BIDEN-PUTIN TALK TUESDAY WITH XI IN THE WINGS

By Ray McGovern, 

AntiWar.com.

December 7, 2021




https://popularresistance.org/biden-putin-talk-tuesday-with-xi-in-the-wings/




On May 25, 2021, when the date of June 16 was announced for the summit between Presidents Biden and Putin, it seemed a good idea to waste no time in warning Biden and his neophyte advisers that a major shift in the “world correlation of forces” (to borrow an old Soviet term) was bound to heavily influence the June talks. China, of course, would not be taking part in the bilateral talks, but it would be very much present.

In other words, a half-year ago, we worried:


“Whether or not Official Washington fully appreciates the gradual – but profound – change in America’s triangular relationship with Russia and China over recent decades, what is clear is that the US has made itself into the big loser. The triangle may still be equilateral, but it is now, in effect, two sides against one. …

“There is little sign that today’s US policymakers have enough experience and intelligence to recognize this new reality and understand the important implications for US freedom of action. Still less are they likely to appreciate how this new nexus may play out on the ground, on the sea or in the air.”

It was clear that the new phenomenon of Russia-China entente would dwarf the significance of less important issues; and we could not be sure Biden would be appropriately informed.
The Chinese “Squeeze”

Clearly, President Biden did not get the word – or maybe forgot. Here is the bizarre way Biden described, at his post-summit presser, his decades-behind-the-times approach to Putin on China:


“Without quoting him [Putin] – which I don’t think is appropriate – let me ask a rhetorical question: You got a multi-thousand-mile border with China. China is seeking to be the most powerful economy in the world and the largest and the most powerful military in the world.”

At the airport, Biden’s co-travelers did their best to whisk him onto the plane, but failed to stop him from sharing more of his views on China – this time on China’s strategic “squeezing” of Russia:


“Let me choose my words. Russia is in a very, very difficult spot right now. They are being squeezed by China.”

Is President Biden still out to lunch on this key issue? Have his rising-junior advisers sought out new textbooks, updated from the ones they may have read in the 70s and 80s, and learned that Russia and China have never been closer – that, indeed, they have what amounts to a virtual military alliance?

This would seem to be an important thing to make sure Biden learns – and remembers. It would be particularly good if someone alerted him shortly before his virtual meeting with Putin tomorrow (Tuesday). Here is my attempt to do so shortly after the June summit.
“Old Chinese Hand and Old Russian One”

Having long since reached “alumni” status, Ambassador Chas Freeman and I have had the benefit of watching Sino/Russian relations for decades. Indeed, Amb. Freeman, as most readers are well aware, was a main practitioner, having interpreted for President Richard Nixon on his historic visit to Beijing in February 1972, and having played a key role in formulating the one-China policy that has kept the peace – at least until now. I headed CIA’s Soviet Foreign Policy Branch in the early 70s; our analysts played an important role in concluding the SALT agreements in May 1972 (together with highly technical specialists who gave Nixon the crucial: Yes, we can verify if you trust).

Much more recently, in July 2020, when ex-Secretary of State Pompeo played court jester enunciating a new U.S. policy toward China and critiquing the old, Chas and I collaborated on this.

In an email exchange over the weekend, I asked for any additional views Amb. Freeman might have, as Biden prepares for his virtual summit with Putin on Tuesday. With Chas’s permission I offer them below:


“… It is clear that the Sino-Russian entente is expanding under the pressure of US threats to both. Nothing will happen on either Taiwan or Ukraine without coordination between Beijing and Moscow. But our fantasy authoritarian plot to counter the US ideology of democracy is being made real by the “democracy summit.” This has sought to weaponize Taiwan ideologically against China and led to the unprecedented joint Sino-Russian statement that attempts to puncture our pretensions and oppose our messianism about democracy.

“My guess is that there will now be a much larger permanent Russian military presence on the Ukraine border but that, barring provocations by nutcases in Ukraine, there will be no invasion. Instead, Russia will settle for having achieved a firm basis for a strategic surprise, when and if that becomes necessary. Just so, China has probably made no decision about Taiwan but is preparing the battlespace for the moment it may have to do so. Both China and Russia are acting in parallel to develop military options they had not previously sought. … regarding Russia’s [Mach 9] Zircon missile: it is paralleled by China’s effort to develop a much more credible nuclear strike capability against the US”
Why Not Try a Little Diplomacy?

Always the diplomat, Chas may harbor hope that President Biden’s promise to end “relentless war” and start “relentless diplomacy” may yet take on flesh and not remain relentless rhetoric. Freeman offered these further thoughts on what the latest Chinese and Russian moves could lead to, given a willing partner:


“These moves are a classic diplomatic use of a military threat to compel a negotiated reduction of tensions. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov paralleled China’s to diplomat Wang Yi at Rome, when Lavrov later met Blinken in Stockholm. Wang Yi demanded that the US side commit to ‘a genuine one-China policy, not a fake one, that the US fulfill its commitments to China, and that the US truly implement the one-China policy, instead of saying one thing but doing another.’

“Lavrov paralleled Putin in demanding’ reliable and long-term security guarantees,’ incorporating ‘specific agreements that would exclude any further NATO moves eastward and the deployment of weapons systems that threaten us in close vicinity to Russian territory,’ adding that Moscow would need not just verbal assurances, but ‘legal guarantees.’”



Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. His 27-year career as a CIA analyst includes serving as Chief of the Soviet Foreign Policy Branch and preparer/briefer of the President’s Daily Brief. He is co-founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

HOW CONGRESS LOOTS THE TREASURY FOR THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL-CONGRESSIONAL COMPLEX

By Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies, 

Popular Resistance.

December 7, 2021

https://popularresistance.org/how-congress-loots-the-treasury-for-the-military-industrial-congressional-complex/




Despite a disagreement over some amendments in the Senate, the United States Congress is poised to pass a $778 billion military budget bill for 2022. As they have been doing year after year, our elected officials are preparing to hand the lion’s share – over 65% – of federal discretionary spending to the U.S. war machine, even as they wring their hands over spending a mere quarter of that amount on the Build Back Better Act.

The U.S. military’s incredible record of systematic failure—most recently its final trouncing by the Taliban after twenty years of death, destruction and lies in Afghanistan—cries out for a top-to-bottom review of its dominant role in U.S. foreign policy and a radical reassessment of its proper place in Congress’s budget priorities.

Instead, year after year, members of Congress hand over the largest share of our nation’s resources to this corrupt institution, with minimal scrutiny and no apparent fear of accountability when it comes to their own reelection. Members of Congress still see it as a “safe” political call to carelessly whip out their rubber-stamps and vote for however many hundreds of billions in funding Pentagon and arms industry lobbyists have persuaded the Armed Services Committees they should cough up.

