No, this isn't about Kurt Vonnegut's latest novel. This is a story about a diplomat who realized what he was doing for the British government was morally wrong and that he needed to make a change. Carne Ross was a man who negotiated deals for Great Britain for over 15 years and realized that he could do more with his life. He went from a promising career by holding the status quo and then did everything he could to fight it. He spoke against the war and how intelligence was used to bring this 'war' about. He thoroughly debunked the WMD claims as a man on the inside.
Ross has been ostracized by his former employers in London for doing the 'right thing.' Instead of being a diplomat for one of five nations on the UN Security Council, he sits at the table for the voiceless, for the countries that have had little chance at negotiating favorable deals on the world stage and for people that don't even have a nation-state to call their own.
From The New York Times:
Unhappy with American and British claims that Iraq was developing unconventional weapons, Mr. Ross testified in June 2004 at an official inquiry into the British government’s use of intelligence. Two months later, convinced he could no longer work in the foreign service, he resigned. Since then he has written many articles criticizing the American and British rationale for going to war.
But it is his broad critique of the way international diplomacy is conducted that has ruffled feathers the most.
In a book released in April, “Independent Diplomat: Dispatches From an Unaccountable Elite,” he takes the foreign service to task. He says it routinely made “bad decisions in closed rooms” and acted “with little or no consultation of the people in whose name those decisions are made.”
When he made this revelation and wrote his book, he knew that he was meant for something different. With all of the bad decisions his government had made, he sought to fight against the machine and make a difference in the world for those that could barely speak. He became a diplomat for the voice-less.
He formed a non-profit organization called the Independent Diplomat named after his book. He has fought for the people of Kosovo and the rights of ethnic Albanians. Recently he has also taken up the charge to help the Polisaro Front. Not too many people even know who they are. The group is made up of 150,000 refugees camped out in southern Algeria. They are Sahawari refugees that want a homeland in the western Sahara to be carved out of Morocco.
Mr. Ross's goodwill has been noted by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and Richard Whitman, who is a fellow at the Chatham House. Unfortunately despite his fans, many of his former colleagues have disowned him.
Also from the article:
The British government has also chipped away at Mr. Ross, saying he has exaggerated his role on Iraq policy and his access to intelligence about unconventional weapons. “I am not sure how important he was,” Margaret Beckett, Britain’s foreign minister, recently told the BBC, although Mr. Ross was Britain’s official Iraq expert at the United Nations for four and a half years.
Carne Ross's critics are powerful forces in the world and especially hard on him because he used to be one of them. For people like the Foreign Minister of the United Kingdom and others around the world with similar titles, Mr. Ross is certainly one to be feared. The name of the game is to increase the power of the powerful at the weak's expense. So when a man that knows the game because he used to play it so well switches sides, he is definitely one to watch.
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