February 27 2003, John Brady Kiesling, political adviser with the
Embassy from the United States in Athens, presented its resignation to the
Secretary of State Colin Powell. « Political that one now asks us to promote are
incompatible, not only with the American values, but with the american interests »,
explains John Brady Kiesling, after more than twenty years of career in the diplomacy
states-unienne, in particular with Such-Aviv, Casablanca and Yerevan. Disputing « le
sacrifice of these total interests to the policy internal » and the systematic
« manipulation of the american public opinion », the diplomat said :
« this government chose to use terrorism like an argument of interior policy, take
dispersed Al Qaïda and largely weakened like allied administratif ».
Mister the Secretary of State,
I write to you to mean myself my resignation of the my
function and State Department of the United States of Advising Political with the American
Embassy in Athens, from March 7. I do it the heavy cœur. My
education included a direction of the duty with respect to my country. To serve the United
States as a diplomat was thus a dream. I was paid to understand the foreign languages and
cultures, to meet diplomats,
politicians, scientists and journalists, in order to persuade them that the American
interests and their coincided. The faith that I had in my country and his values was the
most powerful weapon of my diplomatic arsenal.
It is inevitable that in twenty years of service, I become
more skeptic and cynical within sight of the purely bureaucratic, egoistic and narrow
reasons which sometimes traced contours of our policies. The human nature being what it
is, I was rewarded and promoted because I included/understood it. However, until the
arrival of this government, it was possible to to me to believe that by supporting the
policy of my president, I promoted also the interests of the American people and the
world. I do not believe in it any more.
The policies that one now asks us to promote are
incompatible, not only with the American values, but with the American interests. Our
eagerness to want the war with Iraq carries out us to waste the international legitimacy
which was the most powerful weapon of the United States since the time of Woodrow Wilson.
We started to dismantle the relational network widest and most effective that the world
ever knew. Our current trajectory can only bring instability and danger, instead of
safety.
The sacrifice of these total interests to the interior
policy and egoistic interests is not new and it is certainly not a purely American
problem. However, we had not known such a systematic distortion of information, nor such a
systematic handling of the American public opinion since the war of Vietnam. The tragedy
of
September 11 had left us stronger than front, gathering around us a vast international
coalition lends to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of
terrorism. However, instead of using the benefit of this success and building something of
solid on this basis, this government chose to use terrorism like an argument of interior
policy, enrôlant Al dispersed Qaïda and largely weakened like administrative ally.
We spread a terror and a disproportionate confusion in the public, arbitrarily binding two
problems without relation, terrorism and Iraq. The result, but perhaps also the reason,
was ill-advisedly to justify displacement public funds in decrease towards the military
expenditure and to weaken the parapets which protect the American citizens with the heavy
hand of the government. September 11 did not do as much evil to the structure of the
American company than than we seem determined to inflict ourselves to us. Is Russia of the
Romanov last our model, an egoistic and superstitious empire sinking towards the
self-destruction in the name of a statu-quo condemned avance ?
Us should ask us why we did not succeed in persuading more
people than a war with Iraq is necessary. During two last years, we too much made of it,
persuading our partners in the world that American, narrow and
financial interests, passed above their dearest values. Even when our goals were not
contestable, our coherence was. The example of Afghanistan comforts our allies little when
they wonder on which bases
we want to rebuild the Middle East, in the interest of which. Did we really become blind,
as Russia is in Tchétchénie, as Israel is in the occupied territories, to be unaware of
that a military capacity crushing is not the response to the terrorisme ? When the
ruins of the war in Iraq are added with those with Grozny and Ramallah, which thus will
still be able to us to follow ?
We still have a solid coalition. The honesty of much of
our friends is impressive, a tribute with the moral capital that America accumulated
during last century. However, our less persuaded allies its owing to the fact that the war
is justified that danger to let the United States slip into a complete self-centredness.
Honesty should
be reciprocal. Why our president tolerate does the manner fanfaronne and scorning of its
administration, even on the highest levels, milked our friends and alliés ?
Please, listen to the friends of America everywhere in the
world. Even here, in Greece, which one says being the seat of the most virulent
anti-Americanism, we have more friends than the average reader of the American press
cannot suppose it. Even when they complain about the American arrogance, they know that
the world is a place dangerous and difficult and they want a system international solid,
with the United States and Europe working hand in the hand. When our friends are afraid of
us instead of being afraid for us, it is time to question itself. And now, they are
anxious. Who will say to them in a convincing way that the United States is always, as
they were it, a headlight of freedom, safety and justice for the planète ?
Mister the Secretary of State, I test much respect for
your personality and your competences. You safeguarded for us more international
credibility than does not deserve any our policy and maintained an aspect positive with
this government, in spite of its ideological excesses. However, your honesty towards the
president goes too far. We require too much an international system that we pained to
build. Its network of laws, treaties and organizations well more maintained with the
variation our enemies than they did not limit
the capacity of America to defend his interests.
I resign because I failed to make coordinate my conscience
and my capacities to serve the present administration. I keep confidence in the fact
however that our democratic system is self-correcting. I
hope that, in a very small manner, I will be able to continue outside to lay down policies
which will serve better safety and prosperity of the American people and the world that we
divide.
John Brady Kiesling |
