On June 13th, two weeks after Israel’s attack on the Mavi Marmara, a profile of the respected liberal intellectual and Just War theorist Michael Walzer appeared in Haaretz. Amidst his professed concern about Israel’s diminished standing in world, Walzer offered this bit of wisdom regarding the siege of Gaza:
Think of the American effort to embargo the regime of Saddam Hussein in 1991 to 2003. It was entirely justified and even originally had United Nations authorization, but over time the consequences of the blockade did affect the living standard of ordinary Iraqis partly because of the way the Iraqi government behaved but also partially because of the nature of the blockade. So at a certain point Colin Powell came forward with the idea of smart sanctions, which are designed to have the necessary military restraints without having these effects on the population or without having the same affects on the population. Now what you need are smart sanctions.
Whether the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu will be compelled to emulate the American example of “smart sanctions” is an open question. That the Israeli government’s current siege on Gaza is causing a humanitarian crisis of unknown proportions is certain, despite the length Israeli leaders have gone to deny it. Walzer, in his classic book Just and Unjust Wars, calls siege “the oldest form of total war”; Walzer also justified the Six-Day War in 1967 by calling attention to Egypt’s closing of the Straits of Tiran, which Israel used as a casus belli in that conflict. Where on the spectrum does this leave the far graver economic strangulation affecting Palestinians today? Walzer has never said.
In any event, Walzer is certainly correct: a comparison between the sanctions placed on Iraq after the first Gulf War and the ongoing siege of Gaza is apt. And Walzer, as a preeminent liberal intellectual, undoubtedly sums up mainstream liberal opinion in the United States by calling the Iraqi sanctions “entirely justified”; how often, in run-up to the War on Iraq in 2003, was the effectiveness, to say nothing of the justification, of the sanctions used as an argument against the invasion? According to this line of argument, U.S. policy was working; Saddam was no longer a threat. Bush and the neocons were only upsetting a successful policy—a policy the Clinton administration presided over throughout its time in office.
Now we have a different take on Iraqi sanctions, and the halcyon period of “the Clinton years." Invisible War: The United States and the Iraq Sanctions
Indeed, one important, if understated, theme in Gordon’s book is how U.S. leaders effectively divorced the policies they were clearly responsible for from the perception of those policies, viewing them as distinct problems. This, in particular, draws an interesting parallel with Israel’s recent “approach” vis-à-vis the world in the last few years. Madeline Albright, for example, claimed in her autobiography Madam Secretary to “take things personally” and become “indignant” when “people said I was responsible for murdering millions of people”; this is why she considered the sanctions “our public relations problem”. Looking back on her 60 Minutes gaffe, Albright expressed sincere regret—not for the numbers of dead, but for not “refram[ing] it [Stahl’s question] and pointing out the inherent flaws in the premise behind it.” Ultimately, Albright explained reports of the humanitarian catastrophe by claiming “[a]nti-Americanism will always find a receptive audience in some circles.” That “anti-Americanism” may have been the result of a policy denying Iraq vaccines to treat infant hepatitis, tetanus, and diphtheria, or the denial of equipment used to maintain blood banks, or a host of vital humanitarian supplies denied on the flimsiest of security pretexts, was apparently lost on Albright and other elites. Yet it will not be lost on the reader which state this currently reminds them of: the strange combination of arrogance and sensitivity (a State Department official tells Gordon, “we were acutely conscious of the accusations [of wrongdoing]”), the almost obsessive preoccupation with managing the way they are perceived by others, irrespective of change in policy (as Albright put it, “our public relations problem”). Indeed, as Gordon writes, “in general hearings on ‘the situation in Iraq’, no witnesses gave testimony on the humanitarian situation, except to say that claims of a crisis were exaggerated or to bemoan the fact that, somehow, inexplicably, Saddam had won ‘the propaganda war’”. Of course, the most powerful states do not need hasbara. But a useful parallel might be made between America and Israel here: the reflexive reduction of criticism to some base ideology (whether anti-Americanism or anti-Semitism), and the basic inability, or unwillingness, to see their “image” in the world as the direct result of policies that others find reprehensible. Also, the seemingly endless ability to rationalize, while desperately clinging to some moral high ground: today, apologists for the Israeli blockade occasionally maintain that they want to “free” Gaza from Hamas rule (though Hamas was democratically elected); Albright, at one point, even claimed that she “care[d] more about the children of Iraq than Saddam Hussein does”. One might wonder whether Roosevelt justified immigration quotas during World War II by reminding people that he cared more about Jews than Hitler did.
