Day 305 - Us vs. Them

There always seems to be an Us vs. Them going on in life. In childhood, it was us cowboys vs. them Indians or us cops vs. them robbers. A few years later it was us Moorheadites vs. them Fargoans, then us Concordia Cobbers vs. them Moorhead State Dragons.

by  Randy Levine

  by  Randy Levine 

In Abu Dhabi at the embassy the Us vs. Them divide was between the military agencies and the civilian agencies. There were 16 agencies represented at the embassy, nine of them military. So we civilian agencies often felt beat around the head by the military agencies. We each had our versions of "the regulations." The funny thing was that each set of regulations started from the same laws, but the military agencies seemed to write regulations to provide step-by-step instructions for how things must be done, i.e., the regulations were to be followed to the letter, while the civilian agencies wrote regulations to provide guidelines for how things should be done, i.e., allowing some flexibility so long as actions followed the spirit of the regulations. And that led to some folks in the military concluding that we civilians were just a bunch of wishy-washy bureaucrats who couldn't make a decision and stick with it.

There was one aspect of being with the civilian agency of State, however, that the military really wanted - our diplomatic status. Those military members assigned to the embassy were not granted diplomatic status; instead they were granted administrative and technical status. We civilians with State were issued black diplomatic passports. Those in the military serving with the embassy were issued red official passports. Those of us with diplomatic status had duty-free importation privileges for the entire time we served in the country. Those with administrative and technical, or A&T, status could only import items duty free for the first six months. Those of us who had diplomatic status had diplomatic immunity. Those with A&T status had no immunity, but felt they should. Every time someone with a military connection ended up in a fight in a bar downtown that resulted in an arrest, we heard about how unfair it was that those of us with diplomatic immunity would not be arrested, while the military members were. But to my knowledge there were never any cases of someone with diplomatic immunity getting into a fight in a bar downtown to face the possibility of arrest. Sometimes it seemed as though the military thought diplomatic immunity was a magic wand that could be waved to erase all sorts of misbehavior.

We, the civilian agency reps, kept making the case that the relationship of military members - those under a commander in the field, not those working at the embassy - and the local government was a matter for a Status of Forces Agreement, or SOFA. The basis for Diplomatic and A&T status is the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, not U.S. regulations or handbooks. So while the military saw us as wishy-washy bureaucrats on the one hand, they saw us as obstinate and stubborn, unwilling to compromise on the issue of privileges and immunities. It always came down to someone thinking it was us vs. them.

We also tried to convince the military members that if one of them was arrested for just doing his or her job - the basis for diplomatic immunity - we would take all possible steps to get that member released. Diplomatic immunity is not intended to excuse poor choices or poor judgement in a diplomat's personal life. It exists to protect diplomats who must meet with people the host government would prefer they not meet, actions that are in the nature of diplomatic work. Diplomatic immunity is not a get-out-of-jail-free card; the U.S. government will waive a diplomat's immunity if the grievance against him or her is for actions taken outside of official duties and/or is irresponsible and reprehensible, such as if a diplomat is involved in a death as a result of an accident while driving under the influence. Diplomatic immunity is not a magic wand.

There were times when the differences between military and civilian cultures seemed greater than the differences between American culture and the many different cultures our local staff represented. Maybe that's the Cultural Guide we should have tried to compile.