“Sanctions are the modern siege weapon, a way to starve nations into obedience without ever firing a bullet.” – Michael T. Lester
With recent news of blockades of Cuba and economic sanctions of Iran and Russia, I began to ask some questions:
Do economic sanctions work? Are they humane?
Asking the right questions often means asking the inconvenient questions.
Because sanctions don’t involve military operations, most people never question their effects or ethics. We’ve wielded these economic weapons for decades, but do they work?
Mostly, they do not.
During the Cold War, the Soviet Union managed to maintain control over many countries for decades. The communist government of Cuba never fell. Nor did the leaders of Iran collapse. The people of these countries, however, did suffer to one degree or another. Often, quite badly.
Michael Lester writes, that in Cuba, for decades, they have endured “shortages of medicine, decaying infrastructure and limited access to technology.” In fact, documents show the goal from the beginning was to “deny money and supplies to Cuba…to bring about hunger, desperation, and the overthrow of the government.”
Bringing about hunger and desperation to get at a government? This doesn’t align with the moral values of America, yet this economic warfare is openly and often deployed without much concern. The effects are often devastating, and our leaders don’t care. Infamously, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked in a interview about the thousands of Iraqi children who died due to sanctions. Her reply, “We think the price is worth it.”
Shrugging off the deaths of innocents? This is profoundly troubling. This is also why these nations will hate us for generations. As I discussed recently, attacking people unites them together, regardless of who their rulers are. Sanctions hurt the citizens, not the ruling class.
What if we did the exact opposite and engaged in open economic trade with these countries? Consider Vietnam: A country we went to war with and lost thousands of soldiers in a failed attempt to stop a communist takeover. Since normalization of relations in 1995, Vietnam and the U.S. engage in hundreds of billions of dollars of trade. Thousands of American tourists visit yearly.
Is their government still communist? Yes. Do we have a peaceful and beneficial relationship with their people? Also, yes. Yet with Cuba, a nation a few miles off the Florida coast, which poses no danger to our country, it has been the target of decades of abuse.
It is time to rethink using the weapons of sanctions and embargos. They cause suffering and death, and harden people against the United States. We cannot tell others how to live or vote. We cannot destroy other nations simply because they won’t be part of our empire or let us do whatever we want in their countries.
Looking the other way as innocent people are made to suffer for reasons of empire and politics is profoundly wrong.
And profoundly un-American.
Darrick Dean 