Sanctions are Mass Murder: How United States Sanctions are Killing and Starving People Around the World.
Talking about the effect of United States sanctions around the world.
The Western left does not pay a lot of attention to foreign policy. This has led to little attention being paid to one of the biggest human rights violations in the world right now: United States sanctions. In this article, I will be going over how United States sanctions have a devastating effect on the populations of Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Cuba, and Afagnstan. This is an issue that does not get the attention it deserves and I hope this article will lead my readers to understand how horrific sanctions really are.
Venezuela
A common theme that will come up in this article is the way that sanctions are used to punish the people of any country that stands up to United States wars and imperialism. In the case of Venezuela, sanctions are placed on the country because they successfully defeated United States-backed coup attempts on several occasions. Because of this, the United States has imposed sadistic sanctions that harm the most vulnerable people in the country. The United Nations Human Rights Office of The High Commissioners investigation into sanctions on Venezuela found it had a devastating effect on human rights. The report found that sanctions block the country of necessary medical equipment and the necessary equipment to run public institutions such as schools, hospitals, public houses, electricity, gas, and water. The report notes that sanctions deprive Venezuelans of the right to a decent life. The report also notes that sanctions violate the rights of workers including the right to social security, social insurance, and an adequate standard of living. The report also found the sanctions have crippled Venezuela’s public healthcare system leading to an increase in infant mortality, severe disease, chronic diseases, and worse conditions for those with special needs. The report shows how a lack of gasoline makes it harder for Venezuelans to access necessary services such as hospitals and schools especially in rural areas with a majority indigenous population. The lack of fuel also impacts the ability of food storage resulting in starvation. The report found that sanctions had resulted in less working electricity which shut off water pumps depriving Venezuelans of the right to drinking water and leading to disease. The report concludes that the most affected by these sanctions are “low-income people, women, children and people with special needs or chronic or severe diseases”.
These crippling sanctions have led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people. Former United Nations Human Rights council expert and Historian Alfred de Zayas found that these sadistic sanctions have caused over 100,000 deaths.
Syria
The sanctions placed on Syria come after the United States’ dirty war on Syria where the C.I.A. spent billions of dollars arming and training jihadist rebels in an attempt at regime change. When this failed the United States placed crippling sanctions on the country that directly affect the lives of everyday civilians. Aleena Douhan a UN human rights expert reported that the sanctions on Syria target the Syrian Central Bank making it harder for foreign aid and humanitarian imports to be able to enter the country. She says that the sanctions deny Syrians the right to housing health and an adequate standard of living because it blocks the reconstruction of hospitals and blocks medical care. She says the sanctions hurt the human rights of Syrians and preserve the effects of the 10 year civil/dirty war. In an interview with the Grayzone’s Aaron Mate Douhan explained that the sanctions explicitly target reconstruction leading to Syrians not being able to get medical care, go to school or buy food. Researcher Blaise Malley for an article in the American Prospect reported a Syrian doctor was forced to smuggle a CT scanner into Syria due to it being restricted because of the cruel sanctions. Like all sanctions, these do not have an effect on the government and only harm everyday citizens.
Iran
The United States has recently hit Iran with even harsher sanctions before nuclear talks with the country. These sanctions have also had a devastating effect on the population. Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo admitted outright the purpose of these sanctions were to harm the Iranian people in an attempt for regime change when he said
Things are much worse for the Iranian people [with the US sanctions], and we are convinced that will lead the Iranian people to rise up and change the behavior of the regime.
A Human Rights Watch report on the humantairain impact of sanctions on Iran found the sanctions make it much harder for institutions to import essential medicine and medical equipment. The report found that the sanctions also caused inflation to rise by 30 percent making it much harder for working families to be able to afford basic necessities. The report found that the sanctions will have a devastating effect on Iran’s universal healthcare system depriving millions of patients of decent medical care. The report quotes a UN human rights rapporteur who said the sanctions have taken away Iranians right to food, medicine, and pharmaceutical equipment. The report found that these sanctions resulted in Iranians with rare diseases such as leukemia being denied medicine. The report shows that Trump era sanctions have stopped banks used for food, medicine, and medical equipment. UN Special Rapporteur Idriss Jazairy said that sanctions on Iran have driven millions of people into poverty and made any imported goods unaffordable for average Iranians.
Cuba
The United States under Donald Trump re-imposed the embargo on Cuba. Recently Biden announced more sanctions on Cuba after a failed regime change campaign I previously reported on. Recently the UN General Assembly voted on ending the embargo on Cuba. The only two countries to vote against ending it was the United States and Isreal. Of course, this did not stop the sadistic United States empire from continuing it. A United Nations report found that the United States embargo makes it hard to import medicine, food, and medical equipment. The report said it has had an especially devastating effect during the Covid-19 pandemic where Cuba was not able to import and delayed travel time on equipment and medicine necessary to treat Covid. A study in the National Library of Medicine found the embargo on Cuba led to shortages in Cuba’s healthcare system and decrease access to food that led to an epidemic of blindness, an outbreak of Guillain-Barré syndrome, and an epidemic of Lyle ingestion in toddlers because of lack of soap.
Afghanistan
Recently the United States sanctioned Afghanistan after losing the 20 year-long war cutting it off from $10 billion of its assets and cutting the country off from international financial institutions. This also stopped millions in international aid from entering the country. Foreign policy magazine reported that unfreezing these assets could prevent famine in Afghanistan. The article explains that because of these sanctions 40.2 million people in Afghanistan could be in famine. The article showed that Afghans in Afghanistan and around the world are not unable to access their bank accounts because of the countries central bank reserves being frozen. Similar to the previous cases, the United States lost the war in Afghanistan and is now imposing famine onto the people because of it.
Final thoughts
This article barely scratched the surface of the devastating effects United States sanctions have on their targets populations. They are an act of war and murder causing famine, poverty, and lack of medical care for the most vulnerable people in the targeted countries. These sanctions are intended to have the most devastating effect possible to try to make a suffering population rise up and enact regime change against official enemy states. It is a way to starve the people of any country that does not bow down to the United States’ global dictatorship. This is an issue the western left should make on of it’s top priorities.