Economic sanctions seek to impoverish and sicken the civilians of the sanctioned nation. They also place heavy economic costs on the civilians of nations imposing the sanctions. To add insult to injury, the track record of sanctions forcing political change is disgracefully bad as well.
Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
sanctions are economic warfare
They are also specifically intended to impact civilians.
the main trouble with sanctions is that they are more insidious than the messy business of physical war. Ive yet to find anyone argue that sanctions even work – unless bludgeoning a civilian population is the aim
Dropping cluster bombs on neighborhoods is an act of warhttps://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/04/ukraine-cluster-munitions-launched-kharkiv-neighborhoods
Shelling nuclear power plants is an act of war. Killing civilians is an act of
war. So far the response to Russian aggression has been Ukrainians fighting defense – and defense is allowed by libertarian ethics – and the world ceasing to cooperate with the aggressor. Cooperating with an aggressor is an act of war, so
ceasing to cooperate with the aggressor is to refrain from supporting and aiding aggression. I am sorry Ron Paul no longer knows the difference between aggression and defense.
Trading freely with others is not an act of aggression, regardless of what those others are doing. Economic sanctions prohibit free trade. They are not only unproductive, but immoral. You have no idea what you’re talking about.
No. I believe in free trade and have promoted it in my political campaigns and I sell books on free trade @ Renaissance Book Shop in Riverside, CA
(www.renbook.com) but in fact aiding and abetting an aggressor, including by trading with them, is an act of war. Refusing to trade with aggressors is
refusing to be a party to war. As Daniel Ellsberg noted on William F Buckley’s Firing Line in 1971, “there is more than one principle in the world.”
“Refusing to trade with aggressors is refusing to be a party to war.”
And forbidding anyone to trade with anyone else makes one an aggressor.
OK, limits on trade are coercive. Cluster bombs are coercive. In the past when despots engaged in aggression, the response has been either
surrendor or violent defense – sometimes both. As bad as coercion is, it is better than the violent aggression taking place, and if limiting
trade will stop or hinder that aggression in lieu of sending troops – I will accept limits on trade. As Daniel Ellsberg noted on
William F Buckley’s Firing Line in 1971, there is more than one principle in the world.
Please articulate how an American businessman trading with a Russian businessman is being a party to war.
If the businessman sells anything that can be used for war, or that can substitute for a means of making war, he is a party to aggression.
When someone domestically supplies a weapon that is used in a murder or attempted murder the supplier of the weapon is an accessory
to murder. There have a number of recent cases showing this law in action. So supplying means of making war to an aggressor is to be an
accessory to aggression.
And if not?
If not what?
If not the first sentence of your reply.
In normal times we want to practice trade even with oppressive regimes, as long as it is not material that can be used for warmaking or
domestic policing. So selling food, televisions or whatever should be ok in normal times. When a state undertakes violent aggression.
you treat that state as a criminal, and to stop trading with such people is a better way to respond than with violence. In fact much of the
non-cooperation with Russia has been voluntary acts by private & corporate business, cultural associations etc. For example,
the World Tae Kwon Do Federation has stripped Putin of his honorary belt; they will allow Russians to compete, but no flags or anthems
of Russia or Belarus will be allowed at Tae Kwon Do events sponsored by this organization. That is voluntary action, as are the many
companies ending their involvement with Russia. This is in addition to government imposed sanctions, which in normal times are bad,
but better than fighting when there is an aggressor.
Most trade is not between regimes, it’s between people.
If those people don’t want to trade with each other, that’s up to them.
Government imposed sanctions aren’t better than war, they are war — on both the target population and the imposing regime’s own population.
In the past, if someone committed aggression, the only response was surrender or fight. I am willing to accept coercion to enforce
sanctions on an aggessor in preference to going to war. I have lived through several wars, and they clearly imposed more pain on
people than sanctions do. If you don’t accept my reasoning, that is your right; I won’t change my mind, having lived through the Vietnam
War and two Iraq Wars – each time I was active in the campaigns against the war.(I used to say antiwar campaigns, but that word no longer
means anything). I know you are younger than me and have not lived through as many wars. Experience really is an important teacher.
