| Have you ever wondered what it smells like when chickens come home to roost? It’s not the kind of chickens that Chicago-based pastor Jeremiah Wright talked about when he bashed white America as our soon-to-become President sat and listened. And it’s not the chickens that our President envisioned when he claimed “times are…um…transforming.”These chickens smell like those who are freed and then find out they have no leadership that will to truly lead them out of bondage. America had our Founding Fathers to lead us; the Israelites had Moses; I can list them all, from generation to generation…if I had the time, but that list would end with the coming of the Arab Spring. The people there have organized thugs like the Muslim Brotherhood to lead them out of bondage; it has failed miserably everywhere they have been anointed and has left American diplomacy with its britches down once again.I remember the day I read President Obama’s Cairo Speech, the one that told the world he was not only going transform America but the world too. I was still working for the U.S. Department of State and it scared the daylights out of me. All I could do was wonder why so few others in Foggy Bottom weren’t shaking too…they are, by the way, the brightest of the bright, the best educated, and the elite we are suppose to look up to. I could see their wringing hands and concocting faces as our great new leader called us arrogant and apologized to anyone who would listen. And none of them asked why. What did we do to deserve such? And why is our commander-in-chief saying it to people who wouldn’t know democracy if it fell on their faces. But I didn’t have to ask. I knew the reason so few stopped to seek such answers, and even fewer cared about the dangerous direction we were taking.I know those fools aren’t bothered. Why should they, especially when cushy window offices, free parking, promotions and pensions are at stake? Why should they care when they publicly, and proudly worship…in mass…every word their master said? I mused all this and more as the concept of timing and accountability came to mind. You see…most of those involved in the Department’s reckless decision-making will be long gone–on to another State Department assignment to botch–by the time this next fallout is realized. That’s the value of being able to bid for assignments every three years; nothing is ever accomplished; it’s just temporarily managed. And, just like that tree that falls but never makes a sound if no one is there to hear it, those responsible for the fallout are never there to be held accountable? “The fools have already left the building,” speaks volumes when no one is left to speak out, explain what happened, and account for all the poor leadership and bad decisions.
In essence, there’s no need to cogitate about all this; one only has accept the truth: that a moral compass inside the bowels of the institution created to represent the United States of America overseas has been missing for a long time and so has character and integrity. But I do cogitate more as the truth hits me like a ton of bricks: sadly most documentation to prove that our moral compass, character, and integrity are missing is also missing, and that’s the point I’m about to make. I was so hot and bothered that September day in the office. Actually, to call it an office is somewhat misleading; my current part-time office is in a basement, inside a big white mansion hidden away inside Atlanta’s Country Club of the South. My job requirements take up just enough time to cover my bills; the rest of my time is spent writing fiction, blogging, and managing my foundation. So that day, at the so-called office, I was wrestling with the shredder, and it was getting the best of me. My tailspin started within a few seconds. “What’s wrong is this doggone shredder!” I yelled out as I wondered whether I’d lost that edge I’d acquired so long ago, working for the United States Government, so far away from home. That edge? What edge is that? I can hear people asking. But, yes, I did have that edge, because the State Department forced it on me like everyone else working there…to learn to shred like the best of them. “Yep, we all had to learn to shred, get good at it…fast as hell they’d say…as we loaded paper, paper, paper, and more paper into our designated shredders. And we were timed to the very second. At the time, I didn’t think too much into this; I suspected mostly all American embassies around the world had regular shredding drills. The ones I worked in sure did and I, D.A. (Dennis) Winstead, would never tell a lie about such a trivial matter.Yep…we’d be told to keep a section of our safe full of shredding drill documents, and once a month, the surprise shredding drill alarm would go off. That is when everyone would have to grab his or her saved shredding-drill documents and run to their shredder and then start…shredding…instantly. And we’d all hear about if it we didn’t meet our target times. I never paid too much attention to anything when I was away working at some embassy. I had enough to worry about…people to dodge…so attention to shredding was nothing new. In fact, as is the case in most things I do, I found utility in the shredder too. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, where I was posted during 2000-2002, I was given the hash name “Paper Boy” because before every Saturday afternoon hash run, the harriers had to find shredded paper to set the running trial. As for where all this shredded paper originated, it was always either the American Embassy and the British High Commission that stepped up and delivered; our two compounds were always the ones that had shredded paper to spare and it seemed most of the time the Americans had more. Kid you not. I’ve seen even more, and I have even witnessed a minute-by-minute real shredding…real meaning trained embassy shredders set in motion, not a drill, but the real McCoy. So here is that story.I’m thinking some of you will remember Bill Clinton’s “War on Serbia.” It was the one he tried to sell as a NATO-led operation, but it was his mistake and he eventually had to own it. Needless to say, it was one U.S. engagement we never should have entered…very similar to what almost happened in Syria…and it ended up being a huge embarrassment for America. I was working on the midnight shift, helping to staff the Serbian Task Force inside the State Department’s Operations Center when the doo-doo finally hit the fan. U.S.