- Joined
- Jul 4, 2013
- Messages
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- 61,754
Rubio started the reform of the diplomatic service, and it looks like trouble.
"In its current form, the Department is bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission in this new era of great power competition. Over the past 15 years, the Department’s footprint has had unprecedented growth and costs have soared. But far from seeing a return on investment, taxpayers have seen less effective and efficient diplomacy. The sprawling bureaucracy created a system more beholden to radical political ideology than advancing America’s core national interests.
That is why today I am announcing a comprehensive reorganization plan that will bring the Department into the 21st Century. This approach will empower the Department from the ground up, from the bureaus to the embassies. Region-specific functions will be consolidated to increase functionality, redundant offices will be removed, and non-statutory programs that are misaligned with America’s core national interests will cease to exist."
In an expansion of his post, Rubio presents the atmosphere in State:
"Bureaus and offices fight to be included on the approval chains for the most mundane of memos, only then to reach agreement on drafts that are bloated in length while stripped of all meaning. Motivated and creative State Department employees see their ideas watered down by turf battles until they give up, disillusioned, while the inboxes of senior officials are inundated with hundreds of requests for approval. While the talented and loyal are driven into indifference, radical ideologues and bureaucratic infighters have learned to play on this exhaustion to push through their own agendas that are often at odds with those of the President and undermine the interests of the United States."
But what's interesting is that he targets certain departments with serious accusations:
"An example of an out-of-control Department is the Global Engagement Center (GEC) that I shuttered last week. The office engaged with media outlets and platforms to censor speech it disagreed with, including that of the President of the United States, who its director in 2019 accused of employing “the same techniques of disinformation as the Russians.” Despite Congress voting to shutter it, the GEC simply renamed itself and continued operating as if nothing had changed."
And a group is particularly singled out as basically a ideological snakepit, that actively contributed to the immigration crisis:
"Until now, overlapping mandates paired with conflicting responsibilities created an environment ripe for ideological capture and meaningless turf wars. With a bloated budget and unclear mandate, the expansive domain of the former Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Human Rights, and Democracy (known internally as the “J Family”), provided a fertile environment for activists to redefine “human rights” and “democracy” and to pursue their projects at the taxpayer expense, even when they were in direct conflict with the goals of the Secretary, the President, and the American people.
The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor became a platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas against “anti-woke” leaders in nations such as Poland, Hungary, and Brazil, and to transform their hatred of Israel into concrete policies such as arms embargoes. The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to international organizations and NGOs that facilitated mass migration around the world, including the invasion on our southern border.
To transfer the remaining functions of USAID to such a monstrosity of bureaus would be to undo DOGE’s work to build a more efficient and accountable government. Consequently, the bureaus and offices in the J Family will be placed under the new Coordinator for Foreign Assistance and Humanitarian Affairs charged with returning them to their original mission of advancing human rights and religious freedom, not promoting radical causes at taxpayer expense.
The American people deserve a State Department willing and able to advance their safety, security, and prosperity around the world, one respectful of their tax dollars and the sacred trust of government service, and one prepared to meet the immense challenges of the 21st Century. Starting this week, they will have one."
statedept.substack.com
Impressive stuff. If he succeeds in cutting through the ideological swamp, the american people will greatly benefit i think.
"In its current form, the Department is bloated, bureaucratic, and unable to perform its essential diplomatic mission in this new era of great power competition. Over the past 15 years, the Department’s footprint has had unprecedented growth and costs have soared. But far from seeing a return on investment, taxpayers have seen less effective and efficient diplomacy. The sprawling bureaucracy created a system more beholden to radical political ideology than advancing America’s core national interests.
That is why today I am announcing a comprehensive reorganization plan that will bring the Department into the 21st Century. This approach will empower the Department from the ground up, from the bureaus to the embassies. Region-specific functions will be consolidated to increase functionality, redundant offices will be removed, and non-statutory programs that are misaligned with America’s core national interests will cease to exist."
In an expansion of his post, Rubio presents the atmosphere in State:
"Bureaus and offices fight to be included on the approval chains for the most mundane of memos, only then to reach agreement on drafts that are bloated in length while stripped of all meaning. Motivated and creative State Department employees see their ideas watered down by turf battles until they give up, disillusioned, while the inboxes of senior officials are inundated with hundreds of requests for approval. While the talented and loyal are driven into indifference, radical ideologues and bureaucratic infighters have learned to play on this exhaustion to push through their own agendas that are often at odds with those of the President and undermine the interests of the United States."
But what's interesting is that he targets certain departments with serious accusations:
"An example of an out-of-control Department is the Global Engagement Center (GEC) that I shuttered last week. The office engaged with media outlets and platforms to censor speech it disagreed with, including that of the President of the United States, who its director in 2019 accused of employing “the same techniques of disinformation as the Russians.” Despite Congress voting to shutter it, the GEC simply renamed itself and continued operating as if nothing had changed."
And a group is particularly singled out as basically a ideological snakepit, that actively contributed to the immigration crisis:
"Until now, overlapping mandates paired with conflicting responsibilities created an environment ripe for ideological capture and meaningless turf wars. With a bloated budget and unclear mandate, the expansive domain of the former Under Secretary for Civilian Security, Human Rights, and Democracy (known internally as the “J Family”), provided a fertile environment for activists to redefine “human rights” and “democracy” and to pursue their projects at the taxpayer expense, even when they were in direct conflict with the goals of the Secretary, the President, and the American people.
The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor became a platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas against “anti-woke” leaders in nations such as Poland, Hungary, and Brazil, and to transform their hatred of Israel into concrete policies such as arms embargoes. The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to international organizations and NGOs that facilitated mass migration around the world, including the invasion on our southern border.
To transfer the remaining functions of USAID to such a monstrosity of bureaus would be to undo DOGE’s work to build a more efficient and accountable government. Consequently, the bureaus and offices in the J Family will be placed under the new Coordinator for Foreign Assistance and Humanitarian Affairs charged with returning them to their original mission of advancing human rights and religious freedom, not promoting radical causes at taxpayer expense.
The American people deserve a State Department willing and able to advance their safety, security, and prosperity around the world, one respectful of their tax dollars and the sacred trust of government service, and one prepared to meet the immense challenges of the 21st Century. Starting this week, they will have one."
A New State Department to Meet the Challenges of a New Era
Author: U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio
statedept.substack.com
Impressive stuff. If he succeeds in cutting through the ideological swamp, the american people will greatly benefit i think.
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