Let me preface this by saying I mean no disrespect to the recently deceased. While I acknowledge I am not a long time foreign policy junkie who can fully appreciate the career of Mr. Holbrooke, I have seen him interviewed several times over the past two years and I certainly found him to be intelligent and thoughtful.
That said, I was a little taken aback this morning when across the MSNBC ticker, it said the last words of Mr. Holbrooke (according to his family) were:
You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan.
Seeing as how in all the interviews I have seen of Mr. Holbrooke since his appointment as Special Envoy to Afghanistan & Pakistan in 2009, I did not ever recall him being a strong voice for ending the war, I found this a little surprising.
What does this have to do with Bill Clinton you might be wondering?
Well, Bill Maher has on occasion pointed out that - after leaving office - President Clinton has said that he thought marijuana should be legalized (I will acknowledge here that a google provides no evidence of that). About the former president's stance, Mr. Maher has quipped "Great! Wouldn't it be nice if you were in a position of power and could do something about it?!"
So this is reminiscent of Mr. Holbrooke. He was The Man when it came to Af-Pak. He had Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's ear and would certainly have had some influence on President Obama as well. As far as I can tell (who knows what was going on behind the scenes? Well, I suppose we all might soon enough given the WikiLeaks situation!), Mr. Holbrooke never spoke out against our ongoing war/occupation in Afghanistan until it was too late.
Sometimes carpe diem isn't just a cliche people.
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