"Fanatics, Fools and Alpha Males"

Forwarded with Compliments of Government of the USA in Exile (GUSAE): 
Free Americans Resisting the Fourth Reich on Behalf of All Species. 
NOTE:  Thanks to Graham Jukes for this.   --  kl, pp

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"Fanatics, Fools and Alpha Males"
The secret resignation letters of fed-up Bush officials.

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By Arianna Huffington

Nov. 27, 2003  |  Dear Friends,

Many of you have written to ask when I'll be returning to my column. 
The answer is: Jan. 7.

Up until then, I'm working around the clock on my new book, 
"Fanatics, Fools and Alpha Males," which will be published in March 
by Miramax Books.

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I'm sending you a succulent slice from 
the book (you'll have to provide your own stuffing). It's a 
collection of resignation letters written by disaffected members of 
the Bush administration who so disagreed with administration policies 
that they preferred the uncertainty of the unemployment line to 
toeing the party line.

I've also taken the liberty of including excerpts from what I imagine 
the first drafts of these letters might have looked like.

So thanks to these unsung heroes, and Happy Thanksgiving to you.

Arianna

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Mike Dombeck, Forest Service chief, resigned March 27, 2001, after 
four years on the job.

What he wrote in his resignation letter: "It was made clear in no 
uncertain terms that the administration wants to take the Forest 
Service in another direction ..."

What Mike Dombeck wrote in the first draft of his resignation letter: 
"It was made clear in no uncertain terms that the administration 
needs to kiss a little logging-industry ass, having gotten nearly 
$300,000 in donations during the 2000 election (10 times more than Al 
Gore). Mr. President, after all that bark-bussing and 
timber-tonguing, it's a wonder you didn't get splinters in your lip 
or a very painful STD (Sequoia Transmitted Disease).

Fact: Before the U.S. Forest Service approves a timber sale on 
federal land, loggers are currently required to study the impact on 
endangered animals and salmon runs. The Bush White House is pushing 
to overturn both of these requirements.

John Brown, Ph.D., was a Foreign Service officer for nearly 25 years, 
having served in London, Prague, Krakow, Kiev and Belgrade. He 
resigned March 10, 2003.

What he wrote in his resignation letter: "I can not in good 
conscience support President Bush's war plans against Iraq. The 
president has failed to: explain clearly why our brave men and women 
in uniform should be ready to sacrifice their lives in a war on Iraq 
at this time; to lay out the full ramifications of this war, 
including the extent of innocent civilian casualties; to specify the 
economic costs of the war for the ordinary Americans; to clarify how 
the war would help rid the world of terror; to take international 
public opinion against the war into serious consideration."

What John Brown wrote in the first draft of his resignation letter: 
Come to think of it, the above probably is his first draft. After 25 
years as a diplomat, he had the good sense to mentally edit out words 
like "monumentally stupid" and "worst White House decision since the 
Bay of Pigs."

Fact: Since the start of the U.S. war in Iraq, 511 soldiers have been 
killed and 2,424 have been wounded.

Bruce Boler, an EPA state water quality specialist, resigned from his 
post Oct. 23, 2003, because his bosses at the EPA accepted the 
findings of a controversial study that concluded that Florida 
wetlands discharge more pollutants than they absorb.

What he wrote in his resignation letter: "... ultimately the politics 
of southwestern Florida have proven stronger than the science ..."

What Bruce Boler wrote in the first draft of his resignation letter: 
"This report, the people who wrote it and my superiors at the EPA are 
all obviously off their collective rocker. Next thing you know, 
they'll be telling us that auto emissions are actually reducing 
global warming. Congratulations, Mr. President, you've just given 
greedy Florida developers lucrative tax credits for improving water 
quality by, get this: replacing pristine natural wetlands with golf 
courses, strip malls and gas stations. I'm sure they'll be sure and 
reward your brother Jeb accordingly."

Fact: In January 2003, the White House recommended creating a new 
category of "isolated" waters that wouldn't be subject to the Clean 
Water Act. According to environmentalists, if the measure is adopted, 
hundreds of industries won't need permits to dump their potentially 
toxic sludge and waste into 20 percent of the nation's wetlands and 
60 percent of streams that only flow intermittently.

Isam al-Khafaji, a member of the Iraqi Reconstruction and Development 
Counsel, resigned July 9, 2003.

What he wrote in his resignation letter: "I feared my role with the 
reconstruction council was sliding from what I had originally 
envisioned -- working with allies in a democratic fashion -- to 
collaborating with occupying forces."

What Isam al-Khafaji wrote in the first draft of his resignation 
letter: "Rather than working with allies in a democratic fashion, I'm 
collaborating with a fanatical administration that has lied about 
Iraq's 'weapons of mass destruction,' the Saddam/al-Qaida connection, 
and Jessica Lynch's gun-toting 'heroics.' The Bush White House is 
more concerned with the free flow of cheap oil than restoring power, 
water or democracy in Iraq. I'd go on, but the candle in my bombed 
hut just went out ..."

Fact: Since the president declared "Mission accomplished" in Iraq, 
the number of violent deaths in Baghdad has increased 114 percent.

Eric Schaeffer, director of the EPA Office of Regulatory Enforcement, 
resigned Feb. 27, 2002.

What he wrote in his resignation letter: "I can not leave without 
sharing my frustration about the fate of our enforcement actions 
against power companies that have violated the Clean Air Act ... We 
are fighting a White House that seems determined to weaken rules we 
are trying to enforce."

