To: iac-discussion@yahoogroups.com
From: Endsanctions@cs.com
Date: Fri, 29 Jun 2001 15:59:40 EDT
Subject: [iac-disc.] economic/military sanctions



To those who think the economic/military sanctions issues is important:

I am hoping by this post to encourage clarity on the underlying issues
involved, because I think more, not less, discussion on this issue is
needed.

For me, this is a real and critical issue, because military sanctions are
central to how the US has successfully justified to its citizens its
killing of the people of Iraq. Making the case that UN-enforced military
sanctions are required for international security is at the core of how
the US attempts to occupy the moral high ground vis a vis Iraq.

It is only from this morally superior vantage point that the US could
claim to justify as "defensive" the assault it ordered in February on
Baghdad (in the process, deploying experimental long- range cluster
bombs): the news media tells us that Iraq's inadequate but improving 
air defense system posed a threat to US pilots who "patrol" the no
fly zones, armed to the teeth and dropping bombs.

While anti-missile missile systems begin to be tested by US-allied
Turkey and Israel (notably the Arrow and the TRW systems, both developed
jointly by the US and Israel), Iraq is portrayed as an aggressor as it
attempts to improve its radar with the installation of fiber optics
(fiber optics technology is, naturally, denied to Iraq as dual-use).

The Alice-in-Wonderland world that the State Department asks us to
accept is being thrust down the political gullets of the American
people by the mainstream media: offense becomes defense; sanctions
become suddenly smart, and no-fly zones are safe-havens for US war
planes, just another accretion to the US territorial limits. Meanwhile
no one in the US comments critically on the permanent stationing of US
forces in the Middle East.

In my opinion, forcefully countering the US version of the (non)war on
Iraq is crucial to winning over the people of the US, so this war can
be recognized and opposed.  Only if we are able to expose the full horror
of the Gulf War and its aftermath, and notably the cynical application
of "dual use" prohibitions by the US representative on the 661 Committee,
will we be able to motivate the kind of popular opposition that is
necessary to change what has been, up to now, bipartisan support for
the continuing war on Iraq.

To me, a fundamental difference of principle exists between the people
who approach Iraq as a humanitarian crisis and others like myself who
approach it as an intentionally conducted war-- a war on the sovereignty
of Iraq, and a war on the rights of the Iraqi people to control their
oil and ultimately to make decisions that are different from the ones 
the US wants to impose on them. Is the US merely misguided in its Iraq
policies or has it proved itself to be an enemy of the people of Iraq?

To answer this question,we simply look at the facts.  How the Gulf War
was fought.  How the sanctions have been administered.  How the 661
Committee has used its power, to deny morphine and vaccines and textbooks.
Case closed.  Look at the enemy, and it is us.  (I cannot speak politely
and with deference or approval to Congresspeople; if they have been in
office during or since the GUlf War, they are responsible unless they
have clearly spoken against the war -- and as far as I know, no
Congressperson has taken this stance.)

I cannot agree with the legitimacy of the US or the UN to control Iraq's
military, and I talk whenever I have the opportunity to my fellow citizens
to explain to them why not.   I remain unconvinced that the people of Iraq
will be most benefited by activists presenting watered-down demands to
Congresspeople.  In my opinion, what is most needed, what would most
benefit the people of Iraq, is straight talk to people on the street,
to build a movement comprised of informed and angry protesters and
demonstrators who will demand no less than an end to the war.

So for me it is a matter of principle to oppose military sanctions on
Iraq. It's not sectarian or unrealistic, any more than opposing the
Gulf War was sectarian or unrealistic.  I don't expect Clinton or
Cheyney or Albright or any particular Congressman to agree with me,
because I believe the US, vis a vis its conduct toward the Iraqi people,
has acted criminally and should be held responsible.  I know this is not
a popular stance, but it's the correct stance, the one that demands from
me my allegiance.  It's not that I am demanding an end to all imperialism.
It is that I am demanding an honest accounting for US crimes in Iraq,
about a war that has been and continues to be deliberately hidden, where
the military threat of Iraq is absurdly over-exaggerated and where the
aggressive and "forward deployed" stance of the US is justified to the
people of the US by a series of lies told about Iraq.  If we can't break
the cycle of lies, we cannot get anywhere.

In solidarity,  Kitty Bryant
Campaign to End the Sanctions