Kerry Suggests Military Role in Diplomats’ Security

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/21/world/africa/kerry-calls-on-military-to-help-protect-diplomats.html?_r=0

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: barry levine 
Date: Fri, Dec 21, 2012 at 10:07 AM
Subject: re: Kerry Suggests Military Role in Diplomats’ Security
To: letters@nytimes.com


To the Editor:

  If the U.S. is to be a world leader rather than just a military power, we must redress how we deploy our finite resources. That means not just cutting back our bloated military--we spend as much as the next fifteen nations combined!--but also how we spend money within our State Department budget. Sixteen thousand staffers at our Baghdad embassy aren't typing. They're just more soldiers by another name, on another budget.

    There's enough proper work for our diplomats in the world without asking them to fight, too. Protecting them may be the best thing our military can do.

Barry Haskell Levine