Readers of Invisible War will also note that, much like the siege in Gaza, the sanctions on Iraq were not simply cruel but gratuitous and arbitrary. Thus, we learn that even though “vehicles of all types were blocked”, including firefighting vehicles, the U.S did allow Iraq to have ambulances—but prevented Iraq from importing two-way radios, essentially handicapping the ambulances. Robert von Tersch, an Army biochemist, argued that Iraq should not be allowed to import chicken eggs, because, as Gordon puts it, “egg yolks can be used as a growth medium in which to cultivate biological strains.” Even granting this, Iraq was already producing 600 million eggs per-year during the Oil-for-Food programme (which only amounted to two dozen eggs per Iraqi annually). As Gordon wryly observes, “one would think that 600 million provided enough egg yolks for the government to grow whatever viruses is wanted to.” Fast-forward to John Kerry confronting the Israelis over the ban of macaroni in Gaza, adding a mutual fear of cheap food to qualities that have made for the enduring American/ Israeli relationship.
Many other things could be said about Gordon’s superb book. In light of the devastation wrought by the sanctions, she reveals what many suspected at the time—that the outrage over the “Oil for Food” scandal to was essentially an engineered, hypocritical farce. Congressman Ralph Hall, for example, accused the UN program of causing the “deaths of thousands of Iraqis”. “We have a name for that in the United States”, Hall said; “it is called murder.”
Perhaps the most important section, in my opinion, is the chapter “International Law and the Sanctions”. Here, Gordon addresses Denis Halliday’s charge that the sanctions amounted to genocide. Gordon finds that the sanctions likely do not meet the standard of genocide, at least as defined by the UN Genocide Convention and Rome Statute. If this is so, it is only because of the absence of mens rea, or the mental component, necessary for genocide to be determined. In other words, it boils down to intent, and to Gordon, this is “good reason to be deeply disappointed in international law”. For the importance attached to the legally nebulous concept of intent, where genocide is defined as the “attempt to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”, essentially absolves those campaigns against a particular group that are not motivated by racial, ethnic or religious hatred. As Gordon writes, “while international law gives us a framework to judge those acts driven by racial hatred, on the model of the Holocaust, it is not adequate to address atrocities that are deliberately implemented by indifferent officials for political or economic purposes.”
The apparent absence of some supremely evil motive to inflict massive suffering on Iraqis, even when that suffering was known to be the predicable consequence of U.S. policy, also likely accounts for the virtual absence of the humanitarian cost of the sanctions from mainstream liberal discourse. Gordon doesn’t address this issue, but one might consider, for example, Samantha Power’s blockbuster A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, which won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 2003. In the book, Power’s discussion of Iraq deals exclusively with Saddam’s crimes against the Kurdish minority. Thus Power does discuss at length the sanctions almost placed on Iraq—the ones before the first Gulf War. She describes the heroic effort of Peter Galbraith, son of the famous economist and later Ambassador to Croatia, who tirelessly advocated for the use of economic sanctions against the will of a supine Congress. Throughout, Power heaps ridicule on opponents of the sanctions, especially those ostensibly protecting U.S. agricultural interests. As Gordon shows, later on these representatives from “farm states” were amongst the very few voices criticizing the comprehensive sanctions after the war, on the grounds that they were hurting American farmers, and were also unable to achieve policy ends. In Power’s moral universe, however, these imperfect criticisms reek of “self-interest”, and are thus deemed unacceptable.
In fact, Power never deals with the sanctions after the first Gulf War; her narrative ends with Clinton’s Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, signing a communiqué in 1995 accusing Iraq of committing genocide against the Kurds. Thus the U.S. finally mustered the will to face up to Iraq’s own crimes, and the lesson of Power’s book is clear: America must cease to “do nothing” when faced with the prospect of genocide. That the United States has, in fact, occasionally taken a somewhat more involved stance with regard to genocide—In Iraq, as we have seen, U.S. led policy basically enabled one—is clearly a fact that Power cannot acknowledge, for she, like most liberal intellectuals, takes comfort that the worst we can do is abdicate our responsibilities, shirk from our benevolent mission, look away from the crimes others commit. As the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said about A Problem from Hell, “it should change the way we see America and its role in the world.” Whether Joy Gordon’s Invisible War will have a similar, if less self-congratulatory, effect, remains to be seen.
Matthew Phillips is a twenty-five year old New Yorker pursuing an Masters degree in Middle East studies.
“For the importance attached to the legally nebulous concept of intent, where genocide is defined as the “attempt to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such”, essentially absolves those campaigns against a particular group that are not motivated by racial, ethnic or religious hatred.”
Yes, you have mentioned the serpentine like definition of genocide Mr. Phillips (which has conveniently mutated over a period of time), this is the “gift that keeps on giving” to powerful countries which plainly commit genocidal acts on the weak and powerless but slip by the “intent.” One wonders whether now it is a series of acts, and when does someone do enough of this for it to be interpreted as genocide. Like the millions that died in Iraq, when have you hit the genocide realm (for lack of a better term).
The comparison of Iraq with Gaza is unique, not only because of the similarity, but because of reason for the war and the key players. Indeed, it is this same group that did what they liked to the Iraqis which have their way with the Palestinians. The eerie similarity between Madeline Albright and the previous administrations, and the same “PR” concept in regard to how the Israelis treat the Palestinians is more than a coincidence. It is just the failure to realize how deeply enmeshed the entire process has become.
Not really unique. The sanctions on Iran are going almost entirely unquestioned, using the same arguments.
The U.S. blockade of Iraq barred foodstuffs. I remember being pleased when I read, a few days after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, that the blockade we were imposing on Iraq would not include foodstuffs, as I had recently read a horrifying book about the effects on Germany were of the Allied blockade during World War One (which continued nine months or so after the armistice, to pressure Germany into accepting the Allies’ demands). Then, a day or two later, I was horrified to read that the blockade would also block foodstuffs, after all. And I believe food continued to be blocked all through the long years until the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003.
I wouldn’t call a blockade of food “entirely justified”. Under international law, aren’t blockaders only allowed to block contraband, which ipso facto does not include food.
“As the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said about A Problem from Hell, “it should change the way we see America and its role in the world.” Whether Joy Gordon’s Invisible War will have a similar, if less self-congratulatory, effect, remains to be seen.”
Samantha Power’s book was popular with the mainstream precisely because it criticized the US almost exclusively for its sins of omission. We should have intervened much more, is her message. She almost completely ignores the cases where we did intervene–by killing or helping others to kill massive numbers of people. The sanctions on Iraq are one grisly example. East Timor is another–it gets about one paragraph in her book and that paragraph is deeply misleading. (One of the heroes of her book is Richard Holbrooke–he’s one of the villains regarding US policy and East Timor). Guatemala gets no mention. Our support of vicious killers in Mozambique and Angola get no attention. The gigantic massacres in Indonesia in the mid 60′s get no attention.
Admittedly, in several of these cases the slaughters don’t fit the strict definition of genocide, but then, that’s part of the problem with the book. If you want to write about the moral failings of US foreign policy, you wouldn’t limit yourself to a category that excludes some of the bloodiest and most shameful episodes. But Power knows exactly what sort of criticism the mainstream welcomes and she wrote just the sort of book that would get rave reviews in mainstream liberal newspapers and magazines. She actually says in the opening chapter of the book (or I think it’s there–it’s been awhile since I looked) that the problem with American foreign policymakers is that they can’t envision evil, so that’s why they let dictators get away with genocide until it’s too late. This is actually flattery–she says we’re too good for this world and we need to understand how much evil there is and be willing to intervene. Our sin is in not doing this.
And that’s exactly why the Gordon book is extremely unlikely to receive the same sort of attention. She evidently calls out the US for the harm it actually did to Iraqi civilians. Power is something of a household name among people who pay attention to foreign policy issues. Gordon won’t be. She wrote an article about the sanctions for Harper’s several years ago and while a few lefties would quote it, in the mainstream it sank without a trace. This book will do the same.
” Our support of vicious killers in Mozambique ”
Correction–South Africa supported Renamo, the vicious guerilla group in Mozambique, but surprisingly enough, the Reagan Administration decided not to. (Surprising, since in reality Jonas Savimbi’s Unita group in Angola was just as bad and Reagan embraced him). There were many prominent Republican politicians who wanted to support Renamo, including Robert Dole. Renamo’s brutality was actually compared to the Khmer Rouge by our State Department.
All of the conditions in Africa a layered, the territories have been perpetually weakened. All that matters to the “world market” (which is really the dominant gangsters) is how they can exploit the natural and human resources. That is the overarching centuries old story, as far as this country (USA) or any of the European nations (that is, the gangsters which call this a market). The treatment dished out by any US administration is merely force of habit – but I do not expect many people to know this, because they have no idea what their power elite that they have let grow by way of course, has done in the world.
Powerful Matthew, thanks. I encountered the parallelization (equation/comparison) of antisemitism and anti-Americanism in the post 911 world academia. Below the main argument of: Prof. Andrei S. Markovits. It’s slightly dated now, but I remember it as an exquisite example of the post 911 we-are-on-top-of-the-world-rapture we could witness in many different guises.
European Anti-Americanism and Anti-Semitism: Similarities and Differences
. Anti-Semitism in Europe goes back a thousand years. Anti-Americanism
emerged more than 200 years ago among European elites. Current European prejudices are enhanced by the Europeans’ perception of how America and Israel use power.
. America and Jews are seen by many Europeans as paragons of a modernity they dislike and distrust: money-driven, profit-hungry, urban,
universalistic, individualistic, mobile, rootless, inauthentic, and thus
hostile to established traditions and values.
. Anti-Americanism fulfills a structural role in helping to create a
European identity. Anti-Semitism does not necessarily do this, hence it
might abate if and when peace is reached in the Middle East.
. Anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism are the only major icons shared by
the European extreme left and far right, including neo-Nazis.
>> Ultimately, Albright explained reports of the humanitarian catastrophe by claiming “[a]nti-Americanism will always find a receptive audience in some circles.” That “anti-Americanism” may have been the result of a policy denying Iraq vaccines to treat infant hepatitis, tetanus, and diphtheria, or the denial of equipment used to maintain blood banks, or a host of vital humanitarian supplies denied on the flimsiest of security pretexts, was apparently lost on Albright and other elites.
Anti-Americanism and anti-Israelism/Zionism/Semitism are not caused by oppressive foreign policy, invasion and occupation, mass slaughter of civilians, illegal blockades, use of illegal munitions (depleted uranium, white phosphorus), et cetera.
It’s as simple as these six words: They Hate Us For Our Freedoms.
Anyone who thinks otherwise is a self-loathing, freedom-hating traitor who should just go back to wherever they came from. :-)
I’m one of the extreme minority that thinks the idea of ‘genocide’ inherently misleading rather than simply in need of amendment.
What if we amended the legal definition of ‘genocide’ so that it was ‘the effective attempt to destroy, biologically/politically, the race (etc.) as such – or any policy which in general effect comes to the same thing’? We wouldn’t then need to consider intentions but what have we gained? We surely couldn’t say that the blockade was in general effect leading to a point where Iraqis as such would no longer exist or would be at least be destroyed as a political force by suffering and starvation?
