In the proud tradition of objective journalism, the New York Times included both positive and negative views of Afghan envoy Richard Holbrooke in its December 14 obituary:
Some called him a bully, and he looked the part: the big chin thrust out, the broad shoulders, the tight smile that might mean anything. To admirers, however, including generations of State Department protégés and the presidents he served, his peacemaking efforts were extraordinary.
On the one hand, the big chin and a tight smile; on the other, the extraordinary peacemaking efforts. The Times leaves it to you, the reader, to decide for yourself which is more important.
In reality, of course, Holbrooke was called much worse than a bully; he’s been criticized for facilitating genocide in East Timor, for delivering the designed-to-be-rejected ultimatum that started the Kosovo War and for cheering the military targeting of journalists. If you’d like to see what an actual critic has to say about Holbrooke’s career, rather than relying on the Times‘ false balance, read Steven Zunes’ piece in Huffington Post (12/15/10), “Richard Holbrooke Represented the Worst Side of the Foreign Policy Establishment.”
For real criticism of Dick “Richard” Holbrooke, go to Ray McGovern. You would also do well to go to the VIPS — the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity — website.
It’s no secret to them — or any Washington intelligence ‘insider’ — that Holbrooke was one of America’s premier “go-to” hatchet men for over 40 years. This includes his service in the hamlet-ization of Vietnamese civilians to what WSWS.org calls the point man for US support of Pol Pot. Holbrooke later went on to lend his services to the atrocities committed by US and NATO forces in the Balkans during the 90s.
Every ethnic cleansing needs a good ethnic cleansing cleanser.
In between his diplomatic stints, Holbrooke busied himself making a fortune on Wall Street off his diplomatic connections. As its eventual CEO, Richard built AIG into one of the most colossal insurance giants on the planet. AIG — as it turned out — eventually became one of the biggest pains in the ass on earth when it crashed in the Panic of 2008.
‘Course, one can save a lot of time and trouble just by noting the reservations Joe Biden had in naming Holbrooke to any post in the new Obama Administration. Biden said — to wit:
â┚¬Ã…“He’s the most egotistical bastard I’ve ever met,â┚¬Ã‚Â
Yeah, I know it’s not nice to speak ill of the dead. But one of my favorite blurbs from a Washington insider came from Alice Hathaway (daughter of Teddy) Roosevelt: “[i]f you don’t have something nice to say about someone…come sit by me.”
The lack of blogs here shows that this is a very complicated manAnd pigeon holing him into this or that image, wether it be diplomat, or soldier, or an uncaring,egotistical,war criminal is gonna take a lot of research.Obama chose him as did Republican leaders for some pretty ticklish jobs.I have to think they saw something uniformly that pegged him a leader who could get the job done without leaving egg on the faces of those who put him there.Remember self preservation is a politicians heartbeat.Monday morning quarterbacking is placing some bad tags on him.But it seems many felt differently.