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{{Infobox | {{Infobox politician|name=Madeleine Albright|political_party=[[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic]]|image=Madeleine Albright.png|birth_name=Marie Jana Korbelová|birth_date=May 15, 1937|birth_place=Prague, [[Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938)|Czechoslovakia]]|death_date=March 23, 2022 (aged 84)|death_place=[[Washington, D.C.]], [[United States of America|United States]]|death_cause=Cancer|political_orientation=[[Imperialism]]}} | ||
'''Madeleine Albright''' was | '''Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright''' (May 15, 1937 – March 23, 2022) was a [[United States of America|Statesian]] politician and diplomat who served as [[United States Secretary of State|Secretary of State]] of the United States from 1997 to 2001 under [[Bill Clinton]]. Previously she served on the [[United States National Security Council|National Security Council]] under mentor [[Zbigniew Brzeziński]] and as US ambassador to the [[United Nations]] from 1993 to 1997. | ||
Albright is lauded in [[bourgeois media]] as a [[Feminism|feminist]] champion due to her being the first female Secretary of State, but in reality she shared the same policies as her [[White people|white]] male colleagues. She is an example of [[identity politics]] being used to whitewash [[imperialism]], with Albright having been involved in bombing [[Republic of Iraq|Iraq]] and [[Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1992–2003)|Yugoslavia]] among others.<ref name=":0">{{Web citation|author=Liza Featherstone|newspaper=[[Jacobin]]|title=Madeleine Albright Was a Killer|date=2022-03-24|url=https://jacobin.com/2022/03/madeleine-albright-death-un-ambassador-iraq-sanctions|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241218041515/https://jacobin.com/2022/03/madeleine-albright-death-un-ambassador-iraq-sanctions|archive-date=2024-12-18}}</ref> | |||
Albright was | She consistently pushed for increased U.S. military action and clashed with Clinton's Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, [[Colin Powell]] over the [[Powell Doctrine]]. This doctrine posited that the U.S. should intervene militarily only when its national interests are at risk, by contrast Albright reportedly asked: “What’s the point of having this superb military we’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”<ref name=":0" /> | ||
== Early life == | |||
Marie Jana Korbelová was born on May 15, 1937 in Prague, [[Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938)|Czechoslovakia]] to a [[Judaism|Jewish]] family, although Albright claims that she was unaware of her Jewish heritage until later in life. She was the eldest of the three children of Anna Spieglová and Czech diplomat [[Josef Korbel]], and experienced a privileged [[Bourgeoisie|bourgeois]] upbringing despite the challenges of travel. Following the occupation of Czechoslovakia by [[German Reich (1933–1945)|Nazi Germany]], the family fled to escape persecution, arriving in the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland|UK]] in 1939.<ref name=":2">{{Web citation|author=Godfrey Hodgson|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|title=Madeleine Albright obituary|date=2022-03-23|url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/23/madeleine-albright-obituary|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241219023057/https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/23/madeleine-albright-obituary|archive-date=2024-12-19}}</ref> | |||
Her father worked in [[Edvard Beneš]]' Czechoslovak government in exile for the duration of the [[Second World War]]. Albright's parents converted to [[Catholicism]] whilst living the [[London]] and raised their children as such due to the rising persecution,<ref name=":2" /> with 26 of Albright's family members being killed in the [[Holocaust]], including three grandparents.<ref name=":0" /> After the war the family returned home but in 1948 fled [[Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1948–1990)|Czechoslovakia]] for the United States after a popular [[revolution]] brought the communists to power.<ref name=":2" /> | |||
In 1957 Albright attended Wellesley College, where she became a Statesian citizen. Whilst working at the ''Denver Post'' she met her future husband, Joseph Albright, a member of the elite [[Medill-Patterson family|Medill-Patterson]] media owning family, who she married in 1959. Albright then took a master’s degree, followed by a doctorate in international relations at [[Columbia University]], [[New York City|New York]], where rabid [[Anti-communism|anti-communist]] Zbigniew Brzeziński was one of her teachers.<ref name=":2" /> | |||
== Career == | |||
=== Early career === | |||
