Barack Hussein 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 that 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 jointstatement signed before his Friday debate with Republican nominee JohnMcCain.

"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 from Stephen Fox: 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 told this to a group of students, not long ago in Santa Fe:

"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."