US sanctions on Iran turn coronavirus into a catastrophe

Jean Shaoul

Yesterday, the Iranian health authorities announced that another 54 people had died from the coronavirus in the previous 24 hours.

This, the highest toll in a single day since the start of the outbreak, brings the total number of deaths to nearly 300. Another 881 new cases have been confirmed, increasing the total infection count to 8,042.

At least 23 Iranian legislators and some senior government officials have caught the disease and two have died. Officials announced at the weekend that the virus had spread to almost all Iran’s provinces, warned that the number of cases could rise to more than 450,000 and that many might die.

Tehran at night (Photo: Babak Farrokh)

Iran is the third worst infected country after China and Italy, with the highest death rate per reported case, leading to a widespread belief that the Iranian authorities have been underreporting the extent of the spread of the virus. Opposition groups inside and outside Iran claim that the number of deaths is far higher, with infections numbering in the tens of thousands. Iraj Harirchi, Iran’s deputy health minister, who has contracted the virus, denied any effort to downplay its spread.

Iran has shut down school and universities, cancelled public gatherings, including Friday prayers, concerts and sports events, and suspended flights to Europe. Last week, the government announced the mobilization of 300,000-strong teams in health centres, schools and bases across the country belonging to the Basij, Iran’s paramilitary security agency. It also said that it is setting up of 26,000 health centres in Iran’s cities, towns and villages that would test suspected patients and monitor them in their homes for three days. If patients’ health did not improve within three days, they would be taken to a hospital or receive in-home care.

The judicial authorities have released 70,000 prisoners, those serving less than five years, in an effort to combat the virus.

Iran also announced that it has produced a vaccine that is awaiting permits from Iran’s Food and Drug Organization to enter the clinical phase, while the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said it is working to develop its own coronavirus testing kits.

Iran is struggling to cope with the virus, which has become a threatening political issue. Citizens and experts have accused the government of concealing information and failing to take action as soon as the contagion became known. This includes the failure to quarantine the epicentre of the disease—the city of Qom, Iran’s seventh largest and one of the holiest cities for Shia Muslims, where the disease and two deaths were first reported on February 19.

Regime opponents claim that the government refused to draw attention to the spread of the virus that must have occurred much earlier than February 19 in order not to turn the virus and lack of healthcare facilities into election issues and jeopardise the turnout for the February 21 elections.

Since then, the virus has spread from Iran to other Middle East and Central Asian countries as well as Canada and New Zealand as people have returned from Qom and other Iranian cities. Should the virus spread to impoverished Syria, Iraq and Lebanon, the consequences could be catastrophic.

Nevertheless, few commentators outside Iran have seen fit to mention the devastating humanitarian consequences of US sanctions—designed to exert “maximum pressure” on Iran to effect regime change—on the country’s beleaguered healthcare system.

Successive US administrations have employed sanctions as a key foreign policy tool to inflict untold suffering on innocent people in various countries. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimated that an additional half a million Iraqi children had died between 1991 and 1998 as a result of the sanctions against the government of Saddam Hussein.

Washington’s relentless campaign against Iran since the 1979 Revolution has taken a terrible toll. The 2012-2015 sanctions under the Obama administration led to Iran’s oil and gas exports falling from over $9 billion in 2012 to under $3 billion in 2016 when sanctions were briefly, if incompletely, lifted after the signing of the 2015 nuclear accord. This shattered the country’s economy and access to critical food, pharmaceutical and industrial supplies.

At that time, the difficulty in obtaining export licenses for medicine and medical equipment led to acute shortages of some drugs and medical facilities, huge price rises, with a massive impact on six million people suffering from diseases such as haemophilia, multiple sclerosis, thalassemia, epilepsy, and various immunological disorders, as well as transplant and kidney dialysis patients and those being treated for cancer.

The re-imposition of much broader sanctions after the US unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 accord in 2018, and the threat of secondary sanctions against those countries supplying Iran, resulted in a cut-off of vital medicines, with reports that 80 important drugs were no longer available under the Iranian state’s drug insurance scheme.

According to a report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), although humanitarian trade is exempt from US sanctions, “broad restrictions on financial transactions, coupled with aggressive rhetoric from US officials, have drastically constrained the ability of Iranian entities to finance humanitarian imports, including vital medicines and medical equipment.” The US subsequently placed Iran’s central bank, along with some 20 other institutions, on its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists.

These restrictions, along with the fall of the Iranian currency, have severely limited the ability of Iranian companies and hospitals to purchase essential medicines and medical equipment. Although Iran produces 97 percent of its medicines, a third of these drugs are made with imported ingredients. Most of the drugs needed to treat rare and chronic diseases, including cancers, are part of the three percent of essential medicines that must be imported. According to a list published by the Young Journalist Club news agency last year, 79 medications were no longer covered in Iran, meaning patients must pay for them.

Medical costs are likely to rise further with inflation running at 40 percent last year, and oil revenues plunging. According to OPEC, by October 2019, Iran’s crude oil production had fallen to 2.1 million bpd. Bloomberg reported that only 260,000 bpd on average was being exported. According to the International Monetary Fund, Iran’s GDP shrank by about 4.8 percent in the 2018 and another 9.5 percent in 2019, while unemployment rose from 14.5 percent in 2018 to 16.8 percent in 2019.

In October 2018, the United Nations’ International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague unanimously struck down US sanctions against Iran. Iran had brought the case, arguing that the US was in breach of its 1955 Treaty of Amity with Iran. The ICJ ruled that Washington must let Iran use international financial payments systems to buy humanitarian supplies. It demanded that Washington not block trade in critical goods, making it clear that the US war drive against Iran—including the re-imposition of banking sanctions on Iran—violated international law.

