Ambassadorships as consolation prizes

Kimberly Guilfoyle wanted to live off the American taxpayer in Greece.

I'm so old I remember when the word "beau" was masculine.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

There'll be a new ambassador in South Korea

Harry Harris was nominated by Trump and has been US ambassador to South Korea for two years this month.  I foresee a short tenure for Harry.

Oh, dear god

This is the acting director of national intelligence.  He obviously has none himself.

He thinks our embassies should be commerce centers.  No need for politics.  No wonder they don't like him in Germany.

He gives interviews in sweats, track shoes with no socks.  I'm glad he's so relaxed.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  There's more.  (There always is.)

Trump deconstructing America

Lana Marks is a successful fashion designer and member of U.S. President Donald Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Though she has no prior diplomatic experience, Marks is also Trump’s ambassador to South Africa, and last month she forced out her second in command, the veteran career foreign service officer David Young. According to multiple current and former officials familiar with the matter, the issue arose following Marks’s attempts to elevate her son to a senior role in the embassy, an apparent violation of State Department rules.

[...]

Apart from her attempts to give her son a job with elevated responsibilities at the embassy, other embassy staff have been pushed out, including officials who worked on foreign aid and health programs in a country that is a major recipient of U.S. funds to tackle HIV and AIDS.

[...]

Already, several of Trump’s political allies-turned-ambassadors—he has appointed a higher percentage than most previous presidents—have sacked their deputies amid a culture of mistrust between politically appointed and career State Department officials.

[...]

Along with South Africa, Trump’s envoys in Canada, France, Iceland, Romania, and the United Kingdom have all removed their deputy chiefs of mission, some ambassadors doing so just shortly before or after arriving at their new posts.

[...]

“We are deeply concerned by the number of removals of deputy chiefs of mission overseas, which are happening at way above the normal pace,” said Eric Rubin, a senior foreign service officer currently serving as president of the American Foreign Service Association, the union that represents U.S. diplomats. “It’s generally very rare for a DCM to be removed by the ambassador. It does happen. Sometimes it happens for a good cause. But it’s rare. And it is now becoming an epidemic.”

  Foreign Policy

Four (actually five) more years and there will be no way to make up for this.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Today was Bill Taylor's last day as US ambassador to Ukraine

No one has been nominated to replace him.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Shining examples of personal responsibility around the globe: Update

Diplomatic immunity no longer applies to the American intelligence official’s wife involved in the road crash that killed 19-year-old Harry Dunn, the Foreign Office has said.

Anne Sacoolas, 42, left the UK shortly after the collision between Dunn’s motorbike and a car outside RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire on 27 August.

She is believed to have been driving the car but while she met with Northamptonshire police no investigation followed after the force was advised by the UK government that she had the protective status granted to foreign diplomats.

But after days of controversy surrounding the case, a letter from Dominic Raab to Dunn’s family seen by the BBC has suggested that her return to the US has rendered that status irrelevant.

“The US have now informed us that they too consider that immunity is no longer pertinent,” the foreign secretary’s letter says.

  Guardian

I can't understand why she left, given that she had diplomatic immunity.

(Minor point: This article says she was the wife of an intelligence officer; the earlier one said diplomat.)

Amid questions over the initial advice to Northamptonshire police, the home secretary played down the prospects of extradition but told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday that the government was committed to ensuring “justice is done”.

“It very much seems that the lady in question wants to start cooperating with the discussions and the investigations and I think we should support that,” said Priti Patel.

[...]

The family’s lawyer, Mark Stephens, said on Sky News on Sunday morning: “She wasn’t entitled to diplomatic immunity in the first place.”

Calling Sacoolas “a fugitive from British justice”, he suggested that the family could take legal action against her in a US court.

“Even if she were entitled to diplomatic immunity it only applies in the host country, so the UK. It does not apply in your home country …

“That means the Dunn family can sue her in the United States for the explanation that they need to psychologically get closure on the first part of their grieving process and move on with the grieving process.”

Sacoolas, whose husband worked at the US air force station, had only been in the country for three weeks at the time of the incident and she is said to have been “devastated” by it.

I'm sure she is. But she shouldn't have left the country.

[Her legal representative Amy Jeffress] said Sacoolas wanted to meet Dunn’s parents, Charlotte Charles and Tim Dunn, to “express her deepest sympathies and apologies for this tragic incident”.

The couple are scheduled to fly to the US on Sunday ahead of visits to both New York and Washington DC.

