Some called him a bully, and he looked the part: the big chin thrust out, the broad shoulders, the tight smile that might mean anything. To admirers, however, including generations of State Department protégés and the presidents he served, his peacemaking efforts were extraordinary.

On the one hand, the big chin and a tight smile; on the other, the extraordinary peacemaking efforts. The Times leaves it to you, the reader, to decide for yourself which is more important.

In reality, of course, Holbrooke was called much worse than a bully; he's been criticized for facilitating genocide in East Timor, for delivering the designed-to-be-rejected ultimatum that started the Kosovo War and for cheering the military targeting of journalists. If you'd like to see what an actual critic has to say about Holbrooke's career, rather than relying on the Times' false balance, read Steven Zunes' piece in Huffington Post (12/15/10), "Richard Holbrooke Represented the Worst Side of the Foreign Policy Establishment."

Revealing, in an entirely different way, was this part of a Washington Post story (12/14/10) about the state of the Afghan War post-Holbrooke:

Holbrooke's death is the latest complication in an effort plagued by unreliable partners, reluctant allies and an increasingly skeptical American public.

The war, in other words, is "plagued" by the public's disapproval of it. For a government to carry out a war that its citizens don't support is rather complicated.

For more on Holbrooke, recall his reaction to probing questions from independent journalist Allan Nairn, or check the Institute for Public Accuracy's round-up of critical assessments.

Part of the answer might lie in a media environment heeding former Col. Ralph Peters' recent "essay for a leading neocon group calling for future U.S. military attacks on media outlets and journalists" along with "censorship" and "news blackouts."

Of course, Scahill is savvy enough to point out that "what Col. Peters is advocating is not new"--"It is already a de facto U.S. policy to target journalists":

The U.S. has consistently attacked journalists and media organizations in modern wars. In the 1999 US-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, General Wesley Clark, then the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, ordered an airstrike on Radio Television Serbia, killing 16 media workers, including make-up artists and technical staff, an action Amnesty International labeled a “war crime.” Richard Holbrooke, who is currently Obama’s point man on Afghanistan and Pakistan, praised that bombing at the time.

The U.S. bombed Al Jazeera in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, attacked it multiple times in the 2003 Iraq invasion, and killed Jazeera correspondent Tarek Ayoub. On April 8, 2003, a U.S. Abrams tank fired at the Palestine Hotel, home and office to more than 100 unembedded international journalists operating in Baghdad at the time. The shell smashed into the fifteenth-floor Reuters office, killing two cameramen, Reuters' Taras Protsyuk and José Couso of Spain's Telecinco....

Last week, a Spanish judge reinstated charges against three U.S. soldiers in Couso’s killing, citing new evidence, including eyewitness testimony contradicting official U.S. claims that soldiers were responding to enemy fire from the hotel. One year ago, former Army Sergeant Adrienne Kinne told Democracy Now! she saw the Palestine Hotel on a military target list and said she frequently intercepted calls from journalists staying there.

All of which makes it less than surprising that, as Scahill tells us, "the U.S. military continues to hold journalists as prisoners without charges or rights in...Iraq. Ibrahim Jassam, a cameraman and photographer for Reuters has been a U.S. prisoner in Iraq since last September despite an Iraqi court's order last year that he be freed." See the FAIR Press Release: "Is Killing Part of Pentagon Press Policy?" (4/10/03)