Iraqis cross a busy border checkpoint between Kurdish- and Islamic State-controlled territory in Maktab Khalid, just west of Kirkuk, Iraq, September 17, 2014. (Andrea Bruce / The New York Times)
While in Boston in 1994, full-time peace activist Bert Sacks made a decision that changed his life forever.
He decided to seek out a study produced by a group called the Harvard Study Team, which had reported to The Washington Post that the deliberate destruction of Iraq's civilian infrastructure by the US military, along with the US-led economic sanctions against that country, were likely to cause 170,000 Iraqi children to die.
He decided to seek out a study produced by a group called the Harvard Study Team, which had reported to The Washington Post that the deliberate destruction of Iraq's civilian infrastructure by the US military, along with the US-led economic sanctions against that country, were likely to cause 170,000 Iraqi children to die.
Sacks refuses to ignore what is happening.
Unfortunately, that estimate would turn out to be far, far too low, as President Bill Clinton's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, infamously boasted on national television when she said the price of 500,000 dead Iraqi children was "worth it." Albright went on to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Obama.
"Since that time 21 years ago, I could not leave this issue alone," Sacks, a kind, soft-spoken 72-year old activist from Seattle, told Truthout.
"Since that time 21 years ago, I could not leave this issue alone," Sacks, a kind, soft-spoken 72-year old activist from Seattle, told Truthout.
He went on to make nine trips into Iraq, the first one in 1996, as part of a Voices in the Wilderness delegation and in an effort to "educate myself and my fellow Americans about the disastrous effect of this policy on Iraqis."
For his efforts, in 2002, he was fined $10,000 by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) for the heinous crime of bringing $40,000 worth of medicine to sick and dying Iraqi children in Basra, Iraq, during his second trip there in1997.
He refused to pay the fine. He then sued the OFAC over the fact that it fined him, but lost the case.
In turn, the OFAC sued him for the fine, plus another $6,000 in interest and penalties.
Most people in the United States have chosen to ignore the catastrophic situation the US government has caused in both Iraq and the greater Middle East. One could easily argue that both the catastrophe that is today's Iraq as well as the bloodbath in Syria stemmed from the US wars against Iraq, which began in 1991 and continue to this day.
Sacks refuses to ignore what is happening. He is a one-man movement, seeking justice, and continues to look for ways he can help the people of Iraq - and nothing the US government has thrown at him thus far has slowed him down.
Sacks refuses to ignore what is happening. He is a one-man movement, seeking justice, and continues to look for ways he can help the people of Iraq - and nothing the US government has thrown at him thus far has slowed him down.
Please continue this article here: http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/33154-one-man-s-mission-justice-for-iraq
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