As we celebrate the Fourth of July, Independence Day of the United States of America, it is appropriate to take a closer look of what is said in our name - and who speaks in our name.
Let's take a well-known "dignitary": US Secretary of State, Madeleine K. Albright.
Shortly before giving the speech below in honor of the former US Secretary of the Treasury and fellow Jew, Henry Morgenthau,Jr., - author of the genocidal plan to de-industrialize Germany in 1945 and turn it into a goat pasture, with the resulting loss of more millions of German lives than the US bombing policy had managed to destroy - Albright openly commented in a "Sixty Minutes" TV-interview that over a million Iraqi lives had been destroyed by the deliberate US blockade of Iraq - in order to punish Saddam Hussein.
Albright admitted that at least 500,000 of these victims of a deliberate US starvation policy were children. Albright said that was a "small price" and a just and "appropriate" price to pay for the greater good of "...getting rid of Saddam Husein".
Albright's opinion was that the Iraqi people must be "taught a lesson" and made to "pay the price" for having supported Saddam Hussein - a strange concept indeed, since it is up to the Iraqis to elect and choose their form of government and leader - without interference from outsiders.
Albright knows perfectly well that the U.S. recognized and still recognizes the Iraqi regime and ruler as the legitimate government of Iraq and has accredited Saddam's diplomats and embassy as well as ambassador for decades!
What is this double-think and double-standard in all the following warm, fuzzy slogans trotted out by Albright, permanent representative of the U.S. to the United Nations (and now U.S. Secretary Of State! upon the Twelfth Anniversary Dinner of the Holocaust Memorial Center, October 20, 1996.
Look for some stunning quotes:
Albright: I am pleased to join you in this evening of solemn celebration. Solemn because of the grim nature of the events memorialized at the Holocaust Memorial Center whose anniversary we observe tonight. Celebratory because of the resilience of human spirit reflected in the decision to build that memorial.
For twelve years, the center has served this community and our nation as educator, reminder and warning. This afternoon, I had an opportunity to tour the center, and I can attest: it captures as nothing else could the full range of human potential, from indescribable horror to sublime bravery.
So on behalf of the Clinton Administration, I would like tonight to salute Rabbi Rosenzveig, President Waldman, members of the Executive Committee of the Center, the Board of Directors, and all of you who have come together in support of a cause that really matters.
I am especially grateful for the chance to join with you in paying tribute to Henry Morgenthau, Jr., whose efforts to mobilize a robust American response to the Holocaust should never be forgotten.
The "robust American response" was the murderous, genocidal "Morgenthau Plan" responsible for the death and starvation of millions of defeated Germans ***after*** the war. This was a plan so devastating that even President Truman was very critical of it and tried to ameliarate it.
Albright: Secretary Morgenthau believed that American leadership depended as much on the example we set, as on the power we possess. His own legacy stems from the example he set.
He never allowed the trappings of office to obscure his ethics or his loyalty to humanity. While others focused on what they said could not be done, he stressed what he knew had to be done. While others preferred to deny the truth, he demanded--of himself, his peers and his President--that they face the truth.
The results were, in his own view, too little, too late, but in convincing President Roosevelt to establish the War Refugee Board, Morgenthau helped to save tens of thousands of lives.
The War Refugee Board was nothing but a paper propaganda exercise of ***three*** American politicians who seldom if ever met to discuss anything! It served Morgenthau merely to make propaganda pronouncements, usually without bothering to even consult the other two.
Albright: Secretary Morgenthau's actions during the war echoed his warnings before the war.
He was among the first to argue that Hitler could not and should not be appeased. "The current claim of an aggressor power," he wrote to the President in 1938, "is always its last--until the next one. The forces of aggression must be stopped."
And in 1941, he told the graduating class at Amherst College that their country, and their generation, would face a choice between dying on their feet or living on their knees. The experience of Morgenthau's generation still speaks to ours. The Holocaust Center reflects the urgency that we listen. But there is an ongoing danger that we will not.
Morgenthau and his generation of political hacks were the originators, planners and executioners of the post-war American holocaust inflicted on the Germans. Read "Gruesome Harvest" by Keeling, published in the USA in 1947
Albright: Many years have passed since the rise and fall of Nazism. For the youngsters who entered high school this past fall, even the Cold War must seem distant. How easy--and how fatal--it would be if we were to forget that freedom must be defended; that evil, if left unopposed, will only spawn more evil; and that our own fate cannot be divorced from the fate of others.
Fifty years ago, President Truman warned that:
It is easier to remove tyrants and destroy concentration camps than it is to kill the ideas which gave them birth...Victory on the battlefield...(is) not enough. For a good (or)...lasting peace, the decent peoples of the earth must remain determined to strike down the evil spirit which has hung over the world.
Today, the challenge of building a good and lasting peace is in our hands.
Like our predecessors, we, too, face a choice. Between the temptation of complacency and heeding the hard lessons of this century; between isolationism and the guidance inscribed in the Holocaust Center's brochure:
(that) we must be strong, vigilant, and alert to protect our open, free society. (And) we must embrace the humanity and courage of the righteous few as the standard of the many.
As President Clinton has said, the United States remains the world's indispensable country. Often, we will act with others. Sometimes, we will act alone. But we must always have the will to defend our interests, the wisdom to preserve core values and the integrity to help allies and friends remain secure.
. . . so that America's friend, Israel, can impose a brutal occupation regime on the Palestinians, violating the Human Rights of Palestinians wholesale - terrorizing, torturing and imprisoning tens of thousands, under their control? Ignoring UN resolutions by the dozens, without repercussions for a murderous blockade?
Albright: That is why American diplomacy and material support has been harnessed to the cause of peace in tinderbox regions such as Northern Ireland, Central Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East.
That is why, in the Middle East, we remain determined, despite recent setbacks, to help the parties forge a peace that is just, lasting and secure.
How can any American official proclaim with a straight face that the Clinton Administration could even pretend to broker an honest and fair peace in the Middle East - with so many Jewish appointees to Clinton's Cabinet? Only a supreme hypocrite could claim that!
Albright: It is why we have used United Nations sanctions and American military power to keep Saddam Hussein trapped in a strategic box from which Iraq cannot threaten its neighbors, the world's economic well-being or the safety of allied pilots.
It is why President Clinton organized an international coalition that caused the tyrants in Haiti to leave, ending the horrible violations of human rights there, and making it possible for Haitians to build a decent life at home, rather than risk their lives at sea.
And it is why America is standing up to the perpetrators and apologists of international terror, for no right is more basic than the right to ride a bus, board a plane, shop at a market, or pray to one's God free from the threat of terror."
(End of Part I, Albright speech)
Tomorrow: Part II
Thought for the Day:
"He who wears his morality but as his best garment were better naked."
(Kahlil Gibran)