Tag Archives: Economic sanctions

Regime-ology, by The Zman

Is the real regime getting set to removed Joe Biden from office, one way or another? Like the Kremlinologists of old, you have to study the U.S. regime and from small scraps of information try to figure out what it’s doing. You certainly can’t rely on its official media organs. From The Zman at zman.com:

Regime-ology is a new field of study so the practitioners are still working out the tools and methods for interpreting regime activity. Unlike Kremlinology, on which regime-ology is modeled, the focus is not on a hierarchical structure. The Soviet empire was run by a vertical organization that operated like a corporation. The American empire is a horizontal organization modeled on the Mafia. It is a collection of elite gangster organizations jostling for power within the elite.

With Kremlinology, events could be interpreted as either a signal from the party elite or representing internal party changes. If someone disappeared from the public eye, it meant he had fallen out of favor with the party leaders. If party media reported something hanky about a party member, it was assumed to have been done with the permission of the party leaders to prepare the public for a change. The target was being shaped as a scoundrel so he could be denounced.

Continue reading→

Advocates of Economic Sanctions Mirror the Morality of al Qaeda, by Brian McGlinchey

Killing innocents is killing innocents, regardless of the causes and justifications cited. From Brian McGlinchey at lewrockwell.com:

Terrorists and economic interventionists victimize innocent civilians for the claimed sins of their governments

 

Efforts to restore American and Iranian compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal—formally called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)—are at an impasse.

President Biden has declared there will be no relaxing of smothering economic sanctions on Iran unless the country first returns to full compliance with the deal. Iran, which began exceeding nuclear enrichment thresholds in response to America’s total withdrawal from the deal under President Trump, wants the United States to begin easing sanctions first.

As that chess game continues, there’s something missing from op-ed pages, network news studios and the House and Senate chambers: a fundamental debate about the morality of economic sanctions.

If we reduce economic sanctions to a general characterization that encompasses both ends and means, we arrive at a truth that is as damning as it is incontrovertible:

Economic sanctions intentionally inflict suffering on civilian populations to force a change in their governments’ policies

If that has a familiar ring, perhaps it’s because “the intentional use of violence against civilians in order to obtain political aims” is one definition of terrorism.

That’s not to say “sanctions” and “terrorism” are interchangeable terms. However, both practices center on willfully harming and/or killing civilians to accomplish political goals.

Continue reading→