8 ms·

It 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 men

It 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 ago
Maybe 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 ago
Everybody 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 ago
  The 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 ago
    That 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.
    - kennywinker 5y ago
      I'm doubtful that this is true, as I believe bin laden is seen as an extremist by most, but even if it is true - that's the same thing I'm talking about. Celebrating what you see as the "good" someone did, without acknowledging the bad. Even if you cheered for 9/11 - you would not have cheered when it resulted in countless civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
      - zaat 5y ago
        I don't even get what you doubt. Bin laden was a leader of an international organization dedicated to his ideas. Their agenda is extremist by most, but that leaves big group of people, arguably even a country, that welcome it as the true will of Allah. They have papers and they publish books. There's a place for many people on the fringe. I just read the Economist's Obituary someone linked above, which is good and somewhat disorienting. The last sentence is a quote of him with exact negation of what you say about cheering - (spoiler alert - it is probably better to read the whole thing before the quote) - The difference between pure Muslims and Americans, he said, was that Americans loved life, whereas Muslims loved death. https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/obituary/2011/05/05/osama-bin-laden https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/obituary/2...
        kennywinker 5y ago
        All that says is that bin laden himself was proud of his legacy. I'm sure his followers are too. But of all the people in the world, his followers are a fraction of a sliver of a hair - and there is no country that is ruled by his followers. L. Ron Hubbard had thousands of followers, but to conflate an internal Scientology paper obituary with "any obituary published where it matter to his family and close friends" would be a mistake.
        zaat 5y ago
        What you say is true, luckily. But I honestly don't understand what are you are arguing for, you mean that you believe that his wives and followers couldn't find solacing obituary to read? if so than I'm firmly believe that you are wrong, but I'm not going to search for it as this isn't the kind of things I want to engage with - the Economist's was more than enough for me. And if you are right on this and I'm wrong, well, even better. Edit, in response to OP edit: I am not sure if Hubbard is comparable, I don't know if his family and followers cared about what the NYT write about him, for example. But Bin Laden's followers don't care much for the approval of outsiders, that's pretty obvious.
  - mynameisash 5y ago
    I actually immediately thought of The Economist's obit on bin Laden: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/obituary/2011/05/05/osama-bin-laden https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/obituary/2...
- zaat 5y ago
  Also, bad things are often not known until sometime after the people died. Anyway, it is much more civilized to honor the deceased family during their mourning. There's plenty of pages to fill in future newspaper articles and history books.
  - someotherperson 5y ago
    Knowing that people have died, she gave her personal opinion that she personally supported it[0]. That's a large part of the reason why she's disliked. It's because she advocates for genocide. If you replace "Iraqis" with "Jews" and have someone say that the deaths of half a million Jewish children is "worth it" nobody will be in this comment section trying to talk about honoring the deceased or suggesting everyone has good and bad sides. [0] https://youtu.be/RM0uvgHKZe8 https://youtu.be/RM0uvgHKZe8
    - throwaway5752 5y ago
      Those sanctions were imposed as a response to an evil act (invasion of a neighboring country, Kuwait). Hussein could have not committed the evil act in the first place. When a dictator does an evil act, they cannot hide behind consequences to their people. That is obviously of great importance in current events, also. It is worth pointing out the sanctions caused human suffering, but the result that led to that comment was retracted by the author: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)70470-0/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... The deaths of Kuwaitis, the deaths of Kurds, the deaths of Southern Iraqis and other dissidents, and any number innocent human beings that died because of the sanctions are tragic... But consequences for crimes belone with the criminal. Hussein killed tens of thousands of Iraqis with chemical weapons over his time in power. He really was a monstrous person.
      - someotherperson 5y ago