-led NATO planes had been bombing Belgrade like there was no tomorrow, for several months, and then it happened. On May 4, 1999, a bomb struck the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and killed three Chinese civilians. The next night, the China Task Force was placed in adjacent office space next to us, and it soon became clear how angrily the people in Beijing had taken the news. The American Embassy in Beijing was so bombarded with angry protesters that the leadership inside wasn’t sure whether the security perimeter would hold. And that’s when the shredding started…Beijing time. I saw it all that night on my computer inside the State Department’s Operations Center because, like everyone else staffed in the 24/7 Operations Center, I was watching all the cable traffic and reading all the eyes-only emails coming in from all over the world. Mostly everything coming in was mundane and useless, and that’s pretty much how those late nights inside the Operations Center went. But that night, sometime between three and four o’clock in the morning, communications coming in from Beijing caught my attention. “What’s that number?” I asked when I saw the first short one-line email pop up. It was marked Top Secret/Embassy Beijing and it read simply “98%.” About five minutes later, a second email read “96%.” And then a third, “93%, came in about seven minutes after that. The response back to me was “The Embassy is shredding documents,” and then a curt “They’re shredding fast. “Good,” was said before the control officer in charge that night prepared to walk away from my terminal. “Should I do anything?” I asked next. “Not unless the emails stop coming in,” was her simply reply. That night, I had the pleasure of watching the American Embassy in Beijing go from having 100% of its highly sensitive documents shredded in a matter of two hours. So what does all of this have to do with me, working in the basement, in that white mansion tucked away inside Atlanta’s Country Club of the South? Well, that day I was fighting with the shredder was six days before the first anniversary of the Bengazi attack. The news was focused on Syria…and you know all the chatter: Are we going to bomb? Will American boots be on the ground? How can we afford another Middle East conflict? And how in God’s name can we pick between one side that is allegedly gassing civilians and the other side allegedly beheading Christians. How could we possibly pick sides? They’re all evil. My answer, like so many others voicing their opinions that day, was simple: we can’t; we shouldn’t; we mustn’t. But on September 5, 2013, that’s not what the State Department was saying and that’s not what the White House was saying either. We know the truth even if the press doesn’t, so I will make two points and then end of this nonsense called blogging: One, I can only imagine all the documents being circulated around Washington that were formulated to argue one side over another but later that day shredded after the Russians stepped up and saved the day; Two, I can’t help but wonder what the U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was doing inside that Bengazi bunker, during those final hours while being attacked by an army of terrorists. Shredding, I supposed, but that’s my opinion. My grandmother used to say to me, during those times when I told her about all those smart people I was working with in Washington, DC—how they all come from such good schools; they are all so connected; and they speak so many foreign languages. I was naïve back then, drinking the Kool-Aid and believing everything they said. But she would always reply like she was the smartest person in the world…and she was. “It don’t matter how many languages those fools up north can speak. If they don’t have the God-given common sense to think on their own…it doesn’t matter.” The point being…we all must use common sense, think on our own, and always be able to back up our debates with proof and documentation when called upon to do so. That’s called accountability, and when really tough situations like Syria come into play, God forbid that we don’t have the documentation to back it up. We’ll never really know what ever really happens in the end, but we should know and we should demand to know. That’s called transparency and it never comes into play inside the State Department; remember Hillary Clinton answering nothing about what really happened in Bengazi? I do and I’m still not surprised she’s getting away with it. They all do; it’s in the smoke-and-mirrors playbook…for a game where truth doesn’t matter. So where do you go from here? I have my own common sense and learned behavior to offer: Just manage your expectations wisely and always remember that those in charge are trained to shred everything they don’t want others to see. It’s just sad that some of our best have probably been killed while shredding documents and those in charge in Washington are still covering it up…by more shredding. I hate to dwell on the negative, but I will just end it here by asking whether anyone has ever driven by a chicken processing plant. You know those places…rural Delaware, eastern North Carolina, Alabama, or Mississippi. Oh yeah…that smell is what I’m talking about…the stench of all those chickens roosting. The Arab Spring is starting to smell just like it. If only those inside our embassies could shred that stench, but they’re only allowed to shred the stuff they don’t want others to see. I’ve made that part of the story clear…right? I just hope one day, during more free and open times, we’ll all know how things “really” transpired in all these countries…Egypt, Syria, Iran, Tunisia, and Bengazi, Libya. But we won’t and if you’ve really been paying attention, you already know why. No, I’m not ragging on the mainstream media this time or the lies coming out of Foggy Bottom. It’s those damn shredders I don’t trust, and unfortunately, they’ll never go away. Just saying…† It’s a big world…write about it. D.A. WINSTEAD |
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