More on the Overseas Pay Gap

I have to say, I really like blogs that make me snicker, and The Skeptical Bureaucrat and Consul-At-Arms are often good for that. So I thought I would share some of their take on the Overseas Pay Gap and Sen. Coburn's mistaken views on the issue.

TSB wrote Sunday about posts "Where The Pants Are Not Striped, and Cookies Are Not Pushed", one of which he recently visited for a very brief TDY. He gives you a hint or five about where that was: a volatile country...one of our most hazardous diplomatic posts. If you've been following the news, you can probably guess which diplomatic post that was from the following clues. All these incidents occurred there in the last week: a USAID contractor was ambushed and killed, an Iranian diplomat was abducted when departing his home for the office, two foreign journalists were shot, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the gates of a sports stadium, and, in a region outside the city, a missile strike of unattributed origin killed five al Qaeda figures, one of whom was reportedly a suspect in a 2006 plot to bomb ten airliners heading to the U.S. from Britain. In addition to all that, a few months ago the principal U.S. diplomat there was ambushed while en route to the office but escaped unharmed. A few weeks after that incident, the principal officer of another, non-U.S., diplomatic mission was successfully abducted in a similar attack.

Why was my pencil-pushing self in such a crazy place so far from my cubicle? Because Danger is my middle name, that's why. (Actually, Risk Analysis is my middle name, but there is no way to make that sound dashing; in fact, it should be the opposite of dashing).

More to the point, why are any of my fellow citizens there?

CAA points out that TSB's fellow citizens are there "doing the jobs that our fellow Americans send us overseas to do, per the wishes and stated desires of our elected representatives and chief executive>"

Senator Coburn's communications director John Hart, in opposing the Overseas Compatability Pay Act (which would mean that folks serving overseas would not lose the DC locality portion of their pay...Senior Foreign Service and other agencies serving overseas already get to keep their locality pay, so it is only lower- and mid-level State folks who lose it), commented, as I noted in an earlier post, that "Congress should be focused on improving conditions of workers who have lost their jobs or may lose their jobs and not on handing out huge raises to foreign service officers who already receive very generous benefits overseas." But as TSB suspects that Hart and Coburn get their image of Foreign Service life from tv and the movies, and CAA adds that we, as Foreign Service Officers, have not helped the matter. CAA writes: "Sen. Coburn's out-of-touch communications director might not be basing his under-factual statement solely on the basis of late-night movie fare. He may have actually traveled abroad on a STAFDEL or CODEL ("congressional staff delegation" or "congressional delegation," respectively). In which case some of the fault for his unrealistic impression of Foreign Service life may actual be our own fault.

When congressmen or their staff members travel overseas, describing that experience as being "inside a bubble" does not do it justice. They are met, escorted, control-officered, protected, briefed, introduced, coddled, dined-out, and expense-accounted to a fair-thee-well all the way to "wheels-up." And all by FSOs. We so want to make a good impression on our congressional visitors, after all our Department is the one without much of a natural "consituency" back home, but we do ourselves something of a disservice when we make it look too easy to our visiting fireman."

TSB says that he "like to see someone correct the American public's perception of embassy life. Some sort of Foreign Service Truth Squad that could fill in the picture of what life is like in all those places where our diplomats work out of ratty hovels rather than palatial surroundings. He rightly refers to some of the places we serve as "hell holes." Yes, we usually get housed in some of the best housing available at post, but if the best housing is a hovel (or in Iraq, a shipping container), guess what you get housed in. I had a marine tell me of his serve at one Embassy where he literally fell through the floor of the decrepit building. Guess what post housing there looks like? My housing at my last post was decent (though I did regularly get trapped in my elevator, once for more than 30 minutes while it repeatedly went up and down from the basement to the seventh floor), but our consulate (which we had rented more than 50 years ago) was a health and security hazard. And my partner returned from her last post with pollution-induced asthma.

Most of the places we serve are far from the western European posts where Senators like to visit. TSB notes: "Having seen the U.S. embassy offices and houses in Bangui, [Central African Republic] and experienced the difficulties and uncertainties of simply getting there and back, I can assure my fellow Americans that Senator Coburn's lowliest intern wouldn't want to trade life styles with the most senior diplomat there, even with the housing allowance. Much less would he want to trade places with the diplomats in the hot-spot that I was happy to drive away from at high speed last week."

Amen.

Or as CAA says: "As for the lowly interns.... I've met just one or two of those over the years who seem to still be nursing a grudge that they didn't pass the FS exam.

I'm just saying....."

Me too.

Addressing the Overseas Pay Gap

This was in today's Washington Post:

Diplomatically Trying to Close Overseas Pay Gap

By Joe Davidson

Michael Keller has worked on five continents during his 15 years in the foreign service. He's been in Germany, where the standard of living is pretty good, and the Central African Republic and Cambodia, where he could only hope that his three children suffered nothing more than bumps and bruises because of poor medical care.

He likes his work, but he's always confronted with a big source of frustration -- the overseas pay gap.

When State Department diplomats are posted abroad, they lose locality pay. That's the amount added to a federal worker's salary based on where they work.

Since 1994, when locality pay started, the increase for federal employees in the D.C. area has amounted to almost 21 percent. Moving overseas from the State Department's Foggy Bottom headquarters and other area installations means workers lose that differential.

[...]

There is support, on Capitol Hill and in the administration, for legislation that would close the gap. Committees in the House and Senate have approved such measures.

[...]

But that support has not moved Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican physician also known as "Dr. No." He's earned that nickname because he relentlessly uses a Senate procedure to hold up bills that require additional federal spending unless the legislation provides money to pay for its project.

"Congress should be focused on improving conditions of workers who have lost their jobs or may lose their jobs and not on handing out huge raises to foreign service officers who already receive very generous benefits overseas," said John Hart, Coburn's communications director.

That kind of talk could make a diplomat get very undiplomatic. But John Naland, president of the American Foreign Service Association, knows how to keep his cool (which should come in handy when he's transferred to Iraq next year).

Closing the gap is not a pay raise, he said calmly. "It's fixing an unintended inequality."

Naland doesn't quarrel with Coburn's right to oppose legislation closing the gap, "but his hold is preventing his 99 colleagues from voting," Naland said. "That's just the way the Senate works nowadays."

He does quarrel, however, with Coburn's notion that foreign service officers are seeking huge raises on top of other big benefits. It's true that diplomats get a housing allowance and, in some cases, dangerous duty or hardship duty pay. But that doesn't negate the need to close the gap, especially for lower-level diplomats.

Senior foreign service officers get those same benefits, but their pay is not reduced by the locality amount when they go abroad. That cut applies only to the junior and mid-level diplomats.

Furthermore, Naland said, the "allowances were never meant to obviate the need for the basic locality pay adjustment that all other federal employees get."

That's what upsets foreign service officers -- working cheek by jowl with colleagues from the CIA, who might pretend to be foreign service officers, and other agencies whose pay is not cut when they leave the D.C. area.

"It becomes an equity issue," Keller said.

And foreign service officers don't have the option of staying in D.C. They spend most of their careers outside the country.

The issue is compounded when a diplomat takes his family abroad because the family often loses the spouse's income, too. Sonja Keller had a growing career as a journalist and public relations officer when Michael was sent to the Central African Republic.

"The financial impact was significant," she said. Her income was greater than his, but the family had to give that up. "Once I left my job, my career basically stopped," she said.

She worked in embassies where her husband was posted, but it was "generally nominal stuff," she said.

That's not the kind of information that would attract potential foreign service officers, even if they were driven by public service more than big bucks. It also makes folks like Keller wonder if they should stay in the foreign service, when their retirement funds are being shortchanged by the current pay system."

Diplopundit covers this issue very well here. She says "I know what she [Sonja Keller] means; and that's a pretty familiar spouse story. For FS spouses, the "good" jobs are paid normally about $12-13/hour; about how much you get paid as a nanny in London. I knew somebody who was paid $2o/hour once and her boss thought that was way too much money. At one post, another FS spouse, the commissary manager who took care of our tiny store had an advanced degree in dance therapy. I'm quite sure she was not an exception. There really are "good jobs" out there, as long as you don't complain that you, too, have brains. I knew somebody who left a 100K job in DC and eventually took a 36K job in some blissful country - with free housing, of course (some expensive free housing, huh?).

