13 ms·
Madeleine Albright has died
- ardit33 5y ago
- kome 5y agoNever forget: https://youtu.be/1FaPuBUY558 https://youtu.be/1FaPuBUY558 "Disgusting Serbs!"
- ardit33 5y agoyeah, she compared them to Nazis, as they were doing genocide and ethic cleansing. The last one that happened in Europe was in ww2. Also, Milosevic and his cronies died in prison as war criminals that killed tens of thousand of innocent people.
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoThey held seselj in Hague for 10 years, and couldn't really do anything to him.... his legal process was better than any reality show ever made.
- chaganated 5y ago
- b215826 5y agoInterviewer: "We have heard that a half a million children have died. I mean that's more children than died in Hiroshima. You know, is the price worth it?" Albright: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it." This is from a 1996 interview with this woman [1] about the Iraq invasion. Good riddance to bad rubbish. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8
- sha256sum 5y ago> This is from a 1996 interview with this woman [1] about the Iraq invasion. Actually in regards to the sanctions against Iraq during the Clinton admin. > Good riddance to bad rubbish. I’m sure we’ll hear plenty of swamp creatures lauding what a trailblazer she was over the next few days.
- simonh 5y ago> sanctions against Iraq during the Clinton admin Which administration were the sanctions imposed under? It seems really weird to make a partisan jab over that.
- sha256sum 5y ago> It seems really weird to make a partisan jab over that. What’s more weird is implicating partisanship where there is none. Maybe you think of things in this frame. Not everyone else does.
- simonh 5y agoI re-read the thread and you're right, you were just providing relevant context. My apologies.
- ok123456 5y agoGeorge H. W. Bush sanctioned Saddam to death instead of toppling his government. From the end of the Persian Gulf war until it was "liberated" it was basically impossible to do business in Iraq. Both parties carried this out.
- kennywinker 5y agoIt really bothers me when obituaries of political figures omit the negative or controversial things they have done. It feels like a denial of history to not mention the legitimate complaints that exist against someone. In her case I'm thinking specifically of her involvement in sanctions against iraq, and the human consequences of that - consequences that are especially relevant today as we heavily sanction russia - but the specific issues are pretty moot to my point. I don't think every obituary needs to be critical, but I do think political figures have opted into that by being a part of history.
- aatharuv 5y agoMaybe we need more "Speakings", as described by Orson Scott Card in his book, "Speaker for the Dead". In that book, a Speaker for the Dead would speak all the truth about the deceased, good and bad, warts and all.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoEverybody is complex and complicated. No one is all good or all bad. Obituaries are a short way of honoring the good in people while biographers can flesh out the complexities that show our poor choices.
- kennywinker 5y agoThe bad that most of us do in our lifetimes doesn't reach the geopolitical scale. When it does, it seems negligent to ignore it when they pass. This idea of honoring the good in the dead is also arbitrarily applied. An obituary of Osama Bin Laden wouldn't neglect to mention his involvement in 9/11.
- zaat 5y agoThat depends on the obituary's avenue. Pretty sure that any obituary published where it matter to his family and close friends highlighted 9/11 with pride.
- 5y ago
- naoqj 5y agoA warmonger who caused an incredible amount of pain. Waiting for Kissinger myself.
- UncleOxidant 5y agoEvery once in a while I notice that Kissinger is still alive and it's surprising. He's outlived most other political figures from his generation and starting to outlive those from the next gen.
- NiceWayToDoIT 5y agoDevil keeps him alive :)
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- throwawaylinux 5y agoCan't wait for the next Bush and Obama too. Probably got a while to go there :( These clowns are all just the front-men though. They may have had a non-trivial hand in pushing for and profiting from war, but for every one of them there's ones we don't know about who have control over many administrations, and many countries, and who don't really give two shits about the fungible public figures in their pockets.
- drewcoo 5y agoYet Kissinger still walks among us. What's his secret?
- cwkoss 5y ago
- woodruffw 5y agoFar be it from me to naysay criticism of Kissinger, but framing it in terms of the blood libel[1] is, as they kids say, "not a good look." [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel
- Synaesthesia 5y agoWell he is probably the one of the most cynical and heartless leaders in history.
- throwaway5752 5y agoHe's famously Jewish and blood libel is an old and notorious anti-semitic attack, used by Nazis and the Holocaust and Imperial Russian pogroms. There are countless of ways to attack Henry Kissinger without debasing one's self in that way.
