Second Verse, Same as the First: Diplomats Edition

I just said earlier that President Whiny McPoopypants can blame the Congress all he wants for not funding the war, but Congress doesn't have anything to do with the Army's staffing problems. They also don't have anything to do with the fact that US diplomats would rather quit than be sent to Iraq.

At a rare, contentious meeting, foreign service officers told senior State Department officials that the move to fill vacancies in Baghdad puts them in danger, jeopardizes the well-being of their families, and could deplete the ranks of those willing to serve overseas at a critical time. Several diplomats said privately they would resign rather than accept orders to serve in Iraq.

…The State Department has struggled to find Foreign Service volunteers to fill 48 of the 252 diplomatic posts that will become vacant next summer in Baghdad as well as other Iraqi provinces. To solve the problem, the department decided on mandatory service in Baghdad if too few volunteers step forward. Yesterday, at a packed meeting to discuss the plan, foreign service officers spoke out passionately against it, an unusual display of internal dissent.

Jack Crotty, a senior Foreign Service officer who has worked overseas, told his superiors that being forced to serve in Iraq is a "potential death sentence and you know it."

"It's one thing if someone believes in what's going on over there and volunteers," he said, according to the Associated Press, "but it's another thing to send someone over there on a forced assignment."

Juan Cole says the US embassy in Iraq should just be closed, given that "kidnapping our most capable diplomats and putting them in front of a fire squad is morally wrong and is administratively stupid, since many of these intrepid individuals will simply resign."

Bush is a lunatic. This war is over. O. ver. There are not enough troops to sustain it, there is not enough money to sustain it, there is not enough will to sustain it, there are not even enough freaking diplomats to sustain it. It's done.

And if he can't face that reality on his own, then by god Congress needs to rub his nose in it like a bad puppy in his own piddle until he gets the fucking message at long last.

And then they need to impeach his criminal ass.

[H/T to Oddjob, who hat tips Sully.]