Are economic sanctions moral???

Great Debates
1

OK, it’s late, and I admittedly am I brand new Dope reader and poster… But I’ve been really impressed with the posts here, and I’d really like to hear what the same community has to say about my big gripe about American foreign policy and american society. My two gripes are these:

  1. The US thinks that a good ol’ fashioned economic sanction is the answer to just about every foreign policy problem

and

  1. No one in the US cares, and everyone who sees my “End Iraqi sanctions now!” bumper sticker thinks I’m a big Saddam-lover.

I’m more interested in hearing other peoples’ opinions on this, but I’ll briefly state my case. My perception of the design behind economic sanctions is to take the power and support away from a Nation’s leadership (Fidel and Saddam come to mind.) My trouble is this… As I learned in 6th grade social studies, the purpose of a government is to fend for the peoples’ basic needs, and it is when the government no longer upholds those basic needs that the people rebel. You know, the whole social contract bit. So, the only way US economic sanctions really WORK at ousting a government is when they deny the citizens of a nation their basic needs, and that is exactly what we try to do.

We deny Cuban children the medicine they need to be healthy, so their parents will eventually start to blame Castro. That is what an economic sanction is.

What kind of foreign policy is this? Using the suffering of the citizens of a country as a tool? It seems to me that this is just a ridiculous and cowardly way for the United States to deal with world problems - get involved as little as possible, but still have a devastating effect on that which it disagrees with.

I would further like to quickly contend the ineffectiveness of sanctions… Which is really easy, because Castro and Hussein are still in power, as well as Kadaffi (sp?) and the rest of the boys. Sanction shave provided these leaders with a wonderful scapegoat for the ills caused upon the people by these leaders. The leaders simply say, “You don’t have what you need because of the US.”

What would happen if these sanctions were no longer there? Wouldn’t all these nations be able to expect to receive their basic needs from their governments? I sincerely believe that if Saddam Hussein could CHOOSE, he would opt to continue the economic (not military) sanctions upon his country.

Botton line for those who are like me and who don’t have the patience to read such a wordy pile of stuff:

US Economic sanctions use the suffering of innocent people to “punish” leaders for their sins, and it doesn’t even work.

  • Rog
2

One of these days it is possible that the United States will enter into war with Iraq. I’d rather Iraq didn’t have all sorts of neat weapons to shoot at me with. Economic sanctions go a long way towards preventing them from building to effective a military force. Economic sanctions aren’t designed to change the leadership of a nation.

Marc

3

Well…I’m not prepared to say economic sanctions DON"T WORK period.

From what I know about it they had an effect in South Africa. This is mostly due, I think, to the existence at the time of the sanctions of a pretty well organized oppositon (who were in a position to contradict the government’s assertion that the people imposing the sactions were the real enemy), and South Africa’s cultural and economic ties to the West.

Beyond that I agree with you, certainly about Iraq. I recall
Bush broadcasting a speech to the Iraqi people telling them to rise up and overthrow Saddam. But we’ve never done anything to foster a real dissent movement in Iraq. We didn’t support the dissidents there were. Soo…without that, what will sanctions do be increase resentment of us, and support, based on fear, of the leader? Sanctions are the best thing that ever happend to Saddam.

Economic sanctions make sense when they make sense.

4

Whatever you choose to believe the theory is - and do sanctions work, anyway: Cuba ? - the reality is no group exists or will be allowed to exist within Iraq while Sammam remains in power. Opposition is simply not going to happen.

Thus, IMHO, sanctions cannot ever hope to achive anything, except the following…

The controversy began with a December 1995 letter to Lancet, the journal of the British Medical Association. Sarah Zaidi and Mary Smith-Fawzi, members of the 1995 study team of the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) that had examined health and nutritional conditions in Iraq, **asserted that post-Gulf War sanctions were responsible for the deaths of 567,000 Iraqi children. **

This figure, generally rounded to 600,000, has been the most frequently cited number. **A New York Times article picked up the story and flatly declared: “Iraq Sanctions Kill Children.” In May 1996, CBS-TV’s 60 Minutes depicted sanctions as a murderous assault on hundreds of thousands of children. **
A few months later, UNICEF reported that 4,500 children under the age of five were dying every month in Iraq from hunger and disease. Critics regularly claimed that **“More Iraqi children have died as a result of sanctions than the combined total of two atomic bombs on Japan **and the recent scourge of ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia.”