Radd Seiger, who is representing the family, said their aim was to “put pressure on the US administration to do the right thing”.

He said he had spoken “very briefly” to Sacoolas’s legal team over the phone after arriving in the country on Saturday. “We have agreed to meet each other at the earliest possibility as soon as we can coordinate our diaries,” Seiger added.

Shining examples of personal responsibility around the globe

The wife of a US diplomat has left the UK after becoming a suspect in an investigation into the death of a motorcyclist involved in a fatal road collision, police said.

Harry Dunn, 19, died after his motorbike and a car collided near RAF Croughton in Northamptonshire on 27 August.

Northamptonshire police said a 42-year-old American woman who was being treated as a suspect in their investigation had left the UK.

Supt Sarah Johnson said the suspect had previously told the force she did not intend to “leave the country in the near future”.

[...]

The foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, said he had called the US ambassador to “express the UK’s disappointment with their decision” and to urge him to reconsider.

“I wish to offer my condolences to the family affected by this tragic incident,” he said.

The US embassy in London said it offered its “deepest sympathies” to Dunn’s family following the accident “involving a vehicle driven by the spouse of a US diplomat assigned to the United Kingdom”.

It said embassy officials were in close contact with the appropriate British officials. “Due to security and privacy considerations, we cannot confirm the identity of the individuals involved, but we can confirm the family has left the UK.”

  The Guardian

Pathetic. She probably had diplomatic immunity anyway.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:  It wasn't a US diplomat's wife, but an intel agent's.  She still  had diplomatic immunity.  But now she doesn't.

Typical Trump nominee

President Donald Trump’s nominee to be ambassador to the United Nations, Kelly Craft, spent the equivalent of seven months of her 20-month tenure as U.S. ambassador to Canada back in the United States in places where she had homes, according to findings by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Democratic staff.

The minority staff’s findings are drawn from previously undisclosed documents provided by the State Department and Craft to the full committee following a June 19 hearing.

[...]

Democratic staff found that Craft — who hails from Lexington, Ky., and in 2016, married Joe Craft, a coal magnate from Tulsa, Okla. — spent all or part of 210 days, or a third of her time as ambassador to Canada, in either Kentucky or Oklahoma over the course of 43 trips. Half of those days were work days.

[...]

The issue of her absences took on greater significance because Craft, a political appointee with close ties to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, lacked the extensive diplomatic or political experience typical of a U.N. nominee. Druing her confirmation hearing, Craft attributed much of her travel back to the United States to the demands of negotiating and promoting a revamped North American free trade pact. But Democrats found that only about 40 days of the 356 total days she spent partially or wholly outside of Canada were for trade negotiations. Moreover, the minority staff found that she had claimed 60 personal days away from the job.

[...]

Suzanne Wrasse, a spokesperson for committee Chairman Jim Risch (R-Idaho), disputed some of the Democrats’ characterizations of Craft’s absences and indicated that the ambassador’s nomination is likely to advance from the committee, which has a 12-10 GOP majority, to the full Senate.

[...]

“Canadians at the highest levels remain impressed with Ambassador Craft’s accomplishments in support of the U.S.-Canada relationship, and there is no question that she made a positive impact during her tenure as ambassador,” Wrasse said.

However, Canadian elected officials have told POLITICO that Craft kept a lower profile than previous ambassadors and often missed diplomatic events because of her extensive travel.

  Politico

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Remembering Kelly Craft as she began her ambassadorship:



More.

Finally, an unqualified candidate withdraws

US President Donald Trump's choice for ambassador to the United Nations, Heather Nauert, has withdrawn from consideration for the job for family reasons, according to the State Department.

  alJazeera

Her family will disown her if she takes the job.

"The past two months have been grueling for my family and therefore it is in the best interest of my family that I withdraw my name from consideration," Nauert said in a State Department statement on Saturday.

[...]

Nauert was State Department spokeswoman when Trump chose her for the UN position; prior to that, she had been a host on the conservative-leaning Fox News Channel.

[...]

Meanwhile, Bloomberg News, quoting anonymous sources, said Nauert's nomination began to falter after a White House background check discovered that Nauert employed a nanny who was legally in the United States but not authorised to work.

Nauert, 49, suggested in the statement that she was leaving government entirely, saying: "Serving in the administration for the past two years has been one of the highest honors of my life."

[...]

Calling Nauert "very talented, very smart, very quick", Trump said he thought she would be "respected by all".

And he thinks the rest of the world respects America again. Maybe he has an erroneous understanding of the meaning of the word.

