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SCREEN CAPTURE / CNN
Chuck Park explains why he quit the foreign service in a blistering oped in the Washington Post.. |
In a searing oped in the Washington Post Friday (Aug. 9), a foreign service officer resigned his post because of the Trump administration's incompetence and heartless policies.
"My son, born in El Paso on the American side of that same Rio Grande where the bodies of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter were discovered, in the same city where 22 people were just killed by a gunman whose purported 'manifesto' echoed the inflammatory language of our President, turned 7 this month. I can no longer justify to him, or to myself, my complicity in the actions of this administration. That's why I choose to resign," wrote Chuck Park, a Korean American.
“I’m ashamed of how long it took me to make this decision. My excuse might be disappointing, if familiar to many of my colleagues: I let career perks silence my conscience,” said Park, who has served in the foreign service for 10 years.
"A child of immigrants from South Korea, I also felt a duty to the society that welcomed my parents and allowed me and my siblings to thrive," he said.
In an interview on CNN, he told host Anderson Cooper, “What’s different is kind of the naked unapologetic cruelty. That’s the first thing. The second thing is, you know, the sheer managerial incompetence of this administration. The rollout of the Muslim ban, that executive order, was disastrous.”
"But more and more I found myself in a defensive stance, struggling to explain to foreign peoples the blatant contradictions at home," he wrote in his oped.
"I let free housing, the countdown to a pension and the prestige of representing a powerful nation overseas distract me from ideals that once seemed so clear to me. I can't do that anymore," Park wrote.
“Every day, we refuse visas based on administration priorities. We recite administration talking points on border security, immigration and trade. We plan travel itineraries, book meetings and literally hold doors open for the appointees who push Trump’s toxic agenda around the world,” lamented Park.
In his oped, Park pooh-poohed the idea of a "Deep State," of government employees plotting against Trump. If such a conspiracy exists, he said, "It has failed."
Park is not the first foreign service officer to resign, although he is the first Asian American to do so. Several officers including former ambassadors left the service cited Trump policies for their departures.
John Feeley, the former US ambassador to Panama, retired in March 2018. He also made his resignation public by writing an oped in The Washington Post . Feely made his decision shortly after the deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, noting "The President's failure to condemn the white supremacists and neo-Nazis who provoked the violence made me realize that my values were not his values."
"I resigned because the traditional core values of the United States, as manifested in the President's National Security Strategy and his foreign policies, have been warped and betrayed. I could no longer represent him personally and remain faithful to my beliefs about what makes America truly great," Feeley wrote.
“Every day, we refuse visas based on administration priorities. We recite administration talking points on border security, immigration and trade. We plan travel itineraries, book meetings and literally hold doors open for the appointees who push Trump’s toxic agenda around the world,” lamented Park.
In his oped, Park pooh-poohed the idea of a "Deep State," of government employees plotting against Trump. If such a conspiracy exists, he said, "It has failed."
Park is not the first foreign service officer to resign, although he is the first Asian American to do so. Several officers including former ambassadors left the service cited Trump policies for their departures.
John Feeley, the former US ambassador to Panama, retired in March 2018. He also made his resignation public by writing an oped in The Washington Post . Feely made his decision shortly after the deadly rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, noting "The President's failure to condemn the white supremacists and neo-Nazis who provoked the violence made me realize that my values were not his values."
"I resigned because the traditional core values of the United States, as manifested in the President's National Security Strategy and his foreign policies, have been warped and betrayed. I could no longer represent him personally and remain faithful to my beliefs about what makes America truly great," Feeley wrote.
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