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Madeleine Albright | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Marie Jana Korbelová May 15, 1937 Prague, Czechoslovakia |
| Died | March 23, 2022 (aged 84) Washington, D.C., United States |
| Cause of death | Cancer |
| Political orientation | Imperialism |
| Political party | Democratic |
Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright (May 15, 1937 – March 23, 2022) was a Statesian politician and diplomat who served as Secretary of State of the United States from 1997 to 2001 under Bill Clinton. Previously she served on the National Security Council under mentor Zbigniew Brzeziński and as US ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997.
Albright is lauded in bourgeois media as a feminist champion due to her being the first female Secretary of State, but in reality she shared the same policies as her white male colleagues. She is an example of identity politics being used to whitewash imperialism, with Albright having been involved in bombing Iraq and Yugoslavia among others.[1]
She consistently pushed for increased U.S. military action and clashed with Clinton's Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Colin Powell over the Powell Doctrine. This doctrine posited that the U.S. should intervene militarily only when its national interests are at risk, by contrast Albright reportedly asked: “What’s the point of having this superb military we’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”[1]
Early life[edit | edit source]
Marie Jana Korbelová was born on May 15, 1937 in Prague, Czechoslovakia to a Jewish family, although Albright claims that she was unaware of her Jewish heritage until later in life. She was the eldest of the three children of Anna Spieglová and Czech diplomat Josef Korbel, and experienced a privileged bourgeois upbringing despite the challenges of travel. Following the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany, the family fled to escape persecution, arriving in the UK in 1939.[2]
Her father worked in Edvard Beneš' Czechoslovak government in exile for the duration of the Second World War. Albright's parents converted to Catholicism whilst living the London and raised their children as such due to the rising persecution,[2] with 26 of Albright's family members being killed in the Holocaust, including three grandparents.[1] After the war the family returned home but in 1948 fled Czechoslovakia for the United States after a popular revolution brought the communists to power.[2]
In 1957 Albright attended Wellesley College, where she became a Statesian citizen. Whilst working at the Denver Post she met her future husband, Joseph Albright, a member of the elite Medill-Patterson media owning family, who she married in 1959. Albright then took a master’s degree, followed by a doctorate in international relations at Columbia University, New York, where rabid anti-communist Zbigniew Brzeziński was one of her teachers.[2]
Career[edit | edit source]
Early career[edit | edit source]
From 1976 to 1978, Albright served as a legislative assistant to Democrat Senator for Maine, Ed Muskie. In 1978 Brzeziński recruited her to join the national security staff of the Carter administration, where she worked on congressional liaison. Following President Jimmy Carter's defeat by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election, Albright transitioned to academia, conducting anti-communist research on Eastern European politics at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, D.C..[2]
After her marriage ended in 1981, Albright became increasingly active in academic, political, and fundraising circles in Washington and in 1982, she began teaching at Georgetown University, focusing on foreign policy and international affairs. She later contributed to Democratic political campaigns, working on the 1984 vice-presidential campaign of Geraldine Ferraro and the 1988 presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis.[2]
Ambassador to the UN[edit | edit source]
After Bill Clinton won the 1992 election he selected Albright as US ambassador at the United Nations in 1993 where she most notably presided over the brutal post–Gulf War sanctions on Iraq, with the aim of maximizing the misery of Iraqis so as to encourage Saddam Hussein’s overthrow.[1] In 1996, when asked in an interview about the sanctions on Iraq that had at the time been estimated to have killed half a million children, she said she believed that they were "worth it." It was not until 2020 that she apologised for these comments in a New York Times interview.[3]
A key part of Albright's tenure as UN ambassador was her relentless campaign for the removal of UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, due to his opposition to the U.S. hegemony. Boutros-Ghali repeatedly clashed with the U.S. over crisis' in Bosnia, Rwanda and Somalia among others, having called Bosnia a "war of the rich." Albright used several tactics in her aim of driving Boutros-Ghali from his post such as falsely accusing him of corruption but when it came time for his re-election he was re-elected unanimously leading Albright to ignore democracy and use the U.S. veto power to prevent him from serving a second term.[1]
Secretary of State[edit | edit source]
In the midst of the Asian financial crisis, Albright visited Thailand in March 1999 where she expressed support for the austerity policies of the IMF whilst scolding the Thai for turning to prostitution and drugs, which actually was a direct result of the austerity policies she supported. At the same time she lobbied hard for multi-billion dollar sales of used F-16 fighter jets to the crisis hit country.[4]
Albright was also involved in the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia and was accused of hate speech against Serbs.[5]
Later life[edit | edit source]
After George W. Bush's 2000 Presidential victory, Albright seamlessly returned to the elite circles, leveraging her influence for corporate clients like Coca-Cola and Merck through her new consultancy firm, the Albright Group. She also established a private equity firm, Albright Capital Management, and joined the New York Stock Exchange board in 2003.[2] In 2021 her consulting company helped pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer avoid sharing their international property, causing countless avoidable deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[1]
Despite her Democratic ties, Albright twice advised Bush in 2006 but later backed Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bids in 2008 and 2016.[2] During the latter campaign she said of women that didn't support Hillary: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.” As was typical for her Albright once again used gender based identity politics to whitewash imperialism and Hillary Clinton's role in it, although she later apologised for this particular comment.[1]
Madeleine Albright died on March 23, 2022 from cancer and is survived by her three daughters, and six grandchildren.[2]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ Jump up to: 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Liza Featherstone (2022-03-24). "Madeleine Albright Was a Killer" Jacobin. Archived from the original on 2024-12-18.
- ↑ Jump up to: 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Godfrey Hodgson (2022-03-23). "Madeleine Albright obituary" The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2024-12-19.
- ↑ Gloria Oladipo (2022-03-23). "‘A trailblazer’: political leaders pay tribute to Madeleine Albright" The Guardian. Retrieved 2022-03-23.
- ↑ A.B. Abrams (2023). Power and Primacy: A History of Western Intervention in the Asia-Pacific: 2023 Updated Edition: 'Economic War on Asia: Crushing the Region’s Rising Economies'.
- ↑ Deana Kjuka (2012-10-29). "Madeleine Albright's Scrap With Pro-Serbian Activists in a Prague Bookstore" The Atlantic. Retrieved 2022-03-24.