In the wake of November elections that strengthened Republican control of the Senate, her confirmation appeared likely, if not easy.

Yet Trump never put Nauert's name forward with the Senate and no confirmation hearing was scheduled.

Hmmmm. What really happened?

The State Department in its statement that Trump would announce a nominee for the UN position "soon".

So, we just don't have a UN ambassador. Like so many other high level positions.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:



Trump touted her for the job well before the shutdown on December 22.

Here's his public notice on December 7:



But, hey, maybe it would have taken two weeks to make the formal nomination.  It was a busy time.

Suddenly, the Senate confirms ambassadors

The Senate confirmed more than 60 nominations by voice vote on Wednesday night, the final day of the 115th Congress.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) announced that he and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) had reached a deal on executive-branch nominations.

[...]

Trump has lamented the pace of confirmation votes for his picks, including blaming Schumer by name in a pair of tweets on Monday.

Scheduling a floor vote is up to McConnell, but any one senator can force him to eat up days of time before a final vote on a nomination.

Included in the package that cleared the Senate on Wednesday night were ambassador nominations for nearly two dozen countries, including Arthur Culvahouse Jr. to be ambassador to Australia. The post has been empty since 2016. Both retiring Sens. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) were floated for the job but said they weren't interested.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the outgoing Senate majority whip, noted the ambassador confirmations adding, "about time."

  The Hill

What happened, Chuck? What was the deal?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Trump deconstructing America - and tweeting shit

1)  Heads of countries are not calling.

2)  "Their" ambassadors are not "otherwise approved".  (Approval comes from 60 Senate votes.)

3)  Congress is not in session, so nobody is holding anything up, intentionally or otherwise.

4)  Since when was Chuck Schumer in charge of the GOP Senate?  Couldn't McConnell use that "nuclear option" Trump wants him to use for budget approval to confirm ambassadors?

5)  If Trump would nominate qualified people instead of lackies, more might get confirmed.

6)  As of November, Trump had not even nominated ambassadors for 18 countries, including very important countries of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan and Mexico.  (41 ambassadors have been nominated, awaiting confirmation.)

7)  There was a full bank of ambassadors until Trump, on his first day in office, fired every single one who was appointed by Obama effective immediately, with, of course, no replacement on deck.  A wise person - even a minimally competent one - might have gotten replacements approved before canning the person already working in the position.

In Australia, which shouldn’t be a difficult post to fill, [...] Trump initially nominated retired Admiral Harry Harris, the former U.S. commander in the Pacific, but switched him to South Korea even before he was confirmed. Then the president offered the job to Senator Bob Corker—an intriguing choice, since Corker once called the White House “an adult-day-care center”—but the Tennessean turned him down.

[...]

In Saudi Arabia, some diplomats suspect the White House has been slow to name an ambassador because Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, wanted to run the account through his personal relationship with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

[...]

An unknown number of nominees have been blocked by Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, some for what appears to be good cause. Trump’s nominee for Malta once delivered a bullet-riddled target sheet to her ex-husband’s doctor as part of a contentious divorce. The candidate for Chile, a former business partner of Jared Kushner, withdrew after learning how many holdings he’d be required to divest.

But others have been stalled by Republicans. And seven who made it through the committee are now marooned on the Senate floor, mostly because Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decided that in an election year, he wanted to confirm federal judges first.

[...]

There’s a long list of reasons why all those posts are still unfilled. The Trump administration had a notably chaotic start. The president-elect arrived in Washington without a long list of friends he wanted to reward with embassies.

His transition team under former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie drafted lists, but the president discarded them. White House aides vetoed candidates from the State Department, rejecting Foreign Service officers who had worked on Obama administration projects and Republican foreign-policy experts who had been critical of Trump.

Trump’s first secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, seemed bent on eliminating positions instead of filling them; he shoved dozens of senior diplomats out the door and sent morale in the Foreign Service plummeting. Tillerson’s successor, Mike Pompeo, stopped the personnel cuts and has sped up the lagging pace of nominations, but he still hasn’t cleared away the backlog.

The process of nominating and confirming federal officials has been slowing down for years; the Obama administration had trouble naming ambassadors, too, especially after Republicans won control of the Senate in 2014. But the Trump administration appears to hold a modern record for the slows. At the end of 2017, Trump’s first year in office, only 64 new ambassadors had been confirmed, filling about one-third of 188 posts.

  The Atlantic

And, what's the danger without ambassadors?

