The Scourging of Iraq : Sanctions, Law and Natural Justice [Paperback]

Geoff Simons (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0312215193 | ISBN-13: 978-0312215194 | Publication Date: June 1996 | Edition: 2nd

The Scourging of Iraq describes the impact of the 1991 Gulf War and subsequent economic sanctions on the Iraqi people. Evidence is presented to show that food and medicine are being denied to the civilian population, and that this involves a gross violation of the 1977 Protocol 1 addition to the 1949 Geneva Convention, which includes the words: "Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited." Sanctions are considered in a historical, political and legal context, with particular attention to how the economic blockade may be seen as a criminal violation of UN resolutions and the UN Genocide Convention.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Geoff Simons has written a scholarly and passionate account of sanctions on Iraq that should alert people to one of the cruellest instruments of foreign policy that uses starvation of a people to bring pressure against a government over which they have no democratic control.' - Tony Benn, MP --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Geoff Simons is a freelance writer and former editor.

Product Details

• Paperback: 385 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan; 2nd edition (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312215193
• ISBN-13: 978-0312215194
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,250,304 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Devastating attack on NATO foreign policy, August 4, 2001

By 

William Podmore (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Scourging of Iraq : Sanctions, Law and Natural Justice (Paperback)

The United States Government blockades of Cuba and Iraq are acts of genocide against national groups, `deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part'. Simons summarises: "United States policy, a slow and knowing extermination of a national people, falls unambiguously within the terms of the UN Genocide Convention."

Eight years of sanctions have killed two million Iraqis, including a million children. Bush began them, supported by Major. Now Clinton maintains them, supported by Blair, `the perfect peacekeeper', in Kofi Annan's words. Protocol I, Article 54 of the Geneva Convention states, "Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited." The United Nations General Assembly has repeatedly denounced the US blockade of Cuba as illegal and demanded that it be lifted. (British Governments usually abstain on these votes.) Ramsey Clark, a former US Attorney-General, says, "I see the blockade as a crime against humanity, in the Nuremburg sense, as a weapon of mass destruction. The blockade is a weapon for the destruction of the masses, and it attacks those segments of society that are the most vulnerable ... infants and children, the chronically ill, the elderly and emergency medical cases."

Some say we must ensure that economic sanctions respect agreed exemptions. The exemptions are for public relations: sanctions are designed to kill. A doctor might as well call for the humane implementation of torture. US and British Governments have consistently vetoed the delivery of baby food and medical supplies to Iraq. The US Government has consistently blocked contracts for medical supplies arranged by British companies.

The sanctions are a continuation of the war by other means. The war itself was more a traditional colonial massacre, with one side having a huge advantage in forces and weaponry. The US and British forces fired tens of thousands of depleted uranium (DU) shells. They are an illegal weapon, under UN Resolution 32/84 of December 1977, which bans the use of `radioactive material weapons'. The US Army admitted that some US soldiers were unknowingly exposed to DU radiation during the War. Obviously, we need not look any further for the cause of `Gulf War syndrome'. The US forces also used chemical weapons against the Iraqis. At the war's end, the US forces bombed troops no longer able to offer resistance, and those in retreat: both of these are war crimes.

To blame Castro and Saddam Hussein for their peoples' suffering is like blaming Churchill for the British people's suffering under the Nazi blockade, or like blaming the rabbis for the Jews' suffering under the Nazis.

It is a hideous mockery even to talk of an ethical foreign policy when genocide is being perpetrated. We should demand an end to the sanctions, otherwise we acquiesce in genocide.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A graphic account of the genocide by sanctions in IRAQ, March 12, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Scourging of Iraq: Sanctions, Law and Natural Justice (Hardcover)

The author provides a vivid picture of the effects of the US's methodical destruction of the life support infastructure in Iraq during "Desert Storm" and its relationship to and the continuing use of "Economic Warfare", i.e. "sanctions" to produce hundreds of thousands of deaths, targeting especially babies and children, the elderly and the chronically ill, by starvation and preventable diseases.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars post-gulf war iraq is a victim of a "silent holocaust.", November 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Scourging of Iraq: Sanctions, Law and Natural Justice (Hardcover)

The author goes above and beyond the "real" effects that the U.N.-U.S. imposed sanctions are producing up to this day to the average iraqui citizen.If the overkill of the iraqui infrastructure wasn't enough, sanctions have taken back the iraqui people to a pre-industrial age.