The Trump administration responded by saying it would withdraw from the treaty and review all international agreements that could expose it to binding decisions by the ICJ.

On February 29, President Donald Trump offered aid to Iran to help it cope with the virus if the country asked for assistance. Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani rejected this, saying, “They’ve appeared with a mask of sympathy that ‘we also want to help the people of Iran’.” He added, “If you are really telling the truth, then lift sanctions from medicine.”

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Abbas Mousavi went further, saying that the US was using the coronavirus outbreak as part of its propaganda campaign against Iran. He told reporters, “Since the outbreak of the virus in Iran, we have been observing the US-led anti-Iranian propaganda campaign and know about the measures the Americans have taken to reduce Iranian nation’s morale.”

Coronavirus pandemic surges across Europe

Johannes Stern & Alex Lantier

Thousands fell ill with coronavirus and hundreds died yesterday in Europe as the pandemic kept surging across the continent. As Italy—the epicenter of the pandemic in Europe—went into a nationwide lockdown aiming to halt the spread, regional quarantines were imposed in Spain, Greece, France and Germany, while the disease also tore through Scandinavia and entered into the Balkans.

Italy recorded 977 new cases and 168 deaths, the largest number in any 24-hour period during the coronavirus epidemic, bringing Italy’s health care system to the verge of collapse. The number of cases in Italy stands at 10,149, including 631 deaths, for a current 6.2 percent fatality rate. Multiple airlines including British Airways, Ryanair and Air France halted flights to Italy, while Austria and Slovenia closed their land borders with Italy.

The fatality rate is surging as the disease swamps hospitals, especially in northern Italy. Even with medical staff working 14-hour shifts and freeing up hundreds of beds for coronavirus patients in the most critical condition, requiring artificial ventilation to survive, hospitals still must turn away desperately ill patients. “We are still able to take in the patients with the most serious respiratory problems, but we have to send those with bilateral pneumonia home to be checked by their family doctor,” Guido Marinoni of the Medical Association of Bergamo told Der Spiegel.

An employee wearing a face mask and gloves is waiting for the next patient behind the door of the corona diagnostic centre in Düsseldorf. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner)

Noting that “for years the Italian health care system has been cut back, beds reduced, nurses poorly paid,” the news magazine cited Massimo Galli, chief physician at Milan’s Luigi Sacco Hospital, who said that virologists, internists and pulmonologists are “urgently needed.” He said, “Anyone who thinks the coronavirus thing is overkill, please come to our department.”

Lombardy’s regional health commissioner Giulio Gallera warned, “We can’t keep up with another two or three weeks of such a crazy increase in the number of people in emergency rooms and intensive care units,” citing the physical and psychological strain on a doctor who told him: “I will never forget the eyes of the patient I connected to the ventilator this morning.”

With all large public events called off, schools and universities closed, city centers empty, many workers telecommuting, Italy’s economy is in freefall. Shoppers cleaned out grocery store shelves, stocking up on food. Lorenzo Codogno, former chief economist of the Italian Treasury, told Reuters that Italy’s average daily gross domestic product (GDP) is running 10 to 15 percent below normal levels, so that Italy will go into a deep recession if a prolonged quarantine is needed to halt the spread of the virus. In the meantime, uncertainty hangs over tens of millions of workers’ lives.

Economic Development Minister Stefano Patuanelli has called for a €10 billion bailout, and the ABI banking lobby said that it may suspend mortgage payments for families and businesses impacted by the coronavirus crisis—apparently in an effort to get access to public bailout funds. However, the sum proposed by Patuanelli is completely insufficient. It not only fails to address tens of billions of euros of EU health care cuts imposed over decades, but gives nothing for child care, lost wages, and medical bills to workers facing school closures, recession, and the prospect of mass layoffs.

Mass quarantines are being implemented or prepared across Europe, however, as the spread of the disease threatens to swamp hospital systems across the continent. Greece announced a total, two-week shutdown of day care centers, schools and universities in an attempt to prevent the disease from spreading. Of particular concern was the discovery on March 9 of a coronavirus patient, a 40-year-old woman who had traveled to the Middle East, on the island of Lesbos.

Lesbos, an Aegean Sea island close to Turkey, is the site of the infamous Moria detention camp where tens of thousands of refugees fleeing Middle East wars and poverty are kept in horrific conditions. There is now an imminent danger that this contagious and deadly disease could spread to tens of thousands of refugees, living in poverty and in unsanitary conditions dictated by the EU. There alone, the death toll could easily rise into the thousands.

While France’s caseload rose 372 to 1,784, Spain yesterday closed all educational facilities and suspended closed-door events with over 1,000 people in Madrid, La Rioja and the Basque towns of Vitoria and Labastida, as Spain’s coronavirus caseload rose 443 to 1,674. There is a growing danger that the coronavirus could also swamp Spain’s health care system, which has suffered somewhere between €15 and 21 billion in EU spending cuts since the 2008-2009 crisis.

In Britain, six people died, and 54 new cases tested positive for coronavirus amid mounting concern over the lack of staffing and resources of the National Health Service. The United Kingdom has only 2.5 beds per 1,000 inhabitants, the second-lowest ratio in Europe, and it is highly vulnerable to being swamped by a rapid rise in the number of cases.

Amid a rapid increase in coronavirus infections throughout Germany and after the first two reported deaths in connection from the virus on Monday, German authorities are beginning to take more drastic and desperate measures.

