“1998 is way different from 2002. one can now easily buy computers and printers in Iraq”
Lets take a look at this shall we?
(March of 2001)
Adrian Dominican Sisters and Associates challenge economic restrictions and travel to Iraq under the Bush Administration. The purpose of the trip was to offer aid and to show love and support for the Iraqi people who are suffering under the international sanctions imposed at the close of the Gulf War. Ten years of economic sanctions against Iraq have created death and misery among the most vulnerable members of Iraqi society - the poor, elderly, newborn, sick and young. Before the sanctions were imposed, obesity was a primary health concern for children in Iraq. Since the sanctions, however, 30 percent of Iraqi children suffer from either acute or chronic malnutrition, according to UNICEF. This organization also estimates that 5,000 to 6,000 Iraqi children die every month from malnutrition and starvation. Looks like the numbers still haven’t changed very much lately?
(April 2001)
It would seem like the Pope is for end sanctions. St. John Paul II told the Iraqi ambassador in his opening remarks of his “esteem for the Iraqi people, whom I remember daily in my prayers, especially in light of the continuing difficulties which they face. As the embargo in your country continues to claim victims, I renew my appeal to the international community that innocent people should not be made to pay the consequences of a destructive war whose effects are still being felt by those who are weakest and most vulnerable.”
(March 2002)
For the period 1990 to 2000, UNICEF found that of 188 countries surveyed, Iraq suffered the worst change in mortality levels amongst children under five years old. Child mortality rates in Iraq actually more than doubled during the decade. The ‘smart sanctions’ proposed by the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States, and the latest Security Council resolution on Iraq, are still economic sanctions. Although they are claimed to ease restrictions on humanitarian imports, they do not allow the economic revival so desperately needed. No foreign loans, no foreign investment, no access to foreign exchange, and no Iraqi exports other than oil are permitted under the resolution. Nor will resources become available for teachers and civil servants, or for the rehabilitation and upkeep of the shattered infrastructure, hospitals and schools. The proposed ‘smart sanctions’ are not the solution to the economic and social catastrophe facing ordinary Iraqi citizens, but a grim perpetuation of a failed policy. - Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
Even then we have to deal with 500,000+ Iraqi children dead. Just because things are now starting to imrpove, should we turn a blind eye into what happened within the past decade.
Do the economic sanctions work?
Well, in 432 BC, officials in Athens denied traders from the state of Megara access to Athens’ harbor and its marketplace. That first recorded use of economic sanctions didn’t work, and instead helped precipitate the Peloponnesian War, a horrific and lengthy conflict that brought an end to the fledgling Greek democracy.
Like the Athenians, the United States uses sanctions in an effort to dissuade nations from taking undesirable actions – supporting terrorism, proliferating weapons of mass destruction, violating human rights, trafficking in drugs or despoiling the environment.
But like the Megarians, many of the targets of U.S. sanctions (ex. Iraq, Iran and Cuba) do not change their behavior in the face of sanctions, according to numerous studies.
The pressure to change sanctions policy has come largely from business interests, including The Boeing Co. and Washington state’s agricultural industry, who complain that they are losing export markets all over the world because Congress and the president are too quick to impose sanctions. Sanctions are imposed or threatened against 75 countries, ranging from Angola to Zaire, for behaviors ranging from support for terrorism to failure to adequately protect sea turtles, according to a study by the President’s Export Council.
But the business community and human rights activists argue that economic sanctions often hurt innocent civilians, most notably in Iraq. The activists have struck a chord in Seattle, leading to anti-sanctions protests and vigils. Activists have led groups of physicians and others to Iraq with medicine, equipment and medical texts, which are not allowed without State Department approval.
“Sanctions have become a cheap way of doing foreign policy, except the costs are often really quite terrible,” says John Mueller, a political scientist at the University of Rochester, who argues that sanctions should be narrowly focused on technologies usable by the military, and should not include food and medicine. “It’s not like blowing up a building, where you can count corpses, but it’s much worse,” said Mueller, referring to estimates that tens of thousands of Iraqi children have died from malnutrition-related diseases because of a lack of food and medicine. “Numerically, the deaths in Iraq are worse than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined.”
A 1997 study by the Institute for International Economics found that since 1970, unilateral U.S. sanctions had achieved foreign policy goals only 13 percent of the time. The study also concluded that sanctions are costing the United States $15 billion to $19 billion annually in potential exports.
Sanctions have not led to democratic changes in Cuba, Iraq or Iran, and the unambiguous threat of sanctions did not deter India and Pakistan from testing nuclear weapons. According to the Congressional Research Service, by the end of 1997 there were 191 different sanctions being imposed by the United States.
“people are seeming to forget that Iraq started a war, lost it, and doesn’t allow arms inspections.”
Of course Saddam is just as responsible (and probably more so) for the terrible conditions in Iraq. Saddam leaves billions of dollars unspent or to equip and train his army. Could it be that starvation is occurring in populations not loyal to Saddam or to show how America ruined the economy (ex Baghdad)? Engineered by the well-fed Mr. Hussein and his generals in a cynical “two-birds-with-one-stone” propaganda ploy? These sanctions serve as the perfect scapegoat for Saddam to cover up his true intentions from the public.
What Bush doesn’t understand is how Saddam can bend the will of the people. Do you think Saddam is intentionally going to say, “Whoops. My bad. I started the whole war and we lost it. It’s my fault for these terrible conditions.” Or will he say, “This is all the work of the Great Satan, George Bush! America is responsible for our suffering and imposing these harsh conditions! We must resist those infidels and show we’re right!” And since Saddam controls the media and the propaganda machine, which statement are the Iraqi people more willing to believe?
