|
A man who is willing to give up a little freedom for a little security,
deserves neither - Benjamin Franklin, posthumously commenting on the
"Patriot" Act
Chaos in the Middle East is not the Bush hawks' nightmare scenario--it's
their
plan
Protestor = Terrorist
Kurt Vonnegut
Hydrogen-fueled cars not the best way to cut pollution, greenhouse gases and oil
Stop the Florida-tion of the 2004 election
|
Self-service advertising system
In this Issue:
Hugo Chavez is Crazy!
For those of you who were as confused as I was regarding the attempted
coup in Venezuela last year, which was supported by US Naval ships and US
military "intelligence"...
by Greg Palast
Tuesday, July 1, 2003
Last June, on Page One of the San Francisco Chronicle, an Associated Press
photo of a mass of demonstrators carried the following caption:
"TENS OF THOUSANDS OF VENEZUELANS OPPOSED TO PRESIDENT HUGO CHAVEZ..."
The caption let us know this South American potentate was a killer, an autocrat,
and the people of his nation wanted him out. The caption continued:
"[Venezuelans] marched Saturday to demand his resignation and punishment for
those responsible for 17 deaths during a coup in April. 'Chavez leave now!' read
a huge banner."
There was no actual story in the Chronicle – South America simply isn't worth
wasting words on – just the photo and caption. But the Chronicle knew no story
was needed. Venezuelans hated their terrible president, and all you needed was
this photo to prove it.
And I could confirm the large protests. I'd recently returned from Caracas and
watched 100,000 march against President Chavez. I'd filmed them for BBC
Television London.
But I also filmed this: a larger march, easily over 200,000 Venezuelans marching
in support of their president, Chavez.
That picture, of the larger pro-Chavez march, did not appear in a single U.S.
newspaper. The pro-Chavez marchers weren't worth a mention.
By the next month, when the New York Times printed a photo of anti-Chavez
marchers, they had metastasized. The Times reported that 600,000 had protested
against Chavez.
Once again, the larger pro-Chavez demonstrations were, as they say in Latin
America, "disappeared." I guess they didn't fit the print.
Look at the Chronicle/AP photo of the anti-Chavez marchers in Venezuela. Note
their color. White.
And not just any white. A creamy rich white.
I interviewed them and recorded in this order: a banker in high heels and
push-up bra; an oil industry executive (same outfit); and a plantation owner who
rode to Caracas in a silver Jaguar.
And the color of the pro-Chavez marchers? Dark brown. Brown and round as cola
nuts – just like their hero, their President Chavez. They wore an unvarying
uniform of jeans and T-shirts.
Let me explain.
For five centuries, Venezuela has been run by a minority of very white people,
pure-blood descendants of the Spanish conquistadors. To most of the 80 percent
of Venezuelans who are brown, Hugo Chavez is their Nelson Mandela, the man who
will smash the economic and social apartheid that has kept the dark-skinned
millions stacked in cardboard houses in the hills above Caracas while the whites
live in high-rise splendor in the city center. Chavez, as one white Caracas
reporter told me with a sneer, gives them bricks and milk, and so they vote for
him.
Why am I explaining the basics of Venezuela to you? If you watched BBC TV, or
Canadian Broadcasting, you'd know all this stuff. But if you read the New York
Times, you'll only know that President Chavez is an "autocrat," a "ruinous
demagogue," and a "would-be dictator," who resigned when he recognized his
unpopularity.
Odd phrasings – "dictator" and "autocrat" – to describe Chavez, who was elected
by a landslide majority (56 percent) of the voters. Unlike our President.
On April 12, 2002, Chavez resigned his presidency It said so, right there in the
paper – every major newspaper in the USA, every single one. Apparently, to quote
the New York Times, Chavez recognized that he was unpopular, his time was up:
"With yesterday's resignation of President Hugo Chavez, Venezuelan democracy is
no longer threatened by a would-be dictator."
Problem was, the "resignation" story was a fabulous fib, a phantasmagoric
fabrication. In fact, the President of Venezuela had been kidnapped at gunpoint
and bundled off by helicopter from the presidential palace. He had not resigned;
he never resigned; and one of his captors (who secretly supported Chavez) gave
him a cell-phone from which he called and confirmed to friends and family that
he remained alive – and still president.