In the capital Berlin, cultural life is coming to a virtual standstill. Tuesday evening Berlin's Senator for Culture, Klaus Lederer (Left Party), has decided, in agreement with the directors, to cancel all events in the large halls of state theatres, operas and concert halls until the end of the Easter holidays, i.e. until April 19. He also recommended that the large private theaters proceed in this manner.

In the city of Cologne, Lit. Cologne, the largest literature festival in Europe with more than 200 events and over 100,000 visitors over twelve days, has been called off. On the day of the planned opening, the festival was canceled by the city‘s mayor, Henriette Reker. “In the current situation we must do everything possible to break the chains of infection,” she was quoted as saying. “Therefore, against the background of the recommendations of the Federal Minister of Health, I have advised against holding Lit. Cologne at this time.”

With four new cases in Saxony-Anhalt, all federal states in Germany are now affected by the coronavirus. Throughout Germany there are now 1,296 laboratory-confirmed cases.

Due to the spread of the virus, six federal states have now banned events with more than 1,000 people: Bavaria (until 10 April), North Rhine-Westphalia (indefinite), Hesse, Thuringia, Lower Saxony, Bremen and Schleswig-Holstein. In Thuringia, even events with more than 500 people must be specially approved. Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse and Saarland have only recommended to cancel large events.

The Bavarian state government decided on Monday to ban events with more than 1,000 guests. This measure will initially remain in force until Good Friday, but it can be extended. Not only will numerous soccer matches be affected, but also spring festivals and the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Dachau concentration camp.

Especially for millions of older citizens, there is an immediate deadly risk. In his daily podcast, the head of the Institute for Virology at the famous Charité in Berlin, Christian Drosten, urged people to protect senior citizens, otherwise up to a quarter of those affected in this age group could die.

This is why such drastic measures as not having contact with one’s own grandchildren and restricting social life are appropriate, he explained, calling on parents to explain the situation to younger generations: “We talk to them and tell them ‘This is serious’.” Social life in this group should even “stop for a few months”, said Drosten. He then warned: “And if you don't take this seriously, you have to assume that rates that are in the range of 20 percent, 25 percent of these people will die.”

The alarms coming from health workers stand in stark contrast to the irresponsibility and staggering indifference to human life exhibited by the ruling class. “60 to 70 percent of the people in Germany will become infected with the coronavirus,” Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) said during the parliamentary group meeting on Tuesday. According to participants, Merkel’s remark provoked a stunned silence in the faction.

There is no reason to accept that two-thirds of the German or European population should catch this disease. Quarantines together with the deployment of massive financial and health care resources to treat the sick can halt the coronavirus. In China, the disease is currently being contained to 80,000 people as the number of new daily cases falls to a few dozen, many of which are now imported from Europe. This indicates the necessity of a coordinated, global mobilization of financial, industrial and scientific resources to stop the disease.

In contrast, if 50 to 60 million Germans acquire the disease before a vaccine can be developed, roughly 20 percent or 10 to 12 million would likely develop critical illness, flooding the health care system and leading to millions of deaths. On an international scale, the losses in human life would be incalculable.

That Merkel can blandly predict such an outcome testifies to the bankruptcy of European capitalism and its austerity agenda. It is critical now to mobilize the working class to fight for the right to care, for full financial and social support for workers and small businesses affected by the pandemic, and for an end to destructive EU austerity. Capitalism is taking humanity towards disaster, and it must be replaced by socialism: the planned, rational and democratic use of global economic resources to satisfy human need, not profit.

Italy emerging as the new epicenter for the Covid-19 pandemic

Benjamin Mateus

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte of Italy extended the emergency measures against the coronavirus pandemic to the entire country on Monday in the hopes of limiting the spread of the infection to the South, and diverted resources to the heavily impacted Lombardy region.

In his TV address to the nation, he stated, “There is no more time.” The pandemic has found a new epicenter with more than 10,000 cases reported. In just 24 hours, 977 new cases were confirmed with 168 new fatalities, while 877 remain in critical condition. The total death toll in Italy from Covid-19 now stands at 631. The country’s health care infrastructure has become exhausted.

In a recent post that has gone viral by Dr. Daniele Macchini, an intensive care unit physician in Bergamo, a city near Milan, he gives an unsettling personal account of the devastation being wrought by the pandemic.

A man wearing a mask walks in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Friday, March 6, 2020. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

“I will try … to convey to people far from our reality what we are living in Bergamo in these days of Covid-19 pandemic. I understand the need not to create panic, but when the message of the dangerousness of what is happening does not reach people, I shudder …

“The war has literally exploded, and battles are uninterrupted day, and night … cases are multiplying, we arrive at a rate of 15–20 admissions per day all for the same reason. The results of the swabs now come one after the other: positive, positive, positive. Suddenly the ER is collapsing.

“The staff is living at the hospital. Surgical cases are being canceled, and operating rooms are converted to treatment rooms where every available ventilator being used is considered ‘gold.’ Exhaustion has set in as endless shifts proceed without an end in sight. The staff is compelled to push beyond the limits of human endurance. They are unable to go home out of fear of infecting their families. Some are working while their families affected at home are struggling for their lives. They watch hopelessly, knowing that the fate of some of the patients they are caring for awaits them in just a few hours.”

Similar accounts were shared by Chinese physicians who labored for hours as they tried to make sense of the incomprehensible at the outbreak of the crisis. Many also became seriously ill and some succumbed to the bilateral interstitial pneumonia that took their last breath away.

Concluding, Dr. Macchini wrote, “I finish by saying that I really don’t understand this war on panic. The only reason I see is mask shortages, but there’s no mask on sale anymore. We don’t have a lot of studies, but is panic really worse than neglect and carelessness during an epidemic of this sort?”