- kopol 5y agoPlease don't baselessly accuse people of anti-semitism. That anti-semites have referenced drinking the blood of children, does not mean that anyone else who says similar is being anti-semitic. Kissinger being Jewish is not the issue here, you have chosen to make it the issue for some unknown reason.
- woodruffw 5y agoNowhere in my original comment or the GP’s response is anyone being accused of antisemitism. Lots of people reference the blood libel without realizing that it’s an antisemitic canard; the object of the comment is to educate rather than shame.
- babagabooj 5y ago
- ivanche 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- reiichiroh 5y agoShe repped Herbalife too
- hughrr 5y agoI'm buying a cake tomorrow to celebrate. I think Orson Scott Card, despite being a complete loon, raised an interesting concept in the book Speaker For The Dead. Obituaries should be spoken honestly to all. Not speaking ill of the dead is morally wrong.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- epage 5y ago> Not speaking ill of the dead is morally wrong. Maybe just me but I feel like this misses what Speaker For the Dead does. It isn't about speaking ill or not ill of people but understanding their life experience, to give context to who they were as a person. This moves past the superficial reading of a person that just listing their actions and classifying them as good or bad.
- hughrr 5y agoIndeed it’s about honesty in the face of death. The speaker speaks both of the good and the bad things. Obituaries tend not to.
- Step888 5y agoIt's an interesting idea, but it has a few drawbacks. You can't defend yourself when you're dead. You can't be your own witness. Nor can you face your own accuser. Also, who would you trust to speak that truth for you? Also, grieving family members are not the most rational people. Doing this could trigger violence in practice. And obituaries have a legal function. As a modern society, we want to encourage the publication of obituaries as soon as someone passes away. It mitigates the risk of potential fraud.
- MartinCron 5y agoI'll take moral guidance from... checks notes... anyone other than Orson Scott Card, thank you.
- 5y ago
- woopwoop 5y ago
- aluminum96 5y agoIndeed, apparently some HN commenters can't wait to dance on her grave.
- someotherperson 5y agoAs a child, Albright was hoping I would die[0] so she would dance on mine. It's great that I survived, and I can dance on her grave on behalf of the half million children that didn't. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM0uvgHKZe8
- paganel 5y agoAnyone who followed the US foreign policy for the past 30 years would have made the same comments, if a person is dead his/her sins don't magically wash away.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- finiteseries 5y agoGarbage in garbage out, this is the definition of TV news political content that shouldn’t be posted here.
- bitcharmer 5y agoDo you have access to information? She's a war criminal just like Kissinger.
- Synaesthesia 5y agoDW just released a documentary caller Iraq: The Killing of a Nation. I hadn't realised the extent to which the gulf war and subsequent sanctions devastated Iraq. It's pretty atrocious. Now she isn't the only person guilty and not even mentioned in this documentary. Still I think it's an important watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLRfecGZhts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLRfecGZhts
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wbl 5y agoSaddam could have stepped down and ended the sanctions at any time.
- pphysch 5y agoReminds me of another megalomaniac who could surrender and end civilian suffering right now
- sitkack 5y agoIf we continue to lay blame on the Corporation, or the sociopath or the psychopath for the destruction caused by the rules that we enact, it isn't the predictable response of the automaton that is to blame. It simply allows us to continue the game of chicken when we know what the response will be. It is of little difference whose hand is holding the knife when the outcome is known. All we have done is shifted blame and white washed the actions that we ourselves are responsible for.
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoZelensky could have stepped down, and ended the war. Noone asked americans to come and kill people half the planet away, and you still did that, many many times in many many countries... middle east, africa, south american, even some european ones. You're the ultimate bad guys. Once i though you were atleast aware of that (from hippie movement, to micheal moore documentaries), but stayed quiet because of all the cheap oil and other resources, but i'm genuinely more and more disappointed in you, because some of you honestly think you're the good guys for killing people.
- unethical_ban 5y agoIt is interesting that people are so angry with secretaries of state, rather than presidents. Or is it both? I rarely hear Bill Clinton's name spoken with such bitterness as Albright's as it relates to Kosovo, for example. Honestly I am too young to have remembered the oil for food program and just read some about it. I didn't know we were sanctioning Iraq like that through the 90s.
- denormalized 5y agoFormer presidents have entire organizations dedicated to rehabilitating and amplifying their legacies. Former presidents also make high-profile appearances at sporting and other events which serve to make them more relatable to the populace. In other words, much better marketing.