Let’s make no mistake about this: Congress’s choice to keep investing in a massive, ineffective and absurdly expensive war machine has nothing to do with “national security” as most people understand it, or “defense” as the dictionary defines it.

U.S. society does face critical threats to our security, including the climate crisis, systemic racism, erosion of voting rights, gun violence, grave inequalities and the corporate hijacking of political power. But one problem we fortunately do not have is the threat of attack or invasion by a rampant global aggressor or, in fact, by any other country at all.

Maintaining a war machine that outspends the 12 or 13 next largest militaries in the world combined actually makes us less safe, as each new administration inherits the delusion that the United States’ overwhelmingly destructive military power can, and therefore should, be used to confront any perceived challenge to U.S. interests anywhere in the world—even when there is clearly no military solution and when many of the underlying problems were caused by past misapplications of U.S. military power in the first place.

While the international challenges we face in this century require a genuine commitment to international cooperation and diplomacy, Congress allocates only $58 billion, less than 10 percent of the Pentagon budget, to the diplomatic corps of our government: the State Department. Even worse, both Democratic and Republican administrations keep filling top diplomatic posts with officials indoctrinated and steeped in policies of war and coercion, with scant experience and meager skills in the peaceful diplomacy we so desperately need.

This only perpetuates a failed foreign policy based on false choices between economic sanctions that UN officials have compared to medieval sieges, coups that destabilize countries and regions for decades, and wars and bombing campaigns that kill millions of people and leave cities in rubble, like Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

The end of the Cold War was a golden opportunity for the United States to reduce its forces and military budget to match its legitimate defense needs. The American public naturally expected and hoped for a “Peace Dividend,” and even veteran Pentagon officials told the Senate Budget Committee in 1991 that military spending could safely be cut by 50% over the next ten years.

But no such cut happened. U.S. officials instead set out to exploit the post-Cold War “Power Dividend,” a huge military imbalance in favor of the United States, by developing rationales for using military force more freely and widely around the world. During the transition to the new Clinton administration, Madeleine Albright famously asked Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Colin Powell, “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?”

In 1999, as Secretary of State under President Clinton, Albright got her wish, running roughshod over the UN Charter with an illegal war to carve out an independent Kosovo from the ruins of Yugoslavia.

The UN Charter clearly prohibits the threat or use of military force except in cases of self-defense or when the UN Security Council takes military action “to maintain or restore international peace and security.” This was neither. When U.K. Foreign Secretary Robin Cook told Albright his government was “having trouble with our lawyers” over NATO’s illegal war plan, Albright crassly told him to “get new lawyers.”

Twenty-two years later, Kosovo is the third-poorest country in Europe (after Moldova and post-coup Ukraine) and its independence is still not recognized by 96 countries. Hashim Thaçi, Albright’s hand-picked main ally in Kosovo and later its president, is awaiting trial in an international court at the Hague, charged with murdering at least 300 civilians under cover of NATO bombing in 1999 to extract and sell their internal organs on the international transplant market.

Clinton and Albright’s gruesome and illegal war set the precedent for more illegal U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and elsewhere, with equally devastating and horrific results. But America’s failed wars have not led Congress or successive administrations to seriously rethink the U.S. decision to rely on illegal threats and uses of military force to project U.S. power all over the world, nor have they reined in the trillions of dollars invested in these imperial ambitions.

Instead, in the upside-down world of institutionally corrupt U.S. politics, a generation of failed and pointlessly destructive wars have had the perverse effect of normalizing even more expensive military budgets than during the Cold War, and reducing congressional debate to questions of how many more of each useless weapons system they should force U.S. taxpayers to foot the bill for.

It seems that no amount of killing, torture, mass destruction or lives ruined in the real world can shake the militaristic delusions of America’s political class, as long as the “Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex” (President Eisenhower’s original wording) is reaping the benefits.

Today, most political and media references to the Military-Industrial Complex refer only to the arms industry as a self-serving corporate interest group on a par with Wall Street, Big Pharma or the fossil fuel industry. But in his Farewell Address, Eisenhower explicitly pointed to, not just the arms industry, but the “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry.”

Eisenhower was just as worried about the anti-democratic impact of the military as the arms industry. Weeks before his Farewell Address, he told his senior advisors, “God help this country when somebody sits in this chair who doesn’t know the military as well as I do.” His fears have been realized in every subsequent presidency.

According to Milton Eisenhower, the president’s brother, who helped him draft his Farewell Address, Ike also wanted to talk about the “revolving door.” Early drafts of his speech referred to “a permanent, war-based industry,” with “flag and general officers retiring at an early age to take positions in the war-based industrial complex, shaping its decisions and guiding the direction of its tremendous thrust.” He wanted to warn that steps must be taken to “insure that the ‘merchants of death’ do not come to dictate national policy.”

As Eisenhower feared, the careers of figures like Generals Austin and Mattis now span all branches of the corrupt MIC conglomerate: commanding invasion and occupation forces in Afghanistan and Iraq; then donning suits and ties to sell weapons to new generals who served under them as majors and colonels; and finally re-emerging from the same revolving door as cabinet members at the apex of American politics and government.

So why does the Pentagon brass get a free pass, even as Americans feel increasingly conflicted about the arms industry? After all, it is the military that actually uses all these weapons to kill people and wreak havoc in other countries.

Even as it loses war after war overseas, the U.S. military has waged a far more successful one to burnish its image in the hearts and minds of Americans and win every budget battle in Washington.

The complicity of Congress, the third leg of the stool in Eisenhower’s original formulation, turns the annual battle of the budget into the “cakewalk” that the war in Iraq was supposed to be, with no accountability for lost wars, war crimes, civilian massacres, cost overruns or the dysfunctional military leadership that presides over it all.

There is no congressional debate over the economic impact on America or the geopolitical consequences for the world of uncritically rubber-stamping huge investments in powerful weapons that will sooner or later be used to kill our neighbors and smash their countries, as they have for the past 22 years and far too often throughout our history.

If the public is ever to have any impact on this dysfunctional and deadly money-go-round, we must learn to see through the fog of propaganda that masks self-serving corruption behind red, white and blue bunting, and allows the military brass to cynically exploit the public’s natural respect for brave young men and women who are ready to risk their lives to defend our country. In the Crimean War, the Russians called British troops “lions led by donkeys.” That is an accurate description of today’s U.S. military.

Sixty years after Eisenhower’s Farewell Address, exactly as he predicted, the “weight of this combination” of corrupt generals and admirals, the profitable “merchants of death” whose goods they peddle, and the Senators and Representatives who blindly entrust them with trillions of dollars of the public’s money, constitute the full flowering of President Eisenhower’s greatest fears for our country.

