"White House staffer fired for tweeting" reads the headline of this article. When I first saw this story on Fox News, I thought: "He looks Indian. It sounds like one of those "American" children of Third World immigrants."
I've written about this extensively. This is what I said about Anuradha Bhagwati, a former Captain and Company Commander in the Marine Corps.
Here is a fascinating video of Bhagwati rambling on in free-style fashion about the evils of the military, misogynistic white men, fighting wars, and the hegemonic empire that is the United States. The video is titled: "Interview With a Reluctant Veteran: Anuradha Bhagwatl." I've transcribed it below from around the 15 minute point in the video to the end, to show the quality of her mind.Well now, it looks like we have another "alienated" "American" of Indian background. Jofi Joseph was director of nuclear non-proliferation on the White House National Security Council staff, until he got fired for "tweeting."
Here are some excerpts form the story White House staffer fired for tweeting:
- Former White House national security advisor Jofi Joseph - fired from his job for anonymous posts to Twitter.com - was raised in Muskegon [Michigan].Here is more on the kind of responsibilities Joseph had as director of the White House's nuclear non-proliferation program:
- Joseph and his parents were natives of India who moved to Muskegon from West Germany when he was only 6 months old.
- Joseph is the 1990 valedictorian of Muskegon Catholic Central High School.
- At Muskegon Catholic Central, he won an array of academic honors.
- He went on to an illustrious career in academics and public policy, and was a Truman Scholar at Princeton University.
- Among his academic accolades was a trip to Rotary Fellowship at the Universitat Salzburg in Austria.
- "I really have a strong interest in government and international affairs," Joseph told the Chronicle's Loretta Robinson in 1993. "It's my commitment to public service. I want to make a difference in life, and the best way to do this is a career in this, helping to shape our nation and foreign policy."
The Treaty comprises legally binding nonproliferation commitments and is the basis for international cooperation on stemming the spread of nuclear weapons. It is widely regarded as the legal and political cornerstone of the nuclear nonproliferation regime and as containing three main concepts or “pillars” – nuclear nonproliferation, disarmament, and the peaceful use of nuclear energy. In Prague on April 5, 2009 President Obama said that the basic bargain at the core of the Treaty is sound: “countries with nuclear weapons will move towards disarmament; countries without nuclear weapons will not acquire them; and all countries can access peaceful nuclear energy.” The President also called on NPT parties to take steps to strengthen this vital nonproliferation instrument.Tweeting is harmless enough. But it is disturbing that this high-level government official, dealing with sensitive national security information, should abandon his duties to write even one of those messages.
This article reveals that:
Joseph could be sarcastic and bitter, especially in regard to colleagues who were given higher-level positions that he did not think they were qualified for.This seems like a vindictive grudge. He clearly was in a plum post, with challenging responsibilities. Colleagues praise him as:
...a smart, ambitious foreign policy aide who specialized in nuclear nonproliferation issues.Which makes his neglect of duty troubling. It is one thing for a low-level, not very smart, government worker to spend time on the internet, but quite another matter for someone like Joseph to do so. How can we be sure that he wasn't interacting with foreign governments, and for example, with his country of origin, India, relaying to them sensitive information? This isn't the first time that American-born or American university-educated Asians have passed on sensitive documents to their countries of origin.
The news is filled with the National Security Agency "spying" on foreign leaders. Collecting information through various means to ensure the safety of a nation is not "spying." Yet, now, we have foreigners who fit the actual definition of spies:
A person employed by a government or other organization to secretly obtain information on an enemy or competitor. [Source: Oxford Dictionaries]I would add to that, in this world of multiculturalism and easy immigration: "A foreign person employed..."
If Joseph wasn't doing this already, what's to stop him for doing so eventually? Firing him over tweeting is ridding the agency of a potential, much bigger, security risk.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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