Madeleine Albright’s Legacy

Madeleine Albright (1937-2022)

Madeleine Albright has died at the age of 84. She was Bill Clinton’s Secretary of State from 1997-2001, the first woman to ever hold that position. From 1993-1997 she was the United States Ambassador to the United Nations. For some the enduring legacy of Albright won’t involve anything she did during her historic political career. She will be most remembered for something she said.

Something very rare happened on May 12, 1996. That evening viewers of CBS’ 60 Minutes witnessed a thorough and critical segment about U.S. foreign policy that was based around actual reporting. The program, which would go on to win correspondent Lesley Stahl an Emmy and a duPont-Columbia journalism award, was called “Punishing Saddam” and it detailed the U.S. government’s Iraq sanctions policy.

Let’s begin by stepping back. When it comes to Iraq, some Americans might view the Clinton years as an uneventful gap between Bush 1’s Gulf War and Bush 2’s Iraq War. “Eight Years of Peace, Progress, and Prosperity” went the Democratic mantra. However, the Iraqi people certainly experienced no peace during that era. After less than six months in office (in full violation of international law of course) Clinton lobbed 23 cruise missiles into the country. Three hit residential areas, killing nine people and wounding 12. The acclaimed Iraqi painter Layla Al Attar was one of the victims. Her husband and their housekeeper were also killed. Her daughter was blinded. The bombings continued from there. Operation Desert Strike occurred later that year, then there was Operation Desert Fox in 1998. In 1998 Clinton also signed the Iraq Liberation Act, instituting an official U.S. policy of “regime change” and planting the seeds for Bush’s war crimes.

Then there were the sanctions, which a UN-commissioned study found responsible for the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children. Those numbers have been challenged in subsequent years, but it’s important to remember a couple things. The “Oil-for-Food” program’s first coordinator Denis Halliday quit his position in protest of the policy in 1998, calling it “genocidal.” The respected diplomat had worked at the U.N. for 34 years.

“When I got to Iraq in 1998, the hospitals in Baghdad, and also of course in Basra and other cities, were full of children suffering from leukemia,” Halliday told The Progressive last year. “Those children, we reckon perhaps 200,000 children, died of leukemia. At the same time, Washington and London withheld some of the medicines and treatment components that leukemia requires, again, it seemed, in a genocidal manner, denying Iraqi children the right to remain alive.”

Halliday’s successor, Hans von Sponeck, quit a couple years later for the same reasons. “For how long should the civilian population, which is totally innocent on all this, be exposed to such punishment for something they have never done?” he asked.

So 26 years ago, Albright was interviewed by 60 Minutes as the Clinton administration’s spokesperson on the matter. Here was the most infamous portion of the exchange:

Stahl: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, 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.

The striking thing about this exchange is Albright’s honesty. You almost never see a story like this in the mainstream media, but when you do the protocol is pretty consistent. We’re currently seeing it play out with pro-Israel groups and Amnesty International’s apartheid report. You smear and deflect, but you never actually acknowledge the crimes.

As I mentioned, the legacy of Albright’s comments is the compelling part. The deaths of Iraqi children were consistently cited by Osama bin Laden in interviews and recruitment videos. “A million innocent children are dying at this time as we speak, killed in Iraq without any guilt,” he declared about a month after the 9/11 attacks. At the time The Guardian looked into the claim and concluded that he was overstating things. However, the paper also quoted Dr Peter Pellett, a professor of nutrition at UMass, who served on multiple UN food and agriculture missions to Iraq: “All recent food and nutrition surveys have reported essentially the same story: malnourished children… increased mortality, and a general breakdown in the whole fabric of society.” When it came to Iraqi kids “Bin Laden’s propaganda may be exaggerated and one-sided. But he does perhaps have a point” the article admitted.

Even if you happened to watch and remember that 60 Minutes episode from 1996, the mainstream press certainly wasn’t acknowledging the Albright quote within the context of 9/11 after the towers fell. It’s doubtful that many Americans were reminded of it. Here’s Rahul Mahajan in FAIR from November 2001:

Albright’s quote, calmly asserting that U.S. policy objectives were worth the sacrifice of half a million Arab children, has been much quoted in the Arabic press. It’s also been cited in the United States in alternative commentary on the September 11 attacks. But a Dow Jones search of mainstream news sources since September 11 turns up only one reference to the quote–in an op-ed in the Orange Country Register. This omission is striking, given the major role that Iraq sanctions play in the ideology of archenemy Osama bin Laden; his recruitment video features pictures of Iraqi babies wasting away from malnutrition and lack of medicine.

