Posted on 05/04/2002 9:13:38 AM PDT by ppaul
A serious legal argument can be made that sanctions imposed against Iraq in 1990 by the United Nations have come to constitute genocide.
Sanctions -- which will come up for renewal in Congress this month -- were originally instituted to compel Iraq's withdrawal from Kuwait. Iraq refused, and was forced out militarily in early 1991 through Operation Desert Storm. Sanctions against Iraq -- a country devastated by war, dependent on oil exports for 90 percent of its foreign revenue and one which imports 70 percent of its food -- were nonetheless re-imposed after the Gulf War.
The vanquished country was faced with a long list of demands, chief among them that it submit to extensive inspections and surrender its weapons of mass destruction. The Iraqi government's overall failure to satisfy the demands of the United Nations are a matter of record and are not in dispute here. The same is true of the autocratic, even murderous character of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
What is less recognized, however, is that the main reason for Iraq's recalcitrance is the United States insistence on "regime change" as a condition for the lifting of sanctions. Ousting Saddam Hussein, however desirable that may be from the perspective of U.S. policymakers, has never been endorsed by the international community. Nor is it a condition that the Iraqi government will ever willingly meet.
Unilateral action by the United States to overthrow the government of another sovereign nation, moreover, would constitute a grave breach of international law.
The real problem with the sanctions is that they target the wrong people: the poor, young, elderly and otherwise infirm members of Iraqi society. In the past 12 years, as many as 1 million to 2 million Iraqis may have died as a result of the sanctions, many of them children under the age of 5. This is more than were massacred in Rwanda in 1994, and on a par with the Armenian Holocaust of 1915-1919. UNICEF officials estimated in 2000 that 5,000 to 6,000 Iraqi children were dying each month primarily due to sanctions. That is equivalent to a World Trade Towers-scale calamity -- in a nation of only 18 million -- every month for the past decade or more.
Yet these Iraqi victims of sanctions have no more control over their government's behavior than we do. U.S. officials have clearly known the lethal impact of sanctions for years and have actively campaigned to maintain them regardless.
Knowing pursuit of a policy that kills members of a group, causes serious bodily or mental harm to them or inflicts on them conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction in whole or in part constitutes genocide under international law. The crime of genocide is defined in the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, a treaty we ratified in 1988.
It is not enough to say that Saddam is responsible for the plight of his people. That claim is legally and factually inaccurate. We are not free of all constraints in the way we respond to illegal acts by others. Police, for example, do not have the right to slaughter innocents on the way to apprehending criminals, even serious ones. Neither has Saddam's government misspent funds meant to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people, at least not in any degree likely to have altered their terrible fate.
Our officials have simply made a conscious calculation that the cost of Iraqi lives destroyed by sanctions are, to quote former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright when questioned about the issue, "worth it."
Meanwhile, the American public, spared graphic images of more conventional warfare by a policy that operates by more insidious means, has been lulled into complacency. It is hard to imagine that Americans would tolerate a conventional military campaign that caused almost exclusively civilian deaths numbering a million or more, many of them children under the age of 5, no matter how worthy the ends sought. But 12 years of sanctions have accomplished just that, while evoking scarcely a ripple of public protest.
No benefit attained by sanctions can justify genocide. Sanctions themselves are indefensible. They also engender cynicism, even hatred, toward the United States among Muslims and peoples of the Middle East and elsewhere. They represent a failed, bankrupt policy. Sanctions should be finally abandoned, not just "smartened."
Past efforts to tailor sanctions to avoid humanitarian repercussions have never succeeded, and are not likely to succeed now. Alternatives to sanctions -- other than war -- do exist. They require patience, building consensus within the international community, a consistent plan for regional disarmament and, above all, respect for international law. There is always an alternative to genocide: no genocide.
_________________________________________________________
George Bisharat is a professor of law at Hastings College of Law in San Francisco.
Past efforts to tailor sanctions to avoid humanitarian repercussions have never succeeded, and are not likely to succeed now.That's right. What works is the complete and utter destruction of the enemy's ability to make war. Complete annihilation or unconditional surrender. Then comes peace.
I guess the gassing of the Kurds and other civilians, the destruction of Iranian cities, firing missles into Israel, the invasion of Kuwait, etc. doesn't constitute "grave breaches of international law"?
Beam me up Scotty (where's Traficant when you need him?).
