Miscellany

The  independent review of the September 11 attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was released today and cited “systemic failures and leadership and management deficiencies” at the State Department. The  attacks killed four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador and Morocco RPCV, Chris Stevens. The report says something like the security plan was “inadequate for Benghazi and grossly inadequate to deal with the attack that took place.” In the next few days, everyone will be jumping all over Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, so I thought I might reach back in time a few years and quote from a short speech that the then First Lady gave on September 1998 dedication of the Peace Corps Building and Shriver Hall. A few of you were there, and, of course, many of you weren’t. At the ceremony, the First Lady was introduced by the Peace Corps Director, Mark Gearan, who said, among other things, . . .

My condition left me jobless, homeless, physically disabled, and in pain. I’m sure there are many more of you out there. Luckily I didn’t have kids or other family responsibilities, so I’ve had TIME to waste on the system, but what about the others? I would love to be asked to give my personal case history… that I lived on $100 a month, got sick and repeatedly asked for my PCMO’s (Peace Corps Medical Officers) help to do more tests and was told there was nothing more to do, when there was and now I get to live with a (…) disease for the rest of my life. So, the OIG (Office of Inspector General during GAO of RPCVs) wants to know if it is spending the PC is spending its money appropriately? The answer is an obvious NO! I don’t get responses from the DOL anymore. My case has . . .

[Nancy Tongue (Chile 1980-82) emailed the following statement to FairWarning about the article on the US Department of Labor and medical assistance to RPCV. Nancy started Health Justice for Peace Corps Volunteer. You can read about it at: http://www.healthjusticeforpeacecorpsvolunteers.org/ This is their mission statement: Mission Statement To ensure that Peace Corps Volunteers who become sick and injured due to their overseas service obtain the support and benefits to which they are legally entitled.  Strategy To obtain as many stories as we can from Returned Peace Corps Volunteers to better understand the nature of their struggles so that we can bring their needs to public light. To constructively use these stories to approach media sources and to pressure the government to make necessary positive changes. Core Values To lobby for and support other Peace Corps volunteers with integrity, commitment and compassion. This is Nancy’s statement to Fair Warning on their article:   Health Justice for . . .

From the Daily Beast by Jacob Heilbrunn Dec 14, 2012 The ambassador built her career on catering to authority, even some of Africa’s most loathsome dictators. Why the Libya fiasco had nothing to do with the Beltway insider’s demise.   With her decision to withdraw from consideraion as secretary of state, Susan Rice-and her greatest champion, President Obama-is finally bowing to the inevitable. Her supporters concocted any number of reasons to promote her ascension to the top floor of Foggy Bottom. She was, they said, being demonized by the right. She was being subjected to racism. She was just trying to please her superiors. And so on. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice speaks during a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria in August in New York. (Stephen Chernin/AFP/Getty Images) Don’t believe a word of it. The real problem is not that she bungled Libya. It’s that . . .

[This article appeared on December 13, 2012 in Mother Jones Magazine. It was originally on www.FairWarning.com. I know that in conversations with the new Acting Director of the Peace Corps that she has been working on solving this problem with the Department of Labor and is dealing with it in ways that previous Peace Corps Directors haven’t. Carrie has spent her life in nonprofit organizations working on health issues, and she has taken major steps to resolve these issues that PCVs and RPCVs have. Years ago, I suggested to the NPCA that they make this their central issue to help RPCVs, but ALL the NPCA Presidents and CEO (and whatever other grand titles they call themselves) were only interested in advancing their own positions with overseas trips, congressional appearances, visits to the Peace Corps office, and fund raising to pay their salaries. This issue for the Peace Corps and all . . .

By: Michael O’Hanlon and Tony Gambino December 11, 2012 [Tony Gambino and Michael O’Hanlon were PCVs in the Congo in the 1970s and ’80s; Tony was also the  USAID mission director there from 2001-04. Today he teaches at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. Michael O’Hanlon is senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. This article appeared on December 12, 2012 in Politico. It was entitled “U.S. Must Step Forward in Effort to Stabilize Congo.” Larry Lesser, a PCV in Nigeria, 1963-65, and later served at the Embassy in Kigali 1977-79 drew my attention to it. Larry also commented, “Personally I found the article somewhat idealistic but not persuasive.  I don’t think it is within the power of the U.S. to stabilize Congo — not even in concert with other African nations or other nations globally.  I don’t think Congo can be stabilized.  It isn’t a viable nation-state and eastern Congo historically has . . .

Years ago someone I worked with in D.C. said that RPCVs were like retired FBI agents, and when I asked him why, he remarked, “they take care of their own.” True enough. We especially ‘take care of those PCVs we served with” so let me do that now, and also do you a favor by recommending Bamboula, a craft store that is  owned and operated and everything else by Jasperdean Kobes (Ethiopia 1962-64). Jasperdean is an importer and wholesaler of contemporary gifts handcrafted from six African countries (Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Uganda). The company’s mission is to create work and income for African artisans by selling handcrafted products to retailers in the US. Customers include independent gift shops, national mail order catalogs, museums and zoos, and other specialty retailers. In recent years, Jasperdean has also consulted for the West Africa Trade Hub, the East and Central Africa . . .

by Lloyd Grove The Daily Beast Dec 12, 2012 7:45 AM EST Brusque. Aggressive. Undiplomatic. The adjectives used to describe the ambassador aren’t kind. Lloyd Grove on Susan Rice’s polarizing temperament-and why that may matter more than Benghazi. Susan Rice, the United States ambassador to the United Nations and President Obama’s most visible candidate to replace Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, is being subjected to an immutable law of the Washington power grid: In the rough and tumble of political combat, personality trumps policy. Government policy, especially foreign policy, is rife with nuance and complication. But personality is easier to grasp and harder to shed. Recent critiques of Rice’s influence on U.S. diplomacy in Rwanda, Sudan, and Eritrea over the past two decades are endlessly debatable among think-tank elites. Republican Sen. John McCain’s threat to block her (hypothetical) confirmation because she relied on faulty intelligence to mischaracterize the Sept. . . .

