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| I Resign |
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| Li_Tan |
| 02/28/03 at 15:14:56 |
| U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation by John Brady Kiesling; February 28, 2003 [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. |
| Re: I Resign |
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| dkb218 |
| 03/03/03 at 16:58:09 |
| May I ask where you obtained this information? Would you please be so kind as to provide a link. |
| Re: I Resign |
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| paula |
| 03/03/03 at 17:33:09 |
| Yes..... I am the same here....... could you please provide a link and information on the resource this was made available. Thank-you kindly |
| Re: I Resign |
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| bhaloo |
| 03/03/03 at 21:20:26 |
| [slm] I know I read this letter in a major paper, perhaps the Los Angeles Times, last saturday or sunday edition. I was pleasantly surprised to see it mentioned in the news, I just have to remember where I saw it. |
| Re: I Resign |
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| panjul |
| 03/03/03 at 23:18:07 |
| www.antiwar.com has a story on the resignation. |
| Re: I Resign |
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| jannah |
| 03/03/03 at 23:25:58 |
| try this http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/27/international/27WEB-TNAT.html i don't have a username, but someone who does might be able to access it |
| Re: I Resign |
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| Halima |
| 03/04/03 at 06:44:46 |
| Yes, indeed! It is in the NYTimes in full text word for word. He's got a conscience and guts! Bravo to him. |
| Re: I Resign |
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| paula |
| 03/05/03 at 23:08:40 |
| [slm] [font=Book Antiqua][color=Navy][size=3]Oh...... very very good..... thank-you!!... to everyone And I agree with you sister Halima....... BRAVO... It's about time !! [/color][/size][/font] [wlm] |
| 03/05/03 at 23:09:39 |
| paula |
| Re: I Resign |
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| Li_Tan |
| 03/06/03 at 21:13:40 |
| [slm] sorry i didn't see your replyies untill now, but I'm glad that someone was able to provid other sources... Anyway here is my source: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=3151 [slm] |
| Re: I Resign |
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| saadia |
| 03/11/03 at 18:04:14 |
| [slm] This is a SECOND resignation!! U.S. Diplomat Resigns Over Iraq War Plans WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. diplomat resigned from government service on Monday in protest of President Bush's preparations to attack Iraq, the second to do so in less than a month. John H. Brown, who joined the U.S. diplomatic corps in 1981 and served in London, Prague, Krakow, Kiev, Belgrade and Moscow, said in a letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell made available to the media: "I cannot in good conscience support President Bush's war plans against Iraq. "Throughout the globe the United States is becoming associated with the unjustified use of force. The president's disregard for views in other nations, borne out by his neglect of public diplomacy, is giving birth to an anti-American century," the diplomat added. Brown has recently been attached to the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University in Washington. Immediately before that, he was cultural attache at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. A senior U.S. diplomat based in Athens, political counselor John Brady Kiesling, 45, resigned in protest at the Bush administration's policy on Iraq last month. http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030311/pl_nm/iraq_usa_resignation_dc |
| NS |
| 03/11/03 at 18:05:34 |
| saadia |
| Re: I Resign |
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| gharib |
| 03/12/03 at 05:06:30 |
| [slm] Another resignation, protesting the Iraq policy, in Australia of a Senior Intelligence Analyst involved in advising the Prime Minister about Iraq. gharib =============================================== Resignation shows Govt ignoring advice over Iraq: Crean. 12/3/2003. ABC News Online [This is the print version of story <http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s804612.htm>] AEDT Resignation shows Govt ignoring advice over Iraq: Crean The Federal Opposition has accused Prime Minister John Howard of ignoring his advisers in pushing Australia towards war. Former Office of National Assessments (ONA) intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie quit his job yesterday, saying the Federal Government's policy on Iraq is wrong. Mr Wilkie thinks Iraq's military is weak, it does not pose a serious threat to Australia, and a war with Iraq could result in a humanitarian disaster. Opposition leader Simon Crean says Mr Wilkie has shattered the Prime Minister's credibility on Iraq at a critical time. "We are on the brink of war, a war that the Prime Minister is prepared to commit us to when there is no basis for going to war and the Prime Minister has to come clean in his press club address tomorrow," Mr Crean said. "He has to justify why he's so committed to going down the US path and I hope that what this does is send a wake-up call to him." Foreign Minister Alexander Downer has questioned Mr Wilkie's seniority and suggested he did not have access to all available information on Iraq but Mr Crean disputes that. "Not senior? This is a person who has had involvement on terrorism briefings - we know that from the reports," Mr Crean said. "He's also a person that according to the same reports was going to be put on the Iraq taskforce if Australia went to war. Now don't tell me that's not senior, don't tell me that's not connected." © 2003 Australian Broadcasting Corporation Copyright information: <http://abc.net.au/common/copyrigh.htm> Privacy information: <http://abc.net.au/privacy.htm> ============================================ Another good summary link of the other resigations in US/World about Iraq is: http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/12/1047431088668.html Wilkie not the first of early war casualties Andrew Wilkie, the intelligence analyst who quit yesterday in protest against Australia's Iraq policy, is only the latest informed insider to have found the prospect of war intolerable. Two experienced American diplomats have quit in disgust at what they see as the White House's warlike unilateralism. In Britain, the resignations have been at the political level. A parliamentary secretary has resigned and a cabinet minister has threatened to if Britain goes to war without United Nations authority. ....... |
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