The Beneficiaries of Conflict With Russia

by Brian Cloughley

March 31, 2017

                            

www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/31/the-beneficiaries-of-conflict-with-russia/

On  January 30 NBC News reported that “On a snowy Polish plain dominated by Russian forces for decades, American tanks and troops sent a message to Moscow and demonstrated the firepower of the NATO alliance. Amid concerns that President Donald Trump’s commitment to NATO is wavering, the tanks fired salvos that declared the 28-nation alliance a vital deterrent in a dangerous new world.”

One intriguing aspect of this slanted account are the phrases “dominated by Russian forces for decades” and “vital deterrent” which are used by NBC to imply that Russia yearns, for some unspecified reason, to invade Poland. As is common in the Western media there is no justification or evidence to substantiate the suggestion that Russia is hell-bent on domination, and the fact that US troops are far from home, operating along the Russian border, is regarded as normal behaviour on the part of the world’s “indispensable nation.”

Then Reuters recorded that “Beginning in February, US military units will spread out across Poland, the Baltic states, Bulgaria, Romania and Germany for training, exercises and maintenance. The Army is also sending its 10th Combat Aviation Brigade with about 50 Black Hawk and 10 CH-47 Chinook helicopters and 1,800 personnel, as well as a separate aviation battalion with 400 troops and 24 Apache helicopters.”

As the US-NATO military alliance continues its deployments along Russia’s borders, including the US-UK supported Joint Viking 2017 exercise in Norway that began on March 1 and the deployment of  more US troops in Poland “from the start of April, as the alliance sets up a new force in response to Moscow’s 2014 annexation of Crimea,” the campaign by the US and British governments against alleged “Russian Aggression” continues to increase in volume and intensity, aided by an ever-compliant media.

During his visit to Washington on March 6-7 Ukraine’s foreign minister Pavlo Klimkin met with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Senator Marco Rubio of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and received assurances of US support in “confronting Russian aggression” while in Britain it was announced that its foreign minister, Boris Johnson, the “mop-haired buffoon” was about to visit Russia in to tell it to “keep its nose” out of western affairs. Mr Johnson declared that Russia “was up to all sorts of no good” and “engaged in cyber-warfare.”

The splendid irony of the Johnson allegation about cyber warfare is that it came just before the revelation that Britain’s intelligence agencies were deeply involved with those of the United States in cyber-chicanery on a massive scale. WikiLeaks once again showed the depths of deceit and humbug to which the West’s great democracies submerge themselves, and revealed that leaked files “describe CIA plans and descriptions of malware and other tools that could be used to hack into some of the world’s most popular technology platforms. The documents showed that the developers aimed to be able to inject these tools into targeted computers without the owners’ awareness . . . the documents show broad exchanges of tools and information between the CIA, the National Security Agency and other US federal intelligence agencies, as well as intelligence services of close allies Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.”

ABC News then announced, without a shred of proof, that “Julian Assange, the man behind WikiLeaks, appears to have a strong relationship with Russia” but could not disguise the report by CNN that the documents disclosed that “to hide its operations, the CIA routinely adopted techniques that enabled its hackers to appear as if they were Russian.”

There has been no comment on the WikiLeaks revelations by such as US Senator Amy Klobuchar who declared in January that “Russia used cyberattacks and propaganda to try and undermine our democracy. We are not alone. Russia has a pattern of waging cyberattacks and military invasions against democracies across the world.”  She was echoed by Senator Ben Sasse who declared that increased US sanctions would “upend Putin’s calculus and defend America from Russian cyberattacks and political meddling.”

Of course it would be impossible for the Senators to revise their rabid hatred of Russia and overcome their dismal pride to acknowledge that on March 1 the US National Reconnaissance Office launched a spy satellite carried by an Atlas V rocket that was powered by a Russian RD-180 engine. In an astonishing example of petty-minded obfuscation, the 1,500-word official report on the launching mentioned RD-180 three times — but failed to state its country of manufacture. The mainstream media followed suit.

There was to be another Atlas V launch in March, carrying supplies to the International Space Station, but it was delayed by “a hydraulic issue that was uncovered on ground support equipment required for launch.” Had it been deferred because of malfunction of the Russian engine that powers it, there would have been gloating headlines.