Above from: http://www.fourthfreedom.org/hottopic/painpromise.html

For wider reading and someone’s personal view ("10 reasos why " type stuff), including the role sactions played in South Africa:
http://salam.org/iraq/myth.html

Regarding betenoir’s claim that: “We didn’t support the dissidents there were.”

I have to disagree with that. At the ‘Coalition’s’ urging and with CIA arms and backing, the Marsh Arabs - the Shiite Muslims closer in culture to Iran than Iraq - did rise up against Saddam at the end of the Gulf War.

Despite guarantee’s of support,they were left hanging when it became apparent Saddam wasn’t as helpless as the West imagined.

Frankly, they were abandoned and Saddam has been engaged on a genocidal mission against them ever since.

5

I think a useful distinction can be made between cases like Sth Africa and Burma/ Myanmar and those like Iraq.

In the case of Burma and Sth Africa there are/ were clearly legitimate opposition groups with a realistic chance of taking out the offensive regime who are asking for sanctions. My guess is that for Sth Africa they had some effect, although possibly the effect of sporting sanctions - particularly by the New Zealand rugby team - were as great.

In Iraq it seems to me that the sanctions are without any real purpose and are causing great suffering.

On the other hand, the legitimate leader of Burma is currently sitting in her car, gravely ill, in her standoff with the SLORC. Sanctions (like the ones my government is backsliding on) are a help to her.

A while ago I started a thread on the dilemma faced by sincere governments in these situations. Didn’t get many responses, but you may find it interesting: Despotic regimes: isolation or engagement?

picmr

6

As regards the effectiveness of economic sanctions, I agree that they are useful in crippling the army of a foe by not allowing them to expand on their army but on the other hand they supply people like Saddam Hussein with a useful propaganda tool. By economically isolating Iraq the effects on the quality of life of Iraqis is quite harsh. Iraq’s health service, in particular, is suffering because they cannot buy new equipment and the latest drugs. This builds up a resentment of the country or countries doing the sanctioning and, by exploiting an “Us and Them” feeling in people it could conceivably increase support for their government. This is what’s happened in Iraq and the result is that Saddam Hussein, despite all the hardship he’s inflicted on his country, is still a popular leader.
Another problem with sanctions is that they only work if every country takes part in them. Taking Iraq as an example more and more countries, Russia being the most notable example, are calling for the embargo’s to be dropped and have already started trading with Iraq on a limited basis.

Personally I think that economic sanctions are only useful if the country in question has a powerful military force. Sanctions can do a great deal to reduce the power of their military. However, given that the Iraqi army is third rate and getting worse I think that the sanctions against them should be dropped. They’ve done their job.

7

If you owned a business would you feel justified in not serving someone with whom you had a serious disagreement ?

Oversimplification I guess but if you become dependant on someone or something then you should be very careful when you are about to upset them, they just might take their toys home.

What is the alternative ? Supply them with all the goods they wish for and be called hypocrites for taking the money ?

If you live in a world community then you should not try to hold it to ransom.
The US can take some of the responsibility for the current regime existing in Iraq with its supply of war material for use against Iran but once you know the error of your ways there is no reason to carry on down the same path.

Short of removing the current regime by force, which would be unacceptable to much of the rest of the world, this is about the only action available.

8

Excellent first thread, Rog!

[nitpick]
Aren’t most economic sanctions imposed by the UN, rather than the US ? Cuba being the obvious exception, of course. It’s a bit different, IMHO.
[/nitpick]

Sanctions aren’t a great diplomatic tool, but the alternatives can be worse:

Alternative #1: Letting a country like Iraq trade on the world market as it wishes would make it way too easy for Saddam to beef up his military and try something stupid again. While most of the SDMB posters would find it morally unacceptable to sell weapons to a regime like Hussein’s, there are plenty of people around who wouldn’t mind doing so if there was a profit. And there’s oil in Iraq, it’s not because they couldn’t afford it.

Alternative #2: War. War is - not good.

