'No go' diplomats should be ashamed
The State Department under Secretary Condoleezza Rice seems unable to carry out any type of diplomatic missions without using the boot of our administration's saber-rattling rhetoric.
Diplomatic support for our troops seems to stop just short of any actual real help in Iraq.
The State Department is forcing about 300 foreign service officers to prepare for potential service in Iraq. The Iraq service draft is being assisted with threats of termination.
One would think that since we are spending so much blood and treasure in Iraq and the Middle East that foreign service officers in the diplomatic corps would stand in line to help their American brothers-in-arms.
We have built in Iraq our largest and most secure embassy in the world.
Administrators, advisers and their diplomatic support staffs are protected around the clock with Green Zone fortifications and when they leave the zone, the troops of Blackwater are their super guardians.
Yet our taxpayer-supported administration patriots are telling Rice, "No, we won't go."
Jack Croddy, a senior foreign service officer, who once worked as a political adviser with NATO said that going to Iraq is potentially a death sentence.
Further he questioned: who would raise our children if we were seriously disabled or killed?
There have been no American diplomatic fatalities in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Apparently, our highly trained and well-paid State department foreign service support for our mission in Iraq ends somewhere around London, Paris or Brussels.
Our man in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus has stated time and again that we cannot deliver a military solution in Iraq, that it must be a diplomatic solution.
We need diplomatic and support personnel and these people must believe in our Middle East efforts.
They are part of the present administration and they should help support the troops.
Our sons, daughters and other family member have been given a truly rotten task that cannot be solved without diplomatic support and yet "Heck no, they don't want to go" is the new battle cry from our state departments.
When you drive past the Fort Sheridan Cemetery say a prayer.
Our family misses a good man who could have used some diplomatic help.
Ernie Ebner
Elgin