Reaction by the US government to the WikiLeaks disclosures has been to denounce them because they supposedly “not only jeopardise US personnel and operations, but also equip our adversaries with tools and information to do us harm.”  Predictably, Senator Sasse tweeted that “Julian Assange should spend the rest of his life wearing an orange jumpsuit. He’s an enemy of the American people and an ally to Vladimir Putin.”

There should be no surprise about the activities of US and British intelligence agencies, because they already have a proven record of spying on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Chancellor Merkel of Germany, French Presidents Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, to name but a few world leaders subjected to the indignity of greasy little eavesdroppers sniggering at their private conversations.

In June 2013 it was revealed that the United States of America had been spying on European Union computer networks in the EU offices in Washington and New York. According to Germany’s Der Spiegel a document of September 2010 “explicitly named the Union’s representation at the UN as a ‘location target’.” Der Spiegel discovered  that “the NSA had also conducted an electronic eavesdropping operation in a building in Brussels where the EU Council of Ministers and the European Council were located.”  Together with their British colleagues, the techno-dweebs of Government Communications Headquarters, the US agencies have been having a ball — but have been unable to prove that Russia “used cyberattacks and propaganda to try and undermine our democracy.”

The faithful CIA mouthpiece, the New York Times, stated in December that “American spy and law enforcement agencies were united in the belief, in the weeks before the presidential election, that the Russian government had deployed computer hackers to sow chaos during the campaign.”  Not only this, but “CIA officials presented lawmakers with a stunning new judgment that upended the debate: Russia, they said, had intervened with the primary aim of helping make Donald J Trump president.”

But there is no evidence whatever that there was election-time hacking by Russia, and now there is proof that “to hide its operations, the CIA routinely adopted techniques that enabled its hackers to appear as if they were Russian.”

Although none of the assertions that Russia has been conducting a cyber war against America can be substantiated, Washington’s anti-Russia propaganda campaign will continue for the foreseeable future, while President Trump’s initial intentions to enter into dialogue with his counterpart in Moscow wither away to nothing. Even if he does resurrect the sensible policy he seemed to endorse, his acolytes in Washington will do their best to maintain confrontation by spreading more allegations of Russian “aggression” and “cyberattacks.”  The anti-Russia campaign is gathering force, and it is not difficult to put a finger on why such a counter-productive crusade appeals to so many in the West.

The US arms and intelligence industries are the main beneficiaries of confrontation with Russia, closely followed by the hierarchy of the defunct US-NATO military alliance who have been desperately seeking justification for its existence for many years.  For so long as the military-industrial complex holds sway in Washington, there will continue to be sabre-rattling and mindless military posturing.

But the International Space Station will continue to be resupplied by rockets powered by Russian engines.

Brian Cloughley writes about foreign policy and military affairs. He lives in Voutenay sur Cure, France.

The Push for Single-Payer Healthcare Is On. Democrats Should Get on Board or Get Out of the Way.

Following the stunning collapse of Trumpcare, Bernie Sanders is leading the fight by progressives to win single-payer.

BY Miles Kampf-Lassin

http://inthesetimes.com/article/20002/trumpcare-single-payer-medicare-obamacare-bernie-sanders-democrats

The failure of Trumpcare to pass the House on Friday was a devastating defeat for both the nascent administration and the GOP. For seven years, Republicans railed against Obamacare, promising to “repeal and replace” the law as soon as they could. Trump himself pledged to do so repeatedly on the campaign trail and from the Oval Office.

Yet despite controlling both houses of Congress and the presidency, Republicans could not get a bill through their own caucus in the House. Speaker Paul Ryan, one of the bill’s architects, admitted, “This was a disappointing day for us.”

Democrats understandably responded with glee. However, besides Bernie Sanders, their side of the aisle offered little in the way of a counter proposal for how to address the very real problems with Obamacare.

Trump and Ryan correctly predict that the issues with the current healthcare system—from rising premiums to insurers pulling out of exchanges—are only going to get worse over the coming months and years.

Part of the reason is that Republicans will do everything in their power to make sure these problems intensify. Health Secretary Tom Price, a longtime opponent of Obamacare, has considerable leverage to disrupt the already fragile system set up by the Affordable Care Act.

