Thursday, December 27, 2018

How Grump Stole Yuletime

A humorous little holiday-themed short story that I hope readers will enjoy.


1.



Daxon Grump was angry. This was nothing new. He was always angry about something. But, on this occasion, he was angrier than he’d been in a long time. He didn’t like not getting his way, and the dunderheads—his word for them—in his parliament had committed the cardinal sin; they’d refused to give him something he’d wanted from the day he put on the crown of Washuptown.

      Formerly the owner and star performer in the Grump Circus of the Stars, Hermyonus Grump has ascended the throne of Washuptown by happenstance and accident, but after a few days there had accepted it as his due. In other words, he’d become royal, regal, and kingly in all the ways those words are thought of as negative, alienating his parliament, and causing him to doubt the efficacy of a parliamentary monarchy, where he had to share power with a bunch of former tradesmen or royals who hadn’t been high enough in the bloodline to lay claim to the throne.

      Because of this unfortunate—fortunate for him—the parliament had thrown the succession open to any citizen who could convince the people he was fit to lead. He, with his many years of experience parting suckers from their coin to see the acts in his circus, had campaigned throughout the kingdom of Washuptown, promising the world, and enthralling the crowds of peasants and merchants who had long labored under the often heavy and uncaring hands of the royals. In the end, he had prevailed. His victory against the other contenders had been narrow, but it was just enough to push him to the head of the list. That some of the votes for him had been purchased with the horde of gold he’d amassed over the years was something he gave little thought to, just hoping that it would never be known.

      Two days after the coronation, he’d met with Michel Orwell, speaker of parliament, and one of the people who had seen the direction in which the wind of change was blowing and supported him early, and each time he recalled that meeting, his blood boiled, his nostrils flared, and he felt like throwing things.

      “But, our majesty,” Orwell had said after he’d presented him with what he felt was a brilliant idea. “I think your desire to protect the kingdom from outsiders is admirable, but the method you propose to accomplish it is not within the ability of the royal treasury to achieve.”

      “What?” He reacted in shock and anger, the same way he’d always done whenever one of his circus minions had had the temerity to disagree with one of his ideas. “How much could it cost to build a simple wall around the kingdom? All the gold the royal family amassed during King Odan’s reign has to be sufficient to do that.”

      “Hardly, your majesty. We have . . . expenses and obligations that must be met. A wall would deplete the treasury to an extent that we would not be able to do so. Worse, Yuletime is fast approaching, and we must be able to pay the holiday bonuses. It is expected.”

      Grump was furious. He was livid. Obligations my foot, he thought. We’re paying hundreds of scribes and counselors to sit around creating mountains of paper that never go anywhere, and that less than half the kingdom could read, and the other half couldn’t understand. And, there were the princely salaries each of the members of the parliament received each month.

      This was unacceptable. He would find a way.

      “Very well, Speaker Orwell,” he said in a tight voice. “You are dismissed. I will consider this, and when I’ve made a decision, I will get back to you.”

      As the obese speaker, his loose jowls flapping bowed and backed out, Grump was having the beginnings of another brilliant idea.



2.



He thought about it for a full two days. Well, actually, he didn’t do much thinking, for he’d already made up his mind before he’d even dismissed that toady Orwell. Mostly, he sat around two days stewing and doodling on a loose sheet of foolscap. He’d waited for the dramatic effect. His years in the circus had taught him the importance of timing and pacing.

      On the third day he was ready.

      He had a page summon Orwell.

      The fat fool came rushing in twenty minutes later, sweating like a peasant fresh in from the fields. He stopped in front of Grump and bowed deeply.

      “You wished to see me, your majesty?”

      “I do,” Grump said. “Did you get a chance to read the proposal I sent to your office yesterday?”

      Orwell’s head bobbed up and down.

      “I did, your majesty, and may I say it is an elegant design, elegant, while at the same time appearing quite sturdy.”

      Grump didn’t smile, because, despite the toadying words, he sensed a ‘but’ in there somewhere. That ‘but’ wasn’t long in coming.

      “But there is, your majesty, a problem, and I’m unable to get my fellow parliamentarians to agree to supporting it.”

      “They refuse to support it,” Grump sputtered. “Do they not know that this is my signature project, that it will be my legacy?”

      “Uh, they know all this, but the, ah, problem, you see, is that there is not enough in the treasury to pay for it.”

      Grump smiled now, for he’d anticipated that objection.

      “I have a plan for dealing with that little problem,” he said. “All we have to do is not pay all the useless hangers-on, like scribes and counselors for, oh, say six months, and there will be more than enough in the treasury to build my wall.”

      Orwell, though, was an experienced bureaucrat and a savvy politician. He was not to be outdone.

      “That will pay for the materials, sire, but what of the laborers who must build it? That will not be a small expense.”

