Ron Paul Liberty Report - Weekly Update --- Trump Tells The Truth: Sanctions Cause People To Suffer
Aired: 2019-04-02
Duration: 03:58


=== Sanctions Cause Suffering (03:55) ===

[00:00:03]  Hello everybody.
[00:00:04]  Thank you for tuning in to the weekly report.
[00:00:07]  Trump tells the truth.
[00:00:09]  Sanctions cause people to suffer.
[00:00:12]  This week, President Trump admitted what the Washington policy establishment of both parties would rather be kept quiet.
[00:00:19]  Asked why he intervened to block a new round of sanctions on North Korea.
[00:00:25]  He told the media that he believes the people of North Korea have suffered enough.
[00:00:30]  They are suffering greatly in North Korea, and I just don't think additional sanctions at this time were necessary, he said.
[00:00:38]  The foreign policy establishment in Washington, whether they are neocons, humanitarian interventionists, so-called realists, or even progressives, have long embraced sanctions as a way to pressure governments into doing what Washington wants without having to resort to war.
[00:00:56]  Neocons and other interventionists endorse sanctions because they know that sooner or later they will lead to war, their preferred foreign policy.
[00:01:07]  With his characteristic bluntness, President Trump has exposed this big lie.
[00:01:12]  Sanctions are not a more humane alternative to war.
[00:01:17]  They are just another form of war.
[00:01:20]  In fact, they are perhaps the cruelest form of war because they do not target the military of an adversary, but rather the innocent civilian population.
[00:01:30]  As President Trump said, they make people suffer.
[00:01:35]  Sanctions are meant to make life so miserable for the civilian population that it rises up and overthrows a leader out of favor in Washington.
[00:01:47]  In Iraq, in the 1990s, those sanctions cost the lives of a half million children.
[00:01:54]  But then, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright infamously said she thought the price was worth it.
[00:02:01]  But still, the people didn't rise up and overthrow Saddam, even as their lives became more and more miserable.
[00:02:08]  So the neocons had to concoct some lies about weapons of mass destruction, and Iraq was invaded anyway.
[00:02:17]  An estimated million more people were killed in that war.
[00:02:22]  So much for the humanitarianism of sanctions.
[00:02:27]  Sanctions often target water supplies, sewage treatment, medicine, food supply, and other essentials for civilian life.
[00:02:36]  After the people suffer under the soft war of sanctions, though, they most often are forced to suffer again as the U.S. attacks anyway.
[00:02:45]  That was the case in Iraq, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere.
[00:02:50]  And it may soon be the case for Venezuela and perhaps even North Korea.
[00:02:55]  In Yemen, sanctions have contributed to the death of some 80,000 children from starvation.
[00:03:02]  Millions more are facing starvation, yet they continue to resist Saudi and U.S. demands that they overthrow their government.
[00:03:10]  Sanctions do not inspire people to rise up and overthrow their governments.
[00:03:14]  Most civilians suffering under sanctions couldn't throw out their rules even if they wanted to.
[00:03:20]  After being impoverished and malnourished for years, they are really expected to take on their own government's military.
[00:03:29]  I'm glad to hear President Trump tell the truth about sanctions.
[00:03:32]  They hurt the powerless in the fillest hope that the powerful will change their behavior.
[00:03:38]  No new sanctions on North Korea is a good start.
[00:03:42]  Now, how about dismantling the inhumane and counterproductive sanctions from Caracas to Damascus and from Moscow to Beirut?
[00:03:50]  Let's return to a foreign policy of peace and engagement, backed by a strong military for our defense alone.