Did you know that, during the 1990’s, the foreign policies of the United States killed hundreds of thousands of innocents just in the country of Iraq alone? You might be wondering what kind of terrible policy could have caused that measure of destruction. Well, the policy is the use of sanctions, and it can be just as harmful to other countries as all-out war would be.
Sanctions are restrictions upon international trade and finance that one country imposes on another for political reasons. The United States liberally uses this tool. We sanctioned the country of Iraq for years, resulting in the deaths of five hundred thousand children due to inadequate healthcare, lack of medicine, and lack of clean water. That sanctioning was not effective, nor has the sanctioning of Iran been effective for 26 years, nor has the sanctioning of Cuba been effective for decades, nor has the sanctioning of North Korea been effective for more than 50 years. Frankly, I’m surprised that we aren’t still sanctioning Germany. I believe that sanctions are generally ineffective and should be cast aside in favor of alternatives. In this article, I plan to answer two questions that you might be wondering about either now or shortly in the future: “Why do you say that sanctions are ineffective?” and “What are the alternatives to using sanctions?”
Firstly, why do I say that sanctions are ineffective? For starters, there is the sanctioning of several countries for decades with no distinguishable positive results. My logic on this here is that, if we had seen measurable positive results from the sanctions, then we could have gotten back to the point where we would no longer have to sanction the country. We would not simply remain in diplomatic gridlock, as we apparently are in now with the sanctioned countries. I mean, sanctioning is supposed to have a point, a positive result such as resumption of diplomatic talks, is it not?
And while I see few to nonexistent positive results, there certainly are negative results of sanctions. One of the most concerning of these results is that sanctions serve to punish the innocent civilians by crippling their country’s economy, while the leader of their country suffers little personally from the sanctions. I bet that Saddam Hussein never missed a meal while hundreds of thousands of his citizens were dying because of lack of medical products. And, not only do sanctions hurt the innocent rather than the leaders of the countries being sanctioned, the leaders of these countries can actually use the sanctions to their own advantage. Our own weapon is being used against us here; we are inadvertently giving fuel to our enemies. The tyrants of these various countries can deflect attention away from domestic failures and direct attention instead toward a hatred of the sanctioners.
In these ways, both by killing innocent people and by helping tyrants direct attention away from their domestic failures, the United States policy of sanctions has not only failed to yield positive results for the United States, it has also had negative results for the United States. Sanctions lower America’s standing in the world, both by tarnishing our name by destroying innocent lives and by stirring up hatred towards us in the countries we are sanctioning.
Well, you might be wondering now, if sanctions don’t work, then what should we use as an alternative? That is a much more difficult question, and a question whose answer is not readily and easily available. But, I will try to answer it here to the best of my ability. What we need to do is fundamentally alter our foreign policy. Right now, we have entrusted ourselves with the responsibility of being the world’s guardian, of policing the world, of engaging in threats and imperialism, and of interfering in countries where we don’t quite like exactly how things are going. We need to stop taking the responsibility for all of the world’s countries into our own hands and focus on our many problems here at home. We need to treat all of the other countries of the world as equals, be less arrogant, stop bullying them, and treat them with respect. We do not treat other countries very respectfully today, probably because we believe ourselves to be superior and the greatest nation on earth. We need to change our mindset from believing that we are better than other countries; and that it is THEY who should treat us with respect, and not us who should treat them with respect.
But, if we do treat other countries as equals, with due respect, I predict that our respect will often be returned, and we will no longer have to engage in threats and policies such as sanctions quite as often. It is as Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, “If you treat people right they will treat you right - ninety percent of the time.” That works vice versa, of course, as well: if you treat people badly, they will treat you badly. We should treat other countries right by sitting down in diplomatic talks with them, and being both respectful and persistent in these diplomatic talks, rather than bullying them and sanctioning them. Essentially, what we need to do is alter our whole mindset towards the relationship between America and the other countries of the world.
To summarize, my friends, I believe that sanctions are bad policy and that they hurt America’s standing in the world by both killing innocents and by allowing tyrants to stir up hatred towards America. I have suggested the alternative that we alter our whole mindset towards the application of United States foreign policy and treat other countries with respect that will often be returned, making sanctions necessary much less often. We should sit down in diplomatic talks with other countries rather than bullying and sanctioning them. Some political candidates have suggested sanctions as a tool of diplomacy, but those who say that have apparently not heard of the reality of sanctions on the ground. Just as war can kill hundreds of thousands of people, so can sanctions. Sanctions can be just as serious and destructive as war, and we should employ just as much caution in our use of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment