Mark Phillips: The American Question
3/3/03: John Brady Kiesling, American patriot.
Career diplomat John Brady Kiesling quit his job last week. His
resignation letter
to Secretary of State Colin Powell is everything which patriotic Americans mean by love of
country. Here it is in full:
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.
Mr. Kiesling is a patriotic hero. Along with patriots such as Daniel Ellsberg and Philip Agee and
the literally millions of less-famous Americans who by protesting risk their livelihoods, their freedoms and
their safety, he defends the values for which our country was founded:
democracy, justice, decency, integrity. So do you, each time you march, or e-mail your
representative, or contribute your professional expertise, or organize your workplace or your
neighborhood or your circle of friends.
We are
patriots,
loyal to the best interests of the American people and with them, of the world
as a whole. We should refuse to surrender this word, as Mr. Kiesling has refused to do, to
those who abuse it in the interest of oppression, or in loyalty to special interests, or in
opposition to those values which define us as Americans.
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