        > You can play that video over and over, but the sanctions were imposed as a response to an evil act (invasion of a neighboring country) Should half a million Americans die for each US invasion? If I said it's worth it does that make it OK? > When a dictator does an evil act, they cannot hide behind consequences to their people A dictator, by definition, is not representative of a "people." There is no "their people" in this case. > Also, the result that led to that comment was retracted So the fact that she said it was worth it -- explicit support for it -- doesn't matter because the data might have been wrong? If I was told half a million Jews were killed yesterday and in my position as representative to the UN said it was "worth it" am I absolved if it turned out to be fake news? > Hussein killed tens of thousands of Iraqis with chemical weapons over his time in power This never actually happened. It was just about 2000 people. From what we've learned in this discussion I guess that absolves Saddam for thinking it was worth it to crush the Kurdish uprisings. Great chatting. I won't be participating any further though.
- vkou 5y ago
  Obituaries are also a short way of white-washing the incredible number of bad things that their subject has done. It's convention that they don't speak ill of the dead. A convention that overwhelmingly benefits the legacies of people who have inflicted disproportionate amounts of misery and suffering in life.
asveikau 5y ago
I'll have to look into more of the story of her involvement in 1990s actions against Iraq. Whatever it is I am sure it's not as bad as what the other party did in 2003. Need to vent about something your comment is reminding me of. I saw it in Putin's speeches, and a recent RT clip -- this notion that what the US did to Iraq in 2003 justifies actions in Ukraine. As an American who was very opposed to the second Iraq war I find this false justification very disappointing. Firstly, that one bad action does not justify another. Second, the story that the US tells about itself is that we sometimes make mistakes, then our political process tries its best to correct them as time goes on. See also: slavery. Or the fact that the Iraq war is pretty unpopular in retrospect. We openly admit to not being perfect, but try to commit ourselves to continuous improvement. That's an important point.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- kennywinker 5y ago
  > Whatever it is I am sure it's not as bad as what the other party did in 2003. ... > Firstly, that one bad action does not justify another. I'm not trying to start a fight, because I agree with your overall point - learning and growing as a nation is important. That's honestly a big part of why I believe political figures obituaries should include their full context. But these two sentences seem to me to sharply contradict each-other.
  - asveikau 5y ago
    I think in this case it's important to note that many public officials stopped short of boots on the ground in Iraq because they knew it was trouble. In this thread i feel like some are conflating the two gulf wars and the sanctions in between. (I seem to recall there was also a Clinton air strike in the middle) Albright was really against the second war if i recall correctly.
- zardo 5y ago
  > Whatever it is I am sure it's not as bad as what the other party did in 2003. Democrats don't get to wash their hands of that invasion. Both parties supported it. Sanctions and sporadic bombings on critical infrastructure under Clinton was estimated to cause on the order of a million deaths, mostly children dieing of disease because the US destroyed water treatment facilities. Albright infamously defended the deaths of 800,000 children as worth the cost in a 60 minutes interview. (Unfortunately the political lesson from that wasn't don't cause mass death, it was don't acknowledge that you've caused mass death)
nullc 5y ago
By convention obituaries don't speak ill of the dead. Everyone knows this convention. To get a complete story you don't look to the obit. Particularly because this is well known should be harmless.
pvg 5y ago
The sanctions on Iraq after the first Gulf War were approved by the UN and the bulk of their practical problems had to do with Iraqi non-compliance. There's a decent argument to be made they strengthened Saddam Hussein's regime but the 'human consequences' were themselves direct consequences of the regime's cruelty and intransigence.
- someotherperson 5y ago
  I guess 9/11 was a just direct consequence of the US government's cruelty and intransigence given that OBL's stated reason for the attacks were the sanctions. That's a hot take, not one you'd want to say out loud around NYC. In any case, performing literal siege against a group -- exclusively chosen for political reasons -- and then blaming powerless besieged people for their own suffering is a special type of reasoning that only seems to pop up whenever brown people are mentioned.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - mistrial9 5y ago
    - Forgeties79 5y ago