From 1976 to 1978, Albright served as a legislative assistant to [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democrat]] Senator for [[Maine]], [[Ed Muskie]]. In 1978 Brzeziński recruited her to join the national security staff of the [[Jimmy Carter|Carter]] administration, where she worked on congressional liaison. Following President Jimmy Carter's defeat by [[Ronald Reagan]] in the 1980 election, Albright transitioned to [[academia]], conducting anti-communist research on [[Eastern Europe|Eastern European]] politics at the [[Woodrow Wilson International Center]] in [[Washington, D.C.]].<ref name=":2" /> | |||
After her marriage ended in 1981, Albright became increasingly active in academic, political, and fundraising circles in Washington and in 1982, she began teaching at Georgetown University, focusing on foreign policy and international affairs. She later contributed to Democratic political campaigns, working on the 1984 vice-presidential campaign of [[Geraldine Ferraro]] and the 1988 presidential campaign of [[Michael Dukakis]].<ref name=":2" /> | |||
=== Ambassador to the UN === | |||
After Bill Clinton won the 1992 election he selected Albright as US ambassador at the United Nations in 1993 where she most notably presided over the brutal post–[[Gulf War]] sanctions on Iraq, with the aim of maximizing the misery of Iraqis so as to encourage [[Saddam Hussein]]’s overthrow.<ref name=":0" /> In 1996, when asked in an interview about the [[Economic sanctions|sanctions]] on Iraq that had at the time been estimated to have killed half a million children, she said she believed that they were "worth it." It was not until 2020 that she apologised for these comments in a [[The New York Times|New York Times]] interview.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Gloria Oladipo|newspaper=The Guardian|title=‘A trailblazer’: political leaders pay tribute to Madeleine Albright|date=2022-03-23|url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/23/madeleine-albright-tributes-obama-bush-blair|retrieved=2022-03-23}}</ref> | |||
A key part of Albright's tenure as UN ambassador was her relentless campaign for the removal of UN secretary-general [[Boutros Boutros-Ghali]], due to his opposition to the U.S. hegemony. Boutros-Ghali repeatedly clashed with the U.S. over crisis' in Bosnia, Rwanda and Somalia among others, having called Bosnia a "war of the rich." Albright used several tactics in her aim of driving Boutros-Ghali from his post such as falsely accusing him of [[corruption]] but when it came time for his re-election he was re-elected unanimously leading Albright to ignore [[democracy]] and use the U.S. veto power to prevent him from serving a second term.<ref name=":0" /> | |||
== Secretary of State == | |||
In the midst of the [[1997 Asian financial crisis|Asian financial crisis]], Albright visited [[Kingdom of Thailand|Thailand]] in March 1999 where she expressed support for the [[austerity]] policies of the [[International Monetary Fund|IMF]] whilst scolding the Thai for turning to prostitution and drugs, which actually was a direct result of the austerity policies she supported. At the same time she lobbied hard for multi-billion dollar sales of used F-16 fighter jets to the crisis hit country.<ref name=":1">{{Citation|author=A.B. Abrams|year=2023|title=Power and Primacy: A History of Western Intervention in the Asia-Pacific: 2023 Updated Edition|title-url=https://annas-archive.org/md5/6cdf83dae317226bb9d6b6993e959a2b|chapter=Economic War on Asia: Crushing the Region’s Rising | |||
Economies}}</ref> | |||
Albright was also involved in the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia and was accused of [[hate speech]] against Serbs.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Deana Kjuka|newspaper=[[The Atlantic]]|title=Madeleine Albright's Scrap With Pro-Serbian Activists in a Prague Bookstore|date=2012-10-29|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/10/madeleine-albrights-scrap-with-pro-serbian-activists-in-a-prague-bookstore/264245/|retrieved=2022-03-24}}</ref> | |||
== Later life == | |||
After [[George W. Bush]]'s 2000 Presidential victory, Albright seamlessly returned to the elite circles, leveraging her influence for corporate clients like [[Coca-Cola]] and [[Merck]] through her new consultancy firm, the Albright Group. She also established a private equity firm, Albright Capital Management, and joined the [[New York Stock Exchange]] board in 2003.<ref name=":2" /> Albright was a member of the board of the [[Council on Foreign Relations]], an imperialist [[think tank]], from 2004 to 2014.<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=Council on Foreign Relations|title=Historical Roster of Directors and Officers|url=https://www.cfr.org/historical-roster-directors-and-officers|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250917123102/https://www.cfr.org/historical-roster-directors-and-officers|archive-date=2025-09-17}}</ref> In 2021 her consulting company helped pharmaceutical corporation [[Pfizer Inc.|Pfizer]] avoid sharing their international property, causing countless avoidable deaths due to the [[COVID-19 pandemic|COVID-19]] pandemic.<ref name=":0" /> | |||