There are way too many somebodies with the same story ... And onebody says its greedy for folks to asked for the closure of this pay gap? Go tickle yourself silly!

The situation is even more dire for those with same-sex members of household. MOHs are not allowed to compete for even the nominal jobs available to spouses unless there is no qualified Eligible Family Member (EFM). Even then, some posts will not consider an MOH at all, or if they do, will hire them at the salary of a local hire, which is generally substantially less than what they pay EFMs. So while yes, we do sometimes get danger or hardship pay and we do get a housing allowance, our partners can usually not work at all (and this is in addition to having to pay to fly to and from the country, an expense opposite sex spouses do not have to deal with). Even if our partners stay home (which the Department admits diminishes productivity), they do not receive the Separate Maintenance Allowance that opposite sex partners receive. So when we go overseas to serve, our income is cut, our partner's income is lost, and we may still have expenses here in the states (for example, if you have a mortgage and the amount you can rent it for is less than your monthly payment).

Naland is right. This is not a huge pay raise. It is the right thing to do to help people continue to serve the country.

Obama names Ambassador Guest to transition team

This from today's Washington Blade.

Obama names 7 gays to transition team
Gay groups considering Inaugural events
By LOU CHIBBARO JR, Washington Blade

Officials with President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team this week named at least seven openly gay people to transition panels assigned to review federal departments and agencies.

Three of the seven gays named to the transition panels — businessman Fred P. Hochberg, former San Francisco Supervisor Roberta Achtenberg, and labor attorney Elaine Kaplan — held high-level positions in the Clinton administration.

The Obama officials also named President Bush’s former ambassador to Romania, Michael Guest, to a transition panel assigned to review issues pertaining to the State Department. Guest became the nation’s second openly gay ambassador when Bush appointed him to the Romania post for a term lasting from 2001 to 2003.

Several national gay rights advocacy groups, meanwhile, were said to be considering whether to hold one or more gay-related events during the week of Obama’s Inauguration on Jan. 20.

During President Clinton’s inaugural festivities in 1993 and 1997, gay groups, including the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force and the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund — held as many as a dozen events, including a gay inaugural ball.

Gay choruses and gay marching bands also participated in some of Clinton’s official inaugural ceremonies. In 1993 and 1997, AIDS activists, at Clinton’s invitation, marched in the official Inaugural Parade while carrying cloth panels from the National AIDS Quilt.

Officials with HRC, the Task Force and the Victory Fund said they were deliberating over whether to sponsor gay-related events for the Obama inauguration, and HRC was expected to announce plans soon for another gay inaugural ball. But no plans had been announced by mid-week.

The seven known gays appointed to the Obama transition review teams are among more than 300 people appointed to transition review panels this week.

“The Agency Review Teams for the Obama-Biden Transition will complete a thorough review of key departments, agencies and commissions of the United States government as well as the White House,” a statement posted Monday on the transition team web site states.

The teams will “provide the president-elect, the vice president-elect, and key advisors with information needed to make strategic policy, budgetary, and personnel decisions prior to the inauguration,” the statement says.

Presidents traditionally appoint members of their transition teams to middle and high-level posts in their administrations. Officials working in presidential election campaigns also have been named to government agency jobs and White House positions under past presidents.

A number of gay rights advocates worked in paid positions on the Obama campaign, including gay Democratic activists Brian Bond and Dave Noble. They could not be immediately reached for comment.

Last week, reports surfaced that Obama was considering appointing his highest-ranking gay campaign official, deputy campaign manager Steve Hildebrand, as successor to Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean. Dean announced last week that he would not seek another term as chair.

Obama transition spokesperson Stephanie Cutter has said neither Obama nor the transition team would comment on any potential appointees to government or party positions until such appointments are officially announced over the next several weeks.

However, several news media outlets said reliable sources from the Obama camp disclosed that former presidential contender and Obama rival Sen. Hillary Clinton was on Obama’s short list to become secretary of state. According to media reports, Eric Holder, a former D.C. prosecutor who served as deputy U.S. attorney general under the Clinton administration short list to become attorney general.

Both Clinton and Holder have strong records of support on gay rights. While serving as United States Attorney for the District of Columbia in the 1990s, Holder met with gay activists over the issue of anti-gay hate crimes and created a unit in the U.S. attorney’s office that specialized in prosecuting hate crimes.

Hochberg, a longtime gay Democratic Party activist from New York, served from 1998 through 2001 as President Clinton’s deputy and later acting administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Achtenberg served as Clinton’s Assistant Secretary of Housing and Equal Opportunity at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. She later served as senior adviser to then HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros during Clinton’s second term in office.

Kaplan served in the Clinton administration as head of the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, which is charged, among other things, with enforcing federal personnel policies and laws that prohibit discrimination against federal workers. Kaplan put in place policies that protected federal employees from discrimination based on sexual orientation. Those policies were later reversed by Kaplan’s replacement at the Office of Special Counsel, Scott Bloch, a Bush appointee.

Bloch recently resigned at the request of the White House following allegations that he politicized the office’s hiring and enforcement policies.

Guest had served for nearly 20 years as a career U.S. Foreign Service officer at the time Bush named him ambassador to Romania in 2001. After completing his term as ambassador in 2003, he became dean of the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, which trains Foreign Service officers.

Guest created a stir in 2007 when he announced he was retiring from government service, in part, to protest a State Department policy that denies spousal benefits, including security protections, to same-sex partners of Foreign Service officers stationed at overseas posts. He said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had authority to provide some of the partner benefits but she declined to do so.

Earlier this year, Guest said he was supporting Obama’s presidential bid.

The other openly gay members named to the transition review teams, in addition to Hochberg, Achtenberg, and Guest, include Rick Stamberger, president and CEO of SmartBrief, Inc., an online news publisher; Brad Kiley, an official with the Washington-based Center for American Progress think tank; and Thomas Soto, co-founder of Craton Equity Partners, a large “clean technology” investment fund based in Southern California.

Stamberger is serving on a transition panel reviewing the White House Fellows program. Kiley and Soto are serving on panels reviewing the Executive Office of the President, with Soto focusing on the workings of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

For the First Time, in a Long Time, Hope

This comes from President-Elect Obama's Transition website.

Support for the LGBT Community

"While we have come a long way since the Stonewall riots in 1969, we still have a lot of work to do. Too often, the issue of LGBT rights is exploited by those seeking to divide us. But at its core, this issue is about who we are as Americans. It's about whether this nation is going to live up to its founding promise of equality by treating all its citizens with dignity and respect."
-- Barack Obama, June 1, 2007

The Obama-Biden Plan

[...]

Fight Workplace Discrimination: Barack Obama supports the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, and believes that our anti-discrimination employment laws should be expanded to include sexual orientation and gender identity. While an increasing number of employers have extended benefits to their employees' domestic partners, discrimination based on sexual orientation in the workplace occurs with no federal legal remedy. Obama also sponsored legislation in the Illinois State Senate that would ban employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples: Barack Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.

Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: Barack Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.

Repeal Don't Ask-Don't Tell: Barack Obama agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. Obama will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.

[...]

You can read more here.

USAID Contractor Killed In Pakistan

From USAID:

From USAID Administrator, Henrietta H. Fore
On USAID Contractor Killed In Pakistan

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) was saddened to learn that two members of our valued professional team were shot and killed Wednesday in the Peshawar province of Pakistan. Stephen D. Vance, a USAID contractor with CHF International and his driver were serving the common interests of the U.S. and Pakistan in bringing peace and stability to a country that has long been wracked by violence and conflict.

Stephen was deeply committed to his work on a USAID-funded job creation and workforce development project in Pakistan's FATA region, and he was highly respected by his colleagues in Pakistan and throughout his organization. He had fully immersed himself in the community in which he worked. We extend our most heartfelt condolences to the families and friends of these fallen colleagues.