      Just because race is part of a subject doesn't mean it's racebaiting. You can't just remove race when its inconvenient or makes you uncomfortable, any more than you can separate WWII from a discussion about the Germany economy during the Third Reich.
      - ozborn 5y ago
        You made race a part of the subject when discussing Albright. You were likely called out for disingenuous "race-baiting" since you don't provide any evidence for her animus against "brown people", a questionable claim because even if true it's not clear that Iraqis identify as "brown people" or Madeleine thinks in those terms. Moreover, you ignore the the actual war she was more famous for and had a bigger role in, "Madeleine's War" (https://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1999/05/10/albright.html https://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1999/05/10/albright...). This involved her advocating (successfully) to bomb Serbia, a nation of nominally white Christian people she argued were committing genocide against a Muslim (also white) population. This was also against the UN charter due to Russian and Chinese veto. This war, more so than the Iraq war, has much more relevance in discussing her legacy today given the invasion of Ukraine but you appear to ignore it intentionally or are perhaps unaware of it entirely. I'm not arguing that racism isn't important in understanding the Iraq war (or other wars), but it is one factor among many. Some of the most brutal wars are actually between groups of people that to outsiders appear to be be very similar (Ukraine/Russia, Serb/Croat, various civil wars, etc...)
madrox 5y ago
In my experience, if you didn't like the deceased in life, you'll probably want to criticize them at their death, and vice versa. If you ask me, there's no point to tearing someone down in their obituary. The deceased certainly doesn't care one way or another. The people that are grieving in the slightest don't want to hear it and you come off as a jerk without accomplishing anything. The people that aren't grieving already agree with you.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- kennywinker 5y ago
  My suggestion is coming from a place of thinking about those who have no opinion. Maybe because Madeleine Albright was out of office before they were born, or maybe because they weren't paying attention at the time. There is a moment now where these people can be exposed to her legacy, good and bad, and it can help inform their understanding and their choices going forward.
  - madrox 5y ago
    I'm not sure those ambivalent about the deceased will suddenly not be. I'm also not sure what you mean by choices. Who to vote for? If this were a startup I'd say you're making way too many assumptions about your audience.
- Forgeties79 5y ago
  Nah. You aren’t entitled to a sanitized story just because you died. Doubly so when you made decisions that negatively impacted millions. That’s the price of being in power.
  - madrox 5y ago
    Like it or not, the story has already been told once the person has died. All that's left is how you feel about that story. History will be judging us all for a long time and there's no rush. Dunk all you like on someone when they die if it makes you feel better, but it's hardly a classy move and doesn't exactly change hearts and minds.
emmelaich 5y ago
One low point (not the lowest) was her presenting a basketball to Kim Il Jong. What a picture. To be fair I don't know how much of it was her idea. But so cringy.
- jsiaajdsdaa 5y ago
  With regard to all the civilians she has publically admitted as collateral damage, I think that is worse than a basketball.
Forgeties79 5y ago
I always remember this fantastic obituary by The Economist for Osama Bin Laden whenever this subject comes up https://www.economist.com/newsbook/2011/05/07/reaction-to-the-death-of-osama-bin-laden https://www.economist.com/newsbook/2011/05/07/reaction-to-th...
nostrademons 5y ago
That goes into the history book, not the obituary. Obituaries are published when the death is still raw and you still have grieving family members. They're not supposed to be historically accurate (how can you compress someone's life into a page-long news story?), and are as much about breaking news & closure as about facts. A history book has much more room to examine nuance & consequence, as well as more time to do thorough research and usually the benefit of hindsight and distance from the events in question.
- vkou 5y ago
  > That goes into the history book, not the obituary. There's plenty of room for it in both.
- Forgeties79 5y ago
  I’m not sure what you’re saying is universally accepted when it comes to celebrities, politicians, just generally complicated people who are in the public eye. There is no rule that says that has to be the case, and I’m sure you can find a dozen obituaries that show the complexity of a person.
photochemsyn 5y ago
