|
Rono
DSYSB since '01
Registered: 01/25/01
Posts: 16,259
Loc: Calgary, Alberta
Last seen: 1 year, 1 month
|
U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation
#1351992 - 03/05/03 07:17 AM (21 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
The following is the text of John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. 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 Wilson. 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 so 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.
-------------------- "Life has never been weird enough for my liking"
|
luvdemshrooms
Two inch dick..but it spins!?
Registered: 11/29/01
Posts: 34,247
Loc: Lost In Space
|
Re: U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation [Re: Rono]
#1352166 - 03/05/03 08:45 AM (21 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
1. So what. How many didn't resign? 2. Are you even capable of making a non-US related post?
-------------------- You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers
|
pattern
multiplayer
Registered: 07/19/02
Posts: 2,185
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 4 years, 1 month
|
Re: U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation [Re: luvdemshrooms]
#1352173 - 03/05/03 08:50 AM (21 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
> 2. Are you even capable of making a non-US related post?
Would you read it if he did?
-------------------- man = monkey + mushroom
|
luvdemshrooms
Two inch dick..but it spins!?
Registered: 11/29/01
Posts: 34,247
Loc: Lost In Space
|
Re: U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation [Re: pattern]
#1352178 - 03/05/03 08:52 AM (21 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Yes. I read all the posts here in this forum. And I happen to think Rono is OK. I just think he has a nasty case of tunnel vision.
-------------------- You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers
|
Skikid16
fungus fan
Registered: 06/27/02
Posts: 5,666
Loc: In the middle of the nort...
Last seen: 19 years, 15 days
|
Re: U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation [Re: luvdemshrooms]
#1352190 - 03/05/03 08:58 AM (21 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Quote:
I just think he has a nasty case of tunnel vision.
Why, he didn't put his own slant on it, he didn't say America is wrong. He merely showed one American's opinion on America's current foreign policy.
-------------------- Re-Defeat Bush in '04
|
luvdemshrooms
Two inch dick..but it spins!?
Registered: 11/29/01
Posts: 34,247
Loc: Lost In Space
|
Re: U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation [Re: Skikid16]
#1352256 - 03/05/03 09:28 AM (21 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Rono knows what I'm talking about. You will too after you've been here a bit longer.
-------------------- You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for that my dear friend is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. ~ Adrian Rogers
|
pattern
multiplayer
Registered: 07/19/02
Posts: 2,185
Loc: Canada
Last seen: 4 years, 1 month
|
Re: U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation [Re: luvdemshrooms]
#1352294 - 03/05/03 09:47 AM (21 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Canada and America are brothers, but Canada is the wiser brother. Its natural that siblings fight, but Canada is becoming worried that America can no longer take an insult. After all Canadians have better insults, because we are smarter. Americans are making themselves look bad when they can't think of any good comeback lines. "I'll bomb yer ass Canoodian" got old a long time ago. Look at Canadian Molson beer commercials: way better than your "wassup" crap!
God smiles on Canada: http://www.bmo.com/economic/headlines/cdec18a.htm
-------------------- man = monkey + mushroom
|
Rono
DSYSB since '01
Registered: 01/25/01
Posts: 16,259
Loc: Calgary, Alberta
Last seen: 1 year, 1 month
|
Re: U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation [Re: luvdemshrooms]
#1352304 - 03/05/03 09:57 AM (21 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Quote:
1. So what. How many didn't resign? 2. Are you even capable of making a non-US related post?
1. If ANY resign it is a sign of problems. 2. No...next question please.
-------------------- "Life has never been weird enough for my liking"
|
psilo25
The one stuck inthe middle ofthis hopelessmess.
Registered: 03/03/02
Posts: 244
Loc: over here
Last seen: 15 years, 3 months
|
Re: U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation [Re: luvdemshrooms]
#1352751 - 03/05/03 01:12 PM (21 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Personally, I think it was a highly honorable act for this man to resign. Not too many people these days are willing to stand up for what they believe in, but this man was. He seriously believed that the US government is going way too far these days, and he acted on that belief by resigning. I'm sure a lot of other people in the federal government feel the same way, but most simply aren't willing to stand up for that belief. Probably in fear of a negative impact on their PR or simply not wanting to lose political power.
-------------------- Stand up for your freedoms, join the fight against the War on Drugs! www.drcnet.org www.drugpolicyalliance.org www.drugsense.org
|
Anonymous
|
Re: U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation [Re: pattern]
#1353032 - 03/05/03 03:44 PM (21 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Look at Canadian Molson beer commercials: way better than your "wassup" crap!
those wassup commercials make me want to never, ever, EVER drink bud... EVER.
|
MushyMay
Brian Eno is mypersonal God FNORD
Registered: 02/18/02
Posts: 423
Loc: ACT, Australia
Last seen: 6 years, 5 months
|
Re: U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation [Re: luvdemshrooms]
#1353129 - 03/05/03 04:37 PM (21 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
I just think he has a nasty case of tunnel vision.
as do you mr.everybodyisouttogetamerica
-------------------- MushyMay is a fictional character, as a result any information provided by MushyMay is also fictitious.
|
Rono
DSYSB since '01
Registered: 01/25/01
Posts: 16,259
Loc: Calgary, Alberta
Last seen: 1 year, 1 month
|
Re: U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation [Re: MushyMay]
#1353133 - 03/05/03 04:39 PM (21 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
lol...Tunnel vision can be a good thing. Keeps one focused...
-------------------- "Life has never been weird enough for my liking"
|
MushyMay
Brian Eno is mypersonal God FNORD
Registered: 02/18/02
Posts: 423
Loc: ACT, Australia
Last seen: 6 years, 5 months
|
Re: U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation [Re: Rono]
#1353143 - 03/05/03 04:43 PM (21 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
true
-------------------- MushyMay is a fictional character, as a result any information provided by MushyMay is also fictitious.
|
|