- AutumnCurtain 5y agoPersonally, I might be biased by my personal friendship with Kosovar Muslims, but I view the NATO interventions in Kosovo as a pretty unambiguously good thing. No idea whether this sentiment will be popular here. They ended a genocide and acted within clear guidelines with international unity.
- ardit33 5y ago
- denormalized 5y agoAre you saying that the many critical commenters with multiple years of HN activity and karma are Russian bots?
- ardit33 5y agoYes. Long term bots, or people with malicious intent. This is not why were are at HN. People like them are completely ruining this site. Spreading hate and missinfo. She wasn't in power both when 91 and 2003 invasions (it was republican presidents for both parts). Also they are leaving the part: Sadam invaded Iran Sadam gased/chemical attacked Iran Sadam invaded Kuwait Sadam Chemically attacked/killed almost 100k of Kurds in Northern Iraq Sadam was cruel to his own people and killed and repressed many There you. They wont tell you that the sanctions of the 90s, were directly correlated with his brutal repression (up to using gas attacks) to the Kurdish people in the north. So, whoever ommits these things is completely using dissinfo for hateful purposes.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 5y agoWhat a life… being born Marie Korbelová in Prague in the 1930s was a death sentence for most. She survived, thrived, and made sure she never had to feel powerless again. A personal witness to half of human history, by volume.
- qiskit 5y agoShe survived, thrived and became a monster just like the monsters she fled. Millions of innocent iraqis and others who suffered directly or indirectly because of her probably wished she had not survived. A war criminal died, but I doubt the media will take that angle.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 5y agoWhat war are you talking about? Albright and the Democratic Party were not in power in either 1991 or 2002, the two invasions in Iraq. Albright stopped a life genocide in the balkans with a few weeks of air strikes. That was a war so unavoidable, Germany reversed 60 years of pacifism and felt obliged to participate. The region, today, is prosperous and peaceful. It’s really the best possible example the concept of humanitarian intervention could have, apart from WW2.
- qiskit 5y ago> What war are you talking about? Albright and the Democratic Party were not in power in either 1991 or 2002, the two invasions in Iraq. They were in power when they sanctioned and starved millions of innocent iraqis after the war. You know the "silent war". Hundreds of thousands of iraqi children starved to death - something she said was worth it. Not someone people should be defending but everyone has their supporters I guess.
- reducesuffering 5y agoIraqi propaganda to try and end the sanctions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5717930/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5717930/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/08/04/saddam-hussein-said-sanctions-killed-500000-children-that-was-a-spectacular-lie/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/08/04... She got asked a loaded question for a soundbite. She wrote, "I had fallen into a trap and said something I did not mean." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Albright#Sanctions_against_Iraq https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Albright#Sanctions_a...
- _aaed 5y agoThought for a second the title said Madeleine McCann
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- throwaway5752 5y agoPeople that were too young or not alive yet in the 1990's might not understand that most conservative Republican party dynamics really started with Clinton administration, and that Albright has been (and will continue to be, in death) subject to the same well-funded character attacks. She was a historic and effective SoS in a complicated time in the world, and a reduction to sound bites is just a disservice to her and history.
- sjg007 5y agoClinton won on the economy which is the only way forward. Also Saudi opened up its taps to pay for the Gulf War and provided a decade of cheap gas.
- VictorPath 5y agoShe had a book signing in Prague where she encountered people unhappy with her role in bombing Serbians, "disgusting Serbs" was her comment to them. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children lacked medical care and were malnourished under her crushing sanctions. Lesley Stahl from 60 Minutes asked her about this, Albright said "the price is worth it". The "well-funded character attacks" are words out of her own mouth, compliments to her blood-soaked actions around the world.
- divbzero 5y agoThis hour-long interview [1] from 2020 provides a personal look back on her life. [1]: https://tim.blog/2020/05/27/secretary-madeleine-albright/ https://tim.blog/2020/05/27/secretary-madeleine-albright/
- bnralt 5y agoI recently came across what Colin Powell wrote about her in his memoirs[1]: > In his memoir My American Journey, Colin Powell recounts a discussion he had when he was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. "What's the point of having this superb military that you're always talking about if we can't use it?" she asked. "I thought I would have an aneurysm," Powell write. "American G.I.'s were not toy soldiers to be moved around on some sort of global game board." [1] https://books.google.com/books?id=TZU1SGMOx70C&pg=PA144#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=TZU1SGMOx70C&pg=PA144#v=on...