American men and women and foreign nationals alike put their lives on the line every day in an effort to further the humanitarian and development programs throughout the world and they deserve our deepest gratitude. It is this dedication and compassion that keeps us all dutifully committed to our work.

The Next SecState

There has been a lot of speculation floating around about who will be the next Secretary of State. I have heard (only from the media) Gov. Bill Richardson and Sen. John Kerry floated around. Diplopundit has done a bit of speculating here and here. Here is the latest, this from CNN.


Hillary Clinton's name mentioned as possible Secretary of State
From CNN's Jessica Yellin and Gloria Borger

(CNN) — Two sources close to the Obama transition team tell CNN that Senator Hillary Clinton’s name has been mentioned as a possible candidate for Secretary of State.

One source close to Hillary Clinton tells CNN that as of early yesterday, Senator Clinton had not been contacted by the transition team about a possible cabinet appointment. This same source tells CNN that Senator Clinton would not necessarily dismiss such an offer.

A spokesman for Hillary Clinton, Philippe Reines, tells CNN “Any speculation about cabinet or other administration appointments is really for President-Elect Obama's transition team to address.”

On Monday night, while walking into an awards ceremony in New York, Senator Clinton was asked if she would consider taking a post in the Obama administration. She replied, "I am happy being a Senator from New York, I love this state and this city. I am looking at the long list of things I have to catch up on and do. But I want to be a good partner and I want to do everything I can to make sure his agenda is going to be successful."

On Prop 8

Thank you, Mr.Olbermann

Here is the text of his Special Comment:

"Finally tonight as promised, a Special Comment on the passage, last week, of Proposition Eight in California, which rescinded the right of same-sex couples to marry, and tilted the balance on this issue, from coast to coast.

Some parameters, as preface. This isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics, and this isn't really just about Prop-8. And I don't have a personal investment in this: I'm not gay, I had to strain to think of one member of even my very extended family who is, I have no personal stories of close friends or colleagues fighting the prejudice that still pervades their lives.

And yet to me this vote is horrible. Horrible. Because this isn't about yelling, and this isn't about politics.

This is about the... human heart, and if that sounds corny, so be it.

If you voted for this Proposition or support those who did or the sentiment they expressed, I have some questions, because, truly, I do not... understand. Why does this matter to you? What is it to you? In a time of impermanence and fly-by-night relationships, these people over here want the same chance at permanence and happiness that is your option. They don't want to deny you yours. They don't want to take anything away from you. They want what you want -- a chance to be a little less alone in the world.

Only now you are saying to them -- no. You can't have it on these terms. Maybe something similar. If they behave. If they don't cause too much trouble. You'll even give them all the same legal rights -- even as you're taking away the legal right, which they already had. A world around them, still anchored in love and marriage, and you are saying, no, you can't marry. What if somebody passed a law that said you couldn't marry?

I keep hearing this term "re-defining" marriage.

If this country hadn't re-defined marriage, black people still couldn't marry white people. Sixteen states had laws on the books which made that illegal... in 1967. 1967.

The parents of the President-Elect of the United States couldn't have married in nearly one third of the states of the country their son grew up to lead. But it's worse than that. If this country had not "re-defined" marriage, some black people still couldn't marry...black people. It is one of the most overlooked and cruelest parts of our sad story of slavery. Marriages were not legally recognized, if the people were slaves. Since slaves were property, they could not legally be husband and wife, or mother and child. Their marriage vows were different: not "Until Death, Do You Part," but "Until Death or Distance, Do You Part." Marriages among slaves were not legally recognized.

You know, just like marriages today in California are not legally recognized, if the people are... gay.

And uncountable in our history are the number of men and women, forced by society into marrying the opposite sex, in sham marriages, or marriages of convenience, or just marriages of not knowing -- centuries of men and women who have lived their lives in shame and unhappiness, and who have, through a lie to themselves or others, broken countless other lives, of spouses and children... All because we said a man couldn't marry another man, or a woman couldn't marry another woman. The sanctity of marriage. How many marriages like that have there been and how on earth do they increase the "sanctity" of marriage rather than render the term, meaningless?

What is this, to you? Nobody is asking you to embrace their expression of love. But don't you, as human beings, have to embrace... that love? The world is barren enough.

It is stacked against love, and against hope, and against those very few and precious emotions that enable us to go forward. Your marriage only stands a 50-50 chance of lasting, no matter how much you feel and how hard you work.

And here are people overjoyed at the prospect of just that chance, and that work, just for the hope of having that feeling. With so much hate in the world, with so much meaningless division, and people pitted against people for no good reason, this is what your religion tells you to do? With your experience of life and this world and all its sadnesses, this is what your conscience tells you to do?

With your knowledge that life, with endless vigor, seems to tilt the playing field on which we all live, in favor of unhappiness and hate... this is what your heart tells you to do? You want to sanctify marriage? You want to honor your God and the universal love you believe he represents? Then Spread happiness -- this tiny, symbolic, semantical grain of happiness -- share it with all those who seek it. Quote me anything from your religious leader or book of choice telling you to stand against this. And then tell me how you can believe both that statement and another statement, another one which reads only "do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

---

You are asked now, by your country, and perhaps by your creator, to stand on one side or another. You are asked now to stand, not on a question of politics, not on a question of religion, not on a question of gay or straight. You are asked now to stand, on a question of...love. All you need do is stand, and let the tiny ember of love meet its own fate. You don't have to help it, you don't have it applaud it, you don't have to fight for it. Just don't put it out. Just don't extinguish it. Because while it may at first look like that love is between two people you don't know and you don't understand and maybe you don't even want to know...It is, in fact, the ember of your love, for your fellow **person...

Just because this is the only world we have. And the other guy counts, too.

This is the second time in ten days I find myself concluding by turning to, of all things, the closing plea for mercy by Clarence Darrow in a murder trial.

But what he said, fits what is really at the heart of this:

"I was reading last night of the aspiration of the old Persian poet, Omar-Khayyam," he told the judge.

"It appealed to me as the highest that I can vision. I wish it was in my heart, and I wish it was in the hearts of all:

"So I be written in the Book of Love;

"I do not care about that Book above.

"Erase my name, or write it as you will,

"So I be written in the Book of Love."

---

Good night, and good luck."

VOTE!

I know it is a cliche', but I am going to say anyway what you already know. Vote. It is important.

Lots of folks have died to give you the right to vote. Lots more have died in other countries for want of what you have, the right to have your say. Vote for them. People you have known and loved in your lifetime were excluded from the right to vote because they weren't white or weren't male. Vote for them.

People, including the military and the foreign service, are STILL serving, STILL sacrificing, STILL dying, for your right to vote. Twenty-nine years ago today, on November 4, 1979, a group of Iranian students took over our embassy in Tehran and held 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days. Those diplomats were serving for you, serving you and your right to vote. (You can read more about that and see the names of the hostages on Diplopundit.) Vote for them too.

Even if the person you support doesn't win, honor the fact that you get to have a say because so many have fought for it before you. Please don't throw that away.

Diplopundit on Reforming the State Department: A Look Back

Diplopundit has a good piece today on reforming the State Department.

Reforming the State Department: A Look Back

Eight years ago as the new Bush administration came into office, an independent Task Force cosponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations and the Center for Strategic and International Studies came out with a report on State Department Reform. The bipartisan group was led by Frank C. Carlucci, who was a former Foreign Service Officer, U.S. Secretary of Defense (1987-1989) and National Security Advisor (1987).

It is striking that some of the key issues addressed in this report have not really gone away. If I did not know that this was written in 2001, I’d think that this was written for the new president who will come into office in 75 days.