      Again, Grump smiled, which caused Orwell to shudder.

      “Ah, the laborers,” Grump said. “I suppose we will have to pay for supervisors. I was thinking I could use the salary paid to you almost-useless parliamentarians for that. As for the common labor, I believe if I ask, enough citizens of Washuptown will volunteer their labor. After all, Washuptonians love me, do they not?”

      Orwell knew that was a dangerous question to answer incorrectly, for he’d learned very early that Grump was a man who valued what others thought of him above all but increasing his wealth—as long as they thought well of him. On the other hand, he knew that the citizens looked forward to Yuletime, that week in the spring of each year when they paid homage to the Yule tree, the source of heat, building materials, perfume, tools, and many other necessary items in their daily lives. It was a time they exchanged gifts, planted new Yule trees, and held long parties at which a potent liquor made from the sap of the tree was consumed. What they would definitely not want to do would be spending many, many months constructing a wall around the kingdom which would complicate trade with neighboring kingdoms, and interfere with Yuletime festivities.

      “Of course, the people love you, your majesty,” Orwell said. “But you must remember that Yuletime approaches, and the people might not like anything to interfere with observance of this sacred holiday. Oh, and that reminds me, there is one other expense that the treasury must provide for; each year the palace throws a huge Yuletime feast for the populace. It’s somewhat expensive, but well worth it in the goodwill it generates.

      “Oh, did I now tell you, Orwell,” Grump said. “In order to ensure the health of the treasury, so that my wall can be adequately funded, I’ve decided to cancel Yuletime this year.”

      Orwell’s eyes went wide. When Grump held up a royal edict written in his own crabby handwriting, that said, ‘Yooltime is cansuled until I get MY wall.  Grump Res,’ followed by the royal seal of Washuptown, his blood ran cold.

      This would not go over or down well with the citizens. Never in the history of the kingdom had the holiday been tampered with. He did not know how the people would react.

      “Don’t you think that’s bit extreme, sire?”

      “Of course not. My people love me. You’ll see. I’m having the population summoned this very afternoon in the forecourt of the palace, where I will announce my great plans. You and your parliamentarian colleagues will be there.”

      Orwell shuddered and swallowed hard. He had no choice. He would have to be there, but he had a sinking feeling that bad things were about to happen.

      Worse, he thought, the simpleton misspelled ‘Yuletime’ and ‘cancel.’ The people will forgive him the second, as most of them probably can’t spell it either, but as for the first . . . well, that was sacrilege. Oh yes, he thought, bad things are about to happen.



3

.

Just before the midday meal hour—not, in Orwell’s opinion a good time to assemble people to listen to a speech, even if the speech was for good news, which this one was not to be—most of Washuptown’s population had assembled in the castle’s forecourt. There were puzzled looks on many faces as people wondered why their new king wanted to speak with them. Some smiled, for they figured, if it was important enough for the king to call the whole kingdom together for it, it would be a great thing to participate in. Orwell and his fellow parliamentarians, though, were most definitely not happy to be there, for they knew that when the king announced his grand plan, there was no telling how the people might react—Orwell had shared Grump’s plan with the others, and it’s safe to say that each and every one of them was quaking in his boots.

      After making the people wait for half an hour—Grump had read somewhere that this was a sign of royalty, and showed his importance—Grump appeared on the balcony, beaming down at the crowd and waving his hands. Somewhat nearsighted, he didn’t notice the frowns on some of the faces in the crowd. Not everyone was happy at being made to stand so long in the hot sun, and be force to miss the midday meal.

      Grump waited until the murmuring, which he interpreted as murmuring of affection for his royal self, to die down, and then he held up his proclamation, and began explaining why he was doing it.

      As those in the front rows read the proclamation, stopping on Yooltime, and being shocked and passing this bit of heresy on to those behind them, the murmuring took up again.

      Thus, only the guards on the balcony heard the part about government workers not getting paid for six months. The sergeant of the guard sent one of the guards to carry that message through the castle.

      Orwell’s colleagues gasped when they realized that parliamentarians’ salaries were included in the things Grump was not going to pay.

      The crowd didn’t hear Grump’s call for free volunteer labor to build his wall. They were so steamed that the king butchered the name of their most sacred holiday, they’d stopped listening to his speech, and were talking among themselves.

      It was only the rising volume of his voice that caught their attention.

      “Citizens of Washuptown, what say you to my proposal?”



4.



There was a moment of stunned silence.

      Then, from the middle of the crowd, someone shouted, “Off with his head!”

      “No, no,” someone else shouted. “That’s too good for him. Let’s boil him alive.”

      Grump could not believe at first what he was hearing. This couldn’t be happening. The people loved him, they would not be turning on him like this. Something was amiss. He turned and looked at Orwell.

      “What are they saying, Orwell? Why are they not happy?”

