Ali is a third-year physiological science student.
By Mujtaba Ali
The letters by James Kim and Kevin Williams indicate these
students are sadly devoid of a humanitarian conscience (Viewpoint,
Feb.7).Â
Kim and Williams criticize Mohammad Mertaban’s submission
“U.S. sanctions destroy lives of innocent,” which
called for an end to U.S.-led economic sanctions that have claimed
the lives of millions of people and that continue to result in the
deaths of 5,000 children every month (Viewpoint,
Feb.6).
Kim states that helping the Iraqi people will “benefit
Hussein’s cause” and complains that the United States
has garnered international contempt for imposing sanctions as well
as for “making gestures at removing Hussein.” In
reality, what these 11 years of genocide have shown us is that the
sanctions are doing absolutely nothing to weaken Hussein’s
power. His army continues to grow, and his people continue to
suffer. Why won’t the Iraqi people speak out against
Hussein? Easy ““ because they would be killed. Avoiding a
draft to Saddam’s army, or speaking out against his regime
could result in death.
The United States is internationally condemned because the
imposing of sanctions as well as making “gestures at removing
Hussein” result only in further harm to Iraqi civilians and
infrastructure. U.S. attempts to remove Hussein have thus far
consisted of the bombing of water-treatment facilities and food
distribution centers.
Ironic still is the fact that the party most responsible for
Saddam’s rule in Iraq is none other than the United
States. The Reagan administration invested $50 billion in
Hussein and his army during the Iran-Iraq war between 1980 and
1988. Much of this money was used to produce chemical weapons.
Although Hussein’s use of such weapons was condemned by the
international community, he gained further Western support
following Iranian attacks of precious Kuwaiti oil tankers in
1987.
If the idea of American hypocrisy sounds surprising, I’d
like to remind you of the Iran-Contra scandal, among the biggest
cover-ups in world history. While the United States was showing its
full support of Saddam’s questionable activities in the
Iran-Iraq war, it was engaged in illegal arms sales to Iran.
So before you vindicate the U.S. government and deny its
responsibility for Iraqi suffering, first think about who created
the monster in Baghdad.
As for Williams’ claims that Mertaban’s view is
“slanted and devoid of a few critical facts,” I’d
like to ask him what he observed the last time he visited Iraq on a
humanitarian delegation, as Mertaban did last year. Did he see
humans refuse the polluted drinking water caused by the prevention
of sanitation system repair parts to enter the country? Did he
see any of the 1 million chronically malnourished
children? Did he hear the pleading of mothers whose children
are lying in wait of death in “hospital beds” because
doctors don’t have enough syringes to administer
medicine?
What little aid allowed into Iraq is through a handful of
humanitarian, non-governmental organizations ““ whose assets
haven’t been frozen by the U.S. government. However,
after the excessive costs of transportation due to no-fly zones,
there isn’t nearly enough money left for the entire
population.
Even the Oil-for-Food program, enacted in 1996, has not been
helpful to starving Iraqis. Three years after the program’s
inception, the revenue Iraq could earn from oil exports was rigidly
capped. Only when the international oil market plummeted in
1999 was the cap increased. The U.N. Security Council’s
humanitarian panel reported in March 1999 that oil for food
“can admittedly only meet but a small fraction of the
priority needs of the Iraqi people.”
MIT professor and foreign policy critic Noam Chomsky points out
that U.S.-British sanctions are regularly criticized around the
world,though the issue is kept silent in the U.S. media. He
notes that the Vatican has condemned the sanctions as an act of
aggression, and within Britain, there is very little popular
support for the sanctions. Major Indian jurist organizations have
even brought a case to the World Court condemning the United States
and Britain for war crimes.
Denis Halliday, upon resigning his post as first U.N. assistant
secretary-general, said of the sanctions: “We are in the
process of destroying an entire society. It is as simple and
terrifying as that. It is illegal and immoral.” Halliday
is among several high-ranking U.N. officials to resign in protest
of the sanctions.
Kim and Williams advocate and applaud a policy which is detested
throughout the world and which continues to cause death, despair,
and unbearable suffering.
The United States-led sanctions are a unilateral offensive aimed
at decimating the civilian Iraqi population. Any supporter of
such a policy would be in favor of a definitive example of
terrorism, and any supporter of such a policy would demonstrate
bigotry in his indifference toward the fact that thousands of Iraqi
children die every month as a result of the sanctions.
It is imperative that the UCLA community becomes aware of the
horrible human rights violation being committed by the United
States against the people of Iraq. The sanctions are a gross
breach of international law and must be lifted immediately in order
to prevent further suffering and loss of life.