The data being projected by various sources that are tracking the global statistics show that Germany, France, Spain, virtually the entire eurozone, as well as the United States, are only one to two weeks behind Italy. In the US as of Tuesday officially there were 985 cases reported with 29 fatalities, of which 25 occurred in Washington state at a nursing facility. There were 169 new cases in the US today, with Massachusetts announcing 51 new cases, a 124 percent increase.

New York State, with 173 cases, is just behind Washington with 179 cases. Most of these cases are in and around New York City. Because of the CDC’s utter failure in leading efforts in the detection and management of the epidemic, private labs are now being used to test people. Public officials are coming to an astounding realization that the magnitude of the problem has become critical.

Mayor Bill de Blasio told reporters yesterday, “They’re coming in so intensely now that being able to give you a detailed case breakdown, we’re not in that position to do that at this moment because there are so many coming forward.” There are nearly 2,000 people in the city on voluntary isolation, while 30 people have been placed in mandatory quarantine.

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo announced that he had declared a one-mile-radius containment zone in New Rochelle, New York, centered on a synagogue found to be the source of the state’s largest cluster of infections. All schools, religious and community centers will be closed for two weeks. According to the New York Times, the National Guard is also being deployed to “clean schools and to deliver food to quarantined residents, including hundreds of students now facing two weeks of being isolated at home.”

It is clear these measures are going into effect in preparation for the impending tsunami of sickened patients seeking treatment that is around the corner, bringing not only panic and chaos but social discontent and resentment over the state and government’s utter lack of preparedness or concern.

As the number of seriously ill continues to rise, local hospitals will find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer volume of patients seeking urgent medical attention. The intensive care unit (ICU) capacities will quickly dwindle as community after community is unable to deliver the necessary care. Makeshift rooms and beds will be improvised.

The triaging protocol might change from assisting the sickest immediately to attending to those who have a chance of surviving. There may develop a situation in which the elderly or those with severe comorbidities will not be admitted due to their very high risk of fatality, because the resources of a region are depleted. Hospitals may have to develop and employ scoring systems to make quick assessments as to who will be permitted admission.

In a recent study published on the Harvard Library web site, the authors report the lessons learned from Chinese cities on demand for inpatient and ICU beds for Covid-19. In Wuhan city, for the period from January 24 to February 29, Covid-19 accounted for 32,486 ICU-days and 176,136 serious-inpatient days. During the peak of the epidemic, lasting from mid- to late February, nearly 20,000 people were hospitalized, half of whom were considered in “serious” condition. Over 2,000 patients needed critical care.

The authors note that even if cities comparable to Wuhan, such as New York City, Los Angeles or Chicago, were to implement measures as severe as the lockdown imposed on Hubei province, “hospitalization and ICU needs from Covid-19 patients alone may exceed current capacity.” They also note that many US cities have a higher prevalence of vulnerable populations, which in turn would require even more resources to manage such a volume of patients.

A crucial lesson emphasized in the study’s discussion is that when health care resources became inundated in Wuhan, patients would travel to other facilities seeking aid. This only contributed to the ongoing community transmission the authorities were attempting to control. Additionally, as the health care system collapsed under the pressure of such large numbers of patients, medical staff were unable to deliver adequate care, which translated to worse outcomes.

The case fatality index for Wuhan city was highest, at 4.5 percent, while in Hubei province it was less, at 3.2 percent. For the rest of the regions that abided by the social distancing and contact quarantine measures instituted in the early phase of the epidemic, the study found that the fatality index was an exceptional low of 0.8 percent. These regions were able to keep their health care infrastructure operating at full capacity.

The US has about 2.8 hospital beds per 1,000 people. By comparison, Japan and South Korea have 12 hospital beds per 1,000, or four times the capacity. The measures instituted in Japan and South Korea have seen the number of new cases drastically curbed. In absolute terms, there are about 1 million beds in the US, of which about 70 percent are occupied at any given time. Even by the most conservative estimates, at the rate that the Covid-19 infection is growing in the US, it will reach capacity in less than two months.

Additionally, the US stockpile of N95 masks is around 12 million. With the outbreak permeating all health care facilities, health providers will have to don masks while they work in hospitals and urgent care centers. In approximately two to three days, this stock of perishables will become exhausted. It is unreasonable to assume that manufacturing will have the capacity to keep up with demand.

Dr. Macchini offered these important sobering sentiments to the global community, “We at the hospital simply try to make ourselves useful. You should do the same: we, doctors, influence the life and death of a few dozen people. You, with your actions and choices, decide the fates of many more.”

ICAO Training Fellowships/Scholarships 2020/2021 for Developing Countries

Application Deadline: Various. Check the courses for the different deadlines

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

To be taken at (country): Singapore

About the Award: Singapore and ICAO jointly established a Developing Countries Training Programme (DCTP) in 2001 which is sponsored by the Singapore Government and administered by the ICAO Technical Cooperation Bureau for specialised training programmes conducted by the Singapore Aviation Academy (SAA).
The Singapore Aviation Academy works closely with the Singapore Government and international funding agencies to secure training fellowships for developing countries.

Type: Training, Fellowship (Career)

Eligibility: 

• The fellowships/scholarships are intended for participants nominated by their respective Governments.
• Nominating Governments should preferably nominate not more than 2 candidates for each course and advise which candidate should take priority if more than one candidate is nominated.

Number of Scholarships: Not specified

Value of Scholarship: The Government of Singapore will bear the training fees, daily allowance of Sixty Singapore Dollars (S$60) and hotel accommodation for participants accepted for the programmes.