In its Memo to the President, the Task Force listed six problematic areas at the State Department - from long-term mismanagement to antiquated equipment, and dilapidated and insecure facilities. (Note: Thanks to Secretary Powell, State has gotten out of the Wang wilderness. On facilities, from 1999 to the end of calendar year 2005, State completed construction of 18 embassies and consulates at a cost of approximately $1.3 billion). But in 2008, one cannot help but marvel at this prescient perspective:

“These deficits are not only a disservice to the high-caliber men and women of the Foreign Service and the Civil Service who serve their country under the Department of State. They also handicap the ability of the United States to shape and respond to the opportunities and growing challenges of the 21st century. If this deterioration continues, our ability to use statecraft to avoid, manage, and resolve crises and to deter aggression will decline, increasing the likelihood that America will have to use military force to protect our interests abroad. In short, renewal of America’s foreign policy making and implementing machinery is an urgent national security priority.”

[...]

“Finally, not only has America’s foreign policy agenda become heavier, more interdisciplinary, and more complex, but it has to be exercised in an environment of growing threats. As societies abroad continue to experience radical social and economic change, they will become more unstable and at times less hospitable to Americans. And the danger posed by international terrorism is increasing. The last decade’s bombings against U.S. military and diplomatic facilities demonstrate that terrorist networks will become more global in reach, will wield greater destructive capacities, and will be more difficult to track and counter.”

“The Department of State’s human resource practices and administrative policies are dysfunctional.The department’s “up-and-out” promotion system is having the unintended effect of forcing qualified personnel out of the service. Its antiquated recruitment process is unable to meet the department’s workforce needs in both number and skills. The department’s lack of professional training opportunities for its personnel, its inattention to the family needs of its overseas personnel, and its inflexible grievance system have become major incentives for employees to seek work elsewhere.”

[...]

We need our smartest and our brightest to come forward now (not later, after retirement) and say here are the things that needs fixing and here’s how we’re going to fix them; here’s why we need your help and here’s what you will get in return, and here are the consequences for our inaction. But this is Colonel Boyd’s to be or to do moment, the proverbial fork on the road. So...who will come forward? Anybody there?

The sad part is, I can very well imagine us in 2020, looking back at this point and adding a few more dozen reports to the bibliography of reforming the State Department.

Among those major incentives to work elsewhere, I would argue, is the Department's continued treatment of its gay and lesbian employees as second class citizens. In a time when the Department is desperately understaffed and extending the time folks can stay on the register in order to fill all the slots they have for incoming Foreign Service Officers, current FSOs continue to have to choose between family and career. Many of the changes necessary to make the Department more friendly to gay and lesbian families are purely regulatory, and yet the Department continues to drag its feet and offer crumbs. Yes, it is nice that the partners of GLBT employees can now sit in the empty seats in the Security Overseas Seminar and it is great that they can take the short course in language. But when will the Department offer more assistance with visa, both overseas and here, so families can stay together? When will they offer equal employment opportunities to the spouses of GLBT employees so that their families can make ends meet?

From guest blogger Kelly Kilpatrick: 5 Foreign Policy Blogs Worth Looking Into

The following was written by Kelly Kilpatrick, who asked if she could do a guest entry on LAJ. I hope you find it useful.

5 Foreign Policy Blogs Worth Looking Into

Although we may not always agree with what others are saying, it is a fundamental right of free speech to be able to speak one’s mind. In order to prepare for what’s to come, one must know what others are thinking and why they think that way. Foreign policy can be a divisive issue, as can domestic policy; blogging gives people the opportunity to express their views and initiate a dialogue about the current state of the world. Here is a short list of blogs that discuss foreign policy and a brief description of each one.

Foreign Policy Passport: This blog comes straight to you from the editors of Foreign Policy Magazine. Browse through the blog for opinions on the latest foreign policy issues and different views on stories from the magazine. There are many interesting snippets related to what’s going on around the world in the way of other countries’ own attempts at improvement as well as pieces related to the US and its role in the world.

Foreign Policy in Focus: The purpose of this think tank’s website is to help initiate a dialogue related to US foreign policy. From articles related to how our domestic policy affects the way we create foreign policy, to news on the presidential candidates and their running mates’ experience and plans for the future, Foreign Policy in Focus certainly does focus in on specific foreign policy issues.

Foreign Policy Watch: Political analysis and diplomacy are the primary topics discussed on this foreign policy blog. Take a look through recent articles and posts, or search through their archives for past analysis and see what the bloggers at Foreign Policy Watch have to say about the issues you’re concerned about.

American Footprints: For cutting-edge commentary on issues around the world, look no further than American Footprints. Regularly updated, this blog tries to get at the heart of the matter when it comes to foreign policy, whether it’s something we want to hear or not. Of course, these are just opinions, but sites like this one allow us to read and understand what others are thinking, ultimately leaving it up to us to decide how we feel about the issues.

Young Professionals in Foreign Policy Blog: There are a wide variety of different people that contribute to the content of this blog. Linked to its sister website, which posts articles on foreign policy and affairs, the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy Blog has government employees, think tank members, and others in the field of foreign policy making posts about a wide variety of issues regarding foreign policy and its ramifications around the world.

By-line:
This post was contributed by Kelly Kilpatrick, who writes on the subject of a masters program for criminal justice. She invites your feedback at kellykilpatrick24 at gmail dot com

Retired U.S. Foreign Service Officers for Obama

I found this today at Durango Dave's blog:

Retired U.S. Foreign Service Officers for Obama

Former U.S. Ambassador Peter Bridges writing at The Huffington Post says:

"A friend and former colleague of mine in the Foreign Service, Kevin McGuire, some time ago drafted a short statement of support for Obama and began to ask retired Foreign Service officers if they would sign it. So far 334 of us have done so, including by my count 66 former American ambassadors.

If you would like to know why we have done so and who we are, you can find our reasons and our signatures at Foreign Policy for Obama.Com: Declaration of Support by Over 280 Former Diplomats.

You can go to ForeignPolicyforObama.com and click on the link in the left hand column.
I will remind you that the Foreign Service of the United States is our country's career diplomatic and consular service. We staff both the State Department in Washington and our embassies and consulates abroad. Usually two-thirds or more of our ambassadors are Foreign Service officers, although both Democratic and Republican administrations have made a number of ambassadorial appointments for political reasons. Some of these Republican appointees and, by my count, two former career officers, have come out for McCain."

As Ambassador Bridges points out, these are people who understand America's role in the world better than most politicians and pundits. Their support for Obama adds considerable substance to the idea that Barack is the best candidate to deal with America's international issues and restore our reputation as the "Good Guys" that has been severely damaged by Bush-Cheney.

You can read the entire Ambassador Bridge's entire piece here. Democracy In Trouble also covers the endorsement here.

Message for the next president

I've had a brief hiatus while I took a long weekend to visit family down South. So I will try to do a bit of catching up in the next few days. I hope you will bear with me.

WhirledView has a message for our next president regarding diplomacy and soft vs. hard power:

This guns-and-steel-first approach by which America has been engaging - or more accurately disengaging - the world throughout the past eight years has boomeranged. It has increased – not decreased – support for those who truly hate America. It has resulted in budget busting defense spending. It has created an overstretched and weary professional military unable to accomplish the Herculean tasks assigned it. And it is an unsung piece of the current financial crisis. This lethal concoction has weakened the country abroad and sapped our ability to meet our citizens’ needs at home.

Leading with Diplomacy: The Single Realistic Foreign Policy Option Left

The next president will, in reality, have only one foreign policy option. This is the imperative to rely far more on traditional diplomacy, public diplomacy and foreign aid delivered through civilian means to begin to repair America’s face and effectively conduct its business abroad. The military first “solution” has proven to be no solution. Fighting elusive militant terrorists ensconced in ungovernable areas is not akin to rolling back the Axis Powers in 1944 or facing off the Red Army and the Warsaw Pact over the Fulda Gap during the Cold War.

[...]

This system is in wrack and ruin and a new administration needs to change it sooner rather than later if it is to address America’s pressing foreign policy needs. Diplomacy is, in the end, our only option. We desperately need to change direction. To make it work effectively, those changes must begin at home.

You can read the entire piece here.

Anti-War comments on the issue as well:

While the Pentagon's budget has risen to heights not seen since World War II, US diplomatic and foreign aid assets have largely atrophied and must be quickly rebuilt by any new administration that takes office in January, according to a new report released here this week by former senior foreign service officers.