Eisenhower concluded, “Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals.” That clarion call echoes through the decades and should unite Americans in every form of democratic organizing and movement building, from elections to education and advocacy to mass protests, to finally reject and dispel the “unwarranted influence” of the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex.

ERITREA VERSUS AFRICOM: DEFENDING SOVEREIGNTY FROM IMPERIALIST AGGRESSION

By Dina M. Asfaha And Tunde Osazua ,

Black Agenda Report.

December 7, 2021




https://popularresistance.org/eritrea-versus-africom-defending-sovereignty-in-the-face-of-imperialist-aggression/





The rapid expansion of AFRICOM on the African continent should be a cause for concern as African nations are quickly surrendering their sovereignty to the US.

As the only country without a relationship to AFRICOM, Eritrea bears the brunt of US vilification. We must salute Eritrea’s ongoing project of national liberation.

The U.S. has built military-to-military relations with 53 out of the 54 African countries that include agreements to cede operational command to AFRICOM, the U.S. Africa Command. The broad network of AFRICOM military bases, as well as those from France and other world powers, are examples of how African states are surrendering their sovereignty through neocolonial relationships with Western countries. African self-determination and national sovereignty are impossible as long as the U.S. and its European allies are allowed to use military power to control African land, labor, and resources.

A major component of AFRICOM’s activities includes the indoctrination of African security forces through military training, including through the Africa Contingency Operations Training and Assistance Program (ACOTA) (formerly the African Crisis Response Initiative) (ACRI) ), Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS) , International Military Training and Education (IMET) Program, and the numerous military exercises carried out by AFRICOM forces, including African Lion , Cutlass Express , Phoenix Express , Obangame Express , and Flintlock , among many other exercises, which have included participation from almost every African country. As Netfa Freeman pointed out in a recent article, “an indoctrination about the inherent goodness of the U.S.-European role in Africa accompanies this military training with blindspots about the true legacy of colonialism.”

The U.S. military uses the myriad security challenges facing the African continent as an important justification for AFRICOM’s existence, and the most prominent of these justifications is the threat that the U.S.-led “war on terror” is seemingly addressing. However, these security challenges and terror threats are actually driven in large part by the presence of foreign militaries on the continent. Before September 11, 2001, Africa seemed to be free of transnational terror threats . Since then, U.S. military efforts on the continent have grown in every conceivable way, from funding and boots on the ground to missions and outposts, while at the same time the number of transnational “terror” groups has increased in linear fashion . Despite this increase, extremist groups are active in less than 10 of the 54 countries in Africa. Justifications for AFRICOM’s presence on the continent, such as the rise of terrorist groups, ignore that the Pentagon and the CIA have recruited and trained extremists to fight as their proxies on many occasions.

It is clear that the African heads of state with working relationships with AFRICOM are surrendering their sovereignty and inviting a destabilizing presence.

Eritrea is the only country on the African continent without US military relations. In 1977, the last Americans at Kagnew Station, the U.S. military station in present-day Asmara, Eritrea, officially left the US’s listening post in the region. Kagnew was initially acquired through a deal with the Ethiopian government in 1943, an important geostrategic location for the US Navy during the Cold War. At the time, the Eritrean Armed Struggle for Independence against imperial Ethiopia (1961-1991) was ongoing; it was fear of heightened violence and warfare in Eritrea that led to the US’s ultimate and official withdrawal from Asmara and its closure of Kagnew in 1975.

This history is important in understanding the West’s contemporary vilification of Eritrea, as it is the only country on the African continent without a relationship with AFRICOM. We can’t and shouldn’t ignore the significance of this vilification as it relates to any African country’s sovereignty and the refusal to govern based on directives from the United Nations (or its allied entities). Eritrea’s defense forces are not only organized, but soldiers’ military training, skills, and expertise do not come from France, the United States, or any other major Western power. This is a notable difference from other African countries. Even the African Union’s standing army, the African Standby Forces, operates according to the UN’s notion of peacekeeping .

Today, a focal point of critique when it comes to Eritrea is its national service program, “Sawa,” which high school students complete in their final year (12th grade). In its conception in 1994, national service was supposed to be for a limited time period. However, conditions in Eritrea changed when the former political party of Ethiopia, the TPLF, an organization that initially claimed anti-imperialist aims , became a client to US interests in the Horn of Africa. This led to a border conflict and warfare from 1998 – 2000, which ended the period of peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia after formal Eritrean independence in 1991. Post-war, Eritrea was in a no war-no peace situation, whereby the specter of territorial infringement was a real possibility in a TPLF-led Ethiopia that consistently preached a vision of an Abay Tigray (Tigrinya for “large Tigray”) — a dream to expand into and occupy Eritrea, making it a Tigrinya ethno-state. For many, national service in Eritrea is ongoing.

National service is not a totally uncommon feature of modern day nation-states; countries from South Korea to Israel have national service, which include a military training component. But these countries are seldom critiqued for requiring military service of their citizens. The origin of Eritrea’s national service program, “Sawa,” in 1994 came from a need to give youth work post-war. Decades of colonialism and war left a nascent Eritrean society with purposefully destroyed infrastructures in an effort to de-skill Eritreans both technically and militarily. We can tie this to the US’s goal of “policy [and] security interests in Eritrea” when it sponsored the UN resolution to federate Eritrea with Ethiopia in 1952, setting off Haile Selassie’s imperial expansionist project in the Horn. These historical-political events are germane to understanding what it means for an African country like Eritrea, whose policies largely focus on developing human capital and capacity and protecting national sovereignty, and which chooses not to have US-European military relations.

It is helpful and interesting, then, to link Max Weber’s theory of states (and sovereignty), in which he posits that one feature of a legitimate state is a standing army, with how Jemima Pierre theorizes the manifestation of white supremacy and racism in Africa. What does it mean for African people to be organized and possess the military capabilities to defend themselves and their nation? We must eradicate the legacies of imperialism enacted through mechanisms like AFRICOM, which often manifest in unfounded accusations about terrorism and the levying of unjust sanctions . And we must salute and support Eritrea’s project of national liberation.

WAR IN UKRAINE? NATO EXPANSION DRIVES CONFLICT WITH RUSSIA

By Aaron Maté,The Grayzone.

December 7, 2021




https://popularresistance.org/war-in-ukraine-nato-expansion-drives-conflict-with-russia/



Russia is seeking a legally binding pledge that NATO will stop expanding east, including to Ukraine.

If the US refuses, is war next? Richard Sakwa joins Pushback.

Russia is seeking a legally binding pledge that NATO will stop expanding east, including to Ukraine. If the US refuses, is war next? Scholar and author Richard Sakwa analyzes the growing Russia-Ukraine conflict and how Russiagate fueled it.