• Complimentary breakfast will be provided at the hotel and lunch at SAA during training days. Travel arrangements are to be made and costs borne by the nominating Governments.
• Hotel accommodation will be provided for the training duration, i.e. one day before course commencement (after 2 pm) and one day after the course (till 12 noon).
• Daily allowance will be limited to the training duration, i.e. from the start of the course up to the last day of the course.
• Expenses to be incurred for stay beyond this duration will not be covered.
• Travel arrangements are to be made and costs borne by the nominating Governments.

How to Apply: Apply below

• It is important to go through all application requirements in the Award Webpage (see Link below) before applying.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Time to Stop Pretending People With Serious Psychosis Can be “Independent”

Patrick Cockburn

On 30 March last year, a man suffering from severe mental illness walked out of his flat in north London and stabbed a woman in the back with a knife, inflicting injuries that left her paralysed for life. She was a complete stranger to him, as were the four other people whom he met by chance in the street over the next three days and stabbed in the back.

Jason Kakaire, 30, had a long history of psychotic illness. He had once been in sheltered accommodation, but that had closed because of a lack of money. At the time of the attacks, he was living in a seventh-floor flat in a run-down tower block in Edmonton, where he was visited once a month by a mental health team that gave him his medication.

He later told psychiatrists that he suffered from hallucinations and heard voices in his head that told him to kill himself. In the days before he began stabbing strangers, these voices became more threatening, telling him that they were going to kill him. He said that he felt that “he needed to go out and kill people to prevent himself from being killed”.

Kakaire was going to stand trial for attempted murder, but admitted this week to 10 charges of wounding with intent and possessing a knife. He will be sentenced in May.

The case has become something of a cause celebre, because it shows up the failure of the NHS – and of health services around the world – to stop disasters like this. “No question it could have been prevented,” says Marjorie Wallace, the chief executive of mental health charity Sane, who has come to know the Kakaire family well.

She asks why somebody as sick as Kakaire, pursued by demons in his head, should have been assessed as low risk to himself and others. Described as a polite, lonely individual, he was too frightened by his voices to leave the building to go to an outpatient appointment. When his mother reported that he was thinking about suicide, she was told to seal up the windows in his flat so he could not jump out.

Fifty years ago, the severity of Kakaire’s psychosis would probably have meant that he would have been given a bed in a mental hospital, but these beds no longer exist. Despite repeated government claims that it is prioritising mental health, the number of beds available for people with acute mental illness fell by 30 per cent between 2009 and 2018, from 26,448 to 18,082. The number of mental health nurses dropped by 6,000, the number of specialist doctors by 600, over the same period.

Tragically, the provision of help to those with serious mental illness has been squeezed from both right and left over the last half century. Hospital care was supposed to have been replaced by “care in the community”, which makes an appealing but deceptive slogan, but has turned out to mean, as one former government minister put it: “Couldn’t-care-less in the community.”

A great attraction of this approach from the point of view of governments and health authorities is that it saves a great deal of money. If you compare the financial cost of treating a mentally ill person through an occasional visit by a care team with giving them a hospital bed, the care team is an estimated 44 times cheaper than the hospital, says Wallace. She stresses that the vast majority of mentally ill people are non-violent, but says that research by Sane showed that more than half of the 120 homicides committed annually by mentally ill people in the UK happened because of multiple failures by care services. The most common of these is simply not listening to repeated warnings from mentally ill people or their families about what they might do.

The running down of hospitals and other institutions caring for the mentally ill is one of the cruelest and most regressive developments of our era. Government has justified it, in the UK as elsewhere, by claiming from the 1950s onwards that “de-institutionalisation” was in the interests of patients. In reality, it was often exchanging one institution (a psychiatric hospital) for another (prison).

One reason why mentally ill people are so often being left to sink or swim on their own is that people of goodwill seldom have much understanding of the causes and treatment of mental illness. There is what some call the “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” attitude, fostered by the film of the same name, which saw mental hospitals as essentially places of incarceration. It stood to reason, in this view, that patients would be better off free, and relied instead on some form of benign but unspecified communal care.

A more serious argument was that advances in medicine since the 1950s enabled doctors to control, though not cure, many aspects of mental illness. Moreover, these new medications did not require the patient to be in hospital because most of them (though not the most effective ones) could be administered by slow-acting injection.

The problem is that there are many gradations of mental illness, but this perception has been blurred by a well-intentioned but counterproductive effort to stop the mentally ill being marginalised. Rachel Jenkins, professor emeritus at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College, London, says that “in order to avoid stigma over the last 20 years, people have been calling mental illness ‘mental health issues’, thus creating endless confusions.”

Jenkins says that we are really talking about three distinct categories of mental illness: acute psychosis, which may require hospitalisation; non-psychotic mental disorders such as depression and anxiety; and people with lesser mental problems, which includes a large proportion of the population. People who are psychotic need to be treated very differently from the others.

People with serious psychosis frequently cannot look after themselves, and may be a risk to themselves and others. Looking after them and trying to improve their condition requires great resources, but these have been steadily stripped away since the mid-20th century. As a result, “care in the community” usually ends up meaning care by one’s family, so its degree depends on that family’s resources and income.

By trying to avoid frightening words like “madness” and “insanity”, people who had the laudable intention of destigmatising mental illness have ended up diluting the traditional – and quite correct – belief that acute psychosis is a shattering experience. The pretense that a psychotic person can take rational decisions in their own interests may appear to be a humane approach – but it sends out the message that a person who would once have been considered in desperate need of help can be left to their own devices – or, as happened to Kakaire, to their own voices.

