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madeline albright
A Truly 'Indispensable Nation' Would Bring the War on Gaza to an Immediate End
By providing immense quantities of ordnance to Israel, Biden ensures the war’s perpetuation and facilitates the continued slaughter of noncombatants.
Jan 04, 2024
Joe Biden is neither an original thinker nor a profound one. Granted, few if any figures laboring in the trenches of contemporary American politics can claim to be either. On that score, it would be unreasonable for us to hold Biden’s lack of depth and originality against him. He is, after all, just an Average Joe.
Somewhat more problematic is Biden’s penchant for appropriating the words of others without attribution. The habit has not enhanced his reputation. Yet to be fair, when the President recently described the United States as the “indispensable nation,” he did credit the origin of that phrase to his “friend” Madeleine Albright.
Such honesty is commendable. Even so, wary Americans might find Biden’s resurrection of Albright’s several decades-old phrase to be more than a little troubling.
The provenance of the expression is worth noting. Speaking on national television in 1998, then Secretary of State Albright had used the occasion to articulate an Albright Doctrine of sorts. “If we have to use force,” she declared with sublime confidence, “it is because we are America; we are the indispensable nation. We stand tall and we see further than other countries into the future.”
In Albright’s defense, she issued this grandiose pronouncement at a moment when American elites were enjoying a prolonged post-Cold War victory lap. In political circles, chest-thumping triumphalism had become the lingua franca. Had not the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 ostensibly brought history itself to its intended conclusion? A mere decade later, had not Operation Desert Storm definitively affirmed history’s verdict? By the 1990s, America was on a roll, destined, it seemed, to remain the world’s number one in perpetuity.
Soon enough, however, all of this came to seem like so much hot air. First came the terrorist attacks of 9/11, with the follies of the Global War on Terrorism following in short order. The epic failure of the Afghanistan War in tandem with costly and bungled efforts to “liberate” Iraq left America’s reputation for peering into the future in tatters. Sundry other missteps demolished claims that the United States possessed some special knack for anticipating what comes next. Then came the election of Donald Trump, unforeseen by those ostensibly in the know.
If remembered at all, the Albright Doctrine survived as a sort of punchline — the equivalent of “Mission Accomplished” or “We got him!”
Today the future to which Albright had confidently alluded in 1998 has become our own immediate past. Events since have brought us to where we are today. They provide a backdrop and frame of reference for the exercise of American power. That Biden has chosen our present moment to resuscitate the Albright Doctrine is, to put it mildly, disconcerting. It suggests someone badly out of touch with reality.
Albright had credited the United States with the ability to “see” and by implication to shape the future course of world history. Today, with the nation’s ability to sustain its own democracy beyond the upcoming presidential election up for debate, we may question the Biden administration’s ability to see beyond next Thursday.
Yet let us take Biden at his word, as a true believer in American indispensability, advised by a cadre of like minded civilian and military officials. Even today, their collective confidence in American global primacy is undiminished, as if events since 1998 either didn’t happen or don’t matter.
Today challenges to the nation’s erstwhile indispensability premier abound: the rise of China, a stalemated conflict in Ukraine, porous borders at home, the pressing existential threat posed by climate change. Yet none poses a more urgent test than the ongoing war in Gaza. Here, more than anywhere else, events summon the United States to affirm its claim to primacy. Right now, without delay.
Doing so would mean employing U.S. power and influence to bring this wretched war to an immediate end.
As measured by actions rather than rhetorical gestures, however, the Biden administration has done just the opposite. By providing immense quantities of ordnance to one side, it ensures the war’s perpetuation and facilitates the continued slaughter of noncombatants. By vetoing UN Security Council efforts to force a ceasefire, it stands virtually alone in defiance of world opinion. While American diplomats travel hither and yon, their efforts cannot be rated as other than ineffectual.
On a recent trip to the Middle East, national security adviser Jake Sullivan remarked, “We’re not here to tell anybody, ‘You must do X, you must do Y’.” How this accords with any meaningful conception of indispensability is not clear.
My guess is that Madeleine Albright would be embarrassed. Joe Biden should be as well.
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I'm an Iraqi and I Remember Madeleine Albright for Who She Truly Was
I remember the sanctions era in Iraq very well. And when the former U.S. secretary of state said the death of 500,000 children in the country "was worth it," I remember that too.
Mar 27, 2022
Often, after the demise of political figures, their troubling histories are whitewashed in the name of respecting their memories and the feelings of their families. The passing of former United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Wednesday has been no exception.
