Senator Calls Venezuela 'Murder,' Ignores Homegrown Sanction Deaths
Newsweek reports an Arizona Senator calling mysterious boat strikes in Venezuela 'sanctioned murder.' A strong condemnation, to be sure. Yet, this same moral outrage often evaporates when assessing the impact of U.S. sanctions, which have crippled Venezuela's economy, cut off vital imports, and arguably caused countless deaths through induced poverty and lack of medicine. (Just 2019, a CEPR report
estimated over 40,000 deaths tied to U.S. sanctions.) It appears 'sanctioned murder' is only recognized when it's committed by a designated adversary's navy, not when it's a slow, economic strangulation orchestrated from Washington. The selective indignation is, shall we say, a consistent theme in foreign policy discourse. One might wonder why some forms of human suffering are worthy of primetime
condemnation, while others—particularly those linked to U.S. policy—are conveniently reframed as 'economic pressure' or 'promoting democracy.' How many 'terrorists' does it take to sanction a country into destitution before it's called what it is?