The U.S. is preparing
economic sanctions against Russia. These are directed in the main at Russian
citizens and at western citizens doing business with Russian citizens.
Sanctions harm the general populations of the target countries. The harms
done to Iraq’s and Iran’s people by sanctions are widely recognized.
Madeleine Albright accepted the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children as a
consequence of U.S. sanctions against Iraq.
The theory behind
sanctions is to hurt, immiserate
and kill as many innocent people as possible in a country until its
leadership caves in to U.S. demands. The theory behind it is mass murder or a
situation of mass misery that’s intolerable. This theory is wrong and does
wrong in targeting innocent people and in expecting that their misery will
translate into a policy change of their government.
Russians are led by a
gang just as the U.S. is led by a gang. The right way to proceed is for the
gang leaders to resolve their differences among themselves. The citizens of
each country are remote from the squabbles of their government’s leaders. It
is very, very difficult, indeed impossible, to assign responsibility for what
Obama and Putin do to American and Russian voters. How does a single vote of
anyone translate into making Obama and Putin an agent who is carrying out the
will and designs of that person? It doesn’t because one’s control
over the policies of that government are nil. We are stuck with these
gangs and states at the moment. We are cogs in a system that’s extremely
difficult to change.
Sanctions are wrong for
the same reason that dropping a hydrogen bomb on Moscow would be wrong. They
target innocent people. They are wrong for the same reason that attacking the
Taliban government in Afghanistan was wrong, when bin Laden was the accused.
They are wrong for the same reason that attacking Iraq was wrong when Saddam
Hussein was the accused target. They are wrong for the same reason that
bombing Libya was wrong when Gaddafi was the accused target.
Furthermore, in all these
cases involving sanctions, the U.S. gang has acted unjudicially
as accuser, prosecutor, judge, jury and executioner. Evidence has been
insufficient in all cases. Haste and impetuous action were the order of the
day, ill-considered action at that in which consequences were not thought
through. It was wrongly assumed that force could resolve the differences.
Evidence and intelligence was doctored, manufactured, and lied about.
Scenarios were invented, propagandized and presented as fact. Histories were
buried. The U.S. roles in causing problems were buried. Demonizing of the
accused “enemies” took over. All of this was very, very wrong.
The theory of sanctions
is wrong in targeting innocent populations.
The judgments,
procedures, and methods that bring about and rationalize the sanctions
instituted by the U.S. have been very wrong too.
The consequences of the
sanctions have been wrong as well. They have led to protracted struggles and,
in some cases, to wars, because the punishments dished out to the populations
didn’t result in changes in the policies of the leaders. In the U.S., this
should be perfectly understandable. The people elected Obama to make certain
changes that he promised. In all the important cases, he didn’t do it. He did
the opposite. He is currently sitting with the highest disapproval ratings of
his terms and the lowest approval, but he is not altering his policies at
all. This is occurring in a country whose government brags about its having a
responsive democracy. Why should it be expected that some other nation with a
less responsive system should be able to influence their leaders when the
people’s misery multiplies?