Despite her Democratic ties, Albright twice advised Bush in 2006 but later backed [[Hillary Clinton]]’s failed presidential bids in 2008 and 2016.<ref name=":2" /> During the latter campaign she said of women that didn't support Hillary: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.” As was typical for her Albright once again used gender based identity politics to whitewash imperialism and Hillary Clinton's role in it, although she later apologised for this particular comment.<ref name=":0" /> | |||
Madeleine Albright died on March 23, 2022 from cancer and is survived by her three daughters, and six grandchildren.<ref name=":2" /> | |||
== References == | == References == | ||
<references /> | |||
[[Category:1937 births]] | |||
[[Category:2022 deaths]] | |||
[[Category:Politicians in the United States]] | [[Category:Politicians in the United States]] | ||
[[Category:Presidential Medal of Freedom recipients]] | |||
[[Category:Statesian diplomats]] | |||
[[Category:United States Secretaries of State]] | |||
Latest revision as of 17:12, 1 February 2026
Madeleine Albright | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Marie Jana Korbelová May 15, 1937 Prague, Czechoslovakia |
| Died | March 23, 2022 (aged 84) Washington, D.C., United States |
| Cause of death | Cancer |
| Political orientation | Imperialism |
| Political party | Democratic |
Madeleine Jana Korbel Albright (May 15, 1937 – March 23, 2022) was a Statesian politician and diplomat who served as Secretary of State of the United States from 1997 to 2001 under Bill Clinton. Previously she served on the National Security Council under mentor Zbigniew Brzeziński and as US ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 1997.
Albright is lauded in bourgeois media as a feminist champion due to her being the first female Secretary of State, but in reality she shared the same policies as her white male colleagues. She is an example of identity politics being used to whitewash imperialism, with Albright having been involved in bombing Iraq and Yugoslavia among others.[1]
She consistently pushed for increased U.S. military action and clashed with Clinton's Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, Colin Powell over the Powell Doctrine. This doctrine posited that the U.S. should intervene militarily only when its national interests are at risk, by contrast Albright reportedly asked: “What’s the point of having this superb military we’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”[1]
Early life[edit | edit source]
Marie Jana Korbelová was born on May 15, 1937 in Prague, Czechoslovakia to a Jewish family, although Albright claims that she was unaware of her Jewish heritage until later in life. She was the eldest of the three children of Anna Spieglová and Czech diplomat Josef Korbel, and experienced a privileged bourgeois upbringing despite the challenges of travel. Following the occupation of Czechoslovakia by Nazi Germany, the family fled to escape persecution, arriving in the UK in 1939.[2]
Her father worked in Edvard Beneš' Czechoslovak government in exile for the duration of the Second World War. Albright's parents converted to Catholicism whilst living the London and raised their children as such due to the rising persecution,[2] with 26 of Albright's family members being killed in the Holocaust, including three grandparents.[1] After the war the family returned home but in 1948 fled Czechoslovakia for the United States after a popular revolution brought the communists to power.[2]
In 1957 Albright attended Wellesley College, where she became a Statesian citizen. Whilst working at the Denver Post she met her future husband, Joseph Albright, a member of the elite Medill-Patterson media owning family, who she married in 1959. Albright then took a master’s degree, followed by a doctorate in international relations at Columbia University, New York, where rabid anti-communist Zbigniew Brzeziński was one of her teachers.[2]
Career[edit | edit source]
Early career[edit | edit source]
From 1976 to 1978, Albright served as a legislative assistant to Democrat Senator for Maine, Ed Muskie. In 1978 Brzeziński recruited her to join the national security staff of the Carter administration, where she worked on congressional liaison. Following President Jimmy Carter's defeat by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election, Albright transitioned to academia, conducting anti-communist research on Eastern European politics at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington, D.C..[2]
