Madeleine Albright [File photo]

Madeleine Albright, Clinton's secretary of state, famously asked the then Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, "What's the point of having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?"

So she urged Clinton to use that superb military to bomb Serbia for 78 days. In an article she co-wrote with Jim O'Brien for the Washington Post, she criticized Putin, calling his rhetoric on Crimea "a fantasy inside a delusion wrapped in a tissue of lies." She particularly didn't like Putin's comparing Crimea to Kosovo, claiming that "international (read NATO) intervention in the Balkans was approved, contributed to and governed by a large number of states through many institutions and informal arrangements, including the UN Security Council."

That is a barefaced lie! NATO's bombing of Serbia was illegal and a violation of the UN Charter precisely because it did not have the approval of the UN Security Council. Putin's criticism of U.S. double standards is exactly right. The difference is that in the case of Crimea, no shots were fired and the referendum was near unanimous.

One might add a little footnote: Albright's investment firm, Albright Capital Management, was prepared to bid on the proposed privatization of Kosovo's state-owned telecom and postal company, estimated to be worth 100 million euros. Nevertheless, this fell through.

Speaking of cruelty, it is also well known that Albright, when she was the U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations, defended all UN sanctions against Iraq. When asked, "We have heard that half a million children have died…is the price worth it?" Albright coolly replied, "We think the price is worth it."

As ambassador to the UN, Albright also avoided describing the killings in Rwanda as "genocide" until overwhelmed by the evidence for it.

She is now defending Ukraine's coup interim government as being "widely representative."

That government happens to be headed by Arseniy Yatsenuk, a man hand-picked by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland.