holds

Views expressed in this archived message are those of the author, not of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.

>Conclusions - final paragraph of this piece
>If we are not careful, the 'smart sanctions' pill could be a powerful
>sedative, lulling the world's conscience to sleep. I believe we must re-
>focus our attention. We must stop concentrating on 'holds' and 'lists',
>and concentrate our energies instead on the real causes of the
>humanitarian crisis.

>This seems to me the best way to explain to
>people how US/UK policy is failing the ordinary people of Iraq.

Thanks to Milan for a useful and lucid analysis of the new Resolution. My only point of disagreement is on the question of holds.

If we ignore, for argument's sake, the fact that sanctions are to a large extent, intrinsically about holds(eg. on foreign investment, imports and exports, free movement of labour, and so on) and just consider what Milan describes as contract holds, there is still good reason to examine the role of the US/UK in the Sanctions Committee. This is because the "real causes" of the humanitarian crisis are wholly political, not economic. After all, the economy did not collapse by itself. It was subjected firstly to miltary assault and then to sanctions. And sanctions are first and foremost a political act. One danger of presenting the crisis in broadly economic terms is that you end up covering up this crucial fact, giving people the impression that the crisis is just a result of economic mismanagement. I believe that, like other features of the sanctions regime, the Sanctions Committee should be studied and exposed for what it is. All the best, Tim