The
United States government does not run its foreign policy on any more
enlightened or humane premise than it does its prisons.
The
refrain "we are creating enemies faster than we are killing (or capturing)
them" is a bit of truth that gets leaked to the media occasionally in recent
years. Sometimes the sentiment is voiced
by even the most senior military commanders and applied variously to any of
several strategies, including night raids in Afghanistan, check points in Iraq,
the prison at Guantà ¡namo, and drone
attacks in Yemen and Pakistan.
As with prisons, United States military and
diplomatic policies run contrary to their stated objectives of peace and public
safety and yet they persist with little question. Prisons and the military, America's dominant
institutions, exist not to bring healing to domestic ills or relief for foreign
threats but to exacerbate and manipulate them for the profit of the wealthiest
few, at great cost and peril for the rest of us.
One of many discouraging moments of the presidential
campaign that ended just before I surrendered to authorities here in November,
was in a debate where Mr. Obama stated that Americans need to "decide for
themselves" whose sanctions against Iran would be "more crippling," his or Mr.
Romney's. This was an obscene and
unacceptable choice.
Sanctions are portrayed as a diplomatic alternative
to war but in their application can be as lethal, warfare by another name. Sanctions that extend beyond trade in
armaments to include embargoes on food, medicine, educational materials, and
other necessities of life can constitute weapons of mass destruction in
themselves.
It is often said that such comprehensive and
indiscriminant sanctions make prisons of the countries targeted with them. While the regime of sanctions against inmates
here at Yankton is less severe than the brutal conditions I witnessed in Iraq
in 1998 or that the United States imposes on the people of Iran or Gaza (by
proxy), the comparison is apt. Sanctions
and prisons are both about imposing economic and social isolation and both can
raise levels of tension and fear when applied without conscience.
Meaningful employment, decent housing, support of
loved ones, education, and self-respect would be helpful responses to the
scourge of addiction and the crimes that ensue from it. Providing these for people at risk would be a
priority for a responsible society but all these are robbed from inmates in
federal prisons. Threats of war and
terrorism are provoked by sanctions and invasions and can be countered only by
addressing root causes.
"What father," Jesus asked, "would give a stone to a
child who asks for bread?" We know the
answer and it is to our shame.
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