Working for the Guardian and the BBC, I was able within hours of the kidnapping
to reach key government people in Venezuela to confirm that this "resignation"
factoid was just hoodoo nonsense.
But it was valuable nonsense to the U.S. State Department. The faux resignation
gave the new U.S.-government-endorsed Venezuelan leaders the pretense of
legitimacy – Chavez had resigned; this was a legal change of government, not a
coup d'etat. (The Organization of American States bars recognition of
governments who come to power through violence.) Had the coup leaders not
bungled their operation – the coup collapsed within 48 hours – or if they had
murdered Chavez, we would never have known the truth.
The U.S. papers got it dead wrong – but how? Who was the source of this
"resignation" lie? I asked a U.S. reporter why American news media had reported
this nonsense as stone fact without checking. The reply was that it came from a
reliable source: "We got it from the State Department."
Oh.
"He's crazy," shouts a protester about President Chavez on one broadcast. And if
you watched the 60 Minutes interview with Chavez, you saw a snippet of a lengthy
conversation – a few selective seconds, actually – which, out of context, did
made Chavez look loony.
In the old Soviet Union, dissidents were packed off to insane asylums to silence
and discredit them. In our democracy we have a more subtle – and more effective
– means of silencing and discrediting dissidents. Television, radio, and print
press obligingly sequester enemies of the state in the media's madhouse. In this
way, Bush critic Rep. Cynthia McKinney became "loony" (see "The Screwing of
Cynthia McKinney"); Chavez a mad "autocrat."
It's the electronic loony bin. You no longer hear what they have to say because
you've been told by images, by repetition, and you've already dismissed their
words ... if by some chance their words break through the television Berlin
Wall.
Try it: Do a Google or Lexis search on the words Chavez and autocrat.
For who is the autocrat? Today, there are hundreds of people held in detention
without charges in George Bush's United States. In Venezuela, there are none.
This is not about Venezuela but about the Virtual Venezuela, created for you by
America's news wardens. The escape routes are guarded.
January 5, 2003, New York City. Picked up bagels and the Sunday Times on
Delancey Street. Looks like that s.o.b. Chavez is at it again: Here was a big
picture of a half-dozen people lying on the ground. The Times story read:
"Protesters shielded themselves from tear gas during an anti- government rally
on Friday in Caracas, Venezuela. In the 33rd day of a national strike, several
protesters were shot."
That was it – the entire story of Venezuela for the Paper of Record.
Maybe size doesn't matter. But this does: Even this itty-bitty story is a
steaming hot bag of mendacity. Yes, two people were shot dead – those in the
pro-Chavez march.
I'd be wrong to say that every U.S. paper repeated the Times sloppy approach.
Elsewhere, you could see a photo of the big pro-Chavez march and a photo of the
"Chavista" widow placed within an explanatory newswire story. Interestingly, the
fuller and correct story ran in an outlet that's none too friendly to Chavez: El
Diario, New York City's oldest Spanish-language newspaper.
Lesson: If you want to get accurate news in the United States, you might want to
learn a language other than English.
Friday, January 3, 2003. The New York Times ran a long "News Analysis: Venezuela
Outlook." Four experts were quoted. For balance, two of them don't like Chavez,
while the other two despise him.
The Times reporter wrote that "the president says he will stay in power." "In
power?" What a strange phrase for an elected official. Having myself spoken with
Chavez, it did not sound like him. He indicated he would stay "in office" –
quite a different inference than "in power." But then, the Times' phrasing isn't
in quotes.
That's because Chavez never said it.
----------------------------------------
This article was based on a contribution to the compendium, "Abuse Your
Illusions," released this month by Disinformation Press. Oliver Shykles, Fredda
Weinberg, Ina Howard, and Phil Tanfield contributed research for this report.
Palast, an investigative reporter for BBC television, is author of the New York
Times bestseller, "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" (Penguin/Plume 2003).
Reprinted here with verbal permission from Mr. Palast at
Kepler's bookstore, Menlo Park, California, USA, 2003.
Visit the Forums for more and Voice Your Opinion
Dirty Energy, Dirty Politics
Terrorists only have one thing to say about Bush Jr's energy policy:
fantastic!
The nuclear industry -- which is really a front for weapons manufacturers --
have the pResident's ear when it comes to domestic energy policy. Build more
nuclear power plants, fire up the inactive ones, and sell the toxic sludge to
subsidiaries of "defense" corporations, including agribusiness (food
irradiation) and weapons contractors (depleted uranium munitions).