Western media responded to the news of her death with a plethora of obituaries eulogizing her achievements. Countless statements have been released, by governments, institutions and public figures, celebrating the "trailblazing" politician for being the first woman to hold the office of Secretary of State and for receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Former President Bill Clinton, under whom Albright served as America's top diplomat, referred to her as "a passionate force for freedom, democracy, and human rights". President Joe Biden, meanwhile, proclaimed she "was always a force for goodness, grace, and decency - and for freedom".
Before you write or repost articles about Albright and how wonderful it is to see women pushing boundaries and breaking glass ceilings in politics, take a minute to learn what she chose to do with the power she had--how she supported the devastation and suffering of my people.
For me as an Iraqi, however, the memory of Albright will forever be tainted by the stringent sanctions she helped place on my country at a time when it was already devastated by years of war. Millions of innocent Iraqis suffered terribly and hundreds of thousands died because of the sanctions which, in the end, achieved almost none of Washington's policy objectives. As we remember Albright's life and achievements, we must also remember those innocent Iraqi lives lost because of her policy decisions.
The most prominent memory of Albright that I have in my mind is from an interview she gave to CBS 60 Minutes in 1996.
In that now-iconic interview, veteran journalist Lesley Stahl questioned Albright--then the US ambassador to the United Nations--on the catastrophic effect the rigorous US sanctions imposed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait had on the Iraqi population.
"We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima," asked Stahl, "And, you know, is the price worth it?"
"I think that is a very hard choice," Albright answered, "but the price, we think, the price is worth it."
With this response, Albright showed that she sees innocent Iraqi children as nothing more than disposable fodder in a conflict between the US administration and the Iraqi leadership.
She demonstrated, with no room left for any doubt, that she had no humanity--that she cannot and shall never be described as "a force for goodness, grace, and decency".
I remember sanctions era Iraq very well. It was almost impossible to maintain contact with family members and friends in the country, as telephone services remained very limited. When I visited Iraq, to my shock I saw even the most basic products - like milk - could not be found in local markets. The people were hungry and hopeless.
Indeed, the US imposed sanctions on Iraq to punish Saddam Hussein's regime, but it was innocent civilians, not the regime officials who suffered. The sanctions pushed the already struggling masses into deeper poverty, but only marginally affected the rich, widening the wealth gap in the country. As poor Iraqis struggled to put food on their tables, President Hussein and his inner circle maintained their lavish lifestyles. Despite crippling sanctions, the president managed to build 80 to 100 luxury palaces during his tenure.
By 2003, it is estimated that nearly 1.5 million Iraqis, primarily children, had died as a direct consequence of sanctions.
And this devastating toll was hardly surprising, or unexpected.
The sanctions, implemented in August 1990 by the UN Security Council Resolution 661, included a total financial and trade embargo. Not only was Iraq barred from exporting oil (its main income source) on the world market for several years, but it was also prevented from importing products from abroad.
This ban included healthcare equipment and medications, which translated into immeasurable suffering for common Iraqis, but placed no immediate pressure on Hussein's regime.
"Requested radiotherapy equipment, chemotherapy drugs and analgesics are consistently blocked by United States and British advisers [to the Sanctions Committee at the UN]," explained Professor Karol Sikora, then chief of the cancer programme of the World Health Organization, in a 1999 article published in the British Medical Journal. "There seems to be a rather ludicrous notion that such agents could be converted into chemical or other weapons."
According to UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund, the death rate of children below five crossed 4,000 a month due to the lack of food and basic medications caused by the sanctions - that is up to 200 babies and toddlers dying avoidable deaths a day.
Several UN officials resigned over the years in protest at this disastrous, ineffective and murderous sanctions policy, but Albright, the "passionate force for freedom, democracy and human rights", thought it was all "worth it".
To make matters worse, 13 years after the sanctions were first implemented to pressure the Iraqi regime, the US opted to invade the oil-rich country anyway under the pretense that Hussein managed to amass weapons of mass destruction despite the embargo. The years of suffering were for nothing - the sanctions had achieved nothing other than devastating millions of Iraqis who had no say over the actions of those ruling over them.
So, before you write or repost articles about Albright and how wonderful it is to see women pushing boundaries and breaking glass ceilings in politics, take a minute to learn what she chose to do with the power she had--how she supported the devastation and suffering of my people.