Guest: Richard Sakwa. Professor of Russian and European politics at the University of Kent. His books include “Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands” and his latest, “Deception: Russiagate and the New Cold War.”

NICARAGUA’S EVIDENCE-BASED DEMOCRACY THREATENS US OPPRESSION

By Lauren Smith,

Covert Action Magazine.

December 7, 2021




https://popularresistance.org/nicaraguas-evidence-based-democracy-threatens-u-s-oppression-domestically-and-abroad/





Domestically and Abroad.

Despite Washington’s best effort to derail Nicaragua’s electoral process through hybrid warfare, strong voter turnout resulted in a decisive victory by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), and the reelection of President Daniel Ortega with 75.92% of the votes cast. Nicaragua’s non-partisan, independent Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) reported on Monday, November 8th that 65.23% of 4.4 million eligible voters (16 years and older) participated in Sunday’s election. Supporters attribute the FSLN’s success to its ability to ensure peace and achieve socioeconomic & political objectives that strengthen the wellbeing of the people of Nicaragua.

This markedly contrasts the widespread neglect and corruption endemic under Nicaragua’s U.S. supported neoliberal period from 1990-2007. It is precisely President Ortega and the Sandinista administration’s showing of evidence-based democracy that threatens the U.S., for Washington in comparison has become unabashedly authoritarian in its futile attempt to maintain its Hollywood-styled democratic image both domestically & abroad.
Failure of U.S. Democracy in Voting

While the United States reports a relatively similar participation rate to Nicaragua—between 59.5% to 66.8% of citizens (18 years and older) voted in elections from 2000 to 2020—in stark contrast, candidates, that actually lost the popular vote, have actually won the U.S. presidency 5 times since 1824. Matter of fact, U.S. elections are so badly discredited by constituents of both its two corporate parties, that the U.S. symbolic seat of power (the Capitol building) was stormed by election protestors in January 2021.

Critics of the U.S. representative electoral voting system claim: issues with securing and preserving the chain of custody of ballots; the stuffing of ballot boxes; the fraudulent harvesting of ballots; issues with the transparency and security of black box voting such as easy hacking and tampering, and that there is no verifiable back-up paper trail. Pundits routinely report unusual divergence from exit polls, and the CEO of Diebold (the manufacturer of voting machines) claimed in 2007 that he was “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year”.

Further, voter disfranchisement methods were documented by Greg Palast and others which include the gerrymandering of voting districts; reduced polling locations; too few voting machines and failure to replace broken ones in black/brown and low-income communities; as well as the use of voter/felon “scrub” lists; ominous changes in voter ID requirements; fake ballots; missing ballots; poorly constructed and/or confusing hard to read instructions on ballots; voter suppression; voter intimidation; and understaffed polling sites, etc.

If the United States wasn’t such a bully militarily and economically, the rest of the world might be clamoring for multilateral sanctions against it until the U.S. takes effective steps to hold free, fair, and transparent elections.
Failure of Washington’s Hybrid/Covert Warfare

Even with Washington’s looming threat of using more egregious unilateral economic sanctions than the NICA Act, with the fast tracked RENACER Act (which was signed into law on November 10th) and its full-throttle regime change program RAIN (already underway)—which collectively violate a panoply of international and humanitarian laws—the people of Nicaragua stood resolute in their desire to exercise their sovereign right to choose their own leadership.

Unlike countries in the northern triangle, which includes Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, there are no gangs or drug, human and weapon trafficking in Nicaragua. Additionally, Nicaragua’s national police force is exemplary since its founded on the principles of community policing, unlike that of the United States which is often militarized and captive to white supremacists. Despite Washington controlled IMF and World Bank, they respectively still released reports in 2018 stating that up until that year Nicaragua had sustained outstanding growth in GDP; improved its social indicators; expanded tourism; and provided regional leadership in public safety and sustainable energy.

Further, unlike Nicaragua, the U.S government also stands in violation of its own Bill of Rights, by virtue of its Freedom Reauthorization Act of 2020, an update to the Patriot Act. In contrast to Nicaragua, its judicial-prison-parole-industrial complex is racist, as prisoners are predominately of African-American descent. With 2.12 million people incarcerated in 2020, the United States has the largest per capita prison population in the world at 639 per 100,000. The incarceration rate is now more than 4.3 times what is was nearly 50 years ago. Additionally, there are approximately 50,000 immigrants in detention centers, which are called, even by U.S. politicians, concentration camps. Within this total, there are over 60 political prisoners in its domestic prison system. Torture and inhumane living conditions are routinely cited by human rights organizations in regard to U.S. prisoners and detainees. Additionally, the U.S. has incarcerated and killed an untold number of political prisoners in Guantanamo and its even more abysmal worldwide black sites. In comparison, Nicaragua, has 332 prisoners per 100,000 (half that of the United States) and it is number 24 on the same list.

The longest serving political prisoner in the U.S. is Leonard Peltier. He’s spent 44 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit and was an actual VP candidate on the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) ticket in 2020, unlike the false claims of Nicaragua’s alleged “pre-candidates” that had no viable political party affiliation and are guilty of organizing violent crimes, money-laundering and treason.

Unlike Nicaragua, the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011 allows Washington to criminalize protest. It is a federal offense, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to enter or remain in an area designated as restricted (such as a tar sands pipeline on indigenous land) or to protest anywhere the Secret Service might be guarding someone. Unlike Nicaragua, the U.S. military was empowered in 2013 to attack its citizens through changes in the rules of engagement under the Posse Comitatus Act. Further, the United States military routinely practices war games against its civilians, and it acknowledges in its reports that due to the failings of capitalism it is only a matter of time before civil unrest erupts over: scarce resources; disparities in wealth and power; collapsing financial systems; climate change and natural disasters.

Even with Washington’s deletion, through proxies (Facebook and Instagram), of more than a thousand pro-Sandinista accounts just days before the election, voters turned out in droves in support of the FSLN party.

Even with Washington funneling multimillions in U.S. taxpayer and debt dollars in bribes and rewards through CIA cutout institutions like the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), USAID, Freedom House, and the International Republican Institute to individuals found guilty of violent insurrection in the 2018 coup d’état attempt—which resulted in the death of approximately 200 people on both sides, the loss of $420 million in tourism and 130 thousand jobs—and who blatantly defied the 2018 Amnesty Law, Nicaraguans were not only unperturbed but mostly celebratory throughout their peaceful and efficient voting process and while waiting for provisional results. Peace is attributed to just and effective law enforcement undertaken by the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Attorney General, two completely separate institutions within Nicaragua.

