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| Elizabeth Shakelford in Somalia. |
An award-winning U.S. diplomat who was seen as a rising star at the State Department has issued a scathing resignation letter, accusing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and the Donald Trump administration of undercutting the State Department and damaging America’s influence in the world.
Elizabeth Shackelford, who most recently served as a political officer based in Nairobi for the U.S. mission to Somalia, wrote to Tillerson that she reluctantly had decided to quit because the administration had abandoned human rights as a priority and shown disdain for the State Department’s diplomatic work, according to her letter, obtained by Foreign Policy.
“I have deep respect for the career Foreign and Civil Service staff who, despite the stinging disrespect this Administration has shown our profession, continue the struggle to keep our foreign policy on the positive trajectory necessary to avert global disaster in increasingly dangerous times,” Shackelford wrote in her Nov. 7 letter.
“With each passing day, however, this task grows more futile, driving the Department’s experienced and talented staff away in ever greater numbers,” she wrote.
“She’s emblematic of what we’re losing across the board,” said one of Shackelford’s former State Department colleagues. “She is the best among us. We should not be losing the best among us. And that should concern people that we are,” the former colleague said.
In her letter, Shackelford said she was leaving with a “heavy heart” as she recognized the potential of the State Department’s mission. She said she was “shocked” when Tillerson appeared to cast doubt on the importance of human rights in remarks to department employees on May 3.
Shackelford ended her letter with this:
In the closing paragraph of her letter, Shackelford called on Tillerson “to stem the bleeding by showing leadership and a commitment to our people, our mission, and our mandate as the foreign policy arm of the United States.
“If you are unable to do so effectively within this Administration, I would humbly recommend you follow me out the door.”
The sad truth is that career State Department staff and diplomats are left to question whether their presence within the agency is helping to slow down its slow disintegration, or if they personally are being damaged due to their association with it as it visibly falls to pieces.
If all of the truly talented diplomats and staffers like this woman leave the agency, then diplomacy is no longer available in our tool kit and all we have left is the threat of military action.
For decades the United States and presented itself as a champion of human rights around the world, but if the Trump Administration has its way, we will be reduced to the bully on the playground keeping the smaller kids off the swings and collecting the younger children's lunch money for ourselves.
And we all know what eventually happens to the bullies, don't we?
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