Here's another issue they gloss over: > Apr 24, 2000, Agence France Presse, NEW YORK, April 24 (AFP) - "US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Monday called on the United States Congress to vote in favour of China's entry into the World Trade Organisation. . . Turning to globalisation in general, Albright said the United States "must help those hurt by change; but also reaffirm our belief that an open and competitive world economy is the best route to higher standards of living for people everywhere." Didn't work out so well for the Rust Belt...
- pstuart 5y ago
  Blame her or all the corporations which gladly moved business there for cheaper labor?
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    Corporations are tools. They'll just do their thing in the environment that they find themselves in. Hoping or depending on them being "good" or lamenting them being "evil" is a fool's errand. They're unthinking automaton. Absolutely blame the politicians and "experts" who conspired to allow corporations to circumvent our progress on labor and environmental regulation the past 100+ years.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
bobthechef 5y ago
Maursault 5y ago
> In her case I'm thinking specifically of her involvement in sanctions against iraq, and the human consequences of that I think this is a little bit of blaming the jury for sentencing the criminal. Yeah, I think this is bad taste, because, wow, that's really placing an awful lot on her shoulders, that because she was involved she is thus morally responsible for the consequences, as though the UNSC had no part in it. IMO the Ba'athists themselves are entirely responsible for the consequences of the sanctions for creating the conditions that forced the sanctions.
nuclearnice1 5y ago
You may enjoy the mother jones obit. It highlights the US failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda as her deepest regret from her time in public service. As for the Iraq sanctions, she was asked and famously replied that it was a hard choice but the price was worth it. People may disagree.
ozzythecat 5y ago
The West is writing all the history books, and with the US having a monopoly in printing the worlds reserve currency and being the backbone of the West’s military might, history is obfuscated. An indictment of a former US Secretary of State is an indictment of America itself, and by proxy, its ally nations. I’ve worked in big tech companies with some of the most intelligent and capable people I’ve met in my entire life. And while they have very strong views on American politics — labeling Presidents, Senators, and other politicians corrupt, nefarious, incompetent, or some combination of all three - their views on Americas role on the world stage are more like America in a Hollywood film. The other countries are corrupt, “shitty”, “evil”, etc and only America has the capability, will, and sort of a divine “right” to interfere and fix things, and fixing things means doing whatever we believe is right. No one in the West batted an eye when children would be murdered in drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal region. When America and Russia fought proxy battles in Syria, there was no solidarity with the Syrian people. When our “ally” Saudi Arabia bombed the hell out of people in Yemen, again - there was no one asking questions. “We’re not targeting civilians” they’ll all say. I mean, America gave a new classification to all the “collateral damage”, simply labeling anyone they thought might be 18 years or older as being a militant, even if they’re just civilian bystanders.
- thephyber 5y ago
  This is cherry-picking. > The West is writing all the history books Sure, the ones read in the west. The history books read in the East are frequently written in the East. Iran, Russia, and China have very old societies with long histories. They, among others, have their own written histories. There is nothing significant preventing western citizens from researching history books written elsewhere. It’s not difficult to find common books/movies/documentaries which challenge the rose-colored-glasses narrative of the US / The West. Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone, et al are “writing the history books” which violate your assertion. There is plenty of media content which is extremely critical of US. There are hurdles to get the US DoD to participate in projects which are strongly counter to pro-US narratives, but possible to do without their participation.
  - ozzythecat 5y ago
mechanical_bear 5y ago
If you don’t care for the way her obituary was written, then feel free to write your own and submit it for publication.
- kennywinker 5y ago
  If you don’t care for the way pull requests are usually written, then feel free to write your own and submit it. See how little sense that makes? Even if I were to write an obituary that included some of the critical points I think should have been included - and were to somehow get it published instead of this one - that doesn’t change the fact that almost every other obituary (for this person, and for every other person) follows this convention. I’m criticizing the convention and the norm, not this particular piece of writing.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