President Ortega and the Sandinista administration aptly blocked Washington’s 2021 coup promoters by identifying violations of the following domestic laws: Law 147, General Law on Non Profit Legal Entities; Law 919, Law on Sovereign Security; Law 977, Law against the Laundering of Assets, Funding of Terrorism, and Funding of the Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction; Law 996, Amnesty Law; Law 1040, Law Regulating Foreign Agents; and Law 1055, Law in Defense of the People’s Right to Independence, Sovereignty and Self-Determination for Peace. The offences concerned and related crimes committed during the failed coup attempt of 2018 also violate numerous international legal statutes ratified by Nicaragua, for example: UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime; the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism and the International Convention against the Taking of Hostages.

Without compunction, Nicaragua’s 2018 coup-promoters followed the undisputedly illegal and immoral instructions detailed in Washington’s 1980’s Psychological Operations in Guerilla Warfare handbook. The CIA’s scripted handbook outlines how to use domestic terrorism strategically to destabilize Nicaragua through the hiring of criminals and agent provocateurs (page 11); the destruction of police installations and the kidnapping of Sandinistas (page 28); and the killing of journalists and others to create “martyrs” for the cause (page 71). The 2021 coup-promoters were apprehended planning to again use these same unconscionable tactics.

Even with the placing of anti-government and libelous propaganda in CIA directed press and media such as La Prensa, Confidencial, Radio Corporacion and 100 % Noticias, the voters refused to adhere to coup-promoting opposition’s clarion call to abstain from casting their ballots. To better understand this insidious influence, refer to “Confessions of a Contra” and “CIA and Media Manipulation” in which Edgar Chamorro, family member of the wealthiest Nicaraguan clan, outlines the greed of fellow Nicaraguan exiles; CIA scripted press conferences; his payoff for being a traitor; and egregious passages from the above referenced PSYOP manual which he helped the CIA author.

For more information, view Redfish’s documentary called the New Battle for Nicaragua and Dan Kovalik’s Nicaragua: the April Crisis and Beyond as they expose the brutality and media disinformation campaign around the 2018 coup attempt.

At roadblocks, set up by a U.S. organized network of criminal mercenaries, women were raped, while passers-by were beaten and robbed. In many instances these horrific acts of domestic terrorism were videotaped, due to the perverse sense of pride and impunity the perpetrators experienced in accomplishing these treasonous and inhumane acts as well as to prove their value and loyalty to their foreign benefactors. Within this context, it is important to further detail the crimes committed and planned that necessitated the arrest of MRS members.

According to State Department cables obtained by the Grayzone, MRS leaders Dora Maria Téllez, Hugo Torres Jiménez, and Victor Hugo Tinoco, were U.S. embassy informants for at least 15 years. The above referenced were charged with “inciting foreign interference” in internal affairs and arrested under Nicaragua’s law 1055, which was approved by the country’s democratically elected National Assembly in December 2020. At the time of writing, MRS president Sergio Ramirez remains at large as he lives in Costa Rica.

Even with the lie that seven “pre-candidates” were arrested to limit competition, voters already had 6 political party options to choose from for the presidency—as clearly indicated on the ballot. And if these supposed candidates had been legitimate presidential hopefuls backed by national political parties (which they were not), they would have further split the opposition vote—which already dwindled down to 1.7% for the Liberal Independent Party (PLI). Further, it is important to note that the arrests were all for various criminal offences linked to continued violent coup plotting activity, in violation of the government granted amnesty to those involved in the 2018 coup attempt, similar to the amnesty granted to Contra forces in the 1980’s.

While five of the various people arrested (Cristiana Chamorro, Arturo Cruz, Felix Maradiaga, Juan Sebastian Chamorro, and Miguel Mora) expressed aspirations to run as presidential candidates, none of them are members of any of the seventeen political parties eligible to take part in the elections. And all have long records of collaboration with U.S. and European governments, and agencies funded by those governments and by foreign corporations which render their aspirations to be presidential candidates moot, as Nicaragua’s Supreme Electoral Council explained in a communiqué on the issue on June 3rd this year.

Regarding the false claim that Nicaragua is limiting the role of NGOs, note that Nicaragua’s National Assembly responded to the Washington-sponsored violence and destabilization efforts by passing a law in October 2020 that requires organizations funded by outside governments to register as foreign agents. The legislation is very similar to a law passed by the United States in 1938 known as the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA).

Even Washington’s dictates to vassal multi-State organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS), from which Nicaragua formally withdrew from on November 19th, and its human rights troll (IACHR) and its marshaling of right-wing priests to commit ungodly acts of torture (captured on video), could not produce any notable traction in the minds or hearts of the people of Nicaragua.

Moreover, Washington’s fear tactics not only proved useless in keeping voters away from the polls but also, they neglected to sway voters to select one of the five alternate candidates running against Nicaragua’s sitting president in any meaningful way. The next highest vote count was for the Liberal Constitutional Party at 14.15%.
Washington’s Plan B—Pretend and Isolate

Thus, Washington moved to Plan B. This involves pretending the election is invalid and refusing to acknowledge the presidency of Daniel Ortega, just like it did in Venezuela with President Nicolás Maduro. Perhaps the White House will pull a rabbit out of a hat, like they did with Juan Guaidó, and anoint it interim president. Keep in mind, Guaidó was never a presidential candidate in Venezuela, and remains just another sock puppet manufactured by the CIA’s cutout mill.

Outside of declaring unilateral war against a relatively tiny country, the second poorest in the Western Hemisphere, one that has no nuclear weapons and presents no terrorist threat and is approximately the geographic size of New York State with a population about 2.5 million less than NYC, it appears Washington must use another strategy in its playbook to maintain the ruse that Nicaragua is “An unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States”.

Nicaragua has borne this spurious designation on and off since the Reagan administration. Note, there is no foreign policy difference between former President Donald Trump and current President Joseph Biden when it comes to imperialism and full spectrum dominance as described by Ajamu Baraka, from the Black Alliance for Peace. So, Washington repeats baseless disinformation until the obvious truth is obscured by its subservient mainstream news media (MSM) and captive “left” media, such as, Democracy Now, The Guardian, The Nation and National Public Radio (NPR). The only issue for Washington is that the truth is the elephant-in-the-room and no one with boots-on-the-ground can be fooled by U.S. lies, irrespective of their ceaseless repetition.

