Retired U.S. Foreign Service Officers for Obama

[Updated below]

Former U.S. Ambassador Peter Bridges writing at The Huffington Post says:

A friend and former colleague of mine in the Foreign Service, Kevin McGuire, some time ago drafted a short statement of support for Obama and began to ask retired Foreign Service officers if they would sign it. So far 334 of us have done so, including by my count 66 former American ambassadors.

If you would like to know why we have done so and who we are, you can find our reasons and our signatures at Foreign Policy for Obama.Com: Declaration of Support by Over 280 Former Diplomats.

You can go to ForeignPolicyforObama.com and click on the link in the left hand column.

I will remind you that the Foreign Service of the United States is our country's career diplomatic and consular service. We staff both the State Department in Washington and our embassies and consulates abroad. Usually two-thirds or more of our ambassadors are Foreign Service officers, although both Democratic and Republican administrations have made a number of ambassadorial appointments for political reasons. Some of these Republican appointees and, by my count, two former career officers, have come out for McCain.

As Ambassador Bridges points out, these are people who understand America's role in the world better than most politicians and pundits.  Their support for Obama adds considerable substance to the idea that Barack is the best candidate to deal with America's international issues and restore our reputation as the "Good Guys" that has been severely damaged by Bush-Cheney.

UPDATE: Also see this by Richard Holbrooke, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and the chief architect of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the war in Bosnia.