Quote:
Originally Posted by aegisnavy
I heard the NPR report driving home tonight, and the following quote from Sec. Clinton perked up my ears and set me to pondering what is the deeper meaning of this policy change?
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A,
IMO, Secretary Clinton answered your question in the paragraph previous to the one you quoted.
Quote:
We’ve had examples – and I see some heads nodding – where you have contradictions about American policy between the presence of intel personnel, DOD personnel, State, USAID, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And we can’t afford that. We have to work out whatever differences there are among the United States Government representatives behind closed doors and, under chief of mission authority, present a unified front.
Otherwise, as we now know, it’s not the world of 10 years ago, let alone 50 or 100 years ago. Everybody is a potential source. Everyone is a potential blogger. Everyone is a potential leaker. (Laughter.) And therefore it would be, I think, beneficial for American foreign policy if we demonstrated as strong a presence as possible in a country after having worked through all the various and sundry jurisdictional turf problems that we know exist. This is a work in progress. It’s not going to happen overnight. But we have had enough examples in the past whereas if we don’t have that unified U.S. Government position, we are working at cross-purposes to our own ends, and that is just not going to cut it in the 21st century.
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More generally, I see Secretary of State Clinton's efforts as another chapter in a decades' old effort to re-establish Foggy Bottom as a focal point of American national security policy rather than just the West Wing or the Pentagon. Now, if only the folks on the Hill and members of the Fourth Estate would get more serious about their roles, we'd be cooking with gas.
My $0.02