posted 02-16-2001 10:01 PM               

We had a speaker come to my school on this very topic, and there is a good article in US News and World Report about the suffering wrought by the sanctions (Sept 11, 2000) The speaker made the point that during the war we pretty much destroyed the Iraqi infrastructure, and that combined with the sanctions, the weakest segments of Iraqi society, including children, have been hardest hit. Medical supplies are especially difficult to come by, even with the oil-for money program.

Not everybody agrees that the sanctions are bad. Madeline Albright, for one, was a staunch supporter, saying that if Saddam had used the money from the oil-for-money program more effectively, there would not be so much suffering. And there is evidence that the sanctions have curtailed Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The USN & WR article noted that since so many Iraqis are now dependent on Government handouts, they would not be able to handle a renewed economy.

A note of sanity in all this comes from, believe it or not, Pat Buchanan. He has spoken out against the santctions against Iraq and Cuba, saying that they punish the people, not the leaders, and that they silence any pro-American voices in their respective countries (see http://www.sptimes.com/News/122899/Opinion/Buchanan_makes_sense_.shtml )

It is a sad testimony in the modern world that waging war against civillians is a perfectly acceptable practice. However, all this got me to thinking, should we have continued with the ground war and removed Saddam's regime from power? It occurs to me that in WWII, we completely destroyed Germany and Japan. However, the difference is that in those cases we also helped rebuild them. This is because we removed their respective governments from power. Could we have done something similar with Iraq? It strikes me that fewer civilians may have been killed in a total invasion of Iraq than are being killed now by the sanctions.

What do you all think?

posted 02-16-2001 11:01 PM               

* Can sanctions motivate the Iraqi people to change? No. They have no way of implementing a desire for another government, and we're probably weakening their ability to revolt if they wanted to. Sanctions against a country with democratic like South Africa make sense, because the people who are hurting can do something about it.

* Can sanctions change the culture and mindset of a society? I don't think so -- they're far more likely to provoke resentment.

* Can sanctions prevent more harm than they cause? Here's the tricky one. If sanctions are really keeping Saddam from developing weapons of mass destruction, and if there's no other way to prevent that from happening, the lives sanctions hurt in Iraq probably pale next to the lives that would be lost from biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. On the other hand, I can't see any kind of justification like this for Cuban sanctions.