[Peace-discuss] Fwd:

[Alfred Kagan]

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>>>>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.
>>>>He appears on the US Embassy in Greece website as political counselor
>>>>to the embassy.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>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.


-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu