text of Kiesling's resignation letter

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 do 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 E.U. 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.

Dante,

Thank you *so* much for posting that letter. I'm going to share the text with many people, as I find it extraordinarily eloquent, troubling, and very sad. I hope that Mr. Kiesling's current disillusionment will heal into a new spirit of action on his part, doing something more in line with his heart and his beliefs.

Thanks again,
Jon