 At a time when all of humanity, every single human being, every single government around the world should be working together to end this global pandemic that is COVID-19, the United States, our government is choosing now to do the unthinkable. So as many of you know, we have sanctions imposed on Iran, and these sanctions are absolutely brutal. It is leading to people dying. We have sanctions on Venezuela, Iran, and at this time, the best course of action would be to halt those sanctions. Like if you still believe that the sanctions are something that you want to have in place, I vehemently disagree with you. I think that they are immoral, but for now, at least have the humanity to pause the sanctions while we get COVID-19 under control. But the US government is doing the opposite. On Wednesday, the State Department announced new sanctions on Iran. I repeat, when the world is dealing with a global pandemic, the United States government announced new sanctions on Iran. As Reuters tweeted out, the United States imposed fresh sanctions on Iran, keeping up its economic pressure campaign despite an earlier offer to help Tehran cope with the coronavirus pandemic. So think about how the sanctions were already impacting the people of Iran before a global pandemic. But now in the midst of a global pandemic, imagine how much worse off they'll be because of the sanctions, and imagine how it's going to get even worse than it was previously because of this new round of sanctions. Like this is psychopathic behavior. You can't even really describe it. Like it's inconceivable that this is what they're choosing to do now. Give it a rest. I mean, we're at war with COVID-19. We're not at war with Iran or any other country, even if the United States government continues to bomb Iraq. They're doing that currently. We're at war with COVID-19, and it doesn't discriminate based on countries that are, you know, at war with us or are our allies or enemies. This is something that the human species is dealing with. And this is what Trump's government is prioritizing. Now as Julia Conley of Common Dreams reports, quote, how evil and heartless can this government get? Peace activists, Medea Benjamin asked Wednesday after the State Department announced it would impose new sanctions on Iran as the country faces one of the worst coronavirus outbreaks in the world. The move by the U.S. government flew in the face of demands from advocacy groups and the Iranian government to suspend sanctions to ensure Iranians can access life-saving medication and supplies. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the U.S. will introduce fresh sanctions on nine entities and three individuals who the U.S. says provide the Iranian government with revenue in order to deprive the regime of critical income from its petrochemical industry and further Iran's economic and diplomatic isolation. The move follows rocket attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, which the Trump administration claims were linked to Iran-backed forces. Iran is one of the hardest hit countries in the world by the coronavirus pandemic. More than 17,300 people had tested positive for the respiratory disease at press time, and more than 1100 have died. Under normal circumstances, U.S. sanctions on Iran, which were last strengthened last year, have kept people in the country from accessing medication as well as raising prices on food and rent. As Iran faces the coronavirus outbreak, however, the impacts of the sanctions have been heightened as Iran is left without sufficient testing kits, ventilators, antiviral medicine, and other life-saving supplies. The imposition of fresh sanctions as the country battles the outbreak amounts to the U.S., quote, literally weaponizing the coronavirus, said human rights lawyer Arjun Sethi. A Salarad research fellow at the National Iranian American Council said the new sanctions would make the U.S. complicit in the deaths of an untold number of Iranians while Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute accused the Trump administration of inhumanity. Now, it's not just that we are imposing sanctions on Iran and implementing even more sanctions on them. We already have sanctions on other countries, such as Venezuela, and this makes it more difficult for them to obtain critical medical supplies. Now we make ourselves feel better by saying, you know, we're going to exempt any medical equipment and medical supplies, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's not going to make it more difficult for them to obtain the medical supplies that they need because it will indirectly impact the things that they need, such as medical supplies, medication. So what we're doing is we are killing people. These sanctions are killing people. And the fact that this is happening now, that the Trump administration would be cruel enough to not just refuse to ease the sanctions on Iran, but to double down and impose even more sanctions, it's just, it's unforgivable. It is unforgivable. And as Vijay Prashad and Paola Estrada wrote for Salon, the embargo against these countries in this time of COVID-19 is not only a war crime by the standards of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, but it is a crime against humanity as defined by the United Nations International Law Commission of 1947. And remember, this is our government that's doing this. This is a war crime. This is a crime against humanity. And it's just, it is morally reprehensible whenever our government says that we care about human rights, understand they don't mean that. And they're proving that they don't mean that now. And I genuinely hope that the media talks about this, because to impose these sanctions now, it shows how ruthless and cruel the Trump administration is. And the U.S. government, you know, generally speaking is, I can't believe why I shouldn't say I can't believe. I just, I can't like imagine what would go through somebody's head to think that this was acceptable. Now, because Bernie Sanders is a leader, he actually condemned the sanctions, tweeting out Iran is facing a catastrophic toll from the coronavirus pandemic. U.S. sanctions should not be contributing to this humanitarian disaster. As a caring nation, we must lift any sanctions hurting Iran's ability to address this crisis, including financial sanctions. And that really is key here. We have to lift financial sanctions because right now, resources are needed. Governments need money. They have to buy supplies. They have to make payments to their workers so they don't face economic devastation that's even going to be greater than we're expecting because of COVID-19. And Bernie's the only one who gets it. He's the only one who actually has a humanist view of the world and actually moral foreign policy. The fact that this isn't something that we're all talking about. It's disgusting because we see how worried we are about COVID-19. We're all self quarantining. We're all practicing social distancing. But imagine living in Iran currently. We're worried about shortages of, you know, ICU beds and ventilators here. Imagine how much worse it is in Iran where we're imposing sanctions on them and it's killing more people. This is just a cruel world and our government is making it even more cruel than it needs to be. And I don't, like this is one of those stories where I'm at a loss for words. I'm embarrassed of my government imposing sanctions on a country that is struggling to save its population from the same virus that we're struggling to save our population from currently. There's no word that can really sufficiently capture just how cruel this is. We need a new word for this because whatever we have in our vocabulary doesn't do this justice. This is, this is just, it's horrific.