U.S. Sanctions Are a Crime Against Humanity

There are certain people on social media or in governmental office, whom I’m not going to mention since it’s not about who says it but what is being said, who assert that sanctions are not brutal. They think that sanctioning a country is some sort of humane way to coerce that country as opposed to bombing it. They blatantly state that the objective is to bully a country into obeying western and United States’ foreign policy. They basically say: It’s good that the United States bullies other countries and coerces and intimidates them but let’s just starve the people to death instead of bombing them. This idea that sanctions are less brutal is such an ignorant thing to say.

I spoke to two of my cousins today. Do you know what they told me? They told me the situation in Syria, which is currently under sanctions, is so bad that they would rather live under the war again! They would rather have bombs raining down on their homes than to live under sanctions. Two of my cousins told me that today. One of my cousins, Roni, has been out of Syria for a year or two now and my other cousin just left three months ago. My cousins told me they would rather [prefer] to live under the war again than to live under sanctions.

This is the reality of the effect that sanctions have. I want to tell you something my cousin told me: The electricity now is on for one hour and then it cuts off six hours, then it comes back one hour cuts off six hours. Can you imagine living like that? He told me in spring and autumn when the electricity is gone for three hours and then it’s on for three hours off, people are actually happy because it’s not as bad as now or in the summer. Right now, you can’t get any mazut or fuel to put in the heater so you can’t even heat yourself during winter. He told me that, currently, in my grandmother’s house, if we wanted to heat ourselves, we’d get maybe 50 liters that will last you barely two weeks. Can you imagine having only two weeks of heating in winter? And good luck finding fuel good because you need money to buy it & since it’s so expensive & even if by some miracle you’ll get the money, you won’t necessarily find the fuel to buy. I think the Syrian government just cut the subsidies for fuel this week. They can’t subsidize it anymore. As a result, the price [of fuel] has doubled.

You can’t get any bread. You have to wait hours in line and then you’ll be given one bag of bread. I remember I used to go bakery with my family. We would go to the bakery and we get bags of bread… like five bags that were full. There was no such thing as a bread line. I’ve never heard of a bread line in Syria. It was not a thing. They talk about socialist countries having breadlines [which is ridiculous] because the only breadlines in Syria were created by the United States sanctions that simply is a FACT! This idea that sanctions are less brutal is some of the most ignorant nonsense that I’ve ever heard in my life.

The ones who say these kinds of things have probably never even set foot outside their own country. They’ve never even been outside the United States. They don’t even know where Syria is on a map. They have no clue what’s happening in Venezuela. They’re not the ones who are living under sanctions & don’t have any family living under sanctions. These people don’t have any friends living under sanctions. They just sit in their arm chairs [while] talking about foreign policy and they can’t even place Syria on a map which shows how dumb they are and people buy this [propaganda]. [They’re] really just the most ignorant dunces imaginable [who are] pretending they’re authorities on foreign policy while they don’t even understand their own country let alone Syria and Venezuela or any other place.

[That’s due to the fact that] they’re brainwashed. They’ve grown up their entire lives in this American bubble or this western European bubble indoctrinated and all they’ve been fed about other countries comes from curated corporate western media, NEVER been to these places, they don’t speak the language & generally have no clue about the culture or don’t know anyone there.

These people think that they understand sanctions! It’s less brutal. How about we cut their water off and their heating and take away their food for a couple of months and see how much they like it. If anyone thinks sanctions are not so bad, let’s do it [to them]. Don’t people understand that sanctions kills people? If we take away their food and their water they’re not going to die? If we take away their medicine while they need medicine we would have a life-threatening situation in our hand. [Don’t they understand] if we take away the medical equipment that’s not going to kill people?

These people are so disgusting and so arrogant. They think that they understand everything and are rational. They’re responsible because they’re not savage… They don’t want to bomb people! They just want to starve people to death! As I mentioned before, my cousin said they would rather have the mortars -the shells- raining down on them because they would rather have the mortars raining down on them. They prefer to live under war in Damascus than to live under sanctions. That’s not just them, go ask any Syrian who’s living now in Damascus or in the areas that have been taken back [by Syrian Army] and now are under control [of government], what it’s like? But guess who’s not under sanctions in Syria? Interestingly enough, the SDF for stealing the oil in collaboration with the Americans and the al-Qaeda terrorists. There are no sanctions in Idlib where you have all these tens of thousands of jihadist fighters!

