The Death of Madeleine Albright (1937-2022)

Universally praised by the Western Establishment and viewed as a vigilant defender of the weak in the face of authoritarian regimes, the narrative concerning Madeleine Albright is little more than a packaged lie.

First as US Ambassador to the UN and later as Secretary of State she supported and encouraged the brutal sanctions regime against Iraq in the 1990's that led to the deaths of over a million people. The post-Gulf War project and set of policies were built on disingenuous war narratives and lies concerning the Saddam Hussein regime and America's relationship with it. By making Hussein an international pariah the US was able to cover up its own war crimes related to Iraq – both as a collaborator in its war with Iran and the lies and crimes surrounding the Gulf War. Albright played a key part in this extensive and sordid story and famously she admitted in an interview with Lesley Stahl that the death of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children was 'worth it'.

Even UN officials such as Denis Halliday who oversaw aspects of the sanctions programme resigned in disgust and charged America with enacting genocidal policies in Iraq – and this was years before Bush's 2003 invasion and the subsequent utter destruction of the country.

Angered by the fallout from that interview Albright went on the attack but she had been caught in a candid moment and it revealed the cold and murderous calculus of the imperialist class. That interview haunted her to her grave. It also belies the claims and narratives surrounding the new imperial packaging that emerged in the 1990's – the so-called call to humanitarian intervention which was really a cover for a new paradigm critics rightly refer to as Humanitarian Imperialism. This is the bombing, conquest, and appropriation of countries and their resources in the name of humanitarian intercession. Albright's name certainly belongs on any short list of key players and proponents of this unfortunate and deceitful doctrine which really has nothing to do with helping innocents but is a cover for the pursuit of geopolitical goals.

This is perhaps most poignantly demonstrated in Albright's role regarding the Rwanda Genocide. As a representative of the Clinton administration, she was the face of America's policy which was (apart from the obligatory rhetoric) to effectively turn a blind eye. The truth was the US at that point in time had no geopolitical interest in the Great Rift Valley and Sub-Saharan Africa. This would quickly change as the technological revolution picked up in the 1990's and as the US broke old Cold War era alliances and backed new authoritarian actors in the region – even while seeking access to the resource rich areas of Eastern Congo. The region would endure two catastrophic wars and is still suffering and riddled with violence to this very day.

A protégé of another warmonger, the late Carter National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, Albright was also a key player in the various frauds surrounding the collapse of Yugoslavia – a series of brutal events and terrible wars that the US helped to foment and fuel. And in the case of its regional proxies, Washington worked to cover up and whitewash their war crimes and misdeeds.

Albright played a particularly prominent role in the Kosovo episode which culminated in the 1999 US bombing campaign that also directly targeted Serbia and shattered Belgrade. The Milosevic regime (like that of Saddam Hussein) was evil to be sure but the larger story was never told, and from the US backing of the Croats (and their resurgent fascist elements) to their support of the criminal and murderous Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the moral standing of the US in the Balkans was (and still is) found wanting. The fears of the Serbs and the crimes committed against them were ignored as was the ugly World War II-era history that suddenly reappeared in the 1990's. There were still plenty of people alive at the time that remembered the Nazi-allied Ustaše, the Croatian fascists that brutalised Yugoslavia. To the horror of many and in particular the Serbs, their political heirs and descendants were active in the 1990's conflicts. In fact some of the key members of the defeated fascist party such as Dinko Šakić were still alive and still living as fugitives in South America and elsewhere during this period. But all of this was downplayed and ignored as were the KLA's affiliations with organised crime and al Qaeda – which was then emerging from the Soviet War in Afghanistan. The Salafist group had not yet fallen afoul of US authorities. Though the US would radically shift its posture after 9/11, Washington was still collaborating with Salafist forces as it is once more today.

Albright played a role in this deceit and bloodbath which was not about humanitarian causes but about the justification of NATO in the post Cold War context and the consolidation of power. The Serbs represented a Russian redoubt in the Balkans and were resistant to both NATO and the EU. Their power had to be broken and their political class subjugated. The time was ripe as Russia itself was in a state of chaos and collapse. I remember this period well as I was a stooge, an imperial stormtrooper for the US Empire. Stationed in Northeast Italy, I was part of the logistical operations surrounding America's larger project in the Balkans and the orchestrated dismantling of Yugoslavia.

Under Albright, Albania became a key US ally and Kosovo was carved out of Serbia and proclaimed an independent nation under Obama – though much of the world refuses to recognize its status. It remains a sore point for the Serbs and the questions surrounding the status of Kosovo and the Serbs in Bosnia loom large in Belgrade and dominate the nation's politics.

Sometimes referred to as the fifty-first state, Kosovo is dominated by US interests. And yet it's also a hub for the Balkan underworld and many sordid and dark deeds from drugs and arms smuggling to human trafficking. The US officially decries the corruption but in reality it provides a convenient venue for US operatives. And yet despite the cover provided by the US, the nation can't wholly sweep its criminality under the rug as the KLA officials and criminals who came to hold high office in Pristina, have in recent years fallen afoul of the EU and international law.

Albright is but one of many American officials that cashed in on these wars. Kosovo was for the taking and US investors swept in and took over swathes of the country's economy and became very rich in the process. Exploiting the poverty of the Albanians and Kosovar Albanians, the Wall Street vultures gorged themselves, exacerbating the dire conditions in these lands and fueling the corruption. Albright's global strategy firm represents the interests of Wall Street (of which she was on the board of directors) and greases the rails for these companies to operate abroad. In many respects it's the kind of firm we've seen throughout American history – the companies that represent the nexus between Wall Street and Washington. The people that run these institutions inhabit both worlds and move freely between them. They constitute a powerful sector of the nation's Praetorians and some of the most powerful 'movers and shakers' in the Imperial apparatus.

Albright was the quintessential false elder statesman. Like Kissinger she was looked to as a purveyor of wisdom and geopolitical savvy – the diplomat extraordinaire. In reality she represented the financial interests of the US Empire and its post-Cold War geopolitical goals – so clearly outlined by Brzezinski her early mentor. She wasn't so much a diplomat as an architect and engineer of imperial policy and its implementation. She was corrupt and immoral but always combined and covered her deceit with a sickening facade of humanitarian interest and ethical concern. In this capacity she played a role in the Anti-Russia campaign which has now culminated in the Ukraine War. Putin fired the first shots to be sure and has forever destroyed any narrative he might have crafted in terms of moral standing, but the larger story involves US machinations and the attempt to expand and envelop Russia's frontier, security buffer, and historic spheres of interest. Albright in this capacity was a rapacious hawk and she bears no small degree of blame for the eastward advance of NATO, the collapse of US-Russian relations, and the present state of proxy war.

A rank feminist, a hypocrite, and a warmonger, Albright was a disgusting person celebrated by the world and yet in many respects was just plain evil. Most American Christians (with the exception of Richard Land) were not overly fond of her due to her associations with the Democratic Party – which as Albright clearly demonstrated was and remains a party of Wall Street and the US military machine. And yet if she had been wed to the GOP, she would have been hailed as a hero. In the end her policies were not any different.

She certainly decried the rise of Donald Trump but it would be a mistake to think she represented a higher morality. She has far more blood on her hands than he does. Her well-founded fears regarding Trump were that he would destroy the mechanisms of the empire she served and weaken US standing and its ability to wield its authority. Albright believed in America being 'great' and powerful on the world stage. For Trump they're just empty words in the mouth of a fool.

In the wake of her death we were forced to endure soaring paeans and ostensibly moving elegies and yet there was nothing to admire about Albright. For my part, the words of Christ in the gospel of Luke came to mind – And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.