Madeleine Albright "worth it" quote: https://www.newsweek.com/watch-madeleine-albright-saying-iraqi-kids-deaths-worth-it-resurfaces-1691193

Important to note that it was not out of context, she was literally directly asked it by CNN's Leslie Stahl: https://youtu.be/4iFYaeoE3n4

Source on the 500,000 number: https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2000/mar/04/weekend7.weekend9 | https://www.gicj.org/positions-opinons/gicj-positions-and-opinions/1188-razing-the-truth-about-sanctions-against-iraq

That was 1996. She was made Secretary of State in 1997. In 1998, Jeremy Scahill travelled to Iraq as a reporter with Democracy Now!: https://www.democracynow.org/1998/11/25/hussein_replaces_iraqi_ambassadors_b You can also hear him describe the conditions under US sanctions there here: https://theintercept.com/2023/03/24/intercepted-podcast-united-states-iraq-imperialism/ Scahill: "I can say from having spent extensive time in Iraq in the 1990s, that its hospitals were like death rows for infants. There were no medical supplies. Birth defects that weren't found in modern medical journals were appearing. Syringes were being reused and hospital floors were being cleaned with gasoline."

For the sake of fairness, some now dispute those figures: https://www.lse.ac.uk/news/latest-news-from-lse/iraqi-government-misreported-child-mortality-lse-research-finds Personally, I do not find this refutation persuasive. Nonetheless, at the time, those figures, which are from UNICEF, were accepted as worthwhile collateral by the US political establishment, as demonstrated above.

Regarding the general political climate of the build-up to the Iraq war, it is difficult to decide on a single source to illustrate that. The aforementioned episode of Intercepted, however, does give an informative and concise overview. One need only to Google to find a plethora of additional material regarding it; for the sake of relative brevity and my own time management, I'll leave that research to the reader, for those who don't outright remember it.

Regarding the 90's policy of "prevention through deterrence," please see this excellent three-part series from Radiolab: https://radiolab.org/podcast/border-trilogy-part-1-hole-fence-2310 Some of the finest journalism ever broadcast over US airwaves, in my opinion.

The ongoing genocide in Gaza is well-documented, but for starters: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cde3eyzdr63o | https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/ | https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/the-growing-consensus-over-israels-genocide-in-gaza/ | https://msf.org.uk/issues/gaza-genocide

As for the long-standing US support of Israel, I feel as though I might as well provide a citation for calling water wet. There is an entire Wikipedia article on just that, with its own sources you can check for yourself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel%E2%80%93United_States_relations Additionally, there is also an entire Wikipedia article specifically on US support for Israel's war in Gaza: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_support_for_Israel_in_the_Gaza_war To be frank though, while I could spend all night fleshing out this section on Israel, I would find it hard to believe anyone is reading this far in and is unfamiliar with this situation, as this is current events. More pertinent I think is providing sources for historical events that are much less widely known about, which follows below.

Regarding the Carter administration covering up Israel's illegal nuclear weapons test: https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/22/blast-from-the-past-vela-satellite-israel-nuclear-double-flash-1979-ptbt-south-atlantic-south-africa/ (This is probably my number 1 entry for "something that sounds like a raving conspiracy theory but is actually entirely true and documented.")

Regarding the Carter administration selling weapons to Suharto: https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/nevins-truth-lies-accountability/ | https://www.democracynow.org/2025/1/10/jimmy_carter_indonesia_east_timor_genocide

More about the CIA-backed coup against Chile's democratically elected president, and the fascist regime of Augusto Pinochet that followed: https://youtu.be/MS5objr5dI0 | https://www.thenewworld.co.uk/richard-luck-salvador-allende-great-lives/ | https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_abuses_in_Chile_under_Augusto_Pinochet | https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-08-29/us-releases-chile-coup-documents | https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/world/americas/chile-coup-50-anniversary.html

On Allende's former Foreign Minister being assassinated by the US-backed Pinochet regime not only on US soil, but right in the heart of Washington DC, on Embassy Row no less -- alongside an American colleague in the car with him. https://theintercept.com/2016/09/21/the-assassination-of-orlando-letelier-and-the-politics-of-silence/ | https://theintercept.com/2023/06/16/henry-kissinger-assassination-orlando-letelier-chile/ | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Orlando_Letelier

While we're on this topic, it should be noted that Pinochet and his regime of disappearing and torturing leftist dissidents is commonly openly celebrated and unsubtly alluded to by Trump supporters: https://theintercept.com/2021/02/04/pinochet-far-right-hoppean-snake/ Feel free to cross-reference anyone clutching pearls over Charlie Kirk to see if they've ever mentioned this even once. I won't wait.

