Dear Fellow FAOs:
For a long time I have considered whether the FAO Association should fulfill more than a role as a facilitator for professional and regional discussion within the specialty. It seems to me that we should also fulfill the role of advocate and, even occasionally, of lobbyist for causes that directly impact on the good of our members. I am not suggesting that either of these functions become our main thrust, but only that important issues that affect us should not be left unsaid.
In that vein, one of our members recently brought just such an issue to my attention, and I in turn want to pass it along for your individual consideration. A sister non-profit, professional association, the American Foreign Service Association has been actively engaged in lobbying Congress for increased support for Embassy Security worldwide. This is an issue of great importance not only to the Foreign Service Officers of the Department of State, but to every active duty Foreign Area Officer (and many reserve FAOs and retirees as well).
Think about how many of us trained or are training at embassies around the world. Think about how many of us are serving at embassies in Attaché, Liaison, or Security Assistance positions around the world. The upgrading of the security at those embassies SHOULD NOT BE A SMALL ISSUE TO ANY OF US.
Admiral William Crowe, a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, chaired Accountability Review Boards for the Nairobi and Dar es Salaam embassy bombings. In his report to Congress he noted that 14 years after a similar commission headed by Admiral Bobby Ray Inman gave its security recommendations to Congress, less that 12 percent of our embassies meet the security standards set by that original cominission.
Again, this is a serious issue that demands some sort of action by Congress. The question is what can we collectively or individually do about it? As an organization, we can lend our formal support to the American Foreign Service Association's campaign, and I will be taking this up with the Board of Governors. Individually, each of us can write our congressmen as concerned private citizens. Now if we were really a professional "machine" we would provide ballot-like postcards to which you would only have to sign your name. Unfortunately, we are not such a "machine" and actually expect members to pick up pen and paper and make their feeling known on their own. So, bottomline, if you agree that this is an important issue, do something about it!
Scouts Forward!