STF NA MÍDIA

to be more effective than
they were in Iraq, as the regime
s resources are smaller.
Even today it can scarcely
afford to sustain its army.
The government s oil revenues
provide few benefits for
the people.
Samir Seifan, a prominent
economist who sought to
reform the regime, argues in
favour of a wider embargo,
including sanctions on investments
in the oil and gas
sector. This would, he concedes,
hurt people because of
its impact on industry, farming,
transport and electricity,
but it also restricts
"army movements which are
using a huge amount of oil
products". Others have argued,
Doyle says, that as
well as hurting the people
more than the regime, sanctions
would give Assad an
excuse to blame the Americans
and Europeans for the
economic crisis he has caused.
So I posted the question on
Comment is free, in the hope
that Guardian readers would
help to resolve it. There was
a big response. It provided no
clear answers, but it helped
to clarify some of the issues.
The most widespread objection
to the sanctions was that
the governments imposing
them are selective in their
concerns and lacking in moral
credentials. This is true on
both counts. This column is
discussing sanctions on Syria
only because they are being
imposed there, rather than on
Saudi Arabia or Bahrain,
which are also run by violently
repressive regimes. Far
from restraining them, the
UK and other European nations
continue to supply them
with a hideous array of weapons.
Though both the UK
and the US committed the
crime of aggression in Iraq,
there is no prospect of sanctions
against them. This is
the justice of the powerful.
But these concerns, while
valid, do nothing to resolve
the question. You could just
as well argue that because
the grisly Russian and Chinese
governments oppose
further sanctions, they must
be a good idea. The brutality
of Assad s government is not
altered by the nature of the
states that oppose him, or by
the incoherence and selfinterest
of their foreign policy.
We must make our own
moral judgments.
The division on this question
among Syrians, the difficulty
in predicting the outcome of
measures that might help and
will harm, a repulsion from
collaboration pitched against
a fear of aggravation, lead
me to an unusual place for a
polemicist. There is no right
answer.
A Blockbuster Case Yields an Unexpected Result
JUSTIÇA NO EXTERIOR •
THE NEW YORK TIMES (US) • NATIONAL • 19/9/2011
By ADAM LIPTAK
WASHINGTON — People
who hate Citizens United,
last year’s blockbuster campaign
finance decision by the
Supreme Court, tend to
blame it for allowing secret
money from corporations and
unions to flood the political
landscape. But the critique is
wrong on at least one point
— the bit about secrecy.
An often-overlooked part of
the Citizens United decision
actually upheld disclosure
requirements, saying that
“transparency enables the
electorate to make informed
decisions and give proper
weight to different speakers
and messages.”
Lower courts have embraced
the ruling, with at least nine
of them relying on Citizens
United to reject challenges to
disclosure laws, often in cases
involving political spending
related to social issues.
In particular, courts have
rejected efforts by groups
opposed to same-sex marria-
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