Posted on 09/21/2006 1:46:05 PM PDT by presidio9
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright criticized President George W. Bush's handling of the war on terror in a speech at Georgetown University Monday night.
Albright was the guest of honor at the fourth annual Snowdon Lecture, a speech by a public figure addressing the intersection of faith and social justice in the world. In the speech sponsored by the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, Albright attacked Bush's policies in Iraq and in third world countries.
"I hope I'm wrong, but I'm afraid that Iraq is going to go down in history as the greatest disaster in American foreign policy," she said. "We took our eye off the ball."
Bush's practice of calling terrorist organizations and governments haroboring them "evil" was challenged by Albright, who said that human nature does not lend itself to the absolutes Bush emphasizes.
"Evil depends on different perspectives," said Albright, who was the country's first female secretary of state. "This does not imply moral relativism, as critics may suggest, but instead acknowledgement that with great evil often comes a conviction of doing great good."
Albright urged listeners to win over the poorer nations of the world with kindness.
"The extremists appeal to fear," she said. "The moderates must appeal to hope."
Albright, the U.S. representative to the United Nations in the mid-1990s, recognized that it is easy to forget about the world's poor and sick because they do not directly benefit the United States by giving us money or oil.
"We cannot survive long as an island of prosperity in a sea of poverty and desperation," Albright said. "We will not have peace of mind if the world has not a piece of bread."
Albright began the lecture saying she would give her opinion "from a policy-maker's point of view." She said her observations are drawn from her experiences as the secretary of state during President Bill Clinton's second term and the many other public-service positions she has held.
Albright quoted seven different religious texts to emphasize the lecture's stated theme of religious tolerance. The works emphasized the fundamental rule of "do only to others what you would have them do to you."
"We must strive to make religious faith not a sword to wield against others, but a platform to live on together," Albright said in closing, which prompted a standing ovation.
During a question-and-answer session following the lecture, a Georgetown graduate student asked Albright about her work in Serbia during her term as Secretary of State.
"I think I am proudest of what we did in Kosovo because we stopped the killing," Albright said. "I believe in peace, but I'm not a pacifist. When genocidal killing is taking place, the international community has a responsibility to stop it."
Several ambassadors and representatives from 25 embassies were present at the speech, an event organizer said.
The Rev. John Langan of Georgetown University introduced Albright and said why she was chosen for the event.
"She serves as a reflective practitioner who draws upon her vast experience to reflect upon the emergence of religion as the major concern in international affairs." he said. "We need to give this cause a priority - a central priority - for the well-being of our religious communities, our countries and our world."
The InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington, an organization whose goals are world-wide community building and justice through religious tolerance, sponsored the lecture. Previous lecturers included World Bank President James Wolfensohn and former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young.
SHE was the Greatest Disaster in US foreign policy. She and Kimmie-Poo dancing cheek to cheek in PyongYang..........
What a moron.
Guess fighting back against terror gets in the way of her long term plan for surrending our leadership position in the world.
Maddie Albright calling someone or something the BIGGEST DISATER is PROJECTION!!
She should look in the mirror. And watch it crack.
""We cannot survive long as an island of prosperity in a sea of poverty and desperation," Albright said. "We will not have peace of mind if the world has not a piece of bread."
What a buffoon! I guess she didn't hear about the oil for food scandal, huh? Pssst, Madeline, pick up a newspaper now and then, 'kay?
Secretary of Defense Cohen, Impeached Bill Clinton, Albright, and too-long-accepted CODE-level thief
and accepted-document-destroyer National Security Adviser Sandy Berger,
holding "court" in the Ronald Reagan Building on April 25, 1999.
The Impeached Bill Clinton: "We were all making comments
we shouldn't have about how the meeting was getting very boring.
So finally we decided we had to make like the monkey. Cohen
started this 'hear no evil,' and then I was next so I spoke no evil,
then Madeleine saw no evil, so Sandy Berger said, 'I'm evil.'"
This FRom the cleaning lady ... lolol
Madeline (I didn't know I was Jewish along with not much else) Not2Bright.
Worse then giving a hostile regime the capablity to make nuclear weapons? Madam Not at all Bright, sit down and shut up while better people fix up the messes you and your criminal boss made.
As opposed to that diplomatic coup of giving North Korea everything they wanted not to make nuclear weapons?
What are we, the world's Bakery now?! Maybe the world should get up off its collective asses and bake some frigging bread? We've only been a nation for a few hundred years. All of Europe and Asia brag about their civilization's accomplishments. Did they forget how to work?
I think the Carter Foreign Policy Marvels in Iran got this whole shebang rolling way back in '79.
This from the most inept, uninformed, uneducated "man woman" we have ever had has SOS. She should stick to beauty pageants. She would be more successful there, and THAT IS NOT SAYING MUCH.
What's next, Jimmy Carter criticizing the President for not effectively dealing with Iran? Oh wait, he already has.
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