But would that be the point? If the fact is (I’m leaving aside any attempt to justify this or any blockade) that innocent and defenceless people suffer in a systematic, prolonged and unjustified way why is that fact not enough – why do we have to ask whether the cumulative effect is to destroy a race, a group? The idea of genocide shifts the focus of morality from individuals to groups and that seems to me to be a terrible mistake. The amendment removing the importance of intention wouldn’t let us put our finger on what was wrong. In fact it would distract us from what was really wrong, which is the destruction of individuals.
“The idea of genocide shifts the focus of morality from individuals to groups and that seems to me to be a terrible mistake. The amendment removing the importance of intention wouldn’t let us put our finger on what was wrong. In fact it would distract us from what was really wrong, which is the destruction of individuals”
That’s well put. That’s my problem with it too. I sort of alluded to this in my post above complaining about the Power book–there are some really terrible crimes (not just the Iraqi sanctions) which the US has committed which wouldn’t fit the definition of genocide, but vast numbers of innocent people were killed all the same for no good reason.
This really crystallized for me when Nicholas Kristof wrote a column several years ago about Darfur and the Congo. He admitted that many more people were dying in the Congo (about a factor of ten or more), but he thought Darfur was more important because it was “genocide”. Which meant that the abstract definition of the word meant more than human life.
One can argue that much of what was going on in the Congo was genocide anyway. But their suffering is the same whether that word is used or not.
Patrick Clawson is a member of WINEP, the think tank that was spun out of AIPAC. His current role at WINEP is to promote sanctions against Iran — the “carrots and sticks” approach, as Clawson likes to tell his AIPAC-assembled audiences.
In 1993, Clawson prepared an analysis titled, “How Has Saddam Hussein Survived? Economic Sanctions, 1990-1993.” The study was published under the banner of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, McNair Paper 22.
Clawson’s study examined the aim of sanctions, how Iraqis adjusted to sanctions, the impact of sanctions on Iraqi living standards, and an economic analysis of Iraqi trade and finance over the sanctions period. Charts showed the changing availability of foodstuffs and their changing prices and the ability of the Iraqi people to afford the goods. Changing caloric quantity and quality and the age groups most susceptible to disease and mortality were discussed. Based on the assessment of 3-years of data of Iraqi suffering under sanctions, Clawson then developed options for the “mid-1990s,” evaluating the feasibility of “full sanctions” and restrictions on oil sales.
The study provides numerous insights into both the irrational and mean-spirited intent of the imposers of sanctions and the comparatively rational efforts of Saddam’s government and Iraq’s private sector to develop policy to respond to sanctions while protecting Iraqi people as well as could be done: Clawson observes in the study contrary to the assertion that hardships and deaths were due to Iraqi government deprivations, Saddam’s regime actually made extra efforts to ensure that as many people as possible had as much of their requirements as possible.
While Walzer writes that the consequences of the blockade did affect the living standard of ordinary Iraqis partly because of the way the Iraqi government behaved, Clawson quotes Dreze and Gazdar:
At the beginning of the study, Clawson made this assessment of Iraqi living standards “pre-crisis:”
In planning for ongoing and tightened sanctions, Clawson writes:
Clawson concludes his study:
In spite of this conclusion, Clawson and his AIPAC co-conspirators — who knew exactly how sanctions failed to achieve their intended political goals but did result in great harm to innocent Iraqi civilians — are intentionally enforcing the nearly identical counterproductive and life-threatening measures on the innocent civilians of Iran.
The slowly changing and now narrow definition of genocide is made so that bodies of power might work their atrocities with impunity. This is because the word genocide is connected to legal prosecution ramifications. Essentially the powerful wish to engage in genocidal activity without the legal complications.
To deny that genocide in many forms has and is occurring, by not naming the participants nor the victims, is to let it take place because there is no goose stepping in the process. Plain and simple, and rather than gifting the world with a workable mechanism to prosecute genocide we have horded it to ourselves so we could work our own atrocities in Palestine while stealing the morally authoritative voice of Holocaust victims, and have missed our opportunity to help humanity.