What if Iraqis were white Europeans?

The number of deaths from sanctions in Iraq are similar to those killed
during Pol Pot's reign of terror in Cambodia. And it is higher than the
number of deaths during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda.
- Inter-Church Action, a coalition of Canadian churches.

THE DECADE-LONG American-led sanctions are strangulating a whole nation.
Saddam Hussein does not care. But do we?

Several church, non-governmental and citizens' groups obviously do. There is
widespread public unease, but no outcry, yet. Why?

Several explanations are profferred by a broad range of concerned
commentators and observers:

`BLAME SADDAM' SYNDROME

Propagated by America, parroted by Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy, it makes
for good tactics but bad morality.

As Chris Derksen Hiebert of the Central Mennonite Committee says, Saddam may
``make it easy for people here to say, `Not our fault Iraqis are dying; it's
his fault.' But in supporting sanctions, Canadians are culpable.''

Raymond Legault of Voices of Conscience, Montreal, wrote recently to
Axworthy:

``Invariably, you lay the blame on the Iraqi regime. Notwithstanding its
undeniable crimes, the Iraqi government is not responsible for the war which
we have waged against Iraqi society as a whole.''

To which should be added this sobering fact:

Our sanctions have killed far more people than Saddam ever did in invading
Kuwait or in squashing subsequent internal insurrections.

SKEPTICISM ON NUMBERS

Hardliners dismiss the figure of 1.5 million deaths attributed to sanctions
as Iraqi propaganda. They also mock the oft-cited high child and maternal
mortality rates.

As callous and diversionary as such assertions are, they deserve a response.

The numbers come not from Baghdad but UNICEF. It estimated that from 1990 to
1997, 1.2 million Iraqis died due to lack of food and medicine, including
750,000 children. The toll has since been projected to 1.5 million deaths,
to Oct. 1999.

Others have come to similar conclusions: the International Red Cross, Human
Rights Watch, Food and Agricultural Organization, World Health organization,
U.N. Development Program, and even a Security Council panel.

More than numbers, though, what's important is this:

The scale of the disaster is indisputably huge. We can no longer deny, even
obfuscate, our role in inflicting slow, agonizing death on innocent people.

ANTI-ARAB RACISM

This factor has often been cited across the Middle East and the entire
Muslim world. In the West, it was first articulated by such scholars as
Edward Said of Columbia University, an Arab Christian. Now it is percolating
more broadly. Here's a sample:

``It is difficult to believe that the American-Canadian-British alliance
would perpetuate the same kind of carnage on a Caucasian population.''

So writes Toronto's Dale Hildebrand, head of Inter-Church Action, a
coalition of Anglican, Catholic, Lutheran, Mennonite, Presbyterian and
United churches. He also adds:

``Many have pointed to a racist politic inherent in the West's sanctions in
Iraq. Arabs have long been demonized as violent and irrational terrorists.
Horror and hatred of Arabs has been a constant theme, not only of foreign
policy but also the American media and entertainment industry.''

DOUBLE STANDARDS

Denis Halliday of Ireland, who resigned as head of the U.N. humanitarian
coordinator in Iraq in protest and was recently in Ottawa to lobby against
the sanctions, says:

``One of the complaints of the Arab world is the double standard. When
Israel neglects a (U.N.) resolution, nothing happens. This double standard
drives them all bananas.''

The point is being made by Canadians as well, at times obliquely, at others
quite bluntly.

Walter Pitman, chair of Project Ploughshares, wrote to Prime Minister Jean
Chrétien:

``The international community's willingness to tolerate persistent defiance
of other Security Council resolutions related to the Middle East has
contributed to the weakening of the U.N., and the international community's
capacity to act effectively in the Iraq case.''

Hildebrand's position paper on Iraq questions the American zeal in going
after only Iraqi nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

``A serious question must be raised as to why such objectives apply to Iraq
and not to other countries, not only in the Middle East, but elsewhere. The
U.S., the driving force behind the Iraqi sanctions, has all types of weapons
of mass destruction, as do many other members of the U.N.''

Hildebrand even dismisses the rogue-state argument, noting the wide
differences in Washington's approaches to various such states.

MUDDLED AMERICAN AGENDA

America sided with Saddam's decade-long war against Iran. It attacked him
only when he grabbed oil-rich Kuwait. But it stopped just short of toppling
him. Now it demonizes him. It says it has no quarrel with the Iraqi people,
yet starves them.

What does America really want?

It wants Iraq intact but crippled. Sanctions are ``the brutal weapon of that
realpolitik, of which the civilians are the victims.''

That's the chilling assessment of Rex Brynen, professor at McGill University
and an expert on the Middle East.

``Civilian sanctions can be more effective militarily than military
sanctions.

If a country's economy is operating well and it has impressive domestic
engineering capability and can build industrial plants, it can mount
military operations. But if you can keep its economy in the toilet, it poses
no threat to anyone.''

But since such a strategy is ``morally beyond any justification,'' America
keeps up its red-hot rhetoric against Saddam. ``His non-compliance is very
convenient for America'' - and confusing for the public.

Haroon Siddiqui is The Star's editorial page editor emeritus. His column
appears Sundays and Thursdays. His e-mail address is hsiddiq@thestar.ca