Albright, Clarke, 200 Diplomats Laud Obama's Willingness to Talk Directly to Adversaries Without Preconditions

October 2, 2008

Barack Obama

Clearly, former US diplomats from both parties and from widely varying realms all recognize the paramount need to base US Foreign Policy and the day to day operations of the US State Department on something more evolved than the demands of the American corporate structure and the needs of the Pentagon, Halliburton, Blackwater, and Kellogg, Brown, and Root.

Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama received the official endorsement of more than 200 former U.S. diplomats in the form of a joint statement signed before his Friday debate with Republican nominee John McCain.

"We are supporting Senator Barack Obama because of his judgment, experience, and ability to inspire people to come together around a common purpose," the letter said. "Senator Obama's talents offer an historic opportunity; for the sake of America's security and standing in the world, we must seize it."

The letter was signed by officials from both major political parties, including former secretaries of state Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher, former National Security Adviser Richard Clarke and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk.

"As former diplomats, we believe it is past time that we had a President with the judgment and confidence -- in himself, our diplomatic corps, and our values -- to talk directly to America's adversaries with due preparation but without preconditions," the letter said.

Commentary: We absolutely must as a nation move past a total reiteration of the era of the Ugly American, except now it is exponentially worse than the late 1950's when Eugene Burdick first started writing that important book.

Former President of Poland and Nobel Peace Laureate Lech Walesa said this entirely in Polish to a group of students, some of them like me, as old as 60 years of age, not long ago in Santa Fe, simultaneously translated during a lecture in the Santa Fe Scottish Rite Temple:

"You Americans must begin to recognize throughout the entire world that you have lost your Moral Power, and this has disbanded most of your Political Power. You squander what remains of your Economic Power on maintaining your Military Power, which does nothing constructive in the world at large and won't even last very long."

When Obama wins, I know he will have the good sense and foresight, among his first appointments, to ask New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson to be the Secretary of State. We will miss him as Governor, but as a former UN Ambassador, it is obvious to me and to most New Mexicans that Bill Richardson has a higher calling and destiny, and is so needed to repair the damage done internationally during the past 8 years.