aatharuv 5y ago

Maybe 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 ago

Everybody 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 ago
The 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 ago
  That 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.
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    I'm doubtful that this is true, as I believe bin laden is seen as an extremist by most, but even if it is true - that's the same thing I'm talking about. Celebrating what you see as the "good" someone did, without acknowledging the bad. Even if you cheered for 9/11 - you would not have cheered when it resulted in countless civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    - zaat 5y ago
      I don't even get what you doubt. Bin laden was a leader of an international organization dedicated to his ideas. Their agenda is extremist by most, but that leaves big group of people, arguably even a country, that welcome it as the true will of Allah. They have papers and they publish books. There's a place for many people on the fringe. I just read the Economist's Obituary someone linked above, which is good and somewhat disorienting. The last sentence is a quote of him with exact negation of what you say about cheering - (spoiler alert - it is probably better to read the whole thing before the quote) - The difference between pure Muslims and Americans, he said, was that Americans loved life, whereas Muslims loved death. https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/obituary/2011/05/05/osama-bin-laden https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/obituary/2...
      - kennywinker 5y ago
        All that says is that bin laden himself was proud of his legacy. I'm sure his followers are too. But of all the people in the world, his followers are a fraction of a sliver of a hair - and there is no country that is ruled by his followers. L. Ron Hubbard had thousands of followers, but to conflate an internal Scientology paper obituary with "any obituary published where it matter to his family and close friends" would be a mistake.
        zaat 5y ago
        What you say is true, luckily. But I honestly don't understand what are you are arguing for, you mean that you believe that his wives and followers couldn't find solacing obituary to read? if so than I'm firmly believe that you are wrong, but I'm not going to search for it as this isn't the kind of things I want to engage with - the Economist's was more than enough for me. And if you are right on this and I'm wrong, well, even better. Edit, in response to OP edit: I am not sure if Hubbard is comparable, I don't know if his family and followers cared about what the NYT write about him, for example. But Bin Laden's followers don't care much for the approval of outsiders, that's pretty obvious.
- mynameisash 5y ago
  I actually immediately thought of The Economist's obit on bin Laden: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/obituary/2011/05/05/osama-bin-laden https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.economist.com/obituary/2...
zaat 5y ago
Also, bad things are often not known until sometime after the people died. Anyway, it is much more civilized to honor the deceased family during their mourning. There's plenty of pages to fill in future newspaper articles and history books.
- someotherperson 5y ago
  Knowing that people have died, she gave her personal opinion that she personally supported it[0]. That's a large part of the reason why she's disliked. It's because she advocates for genocide. If you replace "Iraqis" with "Jews" and have someone say that the deaths of half a million Jewish children is "worth it" nobody will be in this comment section trying to talk about honoring the deceased or suggesting everyone has good and bad sides. [0] https://youtu.be/RM0uvgHKZe8 https://youtu.be/RM0uvgHKZe8
  - throwaway5752 5y ago
    Those sanctions were imposed as a response to an evil act (invasion of a neighboring country, Kuwait). Hussein could have not committed the evil act in the first place. When a dictator does an evil act, they cannot hide behind consequences to their people. That is obviously of great importance in current events, also. It is worth pointing out the sanctions caused human suffering, but the result that led to that comment was retracted by the author: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)70470-0/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... The deaths of Kuwaitis, the deaths of Kurds, the deaths of Southern Iraqis and other dissidents, and any number innocent human beings that died because of the sanctions are tragic... But consequences for crimes belone with the criminal. Hussein killed tens of thousands of Iraqis with chemical weapons over his time in power. He really was a monstrous person.
    - someotherperson 5y ago
      > You can play that video over and over, but the sanctions were imposed as a response to an evil act (invasion of a neighboring country) Should half a million Americans die for each US invasion? If I said it's worth it does that make it OK? > When a dictator does an evil act, they cannot hide behind consequences to their people A dictator, by definition, is not representative of a "people." There is no "their people" in this case. > Also, the result that led to that comment was retracted So the fact that she said it was worth it -- explicit support for it -- doesn't matter because the data might have been wrong? If I was told half a million Jews were killed yesterday and in my position as representative to the UN said it was "worth it" am I absolved if it turned out to be fake news? > Hussein killed tens of thousands of Iraqis with chemical weapons over his time in power This never actually happened. It was just about 2000 people. From what we've learned in this discussion I guess that absolves Saddam for thinking it was worth it to crush the Kurdish uprisings. Great chatting. I won't be participating any further though.
vkou 5y ago
Obituaries are also a short way of white-washing the incredible number of bad things that their subject has done. It's convention that they don't speak ill of the dead. A convention that overwhelmingly benefits the legacies of people who have inflicted disproportionate amounts of misery and suffering in life.

