At first, Matthew Hoh didn’t think he was doing anything that consequential — maybe he’d attract some attention for the first day or two before becoming, as he puts it, a “footnote.”
But since news broke, a little less than a month ago, of his resignation from the State Department over the US war in Afghanistan — he is the first US official to publicly quit in protest — Hoh has swiftly become an influential voice, both within and outside the government. The timing of his resignation, dated Sept. 10, 2009, was fortuitous, he says: “People want to understand this.”
This week, as President Obama announced that he will soon decide how to proceed in Afghanistan and whether to escalate US troop levels, Matthew Hoh, former Senior Civilian Representative in Zabul Province, has been taking meetings on Capitol Hill and with administration officials. He was recently invited to speak with the Vice-President’s national security adviser, Tony Blinken. “It was a good conversation — they were very open and interested in what I had to say,” Hoh says. “Very inquisitive.”
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