The report by the American Academy of Diplomacy (AAD) and the Henry L. Stimson Center is calling for a nearly 50 percent increase in the number of diplomats and aid and development specialists recruited into the foreign service over the next five years. This would cost about three billion dollars – or approximately what the Pentagon is currently spending every 10 days on military operations in Iraq – over current budget estimates.

''Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the diplomatic capacity of the United States has been hollowed out," according to the 26-page report, "A Foreign Affairs Budget for the Future." "The status quo cannot continue without serious damage to our vital interests."

The vacuum created by the lack of diplomatic resources – particularly in comparison to the Pentagon's budget and manpower – has translated into the militarization of US foreign policy, warns the report.

You can read that entire piece here.

State Department urged to boost hiring

From today's Government Executive:

State Department urged to boost hiring

If the State Department does not beef up its workforce, diplomatic programs will suffer and foreign policy will become more militarized, a new report warned.

"Today, significant portions of the nation's foreign affairs business simply are not accomplished," stated the report, released earlier this week by the American Academy of Diplomacy and the Stimson Center. "The work migrates by default to the military that does have the necessary people and funding, but neither sufficient experience nor knowledge. The 'militarization' of diplomacy exists and is accelerating... . The status quo cannot continue without serious damage to our vital interests." The report also studied staffing levels at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The report recommended that the State Department hire 4,735 more Foreign Service staffers and other key personnel between fiscal 2010 and 2014. New hires would be involved in core diplomatic efforts such as operating embassies and working with businesses and nongovernmental organizations abroad; engage in public diplomacy; administer economic assistance programs like those at USAID; and manage reconstruction and stabilization projects similar to ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those staffers would fill a 2008 shortfall of 2,400 employees, the authors said, and help State expand its activities while allowing more employees to receive much-needed training.

The authors identified USAID itself and public diplomacy programs at State as areas where more staff is critically needed. The number of public diplomacy staffers has fallen 24 percent, from 1,742 in 1986 to 1,332 in fiscal 2008. The current staffing levels are enough to sustain some traditional outreach efforts like media campaigns, the report said, but are not sufficient to allow public diplomacy officers to make extensive personal contacts and develop media efforts to reach out to younger generations.

Public diplomacy officers create and manage programs designed to inform audiences in other countries how American history, values and traditions shape the country's foreign policy.
The contrast at USAID is even more striking. In 1990, 3,500 people administered $5 billion in program funding for economic assistance; currently 2,200 staffers oversee $8 billion. The agency employs only five engineers to oversee projects worldwide, and 29 education officers are responsible for programs in 84 countries. As a result, the report said, USAID has stopped managing many programs directly and relies on 1,200 temporary contractors rather than on career staff with technical expertise directly relevant to the projects at hand.

The report was the latest salvo from the foreign affairs community in a battle to increase staff in a range of areas at State and USAID. The U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy released in June its own comprehensive recommendations for reforming the public diplomacy workforce. The academy and the Stimson Center are co-sponsoring a forum next week on their report.

Sens. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, and George Voinovich, R-Ohio, chairman and ranking member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Federal Workforce Subcommittee respectively, have held a series of hearings on the subject. Voinovich in particular has expressed impatience with the idea that State has been asked to "do more with less."

Gay Bush Appointee Loses Appeal for Fair Treatment

This from The Advocate:

Richard Grenell was appointed spokesperson for the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations by President Bush more than seven years ago and became the longest-serving public servant to hold that post. But when it came to having his partner of six years listed alongside the spouses of other U.N. diplomats, his dedication to the job didn't carry much weight with the State Department.

Gay Bush Appointee Loses Appeal for Fair Treatment

By Kerry Eleveld

Richard Grenell spent most of his days as spokesperson for the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations putting out fires for the Bush Administration and battling to keep issues like human rights in Burma and Zimbabwe in the public spotlight. But after working for the U.S. Mission to the U.N. for more than seven years, his final media push was publicizing a more personal struggle that he fought internally with the State Department.

Grenell, the longest-serving spokesperson for the U.S. Ambassador whose final day was Friday, September 26, started inquiring nearly four years ago about having his partner, Matt Lashey, listed in what’s known as the United Nations’ Blue Book, a reference guide of contact information for different member states of the United Nations as well as diplomatic personnel and their spouses.

Though Grenell and Lashey met in New York and have been together six years, they cannot legally marry in the Empire State. “It is not an option for us in New York, but hopefully someday soon it will be,” he says. “In my mind, and in Matt's mind, this is it. We’re married.”

Since the White House regularly included Grenell's partner by name on invitations to official events and parties, Grenell hoped the State Department would follow suit. He began by approaching the department appointee tasked with submitting additions and deletions for the Blue Book with his request -- the first step in a long line of dead ends. When the next edition printed and his partner’s name wasn’t listed, Grenell took it as “a mess-up.” He made several more failed attempts to have Lashey added before being told that “it was a U.N. issue, not a State Department issue.”

“I decided to investigate on my own,” says Grenell, “find out who was in charge of the Blue Book at the U.N.” That led him to the Protocol and Liaison Service, the department that prints the material, where a representative informed Grenell that “the U.N. takes whatever information is given to it by member states and prints it -- they make no evaluation of the correctness of the information.”

Indeed, the inside cover of the Blue Book states: “This publication is prepared by the Protocol and Liaison Service for information purposes only. The listings relating to the permanent missions are based on information communicated to the Protocol and Liaison Service by the permanent missions, and their publication is intended for the use of delegations and the Secretariat.”

Initially, Grenell took a measured behind-the-scenes approach to the situation, but his appeals grew more pointed this past spring.

“What put me over the edge was a friend and colleague who met her spouse after I was already with my partner -- they got married and subsequently were put into the Blue Book in a matter of days,” he says.

After numerous inquiries, Grenell eventually received an e-mail from Thomas Gallo, a U.S. Mission administrator, on July 25, stating, “It has been our practice to include only spouses, when requested by the employee, in our Blue Book updates, because the Blue Book description states that it lists ‘spouses’ and because the Department of State Foreign Affairs Manuel, under the heading of Members of Household (MOH), indicates that the Mission may not request privileges, immunities or exceptions for MOH.”

Privileges and immunities are a certain set of rights and protections afforded to employees of different member states of the United Nations while working in their capacity as a diplomatic envoy. But Grenell takes issue with the reasoning that the Blue Book listing bestows any sort of special status. “I could go down the road and have the legal discussion about diplomatic immunity and legal spouses if we were talking about privileges and immunities,” explains Grenell, “We are not talking about P & I. We are simply talking about a reference book the U.N. prints. I find it very hard to believe that anyone would be adversely affected by printing Matt’s name.”

Grenell replied to Gallo’s e-mail reiterating that the Blue Book is nothing more than a reference and adding, “I want my partner listed in it. I am formally requesting this and I want a legal opinion. Please do not delay this so that we miss the deadline.”

The legal opinion came via e-mail on July 31 from State Department attorney Richard Visek, who shelved the discussion of privileges and immunities and turned his sole focus to the legal definition of “spouse” as it was designated by the Defense of Marriage Act. “The word ‘marriage’ means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word ‘spouse’ refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife,” Visek wrote, citing U.S. Law, 1 U.S.C. 7. He concluded the e-mail, “In interpreting the term ‘spouse’, the mission should adhere to the definition under U.S. law. We also understand that this is consistent with past practice.”

Legal opinions aside, Grenell believes the last line of that e-mail is perhaps most telling. Noting that he would have been the first known person to have his same-sex partner listed in the Blue Book, Grenell says, “I think the status quo is the enemy here. It is, We’ve never done it before; and you’re dealing with bureaucrats who can't think outside the box.”

Grenell exchanged several more e-mails with John Bellinger, the State Department’s top legal advisor, but nothing came of them.

Contacted by The Advocate, State Department spokesperson Noel Clay reiterated, “The department over the years has not included domestic partners because they are not spouses.”