When there’s no ambassador, the chief U.S. diplomat in another capital is usually a chargé d’affaires ad interim, a French/Latin title that’s less impressive in translation: “interim person in charge.”

“The chargé is often very good at what he does, but he doesn’t have the access,” said Barbara Leaf, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Arab Emirates. “Places like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt are very status-conscious societies. Say you have a problem in Turkey: Who can pick up the phone and call [Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan? A good ambassador can do that; a chargé can’t.”

Access means an ambassador can often collect better information than lesser diplomats.

[...]

One more thing an ambassador is useful for: handling problems that might otherwise land on higher officials’ desks. When the crisis between Saudi Arabia and Turkey erupted, Pompeo had to get on a plane and fly to Ankara and Riyadh. “If Pompeo wanted to launch a full-bore diplomatic campaign somewhere, who does he send? There isn’t anybody,” Leaf said.

[...]

Ambassadors work on more mundane jobs, too, like helping American companies land contracts overseas. “Other countries often send cabinet ministers to pitch major contracts,” said Gordon Gray, a former ambassador to Tunisia now at the liberal Center for American Progress. “The next best thing to a cabinet minister is an ambassador. A chargé d’affaires? Not even close.”

In Central Asia, for example, China is building a gargantuan “belt and road” network to connect Europe to Asia, complete with massive investments in construction projects. But the United States has no assistant secretary of state in charge of the region, and no ambassadors in its two most important countries, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

“We’re not on the field,” said Geoff Odlum, who served in the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan. “I don’t know if China is winning hearts and minds out there, but they’re making a lot of alliances of interests—and we’re not.”

[...]

George P. Shultz, who served six years as Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state, is fond of saying that successful diplomacy is like gardening. “If you plant a garden and go away for six months, what have you got when you come back? Weeds,” Shultz said. “Diplomacy is kind of like that. You go around and talk to people, you develop a relationship of trust and confidence, and then if something comes up, you have that base to work from.”

That doesn’t sound much like the Trump administration’s style. In a new book, The Jungle Grows Back, Robert Kagan, who once worked for Shultz, extended the metaphor. “You don’t plant a garden and then just sit back,” Kagan said. “The forces of nature are always trying to take it over. The vines are growing. The weeds are growing. And that’s true of our international order, too.”

The Trump administration fired dozens of its foreign-policy gardeners—otherwise known as ambassadors—and has been slow to get new ones into the field. It shouldn’t be surprised when the result is not a garden, but a jungle.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

What happens when you dump career diplomats for idealogues?

German politicians have criticised Donald Trump’s new ambassador to Germany after he said he wanted to “empower” anti-establishment rightwing forces throughout Europe.

In an interview with the far-right news outlet Breitbart over the weekend, Richard Grenell, who has been in office for less than a month, said: “I absolutely want to empower other conservatives throughout Europe, other leaders.

[...]

In Berlin, the foreign ministry asked him to clarify the comments and politicians criticised him for a perceived breach of diplomatic protocol.

“In the past, Germany was fortunate to have had great US ambassadors who built bridges and did not do party politics,” said Metin Hakverdi‪, a Social Democrat delegate and member of the German-US parliamentary friendship group.

“As a member of the SPD, a left party with a long proud legacy of fighting, together with the United States, both Nazis and communists, I am irritated to hear from Ambassador Grenell about our allegedly failed policies.

“US Senator Chris Murphy said rightly that ambassadors are not supposed to ‘empower’ political parties. Ambassador Grenell is new on his post and I hope this irritation will not be repeated.”

  The Guardian

Well, the cat's out of the bag now. You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Omid Nouripour, a Green MP and deputy chair of the German-US parliamentary friendship group, said: “ [...] At least the Russians make an effort not to be seen to be meddling in other countries’ affairs.”

[...]

A spokesperson for the German foreign ministry said on Monday that the government had asked Breitbart to confirm the authenticity of Grenell’s comments and that the US ambassador would be expected to “explain what he meant” during his first official visit to the foreign ministry on Thursday.

It's obvious what he meant. Perhaps what's lacking is a step-by-step instructional plan of how he intends to carry out his claim.

While the use of political appointees – candidates with little or no foreign or diplomatic experience to be an ambassador – is more common in America than in other countries, ambassadors tend to subscribe to an unwritten code of conduct according to which they must remain politically neutral.

[...]

In his Breitbart interview, Grenell did not voice support for the rightwing populist party Alternative für Deutschland, which has been a vocal critic of Merkel’s refugee policies and is the largest opposition group in the Bundestag.