“I know you are younger than me and have not lived through as many wars.”
I’m somewhat younger than you — I barely remember the tail end of Vietnam.
One the other hand, “living through wars” isn’t just a quantitative matter, it’s also a qualitative one.
Oddly, if I have any PTSD from my war experiences, it doesn’t come from getting shot at, or from the smell of barbecued humans in a destroyed enemy tank, or from crawling through human hair, blood, and feces in enemy bunkers after wading across the mine fields and through the cluster munition casings aboveground outside to get to them.
It comes from Madeline Albright casually calling the deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children in the post-war “sanctions” regime “worth it.” That is what gave me bad dreams.
I am 71, born in 1950, and I was in the first draft lottery. I dropped a class at UC Riverside, and lost my deferment. I refused to go
to my physical October 22, 1970, declined a second physical and did not report for induction. I was arrested on October 22, 1975.
From 1972 to 1976 I was involved with Eric in the Peace & Freedom Party, then in 1976 we took our group out of PFP and held a press
conference to join the Libertarian Party. No reporters showed up for our press conference, but O. J. Simpson was just finishing a press
conference – about orange juice I think – and I buttonholed enough reporters we were able to proceed. In 1986 I supported Ed Zschau for
Senate (Republican) and Eric contacted me, and I got involved with LROC, although I had a lot of disagreements with the strategy LROC
developed. I quit when LROC endorsed George H W Bush for President – I was Riverside County coordinator for the Ron Paul campaign.
I had occasional contact with Eric after that, then contacted him after 9/11 when it was obvious we were headed toward a war. I subscribe to the
Los Angeles Times (once great, pretty pathetic right now) and I would find columns while having breakfast, and send the links to Eric, After I did
this a few times he asked me to do it everyday; I told him I don’t have that much time before going to work, so he agreed to pay for internet access
at my shop. For eight years I did that type of research and some other research on a full time basis – basically 8 years a day 6 days a week and a little on
Sunday. And antiwar.com appeared to be more rational.
As you might remember, Gorbachev brought the USSR into the NWO coalition against Iraq, so antiwar.com for that reason took an anti-Soviet stance.
When I worked with Eric in LROC, he told me that I considered Russia the main enemy, and they (Eric, Justin and their financial backer) all considered
America the main danger – consistent with Murray Rothbard’s outlook. I said the danger comes from whatever state engages in aggression – and both
America and Russia had done so, and I opposed both. In 1940 this was called the Third Camp – although at that time, the two other camps were British
and French imperialism on one side, and the alliance of Germany and the USSR on the other. The Third Camp was the Schachtmanite refugees from the SWP and the various anarchist groups in America and Europe. Murrray Rothbard denounced the Third Camp idea several times.
When Murray and Leonard Liggio were involved in the NY PFP in 1968, they aligned with the Maoist Progressive Labor Party against the
Independent Socialist Clubs, which were left Schachtmanites. In any real world, ISC was much closer to libertarians -anti-Stalinist and
Third Camp – than was PLP – Stalinist and pro-China.
In 1968 friends of mine who knew Dr Rothbard told me he was on an anti-American kick, and took Russia’s side in the cold war, and I found
it hard enough to believe that I forgot about it until Eric told me about the anti-American stance that LROC’s leaders took.
When I speculated on your age, it was not to say you have less experience than me. I am just trying to understand what experience you had.
I guess you were never subject to the draft – correct me if wrong – and that really makes a difference in your attitude about things. Also, I doubt
your dad fought in world war II. Mine did, and was almost killed. That also effects your attitude about war. If you have not had either of these
experiences -good. But they do mean that you might not understand my attitude sometimes.
I was not subject to the draft, but one of my earliest political activities was stealing registration forms from the post office and throwing them away after Reagan brought back registration. I also didn’t register for the draft — until I went to join the Marine Corps and was told I had to register to volunteer!
My dad didn’t fight in World War 2, but one of my grandfathers was drafted and did. My wife’s father did as well.
