Antiwar.com Blog

From today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.

Francisco Rodriguez reports the findings of a new paper on the destructive effects of sanctions:

The evidence decisively shows that sanctions make living conditions worse in target countries. I looked at 32 academic papers that estimated their effect. Of these, 30 found consistently negative effects on measures ranging from poverty, inequality and growth to health conditions and human rights.

The magnitude of the harm is dramatic. One study estimated that sanctions would lead to a decline in a state’s gross domestic product by as much as 26 per cent – equivalent to that in the Great Depression. Another found falls in female life expectancy of 1.4 years – similar to the estimated effect on global mortality of the pandemic. In many cases, the harm is similar to that suffered during armed conflicts, making economic sanctions possibly the deadliest weapon used by western powers [bold mine-DL].

Economic warfare is warfare, but it is rarely treated as such when policymakers are debating whether they should employ this weapon. The U.S. has engaged in armed conflict reflexively over the last thirty years, and it has been even more cavalier in waging economic war. Policymakers know in advance that economic warfare won’t achieve anything useful, but many still endorse waging economic war because they don’t take its deadly consequences seriously and because they take for granted that the US has the right to inflict punishment on target states at will. Their desire to be seen “doing something” about some international problem counts for more in their minds than the lives and welfare of innocent people.

Sanctions advocates often present using this weapon as a peaceful alternative to war rather than acknowledging that it is a different form of warfare, and they do this to make an indiscriminate and cruel policy seem humane by comparison. The illusion that economic warfare is a humane option makes it much easier for politicians and policymakers to endorse it, and the fact that the costs are borne by people in the targeted country makes it politically safe for them to support. When confronted with the overwhelming evidence of the harm that sanctions cause, they will usually deny that their policy harms ordinary people and insist that it somehow magically only hurts the targeted government.

In his paper, Rodriguez marvels at how such obviously harmful and failed policies continue:

The evidence surveyed in this paper shows that economic sanctions are associated with declines in living standards and severely impact the most vulnerable groups in target countries. It is hard to think of other cases of policy interventions that continue to be pursued despite the accumulation of a similar array of evidence of their adverse effects on vulnerable populations [bold mine-DL]. This is perhaps even more surprising in light of the extremely spotty record of economic sanctions in terms of achieving their intended objectives of inducing changes in the conduct of targeted states.

If broad sanctions were judged solely by their results, it is hard to see why a rational policymaker would ever support them. The proof that they do far more harm than good is extensive and well-established by now, and their lack of success in changing regime behavior is proverbial. The trick is that sanctions are usually judged by the intentions of their senders rather than by the effects that they have in the real world.

Read the rest of the article at Eunomia

Daniel Larison writes at Eunomia. He is former senior editor at The American Conservative. He has been published in Antiwar.com, the New York Times Book Review, Dallas Morning News, World Politics Review, Politico Magazine, Orthodox Life, Front Porch Republic, The American Scene, and Culture11, and was a columnist for The Week. He holds a PhD in history from the University of Chicago, and resides in Lancaster, PA. Follow him on Twitter.

Joe Biden is the 15th president in my 79 years. I’ve followed the foreign policy of all but FDR. Only missed his presidential exploits because I was just 33 days old when he died.

But took an interest in the second, Harry Truman, when mom and pop explained WWII and the current Korean War to me in 1951. Still remember the brouhaha when Truman fired Gen. Douglas McArthur during the latter. Why would the president fire such a revered war hero? Must be a bad president, I thought. Years later I found out how right he was to do so. McArthur was hell bent on nuking China for entering the war against the US.

Continue reading “Biden’s Foreign Policy: Most Dangerous in My Lifetime?”

On COI #423, Kyle Anzalone and Connor Freeman cover the Empire’s major escalations this week against Palestine, Syria, Iran, Russia, and freedom of the press in the United States.

Kyle breaks down Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s Orwellian announcement that Washington has constructed an AI online tool to hunt so called ‘Russian disinformation,’ the British and Dutch governments’ plans to build an “international coalition” that provides Ukraine with western-made aircraft including F-16s, Moscow’s openness to peace proposals for the Ukraine conflict made by African leaders and Brazil, as well as a report that the White House may be preparing for a frozen conflict in Ukraine that could last years or even decades.

Connor details the Black Sea grain export deal’s two-month extension, a bill introduced by hawks in Congress which plans to use sanctions as a way of preventing countries from normalizing with Damascus, the Pentagon’s plans to conduct joint military planning with Israel on operations aimed at Iran, the progress of Yemen peace talks, and Israel’s latest atrocities carried out against the occupied Palestinians in East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank.

Subscribe on YouTube and audio-only.

Introduction

Perhaps some may find what I will argue below as disrespectful, especially coming from a veteran who participated and lost comrades in the American War in Vietnam. But it must be said. How Memorial Day is currently observed does not, in my view, fulfill its intended purpose – that is, as a day of remembrance, reflection, and appreciation for the sacrifices of those who fought and died in this nation’s all too numerous wars.

With its focus on picnics, barbecues, and sales at the mall, Memorial Day has become primarily a celebration of the unofficial start of summer and a festival of consumerism and greed. Perhaps most regrettably, it is an expression of faux patriotism that further exploits the sacrifices of the slain and the grief of their family members and friends to encourage militarism and perpetuate a mythology that misrepresents as heroism and nobility the savagery and insanity of war, in many, if not most cases, unnecessary and immoral war. In reality, Memorial Day has significance and meaning primarily for those relatively few who experienced war themselves or suffered the loss of friends and family members.

If you wish someone a happy Memorial Day, you fail to understand its true meaning.

Continue reading “Memorial Day by Camillo Mac Bica”

The Biden administration has just approved using U.S. weapons to attack Crimea, a horrifying leap closer to nuclear war. This chain of escalation can only go so far. We agree with journalist Caitlin Johnstone that, "Everyone on earth should be shouting a loud, unequivocal “no” to this at the top of their lungs."

Some are. This month anti-war voices have gotten into the New York Times and The Hill, a DC newspaper. We’ve been active here in Wisconsin with two antiwar groups – Madison for a World BEYOND War and Wisconsin Against World War 3 (WI vs WW3). Here’s a short video of our May 6 antiwar demonstration, at the large farmers market at our state capitol in Madison. We’re sharing what we’ve been doing in hopes that you will join us, or join with activists near you to make some noise. You can do it!

Continue reading “What Can I Do To Prevent Nuclear War? You Can Shout ‘No’ Now!”