      The pudgy parliamentarian bowed, keeping his eyes averted from the confused king.

      “They are angry, your majesty. I warned you that it would be a mistake to muck with Yuletime.”

      “But they should be happy that I’m bringing security and safety to the kingdom. When I made speeches about it before I won the crown, they cheered wildly. Why have they changed?”

      “Well, your majesty, it’s like this. They did not feel insecure until you started making speeches about it. They still do not really insecure. Washuptonians simply like good speeches, and you are adept at giving them what they like. Now, though, you have given them something they do not like, or rather, you are threatening to take something they like away from them. I fear that you have pushed them to anger, and I cannot say what they might do.”

      “They’re threatening to boil me alive. They can’t do that to their king. They should love me.”

      “Sire, they loved you when you were making speeches. If you had left it at that, they might’ve continued to love you. Now you are proposing to do things they do not like or want to do. If I might be so bold as to venture an opinion, I think they just might boil you alive.”

      Grump’s ruddy complexion turned gray.

      “No, that cannot be allowed.” He turned to the captain of the guard. “Captain, have your men drive these people away from here. Any who resist, throw them into the dungeons.”

      The guard captain didn’t move.

      “Captain, did you hear me?”

      “Aye, your majesty. I heard you. But you just announced that royal employees are not being paid. We guards are royal employees. If we are not being paid, we cannot work. It’s in our contracts. We are not allowed to work for free.”

      Grump looked confused. He turned to Orwell.

      “Is that true?”

      “Yes, your majesty. Employees such as guards have an iron-clad contract. No pay, no work.”

      “Okay, okay, I’ll pay you from my personal funds. Now, move those people.”

      “Uh, I’m afraid they are not allowed to accept pay other than from the royal treasury, your majesty,” Orwell said. “That is to ensure their loyalty.”

      Grump had a sudden revelation. His own petard, his explosive idea that would bind everyone in the kingdom to him and have them bend to his will forever, was now affixed firmly to his nether regions. He had painted himself into a corner on a precipice, with no handholds, and was about to be pushed into the abyss. Being king was suddenly not such a glorious prospect. He wished he’d stayed in his circus.

      “W-what am I to do, Orwell. I do not wish to be boiled, dead or alive.”

      “Well, your majesty, there is one thing that you might consider. I cannot guarantee that it will work, but it just might placate them, and they just might spare you.”

      To a man in a hole, a rope is preferred, but if a string is all that is dropped down, he will grasp it.

      “Anything, Orwell, I’m willing to do anything to stay alive.”

      “If you publicly relinquish the crown, and put the power in the hands of the parliament, temporarily, mind you, until we can select another to be king. I am confident that the people will be merciful.”

      Grump thought about it for all of ten seconds. He’d wanted to be king, but most of all he just wanted to continue to be. Running a circus wasn’t all that bad. At least, he had total control over the clowns, acrobats, and other performers.

      “Very well then, I resign effective immediately.”

      “Repeat so the people hear, your majesty.”

      Grump walked to the railing and leaned forward. “I, King Grump, do hereby relinquish the throne. I am no longer your king. Yuletime is still on.”

      The murmuring stopped. People stared up at him.

      “You really gonna quit?” some asked.

      “Yes, I quit.”

      Orwell stepped forward.

      “The king has abdicated. The parliament is now in control, and Yuletime is not cancelled. Oh, and there will be no wall built, and all royal employees are to report to work immediately. Yuletime bonuses will be paid on the morrow.”  He turned to the captain of the guard. “Captain, please escort Daxon Grump to the gate and see that he leaves the royal premises.” He then turned back to Grump and not so gently removed the crown from his head.

      With a broad smile on face, the captain ordered two guards to seize the commoner. The two burly young men grabbed Grump by his arms and unceremoniously lifted him so that his toes dragged across the cobblestones. At the gate, they heaved him through the opening like a sack of waste and slammed the gate shut.

      He picked himself up, dusted himself off, looked around to see if anyone had seen what had happened. Elated to see that his humiliation was unwitnessed by any but the perpetrators, he walked away, whistling.

5.



That should have been the end of it for Daxon Grump. Unfortunately, his stars were not so aligned. Some of the people he’d paid to vote for him were heard complaining in a local inn that the coins he’d used to pay them were iron, painted to look like gold sovereigns, and when they’d tried using them to buy things, they’d had them flung back in their faces and themselves flung from the establishments.

      When word of this reached Orwell at the parliament, he and his colleagues conferred and came to the decision that such malfeasance could not go unpunished. An example had to be made so that in the upcoming elections the candidates would be motivated to campaign honestly.