What they don't tell us is that nuclear plants are top targets for terrorists.
Such as blowing up a nuclear power plant near a populated area. Such as stealing
a few spent rods for use in dirty bombs.
Click here to send a fax to your local
corrupt Senators before it's too late.
Visit the Forums for more and Voice Your Opinion
Democracy, Elections do not Imply Freedom
A few months ago, Iraq held an election.
Hussein won by 100% of the vote.
A couple of years before that, the US held an election.
Bush lost but he became president anyway.
These are two examples that elections do not imply Democracy. Furthermore,
Democracy does not imply freedom. The Third Reich was a Democracy (mob
rule) from the viewpoint that there were no dissenters because they were either
imprisoned, exiled, or killed.
The tide of Democracy, or mob rule, can turn at an instant to repudiate rights
and freedoms. For example, the right to have an abortion in any given
city. The right to not be arrested because you look like a terrorist.
Laws restrict freedoms. Democracies pass laws. Democracy and freedom are
constantly at odds.
What gives Americans their freedoms is their Constitution, particularly the Bill
of Rights. The US Constitution is a unique document that exists nowhere
else in the world and probably never existed before. Sure, the Magna Carta
was close, but not really.
Today, "Democracy" is nothing more than a code word
used by the neoconservatives (Democrats and Republicans) to mean economic rule
in which the poor and working classes have few liberties and fewer chances to
influence their brutal military-based rulers. "Democracy" is a form of
government in which the wealthy decide who can vote and what is
voted on. Republicans like Jeb Bush (indeed, the entire political Bush
family) and Kathleen Harris who illegally and un-Constitutionally
removed 173,000 African American names from the Florida voter rolls know
exactly what they mean by "Democracy," and it's high time the rest of us caught
on.
Visit the Forums for more and Voice Your Opinion
Captain Bush Hunts Moby Dick
The crew that spawned Iran-Contra
Those who armed terrorists in Iran
To fund terrorists in Nicaragua
The same who armed Hussein
And bin Laden in an earlier, colder war
Set sail onward to the War on Terror
Tax cuts deepen the blood sea of
Debt imposed upon future generations
Used to fund the war machine that
Serves as a proud distraction from the
Greed of their largest contributors and supporters
From their pillaging of nature's bounty
to their raping of Lady Liberty
Creatures of the deep, the harpoons approach!
A furious mind short-circuited by
Racism, boastfulness, and impatience
Now rules these seas
With Teddy Roosevelt's Big Stick diplomacy
And Hearst's yellow journalism
The battleships attack!
Succumb or be destroyed!
We shall fix whatever We consider to be wrong
If no-one else is up to the task!
With Shock and Awe the world holds its breath
And braces itself for the next wave to ripple through history
Visit the Forums for more and Voice Your Opinion
An Apology
Easter 2003
It's easy to get caught up in movements and lose yourself. It's easy to
replace your inner voice with the slogans of groupthink.
I'm guilty. It's too tempting to resist. It's so easy.
Instead of exposing my vulnerable self to the world, I'll hold up the mask of
the Left or Right or Middle.
But we all know there is truth in everything. There is good and bad in
everything. There is no black and white when it comes to real human
issues.
I started this website a few years ago mainly to rail on Democrats, as a vent
to release my frustrations and disappointment at what I saw as a political party
whose motives had become less than honorable. My Democrat friends who
supported Bill Clinton's bombing of Yugoslavia and court battles with Microsoft
confounded me. I needed a wall on which to throw my anger, so I could see
it and let it go.
But history unraveled itself, and inevitably a Republican moved into the
White House. It was bound to happen folks -- there are only two parties.
And now this site seems to be little more than liberal Republican bashing.
I got caught up in the crowd and forgot what the hell I was thinking.
Actually, feeling.
In respect for the soldiers on both sides who are fighting for their homes
and their beliefs, I say this: thank you for doing what you think is right
for the greater good. Because it is possible for a man or woman with a gun
to have fundamentally selfless principles, regardless of their circumstances.
I support those who go only because they are told, and those who go because they
think it's the right thing to do.
Thank you for your sacrifice and many thanks to your families who sacrifice
more.
For the first time in history, a
Native American woman
lost her life fighting in a foreign country for the US military. This
is truly ironic. What does it mean? That Native Americans have
turned the same corner turned by Japanese, Latinos, and African Americans in
past wars? That the assimilation started 500 years ago is complete?
