Speaking Well for the Dead
by C. L. Cook
Along with keeping ones elbows off the table during meals, the children in my house were taught it poor sport to speak ill of the dead; 'they've enough to worry about' I suppose was the reasoning, and are deserving of our pity.

 

 

It was thought unnecessary to mention it bad form to celebrate the end of someone, regardless of how odious a person they may have been in life; but, as with many of the things our parents teach us, reality learns us different.

 

Ding dong, the wicked witch is dead!

In defense of my gleeful disregard for the good manners Mama tried so fruitlessly to embed in my malleable, young character, I say; worse than speaking ill of the dead, is saying nothing for them.

As accolades from across the demented universe that rat bastard Holbrooke so ably represented these last bloody years pour in, none will mention the thousands killed in the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia due to the gladly departed Mr. H.'s Machiavellian manoeuvrings.

None will care to remember the bombs falling on the guilty and innocent alike in Belgrade, or the ethnic cleansing and concomitant carnage unleashed because of his cynical duplicity and ruthless determination.* His task masters in Washington, London, and Berlin are not released from their responsibility, and will too be duly celebrated as they in due course shuffle their mortal coils.

The Rambouillet Gambit

Sam Husseini, of the Institute for Public Accuracy reminds of the atmosphere in the days before the missiles flew, and the deal Holbrooke carried to the late Slobodon Milosevic:

"Shortly before the bombing of Yugoslavia began in late March 1999, Richard Holbrooke met with Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. By his own account, Holbrooke delivered the final ultimatum to Milosevic -- that if Yugoslavia didn't agree to the Rambouillet text, NATO would begin bombing.

"The Rambouillet text called for a defacto occupation of Yugoslavia. On major U.S. media, after the bombing of Yugoslavia began, Holbrooke claimed that what was called for in the Rambouillet text, despite Serbian protests, "isn't an occupation". Several weeks later, when confronted by a journalist familiar with the Rambouillet text, Holbrooke claimed: "I never said that". This was a lie, it was also a tacit admission that the Rambouillet text did call for an occupation (why else would Holbrooke deny saying it when he had?) So the U.S. demanded that Yugoslavia submit to occupation or be bombed -- and Holbrooke lied about this crucial fact when questioned about the cause of the war."The Rambouillet text of Feb. 23, 1999, a month before NATO began bombing, contained provisions that provided for NATO to basically occupy the entire Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), not just Kosovo"

David Stow, at Vancouver Community Net, recorded in the year 2000 the U.S. military view that targeting the population, (incidentally a war crime) was the best way to change the mind of recalcitrant dictator, Milosevic. He quotes then Lt. General Michael C. Short telling the Washington Post:

"If you wake up in the morning and you have no power to your house and no gas to your stove and the bridge you take to work is down and will be lying in the Danube for the next 20 years, I think you begin to ask, "Hey, Slobo, what's this all about? How much more of this do we have to withstand?" And at some point, you make the transition from applauding Serb machismo against the world to thinking what your country is going to look like if this continues." (Washington Post, May 24, 1999)

Short goes on to describe what sounds very much like the strategy to be used years later against another troublesome leader, Saddam Hussein, saying;

"When the decision is made to use force, then we need to go in with overwhelming force, quite frankly, extraordinary violence - that the speed of it, the lethality of it, the weight of it has to make an incredible impression on the adversary, to such a degree that he is stunned and shocked and his people are immediately asking, "Why in the world are we doing this?"" (Frontline, Feb. 22, 2000)

Why indeed.

David Swanson, in his book, 'War is a Lie' details the stratagem employed by Holbrooke, his boss, Madeleine Albright, and president Bill Clinton, the beginnings of the destruction Yugoslavia;

"When, in 1995, Croatia had slaughtered or “ethnically cleansed” Serbs with Washington’s blessing, driving 150,000 people from their homes, we weren’t supposed to notice, much less drop bombs to prevent it. The bombing was saved for Milosevic, who — we were told in 1999 — refused to negotiate peace and therefore had to be bombed. We were not told that the United States was insisting on an agreement that no nation in the world would voluntarily agree to, one giving NATO complete freedom to occupy all of Yugoslavia with absolute immunity from laws for all of its personnel."

Clearly an offer Milosevic could only refuse, and Richard "bombs for peace" Holbrooke could use as justification for NATO and the United States' bloody campaign to unseat Yugoslav independence, and deliver into the waiting arms of the disaster capitalists the last socialized economy in Europe. That there would be plenty to reconstruct was a sure thing, thanks to General Short and his boss, NATO supreme allied commander (Europe) General Wesley Clark.

The actual numbers of those killed below Holbrooke's peaceful bombs in Yugoslavia, (including cluster bombs, depleted uranium munitions, and Tomahawk missiles delivered into the heart of Belgrade) is contested, but suffice to say, the thousands killed, injured, made homeless, orphaned, and those whose lives and future prospects were forever effected by Holbrooke and the agenda he served to the end are not mourning today.

As the heartfelt tributes from Richard Holbrooke's fellow handmaidens to war pile up, Hillary Clinton remarking with especial emotion his long duty to the country and its foreign policy, Omar Karmi at The National.ae usefully recalls Holbrooke's legacy, saying;

"A veteran of four Democratic administrations, Holbrooke was a diplomat to the core, even if his forceful style and no-nonsense approach also saw him bully though agreement at times. He helped shape US foreign policy for 40 years and through three wars, starting with Vietnam, where he was one of the authors of the Pentagon Papers, which detailed the US government's secret history of the war."

In true form, Holbrooke died in the saddle, doing battle in America's now acknowledged forever wars, (Afghan front), but he seems to have had an epiphany of sorts in his final moments. Reportedly, Holbrooke's family says his last words, told to the physician present at his end were, "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan."  

The American State department is spinning that last bit, creating another context for it. Fitting then, that Richard Holbrooke's last words would too be twisted and turned, subject to the advantage of political expediency.