      A guard was dispatched to Grump’s circus, and he was again unceremoniously hosted between two guards, and thrown into an iron-barred cage and transported to the castle dungeon. The parliament held a speedy trial at which those who had received his counterfeit coins confessed that they’d sold their votes to one Daxon Grump. Each of them received a token two lashes on the back and warned never to commit such a grave offense again. Grump, found guilty of fraud and counterfeiting, was spared the lash. He was sentenced to ten years in the dungeon, allowed to leave his cell once a day only to clean the castle stables and pig sty.

      No one would speak to him, and it was forbidden to utter his name. Only the pigs, grunting when he fed them scraps from the castle kitchen, not unlike the swill he received each morning and evening in his cell, seemed to call his name, uttering, ‘grump, grump’ continuously as the plunged their snouts into the gray, mushy mess he fed them.

      Grump had always dreamed of a captive audience shouting his name over and over, and adoring him. He finally had realized his dream, and they were his to rule over for ten years.



Soul Alley

A riveting documentary by filmmaker, Ted Irving.

https://filmfreeway.com/SoulAlley

Tuesday, December 18, 2018

USAP Community School

Imagine a school . . .

that seeks out the brightest students in underserved communities in Zimbabwe,

that teaches through a rigorous holistic education centered on critical thinking,

and prepares leaders of tomorrow with values of integrity, equity and service.

That school is USAP Community School, a residential 11th and 12th grade (A Level) school that educates high-achieving, low-income Zimbabwean students to excel at the world's top universities and return home to build a better society.

The USAP Community School will open with the first class of 11th grade (Lower Sixth) students in January 2020. Join us in helping to make this truly transformative school a reality.

Go to www.usapschool.org/donate and make a donation today.

The USAP Community School is a project of the Education Matters Africa Foundation, a 501(c)3 non-profit in the United States and a non-profit educational trust in the Republic of Zimbabwe.

Saturday, October 13, 2018

It's Time for Trump the Deal-Maker to Hit the 'Pause' Button


On October 2, 2018, Jamal Khasoggi, a former Saudi Arabian senior journalist who was critical of the Saudi regime, entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey to obtain paperwork for his planned marriage to his Turkish fiancée. There is video evidence of his entry into the facility, but no evidence showing that he ever came out again. Khasoggi, fearing arrest for his criticism of the Saudi government, had gone into self-imposed exile, had become a legal permanent resident of the United States, and wrote opinion pieces for the Washington Post and other media outlets.

Turkish officials claim that they have audio and video evidence that shows Khasoggi was beaten, tortured, killed, and then dismembered by a team of Saudi intelligence officials who had entered Istanbul and departed by private plane the same day. The Turks say that one of the 15 agents was a forensics expert. The Saudis, not surprisingly, deny this happened, and call the Turkish claim a lie. Outside the locked rooms of the various intelligence agencies little is actually known, other than the fact that Khasoggi has not been heard from since October 2.

While I, like most outside the intelligence community, don’t know what actually happened inside the Saudi consulate on October 2, what I do know has left me shocked, appalled, and disgusted. Shocked, but hardly surprised, that a government would even contemplate such a barbarous act. Appalled that so little concrete has been done beyond the usual public statements of ‘shock, dismay, and disapproval.’ And, disgusted at my own government’s reactions to his incident.

President, and deal-maker-in-chief, Donald Trump, when this first hit the airwaves, was noncommittal, and ended his statement by saying that while this, if true, was terrible, he did not want to cancel a $110 billion arms sale to the Saudis. Subsequently, Trump expressed his ‘anger’ at the whole incident, promised that he would have ‘strong words’ for the Saudi leadership, but still expressed his reluctance to kill the arms sale – because of its benefits to the US economy and US jobs. Furthermore, he expressed his desire that this windfall not go to other countries, such as Russia or China. His statements, or at least, the part about the arms sale, are dismaying and, from what I know, incorrect.

Let’s look first at the ‘facts.’ He claims a $110 billion sale; in fact, the White House previously announced this $100 billion potential sale, but without going into any details. Based on current reporting and the history of US-Saudi arms deals, I find the $110 billion figure hard to swallow. In 2017, Saudi Arabia bought $10 billion in arms, $6 billion of that from the U.S., the rest from mostly European countries. A tenfold increase in purchases seems, on the surface, to be incredible, and, frankly, unbelievable. News reports indicate that State Department records show a planned purchase of $4 billion, which is more realistic. As to Trump’s claims that the Saudis will, if the U.S. sale doesn’t go through, purchase from Russia or China, also don’t pass the smell test. The Saudi military uses mostly U.S. equipment. It’s doubtful that either the Chinese or the Russians could provide material or equipment that would be compatible with the current Saudi force structure, and it would take several years for Saudi Arabia to reconfigure their force to integrate Chinese or Russian arms. My conclusion is, what we have here is another case of the ‘alternative facts’ that seem to come out of this White House with alarming frequency.

