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The
following is the full text of John Brady Kiesling's letter of
resignation to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Kiesling is a
US career diplomat who has served in US embassies for twenty
years.
Athens,
Greece
February 27, 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 Americans 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 bureaucratically. We sp read
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 Americans 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 Americans 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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