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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mannie who wrote (14373)	3/11/2003 7:55:25 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Removing Saddam is 'Dangerous And Foolish' Resigning U.S. diplomat John Brady Kiesling warns America over War in Iraq TIMEeurope.com: The Road To War Tuesday, Mar. 11, 2003 time.com Ever since the ashen aftermath of Sept. 11 and America's declaration of war on terrorism, U.S. President George Bush appeared to be doing much better than his popular predecessor Bill Clinton in terms of keeping dissent within the nation's diplomatic ranks at bay. But on Feb. 24 John Brady Kiesling, a mild-mannered political counsellor at the U.S. embassy in Athens, Greece, resigned from his post, citing strong opposition to the President's policy on Iraq. Kiesling quit with a public blast. In an impassioned letter penned to his boss, Secretary of State Collin Powell — and then leaked to the New York Times — the 45-year-old diplomat said the administration was involved in "a systematic distortion of intelligence" and "a systematic manipulation of public opinion" not seen since the days of Vietnam. The administration's "fervent pursuit of war with Iraq" was contrary not only to U.S. interests but to the nation's much-vaunted values. "Has 'oderint dum metuant '(meaning 'let them hate so long as they fear') really become our motto" Kiesling asked, recalling a favourite phrase of Caligula, the schizophrenic Roman emperor who ruled with a passion for sadism. The State Department's beleaguered spokesman, Richard Boucher expressed regret at the envoy's resignation. The U.S. embassy in Athens, meantime, insisted that Kiesling's decision was "due to personal reasons." Kiesling says he began to grow worried last September when the war-drums began beating about Iraq. "I started drafting a letter to send to the State Department's dissent channel," he says, "but then, I gave up, watching things deteriorate." Particularly troublesome, he recalls, was the spread of disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, linking al-Qaeda to the regime in Iraq. "There is no connection," he told TIME in his first telephone interview since his return to the United States as a simple citizen on March 6. "It's very dangerous and foolish to take down Saddam [Hussein]. Even if that happens, it doesn't mean that tragic events as those of Sept. 11 can't happen." By mid-February, Keisling was drafting his resignation letter, becoming the first American diplomat to quit over Iraq. The resignation was the first since 1994, when five State Department officials walked out of their jobs in exasperation of the Clinton administration's moot policy in the Balkans. Kiesling, a Berkley University-trained archaeologist, has served in U.S. missions from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan. He has a history of speaking his mind: in 1994 he won the American Foreign Service Association award for "constructive dissent." He was one of the so-called Balkan Dozen of diplomats who accused the Clinton administration of dithering over whether to actively intervene to stop Serbian-led slaughters in Bosnia. Now, ironically, Keisling accuses Bush of being too bullish. He knows his resignation won't put the breaks on the administration's war plans. "I have no such illusion," he says. "The only hope is that President Bush realizes that the political cost of a catastrophic decision would be so high that he should find an alternative." Kiesling says he may take up public speaking gigs, hoping to inspire greater public debate on Iraq. He also intends to write more, travel back to Greece, Europe's bedrock of Anti-Americanism, to look for a job. And what if bombs and cruise missiles start falling over Baghgad? Well, says Kiesling in patriotic tone, "Then, the talking ends. You just can't criticize an administration when war is happening."

To: Mannie who wrote (14373)	3/12/2003 4:31:25 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

I Vant to Be Alone By MAUREEN DOWD Columnist The New York Times March 12, 2003 It will go down as a great mystery of history how Mr. Popularity at Yale metamorphosed into President Persona Non Grata of the world. The genial cheerleader and stickball commissioner with the gregarious parents, the frat president who had little nicknames and jokes for everyone, fell in with a rough crowd. Just when you thought it couldn't get more Strangelovian, it does. The Bush bullies, having driven off all the other kids in the international schoolyard, are now resorting to imaginary friends. Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense, spoke to the Veterans of Foreign Wars here yesterday and reassured the group that America would have "a formidable coalition" to attack Iraq. "The number of countries involved will be in the substantial double digits," he boasted. Unfortunately, he could not actually name one of the supposed allies. "Some of them would prefer not to be named now," he said coyly, "but they will be known with pride in due time." Perhaps the hawks' fixation on being the messiahs of the Middle East has unhinged them. I could just picture Wolfy sauntering down the road to Baghdad with our new ally Harvey, his very own pooka, a six-foot-tall invisible rabbit that the U.S. wants to put on the U.N. Security Council. Ari Fleischer upped the ante, conjuring up an entire international forum filled with imaginary allies. He suggested that if the U.N. remained recalcitrant, we would replace it with "another international body" to disarm Saddam Hussein. It wasn't clear what he was talking about. What other international body? Salma Hayek? The World Bank? The Hollywood Foreign Press Association? The not-so-splendid isolation of the White House got worse this afternoon when Donald Rumsfeld suggested the unthinkable at his Pentagon briefing: we might have to go to war without Britain. Even though Tony Blair said he was working "night and day" to get us international support (and beating back a revolt in his own party), Mr. Rumsfeld dismissively remarked that it was "unclear" just what the British role would be in a war. Asked whether the U.S. would go to war without "our closest ally," he replied, "That is an issue that the president will be addressing in the days ahead, one would assume." The Brits covered up their fury with typical understatement, calling Rummy's comment "curious." But behind the scene, Downing Street went nuts and began ringing Pennsylvania Avenue, demanding an explanation. How could Rummy be so callous about "the special relationship" after Mr. Blair had stuck his neck out for President Bush and courageously put his career on the line, and after he had sent one-quarter of the British military to the Persian Gulf? Even though Mr. Rumsfeld scrambled later to mollify the British, one BBC commentator drily said that perhaps he was trying to be sensitive, but "as we all know, Donald Rumsfeld doesn't do sensitive very well." Now we've managed to alienate our last best friend. We are making the rest of the world recoil. But that may be part of the Bush hawks' master plan. Maybe they have really always wanted to go it alone. Maybe it has been their strategy all along to sideline the U.N., deflate Colin Powell and cut the restraining cords of traditional coalitions. Their decision last summer to get rid of Saddam was driven by their desire to display raw, naked American power. This time, they don't want Colin Powell or pesky allies counseling restraint in Baghdad. Rummy was unfazed by Turkey's decision not to let our troops in, and he seemed just as unruffled about the prospect of the Brits' falling out of the war effort. And in a well-timed display of American military might, the Air Force tested a huge new bomb called MOAB in Florida. Tremors traveled through the ground, and the scary dust cloud could be seen for miles. "These guys at the Pentagon — Wolfowitz, Perle, Doug Feith — when they lie in bed at night, they imagine a new book written by one of them or about them called, `Present at the Recreation,' " an American diplomat said. "They want to banish the wimpy Europeanist traditional balance of power, and use the Iraq seedbed of democracy to impose America's will on the world." The more America goes it alone, the more "robust," as the Pentagon likes to say, the win will be. nytimes.com