A couple years after Albright made those comments she was questioned by students at Ohio State during an event that was televised by CNN. Albright (by then Secretary of State) had come to the campus with Defense Secretary William Cohen national security adviser, Samuel Berger to make the case for attacking Iraq. Again, a concept with roots far deeper than 2003.

Albright fielded a question from Jon Strange, who was a 22-year-old substitute teacher at the time. Here’s that exchange:

Strange: What do you have to say about dictators in countries like Indonesia, who we sell weapons to yet the are slaughtering people in East Timor. What do you have to say about Israel, who is slaughtering Palestinians, who imposed martial law. What do you have to say about that? Those are our allies. Why do we sell weapons to these countries? Why do we support them? Why do we bomb Iraq when it commits similar problems?

(WILD APPLAUSE)

Albright: There are various examples of things that are not right in this world and the United States is trying..I am really surprised that people feel it is necessary to defend the rights of Saddam Hussein, when we what ought to be thinking about is how to make sure that he does not use weapons of mass destruction.

Strange: I’m not defending him in the least. What I am saying is that there needs to be consistent application of U.S. foreign policy. We cannot support people who are committing the same violations because they are political allies. That is not acceptable. We cannot violate U.N. resolutions when it is not convenient to us. You’re not answering my question Madam Albright.

“Madeleine was always a force for goodness, grace, and decency — and for freedom,” said President Biden in a statement after her death. Last week Biden sent Patriot missiles to Saudi Arabia after the country urgently requested them. On the campaign trail Biden declared that he would end U.S. support for and make Saudi Arabia a pariah, but Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has changed the calculus. Yemen is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world, with 17 million people food insecure. 2.2 million of them are children. Biden presumably views it as a very hard choice, but ultimately thinks the price is worth it.

You can watch the entire 60 Minutes segment from 1996 online. It’s just as compelling all these years later.

MESA Endorses BDS

You might recall that the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) overwhelmingly decided to advance a BDS resolution to a vote last winter. That vote has now happened and the scholars have overwhelmingly endorsed the resolution. The final tally was 768-167.

MESA President Eve Troutt Powell:

Our members have cast a clear vote to answer the call for solidarity from Palestinian scholars and students experiencing violations of their right to education and other human rights. MESA’s Board will work to honor the will of its members and ensure that the call for an academic boycott is upheld without undermining our commitment to the free exchange of ideas and scholarship.

“Since 2005, the BDS vote has been discussed among MESA members, who have organized various forums for conversations and debates regarding MESA’s participation in an academic boycott of Israeli institutions and other ways of standing in solidarity with Palestinian scholars at risk under Israel’s longstanding military occupation. We affirm our commitment to academic freedom for Palestinians, and for all scholars in all countries throughout the region.”

You can read the resolution at the group’s website.

Odds & Ends

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) was one of the only House members to vote against increased militarization and incarceration spending, as part of the FY 22 Appropriations spending bill. You’ll recall that an extra $1 billion for additional Iron Dome funding was folded into that package.

In a statement the congressman made it clear that he would have supported the Iron Dome funding if it had been separated from the wider bill. “There were elements of the defense spending section that, if voted on separately, I would have supported, including additional military aid to Ukraine and funding for the Iron Dome — which I have already voted once before to fund and support,” said Bowman. “However, the defense and incarceration package is bloated with substantial increases to our military spending, and even more funding for prisons and immigration and customs enforcement. These are systems that perpetuate harm and a cyclical pattern of violence and poverty in our communities.”

50 House members sent a letter to Secretary of State Blinken calling on the Biden administration to stop Israel from destroying 38 Palestinian homes in Al-Walaja. It was led by Representatives Jan Schakowsky (D-MI), David Price (D-NC), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), John Yarmuth (D-KY) and Mark Pocan (D-WI).

“Al-Walaja is a Palestinian agricultural village that lies less than a mile south of residential West Jerusalem and northwest of Bethlehem. It has existed since the Ottoman period with some residents able to trace their ancestors to the village in the 1600s,” it reads. “In 1949, as part of the armistice agreement between Israel and Jordan, al-Walaja residents who had resided in what became Israel were compelled to relocate to the Jordanian side of the Green Line. Israel captured this land in the 1967 war and, after occupying the West Bank, annexed roughly one-third of al-Walaja to Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries. The Jerusalem Municipality has yet to approve master plans and
provide local government services to the part of al-Walaja annexed to its territory. This prevents residents from legally building new homes.”

