Required Reading for an Informed Citizen! Eliminate the "Ugly American" Bureaucrats

I have a bookshelf in my bedroom that holds a number of books I consider required reading for informed citizens. They include (but are not limited to) George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, James Clavell's The Children's Story, and The Ugly American by William Lederer and Eugene Burdick. Today I want to shine the spotlight on The Ugly American. 

If you want to understand the foreign policy of the Biden Administration and, for that matter, the policy of many previous administrations both Democrat and Republican, The Ugly American is mandatory! It was published in 1958, but the information is as current today as it was then. The New York Times described the best-selling novel saying, "If this were not a free country this book would be banned.... Devastating!"

The authors, two members of the foreign service, wrote a compelling story that is more fact than fiction. It included an epilogue, unusual for a novel, describing serious problems in our diplomatic corps: failure to understand the culture or speak the language of the country to which ambassadors and their staff are assigned, hiring locals for sensitive jobs making it easy to plant spies in the embassies and missions, insulting and disrespecting the local governments by ignorance and arrogance, enjoying a life of luxury in poor countries where "help" can be hired at slave wages, etc.

The title is ironic. Among the few good Americans in the story is a physically ugly man who lives with his wife in a small village in the fictional country where they have a positive impact on the people. All his recommendations, for example importing a hardy flock of chickens to improve the health and economic situation of the poverty stricken villagers, are refused and even ridiculed by the U.S. representatives who care little about the countries and people where they serve. The high and the mighty in the book are the real "ugly Americans."

What reminded me of the book this morning was an article in Chronicles from October, The Pitfalls of a Woke Foreign Policy. The subtext reads: 

The U.S. diplomatic corps is so blinded by progressive ideology that it is sabotaging America's foreign standing, alienating potential allies, and making the United States' enemies seem reasonable in comparison.

The article describes how the Biden administration operated trying to impose our sickest and most evil woke demands on foreign nations. The list of offenses against nations trying to align them with "progressive" goals is astonishing! The author, Eric Bordenkircher, a research fellow at UCLA's Center for Middle East Development writes:

On the first day of his presidency, Joe Biden issues Executive Order 13985, titled "Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government. The executive order (EO) requires government agencies, departments, and office to reverse the effects of systemic racism, discrimnation, and inequality by practicing equity. Biden's EO has licensed U.S. diplomats and government officials to embark on an unfettered, worldwide, "civilizing mission." It enables admonishing, critiquing, lecturing, pressuring, and interfering in the domestic social affairs of other countries. Administration officials decide which beliefs, morals, practices, and structures of other cultures need progressive reform -- or erasure.

2021 -- U.S. Embassy in Moscow -- In your face, Putin!

The author goes on to describe the outrageous actions of Biden's woke foreign policy including the agenda-driven behavior of ambassadors and their staff. In 2023 Rahm Emmanuel, ambassador of Japan "repeatedly remind[ed] the Japanese about LGBTQI+ rights." In 2022 our embassy in Kuwait tweeted a photo of the pride flag with an accompanying text. In response, the Emirate of Kuwait "summoned the U.S. charge d'affaires and asserted that the message violated its domestic laws and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations." In Brazil a U.S. embassy employee named "Mark" lectured the country on using gender-neutral pronouns calling the failure to do so "micro-aggression." The list of idiotic and disrespectful events is legion. Bordenkircher continues:

Biden and his woke warriors antagonize, irritate, and offend civilizations, cultures, and countries. The application of woke beliefs and practices to U.S. foreign policy disrupt, distances, and divides: It disrupts states and societies by advancing identity plitics; it distances the Unived States from its allies and partners by creating distrust, and it divides by making woke beliefs and practies a convenient issue to rally against. 

USAID played a major role in all of this and has ever since its creation by JFK in 1961. Foreign nations have been bribed and threatened to approve and embrace contraception and abortion, the LGBTQ agenda, etc. In 2023, USAID announced two initiatives: the Rainbow Fund and the Racial and Ethnic Equity Initiative. These two programs imposed the colonialist attitude that the U.S. knows what's good for every nation on the planet and can use whatever means available to force compliance even when it involves violating the religious culture of countries. You can read about the Rainbow Fund here. It's scope covered just about every agency of the federal government:

Every day, the U.S. Government is working to advance the human rights of LGBTQI+ persons in furtherance of President Biden’s Presidential Memorandum on Advancing the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Persons Around the World. On behalf of the Departments of State, Treasury, Defense, Justice, Agriculture, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the United States International Development Finance 2023 Corporation (DFC), the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), the Export-Import Bank of the United States, the Office of the United States Trade Representative, and the Peace Corps, the Secretary of State submitted to the President the annual interagency report on progress achieved in 2022 in furtherance of the Presidential Memorandum.

U.S. embassy Tel Aviv 2014 under Democrat President Barack Obama

A primary goal was to change the laws of countries that criminalize sodomy and related evils, e.g. the transgender mutilation of children. Hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, have been funneled into programs to promote the LGBTQI+ agenda. Hopefully, DOGE will eliminate all of this garbage in the days and months ahead. USAID clearly is one of the most evil organizations on the planet housing the ugliest of ugly Americans.

Common courtesy should be enough to prevent in-your-face provocation by our embassies toward host countries. Think of a guest who comes into your house, demands you accept his opinions as gospel and proceeds to insult you. That is often the U.S. May we learn a little humility and common courtesy. That goes a long way both at home and abroad.