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CounterPunch
March 6,
2003
Time for Sanctions Against
the Bush Administration
Boycott America?
By WAYNE MADSEN
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.
Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com
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