asveikau 5y ago

I'll have to look into more of the story of her involvement in 1990s actions against Iraq. Whatever it is I am sure it's not as bad as what the other party did in 2003. Need to vent about something your comment is reminding me of. I saw it in Putin's speeches, and a recent RT clip -- this notion that what the US did to Iraq in 2003 justifies actions in Ukraine. As an American who was very opposed to the second Iraq war I find this false justification very disappointing. Firstly, that one bad action does not justify another. Second, the story that the US tells about itself is that we sometimes make mistakes, then our political process tries its best to correct them as time goes on. See also: slavery. Or the fact that the Iraq war is pretty unpopular in retrospect. We openly admit to not being perfect, but try to commit ourselves to continuous improvement. That's an important point.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kennywinker 5y ago
> Whatever it is I am sure it's not as bad as what the other party did in 2003. ... > Firstly, that one bad action does not justify another. I'm not trying to start a fight, because I agree with your overall point - learning and growing as a nation is important. That's honestly a big part of why I believe political figures obituaries should include their full context. But these two sentences seem to me to sharply contradict each-other.
- asveikau 5y ago
  I think in this case it's important to note that many public officials stopped short of boots on the ground in Iraq because they knew it was trouble. In this thread i feel like some are conflating the two gulf wars and the sanctions in between. (I seem to recall there was also a Clinton air strike in the middle) Albright was really against the second war if i recall correctly.
zardo 5y ago
> Whatever it is I am sure it's not as bad as what the other party did in 2003. Democrats don't get to wash their hands of that invasion. Both parties supported it. Sanctions and sporadic bombings on critical infrastructure under Clinton was estimated to cause on the order of a million deaths, mostly children dieing of disease because the US destroyed water treatment facilities. Albright infamously defended the deaths of 800,000 children as worth the cost in a 60 minutes interview. (Unfortunately the political lesson from that wasn't don't cause mass death, it was don't acknowledge that you've caused mass death)

nullc 5y ago

By convention obituaries don't speak ill of the dead. Everyone knows this convention. To get a complete story you don't look to the obit. Particularly because this is well known should be harmless.

pvg 5y ago

The sanctions on Iraq after the first Gulf War were approved by the UN and the bulk of their practical problems had to do with Iraqi non-compliance. There's a decent argument to be made they strengthened Saddam Hussein's regime but the 'human consequences' were themselves direct consequences of the regime's cruelty and intransigence.

