Last year, the State Department said it needed 1,250 more positions to handle work in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East, besides expanding public diplomacy and increasing foreign language training. But in this year's budget belatedly approved in April, lawmakers only provided enough money to fill jobs left vacant by attrition.

Public diplomacy was believed to be a job solely for the state department but it takes more than Foreign Service Officers to do the job well. It is important for every citizen, resident, official, supporter, etc. of a nation to do their best to fairly represent the nation they associate with to a foreign audience.

At a time when the Government is forced to make cuts in our foreign service, and elsewhere, we may in fact have to fork out more to pay for the new unspecified EU foreign service, a by-product of the controversial Lisbon Treaty.