Time for Sanctions Against the
Bush
Administration
by
Wayne Madsen
Dissident Voice
March 6, 2003
The
international political system has a method for dealing with regimes that flout
the United Nations Charter -- sanctions. Sanctions come in different flavors.
Sanctions like economic boycotts have teeth, others like travel bans are more
symbolic but are more easily imposed and relatively effective. It is time for
the United Nations and its individual members to consider political and other
sanctions against the Bush administration. After all, other countries and
regimes that have snubbed their noses at international norms of behavior have
been on the receiving end of sanctions. The United States heartily supported
such measures against regimes in South Africa, Rhodesia, Iran, Iraq, Burma,
Libya, Zimbabwe, Yugoslavia, North Korea, Taliban-run Afghanistan, Pakistan,
India, Azerbaijan, Angola's UNITA, Cuba, and Sudan.
But now it is the United
States, governed by a coterie of war hawks, which threatens international order
and stability. The Bush administration is threatening to bombard Iraq with a
volley of bombs and missiles that will "shock and awe" the Iraqis
into surrendering.
The Bush administration is
severely in need of a demonstration of international will that will "shock
and awe" Washington back into some semblance of rationality and sanity.
That can best be done by imposing wide sweeping political sanctions on the Bush
administration. By targeting the Bush administration and not the general
American public, the international community can put key members of the Bush
administration on notice that their behavior has consequences, even for
officials of the "world's only remaining superpower."
The concept of international
sanctions against the Bush administration are nothing new. The idea was first
floated by the European Union in March 2001 when the United States pulled out
of the Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gas emissions. EU Environment Commissioner
Margot Wallstrom, while saying trade sanctions against the United States were
premature, warned of other broad implications stemming from America's
withdrawal from the treaty.
The international community
should begin with a ban on visits by the top U.S. political leaders who support
flouting the United Nations and other regional international organizations. For
starters, the list of Americans who could be refused visas, including transit
visas, might include Donald Rumsfeld, his top deputies - Paul Wolfowitz, Doug
Feith, Dov Zakheim, and Peter Rodman, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and
International Strategy John Bolton and his deputy David Wurmser, National
Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, her assistants Elliott Abrams and Otto Reich
and consultant Michael Ledeen, Attorney General John Ashcroft, and UN
ambassador John Negroponte.
The travel ban should also
be extended to such key administration advisers and propagandists as Defense
Policy Board (DPB) chairman Richard Perle, Center for Security Policy director
Frank Gaffney, Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, America's ayatollah of
morality William Bennett, former CIA Director James Woolsey, and DPB members
Kenneth Adelman and Newt Gingrich.
The European Union has
already imposed such a travel ban on 72 officials of Zimbabwe's government. The
United States also imposed a travel ban on President Robert Mugabe and 19 of
his top officials. The UN Security Council has imposed travel bans on Iraqi's
top military leaders and top leaders of Angola's UNITA rebel movement. Travel
restrictions were also imposed by the Clinton administration on Burma's
military leadership and their families from visiting the United States.
In addition to the European
Union and national governments imposing a travel ban on top Bush administration
officials, national, regional, and municipal legislatures could also pass
symbolic resolutions stating that key members and supporters of the Bush
administration are "not welcome" to visit their countries, provinces,
and cities. What would be more valuable for the court of public opinion than a
city mayor or a regional leader informing a visiting Bush administration
official or political loyalist that he or she is not officially
"welcome" by the host government? That sort of bad press is every
public relations person's worst nightmare. It is a tactic worth seriously
considering.
Travel bans or
"unwelcome" resolutions could also be extended to members of the U.S.
Congress who stand in lockstep with the Bush administration. Considering the
number of overseas congressional junkets that take place on an almost weekly
basis, it would not be long before GOP loyalists and their Democratic quislings
would begin to realize what their administration has wrought in severely damaging
U.S. relations with the rest of the world.
Another sanction option
could be the boycotting of official U.S. diplomatic functions and cultural
events by local government and business leaders, as well as celebrities.
Considering Canada's strong opposition to Washington's unilateral policies, a
boycott by Canadian politicians and dignitaries of social and other official
events surrounding Bush's upcoming May 5 state visit to Canada would appear to
be in tall order.
People abroad have already
started their own grass roots sanction program against the Bush administration
by canceling or curtailing pleasure trips to the United States. European travel
industry insiders report that hundreds of thousands of Europeans have decided
to cancel trips to the United States, opting instead to spend their vacations
in Europe, Asia, Latin America, or Canada. Many European air travelers object
to being cajoled into providing personal information to the U.S. government,
including bank account data, credit information, and even dietary habits.
Traveling within Europe or to countries that do not impose such draconian
screening measures appeal more to the average European traveler. As a result,
America's tourist destinations are feeling the economic pinch.
Focusing a sanctions
campaign against key members of the Bush administration and their more rabid
supporters in the private policy laundering sector would serve notice that the
world's patience has its limits and the Bush administration has pushed the
envelope on that patience. It is clearly time to build upon the successes of
the global anti-war movement and ratchet up the pressure on the Bush regime
through a sanctions and boycott process. To the American Revolutionaries in
Boston, economic boycotts against the British served as an important catalyst
in the successful rebellion against another mad King George. They worked then
and they should be tried now.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative
journalist and columnist. He wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth: US-Taliban
Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden (Nation Books, 2002).
Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com