Usamah “Sam” Husseini

A piece I wrote December 9, 2008, while Holbrooke was being considered for the position he held in the Obama administration. To try to empathize with Holbrooke, I thought I was trying to save lives by writing this piece; I didn't know they might include his, as war makers seem to have a tendency to faint or blow a socket: 

Despite being passed over for Secretary of State, Richard Holbrooke is reportedly still being considered for a prominent position in the incoming Obama administration.

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.

Here are the specifics: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. Excerpts from Appendix (B) (I attempted to draw attention to this at the time when I became aware of it.):

7. NATO personnel shall be immune from any form of arrest, investigation, or detention by the authorities in the FRY.

8. NATO personnel shall enjoy... free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial waters.

11. NATO is granted the use of airports, roads, rails and ports without payment...

15. [NATO shall have] the right to use all of the electromagnetic spectrum...

On April 6, 1999, about two weeks after the bombing began, Holbrooke appeared on the Charlie Rose show and was asked about what started the war. (Video is here, approximate times in the interview are provided):

[3:45] "The 81 pages of the Rambouillet agreement, which the Serbs rejected, contain all the elements of a really solid interim solution. ... Although Rambouillet itself was rejected, the principles embodied in the Rambouillet agreement make a hell of a lot of sense. ..."

[13:00] "The [Yugoslavian government] decision was to trigger the bombing of their own country instead of accepting this very reasonable political offer." ...

[14:00] Asked how to explain the actions of the Serbs, Holbrooke claims the Serbs said: "The choice you've given us is to have our sacred soil violated by an invading force. I said this isn't an invasion, it isn't an occupation, it's an international peacekeeping force that will save the Serb minority in Kosovo. ..."

[15:00] "We walked the last mile for peace."

[17:00] "The bombing must continue and must intensify until the Yugoslav leadership realizes they have to change their positions."

On April 23, 1999, journalist Jeremy Scahill of Democracy Now questioned Richard Holbrooke as he was leaving the Overseas Press Club's 60th anniversary dinner:

Holbrooke: "One question."

Jeremy Scahill: "You've said, since you gave the ultimatum to President Milosevic, that the Rambouillet accords do not call for the occupation of Yugoslavia. In --"

Holbrooke: "I never said that. That's the end of that. You got the wrong person and the wrong quote. That's your question."

Scahill: "Do the Rambouillet accords ... Are the the Rambouillet accords a call for the occupation of Yugoslavia -- how do you reconcile that with Appendix B?"

Holbrooke: "I was not at Rambouillet. You'll have to address it to the people --"

Scahill: "You delivered the ultimatum, you're familiar with with the text --"

Holbrooke: "I did not discuss that detail with him. That's your question."

Scahill: "You haven't answered the question though."

Holbrooke: "I have answered the question. Good night." (See the April 23, 1999 Democracy Now, especially beginning at 29:00.)

It's tempting for many to think that the current Bush administration and the 2003 invasion of Iraq are totally unique. They're not, the methods of the U.S. government lying its way into a war are long standing and many of the culprits are still very much part of the political structure.

“I don’t know the facts — the legal facts — but I know the information that’s coming out is very important. I read an editorial in the Los Angeles Times, about the fact that had we had WikiLeaks in 2001, we may well not have had 9/11 occur.”

Rowley, a former FBI Special Agent and Division Counsel whose May 2002 memo described some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures, was named one of Time Magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002.

McDermott continued: “The American people have the right to know. The most important of our freedoms is free speech. The First Amendment is what makes a democracy work. If the public doen’t know what’s going on, then they can’t vote intelligently and when the government wants to hide stuff, then the people are cut off from information.”

“…I certainly don’t think that they [WikiLeaks] were wrong until I hear the evidence and see what’s going on. I really think that people ought to be very careful on what they make as a judgment now.”

“I’m old enough to remember something called the Pentagon Papers, and those papers told us what was going on in Vietnam and why it never should have occurred or it should have ended.”

With these statements McDermott apparently became only the second U.S. government official to be positive about WikiLeaks’ disclosure of diplomatic cables, the other being Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tx), see and read his speech on the House floor.

[originally published on Washington Stakeout on Dec. 12, 2010; posted on posthaven Nov. 13, 2015]

Van Hollen replied: “If indeed he violated the law, if there’s that kind of determination, then prosecution should go forward, but there’s obviously a very serious question as to whether or not there was any violation of the law.”

Indeed, as McClatchy reports, the Justice Department is having a difficult time linking Bradley Manning, accused of conveying the leaked documents, to Assange in a criminal way. They also report that “the State Department didn’t respond to several requests from Assange to work out which documents threatened national security.”

Van Hollen continued: “Regardless of the legal standing, it was reckless and irresponsible to leak all these cables. I do think it has the potential not only to jeopardize some very sensitive issues with respect to national security and foreign policy but you always run the risk when you do this of literally putting people’s lives in danger.”

Our attempted follow-up, “What about the New York Times and so on?” was rebuffed as Van Hollen departed Fox’s studios. The New York Times and other papers are also making leaked cables public, so why is the administration only threatening WikiLeaks with criminal prosecution? U.S. officials concede they can’t point to a single case of a document released by WikiLeaks having led to anyone’s death. First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams, speaking to Time Magazine, says stretching the law to target WikiLeaks would threaten freedom of the press.

Perhaps more significantly, the issue should not simply be the possibility that a collaborator or such could be killed from a leak or WikiLeaks’ alleged violations of law. It should be killings resulting from government policy and violations of law by the U.S. government exposed in the cables and as part of its reaction to their release. Glenn Greenwald has written about aspects of this; strong interview on FAIR’s CounterSpin.

[originally published on Washington Stakeout on Dec. 12, 2010; posted on posthaven Nov. 13, 2015]

If you go to Daniel Ellsberg's web page -- http://www.ellsberg.net -- or his Twitter feed -- http://twitter.com/#!/danielellsberg -- it is virtually wall-to-wall an ardent defense of WikiLeaks, most recently ditching and attacking Amazon following their pulling the plug on WikiLeaks. Yet, this morning on CBS's (Viacom) Face the Nation, Sen. Dick Durbin cited the nobility of Ellsberg's leaking of the Pentagon Papers as a contrast to the hideous actions of Julian Assange.