Afghanistan: Democracy by imperialism – A country with two presidents

Farooque Chowdhury

Afghanistan, a classic case of imperialist intervention, was having two presidents only days ago.

Years ago, almost the same scene was on the stage of that political theater – two claims for the single chair of president. That was in 2014. The players were the same – Ghani and Abdullah. Later, a compromise was reached.

Tomorrow will also find a compromise to today’s caricature – a creation of imperialist intervention. Actually, that was an occupation after an aggression.

Ashraf Ghani and his rival Abdullah Abdullah simultaneous, but in separate ceremonies, Monday took oaths for the single presidency of a single country – Afghanistan – with snow-fed mountain streams and fertile small valleys. Ghani’s inauguration took place at the Presidential palace in Kabul while Abdullah’s was next door, in the Sapedar Palace. Both of the leaders packed respective ceremonies with jubilant supporters. Ghani refuses to recognize Abdullah, and Abdullah mimed his rival.

The two presidents formed governments, two in number, for the country, where the towering mountain range Hindu Kush runs through the center from northeast to southwest, a two-part. It’s a rare development in the history of countries and in the history of bourgeois democracies.

The imperialist war ravaged country watered by the Amu Darya, Helmand, Hari Rud and Farah Rud jumped deeper into a new political crisis – fight among factions friendly to the Empire. There’s every possibility that one of the factions may stray from the imperial orbit.

High Representatives of the Masters – US special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, and US and NATO forces commander General Scott Miller – attended Ghani’s oath-taking ceremony. Is their blessing there? Or, is there some other equation?

The Empire waging its longest war in the country was trying to resolve the crisis. Zalmay Khalilzad negotiated between the fighting factions for almost 24 hours. Nevertheless, the emissary, yet, failed. However, it’ll reach an end – a compromise arrangement.

The 2014-dual claim to the single presidency found interference by John Kerry, then the US secretary of state. Power was shared with a high-sounding national unity government.

The present presidency duel began as Abdullah declined to accept the September 2019-election results declared in February. The results declared Ghani the winner. Abdullah’s complains include fraud in the election. The deteriorating dispute led to the two inaugurations.

The chaotic development, therefore, pushes some moves by the Empire in disarray. Most important of these is the truce with the Taliban concluded only days ago. For the Empire, the truce in its near two decades of war was very important, as it’s now war-tired with a lot of bleeding, and an urgency to move out of the quagmire and go back home. The Empire, it’s now visible, is failing to sustain the war-enterprise. A relentless war isn’t possible. Now, it appears the Soviet leadership was efficient and wise. It just moved out after paying a price. But, for the Empire, the exit-job is not easy.

The money the Empire poured in Afghanistan created extra problems other than war-fed military and political problems. The rich group that has cropped up with the Empires money is itself a problem. A visit to the Kabul palaces of the nouveau rich and their clubs is enough to understand the factional fight centering the presidential throne – a throne more valuable than the Peacock Throne stolen from medieval India. Their life style, the amount of money they have accumulated through skimming, smuggling, thieving and robbing, they robbed even their master whenever they found opportunity, is enough to find out the cause acting behind the factional fight. The empire has to sort out the presidency-duel. It’ll, anyhow, sort it out.

But, the question remains: Has the Empire succeeded in erecting the democracy in the country? The 2nd presidency-duel is the answer: No. Even, the façade of democracy constructed with money and munitions stands fractured. Strange show of power it’s! The failure comes after spending so much, billions, dollars! Two scholars from the United States have calculated cost of the Afghanistan War-enterprise. That was years ago. By today, that amount has increased. All after these, dominating factions in the Empire are in agreement regarding the bloody business in Afghanistan.

What was the political plan? What was the military strategy and tactics? What happened to the much-propagated Low Intensity Conflict tactics?

Democracy can’t be built in this way: Imperialist intervention. The long history of the Empire’s democracy business in continents from Latin America to Asia is the evidence. Iraq is a current example. Recent democracy movement in Iraq has already taken a toll from the people there – hundreds killed during demonstrations for democracy in Baghdad. The Empire’s democracy business with its so-called democracy institutes with the tags “Republican” and “Democratic” only fattens the Empire and bleeds peoples in countries invaded by the Empire. Andrew J Enterline and J Michael Greig of the University of North Texas in a paper, “Historical trends in imposed democracy and the future of Iraq and Afghanistan (January 2007) examined the durability, institutional trajectory and long-term political institutional of 40 imposed “democratic” regimes during the period 1800-1994. (cited in Farooque Chowdhury, The Age of Crisis, Shrabon Prokashani, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2009) For success of the imposed “democracy”, a longer intervention – years spanning more than 50 – is required. How long the Empire can sustain now? It’s very serious question. The Empire obviously carries on exercise with the question. But, what about its lackeys? Do they? Alternatively, they have no choice, probably.

The behavior pattern of unashamed lackeys and persons in the payroll of imperialism is an irony – they find no alternative other than bearing the banner of democracy by imperialism, for imperialism, of imperialism. Imperialism is their sole pole for reliance and dependence – a place to plea, a cave to cry and complain. It’ll continue as long as “democracy” with imperialist intervention is not widely exposed among people, as long as imperialist masters play “patron”-role – lend ears, sermon, fund, train, propagate, poke nose, intervene –  in concerned countries, as long as significant part of the progressives don’t expose this imperialist “democracy”, as long as this message is not spread among people, as long as people don’t oppose this imperialist democracy.

Mexico: AMLO’s embrace of the corrupt CTM and the threat of dictatorship

Andrea Lobo

Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) joined the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) in its 84th anniversary ceremony on February 23 and, in the keynote speech, embraced this corrupt institution known for its thuggery against workers as a key part of his government’s agenda.

