Just Deserts: Madeleine Albright
The late Secretary of State in retrospect
When Colin Powell died, prominent persons and intellectuals in today’s establishment, press and government heaped praise upon him. Because I think it’s important to report facts, use logic and tell the truth, I wrote an obituary which I’m confident focused on the facts of General Powell’s life and career not the color of his skin (read the obituary for Colin Powell and judge for yourself whether I succeed).
Consider the late Madeleine Albright as you would examine Powell or any secretary of state. Can you think of a single accomplishment? Madeleine Albright’s only potential achievement—as America’s United Nations ambassador, she once recommended that the U.N. withdraw “peacekeepers” from the African nation Rwanda—is a policy position Albright regarded as her “greatest regret.”
Writing in Time last month, Katie Rielly praised the 84-year-old Prague native, who died on March 23, for being a “trailblazing public servant.”
Did Albright break a new path? Is one’s sex—a fact of reality beyond one’s control—a legitimate, let alone primary, factor in judging failure or success and, if so, to what degree? Rielly wrote in Time’s obituary that Albright was a refugee who “went on to become the first woman to ever serve as a United States Secretary of State.” This is true. Madeleine Albright, born Marie Korbelova in 1937, fled Communists and Nazis with her family. However, Albright did not become, as Rielly writes, “an expert on foreign policy,” not if by expert one means a person who’s skilled and accomplished.
Did Albright serve, promote and defend the lives and rights of Americans? If so, how and by what standard? In Time’s and other obituaries, which are almost universally hagiographies, it’s presumed that the reader knows and accepts that Albright was an outstanding stateswoman. In reality, Albright is not an exemplary diplomat, let alone Secretary of State. In fact, no major obituary author attempts to prove that she was, let alone make a serious attempt. For example, Rielly reported that:
Those who worked with Albright and chronicled her career remember her as an effective communicator who explained complex international issues with clarity, a “gatherer of people” who believed in fostering bipartisanship through conversation, a “no nonsense” negotiator who often employed her eclectic pin collection to send diplomatic messages, and a feminist icon whose voice on global affairs long outlasted her years of public service.”
In practice, what does this verbiage mean? What is meant by the unfortunate phrase “gatherer of people”? Is there any evidence that Albright, unanimously confirmed by the U.S. Senate as President Clinton’s Secretary of State in 1997, communicated with clarity? What did she communicate? Rielly does not cite an example. Instead, Rielly claims that “Albright was a champion of women’s rights internationally...”
Why and on what grounds? Women across the world are censored, cloaked and in chains—in Communist Cuba, Communist China and Communist Korea as well as religious dictatorships in Saudi Arabia and Iran—including in more relatively civilized, partly free countries, such as Mexico and India, where women are more likely to be oppressed, repressed or suppressed. Can you recall an instance—any—in which Albright championed women’s individual rights with any degree of success?
Madeleine Albright was appointed ambassador to the United Nations by Bill Clinton in 1993. Other than expressing her “regret” that she recommended a U.N. withdrawal from Rwanda, a corrective action, Albright’s achievements are nil. Indeed, from 1993 until the year she terminated diplomatic service, 2001—when it became clear that the U.S. government failed to forewarn, prevent and retaliate for the worst foreign attack on the United States of America mainland in history—Albright’s work constitutes years of bad statecraft.
Nevertheless, Time admiringly reports that she:
Promoted the expansion of NATO
Led the call for military intervention in Kosovo
Negotiated with North Korea’s Communist dictator about nuclear weapons
Promoted global advancement of women
These are neither true nor are they achievements to a degree they could be partly true. NATO was expanded without a reason. This causes confusion, bringing Europe closer to the brink of war, which is escalating toward global catastrophe. Rielly reports as if NATO expansion is in itself an unequivocal good. This is false.
Kosovo, like Somalia, Rwanda and countless other altruism-based incursions by two presidents Leonard Peikoff once rightly caricatured as ClinBush, was a military intervention based on sacrifice of Americans to others. While Albright railed against Slobodan Milosevic, according to the Gatestone Institute, she sought to exploit her power in Kosovo—like Gen. Wesley Clark and what seems like most of today’s U.S. military-industrial establishment—through personal financial gain.
The negotiations with North Korea that Rielly heralds sanctioned and appeased a bloody dictatorship. The Stalinist regime has since advanced its capacity to launch a nuclear attack on the U.S. Contrary to Time’s implication that Albright achieved peace or resolution, Albright’s moral sanction of the barbaric state made matters worse.
Can any honest human claim that the welfare of Woman has advanced in any sense? Across the globe, women are more, not less, at risk, in danger and under siege, except perhaps in the West, which is spiraling downward fast. This is particularly true in nations where the U.S., thanks to foreign policy formulated by Albright and other government altruists, intervened. Afghanistan and Iraq come to mind.
As usual, the status quo press and state promote favored officials, in Albright’s case the daughter of a press attaché, as above scrutiny, let alone reproach. Like Colin Powell, among others, such as Obama, Bush and Clinton, Madeleine Albright does not deserve praise. This woman did damage to the United States of America. Madeleine Albright’s legacy is that her practice of blank, stateless altruism still does.
Just Deserts
Scott, thanks for telling it like it is. This addendum: after she left service, Albright was quick to feed at the trough of the "China trade," in which retied and active politicians used their connections to China to make a lot of money while compromising American interests. See Peter Schweitzer, "Red Handed."
This is why I subscribe. Thanks for the truth, Scott.