After several years of inaction, Grenell decided to go public. “Some people are going to yell at me, because it's been a quiet fight,” he says. “I think a lot of people’s style is to do a quiet fight.”
As a registered Republican and a Bush appointee, Grenell has not always had an easy time waging quiet wars. He was publicly “outed” on an LGBT activist website two years ago, though Grenell says he was out to almost everyone who knew him. The main complaint leveled against him at the time was the fact that the U.S. had recently joined with Iran in a U.N. committee vote to deny accreditation to two international LGBT organizations. Accreditation, or consultative status, allows non-governmental organizations (NGOs) access to U.N. proceedings, conferences, and the right to propose agenda items.

The most common sticking point for granting consultative status to LGBT organizations, says Grenell, is whether they have any ties to the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA). Due to the organization’s controversial nature, groups seeking legal recognition from the U.N. must reject NAMBLA outright. “We needed an unequivocal separation from NAMBLA in order for these groups to go forward,” he says.

LGBT activists and human rights groups were outraged by the January 2006 vote, but after one of the organizations -- the International Lesbian and Gay Federation of Denmark -- changed course and distanced itself entirely from NAMBLA, the U.N. approved it for accreditation later that year along with two other LGBT NGOs. The U.S. voted in favor of all three accreditations. The following year, the U.N. approved two more LGBT NGOs for consultative status.

Despite the scrutiny, Grenell is proud of his work on facilitating LGBT accreditations and touts a couple of other accomplishments as reasons why it’s important to have LGBT people working on both sides of the aisle. He helped secure two former U.S. ambassadors to the U.N., John Danforth and John Bolton, to give keynote speeches at Log Cabin Republican conventions. “It wasn’t difficult at all, I just went and asked,” he says, “but it was the personal relationship.”

AFSA Statement on Iraq Assignments

The following message is from AFSA State VP Steve Kashkett:

AFSA issued the following press release on Thursday, October 2, 2008:

The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) welcomes Secretary Rice's announcement that the Department of State has now filled all of its positions at the U.S. missions in Iraq and Afghanistan for the summer 2009 assignment cycle with qualified, willing volunteers -- as
has been the case every year since those two diplomatic missions came into existence. It is a tribute to the courage and sense of duty of the people of the Foreign Service that our members, as well as a number of Civil Service colleagues, have stepped forward without hesitation every year to staff the embassies and provincial reconstruction teams in those two war zones. These are our largest diplomatic missions in the world, and they present unique dangers and challenges to the thousands of our members who have volunteered since 2003.

AFSA hopes that those journalists, media outlets, and commentators who erroneously reported last October that the Department of State had been unable to fully staff the Iraq mission will now show as much zeal in reporting that, in fact, every one of these positions in both Iraq and Afghanistan for summer 2009 has been filled more than eight months in advance. Those journalists did a great disservice to the Department of State and its employees -- who have never shied away from hardship service in some of the most dangerous places on earth -- and we hope that these journalists will now set the record straight."

AFRICOM: DOD's New "Soft Power"?

Diplopundit has an interesting piece today about AFRICOM, which was stood up today.

Diplopundit writes:

Pittman writes that "from the beginning, AFRICOM was cast as a different kind of command, one that would focus American military might not on fighting wars, but on preventing them through "soft power." And that as part of the new approach, a civilian deputy equal to Moeller was appointed to coordinate humanitarian operations with other U.S. agencies. AFRICOM's "interagency" makeup was trumpeted as a better way to meet the continent's development needs."

The civilian deputy equivalent to Moeller has the official title, "Deputy to the Commander for Civil-Military Activities," and that is Ambassador Mary Carlin Yates. She will reportedly direct the command's plans and programs associated with health, humanitarian assistance and de-mining action, disaster response, security sector reform, and Peace Support Operations. She also directs Outreach, Strategic Communication and AFRICOM's partner-building functions, as well as assuring that policy development and implementation are consistent with U.S. Foreign Policy.

That makes me feel better. I guess I should say, congratulations for coming into being. But now this is getting me a tad confused. I thought State has the "soft power" while Defense has the "hard" part. Hmmn....that must have changed during the commercial. I hate it when they do that, don't you?

Militarization of our foreign policy? Now don't you believe what you read. In individual countries, U.S. Ambassadors will continue to be the President's personal representatives in diplomatic relations with host nations. State will continue to be the primary foreign policy arm; USAID will continue to be the development arm. Yup! Yup! Except that State is counting pennies and paper clips (don't know about AID, too many stubbed toes under one confusing roof right now) and DOD has the money.

You can read the entire post here.

More on the Exodus

Dead Men Working had a post about the Mother Jones article detailing the exodus of mid-level officers from the Foreign Service.

DMW comments: "Most of my age-mates are in the senior ranks, and one thing I can say for certain. More than half of the FSOs who entered on duty when I did have retired, most on the very first date they were eligible to do so.

They speak not only of promises broken to them, but of a failure by the current administration to use their expertise properly. This has been the first administration in years that, rather than treat FSOs as experts and expert advisers, treats them instead virtually as servants, as pawns whose sole function is to follow orders and carry out policies devised, in many cases, by people with far less Foreign Policy expertise than even a junior-level FSO would possess."

DMW continues:

[...]

"Every Foreign Service Officer is sworn to serve our nation, and not just our president. We need the resources and leadership to allow us to do that.

Every departing FSO that I have ever seen expresses anger and frustration among their reasons for departing the service. But without exception, every one also honestly regrets that they have been prevented from using their skills to serve our country; which was, for nearly all of us, our primary desire and motivation in joining the Service in the first place."

You can read his entire post here.

Hat Tip to Consul-At-Arms for catching this piece.

More on the DPBO hearing

HRC ran this story on Wednesday's hearing. I am including it because of the links to different testimonies as well as pdfs on states and companies with benefits.

Senate holds first hearing on need for federal employee partner benefits
September 24, 2008
Chris Johnson

This morning at 10 AM EST, the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs held the first-ever U.S. Senate hearing exclusively on federal employee partner benefits. Titled “Domestic Partner Benefits for Federal Employees: Fair Policy and Good Business,” the hearing was coordinated by Committee Chairman Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) and Ranking Member Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). Today's hearing is an important and necessary step toward enactment of equal employment benefits for LGBT federal civilian employees. HRC worked closely with the Senate staff in crafting the legislation and was a lead coalition partner in lobbying for the hearing.

In his written testimony submitted for the hearing, Joe Solmonese said:

"This legislation, which is long overdue, would bring the federal government up to the standards of America’s leading employers, who provide these benefits in order to recruit and retain the most talented workforce possible. Equal pay for equal work is a value fundamental to American opportunity. The federal government should be the standard bearer for fair workplace practices. As long it denies gay and lesbian employees the comprehensive family benefits that their heterosexual colleagues receive, the federal government will fall short of that standard, and continue to lag behind the nation’s top employers."

Read Joe's complete written testimony here. (PDF)

Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), who authors the companion bill, H.R. 4838, in the House, said:

"I welcome this Senate hearing and consider it one more step in our march toward full equality. Only when we eliminate discriminatory practices in the workplace will we allow both employees and businesses to reach their full potential. As an employer, the federal government must not only set an example, but must compete with corporate America for the best-qualified workforce. Offering domestic partner benefits is a means toward both ends."

HRC worked with employers in the private sector to endorse the legislation and reached out to all Congressional offices with up-to-date resources such as the Corporate Equality Index, demonstrating support and need for DP Benefits. The benefits for federal employees would include family health insurance, pension and survivor benefits and relocation expenses for families who are transferred. And for State Department employees abroad it would include access to anti-terrorism and language training, medical facilities, and evacuation services. The need for federal domestic partner benefits was also incorporated in HRC’s "7 Days to a Better Financial You," with stories from former Ambassador Michael Guest and other federal civilian employees explaining how the lack of benefits hurts LGBT families.