One other thing that dismays me is the reporting that the U.S. intelligence community had information that the Saudis were planning to lure Khasoggi back to Saudi Arabia so they could arrest him. Why, one might ask, was he not warned of this danger?

According to Trump, he’s not an American, the incident didn’t happen on American soil, so, it’s not our ‘problem.’

Horse feathers! Intelligence Community Directive 191, I understand, is an executive branch directive that requires the IC to warn any individual, specifically non-US individuals, when there is a threat to them in a foreign country. Even if such a directive did not exist, I would think a sense of ‘right’ would compel the government to find a way, without compromising sources and methods, to alert someone that a foreign agency has him or her in its sights.

One can only wonder at this point; if Khasoggi had been a legal permanent resident working for Fox, Breitbart, or one of the other right-wing media concerns, if we would be hearing the same tired old song.

The world will be watching us and judging what we do in this terrible situation. Will we continue to put money over morals? If we do, all I can say is – SHAME!!

Wednesday, September 12, 2018

Preparing the U.S. Foreign Service to Survive Disruption


Whenever there is a change in leadership in an organization, whether it’s a country or a country club, there will be change. And change is, by its very nature, disruptive. With every change of administration in Washington, government workers must accommodate the inevitable changes., sometimes minor, sometimes very substantive. Career personnel are committed to carrying out the policies of the elected leadership, but sometimes that job is made difficult by the pace, volume, and nature of the changes that a new administration brings. During my 50 years of military and civilian government service, under every administration from JFK to Barack Obama, I have lost track of the number of times I’ve had to make significant changes in how I carried out my duties.



Everyone, including the Foreign Service, faces changes in the way we do business when the foreign policy leadership changes. As frustrating as it can be, it is what it is.



.

Disruption means change: Sometimes Cosmetic, Sometimes Cataclysmic



During my thirty years as a Foreign Service Officer, in positions from junior consular officer to ambassador, I observed and experienced the turbulence that came with five presidential administrations, and since my retirement in 2012, I’ve followed with interest the changes underway with the current administration. Sometimes the changes were merely cosmetic, consisting of relabeling programs that were longstanding, but, at other times, the changes were dramatic.



The Reagan Administration practiced a form of ‘out-of-the-box’ disruptive diplomacy, but Reagan had a clear goal and even though he sometimes used militant rhetoric, was willing to change when the situation called for change. In addition, he had an excellent foreign policy inner circle.



George H. W. Bush entered office in 1989, a time of seismic changes in the global situation, with the USSR breaking up and the Cold War ending, ushering in what he called the ‘new world order.’ Bush, however, was not given to militant rhetoric or grand gestures, preferring instead a deliberate, cautious approach. While he was cautious with his rhetoric, he did cause some disruption because of his tendency to have direct contact with foreign leaders often leaving the diplomatic corps to learn things from the foreign press...



Bill Clinton took office in 1993, and his foreign policy direction was to rely on regional and international organizations. Much of the disruption during his two terms came from his conflict with congress over war powers, and the administration’s failure to act in response to the genocide in Rwanda, which, after he left office, he acknowledged was a failure on his part. Establishment of relations with Vietnam was perhaps the high point in his tenure, and expanded opportunities for many Foreign Service Officers who were Southeast Asian specialists.



When George W. Bush assumed the presidency in 2001, his foreign policy focused on stronger relations with Latin America, Mexico in particular, and a reduction in US nation-building efforts. One of his earlier moves, withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocols, caused a brief diplomatic scramble as our people abroad had to explain our position to host nations. Objections to the International Criminal Courts, and the possibility of it being used to target Americans for propaganda purposes, with threats of reduced assistance to countries who did not support our position created problems for diplomats who had to approach host countries what amounted to a ‘take-it-or-leave-it bullying’ offer.



In 2009, the administration of Barack Obama outlined a foreign policy based on cooperation with allies, a global coalition of partnerships to address global issues, such as the Paris Agreement on the Environment, and an emphasis on soft power instead of military solutions to problems. He did not immediately repudiate past policies, including some that many of our allies disagreed with, and 805 of the previous administration’s politically appointed ambassadors were retained for varying periods of time, ensuring continuity in our relations with their host countries.



And, that brings us to the present administration of Donald J. Trump, which took office in January 2017. From day one, and even during the campaign in 2016, we have seen a Heisenberg Principle level of uncertainty and disruption in US foreign policy, with policy pronouncements often announced via early-morning Twitter posts, without the benefit of interagency coordination. These actions have caused significant shifts in long-standing policies, forcing diplomats on the ground to scramble to explain their meaning to our allies



The Short- and Long-term impacts



Since January 2017, there has been an exodus of experienced senior career FSOs from the State Department, which exacerbates existing problems, particular relating to providing career guidance to new hires. In the short term, these vacancies have to be filled with often inexperienced mid-level people, who are not lacking in intellect or will, but who don’t have the wealth of experience and depth of contacts needed. This is further complicated by the lack of a clear policy. While ‘Make America Great Again,’ is an interesting slogan—albeit bringing to mind the discredited ‘America First’ policy of the pre-World War II years—it is not a policy.



The potential long-term impact is even more distressing.



Continued efforts to reduce the State Department budget, which is barely sufficient at the best of times, impairs the ability to staff our missions abroad. The administration often seems unaware of the many services our diplomats offer Americans that have nothing to do with politics. Consular services are not just immigration. Consular officers help American travelers and expatriates in ways that seldom get mentioned in the media, from replacing lost passports to issuing birth and death certificates.  Foreign Commercial Service Officers and their State Department economic officer colleagues assist American businesses in entering foreign markets, understanding foreign commercial environments, and settling business disputes. If we reduce this American presence abroad, we eventually reduce our ability to level the playing field for American business abroad, and we leave Americans traveling or living abroad without an essential lifeline.



Another long-term impact of the administration’s actions that no one seems to be considering is this: who will implement this administration’s policy abroad—assuming it can eventually develop a coherent policy. It might be barely possible, but hardly effective, for one person to run a big company, but it’s not  possible for one person to run a country. Domestic issues alone are beyond the scope of a single individual’s ability, and when it comes to the myriad of activities that go into the foreign affairs mix, it’s a fools’ errand to even contemplate going it alone.



How Can the Foreign Service Survive?



The Foreign Service currently faces an existential threat. Are we prepared to accept this new reality, and more importantly, do something about it? It’s not just the continued survival of the Foreign Service as a viable institution that’s important either. We must also consider the continued ability to provide essential services to Americans abroad, and to serve as the eyes, ears, and voice of the United States in places around the globe.



Working with the congress and other stakeholders, we need to take action to prepare our FSOs and Foreign Service Specialists, not only to survive for the next two years, but to prosper. We must prepare junior- and mid-level officers and specialists to perform effectively at more senior levels much earlier in their careers. This requires more than traditional tradecraft training, It requires a sustained program of career education that begins on day one of an officer or specialist’s employment.



This does not mean that we should junk current programs—at least, not all of them—but we should add programs that are designed to instill and reinforce the core values and skills that people require to be effective diplomats..



Courses in mentoring, counseling, ethical decision making, leadership, and planning should be mandatory for all personal at all grades. The A-100 course, for instance, should include basic instruction on these subjects, as should the senior leadership courses and the Ambassadorial and DCM/Principal Officer Seminars.



Mentoring and counseling are important for developing and motivating subordinates, and it’s no longer possible to rely on the apprentice system of the past; there simply will not be enough senior, experienced people to support it.



Current ethics training is necessary, but in today’s complex ethical environment, not sufficient. Our people need to be able to act and make decisions consistent with core American values while preserving their own personal moral values. Additional education is required to enable them to operate effectively in the gray area of moral uncertainty and value conflict, and they must have options beyond surrender integrity or resign.



FSI provides leadership training which is fairly effective. I say effective, but, I think there should be more participation by experienced practitioners. Mandatory leadership training should also be required for all tenured FSOs and all specialists who wish to compete for leadership positions.



Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s first diplomats, said, ‘If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” At the same time, there’s an old military saying ‘no plan survives first contact with the enemy.’ I’m not sure who said it first, but it’s true. Every event, every crisis is unique, and has to be dealt with in a unique way. So, what’s the good of a plan? Planning helps to focus people on the organization’s goals and puts everyone at the same starting point, so that in a crisis, efforts to deal with it are coordinated and coherent. Planning disciplines the mind, so that, in a crisis, with a short planning time frame, people can identify the problem, marshal needed resources, and deal with the problem in a coherent and timely manner. Planning requires one to identify the problem or goal, assess different courses of action, determine logistic and administrative requirements and drawbacks, and make decisions. This disciplining of the thought process, when a common part of the organization experience, helps in crises. While the planning time frame is much narrower when the balloon goes up, it still applies. Identify the crisis, determine the desired end state, marshal required resources, and execute.



These modest recommendations would, I believe, address many of our short- and long-term issues. The Foreign Service faces hard times, and at the end of the next two years will be a severely weakened institution that will have to be rebuilt. We shouldn’t, however, seek to rebuild it exactly as it was. We should strive to build a new and better Foreign Service. One that is resilient, and ready for any mission, anywhere. This we owe the American people.

Friday, August 3, 2018

Mnangagwa Wins First Zimbabwe Election since Mugabe's Ouster

Trump and the Truth

Trump once bragged that he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and people would still support him. 
The consistent support of his base in the face of his constant falsehoods would seem to support
that assertion.

