Richard Holbrooke: A Memory and A Charge Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Before he went into the Obama Administration, Richard Holbrooke served on NSN's advisory board.  He is already being remembered as a brilliant diplomat and a larger-than-life figure.  We had the chance to see him in a rather different light -- as mentor and guide to those who came behind him, something I also saw in his outreach to foreign policy students at Brown University, where he was an active alumni presence while I was an undergrad research assistant in the late 1980s.

One day in mid-2008, he paid a visit to NSN's offices.  Let's just say that we haven't received too many Secretary-of-State hopefuls in our little warren.  He strolled magesterially into one office where three very young staffers were clustered around the computer.  (A side note:  two are now in Administration jobs, and a third is rumored to be headed that way imminently.)  What are you working on, he asked.  Oh, we're coming up with a policy for Afghanistan, my confident team of millenials replied.

Having seen both the brilliant and the savage sides of Holbrooke during the Clinton Administration, I winced and ducked for the door.  But Holbrooke was urbane.  "Oh, really?  When were you last there?"

Embarrassed silence from my team.

"No, really, how much time have you spent there?"

"Umm, none" someone finally said.

"Well, I just got back, and..." was the opening to a masterful ten-minute diagnosis of all that was wrong in the region, and that years of neglect in favor of Iraq had done to worsen the political and military situation.  After about the second minute, all you could hear was the frantic scratching in notebooks.  People from other offices gathered round to listen.

Two weeks ago, I spoke to someone who'd briefed Holbrooke's team, and commented on their courage and determination in keeping going even when they didn't necessarily have the resources or attention or priority they needed to create the civilians-first vision of Afghanistan that many of us hoped for.  That, too, is a credit to him.

In so many ways, Holbrooke personified 50 years of American foreign policy, and 50 years of struggle, failed as often as not, to use our brains as often or as well as our brawn.  He never gave up.

 

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Yeah, well I've been to Greece and Croatia recently, but that doesn't mean I know what's best for the Greeks and Croats. And Holbrooke obviously didn't know what was best for Afghans, did he. It certainly wasn't less "neglect" from the US, where neglect means war with its killing, injuring, imprisoning, torture and rape, and no end in sight thanks to Mr. Holbrooke & friends.

Most Afghans haven't even heard of 9/11, the official reason for this "necessary" war.

The human and financial sacrifices that AfPak involves serve as a memorial to Holbrooke -- "a credit to him." Another chicken-hawk bites the dust.

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