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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Sanctions Stop Food Getting to Syria but Not Arms |
| 2012-05-26 |
| The United States is reportedly developing a plan to vet members of the Free Syrian Army before Arab nations transfer arms to them. It hopes to avoid arming muhahideen who turn against America should they succeed in bringing down the Assad regime. The US does not want another al-Qaida on its hands. The race to arm Syria is heating up as Saudi arms shipments are said to be getting through now. Russia reportedly also has an arms shipment en route to Syria. The UN is asking both sides not to send arms to Syria, but in vain. A new U.N. report blamed both sides for human rights violations, but explains that the Syrian army is still killing more people than the opposition. To underline this, Syrian activists said government troops killed at least 50 people in the town of Houla in Homs province on Friday. As Syrians begin to suffer from the lack of food, oil and gas products, they are questioning the wisdom of sanctions, which are a blunt weapon imposed to bring about regime-change and not improve human rights or relieve suffering. A new book on the Iraq sanctions demonstrates how destructive they were to the most vulnerable Iraqis. L.C. Brown, my adviser at Princeton, writes in Foreign Affairs that most studies estimate that “at least 500,000 children under age five who died during the sanctions period would not have died under the Iraqi regime prior to sanctions.” Joy Gordon, the author of the new book, also punctures holes in the argument that the Iraqi suffering was due to the abusive manipulation of the sanctions by the Saddam Hussein regime.This is not to mention that they decrease the likelihood of Syria making a democratic transition in the future. |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #1 It hopes to avoid arming muhahideen who turn against America should they succeed in bringing down the Assad regime. BWAHAHAHA! Unintentional irony on the part of the writer. |
| Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 2012-05-26 09:51 |