---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 5 Mar 2003 20:38:18 EST
From: [log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: US Diplomat's Resignation Letter to Colin Powell

> 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.

> 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 America¹s 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, ncluding among its most senior officials. Has ³oderint dum
metuant² really become our motto?

> I urge you to listen to America¹s 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 America¹s 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
>
>
>
>

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