The Innocents of Iraq

By Mowahid H. Shah

The story of the life-destroying sanctions on Iraq should be on the front pages, but it is not. Nevertheless, according to the New York-based International Action Center led by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, “economic sanctions have killed more than 1.5 million Iraqis.” (www.jacenter.org). The World Health Organization reports that 5,000 to 6,000 human babies die every month because of sanctions-related effects. To protest the suffering, Denis Halliday, the head of the United Nations oil-for-food program in Iraq, resigned, terming the sanctions as the U.N.’s “weapon of mass destruction.” Link that also to the nonstop Anglo-American bombing of Iraq and it all adds up to a humanitarian calamity.

Japan and Germany perpetrated horrific atrocities during WWII, but after their defeat both nations were put back on their feet through massive U.S. economic aid. Emperor Hirohito, despite his wartime complicity, was left intact.

Arab affluence provided a brief window of opportunity to influence events after Iraq’s defeat, but that opportunity was not seized. Equally useless has been the U.N. under the timid Kofi Annan, making it increasingly clear why his selection was so aggressively promoted by Madeleine Albright.

Even the ex-U.N. chief arms inspector in Iraq, Richard Butler, in an interview with Arms Control Today (June 1999), was constrained to remark: “Sanctions seem to hurt the wrong people and don’t necessarily bring about compliance.”

The infirm, the elderly, the women, men and children of Iraq are not Saddam Hussain. If this were happening to animals in the Arab world, there would have been calls in New York for a new Crusade.

The innocents, sandwiched between the tyranny of their rulers (who in the ’80s were equipped by the West and bankrolled by the Arab establishment during Iraq’s war with Iran) and an uncaring international community, have suffered grievously. On this one point, a consensus easily can be reached. In fact, now is the time to stand up, be counted, and drive home the simple and profound message: enough is enough.

The leaders among us can take up this humanitarian cause. It is a basic exercise of the right to free expression enshrined in the First Amendment and available to all in the U.S.

Do not fear. Those who speak out for the suffering people of Iraq will still eat the same meals, work at the same jobs and go to bed with the same roof over their head without sleep being disturbed by a midnight knock from the FBI. Perhaps it may earn more respect (and self-respect), empowering the Muslim youth in the process—for standing up for what is humane, decent and morally right.

As a Jewish thinker once told me, “Don’t blame the West; blame the Muslims for not being Muslims.”

Mowahid Hussain Shah, who writes a regular column for Pakistan Link, published in Los Angeles, has been editor of the Eastern Times (Washington, DC), editor-designate of The Muslim (Islamabad), and vice president of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the United States. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and has argued cases before the U.S. Supreme Court. This article is reprinted from the Sept. 24 issue of Pakistan Link. Reprinted with permission.