Since January about 13,000 newborns have died from malnutrition and hunger-related diseases in Afghanistan.

Rep. Ritchie Torres is in Jewish Insider talking about his Iran nuclear deal skepticism. He cites Israel as a major part of this thinking. “A case can be made that we ought to recognize that Israel and the Sunni Arab world might have a deeper understanding of their own security needs than we do,” said Torres. “Who are we to presume that we know what’s best for them?”

The details of the Biden administration’s fiscal 2023 budget will be released on March 28 but there will be a sizable omission. The Pentagon says it won’t produce its justification statements until mid-April. There’s always an exemption available to our National Security State.

As mentioned earlier in newsletter, Biden sent Patriot missiles to Saudi Arabia. The Wall Street Journal has the story.

Mona Shtaya in +972:

Social media companies’ swift steps to protect Ukrainians’ free speech, especially in a time of war, was shocking to many Palestinians. Less than a year ago, during Israel’s attack on Gaza and the mass uprising in May, Palestinians turned to social media platforms to document human rights violations and disseminate their opinions with the aim of boosting and enriching the Palestinian narrative in the digital space, especially as that narrative rarely receives fair coverage in international mainstream media.

We Palestinians, however, never witnessed any of the measures taken by social media platforms for Ukraine. On the contrary, these platforms actively participated in a campaign of online repression last May that systematically targeted and censored Palestinian voices while taking down content that spoke out against Israeli oppression. This included removing on-the-ground documentation of police and settler assaults in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, where families were being threatened with forced displacement, and in the Gaza Strip, where Israeli fighter jets were heavily bombarding two million besieged people.

Yousef Munayyer is in Jewish Currents contrasting the BDS strategy with ineffective, bigoted, and haphazard boycotts.

Stephen Zunes was on Democracy Now! talking about Morocco’s occupation of Western Sahara:

STEPHEN ZUNES: Well, Trump recognized, formally recognized, Morocco’s illegal annexation of Western Sahara during his final weeks of his presidency. And like a number of impetuous Trump decisions, it was assumed that Biden would reverse it as soon as he came to office, particularly since a bipartisan group of congresspeople, career State Department officials and allied governments were encouraging him to do so. He has refused to do so, however.

The United States is virtually the only country in the world, the only country, to formally recognize Morocco’s illegal annexation. If you look at maps from the United Nations, from Google, from Rand McNally, National Geographic, whatever, they’re depicted as two separate countries. U.S. government maps, by contrast, show Western Sahara as part of Morocco, no demarcation between them. So, when Biden says that Russia has no right to unilaterally change international boundaries, that countries cannot expand their territory by force, he’s certainly correct. But he seems to think it’s OK if you’re a U.S. ally like Morocco.

AMY GOODMAN: So, for those who aren’t familiar with Africa’s last colony, if you can explain, very quickly, how Morocco occupied Western Sahara?

STEPHEN ZUNES: Morocco seized the territory in 1975 on the verge of its independence from Spain. And Western Sahara — its formal name is the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic — has been recognized by well over 80 countries. It’s a full member state of the African Union. So, what Biden is doing is he’s essentially recognizing the conquest of one recognized African state by another at a time when he’s speaking sanctimoniously about how the world must unite against Russian aggression because it violates long-standing international legal norms. The International Court of Justice, the United Nations Security Council, United Nations General Assembly, the Organization for African Unity all called for the withdrawal of Moroccan forces and an act of self-determination such as a referendum. But the United States has quietly supported the occupation ever since ’75, and in 2020 made the recognition official.

AMY GOODMAN: And talk about why you also, in the same articles, talk about both Palestine and Western Sahara. And then there’s a link with Trump pushing Morocco and accepting their power over Western Sahara.

STEPHEN ZUNES: Well, the United States is also the only country in the world that has formally recognized Israel’s illegal annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights. We’ve made a de facto recognition of Israel’s annexation of greater East Jerusalem. And since the Trump administration, we have considered the illegal settlements as part of Israel. And so there’s a link there. But in regard — but we’re talking about a whole nation when we’re talking about Western Sahara.

At the site Omar Zahzah has a very thorough breakdown of DSA’s National Political Committee’s decision to decharter the BDS and Palestine Solidarity Working Group.

Stay safe out there,

Michael

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