And other than that, I don’t [even] care if it’s even non-lethal. Let’s say you were taking away something that is not life-threatening, not food or medical parts, the whole premise that you think it’s okay as a country to bully other countries into coercion doesn’t fall under diplomacy. This would just makes you a prick. You’re no better than someone who drops bombs, you’re no better! Let me play you this clip from the former U.S. secretary of state madeleine Albright in the 1990s when U.S. government starved Iraq.

Reporter: We have heard that a half a million children have died…. I mean that’s more children than died when in Hiroshima. Is the price worth it?

Madeline Albright: I think this is a very hard choice but the price… We think the price is worth it.

She thinks the price is worth it! They killed half a million children in Iraq with sanctions… Half a million children!!! And they say the price is worth it. Well, that’s because they’re not the ones paying it. They’re not the ones paying the price. [I tell her that:] You impose this price on other people & you extinguish their lives and then you say I think the price is worth it? What do you mean worth it? What is it your business to go and do that? How is that? You murder hundreds of thousands of people and you think that’s worth it? Worth what? How are you any better than Saddam Hussein? How the are you any better than these so-called dictators that you’re going in and trying to topple? You are worse than them! You are worse than them by leagues. Hence we have this situation right now.

[What’s outrageous is that] They’re not going to tell you this on the news because they want you to believe that sanctions are humane. They’re not! They’re evil. They’re illegal under international law. Unilateral sanctions imposed by the United States are illegal. They have no legal right to do that. But even when this was done to Iraq and it was supposedly legal under the U.N., that doesn’t make it right that doesn’t make it right. Sanctions are just as lethal if they weren’t lethal, why would they use it? They full well that it makes the people suffer. When you sanction Syria, Bashar al-Assad or his family or the ministers do not suffer. It’s never the leadership! The people in power will still have all their resources and their standard of living does not change. Whose standard of living changes?

Well, everyone who’s not Bashar al-Assad! Everyone who is not in the government! They are the ones who are getting screwed. What exactly are they trying to accomplish? They want people to rise up on top of the government but that’s not going to happen! They know it’s not going to happen because if it didn’t happen in 10 years, it’s not going to happen right now! How many decades more? They’ve been trying to sanction Cuba 60 years! Did it accomplish anything? NO! Nothing! They’re sanctioning Venezuela & Iran. It doesn’t accomplish anything. That’s not how it works. They know that it screws the people. It makes people suffer and that’s why they do it. It’s not less brutal than bombs.

I will not tolerate these assertions about sanctions. These people don’t have to suffer these prices. Their opinion is worthless! They have no clue what they’re talking about. They think it’s a game! They think sanction is when we stop Mauro from being able to access his bank account. NO! That’s not what it means. That’s not what it means! You’re stopping people in Venezuela from eating.

I spoke to the special rapporteur on sanctions and she told me what she witnessed in Venezuela. The children don’t even have pencils to write with in school because of the sanctions. Then they give you this nonsense about oh no but U.S. sanctions have exemptions for humanitarian purposes! No, they don’t! That’s just on paper. It doesn’t exist in reality. That doesn’t do anything because the NGOs cannot keep up with what the traders supply and an NGO cannot substitute for the entire imports of the country especially in countries like Lebanon or Yemen where 90 of the food is imported! The exemptions exist on paper but they’re too difficult to actually navigate. As a result most people steer clear of them. This is not a solution. It’s just something some excuse they’ve put on there to make themselves feel good. So people asserting sanctions are less brutal, is the feel-good version of imperialism. It’s these people who think that they are somehow not savages and they’re more benevolent in their manner and that sanctioning people is okay because it’s not a bomb that’s falling on people. This allows these people to sleep at night as they continue imperialism by bullying other countries & starving them off.

Sanctions are siege warfare.