Thursday, July 26, 2018

Trump's Real Wall


Is Trump biting off more than he can chew?


From the beginning of his campaign, and even before, Donald J. Trump has been confrontational. As president, he has been continually disruptive, starting feuds all over the landscape, and lashing out at his enemies, real and imagined.

He has insulted the handicapped, women, John McCain, and Gold Star parents, started unnecessary trade wars with China, Canada, and the EU, and issued an ALLCAPS threat to the Iranians in response, not to something they did, but to something they said. He has waged close to all-out war on the media—except of course for his main source of faux (pronounced Fox) news and threatened to reduce the Department of State and our diplomatic corps to less than bit player status in his four-year reality show. He has rolled back environmental and other protective regulations that threaten the environment for decades to come. Except for Putin of Russia and Kim of North Korea, who seem to be his best buds, he’s picked fights with just about every imaginable demographic.

He has, though, picked one fight that might just be his Waterloo. He has frequently and persistently of late undercut and undermined the US intelligence community, expressing a preference for believing Vladimir Putin over them. So far, he has not picked on the military as an institution, because like many draft dodgers of his generation, he is enthralled by men in uniform—as long as they are not him—and, I believe he’s afraid of them. The problem is that none of his love interests, not Putin, not Kim, and not the US military, can aid his hold on power. Putin tried, and even succeeded in helping him gain the Oval Office, but I don’t think there’s much he can do to keep him there or ensure him a second term. Kim can only add more complications to his life, and unless he can somehow install a military dictatorship with himself as figure-head leader while America is sleeping, the military will continue to follow the orders of the commander-in-chief, but they’re not gonna do much for him politically.

The intelligence community, though, and to a lesser extend the federal law enforcement community, can make or break him. He likes to tell us how smart he is, and even if that was true—which it definitely is not—he still needs information in order to effectively use that smartness. By dismissing his intelligence professionals out of hand as he does, and because of his tendency to blab classified information to people like the Russians as he did with the Israeli information, he ensures that they will only give him the bare minimum. The law enforcement community also has information that would be valuable for him to have, but since he’s always attacking them, and never listens anyway, he will continue to NOT have that information.

In the meantime, he keeps wading deeper and deeper into that swamp he swore he’d drain but has instead simply added new creatures. One day, he’ll be so deep he’ll be breathing swamp water, and guess what. He’s not likely to have a hand reaching out to extricate him, because by that time, all the hands that could have helped will have been slapped.

Trump’s behavior for the past eighteen months reminds me of an old saying, ‘Be careful who you step on on you way up the ladder, because you’ll have to pass them on the way back down.’

Monday, July 23, 2018

A Tale of Trump's Taxes


Since the administration of Richard Milhous ‘Tricky Dick’ Nixon, U.S. presidents have publicly released their tax returns; a way to reassure the public that they have no financial entanglements that would interfere with their duty to the nation. Every president, that is, except Donald J. Trump.

During the campaign, then-candidate Trump refused to release his returns, claiming that he couldn’t because they were being audited by the IRS—this, despite the IRS stating publicly that an individual had the authority to release his returns even during an audit. There were, if I remember correctly, vague promises that he would release the returns if elected.

Well, we’re over a year and a half into the Trump Administration, and President ‘Dishonest Donald’ Trump still has not released his returns, breaking a 40-year precedent that has been honored since the days of Jimmy Carter.

Why, one has to ask, is he so jealously guarding documents that every senior government official in a position of responsibility is required to provide, and presidents before him have willingly provided? Questions that arose after his sniveling, submissive performance in Helsinki when he shared the podium with his bromance, Vladimir Putin, make these documents even more important, and makes me wonder why the secrecy.

I don’t want to start another conspiracy, so I’ll say up front, I don’t know, and we may never know, but I would like to offer some possibilities for his reluctance to let us see his tax returns.

1.      They show that he’s not nearly as rich as he claims he is, and we all know how sensitive he is on that subject.

2.      They show income from questionable sources such as the Russian mob, or even domestic underworld sources. His flirtation with organized crime figures has been well documented, as has his relationship with Roy Cohn of McCarthy Red Scare fame, who himself had underworld connections.

3.      They show expenses, especially if he used a credit card or third-party payer, that prove conclusively that he’s lied about some of his extramarital liaisons or that he actually did hire . . . ladies of ill repute to stage the salacious Moscow hotel event.

4.      They show investments or debts from Russia that indicates he’s in hock to them up to his eyebrows.

5.      They show money flowing in from unusual sources that can eventually be traced back to Russian intelligence or Putin himself.

I’m not ranking these scenarios, and I’m sure there are other possibilities, but if I had to rank them, items 1,2, and 3 would head my list, simply because they are so typical of the man. Item 4 is not beyond the realm of possibility, while number 5, though unlikely, also can’t be entirely dismissed.

