Thus wrote the prophet...

[WilliamPitt]

http://truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=1&num=61

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?

...more...

[never cry wolf]

1. Thanks for the reminder Will,

I certainly hope that a place is made for someone with such insight as Mr. Kiesling in the Kerry Admin.

[bandy]

2. I remember this well...

but as much coverage as it got, it seemed to go right over the heads of most. However, it did seem to start a verrrrry slow drip, drip, drip.

Thanks for the remind, Will

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

3. Fits well with this:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x619438

[kentuck]

4. He definitely saw the writing on the wall....

"The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests"

[qwertyMike]

5. The Mosow guy quit at the same time

Anyone have a link???

[WilliamPitt]

6. Kick

[JohnLocke]

7. John Kiesling: we support you!

[KittyWampus]

8. enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda

enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally.

That certainly bears repeating.

[Kanary]

9. Is that link the correct one?

I'd like to read the rest of it, but........... that's full of a lot of "web-speak" :)

Kanary

[WilliamPitt]

10. 'Tis

[WilliamPitt]

11. .

[senseandsensibility]

12. Many prophets

have predicted the disaster we are experiencing in Iraq. They were shut out of the mainstream media when they made their clearsighted predictions, and they are shut out when their predictions prove true. Meanwhile, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Perle, Wolfie, etc. are still respected talkingheads on cable TV. Their pronouncements are awaited breathlessly by the "journalists" who interview them,even after all of their predictions and plans have gone wrong. Go figure.

[WilliamPitt]

13. .