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‘We Are Better than this Ban’: US Diplomats Plan Official Dissent
Defense One ^ | 1/30/17 | Krishnadev Calamur

Posted on 01/30/2017 7:04:22 PM PST by markomalley

U.S. State Department officials are expected to sign a memorandum opposing President Trump’s executive order on immigration, saying “We are better than this ban.”

Trump’s executive order suspends the U.S. refugee intake for 120 days and bans Syrian refugees for the foreseeable future. It also bars from the country all citizens of seven predominantly Muslim countries—Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen—regardless of their visa status for 90 days. The Trump administration says the move is to make the U.S. safer.

But in a draft memo obtained by the The Atlantic, and first published by Lawfare, the State Department officials say: “Looking beyond its effectiveness, this ban stands in opposition to the core American and constitutional values that we, as federal employees, took an oath to uphold.”

Asked about it at the daily White House press briefing on Monday, Sean Spicer, the White House spokesman, said: “They should get with the program or they should go.”

The memo would be issued on the State Department’s Dissent Channel, which was established in 1971 during the Vietnam War as a venue for diplomats to freely express their concerns with U.S. policy. Responses to messages within the channel are guaranteed within two working days, according to the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), which represents foreign-service officers; a substantive reply is to be provided with 30-60 working days, AFSA adds.

The U.S. State Department expressly forbids reprisals for those who use the channel to express views that are contrary to stated U.S. policy. Here’s more:

Officers or employees found to have engaged in retaliation or reprisal against Dissent Channel users, or to have divulged to unauthorized personnel the source or contents of Dissent Channel messages, will be subject to disciplinary action.  Dissent Channel messages, including the identity of the authors, are a most sensitive element in the internal deliberative process and are to be protected accordingly.

The channel has been used several times over the years by diplomats to express reservations—or outright alarm—at U.S. policy. Perhaps the most famous cable sent on the dissent channel was the Blood Telegram in April 1971. It was written by Archer Blood, the U.S. consul general in what was then East Pakistan, and signed by 20 others to protest the U.S. policy of siding with the Pakistani government when it cracked down militarily on what was then the eastern, Bengali flank of its country after a Bengali politician was declared the winner of national elections. Here’s more from the telegram:

Our government has failed to denounce the suppression of democracy. Our government has failed to denounce atrocities. Our government has failed to take forceful measures to protect its citizens while at the same time bending over backwards to placate the [West Pakistan] dominated government and to lessen any deservedly negative international public relations impact against them. Our government has evidenced what many will consider moral bankruptcy. … But we have chosen not to intervene, even morally, on the grounds that the … conflict, in which unfortunately the overworked term genocide is applicable, is purely an internal matter of a sovereign state. Private Americans have expressed disgust. We, as professional civil servants, express our dissent with current policy and fervently hope that our true and lasting interests here can be defined and our policies redirected.

Blood was recalled to Washington after writing the telegram. East Pakistan eventually broke away to form Bangladesh.

The channel has also been famously used to express dissent against U.S. policy during the conflicts in Bosnia and Iraq. More recently it was used last June by 51 diplomats who criticized the Obama administration’s policies in Syria, urging military strikes against the government of President Bashar al-Assad. John Kerry, the U.S. secretary of state at the time, met with the authors of the memo for about 30 minutes, engaging, The New York Times reported then, “in a surprisingly cordial conversation about whether there was a way, in the last six months of the Obama presidency, to use American military force to help end a conflict that by some estimates has claimed 500,000 lives.” Ultimately, that never happened.

Spicer’s call on the officers to quit if they disagree with policy is seen as highly unusual. I’ve reached out to AFSA for comments and will update this story when they respond.



TOPICS: Government
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To: MtnClimber

with or without the parachute?


121 posted on 01/30/2017 10:21:10 PM PST by txnativegop (Socialism -- an evil created by ignorant a-holes!)
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To: markomalley

Here is the direct link to the dissent doc:

https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/3438487/Dissent-Memo.pdf


122 posted on 01/30/2017 10:50:13 PM PST by gandalftb (Go Seahawks!)
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To: markomalley

Don to the State Department, “You’re gonna need more diplomats”.

Hope he goes medival on that house of cowards.


123 posted on 01/30/2017 10:53:00 PM PST by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
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To: The Toll

that’s true...their self identifying themselves as cockroaches....he doesn’t even need to smoke them out.


124 posted on 01/30/2017 10:54:10 PM PST by thinkliberty64
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To: DeathBeforeDishonor1

My thoughts exactly. Their behavior is directed at Trump. God Bless Him.


125 posted on 01/30/2017 10:58:10 PM PST by BunnySlippers (I Love Bull Markets!!!)
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To: Parmy

i hope i wake up to news that every one of them were fired.


126 posted on 01/30/2017 11:20:59 PM PST by tjblair (previewed)
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To: markomalley
Dear Professional diplomats; You sound like you are going to be making a very bad career move. Many of you have never worked a day in your life for a company that had to make a profit on your salary. If you get fired you are going to have a really hard time finding and keeping a private sector job.
127 posted on 01/31/2017 12:11:35 AM PST by Robert357 (D.Rather "Hoist with his own petard!" www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1223916/posts)
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To: markomalley

Easy to clean up the swamp when all the scum floats to the top for easy skimming....


128 posted on 01/31/2017 3:36:41 AM PST by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: Windflier

Ha! Didn’t notice that. That’s what I get for not making my own memes!


129 posted on 01/31/2017 3:38:10 AM PST by fruser1
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To: tumblindice

That has always been my philosophy: Work hard, do my job, and make my boss’s job easier.

That’s it. In my ideal work world, all my boss would have to do is have my back, and I do the rest.

It has been a recipe for success, as much as I have been able to achieve it.


130 posted on 01/31/2017 4:14:16 AM PST by rlmorel (Orwell described Liberals when he wrote of those who "repudiate morality while laying claim to it.")
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To: georgiegirl

That’s what he was elected to do!!

Call your Senator and make sure he or she is working with Trump!


131 posted on 01/31/2017 7:02:09 AM PST by browniexyz
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To: fruser1
Didn’t notice that. That’s what I get for not making my own memes!

Hey, at least you've got the skill to make them! Glad I could help.

132 posted on 01/31/2017 9:13:56 AM PST by Windflier (Pitchforks and torches ripen on the vine. Left too long, they become black rifles.)
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To: tumblindice

It’s not a Hatch Act violation if it’s approved State Department policy. I doubt it could be prosecuted at all unless they were doing other things as well, such as publishing classified information in their protests.


133 posted on 01/31/2017 10:22:52 AM PST by Thud
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To: JohnBovenmyer

The policy doesn’t need changing. Personnel should be changed. The lot of them should be terminated.


134 posted on 01/31/2017 10:24:28 AM PST by Thud
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To: Thud

Tillerson’s new pen not only writes any needed new policies, it writes pink slips.


135 posted on 01/31/2017 11:25:37 AM PST by JohnBovenmyer (Waiting for the tweets to hatch!)
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