All of this speculation and the constant questions and doubts could be laid to rest if the man would just man up and release his returns. An alternative would be the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman requests the returns from the IRS as he’s authorized to do and let them be reviewed by members of both parties on his committee. At least some of our elected representatives would know what’s what. Not the ideal solution, but better than nothing. But, Rep. Kevin Brady, a Republican from the 8th District of Texas, ain’t about to do that. Like many of his GOP colleagues, he will continue to support and enable Trump until they go over the cliff.

So, it’s likely we’ll never know. But, it’s such a minor thing. If you’re honest and have nothing to hide, what’s wrong, when you’re the top dog in the kennel, with letting people see what everyone of your predecessors has let them see?

I’d like to see a reporter at one of Sarah Sanders’ press conferences bring this up, just to see how she punts it.

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

Where is Global Leadership when you need it?


With the current US administration’s abdication of global leadership, the world is more in need of effective leaders across the entire spectrum of business, social organizations, and government than it has been since the onset of World War II.

It doesn’t matter whether the objective is negotiating fair bilateral or multilateral trade agreements, dealing with foreign interference in domestic elections, or with the global threat of climate change, leadership that is incapable of communicating and acting across cultural and national boundaries is not only ineffective, it’s dangerous.

Now, there hasn’t been a time since the establishment of organized communities or nation-states that global, or cross-cultural leadership hasn’t been important. But, in the current era, when air travel has reduced the time between the most distant points on earth to hours instead of months, and technology has made it possible to communicate around the globe with the press of a button, the ability of leaders to navigate the uncertain terrain is more important than ever.

It’s always a good idea to define what you’re talking about so that everyone involved in the conversation is singing from the same song sheet. For the purposes of the present discussion, global leadership as ‘the capacity to develop and maintain multiple key cross cultural or international relationships toward a common purpose.’ This definition, by the way, applies to any leadership situation.

How do we recognize effective global leaders? Where do they come from?

For as long as I can remember, the debate over whether leaders are born or raised has raged, with neither side giving in. From my perspective of 50 years of experience in government—being led, observing other leaders, or leading—I’ve found that, while truly great leaders do share some common traits, and some people do have a larger share of these traits than others, no one is really born to lead. Some do perhaps exhibit leadership traits in childhood, but it takes more than possessing the traits to make one an effective leader. Leaders, global or domestic, are developed from among those with the potential and desire to lead, either from within their organization or from the outside. They must be identified, educated and trained, and nurtured from early in their careers.

Leadership education is a life-long process, and one that must be undertaken by organizations an by those who want to become effective leaders.

During my time as the first American consul general in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, I had the opportunity to see global leadership first hand—both effective and ineffective.

One of the biggest US investors in Vietnam at the time (1998-2001) was the sports wear giant, Nike. Nike’s production was done in contract factories run by Koreans, Singaporeans, and Taiwanese, with Vietnamese workers. Cultural misunderstandings in a couple of the factories led to work stoppages and threats of legal action by the government. Worse, though, Nike’s image in the US took a beating. Nike hadn’t taken the step of giving its in-country representative control over the factory managers and hadn’t anticipated the potential for cultural clashes when Confucian cultures like Korea and Taiwan came into contact with the easygoing Vietnamese.

Nike did at least have the good sense to hire former UN ambassador Andrew Young to help them develop a solution, to the problem, and I had the rare opportunity of working with him as he did so. After reviewing the situation, he came up with a series of steps that solved the problem, and Nike’s reputation was saved.

This incident highlighted for me the critical importance of global leadership. Global leadership is important, even if you’re sitting in an office in Seattle or Raleigh. It’s important that even small organizations identify and nurture people capable of leading in today’s world—people with an understanding of the diverse factors that can affect an organization’s ability to achieve its goals.

By way of recap, following are the characteristics of effective global leaders:

·         They are able to gain the trust of multiple stakeholders, both internal and external to their organization.

·         They are able to identify key tasks and are devoted to achieving organization goals without disrupting or fracturing relationships.

·         They take personal responsibility for mistakes or failings and share credit for achievements.

·         They leave their egos at home. At the same time, they possess the self-confidence and self-assurance to step up when needed.

·         They value and respect diverse views.

·         They are effective communicators. Sometimes this means the ability to communicate in other languages, but most importantly, it means understand how culture and language effect the organization. They don’t for example, try to market a car named Nova in Spanish speaking markets.

·         They can identify core values that all stakeholders can share and are creative in seeking solutions to problems while maintaining those core values.

·         They remain calm regardless of the situation.

·         They have an appropriate sense of humor, understanding that what might be funny in one culture might be insulting in another.

·         They can deal with any situation.

Believe it or not, global leadership is really just that simple. One wonders, therefore, why is so rare these.

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