Re: admin policy and its critics

From: Peter Smagorinsky (smago@coe.uga.edu)
Date: Sat Mar 01 2003 - 16:20:37 PST


Bush and Tony Blair collaborated on the following response:
http://www.slobsquad.co.uk/files/blush.mov

At 11:54 AM 3/1/2003 -0800, you wrote:
>EDITOR'S NOTE: What follows is a letter of resignation written by John
>Brady Kiesling, a member of Bush's Foreign Service Corps and Political
>Counselor to the American embassy in Greece. Kiesling has been a
>diplomat for twenty years, a civil servant to four Presidents. The
>letter below, delivered to Secretary of State Colin Powell, is quite
>possibly the most eloquent statement of dissent thus far put forth
>regarding the issue of Iraq. The New York Times story which reports on
>this remarkable event can be found after Kiesling's letter. - wrp
>
> Go to Original
>
>
> t r u t h o u t | Letter
> U.S. Diplomat John Brady Kiesling
> Letter of Resignation, to:
> Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
>
> ATHENS | Thursday 27 February 2003
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> John Brady Kiesling
>
>
>
>
>
> Go to Original
> U.S. Diplomat Resigns, Protesting 'Our Fervent Pursuit of War'
> By Felicity Barringer
> New York Times
>
> Thursday 27 February 2003
>
> UNITED NATIONS — A career diplomat who has served in United States
>embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan resigned this week in
>protest against the country's policies on Iraq.
>
> The diplomat, John Brady Kiesling, the political counselor at the
>United States Embassy in Athens, said in his resignation letter, "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."
>
> Mr. Kiesling, 45, who has been a diplomat for about 20 years, said
>in a telephone interview tonight that he faxed the letter to Secretary
>of State Colin L, Powell on Monday after informing Thomas Miller, the
>ambassador in Athens, of his decision.
>
> He said he had acted alone, but "I've been comforted by the
>expressions of support I've gotten afterward" from colleagues.
>
> "No one has any illusions that the policy will be changed," he
>said. "Too much has been invested in the war."
>
> Louis Fintor, a State Department spokesman, said he had no
>information on Mr. Kiesling's decision and it was department policy not
>to comment on personnel matters.
>
> In his letter, a copy of which was provided to The New York Times
>by a friend of Mr. Kiesling's, the diplomat wrote Mr. Powell: "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."
>
> His letter continued: "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."
>
> It is rare but not unheard-of for a diplomat, immersed in the
>State Department's culture of public support for policy, regardless of
>private feelings, to resign with this kind of public blast. From 1992
>to 1994, five State Department officials quit out of frustration with
>the Clinton administration's Balkans policy.
>
> Asked if his views were widely shared among his diplomatic
>colleagues, Mr. Kiesling said: "No one of my colleagues is comfortable
>with our policy. Everyone is moving ahead with it as good and loyal.
>The State Department is loaded with people who want to play the team
>game — we have a very strong premium on loyalty."
>
> (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
>distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
>in receiving the included information for research and educational
>purposes.)



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