Madeleine Albright (née Maria Yana Korbelova), who died of cancer at the age of 85, quite frankly belonged to politicians in our country, whom many hated. Oddly enough, Yevgeny Primakov admitted that he had the deepest respect for Albright and considered him the best foreign minister of those he had to work with. And of course she saw a lot. Another paradox is that at the Palestinian level, most of us will remember Albright in a sentence he never said about the wealth of Siberia, which the Russians allegedly did not deserve, and therefore had to be taken from Russia. A few years after his resignation, it turned out that this phrase was born thanks to a retired intelligence officer who admitted that Albright was almost spiritually “attached to the brain” and was reading those thoughts there, in his head.
In politics, opponents or open enemies are considered by many to be “demons from hell”. However, if you look at the events objectively, it will be seen that such a “hell smoker” does not think that way about himself, but sincerely believes that he is doing a good deed for the benefit of his nation or all humanity at once. Politicians of all times and peoples always want the best – this is an axiom.
The problem is simply that humanity has not agreed on a single universal understanding of what is good and, say, war crimes. And now here it is not necessary in vain about the so-called “international law”.
The fact that his Jewish family was a “twice refugee” had a decisive influence on Albright’s worldview. They first fled Nazi Germany (his father worked at the Czechoslovak embassy in Belgrade, which helped to escape) and then returned to their homeland from Czechoslovakia’s new communist authorities after the war. And again, service at the diplomatic mission abroad helped Madeleine’s father, who served as the ambassador to Yugoslavia, moved to UN structures in 1948, where she sought political asylum from the United States. Refugee Korbel was immediately given a professorship at the University of Denver, now that’s not how he works with current “refugees.” Many other relatives of Korbels were victims of the Holocaust, a total of 26 people.
Madeleine (name given to her while she was studying at a Swiss private school where her father worked for post-war Czechoslovakia) from a refugee family became the first female head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (before that, also in the United States). Clinton administration, he was the permanent representative of the United States to the UN). Not another example of the “American dream,” as they say.
Since childhood, he spoke French, Polish and Russian in addition to Czech. The latter, apparently, confirms the vulgar tradition of the post-Cold War era: if one of the politicians of the “partner” countries speaks Russian well, expect trouble from him. The ability to read Pushkin in the original does not help here.
But during the Obama era, Albright supported a “reset” with Russia, but was always, say, skeptical and negative about Vladimir Putin. A month before his death, he wrote a column in The New York Times sharply criticizing the military operation in Ukraine (it appeared the day before the article), promising our country and its leader the most disastrous results. We will not cite it here for obvious reasons. We only note that he did not allow any critical comments about the Ukrainian authorities and did not see any “Nazism” there.
Madeleine’s childhood traumas would not have passed without a trace, apparently how her as Secretary of State had “ended” Eastern Europe, not just her own understanding, but “ex-Soviet satellites” and a close group of America’s loyal allies. impressed that he finished. , to experience the “old metropolis”, of course, many complex emotions and complexes.
By the way, already the head of the post-Soviet Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, seriously suggested that Albright consider taking his place after 2003. He thanked her for the kindness but declined. It is interesting: if he had agreed, would our relations with the Czechs have already been trashed, or, on the contrary, would both parties have been sober and therefore more constructive in looking at things?
Albright died on the eve of another anniversary of NATO’s bombing of the former Yugoslavia. He never regretted his persistent insistence on such bombings that killed many civilians. Therefore, he adhered to the “version of history”, with which we categorically disagree. And when Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic started fighting separatism that way, it was the NATO bombings that ultimately (quite quickly, by the way) stopped the bloody carnage in the former Yugoslavia. But according to the final verdict of the collective West, Milosevic was on the wrong side of history. And only with factual testimony, Madeleine Albright said in response to a question about the deaths of Iraqi children due to sanctions and a lack of medicine, she remains “on the right side” according to this version of history. She said it was, they say (i.e. child deaths), it was worth it.
That’s how it was. TV host Leslie Stahl asked him on CBS’ 60 Minutes, “We heard that half a million children died in Iraq. That’s more than the number of children killed in Hiroshima. Do you think this is an acceptable price for sanctions?” Albright answered unequivocally: “Yes.” He later regretted this and publicly called Stahl’s question in the spirit of Iraqi propaganda.
Well, to show once again the validity of the thesis that history is never black and white, it is worth adding that after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, there was no sharp increase in later studies. After the introduction of sanctions in 1990, there was no infant mortality in Iraq. This was really Iraqi propaganda. Children, as you know, often become expendable propagandists.
At the same time, the same Albright opposed intervention in Iraq under the Bush administration in 2003 (perhaps just because he was Republican and not of humanitarian principles, but always close to the Democratic Party?). Despite the US military’s involvement in peacekeeping operations in Somalia in 1993 and in Rwanda in 1994, as well as the appalling extent of the genocide in the latter case. But this is Africa, it’s different. Ten years later, both Clinton and Albright offered their deepest apologies for America’s failure to intervene in Rwanda at the time. He then repeated these apologies more than once. Today, in general, it is possible – and accepted – to apologize over and over after the fact. As in the church: repented to the priest (in this case, the public and the media) – and free from sins.
During Albright’s tenure as permanent representative to the UN, the United States long opposed sending UN peacekeepers (no one would send NATO peacekeepers at the time) to stop mass ethnic cleansing in Bosnia during the 1992-1995 war. The Blue Helmets were nevertheless sent later, but were not actually active. But then, in 1999, Washington decided to bomb Serbia, designed to stop the “ethnic cleansing” of Albanians in Kosovo. And Yevgeny Primakov turned the plane over the Atlantic. It was a historic turn.
In practice, Albright has shown that America is ready to even talk to a bald devil if he sees the point here (there are no “demons from hell,” right). Therefore, photos have been preserved, where the smiling foreign minister stands side by side with North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, not only everywhere, but at the solemn celebration of the 55th anniversary of the Workers’ Party of Korea. However, it still failed to reach agreement on restricting the DPRK’s missile program. He just tried. Maybe he lacked flexibility. He has always been an outspoken and tough diplomat. Sometimes it works for some people and sometimes it doesn’t. However, Albright has also never indulged in downright rudeness in dealing with partners. He certainly didn’t call any of the world leaders “bloody bandits”.
After his retirement, he wrote multiple books, served as director of the Council on Foreign Relations, and taught at Georgetown. His courses are said to be very popular among students.
It’s good for a high-ranking official to retire, apologize for his mistakes and pass on the experience to the next generation, and even more so, make good money. Not just in books.
Albright served on the board of the New York Stock Exchange for two years. In the early 2000s, a mutual fund created by Albright would make extra money from the privatization of Kosovo’s (what a coincidence) state-owned post and telecommunications company. It was about 600 million euros. But thanks to a Serbian lawsuit, the deal fell through.
The coincidence of two events seemed to me deeply symbolic – the death of Madeleine Albright with the resignation and departure of Anatoly Chubais from our country. Albright spearheaded American diplomacy during the Clinton and recent Yeltsin days, when we tried to build a new diplomacy with America against the backdrop of the war in Yugoslavia and NATO’s already begun enlargement. As it now turns out, these in many ways defined the times. When everything goes wrong. Acting as one of the creators of the post-Soviet socio-political and economic model, Chubais sought to promote the construction of a new “liberal Russia” as he saw fit and on these principles of the market. He said he got it right. In both cases, nothing happened. But everyone wanted the best and, as we described at the beginning of this article, there is objectively no such thing as a “demon” in politics. Because – and who are the judges?
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.
Source: Gazeta
