Purposeful Nescience

Here's something you're not likely to hear on the evening news, thank goodness we've got Knight Ridder: There's been an exodus of weapons experts from the US State Department:

State Department officials appointed by President Bush have sidelined key career weapons experts and replaced them with less experienced political operatives who share the White House and Pentagon's distrust of international negotiations and treaties.
[...]
The reorganization was conducted largely in secret by a panel of four political appointees. A career expert was allowed to join the group only after most decisions had been made. Its work was overseen by Frederick Fleitz, a CIA officer who was detailed to the State Department as senior adviser to former Undersecretary of State John Bolton, a critic of arms agreements and international organizations.
[...]
Fleitz, who works for Robert Joseph, Bolton's successor, later telephoned State Department employees who signed a letter protesting the moves and registered his displeasure, one official said.
[...]
A dozen State Department employees delivered a rare written dissent to [Undersecretary of State for Management Henrietta] Fore and W. Robert Pearson, the director general of the Foreign Service, on Oct. 11. Some also sought, but failed to get, a stay from the Justice Department to stop the plan.

I'm reading through the entire article, which you should also do, and thinking, "Does this read like the actions of people that actually want to prevent proliferation?" Short answer: No.

When Rice announced the reorganization, she asserted that deterrence and arms control treaties aren't enough to safeguard America. "We must also go on the offensive against outlaw scientists, black-market arms dealers and rogue state proliferators," she said. Fair enough. So why eliminate the most effective way of verifying that others are abiding by their Non-Proliferation Treaty commitments? Why bring on, "neophytes without a passion for progress in this field" and undermine "international institutions that are most effective in stopping proliferation," as Jonathan Granoff, the director of the Global Security Institute put it?

Speaking of undermining, get this:

One of the government's top experts on the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, which helps stem the spread of nuclear weapons but disputed the Bush administration's claims about Iraq's weapons programs, returned from two and a half years at IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria, and was blocked from assuming an office directorship that had been offered to him, the officials and a complaint document said.

The post, which oversees U.S. diplomacy regarding international efforts to contain suspected nuclear-weapons programs such as those in Iran and North Korea, went to a more junior officer who numerous officials said shared Bolton's views.

Five higher-ranking officers were passed over, the document says, adding that none had negative work histories "aside from intimations that they were not as `trusted' politically by the political management* level."

In August 2005, the officer chosen for the job sent an e-mail sarcastically titled: "A Nobel for the IAEA? Please."* The agency and its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in October.

Yeh, nothing spells I understand the gravity of this situation quite like, IAEA, a Nobel Prize? Pfft. Talk to the hand.

Hey, what's a little sacrificing of national security to political hackery between compatriots? After all, the State Department's legal and human resources offices assured the political appointees who crafted this shakeup that what they were doing was legal.

Thomas Lehrman, a political appointee who heads the new office of Weapons of Mass Destruction Terrorism, advertised outside the State Department to fill jobs in his office. In an e-mail to universities and research centers, a copy of which was obtained by Knight Ridder, he listed loyalty to Bush and Rice's priorities as a qualification*.

* Emphasis mine.

Just what are people like Frederick Fleitz, Robert Joseph, and Thomas Lehrman up to? Short answer: Dutifully laying the path to destruction for America and possibly the globe.

Bend over here it comes again, and again, and again...

I wish I could find some silver lining or hope for anything other than a dismal outcome for our country in this report. Unfortunately...

Worst. Administration. Ever.

I think they're deliberately trying to forever ensnarl the future of America and the world in the labyrinth of their appalling ignorance and bloody malevolence to make themselves relevant, if only for their infamy. Higher roads and spiritual refinement be damned; I hate every member of this administration with the intensity of a thousand suns for it.