I can understand your reluctance to take a posting in a locale that could be very dangerous.  I do not believe it is a “death sentence.”  I realize that you are not trained as soldiers so I don’t think I’ll try and make the comparison, but they do their job every day.  Police take their lives into their hands each and every day.  Same for Firemen.  If you don’t want the danger or risk, find a different job.  Simple as that.

With that said, I don’t see any point in having diplomats in actual war zones.  Like I’ve said, some level of danger is to be expected and comes with the job, but working in war zones?  I was under the impression that we pulled diplomats from war zones, not sent them in to them.  Condi Rice seems to think that the jobs “must be filled” but do they?

Make the area safer, or at least get it to a point that it can’t be considered a war zone.  Then put those guys out there.  You can’t reasonably ask a bunch of manicured and pedicured half politicians to go into a war zone.

If they don’t volunteer to go into a war zone they shouldn’t have to go.  Why don’t you find someone from the military ranks to temporarily fill those positions until we can safely declare it’s not a war zone.