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Richard Holbrooke, RIP
I landed at Dulles this morning at 5:15 having just returned from Kabul and read the news of Richard Holbrooke's passing just after the plane touched down. I am not sure what will become of the position of Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. If one tries to replace Holbrooke the man, it will be difficult. You would have to drag Ryan Crocker out of retirement or something. But maybe the position will evolve into something different -- less a "super envoy" and more a D.C. coordination cell for U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Regardless, I join others in mourning the loss of a true and tireless public servant.
Channel Firing That night
Channel Firing
That night your great guns, unawares,
Shook all our coffins as we lay,
And broke the chancel window-squares,
We thought it was the Judgment-day
And sat upright. While drearisome
Arose the howl of wakened hounds:
The mouse let fall the altar-crumb,
The worms drew back into the mounds,
The glebe cow drooled. Till God called, “No;
It’s gunnery practise out at sea
Just as before you went below;
The world is as it used to be:
“And all nations striving strong to make
Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters
They do no more for Christés sake
Than you who are helpless in such matters.
“That this is not the judgement-hour
For some of them’s a blessed thing,
For if it were they’d have to scour
Hell’s floor for so much threatening. . . .
So down we lay again. “I wonder,
Will the world ever saner be,”
Said one, ‘than when He sent us under
In our indifferent century!”
And many a skeleton shook his head.
“Instead of preaching forty year,”
My neighbour Parson Thirdly said,
“I wish I had stuck to pipes and beer.”
Again the guns disturbed the hour,
Roaring their readiness to avenge,
As far inland as Stourton Tower,
And Camelot, and starlit Stonehenge.
Thomas Hardy, 1914.
11-24-2009 Some key Holbrooke
11-24-2009 Some key Holbrooke quotes from a SPIEGEL Interview:
Richard Holbrooke: I was a very young man when I worked on Vietnam between 1963 and 1969. I worked in the field and in the Johnson White House, as well as being a member of the negotiating team in Paris. I watched people confront great decisions, and from that close observation, I think I learned how to approach such difficult moments and try to analyze them.
Holbrooke: Of course it's difficult to fight in Afghanistan. But it's necessary because of 9/11. That is the core difference between Afghanistan and Vietnam. We're not in Afghanistan to build a perfect democracy. We know these were not perfect elections. But we must go ahead, we must help the Afghans strengthen their own capabilities. We're not there to take over the country, we're there to help the Afghans build their own capacity so that their security forces can replace the international forces over an acceptable period of time.
Holbrooke: No. I have talked to the former Russian ambassador in Kabul, who has the wonderful name of Zamir Kabulov. He is now my counterpart in Moscow. As a young Soviet diplomat he participated in the entire drama, and he saw it all.
Holbrooke: Well, don't do what the Soviets did, which was to strafe and kill an incredible number of people with their strikes. The American forces and our allies in Afghanistan do not do that. General Stanley McChrystal has issued very careful guidelines on the use of force. And the civilian casualties issue is not remotely the same as it was then. The Soviets were hated. NATO is not.
Holbrooke: We have to define what our goals are. We're not seeking to destroy every person who supports the Taliban, that's not a credible goal. Our goal is to destroy al-Qaida, a terrorist organization with global reach which attacked the United States, which conducted attacks in London, Madrid and Bali, and Mumbai and Islamabad, which supports attacks in Afghanistan through other groups.
Well, he was a good diplomat - and he knew what topics were best avoided in interviews - but - what are the other real "U.S. Interests" in the region? None dare say that the economic goals are the ones that the State Department is really most interested in - but who will be bidding on these deals:
2010 12-11 Agreement sought on Afghan-Pakistan gas pipeline AP
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan – The leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan were in the capital of gas-rich Turkmenistan Saturday to push forward on ambitions to build a pipeline across their countries. The pipeline, which would terminate in India, would bring huge amounts of gas to underdeveloped regions and could earn impoverished Afghanistan hundreds of millions of dollars in transit fees. But it would cross both Taliban-intensive stretches of Afghanistan and parts of Pakistan's unruly tribal areas.
The leaders, along with Turkmenistan's president and India's oil minister are expected to sign a document expressing support for the project. The next step would likely be to seek proposals and bids from energy companies.
US backs trans-Afghanistan natural gas pipeline, AP, Nov 18 2010
The United States says it supports a planned pipeline taking natural gas from Turkmenistan to India through volatile regions in Afghanistan and Pakistan. U.S. deputy Assistant Secretary of State Susan Elliott said Thursday that the pipeline could boost stability across the war-torn region. She spoke at an energy conference in the capital of this Central Asian country, Ashgabat.
Observers have questioned the feasibility of building a supply route that would pass through insurgency-wracked areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. is believed to be opposed to energy-hungry India and Pakistan drawing supplies from Iran via a proposed $7 billion gas pipeline, which could come online by 2015.
The economic agenda that drives war in the Middle East & Central Asia - there it is. As far as stability - didn't the Chad-Cameroon pipeline radically destabilize the Chad-Darfur region?
Recently found a very good
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Ray Ban Wayfarer
Oakley Goggles
Ray Ban Cats
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Oakley Sunglasses
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Ray Ban Cockpit
Gucci Backpack
Gucci Boston Bag
Gucci Messenger Bag
Gucci Bamboo
Gucci 1973
Gucci Hysteria
Gucci Joy
Gucci Pelham
Gucci Sukey
Hermes Kelly Bag
Hermes Birkin
Gucci Diaper Bag
Rolex Gmt Master ii
Ray Ban Wayfarer II
Ray Ban New Wayfarer
Ray Ban Original Wayfarer
Ray Ban Wayfarer Sunglasses
Oakley A Frame
Oakley Ambush
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