someotherperson 5y ago
I guess 9/11 was a just direct consequence of the US government's cruelty and intransigence given that OBL's stated reason for the attacks were the sanctions. That's a hot take, not one you'd want to say out loud around NYC. In any case, performing literal siege against a group -- exclusively chosen for political reasons -- and then blaming powerless besieged people for their own suffering is a special type of reasoning that only seems to pop up whenever brown people are mentioned.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mistrial9 5y ago
  - Forgeties79 5y ago
    Just because race is part of a subject doesn't mean it's racebaiting. You can't just remove race when its inconvenient or makes you uncomfortable, any more than you can separate WWII from a discussion about the Germany economy during the Third Reich.
    - ozborn 5y ago
      You made race a part of the subject when discussing Albright. You were likely called out for disingenuous "race-baiting" since you don't provide any evidence for her animus against "brown people", a questionable claim because even if true it's not clear that Iraqis identify as "brown people" or Madeleine thinks in those terms. Moreover, you ignore the the actual war she was more famous for and had a bigger role in, "Madeleine's War" (https://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1999/05/10/albright.html https://edition.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/time/1999/05/10/albright...). This involved her advocating (successfully) to bomb Serbia, a nation of nominally white Christian people she argued were committing genocide against a Muslim (also white) population. This was also against the UN charter due to Russian and Chinese veto. This war, more so than the Iraq war, has much more relevance in discussing her legacy today given the invasion of Ukraine but you appear to ignore it intentionally or are perhaps unaware of it entirely. I'm not arguing that racism isn't important in understanding the Iraq war (or other wars), but it is one factor among many. Some of the most brutal wars are actually between groups of people that to outsiders appear to be be very similar (Ukraine/Russia, Serb/Croat, various civil wars, etc...)

madrox 5y ago

In my experience, if you didn't like the deceased in life, you'll probably want to criticize them at their death, and vice versa. If you ask me, there's no point to tearing someone down in their obituary. The deceased certainly doesn't care one way or another. The people that are grieving in the slightest don't want to hear it and you come off as a jerk without accomplishing anything. The people that aren't grieving already agree with you.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
kennywinker 5y ago
My suggestion is coming from a place of thinking about those who have no opinion. Maybe because Madeleine Albright was out of office before they were born, or maybe because they weren't paying attention at the time. There is a moment now where these people can be exposed to her legacy, good and bad, and it can help inform their understanding and their choices going forward.
- madrox 5y ago
  I'm not sure those ambivalent about the deceased will suddenly not be. I'm also not sure what you mean by choices. Who to vote for? If this were a startup I'd say you're making way too many assumptions about your audience.
Forgeties79 5y ago
Nah. You aren’t entitled to a sanitized story just because you died. Doubly so when you made decisions that negatively impacted millions. That’s the price of being in power.
- madrox 5y ago
  Like it or not, the story has already been told once the person has died. All that's left is how you feel about that story. History will be judging us all for a long time and there's no rush. Dunk all you like on someone when they die if it makes you feel better, but it's hardly a classy move and doesn't exactly change hearts and minds.

emmelaich 5y ago

One low point (not the lowest) was her presenting a basketball to Kim Il Jong. What a picture. To be fair I don't know how much of it was her idea. But so cringy.

jsiaajdsdaa 5y ago
With regard to all the civilians she has publically admitted as collateral damage, I think that is worse than a basketball.

Forgeties79 5y ago

I always remember this fantastic obituary by The Economist for Osama Bin Laden whenever this subject comes up https://www.economist.com/newsbook/2011/05/07/reaction-to-the-death-of-osama-bin-laden https://www.economist.com/newsbook/2011/05/07/reaction-to-th...

nostrademons 5y ago

That goes into the history book, not the obituary. Obituaries are published when the death is still raw and you still have grieving family members. They're not supposed to be historically accurate (how can you compress someone's life into a page-long news story?), and are as much about breaking news & closure as about facts. A history book has much more room to examine nuance & consequence, as well as more time to do thorough research and usually the benefit of hindsight and distance from the events in question.

vkou 5y ago
> That goes into the history book, not the obituary. There's plenty of room for it in both.
Forgeties79 5y ago
I’m not sure what you’re saying is universally accepted when it comes to celebrities, politicians, just generally complicated people who are in the public eye. There is no rule that says that has to be the case, and I’m sure you can find a dozen obituaries that show the complexity of a person.