While the situation in Nicaragua is similar today to when the Reagan administration unleashed the illegal Contra force upon it, what’s changed is that alt-media has failed to inform its base. The sad result is that the NICA act passed unanimously in the Senate and RENACER passed with little opposition. Consider how similar the words and policies issued by President Biden are to former President Reagan, a more popular president, and how Reagan’s policy on Nicaragua was still opposed by senators and congresspersons as well as the left.
Foreign Election Contingent

Thus, intelligence agency directed presidential statements and proxy armchair press releases that are outrageously false in regard to the election hold no water when countrywide interviews are conducted by 232 international journalists & electoral accompaniers from 27 countries who traveled to various departments and two autonomous regions, representing all corners of the country: Esteli, Matagalpa, Leon, Bluefields, Bilwi, Chontales, Chinandega, Granada, Masaya, Rivas and Managua. The electoral contingent visited around 50 different voting centers and interviewed voters, poll workers as well as political representatives from the 6 participating parties. I was part of the contingent and personally observed the election process as a correspondent on location for CovertAction Magazine (CAM) in Bilwi, a Miskito municipality formerly known as Puerto Cabezas in Nicaragua’s Northern Caribbean Autonomous Region—it was peaceful and historic.

Bilwi, Declan McKenna, election accompanier from Ireland, explains the Nicaragua voting process, Nov.7, 2021. [Source: Lauren Smith]

Managua, Declan McKenna, election accompanier from Ireland, explains the strength of Nicaragua’s electoral process compared to that used in Ireland, Nov 8, 2021. [Source: Lauren Smith]

In Bilwi, we visited 4 polling sites, met with election officials, and interviewed Myrna Cunningham, a Miskito feminist and indigenous rights activist, and medical surgeon. In Managua, we visited the Bismark Martinez housing development. In Ciudad Sandino, we met with community members from “God’s Blessing” Community Potable Water and Sanitation Committee Trinidad Central and Cuajachillo Number 2 and health care providers with Nueva Vida Clinic. Both projects in Managua are made possible through creative public/non-profit partnerships.
“God’s Blessing” Community Potable Water and Sanitation Committee Trinidad Central and Cuajachillo Number 2

Committee representatives explained the importance of potable water, paved roadways, and electricity for public health. They contrasted the achievements made by President Ortega and the Sandinista administration in providing services to residents of Ciudad Sandino, which was formed by refugees from a series of natural and human disasters since 1968, against the theft of international aid funds by the Somoza dictatorship, and of the theft and neglect of neo-liberal puppet governments from 1990 to 2007.
Nueva Vida Clinic

In response to questions regarding abortion access, a litmus test in the United States for women’s rights, Nueva Vida Clinic’s medical staff explained that as a largely Christian country Nicaragua has conservative values in regard to the taking of life (unlike the hypocritical and contradictory United States, Nicaragua abolished the death penalty). Nonetheless, the Morning-After pill is available without a prescription and in practice abortions can be authorized if the bearer’s life is in danger or they have been victimized by rape and/or incest. This policy balances the rights of women within the structure of the overall culture. Both physicians stressed the government’s focus on preventative measures involving family planning and noted the wide and inexpensive distribution of contraceptives.

Additionally, as a testament to both health and personal freedom, there are no vaccine passports or mandates, and the COVID jab is available free of charge to those who want it. This balance achieves economic productivity with personal safety, health, and self-determinism. Additionally, as in other developing countries, preventative health is encouraged by the distribution of packets containing the anti-viral Ivermectin, antibiotics, and vitamins C, D and zinc. Unlike in the U.S., patients are not told to go home without being issued medication and only allowed to return when their lips turn blue from hypoxia. Thus, the U.S. has one of the highest death tolls in the world due to its failure to effectively treat Covid patients.

The providers also spoke about the increased development of hospitals/clinics and improved medical access throughout the country under President Ortega’s Sandinista administration. While Nicaragua is building and renovating hospitals (21 new and 46 renovated) and clinics (1,259 medical posts, 192 health centers and 178 maternity homes), the United States is closing them. As of 2015, 125 hospitals in NYC alone have closed. The infant mortality rate in Nicaragua is 15 out of 1,000 births, whereas in low income zip codes in NYC the rate is up to 27 out of 1,000 births, nearly double.
Bilwi/Puerto Cabezas/Autonomous Region

The autonomous region is comprised of 40,000 indigenous families. Three hundred indigenous communities legally own approximately one third of Nicaragua’s national territory. President Daniel Ortega’s Sandinista administration had granted Nicaragua’s indigenous and Afro-descendant peoples title to 15 territories covering more than two million hectares within four years of his election in 2007. In October this year, the last two indigenous territories pending received their land titles bringing the total to 25 legally registered and formally recognized indigenous and afro-descendant territories in Nicaragua.

As explained by Dr. Cunningham in her interview, President Ortega and the Sandinista administration’s respect for the sovereignty of the autonomous region, stands in stark contrast to that experienced in the neo-liberal years, 1990-2007. The neo-liberal government blocked land titles and ignored them economically. Since President Ortega’s return, Dr. Cunningham noted improvements in critical infrastructure involving water, electricity, and healthcare as well as the construction of a roadway that will connect the autonomous region to Managua, with only 70Km left to be completed out of 522Km.

Additionally, she praised the Sandinista government’s emergency management agency with providing preparation and evacuation of residents during two Category 4 hurricanes (Eta & Iota) that impacted the region in 2020. Namely, Dr. Cunningham attributed the lack of casualties to good planning and the prompt restoration of electricity, phones, internet, and the rapid replacement of roofs stripped from homes during the severe storms. She also spoke about U.S. interference in the arming of Miskitos with weapons to sow discord between them and the area’s Mestizos population to expose the sitting government to false claims of regional instability. Also, Dr. Cunningham explained that the U.S. misuses social media to create problems between peoples to achieve the same sinister objective.

Dr. Myrna Cunningham, Bilwi, the foreign arming of Miskitos, Nov. 6, 2021. [Source: Lauren Smith]
Electoral Contingent Press

Together, our electoral contingent prepared a joint written statement and conducted a press conference on November 9th detailing our first-hand account of Nicaragua’s exemplary election process and the strong participation of its eligible voters, that contrasts foreign media reports made by absent journalists.

Additionally, many on-site journalists uploaded articles and interviews on Twitter in real time or shortly thereafter. A few notable journalists and activists with uploads are Ben Norton, Dan Kovalik, Margaret Kimberley, Ahmed Kaballo, Convo Couch, Denis Rogatyuk, Ben Rubinstein, Wyatt Reed, Camila Escalante, Caleb Maupin, Alison Bodine/Fire this Time Movement of Social Justice, and Rick Kohn.

Other onsite journalists and election accompaniers wrote articles dispelling the CIA’s repetitive lies/talking points: John Perry, Roger Harris, Nan McCurdy, Margaret Kimberly, Ben Norton, The Grayzone, Stephen Sefton, Rita Jill Clark-Gollub, and Rick Sterling. Additionally, Yoav Elinevsky of Massachusetts Peace Action conducted a webinar on the election with Camila Escalante and Ben Norton. Further, Jimmy Dore’s interview with Convo Couch on Nov. 18th simplifies the U.S. disinformation campaign that attempts to conceal Nicaragua’s enviable voting system.