As long as the reservations exist, similar to the Israelis and Palestinians
(after all, the Israelis learned everything they knew from the Nazis, and the
Nazis learned everything they knew from American colonists),
Americans and Native Americans will be a people divided by imaginary and real
boundaries. Divided by past events, religions, and wholly different world
views. Divided so much that a white man and a red man (for lack of a more
politically correct term) can live a few miles apart and never speak one work to
each other.
I am concerned about paying for wars (drug, terror, impoverished youth) that
will never end. I am concerned about Machiavellian foreign policy and the
enemies it's bound to create.
I'm concerned about forfeiting the rights of a profiled group so I can feel
safer. I am equally concerned about ignoring groups who plot to commit
terrorist acts. I am concerned about the conditions that persuade children
and grown men to become terrorists. I'm concerned about future generations' ability to
prosper in a world in which natural resources are dwindling, water and wildlife
are scarce, and toxins fill the ground and air. I am concerned about the
attacks on women's rights, particularly reproductive rights.
I consider myself to be a conservative. Our planet and the comforts of
civilization should be conserved for future generations. That is what
conservatism should be about, rather than God, evildoers, military buildup,
pro-life, patriotism, tax shelters, oil drilling, and tax cuts for the wealthy.
May the ideals of the Constitution reign supreme. One globe, one nation
of humanity protected by the wisdom found in the Bill of Rights, with liberty
and justice. For all.
PS, I promise to never compare anyone to Hitler, because we can only hope
that there will be only one man in history who convinced his countrymen to
participate in the murder of millions of peaceful people over such a prolonged
period of time.
Visit the Forums for more and Voice Your Opinion
Hoping for the Best
Bill Maher, a long time "supporter" of the US military (whatever that
means), has
said
repeatedly that now that the war has started, Americans should hope for the
best. "It's better for them to be safe than for me to be right," he said on his
4/4/2004 show, Real Time, on HBO.
I don't quite understand this. While no one with a conscience can hope for
deaths on either side of the conflict, relinquishing oneself from the
responsibility of a regime-gone-mad seems like a cowardly position to take.
There are Iraqi citizens dying every day by so-called smart bombs which throw
shrapnel for hundreds of meters in all directions. There are hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis without clean water or electricity. The "coalition" is
laying landmines and poisoning the ground and air with uranium-based bullets and
bombs. The death, destruction, and misery is the result of a phony
deadline imposed by a phony American pResident.
And who really is Saddam Hussein? A puppet dictator propped up by several
US Presidencies and CIA Directors. A caricature of a ruler who was
financed and armed by US taxpayers. Even the CIA isn't sure whether Saddam
really is Saddam half the time. At least that's what they tell the media.
(Interestingly, they do the same with bin Laden.) Saddam Hussein was a
useful boogey man until bin Laden took his place, a make-believe villain who
kept Americans afraid and willing to give the US military whatever it wanted.
Afghanistan is still a mess and bin Laden is still at
large. What is the criteria for US troops to end their occupation of
Afghanistan and Iraq?
The US can't afford this so-called war on terror.
Corporate welfare to Bechtel, Boeing, and Raytheon is drowning our nation in a
sea of debt at the expense of our teachers and municipalities.
Someone has to speak out. Hoping for the best is little more than
complying with the crimes at hand.
But we can't really take Maher for his word. He already lost one show for saying
what he believes, so perhaps we should cut him some slack.
It's very dangerous to speak out against this war in public. Spies and
faux-patriots are lurking everywhere. Watch what you say before someone calls
Tips on you! Not having a yellow ribbon in your front yard or a flag on your car
is the first dead give-away. The US is feeling more like pre-Nazi Germany every day.
We live in a nation of frightened fascists and racists.
And when the US is "victorious" cutting down paper tigers with napalm, we on the
Left will all look like Chicken Little losers.
No, I don't want to be right the day a dirty bomb goes off in a US city.
Of course, the Right will be first to say "I told you so!" and call for more
bombing. But anyway. I will feel no glory when thousands of
Americans lose their lives and far more lose their jobs and freedoms. I will feel and what I
felt on 9/11, which is sorrow, pain, and anger.
Everyone around the world knows what defeat feels like, even Americans. We are
all in the same boat and the question is, how do we get a new captain?