After her marriage ended in 1981, Albright became increasingly active in academic, political, and fundraising circles in Washington and in 1982, she began teaching at Georgetown University, focusing on foreign policy and international affairs. She later contributed to Democratic political campaigns, working on the 1984 vice-presidential campaign of Geraldine Ferraro and the 1988 presidential campaign of Michael Dukakis.[2]
Ambassador to the UN[edit | edit source]
After Bill Clinton won the 1992 election he selected Albright as US ambassador at the United Nations in 1993 where she most notably presided over the brutal post–Gulf War sanctions on Iraq, with the aim of maximizing the misery of Iraqis so as to encourage Saddam Hussein’s overthrow.[1] In 1996, when asked in an interview about the sanctions on Iraq that had at the time been estimated to have killed half a million children, she said she believed that they were "worth it." It was not until 2020 that she apologised for these comments in a New York Times interview.[3]
A key part of Albright's tenure as UN ambassador was her relentless campaign for the removal of UN secretary-general Boutros Boutros-Ghali, due to his opposition to the U.S. hegemony. Boutros-Ghali repeatedly clashed with the U.S. over crisis' in Bosnia, Rwanda and Somalia among others, having called Bosnia a "war of the rich." Albright used several tactics in her aim of driving Boutros-Ghali from his post such as falsely accusing him of corruption but when it came time for his re-election he was re-elected unanimously leading Albright to ignore democracy and use the U.S. veto power to prevent him from serving a second term.[1]
Secretary of State[edit | edit source]
In the midst of the Asian financial crisis, Albright visited Thailand in March 1999 where she expressed support for the austerity policies of the IMF whilst scolding the Thai for turning to prostitution and drugs, which actually was a direct result of the austerity policies she supported. At the same time she lobbied hard for multi-billion dollar sales of used F-16 fighter jets to the crisis hit country.[4]
Albright was also involved in the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia and was accused of hate speech against Serbs.[5]
Later life[edit | edit source]
After George W. Bush's 2000 Presidential victory, Albright seamlessly returned to the elite circles, leveraging her influence for corporate clients like Coca-Cola and Merck through her new consultancy firm, the Albright Group. She also established a private equity firm, Albright Capital Management, and joined the New York Stock Exchange board in 2003.[2] Albright was a member of the board of the Council on Foreign Relations, an imperialist think tank, from 2004 to 2014.[6] In 2021 her consulting company helped pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer avoid sharing their international property, causing countless avoidable deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[1]
Despite her Democratic ties, Albright twice advised Bush in 2006 but later backed Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential bids in 2008 and 2016.[2] During the latter campaign she said of women that didn't support Hillary: “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.” As was typical for her Albright once again used gender based identity politics to whitewash imperialism and Hillary Clinton's role in it, although she later apologised for this particular comment.[1]
Madeleine Albright died on March 23, 2022 from cancer and is survived by her three daughters, and six grandchildren.[2]
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 Liza Featherstone (2022-03-24). "Madeleine Albright Was a Killer" Jacobin. Archived from the original on 2024-12-18.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 Godfrey Hodgson (2022-03-23). "Madeleine Albright obituary" The Guardian. Archived from the original on 2024-12-19.
- ↑ Gloria Oladipo (2022-03-23). "‘A trailblazer’: political leaders pay tribute to Madeleine Albright" The Guardian. Retrieved 2022-03-23.
- ↑ A.B. Abrams (2023). Power and Primacy: A History of Western Intervention in the Asia-Pacific: 2023 Updated Edition: 'Economic War on Asia: Crushing the Region’s Rising Economies'.
- ↑ Deana Kjuka (2012-10-29). "Madeleine Albright's Scrap With Pro-Serbian Activists in a Prague Bookstore" The Atlantic. Retrieved 2022-03-24.
- ↑ "Historical Roster of Directors and Officers". Council on Foreign Relations. Archived from the original on 2025-09-17.