Regarding US involvement in El Salvador, particularly the infamous El Mozote massacre. Reader discretion is highly advised -- the details are truly horrific: https://theintercept.com/2020/01/28/el-mozote-massacre-reagan-war-on-press/ | https://inthesetimes.com/article/remember-el-mozote | https://www.nytimes.com/1993/03/21/world/how-us-actions-helped-hide-salvador-human-rights-abuses.html | https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/12/11/remembering-us-backed-state-terror-in-el-salvador

Regarding US involvement in Nicaragua and the backing of the Contras: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contras | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicaragua_v._United_States | https://newrepublic.com/article/70847/confessions-contra | https://web.archive.org/web/20111202063640/http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/70/9619.pdf | https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB2/index.html | https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/n-contras.php | https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/special/cia.html | https://theintercept.com/2021/04/27/biden-contra-death-squads-nicaragua/ | https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1987/07/29/report-details-contras-rights-abuses/8c76fdd8-e2bd-4515-b16d-70590d112359/ | https://www.nytimes.com/1985/07/16/world/rights-group-says-us-distorts-nicaragua-reports.html

Yes, the 1984 election was free and democratic -- every international observer agreed as much, except for the US: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/5/newsid_2538000/2538379.stm

Quoting from the BBC: "Approximately 400 independent foreign observers, including a number of Americans, were in Nicaragua to monitor proceedings. The unofficial British election observer, Lord Chitnis, said proceedings were not perfect but he had no doubt the elections were fair. In 1979 the Sandinistas - named after an assassinated former leader of Nicaragua - ousted long-time dictator Anastasio Somoza. The Sandinistas have been at odds with the US ever since, especially since the superpower began assisting the party's main opponents, the Contras. The Contras, based in neighbouring Honduras, are engaged in a guerrilla war aimed at ousting the Sandinista Front." Additionally: https://www.nytimes.com/1984/11/16/opinion/l-nicaraguan-vote-free-fair-hotly-contested-089345.html | https://web.archive.org/web/20151208164406/https://lasa-4.lasa.pitt.edu/members/reports/ElectoralProcessNicaragua.pdf

(Worth noting that Ortega would later become a dictator, decades later, after peacefully leaving office after an electoral defeat in 1990. He would lose his election bids several more times, before democratically returning to office, and only then seizing power. He actually moved farther right as an autocrat than he did when he governed democratically, contrary to the anti-communist fearmongering used as justification by the Reagan administration for supporting the Contras.)

Nicaragua was brought up during the 2020 Democratic Primary, as Bernie Sanders infamously took a trip there in 1985 for President Ortega's inauguration. To those who know the history, the mainstream political reporting regarding this factoid is gross and ahistorical. If you read one piece from this list regarding Nicaragua, might I suggest this one: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/05/who-was-naive-about-bernie-sanders-meeting-the-sandinistas/ Severe content warning for the opening paragraphs.

Regarding US involvement in Honduras, which I didn't even have time to address, but is equally horrific to US involvement in Nicaragua and El Salvador: https://theintercept.com/2018/11/28/killing-asylum-how-decades-of-u-s-policy-ravaged-central-america/ It is also, unfortunately, not merely relegated to decades past, but recent history too: https://theintercept.com/2017/08/29/honduras-coup-us-defense-departmetnt-center-hemispheric-defense-studies-chds/ | https://theintercept.com/2017/12/23/honduras-election-fraud-drugs-jose-orlando-hernandez/

To quote Scahill from the above piece, "I bring this up because we need to understand that this situation was not just created by Trump. It was created by more than a quarter century of U.S. policy. You could say it goes back even further than that. Trump is basically the thug who has now stepped in late in the game, continued decades of brutal, murderous, inhumane U.S. policy and is now punishing its victims even further." This effectively sums up my thoughts exactly too. America is awash in blood and has been my entire life, and well before it too.

So to see the same people who've cheered on and enabled the continuation and expansion of that violence pretend to actually give a fuck about the sanctity of human life is outright sickening. It makes my skin crawl. It's not just offensive, it's horrifying.