This embrace between AMLO and the CTM, which was welcomed by the corporate media and the Business Coordinating Council (CCE), is not merely a ceremonial gesture. After years claiming to fight for workers to free themselves from the shackles of the CTM and introducing a labor reform to ostensibly facilitate this by requiring union recognition votes, AMLO and his labor secretary, Luisa María Alcalde, seek to give a progressive gloss to the CTM, speaking not a word of its record of betrayals and thorough corruption.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador (Credit: Eneas De Troya)

Facing a wave of mass strikes and protests and growing opposition to the traditional parties in recent years, the AMLO administration seeks to preserve the striking levels of social inequality feeding popular unrest by revitalizing the corporatist use of the trade unions, chiefly the CTM. This means suppressing any struggle by the working class for its independent interests by subordinating it politically and organizationally to the alliance of the corporations, the capitalist state and the trade unions.

While fomenting nationalist sentiments to better chain workers to the national bourgeoisie and forestall the growing support for coordinating workers’ struggles internationally, AMLO’s corporatism is entirely subordinated to foreign capital. In fact, the Trump administration dictated the terms of AMLO’s signature policy, the labor reform, in order to prevent any challenge from below to securing Mexico as a cheap labor platform—a critical piece in drawing production away from China as part of Trump’s economic war for US imperialist hegemony.

To the applause of the CTM Congress, AMLO declared:

Beyond party flags, we’ll carry out the Fourth Transformation of public life in Mexico. Regarding workers, I want to thank the trade unions and especially the CTM because we achieved, in 14 months, to increase the minimum salary twice… as an agreement between labor and employers, which I acknowledge and celebrate since today’s business people in Mexico are not exploiters or slavers as they were under the Porfiriato [1884–1911]; most business people in Mexico have a social dimension. They act with justice and humanism.

He then praised the CTM leader and Senator for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Carlos Aceves del Olmo, ending his speech with a “Long live the CTM!” A commemorative video compiled by the CTM and Aceves himself rendered tribute to the government and committed to acting as AMLO’s “numerous, powerful and determined ally.”

Alcalde congratulated the CTM unions for including empty provisions in its statutes about new voting requirements. She explained that going through these motions will “convince workers” of the unions’ “legitimacy and transparency.” Meanwhile, the government “will keep its hands away from internal union affairs,” which means that it will generally rubber stamp any browbeating or fraud used by the CTM.

The initial stage of this process was exemplified during the 2018 wave of wildcat strikes against the CTM unions by 70,000 maquiladora workers in Matamoros, where Morena activists and politicians, as well as the “independent unions” ostensibly opposed to the CTM like Los Mineros and the Electricians Union (SME), intervened to sideline initial rank-and-file committees formed outside the control of the CTM and chain workers back to the trade unions. Significantly, workers carried out a massive march to the border with the US to call American workers to join their struggle, while many issued international appeals through the WSWS Autoworker Newsletter .

Last year, in the context of the national strike at General Motors in the United States, the company fired workers at its Silao Complex in Mexico for organizing against the CTM and fighting for joint actions with GM workers in the United States against the oppressive conditions. Now, the local CTM union is carrying out voter fraud and all sorts of charades to comply with the new union recognition requirements. In another example last month, APTIV auto-parts workers in Ciudad Victoria demanding a 30 percent raise struck following the legally stipulated process until the new Federal Labor Board arbitrarily declared the action illegal and the local CTM union shut the strike down.

AMLO, Alcalde and Aceves all claimed that the CTM embodies the legacy of the Mexican Revolution (1910–20), chiefly the 1917 Constitution, and the administration of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934–40), which promoted the founding of the CTM and nationalized oil. However, contrary to AMLO’s glamorizing of Mexican capitalism today, the life for the impoverished majorities is dominated by the violation of the basic social and democratic rights fought for with blood by millions of workers and peasants during the revolution against the Porfiriato.

During the Mexican Revolution, the independent interests of workers and growing support for socialism found no organized expression due to the lack of a Marxist party like the contemporaneous Bolshevik Party that led the 1917 Russian Revolution. The corrupt union leader Luis Morones and his Mexican Regional Workers Confederation (CROM) subordinated workers to one ruling faction after another of the Mexican bourgeoisie during the revolution and even drove workers into battalions to fight against the revolutionary peasant armies of Francisco Villa and Emiliano Zapata. Ultimately, the lack of a revolutionary working-class leadership resulted in the inability of Villa and Zapata to break fully with the liberal bourgeoisie and in the failure of their limited perspective based on land reform.

Opposition grew among workers in the following decades, especially as the Great Depression ravaged Mexico in the 1930s. In response, the ruling Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM—the PRI’s predecessor) and its leader Plutarco Elías Calles handpicked the populist Lázaro Cárdenas to become president. Cárdenas in turn promoted the founding of the CTM under the leadership of the Stalinist Vicente Lombardo Toledano, who had led a reformist faction in the CROM before organizing against the “white trade unions,” the same slogan used today by AMLO. The workers’ movement peaked with a wave of wildcat strikes in 1937, led by oil and railway workers. Cárdenas successfully maneuvered to suppress these struggles with the help of the CTM by nationalizing oil and the railroads, with the benefits channeled to the national bourgeoisie.

In 1938, Leon Trotsky, who was living in exile in Coyoacán, explained:

We are in the period in which the national bourgeoisie seeks a bit more independence from foreign imperialism. The national bourgeoisie is forced to flirt with workers, peasants and now we have the left-oriented strongman of the country like today in Mexico. If the national bourgeoisie is compelled to abandon the struggle against foreign capitalists and work under its direct tutelage, we’ll have a fascist regime.

