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U.S. DIPLOMAT RESIGNATION LETTER
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.
-- signed John Brady Kiesling