|
Cover Story
Also in this issue
 View My Guestbook
|
In my home of western Massachusetts recently, about 50 people took to the
streets of Northampton Saturday, December 11, to march in opposition to the
sanctions imposed on Iraq by the UN Security Council, pushed for by the US.
Due to these sanctions, it is estimated that over one million Iraqi civilians
have died of starvation, malnutrition, and related ilnesses, most of them
children. If we are to oppose this problem and make serious attempts to
change it, we must first understand why it is happening.
There are four possible explanations, as far as I can see: a) this policy is
a wise policy, and the opposition is simply naive; b) the policy is a simple,
isolated policy flaw, and the solution is for this flaw to be brought to the
policy-makers' attention; c) the people in charge of this policy are utterly
demented and seek suffering for reasons of sadism; d) the problem is a
systemic problem, and it is created by pressures inherent in the structure of
our policy-making system, and the structure of outside systems which exert
force on the policy-making system.
Without looking at the facts, the most sensible assumption would be "a." But
we needn't look too far to see this is false. The sanctions have been in
place for 8 years, and have failed to accomplish anything positive. In fact,
now that the ultimatum for removing them has changed from the elimination of
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to the removal of Saddam Hussein from
office, they are now only making the situation worse. As members of Congress
Tom Campbell and John Coyers state in their currently circulating open letter
to President Clinton, "Politically, this policy deprives the Iraqi regime of
any incentive to comply with UN resolutions and international norms."
Clearly, the answer is not "a."
The next logical choice is "b." If the policy-makers have chosen the wrong
choice, it must be a simple flaw-- an accident, due to misinformation or
miscalculations. But is this the only "flaw" that the policy-makers have
made? Let's just look at two examples from recent months. In East Timor,
the Indonesian military and it's organized militia operation reeked havoc on
the people of East Timor, brutally slaughtering thousands, and forcing
hundreds of thousands from their homes, after East Timor voted for
independence, apparently attempting to send a message to potential future
independence movements. October UN reports could account for only 150,000 of
the 800,000 people in East Timor, the majority of them appearing to have
sought refuge in West Timor, many in other parts of Indonesia, and the rest
assumed to be hiding away in the hills, and many of course were dead.
While the press was late in reporting it, it was clear by UN reports in early
September that the Indonesian military was behind the attrocities, and by
other reports much earlier. The attrocities had begun in the months
preceeding the referendum, only to be, expectedly, dramatically stepped up if
the referendum were to pass.
The US had many diplomatic options. According to the New York Times, there
are "longstanding ties between the Pentagon and the Indonesian military."
With a history of consistent supply of weapons, funding, and training, it is
likely that the US could simply have demanded a stop successfully. Other
options included withdrawal of economic and military aid, threat of war
crimes tribunal initiation, and threat to veto IMF funds. None of these
actions were taken in the least except the withdrawal of military aid, which
came far too late to be more than useless. And this is just in addition to
the US's support for the Indonesian military in the 60s when it overthrew the
democratically elected government with a coup that left a half a million to a
million people dead, and in the 70s when it illegally invaded and annexed
East Timor, slaughtering a fourth of its population.
Another example in recent months would be Kosovo. NATO gave Serbia an
ultimatum that would make the entire Federal Republic of Yugoslavia a virtual
NATO colony. Serbia countered with a proposal that would let international
peacekeepers in, so long as they were not NATO, and would give Kosovo
autonomy. Not being acceptable to NATO/US, we began bombing the next day.
After months of bombing, we stopped, having an agreement that was virtually
the same as the original Serb offer, except with the clause "with substantial
NATO participation." The bombing, among all its harms, destroyed a nation,
escalated the hatred, and caused massive Serb retaliation, making the Kosovar
Albanians' plight worse than ever, which, according to NATO Commanding
General Wesley Clark was "entirely predictable."
So clearly the answer is not "b." Simple accidents do not repeat themselves
over and over again. There are two choices left: either "c," that President
Clinton and his associates are sadists, or "d," that there are systemic flaws
in the policy-making structure. "C" does not appear to have even the most
miniscule amount of plausability. President Clinton is merely continuing
decades-old policy in Indonesia, and continuing policy that began under
President Bush in Iraq. It seems likely, then, that the root cause of this
problem is the remaining explanation, "d."
So what exactly are the motivations in Iraq, and how does it relate to policy
structure? Since the sanctions have proved to be utterly ineffective in
reaching any positive accomplishments in Iraq, it seems likely that it is
meant, among other strategic reasons, for an expression of power. According
to a 1995 Pentagon planning document, "...it hurts to portray ourselves as
too fully rational and cool-headed. The fact that some elements may appear
to be potentially 'out of control' can be beneficial to creating and
reinforcing fears and doubts within the minds of an adversary's decision
makers." Nixon had expressed similar thoughts in what he called the "madman
theory." In other words, if our actions seem like that of a madman's,
irrationally destructive, it will deter opposition.
But we must be careful about the idea of the policy "failing." There are
functions that are served by the sanctions. On the one hand, Hussein is
incapacitated as far as fulfilling his aspiration to be a dominating power in
the region. On the other hand, Hussein's "iron fist" is left in tact,
fulfilling the role that the US sees useful in him: maintaining the brutal
repression of the Kurds and any other groups who might seek to mitigate their
misery through popular struggle, or, as George Bush called it, attempting to
justify post-Gulf War (yes, that's right, we gave military aid to Iraq even
AFTER the Gulf War!) military aid to Iraq, "maintaining stability."
It seems to me that this reflects our systems' structure in significant ways.
It is very similar to the cost-benefit analysis that a CEO might calculate,
where calculations are based on private costs and benefits alone, social
costs not being accounted for in the equation; likewise, our "national
interest" is calculated on paper, numbers and dollar signs, and policies are
carried forth to achieve the most out of the calculations, while death and
destruction do not count as costs in such an equation. It also seems (well,
no, it is glaringly obvious) that because of the enormous influence of
economic institutions on our polity, our political decisions are made to
secure the interests of those economic institutions, to which it is necessary
to maintain such a powerful stance-- that of a "madman"-- and to which it is
necessary to maintain balances of power securing the "world order"
strategically set up to benefit US elites, without regard to the toll on
human life it imposes around the world.
It seems to me that our political and economic institutions need to be
reasessed. Perhaps we will find that, despite their flaws, there are no
viable alternatives. But I can only hope, and I do suspect, that by probing
these issues we can find viable alternatives that promote peace instead of
destruction. While the standard of living for many Americans may be
sufficient for complacency, we must remember that our institutions and
policies have effects around the world as well as at home. So while
reassessing our institutions might not be in the forefront of the average
American's mind, being reminded of the hundreds of children that die in Iraq
every day should, I would hope, cause us to consider reprioritizing.
Box 1487, WNEC, 1215 Wilbraham Road, Springfield MA, 01119
jrussell@wnec.edu Emails sent to FYI's former address at freeyouth@apexmail.com will be automatically forwarded to the new address. Last Updated 01/14/00