Ronald Reagan did not bring back registration. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy Carter re-instituted
draft registration, in 1980. He did not bring back the draft. In his speech accepting the Republican nomination in 1980, Ronald Reagan
pledged to end draft registration, but he ended up leaving it in. Not a defense of leaving draft registration – my son had to register
for the draft to keep his college scholarship – but Carter brought back registration.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_States#Post-1980_draft_registration
You’re equating the state with the people. I’m not wasting any more time with you. Good day, sir.
Berkman is purposely obtuse.
Yes, I’m seeing that.
“In my imagination, when someone domestically supplies a weapon that is used in a murder or attempted murder the supplier of the weapon is an accessory to murder.”
Fixed, no charge.
Tom, it is actually the law. It has been the law for many years. If you want to change it, it will be interesting to see
if you can get anyone to agree with you. FYI – the most annoying thing that you do is “fixed, no charge.” But it is a minor
quibble compared with what I put up with working with antiwar.com for 8 years, while Justin Raimondo was there.
As you point out in a later comment, no, it’s not the law. There has to be intent to aid in the commission of a crime. In point of fact, there’s a federal law that specifically exempts gun manufacturers from prosecution/suit over the sale of weapons just because those weapons may happen to be used in the commission of a crime.
I’m not going to air internal Antiwar.com dirty laundry here except to mention that Justin and I had our own conflicts (not ideological for the most part, having more to do with who got to tell who what to do and how).
Oddly, I seem to have been hired here at least partly on the basis of my occasional “letters to the editor,” including one criticizing him for what I perceived as an annoying “Israel bad, all Israel bad, nothing but Israel bad, 24/7/365” obsession.
I have to wonder what he’d think about commenters treating RT as the objective voice of reason. My recollection is that he refused all interview requests by state media, including RT. Hell, even I don’t do that (I’ve appeared on RT radio a couple of times).
When I worked at Antiwar.com the English language websites RT and Pravda were both used as outlets for antiwar.com pieces.
Apparently Pravda was very open – there was a guy named Bill White who had a series of non-existent anarchist groups he claimed to
lead – the Utopian Anarchist Party being one – then he became a white supremacist and formed a neo nazi group. At this point he posted
a couple of pieces on Pravda’s English site, and Eric contacted Pravda and got them taken down. It was too weird to make a judgment about.
Just some details on accessories to crimes. To be accused of being an accessory you have to knowingly supply a weapon to someone you have strong reason to believe they will use it in a crime. Someone says “hey, can I borrow your Glock cause I know a 7-11 that has a lot of cash after the afternoon shift” and then the 7-11 is robbed and someone is shot. There are obvious evidentiary problems in prosecuting this crime, although if several people are involved someone might talk. It is more common to prosecute someone who gives a drug to someone else who overdoses because it is easier to link the evidence.
seems you do not know what sanctions are
Voluntarily boycotting someone is not an act of war. But sanctions are not voluntary boycotts.
Yes. Sanctions are a form of economic warfare. But so what? Sanctions are intended to undermine economy of targeted nation, to reduce that nation’s capacity and will to wage war. Then again so are electric cars, electrification of transportation, renewable energy sources. Anything that reduces demand for fossil fuels, which Russia depends on for income, can be viewed as act of economic war. Same goes for Iran. Anything (short of shooting war) that undermines Russia’s ability and will to wage war and occupy Ukraine is, IMHO, a moral, decent, and JUSTIFIED . I would go a bit further and authorize covert acts of Russian infrastructure sabotage. Derail train carrying armor. Cause water circulation pump to fail at a nuclear plant, requiring reactor shutdown. Dam breach. Cyberwar to shut down Russian air traffic control. Contaminate fuel stockpiles. Go after Russian power grid. Frame a senior Russian official to make him or her appear to be a deep cover spy for Western intelligence. Have Russian security forces tear apart their society looking for real and imagined spies. Basically throw Book Of Dirty Tricks at Russia, and add a few chapters.
But so what? Sanctions are intended to undermine economy of targeted
nation, to reduce that nation’s capacity and will to wage war.- give me an example when sanctions have worked
I see from your words you are openly calling for the destruction of Russia – just curious what your nationality is