-------Original Message-------
From: Nick Arnett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
If we are now killing babies by failing to make war on Iraq, then we were also killing 
babies by supporting sanctions.  Unless the "we" in those sentences is the whole human 
race, I don't think it makes any sense to think this way. 
**********************************************

You need to consider the trade-off.  For example, the various Christian Churches of 
the world do not hold people morally culpable all those who do not sell off all of 
their possessions to devote themselves to a life of poverty and charity - even though 
doing so in the short-term would certainly save lives.

In the case of sanctions, however, there is minimal moral culpability for supporting 
sanctions as opposed to lifting sanctions - since the sanctions regime permits Saddam 
Hussein to buy unlimited food and medicine, and he simplye *refuses* to do so.  Thus, 
in this trade-off, supporting sanctions is not morally culpable.

Now, in the trade-off of sanctions vs. war, since war would clearly save Iraqi lives, 
the moral burden is upon the supporters of continued sanctions to demonstrate why the 
cost of war is too high to justify the saving of those Iraqi lives.

"5,000 children under the age of 5 die every month in Iraq." - UNICEF

JDG 
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