Re: Diplomat's Resignation

[Guest guest]

This is to weep for.

Will enough people care, to vote in 2004? or will powerful, moneyed interest

groups allow their " tool " in the white House to stay.?

I do like this guy who resigned. I wish would do the same.

Toni

Original Message -----

To: <JUNG-FIRE >

Sent: Friday, February 28, 2003 10:31 AM

Subject: Diplomat's Resignation

This is from a reliable source ­ NY Times ­ a letter of resignation by U.S.

Diplomat, Brady.

February 27, 2003

U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation

The following is the text of Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation

to Secretary of State Colin L. . Mr. Kiesling is a career diplomat

who has served in United States embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to

Yerevan.

Dear Mr. Secretary:

I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the

United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy

Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart. The baggage of my

upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country.

Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand

foreign languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians,

scholars and journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. interests and

theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my country and its values was

the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic arsenal.

It is inevitable that during twenty years with the State Department I

would become more sophisticated and cynical about the narrow and selfish

bureaucratic motives that sometimes shaped our policies. Human nature is

what it is, and I was rewarded and promoted for understanding human nature.

But until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by

upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests

of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer.

The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with

American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of

war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that

has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the

days of Woodrow . We have begun to dismantle the largest and most

effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our

current course will bring instability and danger, not security.

The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic

self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American

problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of

intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the

war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before,

rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the

first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather

than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration

has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a

scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread

disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily

linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and

perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public

wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American

citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much

damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to do to

ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish,

superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a

doomed status quo?

We should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the world

that a war with Iraq is necessary. We have over the past two years done too

much to assert to our world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S.

interests override the cherished values of our partners. Even where our

aims were not in question, our consistency is at issue. The model of

Afghanistan is little comfort to allies wondering on what basis we plan to

rebuild the Middle East, and in whose image and interests. Have we indeed

become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the

Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power

is not the answer to terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins

the shambles in Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms

ranks with Micronesia to follow where we lead.

We have a coalition still, a good one. The loyalty of many of our friends

is impressive, a tribute to American moral capital built up over a century.

But our closest allies are persuaded less that war is justified than that

it would be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift into complete solipsism.

Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our President condone the swaggering

and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this Administration is

fostering, including among its most senior officials. Has " oderint dum

metuant " really become our motto?

I urge you to listen to America's friends around the world. Even here in

Greece, purported hotbed of European anti-Americanism, we have more and

closer friends than the American newspaper reader can possibly imagine.

Even when they complain about American arrogance, Greeks know that the

world is a difficult and dangerous place, and they want a strong

international system, with the U.S. and EU in close partnership. When our

friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is time to worry. And now

they are afraid. Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is

as it was, a beacon of liberty, security, and justice for the planet?

Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability. You

have preserved more international credibility for us than our policy

deserves, and salvaged something positive from the excesses of an

ideological and self-serving Administration. But your loyalty to the

President goes too far. We are straining beyond its limits an international

system we built with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties,

organizations, and shared values that sets limits on our foes far more

effectively than it ever constrained America's ability to defend its

interests.

I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience

with my ability to represent the current U.S. Administration. I have

confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and

hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies

that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and

the world we share.

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In the dance,

Frances