What Eric Schaeffer wrote in the first draft of his resignation 
letter: "I can't leave without sharing my frustration, Mr. President. 
Your recent proposal to amend the new-source-review component of the 
Clean Air Act is -- how can I say this? -- stupendously moronic. It 
will, among other outrages, allow a coal plant in Monroe, Michigan 
that already emits more than a hundred thousand tons of choking 
sulfur dioxide, nearly 46,000 tons of nitrous, and 17-and-a-half 
million tons of ozone destroying carbon dioxide into the air, to emit 
about 40,000 more tons of sulfur dioxide a year. That may not seem 
like a lot, sir, but the 300 or so people who'll die prematurely from 
those pollutants are from Michigan -- one of your precious blue 
states. Betcha didn't think of that, huh?"

Fact: In the 2002 presidential election, oil and gas companies, two 
of the leading sources for environmental pollutants, donated nearly 
$25 million to political candidates, 80 percent of which went to 
Republicans. In return for his 10 percent cut of that bounty, 
President Bush has been working hard to systematically weaken clean 
air standards.

John Brady Kiesling, a 20-year veteran of the Foreign Service, whose 
last job was that of political counselor, U.S. Embassy, Athens, 
resigned on Feb. 27, 2003.

What he wrote in his resignation letter: "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. 
I believe it no more. I am resigning because I have tried and failed 
to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current 
administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is 
ultimately self-correcting."

What John Brady Kiesling wrote in the first draft of his resignation 
letter: "I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately 
self correcting ... and that President Bush will be thrown out of 
office in 2004 when the American people discover that he stole the 
2002 election, got us into a quagmire akin to Vietnam, turned the 
largest government surplus in history into the largest deficit in 
history, couldn't find Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, and ordered 
the assassination of beloved comic actor John Ritter. Okay, I got 
carried away with that last one. I think."

Fact: The $87 billion President Bush has appropriated to fund the war 
in Iraq could instead have been used to pay the salaries of 1.2 
million school teachers for a year, the college education of 1.5 
million students, or built 900,000 affordable homes.

Karen Kwiatkowski, office of the undersecretary of defense, Near East 
Bureau, resigned on July 1, 2003.

What she wrote in her resignation letter: "While working from May 
2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Undersecretary of 
Defense for Policy, Near East South Asian and Special Plans in the 
Pentagon, I observed the environment in which decisions about 
post-war Iraq were made ... What I saw was aberrant, pervasive, and 
contrary to good order and discipline ... If one is seeking the 
answers to why peculiar bits of 'intelligence' found sanctity in a 
presidential speech, or why the post-Hussein occupation has been 
distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further 
than the process inside the office of the Secretary of Defense."

What Karen Kwiatkowski wrote in the first draft of her resignation 
letter: "Don Rumsfeld is an idiot. Don Rumseld is a megalomaniac. If 
we lose this war, blame Don Rumsfeld. I hate Don Rumsfeld. Kill Don 
Rumsfeld dead dead dead; maybe with a blunt object like a ball-peen 
hammer or a ... Wait, where was I? Oh yeah: Don Rumsfeld is a 
duplicitous charlatan, Don Rumsfeld is ..."

Fact: When Donald Rumsfeld was considering a run for the White House 
in 1998, an article about him in the Chicago Tribune listed "helping 
to re-open US relations with Iraq" when he served as Ronald Reagan's 
special envoy to the Middle East as one of his career achievements. 
According to the State Department, while Rumsfeld was opening 
relations with Iraq, Saddam Hussein was actively using chemical 
weapons to systematically murder thousands of Kurds.

Christine Todd Whitman, chief administrator at the EPA for two and a 
half years, Former New Jersey governor, resigned on May 20, 2003.

What she wrote in her resignation letter: "As rewarding as the past 
two and half years have been for me professionally, it's time for me 
to return to my home and husband in New Jersey ... I leave knowing 
that we have made a positive difference and that we have set the 
Agency on a course that will result in continued environmental 
improvement."

What Christy Whitman wrote in the first draft of her resignation 
letter: "When you honored me by asking me to join your Cabinet as 
administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, I didn't know 
the title would be ironic. I naively assumed the post would have 
something to do with protecting the environment, as opposed to 
protecting the bottom line of your campaign contributors. I thought 
that was Don Evans' job over at Commerce. If I am ever to sleep at 
night again, I have no choice other than to send you this letter. I 
remember the lump I felt in my throat back in 1973 when Elliot 
Richardson resigned his Cabinet post rather than acquiesce to Richard 
Nixon's demand that he fire Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox. I had 
the same reaction seven years later when Cyrus Vance also took a 
principled stand and resigned as secretary of state in protest over 
President Carter's military action in Iran.

"'You would not be well served in the coming weeks and months,' he 
wrote to Carter, 'by a secretary of state who could not offer you the 
public backing you need on an issue and decision of such 
extraordinary importance.' My feelings exactly. As Richardson told 
Nixon: 'Mr. President, it would appear that we have a different 
perception of the public interest.'

"And since I cannot face the prospect of looking my children in the 
eye and explaining why I stood by while the president I served was 
selling out their health, the health of their children and the health 
of our planet, I respectfully submit my resignation -- and bid you 
goodbye."

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About the writer Arianna Huffington is a nationally syndicated 
columnist and author of nine books. Her most recent, "Pigs at the 
Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption are Undermining 
America," was published in January by Crown.

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``I've said for years and I'm really serious about it, I think men 
should be barred from holding public office for a hundred years,'' 
Turner said in a recent interview. ``The men have been running the 
world for the last thousands of years and they've mucked it up 
something awful.''

Turner said if women were in control ``it would be a much more 
peaceful, prosperous, equitable world in a very short period of 
time.''

~~Ted Turner

   11/24: AOL News: Turner Touts Female-Dominated Foundation

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