Essentially, what was revealed to all observers is that what matters most to Nicaraguan voters is national sovereignty and peace, as well as tangible gains in highway connectivity, expanding water & electricity coverage, free healthcare/ education, and the availability of low-cost housing, made possible by President Ortega and the Sandinista administration.

Nicaraguan voters also support the administration’s gender parity law which requires that all electoral lists, from local councils to the National Assembly, must now by comprised by 50 percent women. The percentage of congresswomen now stands at 48.4. According to the World Economic Forum’s 2019 report, Nicaragua ranked 8 in the world for women in parliamentary positions and the United States ranked 75.

The government sponsored “Zero Usury” microloan program, which has allocated US $1,144,491 dollars to train 4,000 women in 92 municipalities to open or expand small restaurants, miscellaneous stores, and tourism services in Managua, is also popular with voters. Since 2007, when the Sandinista government came into office, 23,345 micro and small businesses have been formalized, meaning these workers are now part of the social security system, receiving benefits and paying into their retirement pensions. Small businesses account for 70% of employment and are the backbone of the nation’s economy. Additionally, in the past 14 years, 318,000 members have been inducted into 5,900 new worker cooperatives.

Another success by the President Ortega and the Sandinista administration, that has gotten traction among rural voters, is the guarantee of property titles to small farmers which along with preferential credit programs and enhanced technical assistance for grass roots producers has helped Nicaragua achieve a level of 90% food sovereignty. These policies have given continuity to the massive land reform program of the 1980’s Nicaraguan revolutionary Sandinista government, which distributed about half the country’s arable land (5 million acres) to 120,000 peasant families.

Regarding public housing, the goal set for this year is to deliver 50,000 houses and 50,000 lots. The houses are in the municipalities of Estelí, Pueblo Nuevo, Condega, Granada, Masaya, Rivas, and Granada. In the municipality of Ticuantepe, three blocks of land were acquired to be divided into more than 100 lots, part of the national housing program named after Bismark Martinez which already has approximate 1,400 homes constructed or in the construction phase. Bismark Martinez, a Sandinista militant, was tortured and murdered by U.S. sponsored right-wing opposition forces in 2018. The housing is available to all Nicaraguans, irrespective of political party affiliation, and a typical house costs $40 USD per month.

Bismark Martinez Housing Development, Nov 4, 2021. [Source: Lauren Smith]

Contrast this housing initiative with the homeless rate in New York City (NYC) which stands at almost 48,000 and is located in the U.S which is listed as the 7th richest country in the world.
Voting Process

Nicaragua began its voting process with the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) updating and confirming its voter rolls earlier this year. Voters were able to verify their information and polling locations both in person and on-line. Polling stations are set within 15km of a given voter’s home address with each station staffed and equipped to handle up to 400 voters. Most voter centers, each containing several polling stations, are in schools.

If voters have moved and their home addresses were not updated in time for the election, they must return to the voting center linked to their former address. If voters are not able to vote due to disability, they are assisted by CSE poll station workers upon entry—if family members are not able to help them. I spoke with a couple that included a woman seated in a wheelchair and was informed that they liked to vote early because it becomes too crowded for them later in the day.

A young woman showed me a program on her smart phone operated by CSE that listed her personal information and voting location. For redundancy and ease of access, white and green master lists were also printed and affixed just inside the entrance to each of the four voting centers visited. The white list identified voters that have cast ballots in past elections and the green list identified new or recently relocated voters.

Additionally, smaller lists of registered voters culled from the master list, were reprinted outside each classroom door. These classrooms are referred to Juntas Receptoras de Votos (JRV). Each one is designated to serve between 380-400 voters. At site one, there were 27 JVRs; at site two, 12 JVRs; at site three, 13 JVR; and at site four, 14 JVRs.

Overall, there was a holiday feeling to the voting process as neighbors greeted each other, bought snacks from vendors, and exchanged conversation with the various CSE workers and representatives from the six campaigning parties. Voters were also happy to speak to members from our contingent. The voting areas felt safe, secure and in no way oppressive or intimidating.

After voters have their government-issued IDs verified upon entry (either by scan or by keystrokes) they went to one of predesignated polling station (JVRs) to cast their vote.

Once in the JVR, they again provided their ID to the CSE worker who then checked them off on a paper printout of the voter roll.

After that, voters were given a stamped, numbered, and initialed copy of the ballot by the CSE worker.

Then, the voters were directed to a voting booth by the CSE worker and given privacy.

Then, a CSE worker mark the voters’ thumbs with indelible ink so they cannot vote twice. The ink is impervious to solvents and doesn’t wear off for several days.

Ballots are counted in the JVR, with members from respective political parties present. The number of ballots counted, plus the unused ballots, must match the number of ballots given to that JVR at the beginning of the day. A paper copy of the vote count is submitted to the central CSE, and it is also communicated electronically, but it is the paper trail that prevails in this case which provides the most secure election integrity possible. When the boxes became full, new ones were used. The boxes bore JVR specific information ensuring bulletproof chain of custody, unlike in the United States.

President Ortega and the Sandinista administration’s accomplishments are not only undeniable, but one reason why the U.S. imposes unilateral economic sanctions upon it. Not only does the U.S seek to kill the threat of a good example to other Latin American countries but especially to its residents that are denied access to free healthcare and advanced education and affordable housing. Moreover, U.S. residents are subject to institutionalized inequality based on gender, race, sexual orientation, and preference. In many U.S. states, women lack reproductive rights, and all residents are subject to federal vaccination mandates that deprive them of bodily autonomy.

So, not only do citizens of the U.S. superpower lack faith in their voting system—that is not verifiable and lacks chain of custody—unlike that of relatively tiny Nicaragua, but the fact that the second poorest country in the Western Hemisphere has achieved such great socioeconomic & political strides while the seventh wealthiest country in the world has not, is nothing short of revolutionary—as Nicaragua’s evidence-based democracy threatens the very foundation of U.S. oppression both domestically and abroad.

US EMPIRE SEIZES UK’S NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE

By Stewart Player And Bob Gill,

Consortium News.

December 7, 2021



https://popularresistance.org/us-empire-seizes-uks-national-health-service/

It is safe to say that, far from being overstated, the Americanization of the NHS is very nearly complete.

One of the recent roles of the Parliamentary Healthcare Committee has been to reassure the British public that any claims regarding the ‘Americanization’ of the National Health Service (NHS) were wildly overstated, “creating a climate that risks blocking the joining up of services in the interests of patients.”

