To be honest I had no clue who this guy was, or if the importance of his Diplomatic position, but his letter is an interesting (if very very long) one.
Worth reading before DRB points out that it's a fake
[Letter Below]
Secretary of State Colin Powell
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
President George Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation
February 27, 2003
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
do 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.
Worth reading before DRB points out that it's a fake
[Letter Below]
Secretary of State Colin Powell
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
President George Bush
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
U.S. Diplomat's Letter of Resignation
February 27, 2003
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
do 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.
No wait DT didn't post it. 
(to both of you)