Posted on 06/13/2004 8:35:30 PM PDT by republican4ever
WASHINGTON - Angered by Bush administration policies they contend endanger national security, 26 retired U.S. diplomats and military officers are urging Americans to vote President Bush (news - web sites) out of office in November.
AP Photo
The group, which calls itself Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change, does not explicitly endorse Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) for president in its campaign, which will start officially Wednesday at a Washington news conference.
The Bush-Cheney campaign said Sunday it would have no response until the group formally issues its statement at the news conference.
Among the group are 20 ambassadors, appointed by both Democratic and Republican presidents, other former State Department officials and military leaders whose careers span three decades.
(Excerpt) Read more at story.news.yahoo.com ...
Ping.
William C. Harrop
Diplomacy is prevention, our first line of defense. If we can resolve international differences through discussion and negotiation, we do not have to send our forces into battle and risk their lives. If diplomacy is weak or inadequate, troops may have to be deployed prematurely. Yet the international affairs (diplomacy) budget is treated as a domestic appropriation and as part of discretionary funding, which will remain the essential target for cuts.
Meanwhile, the world becomes more and more interdependent, and diplomacy is as involved with economic and social issues as it is with national security.
The timing is bad for a decline in America’s diplomatic readiness. At the dawn of the new millennium, American foreign policy seems less manageable than it was during the Cold War.
In Madeleine Albright’s words, the United States has become “the indispensable nation.”
A global power should be represented in every world capital, if only by an embassy of two or three people in the smallest countries. There is no telling when a vote in the UN may prove crucial, where key minerals may unexpectedly be uncovered, where terrorists may find a haven, when access to a particular airfield may be essential, when an American tourist or an American company may desperately need help. The cost of such representation is minimal. But, at the end of the twentieth century, for lack of resources, the Department of State is closing United States embassies.
True, the president or the secretary of state can telephone any foreign leader directly. But he or she badly needs the advice of trained Americans on the ground, experts who speak the language, understand the history and culture, know foreign leaders personally and can explain their values and the political pressures they are under, can suggest which arguments — or what public statements — will be effective.
FYI...(good info on these "Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change")
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1152927/posts?page=37
The article is terribly written. The last paragraph mentions that this group also is disillusioned by Bush's position on environmental conservation and AIDS, but it doesn't say what they would do differently or even what side they're on in those debates.
For example, are they against all the billions of dollars Bush is sending to Africa to fight AIDS, or do they believe it's not enough??? Exactly what part of Bush's AIDS policy do they disagree with? The article leaves us wondering, even as its tone attempts to damage Bush's re-election chances.
I think this group - for domestic ideology reasons - wanted to come out with an endorsement for John Kerry, but they couldn't think of anything positive to say about the pathetic Taxachusetts senator. So, they finally decided to just join the mainstream media in bashing Bush.
Deadly Mistakes: A Documentary Film in the Making
In addition to a number of those already mentioned, this one includes notably:
Marcus Raskin founder, Institute of Policy Studies
Also on the list is Daniel Berrigan, whose name has come up as I've been going through old FBI files on the Vietnam antiwar movement's connections to Communist groups.
Here in these United States, I can find tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions of people that believe those responsible for the events of 9-11 be brought to justice. The criminals were not just hijackers, but planners, financiers, and collaborators to the hijackers. Many are held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as enemy combatants. President Bush has an obligation as Commander-in-Chief to prosecute those responsible for the murders they helped execute on 9-11. These are not citizens, not prisoners of war, but enemy combatants. As such, the President can commend them to immediate military tribunals, and upon finding of guilt, they can be sentenced to death and executed immediately.
During WWII, such enemy combatants were tried within weeks of their capture, sentenced the day they were pronounced guilty, and executed within 24 hours of sentencing.
When you come to the defense of President Bush, always remember your defense may be perceived as defending the man that is now protecting the lives of enemy combatants that contributed to the murders of 9-11. I'm not alone in my feelings. There are many that share my feelings. "Think the media will cover us?"
Dang! I get so upset feeling people are running around pronouncing my weasel is better then your weasel. President Bush has led the charge to try and convict members of our military responsible for humiliating Iraqi prisoners, but has yet, even after more then two and a half years, to order the military to begin military tribunals for those persons that contributed to the murders of 9-11. I want our president to exercise the same charge upon the enemy combatants.
Yeah, o.k. These folks really have a lot of pull. I mean, I'm sure that most Americans awaken every morning wondering who former diplomats prefer for president.
Admiral Crowe did the same thing in 1992 to George Bush. Clinton appointed him to be the US Ambassador to England. Perhaps he'd like to get out of retirement again.
Randy Jayne is a MG in the Air National Guard. They are stretching to call him a prominent military figure.
He said the group was disillusioned by Bush's handling of the war in Iraq ... and a list of other subjects, including the Middle East, environmental conservation, AIDS ... policy, ethnic and religious conflict and weapons proliferation.Now, even if we were to assume this group's opinion made a difference, about the only area where their experience and knowledge is remotely appropriate is the War in Iraq and, maybe the situation in the Middle East.
What in the world does their experience as former military men (whose job is typically to kill people and break stuff) and ambassadors (whose job is typically to sip green tea and not do too much) have to do with evironmental conservation? We haven't yet drilled in ANWR (need to), we aren't drilling in the Gulf of Mexico; and we didn't dorp some tactical nuclears on Al Qaeda or other foes. What do they want?
