Abstract
Today the supporters of the embargo against Iraq rarely argue that the Iraqi people are not suffering. Only the perversely ignorant could doubt the miseries of that tortured nation. Rather the upholders of sanctions choose to argue that all the suffering of the Iraqi civilian population is caused by the brutal intransigence of Saddam Hussein. If he would only observe all the UN Security Council resolutions, if he would only ‘step aside’, if he would only … then the embargo could be lifted and the terrible suffering of the Iraqi people brought to an end. We can of course debate the extent to which the relevant resolutions (principally 661 and 687; 688 and others are not mandatory resolutions) have been observed (Rolf Ekeus, UN official in charge of dismantling Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’, concedes that there has been substantial Iraqi co-operation), but such a debate — much favoured by cynical US strategists — represents a deliberate diversion from the central ethical and legal question: to what extent, if at all, is it justifiable to subject a helpless civilian population to disease and starvation in the furtherance of a political objective? Before considering this crucial question, before examining the legal and ethical face of genocide, it is useful to glance at the traditional role of the economic embargo as a coercive tool.
We say to the rotten people — yes people not leadership — of Iraq that the Kuwaitis are much superior to you and much more honourable and pure than you can ever be. … We say to Iraq as a whole, its people, its regime — present and future — you are the lowest of the despicable and pray the Lord to vengefully chastise Iraq and O Lord leave not even a stone in Iraq standing upright.
Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Anbaa editorial, 19 January 1993
… we present our short list of “do’s and don’ts” for the architects of a sanctions policy designed to change the policies of the target country …(3) Do pick on the weak and helpless … (5) Do impose the maximum cost on your target …
Hufbauer et al., 19901
1. Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited. 2. It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the civilian population … foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies and irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying them for their sustenance value to the civilian population …
Geneva Protocol I, Article 54
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Notes
Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott and Kimberly Ann Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered: History and Current Policy (Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1990) p. 114.
The individual terms admit of different definitions and interpretations (see, for example, M. S. Daoudi and M. S. Dajani, Economic Sanctions: Ideals and Experience (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983) pp. 2–9) However, because of the comprehensive nature of the anti-Iraq sanctions regime, I have tended to use the terms as functional synonyms. We should remember that Washington preferred to talk, in the early days of sanctions, of interdiction rather than blockade to avoid charges that it was guilty of acts of war.
Quoted in Charles Fornara, ‘Plutarch and the Megarian decree’, 24YaleClassicalStudies, 1975, pp. 213–28.
Jim Bradbury, The Medieval Siege (Woodbridge, Suffolk: UK, The Boydell Press, 1992) p. 81.
Ibid., p. 82.
Ibid., p. 84.
D. T. Jack, Studies in Economic Warfare (London: King, 1940) pp. 1–42.
James M. McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom: The American Civil War (London: Penguin, 1988) p. 378.
Richard S. West Jr, Mr Lincoln’s Navy (New York, 1957) p. 60, cited in ibid.
W. N. Medlicott, The Economic Blockade (London: HMSO and Longmans Green, Volume 1, 1952) p. 9.
Margaret P. Doxey, Economic Sanctions and International Enforcement (London: Macmillan for The Royal Institute of Economic Affairs, 1980) p. 12.
Ibid.
Edward S. Miller, War Plan Orange: The US Strategy to Defeat Japan, 1897–1945 (Annapolis, Maryland: United States Naval Institute, 1991) p. 28.
Ibid., chapter 14.
Ibid., p. 365.
John Costello, The Pacific War (London: Pan Books, 1981) p. 99.
Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott and Kimberly Ann Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered: Supplemental Case Histories (Washington D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1990).
Wilhelm Dibelius, England (London: Jonathan Cape, 1930) p. 103.
Margaret P. Doxey, International Sanctions in Contemporary Perspective (London: Macmillan, 1987) p. 32.
Barry E. Carter, International Economic Sanctions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988) p. 32.
Ibid., p. 35.
Ibid., p. 159.
Marc Weller, ‘The Lockerbie case: a premature end to the “New World Order”?’, African Journal of International and Comparative Law, Number 4 (1992) pp. 1–15.
Ibid., p. 15.
Simon Tisdall and John Hooper, ‘US plays down illegal Israeli missile sales’, The Guardian, London, 28 October 1991; Rupert Cornwell, ‘Bush turns blind eye to Israeli arms deals’, The Independent, London, 28 October 1991.
Michael Sheridan, ‘US allies alarmed at trade ban on Iran’, The Independent, London, 2 May 1995.
David Hirst, ‘US sanctions against Iran are a gift to extremists of Zionism and Islam’, The Guardian, London, 19 May 1995.
Noam Chomsky, Deterring Democracy (London: Verso, 1991) p. 3.
Bob Woodward, The Commanders (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1991) p. 34.
Ramsey Clark, The Fire this Time (New York: Thunder Mouth’s Press, 1992).
Saul Bloom, John M. Miller, James Warner and Philippa Winkler (eds), Hidden Casualties: The Environmental, Health and Political Consequences of the Persian Gulf War (San Francisco: ARC/Arms Control Research Center; London: Earthscan, 1994) pp. 298–302.
Ibid., p. 300.
Richard Dowden, ‘Not as nice as he looked’, The Independent, London, 16 October 1992.
The Public Papers and Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1939, Volume: War — and Neutrality (New York: Macmillan, 1941) pp. 454, 511–12, 587–9.
Robert Batchelder, The Irreversible Decision, 1939–1950 (New York: Houghton MifHin, 1961) pp. 172–3.
John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (London: Faber and Faber, 1986) p. 40.
Bertrand Russell, War Crimes in Vietnam (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1967) p. 59; see also US War Crimes in Vietnam (Hanoi: Juridical Science Institute, 1968); The Winter Soldier Investigation: An Inquiry into American War Crimes, by Vietnam Veterans Against the War (Beacon Press, US, 1972); Martha Hess, Then the Americans Came: Voices from Vietnam (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993).
Robert Jay Lifton and Eric Markusen, The Genocidal Mentality: Nazi Holocaust and Nuclear Threat (London: Macmillan, 1991) p. 13.
Bishara A. Bahbah, ‘The Crisis in the Gulf — Why Iraq invaded Kuwait’, in Phyllis Bennis and Michel Moushabeck (eds), Beyond the Storm (London: Canongate, 1992) p. 52.
Mohamed Heikal, Illusions of Triumph (London: HarperCollins, 1992) p. 137.
Baghdad Radio, 18 June 1990, cited by Dilip Hiro, Desert Shield to Desert Storm (London: Paladin, 1992) pp. 83–4.
Pierre Salinger and Eric Laurent, Secret Dossier: The Hidden Agenda Behind the Gulf War (London: Penguin, 1991) p. 33.
Leonard Doyle, ‘Gulf threat “is earning billions for Britain” ’, The Independent, London, 22 October 1990; Michael Kinsley, ‘Where the Gulf crisis is a barrel of laughs’, The Guardian, London, 5 November 1990; Irwin Stelzer, ‘Gulf war allies collude to raise the price of oil’, The Sunday Times, London, 17 March 1991.
David Bowen, ‘Iraq sparks fears of oil price crash’, The Independent on Sunday, London, 27 August 1995.
Ibid.
Michael Sheridan, ‘Future of Iraq rests on germ war checks’, The Independent, London, 30 September 1995.
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© 1998 Geoff Simons
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Simons, G. (1998). The Face of Genocide. In: The Scourging of Iraq. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-50543-8_4
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