The Diplomat Draft
Government Executive.com has an interesting article on the Diplomat Draft, aka the Mandatory Iraq Service Requirement.
The attitude of the folks at the State Department tells me a lot more about whats going on in Iraq than any press conference would.
If you have to force your people to go with threats of being fired, than its bad. Period, the End.
In my opinion the war was lost before we started. There wasn’t any solid way to replace Saddam Hussein and his Baathists with anything like a modern democracy. So, in trying to make Iraq into a better place (or just a source of oil) we ruined it. Now we are stuck until someone shows the initiative and gets us out.
This war has cost us nearly 500 billion at the time of posting, 3841 dead and untold numbers wounded or shell shocked into PTSD.
This doesn’t count the costs in destroyed gear, dead Iraqis, ruined reputation, high oil prices or any of the myriad costs this war inflicted. All of this has gained us exactly nothing.
If the diplomats choose resignation over service, and I wouldn’t blame them, you can chalk up the loss of expertise to the wars cost ticker too.
I hope the next time a President wants to lead us into a war the Congress can make sure we have selected the right target and the President has a plan to actually win the thing.
If they don’t, God help us all, especially our troops.