Unfortunately, sanctions only really worked on S. Africa because they - as a nation - so wanted to be part of the international community. Leaving them out made an impression on the S. African voters.

Saddam (or Milosevic, for that matter) appear to have made isolationism a part of their political platform, so being isolated isn’t really a matter of concern to them. Of course, they’re playing the “victim” card for all that it’s worth, but the advantage of a nationalistic platform is that you can tell you voters that they’re suffering for the immensely more important nation and that they should be proud. It has worked before.

For a regime like Hussein’s, I guess a possible solution could be to set up a neutral trading house (UN, Red Cross, I don’t know): Iraq comes up with a list of needed medicine & basic foodstuffs. Our clearing house verifies the list withrelevant experts and shops around for what’s needed. Iraq pays in oil - covering the purchases and the cost of running the trading house (although this should be affordable). Medicine etc. is delivered directly to Iraq. Of course, that leaves Hussein with more money to spend on his military internally, but at least he’ll have a hard time beefing it up with new weapons and the like. I even believe a scheme like this has been attempted, though the outcome wasn’t too good, IIRC.

Oh, and the biggest victory we could hand Saddam Hussein would be to do away with the sanctions now. Even if we decide to ease them in some respects, it MUST be visible that it’s done out of consideration for the Iraqi poeple, not as a result of Hussein’s statesmanship.

Just my 0.02 Euro.

9

I have a problem with blaming sanctions for the deaths of children.

Saddam Hussein, that great humanitarian tried something similar when during our bombing sorties he deliberately moved civilians into liikely military targets in the hopes of gaining support by having the U.S. murder them.

Blame Saddam for funnelling his country’s resources into the military, instead of the welfare of his people. I wouldn’t put it past the guy to actaull encourage the suffering and deaths so that he could blame it on the U.S. again.

Was it economic sanctions that basic wiped out the Kurds?

The economic sanctions must be maintained. We cannot allow Saddam to regain his feet. What shames me is that we didn’t go all the way to Baghdad and get rid of this joker in the first place.

I understand that may have made him more powerful (as a martyr,) but this guy’s responsible for a LOT of suffering.

10

The trouble with someone like Saddam is that I doubt he would have any qualms about mistreating his people if it assisted him in his desire to stay in power.

The Iraqi people are still suffering due to this and although I agree with scylla when she says that Saddam should be blamed for the Welfare of his people, I still think that he’s going to carry on mistreating his people and denying them proper medical supplies for as long as serves his interests. Economic sanctions aren’t going to do anything to stop this and so the cycle will continue unless the sanctions around Iraq are lifted to at least allow in medical supplies. Spiny’s (d’ya mind if I call you Spiny?) suggestion of a neutral trading house probably the best one I’ve heard.

This would definately be an improvement on the current state of affairs but I still feel that the current trade restrictions are raising public sympathy for Saddam, making it harder to get rid of him in the long run.

11

Yeah, keeping pencils from those evil Iraqis makes a lot of sense.

12

Wow, you folks really do know what you’re talking about. Thanks for the great responses to this thread.

A couple of things that I wanted to that I feel need to be mentioned:

  1. Many people seem to think that lifting economic sanctions are going to allow Saddam Hussein to build the military superpower he’s always had wet dreams about. However, we should see that Iraq’s military budget is already astronomical, and is limited only in the amount of technology they have access to. This is a sanction that I am not opposed to - no one is SELLING Iraq a reasonable amount of advanced weapons that can compete with ours, and therefore all the money in the world won’t have them. The UN weapons inspectors have disabled a vast majority of Iraq’s war machine, and they really are not a threat. The design behind the sanctions has been to unseat Hussein, not to limit his military. I believe that many politicians have made the assertation that it is to limit his military, knowing full well that they are utililizing the politics of fear.

  2. I’m still taking the relatively extreme stance that economic sanctions are NEVER moral. While I may even agree that sanctions were ever so slightly effective in ending an establishment that I think was already doomed anyway, I will still contend that the ends do not justify the means.

  3. I forget the name, and I apologize for being too lazy to look it up, but thanks for correcting me on the UN sanctions / US sanctions issue. However, it should be noted that the US is one of the few major UN countries still in favor of sanctions against Iraq - even Britain is starting to ease up on this one, proving once again that they are much cooler than us.