In fact, the penetration of the healthcare system by the giant U.S. insurer UnitedHealth reveals the opposite to be true, with the full extent of its influence capable of surprising even seasoned NHS watchers.

The Health and Care Bill making its way through official channels simply reinforces this, with the bill’s centerpiece, the 42 regional-scale Integrated Care Systems (ICSs), aimed at bringing together GPs, hospitals, mental healthcare and council services. It is being effectively designed and fast-tracked by the private UnitedHealth.

The U.S. healthcare system is of course a thing of nightmares. Insurance payments extract almost half the income of an average family, in return for which the nation consistently ranks last for access, equity, and outcomes of care in periodic studies by the Commonwealth Fund.

Not content with employer — or individual-based customers — giant insurers now see as much as 50 percent of their revenues coming from federally-funded services, with studies from Texas revealing the greatest profits within the privatized Medicaid system resulting from denying care to medically fragile children and the severely disabled.

Fraud, scandal, bloated executive salaries and minimal care constitute the norm, yet, owing to the state-capital symbiosis that defines the U.S., the cyclical clamor for reform only sees the industry emerge stronger every time.

This was nowhere more evident than the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 – also known as Obamacare. Less one thinks this is a digression, it is arguable that one can’t understand the position of the British NHS without also understanding the ACA.

According to BusinessWeek, the leading role in ensuring that ‘reform’ doesn’t happened and that ACA proved a bonanza for health insurers was played by the largest of them, UnitedHealth.

While superficially progressive, those newly insured under Obamacare were all channelled either to subsidized marketplaces or to privatized Medicaid to the extent that within a few years these programs had become the main artery of corporate profits.
The Role of Simon Stevens

Serving as point man in the process was the Briton Simon Stevens. Newly promoted as UnitedHealth’s vice-president, he was also charged with leading the company’s “strategic positioning for national health reform.” The company was nothing if not forward thinking when it also appointed him head of UnitedHealth’s Global Health Division.

With capital’s position secure in the heartland, United began to think of further expansion. In his new role, Stevens first helped set up in September 2011 the Alliance for Healthcare Competitiveness, a high-level lobby group with the aim of deregulating trade laws and forcing other nations to open up their health systems to U.S. for-profit insurers, hospitals, pharmaceutical firms, IT companies and other investor-owned firms.

However, it makes little sense to open up national systems unless these conform to standardized templates, and within the year, Stevens was acting as project steward within the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) project on sustainable health systems.

Advocating new care models – though in effect rebranded U.S. Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) – the WEF envisaged a climate where “health schemes and insurance markets boom as people seek to cover their health costs,” while governments “focus on regulating large integrated health providers in a complex expanding global marketplace.”

It only remained for Stevens to return to Britain – “my heart is in the NHS and in U.K. public services,” he said – and in October 2013 he was duly appointed as chief executive of NHS England. Since then he has pursued to the letter the aims of the World Economic Forum and U.S. capital’s.

These include the Five Year Forward View, the New Care Models Programme, the Sustainability and Transformation Partnerships, and, ultimately, the 42 Integrated Care Systems.
A Mixed Economy of Care

In the process, UnitedHealth’s influence has extended across the board. Take commissioning of NHS patient care, for example. Under the terms of the 2012 Health Act, this was to be led by general practitioners but few family doctors had a clue (why should they?) and those that were involved were in it for the extra income and to rubber-stamp decisions made by the commissioning ‘support’ market. (The health care act removed responsibility since 1948 for running the NHS from the health secretary to clinical commissioning groups (CCG), providing an entry for private insurers.)

Serving as chair of the Commissioning Support Industry Group from May 2013, and also providing its secretariat, was UnitedHealth. The group also involved U.S. consultancies, KPMG, McKinsey, EY and PWC. UnitedHealth paid for an annual trip for “senior-level executives from across the U.K. health system” to find out how the company operates in the U.S. and to “explore their applicability in the U.K.”

Since then, this has meant amassing major contracts not only in commissioning support, but also in clinical governance, communications, human resources and workforce development, medicines management, and in implementing Personal Health Budgets.
Groomed By US Capital

As well as bankrolling the largest primary care network, Modality, it has also meant a near-monopoly in data analytics for United, particularly those relating to population health management and the risk stratification of patient cohorts – all exercises in assessing insurance risks and their subsequent costing as the system moves to a mixed economy of care.

But most importantly it has meant United playing the lead role in both defining and fast-tracking ICSs as they await formal legal status. Launched by NHS England in January 2018, the Optum Alliance – consisting of United and PwC – delivered a “major capabilities building programme” to “facilitate the move to whole system working” for the most advanced ICSs.

This included those in Birmingham, Warwickshire, Northumbria, West Yorkshire, Devon, Dorset, and Cumbria, and involved developing capabilities in care redesign – including “radical transformation of outpatient services” and developing primary care networks – financial management, effective leadership, integrated contracting, governance and delivery, as well as building sustainable, value-based, strategies.

For the program, UnitedHealth fielded its most senior partners and directors, all of whom were “experienced leaders in complex business systems.” Under the lead of ICS and clinical commissioning groups, hospital CEOs, finance officers, and local authority chief executives, worked alongside the Optum Alliance and NHS England. But as the director of commissioning for the West Midlands, Alison Tonge, pointed out, it was “UnitedHealth and PwC, who led the sessions.”

As such, despite the talk in policy circles of emerging leaders being brave, innovative, and capable of “high learning agility within new healthcare ecosystems,” it would instead appear they are dutifully being groomed by U.S. capital. Indeed, it is safe to say that, far from being overstated, the Americanization of the NHS is very nearly complete.
The Harm Caused

The Health and Care Bill will essentially provide legislative lock-in for the changes already embedded throughout the NHS. Patients will be denied care to generate profits for the ICS, over which their family physician or hospital specialist will have no influence, while the growing unmet patient need will have to be serviced either through out-of-pocket payments, top-up private insurance, or not at all.

The inevitable harm and suffering endured by patients without the money to pay for treatment will affect their families, carers, clinicians and society as a whole. Healthcare professionals working in this two-tier system will themselves be exploited, made to work beyond the competence, offered perverse incentives to act against the interests of patients to generate profits and in doing so fundamentally betraying the healing relationship.

The NHS will, in the immediate future, resemble ‘Medicare Advantage’ or ‘Medicaid Managed Care’, a basic, publicly funded, privately controlled and delivered corporate cash cow repurposed to make profit, though in time the full range of the organizational options found in the U.S. will follow.

All this will increase the total cost of healthcare, deliver less, harm thousands, enrich foreign corporations and destroy what was once Britain’s national pride.

Roman water organ performance

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US50QmZaeyE&ab_channel=FlorinFilimon