Related Documents:
Factsheet on Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act (DPBO) (PDF)
States with domestic partner benefits - 2008 (PDF)
Coalition endorsement letter to Chairman Lieberman in support of DPBO (PDF)
Fortune 500 companies with domestic partner benefits (PDF)

OPM opposes domestic partnership benefits bill

I can't even begin to describe how offensive this is. M and I have been together for nearly nine years. We were married in our church six years ago, and would be married legally if the law allowed. So again we have the circular argument. You can get the benefits because you aren't married. But you aren't allowed to be married. And how insulting to compare our relationship, and the relationships of thousands of committed same-sex couples to a homophobic movie with an incredulous plot (seriously, we do NOT live on a planet where "I Now Pronounce you Chuck and Larry" could ever happen)! It seriously makes me question why I serve a government that feels this way about me.

OPM opposes domestic partnership benefits bill
By Alyssa Rosenberg

A top official at the Office of Personnel Management told a congressional panel on Wednesday that extending federal health and retirement benefits to the domestic partners of same-sex couples could lead to insurance fraud.

Howard Weizmann, OPM deputy director, said the agency opposes a bill (S. 2521) offering such benefits to gay and lesbian federal employees' partners because OPM requires state-issued marriage certificates to prove that heterosexual couples are married in case of a question or dispute -- and no comparable documentation exists for many same-sex couples. He said OPM would have to rely on sworn affidavits from couples in long-term committed relationships, and that some might not report the end of a relationship to keep insurance benefits.

The legislation also would ensure gay and lesbian employees abide by federal laws on nepotism and financial disclosure.

Other witnesses before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee disputed OPM's rationale for opposing the legislation. "I think it's really unfair of OPM to suggest there's some kind of increased fraud risk by adding this benefit," said National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley. "I'm totally missing why that would be stated, much less thought of."

Yvette Burton, a business development executive for IBM Corp., which offers same-sex partner benefits said that affidavits had proved more than adequate, and the company requires couples to obtain legal documentation of their relationship when state law makes it possible, for example, in states like California and Massachusetts where same-sex marriage is legal.

Members of the committee were skeptical that fraud would be widespread, pointing to the large number of private sector companies -- including more than half of Fortune 500 companies -- that have domestic partnership benefits. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said verification systems those companies and the state of Maine in its wide-ranging domestic partnership program use should provide models for the federal government and eliminate concerns about fraud.

"In looking at the firms at which you worked, Aetna has DP benefits and has retained those benefits for a number of years," Collins said to Weizmann. "If, in fact, these were not advantageous benefits for the private sector to have, don't you think they would have done away with those benefits?"

But Weizmann insisted that the threat of fraud is real, saying wrongdoing could go undetected because companies do not pay very much attention to domestic partnership programs.

"I don't know that anyone in this room knows the degree to which companies monitor relationships that go forward," he said. "I know that when benefits don't cost very much and aren't utilized very much, they don't get a lot of attention... . The federal government is much larger, and has a much stronger fiduciary obligation to the taxpayer to ensure that those benefits are delivered accurately."

Weizmann suggested that the 2007 movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, about two heterosexual New York firefighters who pretend to be a gay couple to ensure that one of them will be able to pass his pension benefits down to his children, indicated that fraud could be widespread.

But others at the hearing argued that the fraud debate was a distraction from real questions of fairness and equality.

Frank Hartigan, a deputy regional director for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, said he personally had experienced the difficulties of being a gay federal employee. Among the benefits same-sex partners are not eligible for are relocation payments, making it much more expensive for gay couples to move elsewhere for a new federal job.

"If I was starting out in today's job market, would I take a job with the federal government knowing what I know about domestic partnership benefits? I believe I would look elsewhere," Hartigan said.

More on Reforming Public Diplomacy

Diplopundit comments on the testimony by Ambassador Elizabeth Bagley, the Vice Chairman of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs. This is the testimony Mountain Runner discussed earlier in the week. Diplopundit offers some more details and some interesting points.

Reliance on Soft Power: Reforming Public Diplomacy

Earlier this week, Ambassador Elizabeth Bagley, the Vice Chairman of the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy gave a testimony before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs’ (Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, the Federal Workforce, and the District of Columbia) on Reliance on Soft Power: Reforming the Public Diplomacy Bureaucracy.

This is part of what she said in her opening statement: [...]“...in the final analysis, people are the key to the success of our Nation’s public diplomacy. Over a one-year period, the Commission met with scores of State Department officials and outside experts on PD human resources issues and we learned a great deal in the process.

In sum […], we found that the State Department:

recruits smart people, but not necessarily the right people, for the PD career track,
tests candidates on the wrong knowledge sets,
trains its officers in the wrong skills, and
evaluates those officers mostly on the wrong tasks.

In terms of personnel structures:

State has a PD bureaucracy in Washington that hasn’t been critically examined since the 1999 merger and that may or may not be functioning optimally, its overseas public affairs officers are spending the majority of their time administering rather than communicating with foreign publics, and meaningful integration of public diplomacy into State Department decision-making and staffing remains elusive.

In short, Mr. Chairman, we’re not “getting the people part right.”

[...]

"On recruitment, very simply, the Department of State makes no special effort to recruit individuals into the public diplomacy (or “PD”) career track who would bring into the Foreign Service experience or skills specifically relevant to the work of communicating with and influencing foreign publics. No serious presidential or Congressional campaign, or private-sector company, would hire communications personnel who have no background in communications, but to a large degree, that is exactly what the United States Government is doing."

Diplopundit notes: In fairness to the State Department, the agency makes no special effort to recruit folks into the PD track or any other track based on experience or skills relevant to the work in the other four career tracks (political, economics, management, consular). I do think that State prides itself with growing its own people which has its merits. But whereas in the past we have the luxury of time to grow and teach new graduates on how the world works, in this new universe of constant change, we don’t have that luxury. Why spend two years training an Arabic speaker, if you can hire somebody who already speaks Arabic, or Chinese, or Urdu?

[...]

Bagley continues: "In terms of public diplomacy training, though there have clearly been some improvements in recent years, a number of conspicuous, and serious, blind-spots persist. For one, we make virtually no effort to train our PD officers in either the science of persuasive communication or the nuts and bolts of how to craft and run sophisticated message campaigns. The Commission believes we need to rectify this. We would like to see more substantive PD offerings at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, including a rigorous nine-month course analogous to the highly regarded one currently offered to economic officers."

Diplopundit comments: We have some missions where entry level officers on their first tour are sent out to perform public outreach in print/online media, tv, and radio with close to no training. Well, actually as I’ve heard it told, one boss saw it fit to work with the PD officer to give one batch of officers some training, including apparently “murder boards,” but after that outreach program received an award, the next batch of officers got zero guidance (short term goals are terribly popular in some parts of this universe) but the public outreach nonetheless continued. I can understand why an officer, even a smart one who’s never been on television would lose sleep and sweat bullets over this one. Public diplomacy is not the area where you want to throw your staff members into the water to see who sinks or floats! Good grief! If we don’t send a soldier to war without training them how to shoot, we definitely should not send any of our officers to fight the war of ideas without "weapons" training. In a war zone, bullets are fired and spent and you die, in this other war, ideas, even the unkind ones have the tendency to live on and thrive. Seriously, if our officers have to be effective warriors of ideas, we cannot afford to let them simply wing it -- no matter how smart they may be.

[...]

You can read the rest of this post here.

In a comment I wrote to Mountain Runner on this topic, I noted that even in the instances where they have people with a background conducive to Public Diplomacy work, the Department often does not take note. I am a PD-coned officer. I have a B.A. in English/Journalism, and I have worked as a reporter and copy editor for several dailies. I have been an assignments editor for an NBC-affiliate. I also have an M.A. in anthropology and will soon have a PhD in it. All of these things should make me a better PD officer. However, I have yet to do a PD tour, and when I am in the midst of bidding (as I am now), prospective supervisors don't even consider my experience pre-State Department. A three-month "bridge" assignment I did as a press officer "counts" for more than all of my education and experience. A shame when you consider just how important Public Diplomacy is in today's world and how much a partner it could be in advancing our Foreign Policy goals if used properly by the right people.

Flight of the Diplomats

From Mother Jones:

Flight of the Diplomats
NEWS: Midlevel foreign-service officers are fleeing the US State Department in droves. Guess who's taking their place?