December 9, 2012 Susan Rice and Africa’s Despots By SALEM SOLOMON–The New York Times Tampa, Fla. ON Sept. 2, Ambassador Susan E. Rice delivered a eulogy for a man she called “a true friend to me.” Before thousands of mourners and more than 20 African heads of state in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Ms. Rice, the United States’ representative to the United Nations, lauded the country’s late prime minister, Meles Zenawi. She called him “brilliant” – “a son of Ethiopia and a father to its rebirth.” Few eulogies give a nuanced account of the decedent’s life, but the speech was part of a disturbing pattern for an official who could become President Obama’s next secretary of state. During her career, she has shown a surprising and unsettling sympathy for Africa’s despots. This record dates from Ms. Rice’s service as assistant secretary of state for African affairs under President Bill Clinton, who . . .

[James Bruno was a Foreign Service officer for 23 years, having worked previously in military intelligence and journalism. He is a member of the Diplomatic Readiness Reserve, subject to worldwide duty on short notice. He holds a M.A. degrees from the U.S. Naval War College & Columbia University, and a B.A from George Washington U. He has served in SE Asia, Cuba, Guantanamo, Pakistan/Afghanistan. He also spent time at the White House and have worked with the Secret Service in a presidential protection detail overseas. He knows the Pentagon, CIA and other foreign affairs agencies well. He have been featured on NBC’s Today Show, Washington Post, Huffington Post & NPR. His political thrillers Permanent Interests and Chasme have simultaneously been on three Amazon Kindle Bestseller lists, including #1 in Political Fiction. His recently released Afghanistan thriller, Tribe, is also a bestseller. Here is what he has to say about Susan Rice.] The Problem With Susan Rice and . . .

 By Ruth Marcus, Published: November 29 Does gender – or the supercharged combination of gender and race – play a role in the preemptive strikes on not-yet-secretary of state nominee Susan Rice? For perspective on this complex question, it helps to return to 1974 and the nomination of another woman, Alice Rivlin, to head the Congressional Budget Office. As Rivlin tells the story, the office had just been created, she was selected by a search committee – and the House Budget Committee chairman made clear his adamant, gender-based opposition. “Over his dead body was a woman going to run this organization,” Rivlin recalled at an Atlantic magazine “Women of Washington” lecture last year. No one would say that today. No one, I’d venture, would even think it. A woman, after all, has been secretary of state for all but four of the last 16 years; during the interregnum, the job was held . . .

Updated December 3, 2012, 7:23 p.m. ET Stephens: Failing Up With Susan Rice Benghazi was not her first African fiasco. By BRET STEPHENS in the Wall Street Journal Long before Susan Rice became a household name thanks to her part in the Benghazi fiasco, she was building a career from the ruins of other African fiascoes. To some of these she merely contributed. Others were of her own making. Ms. Rice’s misadventures in Africa began nearly two decades ago when, as a 28 year-old McKinsey consultant with an Oxford Ph.D. (her dissertation was on Zimbabwe), she joined Bill Clinton’s National Security Council. The president, who had been badly burned by the Black Hawk Down episode in October 1993, was eager to avoid further African entanglements. So when a genocide began in Rwanda the following April, the administration went to great lengths to avoid any involvement-beginning with the refusal to use . . .

RPCV/W will honor RPCV Aaron Williams, the agency’s recent director, with its “Peace Corps Champion Award” at the group’s 2012 Holiday Party & Silent Auction. This is taking place on the evening of December 14, 2012, at 2020 O Street N.W. Tickets are $45 for members;  $60 for Non-Members. It will cost you $70 at the door. According to the RPCV/W e-mail blast, ” The guest list is growing and tickets are going fast. Get yours before its too late!” Each year, RPCV/W awards its Peace Corps Champion Award to an individual whose work has made a great impact on the Peace Corps and its community. This year they selected Aaron S. Williams who served as Director from 2009 to 2012. Acting Peace Corps Director Carrie Hessler-Radelet will also be at the party, as will the former Senator Harris Wofford, who, as we know, was one of the original Mad Men of the agency and also the . . .

I am continually amazed and humbled by the work that RPCVs continue to do in the countries where they once served as PCVs. Recently I received word about another amazing project, this time in Peru, carried on by a handful of former Peru Volunteers. These RPCVs have established the Chijnaya Foundation and they work directly with villages in hard to access, under-served areas of the Peruvian Andes. Among the RPCVs on this foundation board are Ralph Bolton (Peru 1962-65) who contacted me, Peggy Slater (Peru 1966-68),  John Rouse (Peru 1966-68), Connie Jaquith (Bolivia and Peru, not sure of her dates). Other former RPCVs who were early organizers are Andrew Hoffman (Peru 1966-68), Raymond Rifenburg (Peru 1966-68), and Paul Doughty, a Peace Corps trainer in Peru in the early ’60s, Rolly Thompson,  a consultant to the foundation, and Judith Haden, who was a PCV in Central America.  As I said, the The Chijnaya Foundation works directly with . . .

    Bob Arias (Colombia 1964-66; Trainer at Camp Radley 1966-68; APCD Colombia 1968-70; Language Director for the Peace Corps in Latin America 1971-73; CD Argentina and Uruguay 1993-95; Response Volunteer to Panama 2009-10, Paraguay 2010-11; currently in Colombia with Peace Corps Response) has also worked as the State Director for ACTION, 1973–75, and retired from the position of County of Los Angeles Affirmative Action Compliance Officer in 1993.