embassy staffers in Port-au-Prince are not only relief workers in this crisis but are also victims of it themselves, having lost friends and co-workers as well as their homes.
I thought that was a refreshing perspective. Our Foreign Service members are often criticized or derided in the wake of disasters such as the Haitian earthquake, but I hope that at least some of the American public will reflect on the fact that our embassy staffers fully share the personal crisis that the earthquake inflicted on Haitians.
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3 comments:
I saw that, too. And from Fox News! It almost makes up for the regular bashing the State Department usually endures at the hands of the Right.
But not quite.
Hope you don't mind, I posted a link to this (and to TSB's post, as well as a link to your post on Victoria in a post on my blog today. Thanks for sharing!
"but I hope that at least some of the American public will reflect on the fact that our embassy staffers fully share the personal crisis that the earthquake inflicted on Haitians"
Please. FSOs & CS don't "fully share" the plight of the Haitians. A bit arrogant and hyperbolic to suggest so, don't you think?
Last time I checked, our fellow State Department brothers and sisters had the Embassy and long arm of the USG to support them.
Besides, we both know that any FSO can leave at anytime. The fact that they don't is a testament to them. But don't try to equate what they're going through with the plight of the Haitian people.
To do so is unseemly.
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