Certainly not by keeping our mouths shut. Just ask the Germans.
Visit the Forums for more and Voice Your Opinion
Heil! Bush?
There is no evidence that the Bush administration had prior warning of the
9/11 terrorist attacks against the US. However, the second Bush
administration have used the events of 9/11 to their full advantage.
Perhaps they're following the example of another ruthless, racist dolt who rose
to the occasion.
Read the story here
Visit the Forums for more and Voice Your Opinion
What do You Mean by "Support our Troops?"
Of course I support our troops. I pay taxes which make having troops
possible.
I'm not sure what it means to not support our troops, by which I mean
18-22 year old boys who tend to be on the bottom rung of economic status and
therefore don't have a choice whether to defend their country or bring misery to
the world. We certainly have more poor today than we did a few years back,
so no chance of running out of bullet catchers!
Who is really standing on the street advocating the slaughter of American
troops? Not even your average Palestinian is doing that, and average Americans don't give a rat's crap about him or her, or about Iraqis who
have been deprived of basic medical necessities for the last 12 years.
Operation Iraqi Freedom.. yeah right.
The peace movement is about peace for everyone with the hope that religion or
cult X won't be able to acquire new recruits for their next holy war on the US.
But it's going to take a long time, as will the radical notions of Democracy and
Government by the People, rather than by the rich and famous.
The likes of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson would be blocking traffic
right now. But they were lucky enough to be far away from the empire of the day
and were therefore able to achieve their vision, more or less. Today nobody can
escape the Death Star. It's a small, small world.
Let's see if there's a US election in 2004, and if so, whether the
"inefficient" paper-based voting system will be replaced by
computers
manufactured by staunchly Republican corporations.
We are only one explosion away from martial law and the repeal of most of our
rights. The only good news is that corporations actually need Americans to be
relatively free in order to feel good about spending money. But corporations in
the defense and security business win either way, and those are the guys who
have written Bush's foreign policy.
So, no, I don't support our troops if in reality that means supporting the CEOs
of Raytheon, Boeing, etc. in their quest to
explode their toys in third world
countries for fun and profit.
Visit the Forums for more and Voice Your Opinion
The Octane Game
What the hell is going on with the price of gasoline?
The price of crude fell sharply last week as the first bombs fell on Iraq.
Yet gas remains at peak prices, defiantly refusing to back down.
We all know that the price of gasoline is held up artificially by oil
companies. The "free market" is just an illusion when it comes to energy.
Last year, the state of California commissioned a study on the price of
gasoline. The report outlined the following factors:
- Deregulation resulted in fewer, not more, refineries. For example,
there is only one independent oil refinery in California.
- Refineries and oil companies team up to write strict environmental laws
which make it impossible for competitors to build new refineries. This
collusion is probably illegal.
- There are few independent gas stations. Oil companies own most
refineries and gas stations. Therefore, oil companies set the price of
gasoline in most markets and competitors generally don't compete with each
other. This practice is illegal but difficult to prove when more than
one oil company is involved.
- If an independent station lowers its prices, the major stations that
surround it lower their prices until the independent goes out of business, at
which time the big guys jack up their prices. This practice is illegal
but difficult to prove when more than one oil company is involved.
- There would be a greater supply of gasoline, and therefore lower prices,
if there was only one grade of gas on the market. The three-octane pumps
are just a marketing ploy to get people with more money to feel good about
spending it.
- Each state has its own laws regarding fuel formulation. This makes
it very difficult for out-of-state refineries to move into markets or to
compensate for local shortages. Therefore, the federal government should
set formulation laws, which, of course, oil companies and the politicians they
support are against.
As you can see, there are a lot of shenanigans going on, and our "tough on
crime" Districts Attorney are unwilling to do anything about it. The oil
companies are scarier than anything The Sopranos can dish out.
Stanford: Regulations aggravate gasoline prices
Visit the Forums for more and Voice Your Opinion
March Madness
US troops are marching towards Iraq as college basketball players vie for the
coveted NCAA tournament championship!
It's the Pentagon's wet dream: a captive television audience hungry for
action, with Dan Rather breaking in from time to time with softball reports of
the latest action on the battlefield.
Thank God Fox et al have spared their viewers from images of dead US
soldiers! Oh, those evil, evil Al-Jazeera broadcasters! Never mind
they are mostly funded by the US's #1 ally in the Gulf, natural-gas rich
Qatar.
