Sanctions

Sanctions, e.g., virtual blockades, are a favorite weapon of those who abhor war, but it's important to note that though they may be bloodless, they still cause casualties. The sanctions imposed on Iraq by the UN (including the US and Russia) after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait were very tough and collapsed the Iraqi economy, though they did include exceptions for food and medicine. Cynthia has mentioned the estimate that they might have been partly responsible for the excess deaths of up to 500,000 Iraqi children. Ironically, they did succeed in eliminating Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the other ostensible purpose (besides Kuwait), but George W. Bush insisted on invading anyway. Of course it's arguable who was really most responsible for those deaths, the sanctions or Saddam, but there seems little doubt but that they were devastating.

The trouble with sanctions is that their impact falls heavily on those least responsible for the misbehavior targeted. Cuba is another case in point. The many privations of the Cuban people under Castro are do not only to Castro's bad economics and other crimes, but also to the sanctions imposed by the US. You can be sure that they didn't cause Fidel or Raul to miss many meals, but the average Cuban fared far worse. How many excess deaths among children can be attributed to those sanctions, I wonder?

This paper claims that the answer is not so many, mainly because, unlike Saddam, Castro moved aggressively to protect the most vulnerable.

Those sanctions were imposed because of the local political clout of the Cuban refugees, many of whom enjoyed a luxurious life style under Batista and his predecessors. Obama was able to end many of those sanctions because younger Cubans have seen their futility and the damage they do to ordinary Cubans.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anti-Libertarian: re-post

The most pointed critique of social security and liberalism in general is the libertarian critique. The problem with libertarians, for a liberal, is that we have too much in common. We both believe in individual rights, tolerance of individual differences, and dislike government prescription of religion. The basic difference, it seems to me, is the different answers we give to Cain's (with thanks to the Captain - my original version had the corpse asking the question!) famous question: "Am I my brother's keeper?" That's not really my basic bitch against the libertarians though. My real complaint is the same as my complaint against most religion - its premise is a fraud. For those who can't stand to wait for the punchline, I believe that trying to implement libertarian principles leads to tyranny or social disintegration. Demonstrating that takes some historical (and pre-historical) context. For all but the last 15,000 or so of the 100,000 years the human spec...
Read more

Uneasy Lies The Head

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ........... Shakespeare Henry IV, Part II. So it is with us and our slightly distant primate cousins , so it seems. A 9-year study of wild baboons in Kenya by Princeton University and the Institute of Primate Research may turn conventional assumptions of alphas males upside down. The study found that alpha males have high testosterone levels, which allows them to dominate other baboons, get access to more food, and attract better mates. This is expected. Surprisingly, though, the alpha males also have high levels of stress hormone glucocorticoid, which scientists measured from their feces samples. In fact, the stress of alpha baboons was on par with low-ranking baboons. The convention wisdom is that access to food and females provides life security and thus less stress for dominant males. Conversely, weak males who are constantly threatened by starvation and physical violence from stronger males are thought to be more stressed. The st...
Read more

We Call it Soccer

The US played its best, and maybe only good game of World Cup, but lost thanks to brilliant goalkeeping by the Swedish keeper and the bizarre method soccer uses to settle ties when three US stars could not put the ball on frame from the 12 yard spot.  At the end it came down to a blocked shot that spun in by maybe a couple of centimeters. Well, that's football - too much like life.   Which brings me to a modest proposal.  Replace the thirty minute overtimes with as many 7-player 15 minute periods as needed to settle it.  Scoring should be much easier with fewer players.
Read more