Creation Song
My Christian Witness in Science, Politics, Values, Culture
One-Half Million People Die Annually from U.S. and EU Sanctions
I was hungry…thirsty…a foreigner…homeless…sick…persecuted, and you did not help Me by helping these people. (teaching of Jesus, paraphrase excerpted from Matthew 25:31-46)
A landmark study published in The Lancet Global Health estimates that unilateral economic sanctions—primarily those imposed by the United States and European Union—are associated with approximately 38 million deaths across 152 countries between 1971 and 2021.
This is not some wild unfounded conspiracy theory. The Lancet is acclaimed as one of the most prestigious, influential, and respected medical journals in the world, setting global standards for clinical medicine and public health with a rigorous peer-review process.
Table 5 in the report analyzes 2012 to 2021. To quote Lancet, “We estimate that unilateral sanctions over this period caused 564,258 deaths per year…. the average annual number of battle-related casualties during this period [was] 106,000 deaths per year and similar to some estimates of the total death toll of wars including civilian casualties (around half a million deaths per year).
We [Lancet] also estimated the evolution of deaths caused by global sanctions for each age segment over time. The largest incidence of global sanctions occurred in children younger than 1 year, followed by the 60–80 years age segment. Altogether, deaths of children younger than 5 years represented 51% of total deaths caused by sanctions over the 1970–2021 period.
Blood Stains On U.S. Policymakers’ Hands
The Lancet notes that sanctions by the United Nations are not harsh in contrast to sanctions by the United States and the European Union that appear to drive the high mortality. The power of the US dollar and the euro in international banking has powerful leverage against disfavored nations. Longer time frames of sanctions result in higher tolls on lives.
Jason Hickel notes on his Substack post, When the popular socialist Salvador Allende was elected to power in Chile in 1970, the US government imposed brutal sanctions on the country. At a September 1970 meeting at the White House, US President Richard Nixon explained the objective was to “make [Chile’s] economy scream”. The historian Peter Kornbluh describes the sanctions as an “invisible blockade” that cut Chile off from international finance, created social unrest, and paved the way for the US-backed coup that installed the brutal right-wing dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.
Hunger and deprivation are not an accidental by-product, they are a key objective of US sanctions. This is clear from an internal US government memo written in April 1960, which explains the purpose of US sanctions against Cuba. The memo argues that “every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba… to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government. https://globalinequality.org/imperial-power/
A distinguished team of specialists from the Centre for Economic and Social Rights went to Iraq and analysed the data to find that from 1990 to 1996, sanctions had resulted in the ‘excess deaths of over 500,000 children under the age of five.’ Journalist Leslie Stahl of CBS 60 Minutes asked former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright if the U.S. sanctions were worth that price in lives. Albright replied, “I think that it is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it.”
The United States continues to financially and politically support Israel’s genocidal starvation of Gaza people. The U.S. has intensified its 46-year embargo on Cuba by blockading shipments of fuels. 144 countries have been sanctioned by the US during the period 1950 – 2023. Whether harsh life-threatening, trade-oriented, or to foment regime change, these sanctions function as economic warfare for favorable global wealth control. See https://globalinequality.org/imperial-power/
Pro-Life Hypocrisy
Pious professed Christians who denounce abortion need to open their eyes to the blood stains on their tax dollars. Pledging allegiance to the United States whose foreign policies openly withhold life-saving supplies of food, medicine, fuel to citizens of disfavored nations is accomplice to murder.
The Trump regime’s decision to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition, according to a report by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s Atul Gawande in November 2025. The number of preventable deaths along with immeasurable suffering continues to rise.
“Then He [Jesus] will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you accursed people, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or as a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not take care of You?’ Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for Me, either.’ These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
(Matthew 25:41-46, NASV)
https://creationsong.org
Where Are You, Bobby, jr., Flip-flopping on War?
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
I thought I saw him walkin’ up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin, and John.
“Abraham, Martin, and John” (Dion, Hollar, ©Laurie Records)
I came of age in the 1960’s, a time of social upheaval not unlike today. My native land, the Unites States of America, “was not united.” Splits along contentious divisions included racial justice, the Vietnam War, sexual ethics, poverty, feminism. Yet most citizenry applauded U.S. successes such as landing human beings on the moon.
My nation was jolted by the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, followed by assassinations of both Martin Luther King, jr. and the charismatic presidential candidate Robert K. Kennedy (Bobby) in spring 1968. These last two assassinations spurred a traumatized Dick Holler to write the song “Abraham, Martin, and John,” to be recorded by a comeback performance by Dion. My generation mourned with the song.
Fast forward five decades. The slain Kennedy’s son, Robert F. Kennedy, jr. (Bobby, jr.) with his established fame as an environmentalist activist is campaigning as an independent presidential candidate. Bobby, jr. consistently preaches against the enormous Pentagon military budget that is larger than the combined military budgets of the next 10 highest nations. For example, the LA Times published reporter James Rainey’s story of a meeting in Orange County in which Kennedy promised to cut the U.S. military budget by half during his first three years in office and divert the savings to domestic programs.
“If we use those savings to rebuild our country in every way, we will reverse … spending that is a constant drain on our nation’s vitality.”
Kennedy said that America made a better mark in the world when it projected its power not through force but through moral leadership, economic initiatives and programs like the Peace Corps. He said that China had a smarter approach to foreign affairs — spending money less on its armed forces and more building up the nations of Africa, South America and other regions.
On Dr. Phil’s podcast, Kennedy hammered the point that excessive military spending on 800 U.S. bases around the world was harming our nation’s moral authority and weakening the American middle class and industry.
Flip-flop forward two years. Kennedy is U.S. Secretary of Health in the Trump administration. At a Senate committee hearing April 21, 2026, Senator Patty Murray asked Kennedy his thoughts on the Trump administration’s proposed half trillion dollar increase while slashing preschool programs $315 million. “Do you think we should be spending more money on foreign wars instead of making child care more affordable?
Kennedy testily replied, “Senator, do you want me to defend the Iran War right now…because I can, but I’d rather talk about health.” He went on to charge that “the Democratic Party for twenty years has said Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon yet they have kicked that down the road.” https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Y3C9mfJS5r8
Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he’s gone?
I thought I saw him walkin’ up over the hill….
Bobby, jr., it is clear you are not walking up the hill with Abraham, Martin, John, or your father Bobby, sr. Where have you gone, Bobby? You have walked over the hill to the dark side. You have traded any semblance of your birthright integrity for a mess of Trump pottage and 30 pieces of vainglory silver. The blood of Abraham, Martin, John, and your father is on your Trump-pandering head.
Didn’t you love the things
that they stood for?
Didn’t they try to find some good
for you and me?
And we’ll be free
Some day soon, it’s gonna be one day
Contrasting Airman and Jesus Easter Resurrection Events
“Shot down on a Friday, Good Friday.” “Hidden in a cave, a crevice, all of Saturday. And rescued on Sunday. Flown out of Iran as the sun was rising on Easter Sunday.”
Pete Hegseth, U.S. Secretary of War, describing how a jet fighter pilot shot down in a mission over Iran, is rescued by American forces during the Easter weekend.
Hegseth describes how one of the two pilots, while wounded, traveles through the mountains and is rescued by a large American force behind enemy lines over the course of three days on Easter weekend. “A pilot reborn, all home and accounted for, a nation rejoicing. God is good…”
A jet fighter pilot on a mission to kill enemies is conflated with the Passion of Jesus who refused twelve legions of angels, Peter’s sword to defend his life, and who prayed God’s forgiveness on his torturing executioners.
Fighter pilot is unwillingly shot down and rescued by a lethal army of friends. Jesus willingly accepts the cross to death, is abandoned by his friends, and places his trust in God.
Two resurrection stories. Two different missions. Two different motives. Two competing truths?
A Protest March Changed My Life —Allen Johnson
My life dramatically changed one balmy April night in 1968, when a dozen or so candle-holding college students walked through our small college town protesting the Vietnam War. I despised them as shameful to our nation. Encountering the walkers, I joined a large mob of fellow students and town people to harass the protesters. By the end of the peace walk, my heart had joined with them.
read more…Missing: The Traditional View of Consensus in a Democracy
Traditionally the meaning of the ideal of consensus was that the fundamental institutions and practices of the political system, ‘the rules of the game,’ were accepted by all citizens and politicians; that a winning party would not proceed to stack the system against the loser and make it impossible for them to gain controlling power (e.g., gerrymandering); and that some political institutions (e.g., the courts and independent regulatory agencies) should not be systematically and deeply partisan. (Sheldon Wolin p. 204, in his book, Democracy Inc., Princeton University Press, 2008)
Partisan political conniving to rig democracy is as old as the United States. The term “Gerrymander” was coined when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry signed a bill whose redistricting map looked like a sprawled salamander. In 1812, Elkanah Tisdale made his famous woodcut cartoon of that map.
It is clear to any U.S. citizen of integrity that the United States is not now “united.” Power struggles are weaponized. Opponents on policy issues are demonized. “Truth” is bought and sold to be lies. Aggrandizing omnipotent power, money, prestige is the ruthless endgame. Smoke and mirrors dupe the gullible into complicity, while civic paralysis grips the conscientious awakened citizen.
Nonetheless, many Americans savor those moments when political representatives act together in bipartisanship. We are heartened at presidential inaugurations when transference of power is dignified, respectful, and gracious.
As citizens we must denounce all heavy-handed political power grabs even if these favor our position, lest the deadly virus of totalitarianism gains traction. Civility is not weakness nor abnegation of truth; rather, civility is confidence that honest truth-seeking for thriving communities begins with our own attitude and a hope that a win-win or a new-fouund better way births.
Launched: The Fire Storm Era
The fire storms engulfing Los Angeles are a harbinger of the future. A future that is now. The social disruption, lives lost, property lost, and increasing fear and anxiety will only accelerate. Throttling back greenhouse emissions sufficient to reduce atmospheric concentrations to well under 400 ppm is not happening, (and the goal had been 350 ppm). Indeed, even the best scenarios with new technologies and political agreements seem at best to keep concentrations at present levels; unlikely given the present trajectory. So is this a judgment of God on our human hubris?
See this powerful disturbing article by Chris Hedges.