That man is entitled to his opinion. If he wants to resign well and good. It is absolutely disgusting for him to publicly state his opinion about situations which should have been kept sub rosa. So ............., whoever released that letter of resignation to the press is undermining the government and, in my opinion (and I am not a US citizen), under the circumstances, such action is tantamount to treason and the responsible party should be dealt with as such. freealways
max401:`Quote from msfe: "Mr. Kiesling is a career diplomat..." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Nope, "was a career diplomat..."´ 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.
So after posting that letter, and getting ripped for doing so, and having others pointing out the folly of that letter, your response is to take issue with a technical point is "was" versus "is"? Man, you are one weakass poster. At least Wild would have found some other leftist on-line rag with a negative article to post as a reply. You need serious work on your cut and past techniques.
For the first time since the Gulf war, the press is going to be allowed to cover the front line of the war. What the administration isn't mentioning, is that the press aren't going to be given gas masks and other protective clothing used to ward off chemical weapons. Bush loves the press. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Also, I guarantee you that we will find evidence of weapons of mass destruction once we invade Iraq to show the world community, even if we have to plant the evidence to do so. Seriously, are France and Germany and the others who are so against this invasion really going to believe what is found there? The conspiracy theories are already running wild in the minds of those who are against this war. The US can't win the war of public opinion and satisfy all the different desires of the world, or even here at home. What we can do is ignore the rest of the world for the moment, and decide here at home what is right, through the democratic process we have, which is to have our current elected representatives in Congress and the Senate decide to approve a war, and then get on with it. If a majority of the congressional branch of our government approve of a war and believe it is in the interest of national security, go for it. If the war then turns out to be a disaster, vote them out in the next election. All Americans can participate in this process by writing/calling/emailing the elected representatives from their state to give them their opinion. This is democracy, this is our system, why don't we just use it? Why are the Democrats so weak as to not demand that we follow our own system? Why is Bush so stupid as to not go to the leading Democrats, and offer them the money for the financial needs of their respective states that he is currently offering to Turkey and other countries to bribe them to get on board the war effort? Bush isn't a good politician, as he doesn't know how to build consensus here at home before he goes off into other parts of the world. I can assure you the a strong president who really knew the political game, would have the opposing Democratic leaders in his office making political deals to get them to climb on board. Once we as a people make the decision to move forward, the rest is all just political positioning for the spoils of victory down the road.
Bush Ex Machina By MAUREEN DOWD WASHINGTON â George W. Bush has often talked wickedly about his days as the black sheep of a blue-blooded, mahogany-paneled family. But the younger rebellion pales before the adult revolt, now sparking epochal changes. The president is about to upend the internationalist order nurtured by his father and grandfather, replacing the Bush code of noblesse oblige with one of force majeure. Bush 41, a doting dad, would never disagree with his son in public, but in a speech at Tufts last week, he defended his decision to leave Saddam Hussein in power after Desert Storm. "If we had tried to go in there and created more instability in Iraq, I think it would have been very bad for the neighborhood," he told the crowd of 4,800. (Was he referring to Baghdad or Kennebunkport?) He conceded that getting a coalition together is harder now, because the evidence about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction is "a little fuzzier" than was his evident invasion of Kuwait. But 41 still thinks coalitions work: "The more pressure there is, the more chance this matter will be resolved in a peaceful manner." (Maybe he should enter the Democratic primary.) At the very same moment the father was pushing peace, the son was treating the war as a fait accompli. At the American Enterprise Institute, he finally coughed up the real reason for war: trickle-down democracy. Unable to handcuff Osama and Saddam, he soft-pedaled his previous cry for a war of retribution for 9/11. Now he was being more forthright, calling for a war of re-engineering. "A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region," he said, adding: "Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace, and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state." Conservatives began drawing up steroid-fueled plans to reorder the world a decade ago, imperial blueprints fantastical enough to make "Star Wars" look achievable. In 1992, Dick Cheney, the defense secretary for Bush 41, and his aides, Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter Libby, drafted a document asserting that America should prepare to cast off formal alliances and throw its military weight around to prevent the rise of any "potential future global competitor" and to preclude the spread of nuclear weapons. The solipsistic grandiosity of the plan was offputting to 41, who loved nothing better than chatting up the other members of the global club. To Poppy and Colin Powell, this looked like voodoo foreign policy, and they splashed cold water on it. In 1996, Richard Perle, now a Pentagon adviser, and Douglas Feith, now a Rumsfeld aide, helped write a report about how Israel could transcend the problems with the Palestinians by changing the "balance of power" in the Middle East, and by replacing Saddam. The hawks saw their big chance after 9/11, but they feared that it would be hard to sell a eschatological scheme to stomp out Islamic terrorism by recreating the Arab world. So they found Saddam guilty of a crime he could commit later: helping Osama unleash hell on us. Mr. Bush is his father's son in his "trust us, we know best" attitude. After obscuring the real reasons for war, the Bushies are now obscuring the Pentagon's assessments of the cost of war ($60 billion to $200 billion?), the size of the occupation force (100,000 to 400,000?) and the length of time American troops will stay in Iraq (2 to 10 years?). A Delphic Mr. Wolfowitz tried to blow off House Democrats who pressed him on these issues: "We will stay as long as necessary and leave as soon as possible." Rahm Emanuel, a congressman from Chicago, chided Mr. Wolfowitz, saying, "In the very week that we negotiated with Turkey, the administration also told the governors there wasn't any more money for education and health care." The president's humongously expensive tax cuts leave less for all programs except the military. Asked if we should give up the tax cut to underwrite the war, the president demurred, replying, "Americans are paying the bill." Nobody knows if the Bush team's hubristic vision for redrawing the Middle East map will end up tamping down terrorism or inflaming it. Either way, deus ex machina doesn't come cheap.
Absolutely right. My father spent 30 years in the Foreign Service and served at numerous embassies around the world. His response to this resignation? A resounding yawn.