And, AIDS? Did they miss the $15 billion (YES, BILLION!) that the Bush administration funded for fighting AIDS? Bill Clinton, comparatively speaking, did NOTHING to help AIDS. He talked a lot (A LOT!), but he didn't DO anything.
And, ethnic and religious conflict? Hmm. Ok. Actually, most of members of this list are Clinton appointees or those who rose to power during the Clinton administration. And, NOW they are concerned with ethnic and religious conflict? Seriously? So, this group expects to be taken seriously when Rwanda, Sudan, and Kosvo (to name a few) happened on their watch? Yeah. I'll start listening to this crowd NOW. No, really...
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By NANCY BENAC, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Randy Beers sat on the porch steps next to his longtime friend and colleague Dick Clarke and the words came tumbling out in a torrent. "I think I have to quit. ... I can't work for these people. I'm sorry, I just can't."
It was a few days before the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, and Beers was President Bush's special assistant for combating terrorism, a job he had held for only a matter of months. But Beers was no newcomer to government; he had worked on foreign policy for four presidents.
To Clarke, Beers recited a list of complaints about Bush's foreign policy. Too fixated on Iraq. Not enough focus on al-Qaida. Weak on homeland security. Too political.
In public, Beers, 61, said only that he was quitting for personal reasons.
The real surprise came a few weeks later, when he signed on as foreign policy adviser to John Kerry, then still but one candidate in a pack of Democratic presidential contenders.
While working in government, Beers had a reputation as a nonpolitical sort, a hard worker who kept his ego in check.
"He had his nose to the grindstone; he's not a pol," says Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the private Council on Foreign Relations, echoing the thoughts of many in foreign policy circles. "Frankly, I had no idea if he was a Democrat or a Republican or whatever."
R. Rand Beers — Randy to his friends — is a Democrat who spent a good part of his government career getting things done for Republican presidents. He served as a Marine rifle company commander in Vietnam, began working for the State Department in 1971 and went on to serve on the National Security Council staffs of Presidents Reagan, Clinton and both Bushes.
Sandy Berger, who was Clinton's national security adviser and is backing Kerry, remembers his team interviewing more than 50 people from the first Bush White House during the 1992 presidential transition.
"We decided to keep on about half a dozen, including Rand," said Berger, who assumed Beers was a Republican. "It was clear that he was extraordinarily able and very knowledgeable in the area that he was working," a portfolio known as "drugs and thugs" — narcotics and counterterrorism. "He is an absolute straight shooter, someone with enormous integrity."
At the White House, Beers displayed a low-key style, in sharp contrast to his hard-charging friend and colleague Clarke, who recounted Beers' decision to quit in his book, "Against All Enemies," which is highly critical of the Bush administration.
Clarke had quit the Bush White House a few months before Beers. When Clarke's book came out earlier this year, White House and Bush campaign officials pointed to the friendship between Beers and Clarke in trying to discredit Clarke as pushing a political agenda.
Bush campaign spokesman Scott Stanzel declined to weigh in on Beers' impact on the Kerry campaign beyond saying, "Whoever John's Kerry's advisers are, it all adds up to policies that are wrong for our country."
Out of government for the first time in decades, Beers and Clarke taught a foreign policy class together at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government this spring.
Eric Rosenbach, who was their teaching assistant, said Beers shared his thoughts about the Bush administration with the class, "but he would only speak about bad policies rather than bad personalities. He's not intensely ideological. He seems to be more set on good policy-making."
Barry McCaffrey, the former Clinton drug czar who has known Beers for more than a decade, said Beers was "my view of what you'd hope a foreign service officer would be like."
"He's an extraordinarily thoughtful, very civil, easy-to-deal-with, courteous guy," said McCaffrey, who stressed he is staying neutral in the presidential race. "He doesn't produce exothermic reactions; he produces solutions." Translation: Beers is no hot head.
Berger, the former Clinton national security adviser, said one key to Beers' success is that he doesn't mind sharing credit.
"Randy's someone who is high value, low maintenance," said Berger. "I've discovered in Washington that when you're prepared to give other people the credit, you can get an awful lot done."
Steven Simon, a Clinton-era National Security Council staff member who considers Beers something of a mentor, said that in working as a civil servant, "it's not all that hard to work for whatever administration is in power." Still, for Beers, he allowed, "I would think the Democratic agenda is more compatible with his approach to life generally."
Thanks for the info on Jayne.
More interesting I suspect would be their current employment. I'd guess a significant number are "consultants" or "think tankers", with foreign nations well represented.
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
Of the 10's of 1,000's of former administrators and military personnel, this wa all they could find???
And where is the story on the 26 that support Bush and want him reelected? Rank, biased journalism. The AP is scum.
BUMP!
Undermining Counterintelligence Capability
A comparable de-emphasis on Communist matters took place in the CIA. In 1977 President Jimmy Carter appointed Admiral Stansfield Turner as the new Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). He soon dismissed several hundred of the Agency's experts on Communism. Turner, in his memoirs, justified the reduction in staff by pointing to a previous study, conducted in mid-1976 under DCI, later President, George H. W. Bush, which recommended the abolition of 1,350 positions in the Agency's espionage branch. Turner claimed that, of the final total of 820 positions vacated largely by attrition, only 17 people were actually dismissed, while 147 took an early forced retirement. But the CIA has never fully recovered from the Turner-era reductions in this critical area.
Former President Bush has likewise made comments tracing the CIA's current problems to this period.
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