photochemsyn 5y ago

Here's another issue they gloss over: > Apr 24, 2000, Agence France Presse, NEW YORK, April 24 (AFP) - "US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Monday called on the United States Congress to vote in favour of China's entry into the World Trade Organisation. . . Turning to globalisation in general, Albright said the United States "must help those hurt by change; but also reaffirm our belief that an open and competitive world economy is the best route to higher standards of living for people everywhere." Didn't work out so well for the Rust Belt...

pstuart 5y ago
Blame her or all the corporations which gladly moved business there for cheaper labor?
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  Corporations are tools. They'll just do their thing in the environment that they find themselves in. Hoping or depending on them being "good" or lamenting them being "evil" is a fool's errand. They're unthinking automaton. Absolutely blame the politicians and "experts" who conspired to allow corporations to circumvent our progress on labor and environmental regulation the past 100+ years.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

bobthechef 5y ago

Maursault 5y ago

> In her case I'm thinking specifically of her involvement in sanctions against iraq, and the human consequences of that I think this is a little bit of blaming the jury for sentencing the criminal. Yeah, I think this is bad taste, because, wow, that's really placing an awful lot on her shoulders, that because she was involved she is thus morally responsible for the consequences, as though the UNSC had no part in it. IMO the Ba'athists themselves are entirely responsible for the consequences of the sanctions for creating the conditions that forced the sanctions.

nuclearnice1 5y ago

You may enjoy the mother jones obit. It highlights the US failure to prevent genocide in Rwanda as her deepest regret from her time in public service. As for the Iraq sanctions, she was asked and famously replied that it was a hard choice but the price was worth it. People may disagree.

ozzythecat 5y ago

The West is writing all the history books, and with the US having a monopoly in printing the worlds reserve currency and being the backbone of the West’s military might, history is obfuscated. An indictment of a former US Secretary of State is an indictment of America itself, and by proxy, its ally nations. I’ve worked in big tech companies with some of the most intelligent and capable people I’ve met in my entire life. And while they have very strong views on American politics — labeling Presidents, Senators, and other politicians corrupt, nefarious, incompetent, or some combination of all three - their views on Americas role on the world stage are more like America in a Hollywood film. The other countries are corrupt, “shitty”, “evil”, etc and only America has the capability, will, and sort of a divine “right” to interfere and fix things, and fixing things means doing whatever we believe is right. No one in the West batted an eye when children would be murdered in drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal region. When America and Russia fought proxy battles in Syria, there was no solidarity with the Syrian people. When our “ally” Saudi Arabia bombed the hell out of people in Yemen, again - there was no one asking questions. “We’re not targeting civilians” they’ll all say. I mean, America gave a new classification to all the “collateral damage”, simply labeling anyone they thought might be 18 years or older as being a militant, even if they’re just civilian bystanders.

thephyber 5y ago
This is cherry-picking. > The West is writing all the history books Sure, the ones read in the west. The history books read in the East are frequently written in the East. Iran, Russia, and China have very old societies with long histories. They, among others, have their own written histories. There is nothing significant preventing western citizens from researching history books written elsewhere. It’s not difficult to find common books/movies/documentaries which challenge the rose-colored-glasses narrative of the US / The West. Noam Chomsky, Oliver Stone, et al are “writing the history books” which violate your assertion. There is plenty of media content which is extremely critical of US. There are hurdles to get the US DoD to participate in projects which are strongly counter to pro-US narratives, but possible to do without their participation.
- ozzythecat 5y ago

mechanical_bear 5y ago

If you don’t care for the way her obituary was written, then feel free to write your own and submit it for publication.

kennywinker 5y ago
If you don’t care for the way pull requests are usually written, then feel free to write your own and submit it. See how little sense that makes? Even if I were to write an obituary that included some of the critical points I think should have been included - and were to somehow get it published instead of this one - that doesn’t change the fact that almost every other obituary (for this person, and for every other person) follows this convention. I’m criticizing the convention and the norm, not this particular piece of writing.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]