Thanks so much for the great discussion! Keep it coming!

13

The sanctions against Iraq have not killed one single child. Not one. Saddam is allowed to sell all the oil he wants to buy “humanitarian products”. Instead he buys arms, more palaces, and smuggles in “weapons of mass distruction”. All Saddam has to do is spend the money on his own countries kids, and they will not die. Why do you think that lifting the sanctions would cause Saddam to start spending $ on the “people”?

Chlorine= he wants it for poison gas, and he won’t let the UN inspectors do any decent job of seaching out his labs. You do not need Chlorine for water purification, you can use iodine also, or ozone (or several other things). But you can’t make poison gas shells with iodine, now can you.

Saddam can end the suffering of his people any time he wants to- stop spending so much on his army, and more on his people. Stop building palace while the people starve. And let the UN do real inspections, so we can let in more stuff. He is personally responsible for any deaths attributed to the "sanctions’. Meanwhile, those sanctions are keeping more “weapons of mass destruction” out of a madmans hands.

14

Seems to me that the logical answer to that is to just look at it like it is:

We’d literally send him FOOD. If he wants to put it in his garage and let it rot, the people are going to find out and it’s gonna be the end of him. If we lift sanctions, he could either accept or reject the food, medicine, etc. That simple. What’s to lose from that? Your argument just as easily seems to support lifting sanctions.

15

Sure, but he doesn’t give a rat’s arse and if he did, the whole situation wouldn’t have arisen. We know he’s not going to see the light on this and we have to take that into account when assessing our approach. So far it hasn’t worked and IMHO the obscenity is that all the policy-makers know this but don’t want to admit the fact that he’s won. The Iraqi citizenry pay the price for this face-saving.

He’s NOT a madman. He’s a very effective politician. He remains in power, he is untouched by the sanctions, he is capable of bringing the situation to the brink and if it comes to it, hopping down in the bomb shelter for a while and starting the whole process again. And he has successfully deflected the approach of the West into hurting people he doesn’t care about and we are supposed to.

picmr

16

Rog: do you think the sanctions are stopping him from buying FOOD? The UN “Oil for Food” program began in 1996. The UN allows Irag to sell some 10>11 billion of oil each year to buy food & “essential items”. (more on that later). The “People” have found out, he has had several assassination & coup attempts. But the Republican Guard & the Secret Police eat very well indeed.

Picmr: so, since he does not give a rats ass about his people NOW, when in theory all his oil sales go to food & essentials, he is going to care more & buy more stuff for his people when he can spend the $$ any way he wants? How will that help? Not a madman? “he entertained himself and his freinds by torturing and killing dogs & cats by sticking a rd-hot steel rod up their anuses and in their eyes”* Sane by your standards, maybe. :rolleyes:

Let’s take a look at the kind of things Saddam spends his peoples money on, “while the kids are starving”. He has spent over 2.2 BILLION (since the gulf war)building some 74 palaces*. How many kids would that have fed? He has a team of 12 doctors on call 24/7*, and this in a nation where 10 of those doctors could have saved some 10000 kids a year. His yacht is 394 feet long. He is building a holiday resort on Lake Tharthar*. His personal wealth is estimated to be atleast 4 Billion US $.

Oh, and to show you how much he cares about his people, here is a list of some of the “essential items” he gets thru the UN sanctions: a $16,000 liposuction machine, a $126K tooth whitening laser,silicon breast implants, viagra, acne cream, crystal glasses, crates of whiskey & champagne, and cigars*. Many of the luxuries are smuggled across the borders to trade for chemicals, weapons, etc.

Oh, and about those “pumps” that we are stopping him from buying for “septic” use. It is well known that he is using those types of pumps in an attempt to drain the south marsh, down where the tigris & euphates meet up. Not for more farm land, not saddam. He wants to commit genocide on the people who live there, the Ma’dan. he is doing it, too, but the work goes slowly, as we won’t let him buy those pumps. Shame on us. :rolleyes:

  • source for most stats, and the quote:“The Worlds Most dangerous Places” Robert Y Pelton,Harper, 2000.