By Joshua Kurlantzick

September/October 2008 Issue

"Tom" figured he'd earned himself a better assignment. For more than two years, the middle-aged, midlevel US diplomat had been working war zones—first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. Tasked with setting up government institutions in the provinces, far from the comforts of the Green Zone, he'd rarely taken off his body armor. "The ied risk was extremely high," explains Tom, who insisted on a pseudonym. "Part of the time, the camp where we were staying was mortared constantly." But when that mission ended, rather than reward his risk-taking with a better job, the State Department just offered more hardship assignments—isolated and dangerous postings with little chance for reprieve or advancement. "The person trying to find me a next job emails me to say, 'Why don't you fill an opening in Monrovia?'" Tom recalls.

Tom's predicament was no anomaly. In 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice vowed to move diplomats "out from behind their desks into the field"—away from places like Western Europe and into developing nations where they would play a more hands-on development role. But her plan, however laudable, was put forth without the money and smart management needed to make it work. Now seasoned diplomats are fleeing Foggy Bottom in droves, leaving America critically short on diplomatic expertise just when it is needed most.

The State Department, by its own projections, will lose 14 percent of its veteran diplomats every year from 2007 to 2011—an entire generation in a few years' time. The talent pool is shrinking, too; the number of people taking the foreign-service exam fell more than 40 percent between 2002 and 2006. Under Colin Powell, State had hoped to hire more than 1,000 officers, but the department's latest budget sought fewer than 300. And because Rice didn't push hard enough for that funding, the department may actually lose jobs this year. The dire situation has officials counting paper clips. "Everyone must reduce expenses whenever and wherever possible," warned a March memo instructing supervisors to cut positions and defer staff training requests. State employees, it further admonished, would have to "reduce their use of supplies."

The Bush administration was hard on State from the start. The number of overseas postings where diplomats cannot bring their families has more than quadrupled, from 200 in 2001 to 905 today. And the job has gotten riskier everywhere: US diplomats have been gunned down in Khartoum and Amman, suicide-bombed in Karachi, and killed by hand grenades in Islamabad. They are entering war zones unprepared, with just a few weeks of training for a Baghdad posting; four decades ago, Vietnam-bound diplomats got six months of preparation, which included combat training. Nearly 40 percent are now returning from conflict areas with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to Steve Kashkett, vice president of the American Foreign Service Association, the union representing US diplomats. That's more than twice the rate for soldiers. And for all their troubles, foreign-service officers may see their salaries slashed up to 20 percent when they take a hardship post, on the grounds that living overseas costs less. "They are shifting bodies," says one congressional staffer, "but they aren't backing that up with more money."

Across the world, the brain drain has left US embassies understaffed—nearly 1 in 6 positions is vacant—and in the hands of inexperienced people. The trend is particularly worrisome in Iraq, reports one veteran foreign-service officer. "You have [junior officers] in important positions," he says. "It's not correlating well with what you'd want in the most important embassy in the world."

Public Diplomacy and the Resource Shortage at State

Mountain Runner had an interesting piece today about a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Mountain Runner writes: GovExec.com’s Kellie Lunney reports below on a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight of Government Management, The Federal Workforce and the District of Columbia. The hearing was spurred by the U.S. Advisory Commission on Public Diplomacy report earlier this year. Dirksen room 342 must have been a fun place to be (not).

"On the public diplomacy side, there is some positive news, but it's a grim picture overall," Amb. Scott DeLisi, director of career development and assignments in State's Bureau of Human Resources, said before a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs subcommittee. ...

The Foreign Service overall is short at least 1,000 officers "just to fill the jobs we have," DeLisi said. DeLisi, who spent most of his career in the field and assumed his current post just a year ago, called the situation "frightening." Even with those slots filled, many officers are not getting the training they need to be successful overseas, he noted, adding that the agency also would benefit from the creation of additional positions. "We need more [officers] in China, India, parts of Africa, the Middle East and parts of Indonesia," he said.

There’s more to this, of course, but it’s good to get more attention on the huge lack of resources for State. Tell me, where’s the senior leadership hammering Congress to actually commit itself to both allocating money and resources to State? Secretary Gates does not count. State’s leadership, with Congressional support, must push for not just more $$ for hiring FSO’s, but programming flexibility, hiring FSN’s, a training float (hear about this? seeking details), etc.

The piece he asks if you have heard about is this, from Abu Muqawama:

...one deep bit of inside baseball from the world of professional-military education (affectionately known as PME) is the difficulty in recruiting foreign services officers as students in the intermediate courses (like CGSC or its Marine equivalent at Quantico). While these schools are geared toward military officers, there is a noticable interagency presence as well. FSO's, however, are more commonly found only at the "top-level schools" like the National War College). Now, astute readers of this blog will know that's because State is miserably under-staffed. (Insert military band comparison here.)

So, LTG Caldwell has once again put his money where his mouth is: he's offered to cough up one officer for each FSO the State Dept. sends to CGSC. (Charlie's guessing these officers take up slack at Main State, not in the Embassies, but she's willing to be corrected on this score.) This is exactly the kind of wealth transfer Secretary Gates has been calling for: using the vast resources of DoD to enable more flexibility at State.

Report on DPBO

One Simple Step for Equality
States prove that the federal government can offer domestic partner benefits with ease

By Winnie Stachelberg, Josh Rosenthal, Claire Stein-Ross September 23, 2008

Health care looms large on the agenda as the nation looks toward a new Congress and president in 2009. Health care costs are growing faster than even energy costs, rising $45 billion more than energy in the past eight years. Americans with chronic diseases and other pre-existing conditions often wonder if their treatment will be covered by insurance, or if they will be able to afford insurance at all. And almost 46 million Americans still live without health insurance coverage, while many more get by without adequate access to care.

The federal government could take one simple, but essential step that would immediately expand quality coverage to millions of Americans: extending health benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees, who are twice as likely to be uninsured as their heterosexual counterparts. Federal employees in same-sex partnerships currently have no access to benefits for their partners. Domestic partner benefits present an opportunity for the federal government to improve the quality of its workforce, and indicate its acceptance of all American families.

Congress is currently considering the Domestic Partner Benefits and Obligations Act (H.R. 4838/S. 2521), which would extend these benefits, along with the other rights and responsibilities of married couples, to federal employees in same-sex domestic partnerships. Congressional passage of this bill would place the federal government among the ranks of thousands of private companies, hundreds of municipalities, and 15 states and the District of Columbia that have already put such policies into action.**

This report examines the experiences of these states, which have extended benefits to same-sex domestic partners without complications or added expenses. In fact, many have actually been able to attract higher quality staff. The states show that a domestic partner benefit program for federal employees would likely have the following characteristics:

* Low enrollment: Few employees will enroll in the expanded benefit program. For example, only 0.7 percent of Connecticut states employees took advantage of the domestic partner program for same-sex couples.

* Minimal costs: The benefits would create only a marginal added cost. In Iowa, for example, only 0.5 percent of benefit spending goes toward domestic partners. Even this percentage is higher than we expect the federal government would experience, since many states include both same-sex and different-sex partners in their domestic partner benefit programs, unlike the proposed federal program.

* Higher retention and recruitment rates: Gay and lesbian employees often cite benefit programs as a key factor in their decision to leave or stay at a job. As more private-sector employers offer domestic partner benefits, states such as Vermont and Washington have found that matching this benefit helps them to attract the best workforce.

* Strong public support: When Arizona considered offering domestic partner benefits in 2006, 787 of the 913 public comments concerning the decision were supportive of extending the benefits. Recent polling also shows that 69 percent of Americans believe that same-sex partners should receive benefits.

The Domestic Partnership Benefits and Obligations Act offers an easy choice to legislators. There are both practical and ethical arguments for extending benefits to domestic partners—including the fact that a majority of Americans believe it is the right thing to do. And the experiences of state governments clearly show that domestic partner benefits do not exact a significant cost on the employer.

** Vermont, New York, Oregon, California, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, Washington, New Mexico, New Jersey, Montana, Illinois, Alaska, Arizona, and Hawaii

Read the full report (pdf)