- belter 5y agoChecks out: "Madeleine Albright Saying Iraqi Kids' Deaths 'Worth It' Resurfaces" https://www.newsweek.com/watch-madeleine-albright-saying-iraqi-kids-deaths-worth-it-resurfaces-1691193 https://www.newsweek.com/watch-madeleine-albright-saying-ira...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- zabzonk 5y ago> American G.I.'s were not toy soldiers to be moved around on some sort of global game board Yes, but you must be believed in that you may use your military. The current problem in Ukraine is that Putin believes (and seems to be correct) that NATO will not use its assets.
- asveikau 5y agoSays the guy who went to the UN saying cement mixers were mobile weapons facilities. Now both are gone. RIP.
- Claude_Shannon 5y agoMy country owes a lot to her. In years 90', there wasn't really much support from USA for Eastern Europe countries to join NATO. Her lobbying for Poland was one of the reasons we got into NATO. If not for that, we'd be already at war with Russia.
- ardit33 5y ago[flagged]
- divbzero 5y agoHN guidelines [1] suggest that we avoid insinuations about shilling: > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (The rest of your comment seems sincere and expressed with clarity.)
- lkbm 5y agoShe was around for a lot of things, some very good and some very bad. I'm glad she worked to stop the genocide in Kosovo, but for me (39, US) the most salient thing I've known about has been about Rwanda—we signed a treaty saying we had to intervene in genocide, and then when genocide happened in 1994, we re-interpreted it to mean we're merely allowed to intervene. And then we largely blocked UN intervention. 700,000 people were murdered in 100 days. Clinton is obviously the main culprit in this failure, but Albright, then the US Ambassador to the UN, certainly had a part.
- zmk5 5y agoThis isn't true since her legacy spans more than just Eastern Europe. She is generally derided in the Middle East (save for Israel) and it is hard not to see why.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- cvladan 5y ago
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- random_upvoter 5y agoThe nineties saw the demise of pacifism as a viable mainstream idea as the Democratic party under Clinton wholeheartedly and unconditionally embraced militarism. Today there are two parties in the USA, one that loves war and another that loves war even more. The results of this disaster are in the news today.
- jacobolus 5y agoThe US and the Democratic party were never pacifist any time during the 20th century (and certainly US foreign policy was not pacifist under Wilson, Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, or Carter). Clinton’s foreign policy was not in any way outside of the party mainstream. But under Clinton the US did dramatically cut back on training/arming fascist death squads, and the 90s–2000s were a period of relative peace and prosperity for Latin America, as the US left them more or less alone (the Bush II administration was more worried about fearmongering/warring vs. Muslims, so continued benign neglect of LA). Clinton also presided during a period when the US had less military activity/conflict than pretty much any other time since WWII. Obama didn’t get to make such a choice, having inherited Middle East wars from his predecessor.
- twelve40 5y ago> Obama didn’t get to make such a choice There is always a choice, and he made his. Choice to bomb and crush Libya in 2014, which became a stone-age bloodbath ever since, choice to invade and bomb Syria in 2014, choice to continue wasting lives and money in Iraq and Afghanistan. These were deliberate decisions, not something inherited from someone.
- locallost 5y agoHer comment on the consequences of sanctions in Iraq has to be one of the worst things I heard in my life. I thought about it recently in the context of the sanctions on Russia and Biden looking to deal with Maduro. So the people of Venezuela are suffering for years now because the most powerful country in the world is leading the charge to basically destroy them as a sort of necessary moral stance against their government. But once another moral stance was needed, suddenly everything was forgotten including of course all the consequences of the actions in past years. These are not only headlines and macroeconomic trends, they are basically a bunch of destroyed lives of regular people like myself. These people in charge of all this are obviously completely immoral, so the catch is - how can they possibly take a moral stance on anybody, including Sadam? She was a terrible person. Rest in peace?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- wrp 5y agoMost of the negative comments so far are regarding her approach to Iraq. It would be more topical to consider that she was one of the main architects of America's treatment of post-Soviet Russia, which perhaps could have been better handled.
- SilasX 5y agoI just watched the Netflix series How to Become a Tyrant, and she's featured in it. It was released last July.
- ivanche 5y agoIn hell she’ll be in good company!