But the fundamental failures of Obamacare stem from the law's reliance on the private market. Why are insurance companies such as Humana and Aetna fleeing the exchanges? Why are premiums spiking for many middle-class Americans? Because private companies are responding to the logic of capital: Maximize profits while reducing costs.

When Republican governors reject Medicaid expansion, more sick, low-come people require insurance coverage—the healthcare consumers who are the most expensive to treat. This, in turn, creates a disincentive for insurers to offer affordable plans through the exchanges, and, as a consequence, providers pull out of markets and costs rise for everyone.

This trend is sure to continue if nothing is done to fix the system, and the only fix that will work is to expand the risk pool and include everyone. With such a system of universal coverage, costs would be spread out evenly and illness would no longer be seen as a liability in determining the costs and benefits of care.

Any real long-term solution must take this question of the market head on by moving to eliminate the private healthcare insurance industry.

The real alternative

So how can Democrats respond to the problems with Obamacare and the coming sabotage? The answer is simple, and incredibly popular: Push for a single-payer, Medicare-for-all system.

Bernie Sanders, the most popular politician in America and open democratic socialist, plans to introduce legislation creating a Medicare-for-all system in the Senate in the coming weeks. Democratic National Committee Deputy Chair Keith Ellison, a co-sponsor of a Medicare-for-all bill in the House, has reiterated his support for the measure. And as Dave Weigel reports at the Washington Post, more Democrats are coming around to the idea. Even Nancy Pelosi, who recently said of Democrats, “We're capitalists, and that's just the way it is,” is voicing support for single-payer.

A single-payer plan would mean the United States would finally join the rest of the developed world in guaranteeing healthcare to all citizens regardless of their income. And it would greatly reduce costs.  

Plus, as Medicare for All organizer and longtime prisoner justice advocate Mariame Kaba recently explained, it directly speaks to the needs of working people by building off of an already incredibly popular program:

What you need in an organizing sense is you need an issue to be able to appeal to people. Medicare is what we have that is the most close to a kind of socialist policy in place around healthcare. It’s the one that people understand, that they already have…You organize around the things that have material, direct, and urgent impact on people’s lives, and then you push those people through that fight into fighting for other things together.

The barriers to passing single-payer in the current political terrain are significant. Republicans want to move in precisely the opposite direction, separating government from healthcare. And moderate and conservative Democrats have historically been resistant to such a plan.

But following the spectacular failure of the Republican bill, momentum is on the side of the opposition. This creates an opportunity that progressive groups are hoping to seize.

Organizations such as National Nurses United, the Working Families Party, the Democratic Socialists of America and the Progressive Campaign Change Committee all hope to organize the grassroots in order to take advantage of this newfound push for single-payer.

From demand to reality

Much reporting on the GOP failure to pass Trumpcare has focused on Republican infighting, but the massive outpouring of resistance from the public played a critical role. Phone calls from constituents went 50-1 against the bill, and recent congressional town halls have been mirror images of those crashed by Tea Party protesters during the fight over Obamacare.  

A continuation of this citizen engagement will be needed to move the country closer to a single-payer system. In states such as Rhode Island and California, local activists are pushing proposals for single-payer. And while the bills supported by Sanders and Ellison are unlikely to pass now, they provide Democrats with a rallying point to demand a truly universal healthcare system—a proposition supported by 58 percent of Americans.

This would also open the door to proposals that lay the foundation for single-payer, whether it’s allowing the import of cheap pharmaceuticals from Canada and other countries, introducing a public option on the exchanges or lowering the Medicare age to 55—a popular idea that nearly became law with the passage of Obamacare before it was torpedoed by then-Sen. Joe Lieberman. Lowering the Medicare age would clear the path for eventually taking it all the way to zero.

The crashing and burning of Trumpcare will benefit millions of Americans. Yet millions continue to live without affordable healthcare. Making single-payer a demand provides a clear message to politicians: Where do you stand? It also provides an opportunity to call out the hypocrisy of Trump, who as a candidate promised “insurance for everybody.”

Single-payer would do that, and it would cost considerably less than the current system. That is a clear and simple message, and it's a winning one for 2018 and beyond.