5.56mm
No where in his article does he explain how the sanctions are responsible for the deaths of these Iraqiis. Neither, does he explain why Saddam is not responsible for their lives. He just states that Saddam has not substantially misspent funds (never mind the money to Paletinian bombers). The author makes wild assertions without any evidence. I sure wouldn't want this guy defending me.
Please see the related thread regarding Saddam's production of a nuclear bomb Here.
I hate to break the news to you international law buffs, but the likelihood of nuclear annihilation may require some legal niceties to be broken.
It seems like that part of the world is where most of them are found.
This is right out of those who lust for Saddam, pr book, page 1. Or how to lie and spread Bravo Sierra for your buddy, Killer Saddam.
First of Saddam is worth over 7 billion $'s. If he used his personal wealth to buy food, no one in Iraq would ever starve to death.
Recently Saddam bought 5,000 luxury sedans probably Mercedes for his 5,000 most loyal thugs. Figure at least $50,000 per vehicle or $25,000,000 for luxury cars for thugs who kill innocent people. That would buy a lot food.
Saddam is giving each family of suicide murder bombers, $25,000. This blood money would buy a lot of food.
The number 1 and 2 causes of death in Iraq are cardiovascular and diabetes. Those are diseases from too much food, not starvation.
How much is Saddam paying to service and to get into flying order his 300 plus old planes. That would buy a lot of food.
Finally how much money does Saddam spend to get articles like this one written and then published in a maggot infested fishwrap?
STOP STARVATION IN IRAQ! KILL SADDAM AND HIS SUPPORTERS THERE AND AROUND THE WORLD!
The premise of this article--that sanctions don't work--is correct. Where the author takes that premise misses the point completely. The cause of the suffering in Iraq is the madman running the country. He has a bloodlust for power, a determination to lead the arab world to victory over the infidels. He has stolen all the funds received from "Oil for Food" sales to build more and deadlier weapons of mass destruction and allowed his subjects to die by the thousands. His removal, and the destruction of the country's ability to ever wage war again, are the only solution to the genocide that HE has perpetrated on the Iraqi people.
Yeah, so?
According to international law, aren't you supposed to give written notice to a country before you annialate them? I mean you can't just annialate someone without the proper notice, can you?
The sanctions are hurting Iraqi civilians much more then their hurting Saddam. The civilians did not gas the Kurds, they did not invade Kuwait, they do not have any choice in what Iraq does, so why should they suffer?
Obviously Saddam does not care about his civilians, so it is up to the US to do something to help them. Anyone who disagrees with me is worse then Saddam.
Who the hell cares how much Saddam is worth or how many Mecedeses he's buying. That's not the Iraqi civilian's fault. It's clear Saddam doesn't care about his people, only about himself.
It is not obvious to me why the USA has any obligation to "help" the populations of foreign countries who advocate the destruction of the USA.
This is why this data needs to get out to shred these PR Sierra Bravo phoney baloney stories like this article.
You, I and most conservatives know what you posted, "It's clear Saddam doesn't care about his people, only about himself!"
The blatant lies and coverups used by these Clymer lickers of Saddam need to be exposed. Then, when he is taken out, and he will be. Thae great middle of America will say "Good! Now no innocent children in Iraq will starve because of Saddam. When he is dead, he can't starve children anymore!!"
So when the oil runs out - these children starve anyway...
These " children under 5 " were all conceived under the sanctions -
I guess the parents get enough food for the important activities
True, one exception, Sadaam's WMD programs.
The civilians did not gas the Kurds, they did not invade Kuwait,...
Just where do you think the military population is drawn from?
... they do not have any choice in what Iraq does,...
Au contrare, they have the choice of overthrowing the tyrannt.
... so why should they suffer?
See the previous point.
5.56mm
Let me get this straight: Because a small minority of the population goes into the military, therefore the entire civilian population (including children) deserve to suffer?
Au contrare, they have the choice of overthrowing the tyrannt.
So you think they have a choice? You think they don't have to put up with Saddam if they don't want to, and the reason he's still in power is because the population likes him so much? Do you think Saddam would hesitate even for a second to use heavy weapons against his population if they tried to overthrow him? Besides, it's a bit hard to overthrow a dictator when your sick and hungry.
See the previous point.
The only point you made is that the 5000 children who die each month deserve to die because they are responsible for everything Saddam does. You are not very bright.
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