If Americans saw war for what it is -- corpses of those we know and love --
rather than as a video game fought at a distance for entertainment value, public
opinion would certainly turn towards anti-war sentiment. However, those in
the Bush administration learned a lesson from Vietnam, and they won't repeat the
same mistake twice. Their goal is to control all media broadcasts, and the
corporate-owned broadcasters have fallen in line willingly, for two reasons:
one, to promote the interests of their owners and best customers, and more
importantly, to stay on the air, reaping enormous advertising profits.
And let's not forget why the Bush administration is engaged in The War on
Terror (TM) in the first place: as a distraction from the administration's
second recession and the complete wash-out of retirement savings while the
perpetrators/contributors go scot-free, and finally as a smokescreen to their
wide-ranging neoliberal right-wing agenda which includes:
- Clear-cutting old-growth forests
- De-funding the Environmental Protection Agency
- Eliminating access to safe abortions (except for Senators' and Generals'
daughters)
- Making sure that only the wealthy have access to decent schools and health
care
- Filling the federal Supreme Court with white right-wing radicals (or,
better yet, with black-skinned right-wing radicals who know which side their
bread is buttered on)
- Exploiting third-world and working-poor labor and the rest of their
resources
Visit the Forums for more and Voice Your Opinion
Hypocrisy at Home
"Operation Iraqi Freedom" reminds us of a famous Monty Python
shtick:
We're having a war for peace!
The men who stole the 2000 US Presidential election want to bring their style
of Democracy to the Iraqi people. God help them. God help America.
Who will liberate Americans from those who were not elected yet occupy the
White House? Americans should be
grateful that a greater power can't rain missiles upon their cities in response
their inability to overthrow the unlawful, violent, and completely
out-of-control Bush regime.
As spineless politicians back into their "support our troops" babble, the
United States military continues to disregard the Geneva Convention and
international law by pursuing the assassination of the leader of a sovereign
nation, bombing civilians with impunity, irradiating the country with depleted
uranium weapons, and refusing to provide a safe haven
for those who don't wish to perish from Tomahawk missiles.
But we must not forget the dishonorable and violent beginnings of the United
States, from its first days as a Pilgrim colony. The indiscriminate
killing of Native Americans, the slave trade, the ruthless exploitation of
Chinese laborers, and the theft of land from Mexico are but a few examples.
This may help us understand why both Democrats and Republicans support these
illegal "operations" which would are better described as "conquests" or even
"crusades."
When we cry tears over what seems to be America losing its way, we should
instead stop and wonder whether the train is actually on the same tracks on
which it began. Rather than business as usual, a derailment may be in order. What will
bring shock and awe to American soil?
Undoubtedly, Americans experienced both shock and awe on September 11th.
What a rare glimpse average Americans had into the lives of other inhabitants of
Planet Earth!
But US policy makers were quick to prod Americans to forget their shock, to
forget the horrors of war, to go shopping. Instead, the United States
bombed impoverished Afghanistan under the guise of hunting down bin Laden and
liberating women from their Burkas.
CNN and the rest of the corporate-Pentagon media broadcast hypnotic tales of
precision weapons that would never kill an innocent bystander. Yes,
Americans, forget what it truly means for buildings filled with workers to be
turned into rubble. Forget the images of falling bodies and the smell of
burning flesh. Forget the crushing loss of husbands, mothers, and friends.
The wars we wage are nothing like that.
But human beings, even American ones, do not forget so easily. The
media may pretend that US-led wars are just, but those who fought in World War
II, Korea, Vietnam, and those who experienced Ground Zero first hand can not
erase memories from their minds. Yes, there will always be 18 year olds
willing to participate in the exciting adventure of warfare, but it is only a
matter of time until they too become living historians about the horrors of
war.
And that may be the key to the derailment of more than 300 years of brutal
European occupation of the New World: that Americans may experience first
hand the misery and horror that is spread across the globe in their name.
But we need only look at Israel to see where the United States is headed. Each
episode of "shock" and "awe" results in more battle cries for revenge. The
days of peace, love, Democracy, and freedom are coming to
an end for most of those who call themselves Americans.
Visit the Forums for more and Voice Your Opinion
U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation
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 Americas 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 metuantreally become our motto?
I urge you to listen to Americas 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 Americas 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.
Talk Back
|
