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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Just_Observing who wrote (19544)	3/12/2003 12:56:52 AM
From: Sultan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 25898

I am sure this has probably been posted some where but since I only saw it today, here it is FWIW.. I assume what follows is accurate but no guarantees here.. The following is the text of John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. Mr. Kiesling is a career diplomat who has served in United States embassies from Tel Aviv to Casablanca to Yerevan. 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. John Brady Kiesling

To: Just_Observing who wrote (19544)	3/12/2003 12:59:29 AM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

The Quest for Peace Message 18688723

To: Just_Observing who wrote (19544)	3/12/2003 1:40:13 AM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

JO, check this out: Britain Retools Iraq Resolution to Get UN Support dailynews.att.net By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - With opposition hardening to war with Iraq, Britain readied a compromise resolution on Wednesday that would give Saddam Hussein more time to prove he has disposed of weapons of mass destruction before facing a U.S.-led military strike. The White House wants the U.S.-British-Spanish resolution authorizing war if Iraq does not disarm by March 17 put to a vote in the 15-nation U.N. Security Council on Thursday or Friday. But doubts persisted whether it could garner the nine votes necessary to win adoption of the measure, which also faces a triple veto threat from France, Russia and China. Consequently, Britain sought to amend the resolution to lengthen the ultimatum, perhaps to March 21 or March 24, diplomats said, and to add several specific disarmament demands for Iraq to meet. "The United Kingdom is in a negotiation and it is prepared to look at timelines and tests together. But I am pretty sure we are talking about action in March," said Britain's U.N. ambassador, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, on Tuesday. Canada's U.N. ambassador, Paul Heinbecker, who was instrumental in influencing undecided members of the U.N. Security Council, has listed some of these tests, which diplomats said were similar to the a checklist of about a dozen "benchmarks" Britain was considering. They include Iraq's accounting for bulk quantities of anthrax, the deadly chemical agent V, chemical weapons shells, bombs and munitions and arms delivery systems. More than 250,000 U.S. and British troops are poised to invade Iraq to remove the government of President Saddam Hussein and destroy his banned weapons programs. President Bush has made it clear he feels free to order an invasion of Iraq with or without U.N. backing but the White House indicated impatience with the diplomatic maneuvering. CLEAR MESSAGE FOR SADDAM "The Security Council needs to stand up, give him (Saddam) a very clear message that he needs to disarm -- that he has days, not weeks, to disarm," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said in a radio interview to be aired on Wednesday. "We've lost ground in trying to find a diplomatic solution because the world has not spoken with one voice," she told National Public Radio. Nevertheless, the United States promised to be flexible and stepped up lobbying in an effort to break the logjam. Bush personally on Tuesday telephoned the presidents of Chile, Mexico and Angola to push a compromise proposal. But in Britain, political cost of his strong support for Bush was mounting for Prime Minister Tony Blair, who faced an outright revolt in his Labor Party not to join in military action alongside the United States without U.N. backing. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld raised the possibility of Washington going to war without British support. "To the extent they are able to participate in the event that the president decides to use force, that would obviously be welcomed. To the extent they're not, there are work-arounds and they would not be involved, at least in that phase," Rumsfeld said at a news briefing. But Rumsfeld later issued a statement backing away from his suggestion that Britain might not fight alongside the United States. "In the event that a decision to use force is made, we have every reason to believe there will be a significant military contribution from the United Kingdom," he said. Rumsfeld said his remarks were intended to point out that obtaining a Security Council resolution was "important to the United Kingdom" and the United States supported this aim. FOUR OF NINE VOTES The United States and Britain have mustered only four of the nine votes -- their own and those of Spain and Bulgaria -- needed for passage of a resolution setting a March 17 deadline for Iraq to satisfy them that it is fully disarming. Five nations, three of which have veto power, are definitely against the resolution: Russia, France, China, Germany and Syria. Those undecided are: Mexico, Chile, Cameroon, Angola, Guinea and Pakistan. In a televised address, Pakistani Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali said: "It would be very difficult for Pakistan to support war against Iraq. This goes against the interests of my nation and of my government." The six have proposed a 45-day deadline for Baghdad to demonstrate that it is in compliance, basing their proposal on one initiated by Canada several weeks ago. But White House spokesman Ari Fleischer called it a nonstarter. Two American U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, flying on behalf of the United Nations over Iraq were recalled to base early on Tuesday after a tense and confusing incident. U.N. officials said they had been recalled in the interest of safety, Some U.S. officials said one plane had been threatened by Iraqi jet fighters but Rumsfeld told reporters there had been no confrontation. Iraqi officials said they had not been properly notified about the flight, which included two U-2 planes rather than the usual one aircraft. In a related development, the U.S. Air Force successfully tested the most powerful conventional bomb in its arsenal on Tuesday, sending a mushroom cloud billowing into the sky over its Florida test range. It was the first test of the 21,000-pound (9,450-kg) MOAB explosive device nicknamed the "mother of all bombs." Defense officials suggested the test was a message to Iraq ahead of a possible war about the might of the U.S. military.