Not specifically by name, maybe.

[H]e did express admiration for the Austrian chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, whose conservative Austrian People’s party governs in a coalition with the far-right FPÖ. “Look, I think Sebastian Kurz is a rock star,” he said. “I’m a big fan.”

Fake news of fake ambassador?

Awwwwkward.

Yes, that's Trump's appointee and ex-Congressman Pete Hoekstra.  You remember Pete:

PETE HOEKSTRA: member House Intel Comm; torture proponent, opposed release of torture report; anti-Islam; announced that WMD were located in Iraq; exaggerated and lied about Iran's nuke capabilities; anti gay marriage, anti abortion and pro the death penalty;founding member of Tea Party Caucus

UPDATE 1/11:  Dutch reporters refuse to give Hoekstra a pass.

The countries where we no longer have ambassadors

I had no idea it was so many.




...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Some people just want to see the world burn

US President Donald Trump has told Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that he intends to relocate the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, according to Palestinian officials.

  alJazeera

What a stupid fucking move. It's going to cost a fortune to protect it. I feel sorry for whoever is stationed there.

Shortly after, a statement by the Jordanian royal palace said Trump had also called King Abdullah II to inform him about his intention to move the embassy to Jerusalem.

The statement said the king warned Trump the relocation would have "dangerous repercussions on the stability and security of the region" and would also inflame Muslim and Christian feelings.

[...]

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday threatened to cut diplomatic ties with Israel over reports that the US plans to recognise Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

[...]

Saeb Erekat, the secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said this week he had spoken to Arab leaders, who relayed the message "that Jerusalem is a red line, not just for Palestinians but for Arabs, Muslims and Christians everywhere".

Obviously Trump doesn't give a shit.

No country currently has its embassy in Jerusalem, and the international community, including the US, does not recognise Israel's jurisdiction over and ownership of the city.

That'll be next.

"Every US president for more than 20 years has recognised that this could have cataclysmic results and repercussions if it were to happen," Al Jazeera's Kimberly Halkett, reporting from Washington, DC, said.

[...]

French President Emmanuel Macron told Trump by telephone that Jerusalem's status must be decided in peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians.

[...]

Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's senior political analyst, said a move the by the US to relocate the embassy to Jerusalem "would have disastrous consequences for the US around the world".

"Arabs and Muslims will not take this lying down, if not today, then tomorrow, and that will have major consequences for the US."

I'm assuming Trump is going to start pulling down the walls around him rather than go away quietly.

Doesn't bode well for relations with North Korea.  Or for anyone anywhere in the world, for that matter.

I bet it made Franklin Graham and every fundamentalist Armageddon joneser cream their jeans, though.

Do you suppose Tillerson will go along with this?  Or get fired and replaced by someone who will?

UPDATE:

Oh, swell.  State Department warning:

Nice of them to warn citizens in Jerusalem, but what about US embassy personnel in other Arab countries?  There are going to be protests at every single one of them.  What a great time not to have ambassadors in place in key countries.

Wasn't Jared supposed to be the peace broker for Israel and Palestine?  What's he been doing?  I hope he at least got his own personal business deals made.

Anybody Want an Ambassadorship?

It will interest you to know that, at the moment, the United States has no ambassador to South Korea. Other marginally important nations in which the country has no official representative include Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. But, as of Wednesday night, we have a nominee to be the ambassador to an unknown land called Religious Freedom. [ed: Sam Brownback of Kansas]

[...]

As soon as his own Republican-dominated state legislature scattered Brownback's disastrous tax policy to the prairie winds last month, you knew this gospel-slinging gossoon was looking around desperately for a getaway car in which he could flee the ruin he had made of every aspect of his state's government and its economy.

[...]

And given Brownback's history as a radically conservative Catholic, one of those Crisis/First Things types who look with great envy at how Pat Robertson does business and who long for the days when a pope could terrify people at a distance, I suspect that easing the pain of the prejudice that might be afflicting, say, Muslims in Europe is not going to be at the top of [his] agenda.

[...]

I suspect this, along with the bizarre presidential* announcement about transgender troops on Wednesday morning, is one of the opening shots in the 2018 midterm elections, which apparently are going to be conducted according to 1998 rules, and which I already hate with a considerable passion.

[...]

[H]ow is this even a thing? Are we going to have Ambassadors to all First Amendment freedoms? Because I'd really like to be Ambassador At Large For Press Freedom.

  Charles P Pierce

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.