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| Wanted: Social Lushes and Social Climbing Spouses Not Currently Under Indictment to Represent Us in Foreign Lands |
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| Really, isn't it time to say goodbye to embassies? |
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This is Dark Cloud on Wednesday, August 12, 1998. The question is, in light of the bombings in Africa this week, not whether we need to rebuild embassies as Fortress America but whether we need to rebuild them at all. The events in Kenya and Tanzania merely highlight the anachronistic attributes of these ancient diplomatic procedures which may have outlived their usefulness. Since the invention of satellite broadcasting and certainly since the invention of cellular phones and personal computers, there are virtually no meaningful services provided by our embassies except to exist as a target for the bitter frustrations of those who can only conclude their gods have abandoned them to work for Mickey Mouse, McDonalds, and Microsoft. Well. There is one service. Embassies require, by their very nature, ambassadors and there are any number of rich and stunningly incompetent social climbers to make large contributions to the ruling political party who are, totally coincidentally, routinely named to represent their nation in foreign lands of their choice. That could be important countries, like Mexico, or unimportant ones, like England. Every once in a while – generally by error - a rich and charming political contributor is named who does a great job, like when the late Mrs. Harriman was sent to Paris. That, of course, is an unfair example, for Mrs. Harriman by common knowledge and her own admissions had slept with most of the important men of her time and was custom made to be admired by the French, manipulate the male ego, and walk off with whatever she wanted. Our supposedly foremost ally, Britain, has received some of the worst of our ambassadors. These include Joseph Kennedy, father to JFK, who was hated by virtually the entire Empire, possibly because he negotiated with the Nazis and was, in fact, an advocate of Ally surrender to Hitler. Kennedy made his fortune as a rumrunner and knew how to deal with thugs and gangsters, so he would have thrived. Fellow Mafia heir Walter Annenberg, a product of the Nixon presidency, was generally acknowledged to be the stupidest American to ever enter the Court of St. James, much less be presented to the queen there. Nothing illustrates the unimportance of embassies more than the low quality of our average Ambassadors. You don’t, as a rule, want to know whom we send to places like Paraguay, Ghana, and Bulgaria. Like you, however, they will not speak the native language and have to rely upon State department drones anyway. To the expense of the embassy, the ambassador, and the Marine Guards we have the Embassy security police. And of course, the expense of high-class dinners and parties that must be viewed as somewhat annoying by the starving third world. Further, in all capitals of a sensitive nature, the local staff is entirely composed of spies, is routinely wired for sound, and – far removed from its original purpose of acting as an intelligence gatherer in a foreign land – actually probably reveals more secrets about us than we gain of them. In many third world countries, our image would be better served by having a series of phone booths for free calls to business authorities in the US, or at least to one continental center. Visas could be handled by computer, which would force the authorities to actually check them against lists of terrorists, the property could be turned over to a free hospital and medical school, which would provide US medicine, our most desired export, to those who need it and want it. Of course, this would mean no more fancy dress balls for former debutantes and their alcoholic spouses to host at our expense, damn the luck. And it would mean direct, safe communication between foreign citizens and informed and linguistically empowered bureaucrats eliminating about 16 layers of international sponging. It would be a lot cheaper and safer. Yes, there is the question of Asylum. No embassy, which is considered the soil of the foreign country, no protection. But there are possible semantic solutions: for example, just call the medical director Ambassador. And get rid of the CIA agents. If they’re so secret, they should be able to function without that cover. In any event, nobody would blow up a hospital of native patients for political points. Virtually all information between governments is direct and bypasses the Ambassadors these days, who only mouth what they are told to say. It is, I believe, a sham procedure as ancient and outdated as Mass, marriage, or the Rolling Stones. Worse, it costs billions to retain a social status image respected by nobody with whom we are in daily conflict. It gets us out of 168 nations, but it also means it gets them out of here, since they would need to abandon their embassy in this country. Nothing of importance is lost, with our television and culture paramount around the world. It would save a lot of money. It would remove cover for terrorist travel here. And it would greatly reduce the danger to innocents in their native lands. We owe them that consideration. Hardly any Americans were killed by those bombs. Hundreds of Africans were. Were their deaths worth what the embassies currently provide that cannot be replicated by other means? |
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