Today, with sanctions imposed on Venezuela still causing thousands of deaths among the country's poorest, and demands for more stringent sanctions on Russia getting louder, we cannot afford to whitewash Albright's mistakes.
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George W. Bush's Finest Piece of War Is a Blood-Stained Iraq
Painting immigrants' faces and laughing on chat shows will not excuse the former U.S. president's blood-stained past.
May 08, 2021
George W. Bush is back. He is back, this time not to bomb countries and cause the death of thousands. This time the man is back as an artist who advocates for the rights of immigrants, and the U.S. media is on heat.
That death in Iraq is eliminated from the conversation makes it clear that to 'them Americans', 'us Iraqis' are non-existent.
Bush, the former US president, recently penned an Op-Ed for The Washington Post, and received a round of applause on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!' when the eponymous host complimented him on his painting of American politician Madeleine Albright. He appears on TV to speak about his new book of oil paintings of America's immigrants, 'Out of Many, One', he is not wearing handcuffs, and all rehabilitated. It is all normal.
What is also normal is how the starvation and deprivation of medication that caused the early death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children because of the severe UN sanctions on the country in the 1990s, have fallen into oblivion. To Albright, speaking in a 1996 TV interview, the political price was "worth it", though she would later express regret for her wording.
Bush's grinning face seems to be traveling at a smooth pace from one TV show to the next. Kimmel admired his guest's reflexes when he dodged Muntadhar al-Zaidi's shoe throw, and the two had a laugh about it. Of course, it slipped Kimmel's mind to ask his guest about his time ordering cluster bombs be dropped on my family's house in Baghdad to "liberate it". It also slipped the host's mind to ask why in the first place a man would want to throw a shoe at the former president.
For their part, the cheering crowd gave the impression that the next rich guy to oversee the annihilation of inferior beings overseas could as well re-emerge from the gutter and be celebrated as a cool, funny grandpa.
Bush's blood-stained past tells us the man is dangerous. If Richard Nixon--in the words of the late Hunter S. Thompson--"could shake your hand and stab you in the back at the same time", you might lose a finger or two if you extend your hand to shake Bush's.
And with the way things are going, there's a big chance he will get away with it--again.
It is well known that columnists in the US were at war with Iraq even before depleted uranium was generously distributed among its citizens in 2003, but the slick anchors and boring television hosts of today seem to be suffering from amnesia.
George W. Bush is responsible for the destruction of an incalculable number of innocent Iraqi lives. Have the decency to remember his victims.
In an interview after a tour of Bush's Texas ranch, CBS's Norah O'Donnell told the former president that she thought the paintings in his new book were "beautiful". And when she asked him about the 6 January storming of the Capitol, Bush said that it made him sick: "This sends a signal to the world, you know, like, we're no different, and this book says we are different, much different".
In the words of the great Iraqi poet Saadi Youssef:
"But I am not an American
Is it enough that I am not American for the Phantom pilot to send me back to stone age?"*
The entire charade reeks with hypocrisy. Even when preaching on immigration reforms, Bush failed to hide his 'us versus them' complex.
But the American exceptionalism is not what bothers me the most.
That death in Iraq is eliminated from the conversation makes it clear that to 'them Americans', 'us Iraqis' are non-existent. We are not worthy of receiving justice or of anybody at least bothering to ask Bush about that long-forgotten 'blunder', as Iraqi scholar Sinan Antoon reminds us.
Meanwhile, war is ongoing in Iraq. Its signs are unmistakable; walls and road signs riddled with bullet holes, concrete barriers blocking main streets, dead youth staring from faded billboards and military choppers occupying the skies above.
In Baghdad, militiamen nurtured under the lawlessness birthed by the US invasion still fire rockets on the airport and the 'Green Zone'. They still roam the streets, armed to the teeth, terrorizing the city's traumatized residents who are left unprotected by empty promises from the Iraqi state.
While Iraq no longer receives aerial bombing from the West, death has become a permanent resident of Baghdad. The lethal failure of its subsequent 'post-liberation' rulers continues what George W. Bush started 18 years ago: non-stop civilian killings in Iraq.
The negligence behind the recent al-Amiriyah-like incineration of dozens of patients inside Ibn al-Khatib's hospital is an example of the consequences of war faced by the people of Iraq since 2003.
George W. Bush is responsible for the destruction of an incalculable number of innocent Iraqi lives. Have the decency to remember his victims.
*From Saadi Youssef's poem, America America. Translated by the author of the piece.
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