But even at that time in Mexico, he added, the bourgeoisie was “absolutely incapable of developing democratic rule” due to its fear that too many concessions would open the door for socialist revolution.

War production during World War II, the post-war boom and especially the globalization of finance and supply chains and the formation of the North American trading bloc in the 1980s and 1990s bound the interests of the Mexican elite and its new billionaires to foreign finance and foreign markets, under the tutelage economically and militarily of US imperialism.

This evolution, reproduced in different forms across the world, turned the CTM and all trade unions into industrial police to enforce concessions from workers to the corporations and the state. Under globalization, social reforms and any significant improvement to workers’ living standards would fatally undermine the profit interests of the Mexican ruling class, leading to capital flight and the direct intervention of imperialism. Consequently, unlike the times described by Trotsky in which the bourgeoisie could use limited social reforms to its benefit, the only response available to social unrest today is a sharp turn toward dictatorship and fascism.

The chief immediate challenges for AMLO’s government were the brewing rank-and-file rebellion against the CTM and opposition to the military and its so-called “war on drugs.” Recent developments have revealed that what is being proposed as an alternative to the CTM is a so-called “independent” trade union vetted by the US corporations, along with the Mexican and US authorities. At the same time, AMLO created a National Guard and enshrined its activities in the Constitution to provide a new façade for the same military leadership and expand domestic military operations.

However, after Mexico’s first annual economic contraction since 2009, and with the falling popularity of AMLO, the ruling class is scrambling to prevent the slightest disruption to the demands of the transnational corporations and Wall Street. This has pushed AMLO to directly promote the CTM.

The dangers raised by AMLO’s program in the service of imperialism cannot be understated if workers don’t break free from his political influence and capitalist institutions like the trade unions. Workers need to build rank-and-file committees independently of the trade union apparatus and develop a political leadership based upon a socialist and internationalist program, that is, a section of the International Committee of the Fourth International.

Greece: New Democracy government deepens attacks on pensions

John Vassilopoulos

Pension legislation, submitted by Labour Minister Yiannis Vroutsis and passed into law February 27, is the first major pension reform of the conservative New Democracy government, which came to power last summer.

Much airtime was devoted in the Greek media to Vroutsis who, in the run-up to the vote, proclaimed that the bill is “the first social security bill, which after 12 years will not implement any pension cuts. On the contrary, there will be increases.”

His claim of “increases” centres on the bill’s pledge to make good on last October’s ruling by the Council of State (Greece’s highest administrative court) that some of the pension cuts enacted by the “Katrougalos Law” of 2016 were unconstitutional.

Labour Minister Yiannis Vroutsis (Wikipedia Commons)

Passed at the behest of the European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF), following the third bailout package signed by the pseudo-left Syriza government in the summer of 2015, the “Katrougalos Law” was named after then Labour Minister Giorgos Katrougalos. It imposed lower pension accrual rates for current and future retirees.

In cases of existing pensioners where the re-calculation produced a lower figure, the difference between the existing and the “new” pension was still paid out, with the amount on their statement appearing as a separate tranche known as the “personal difference.” This is no consolation, given that the cut will be gradually applied in real terms over the next few years, with pensions remaining frozen until 2023 and after that all increases going towards offsetting the “personal difference” until it reaches zero.

In response to the Council of State ruling, the new bill repealed the “Katrougalos” measure—which cut “supplementary” or “top up” pensions in order to ensure that total amount paid out never exceeded €1,300 and included marginal increases for pension accrual rates for those who retired with between 30 and 40 years of service. Any paltry increases will only benefit a small number of pensioners.

The repeal of the “supplementary measure” affects about 200,000 pensioners, while the increase in accrual rates will mean actual increases for around 70,000 pensioners out of the approximately one million pensioners affected. Any increase will then be offset against the “personal difference” amount, which for the majority will be greater than the increase. Meanwhile, all those with under 30 years of service will be subject to the same woefully low accrual rates imposed by the “Katrougalos Law.”

Additional handouts include paltry lump sums at the end of the year to those in receipt of special benefits, such as incapacity pensions and those over pensionable age with not enough qualifying years to receive a pension.

Around half of the funds for the increases cited above will be paid for through abolishing the “13th pension”, currently paid at the end of the year as a lump sum. The amount paid out is defined by an income-based sliding scale with the maximum being equal to the usual monthly amount. Worst affected will be those on ‎€500 a month or less, who currently receive 100 percent of the 13th pension. They are most likely to have 30 years of service or less, which means that their monthly pension will not qualify even for the paltry increases earmarked by the bill. The effect of cutting the “13th pension” is borne out by figures in the government’s actuarial report, which show that on average pensioners will be around €130 worse off in 2020.

The bill maintains the increase in the pension age to 67 imposed by Katrougalos, including for unhealthy and hazardous occupations, with more increases on the horizon. According to the actuarial report commissioned by the government, “pension age limits will be adjusted according to changes in the life expectancy of the country’s population.” Based on current trends cited in the report, the pension age is set to rise by another year in 2024 and reach the age of 72 by 2066.

The bill sets the stage for the privatisation of the social security system. Building on provisions established by the Katrougalos Law regarding the funding of supplementary pensions, the new law seeks to bring freelance workers and the self-employed into the supplementary pension framework and allows them to choose between different levels of set “defined contributions” they can pay. Such a system is much more aligned to investment products offered by insurance companies. It is in line with proposals published in a report last October by a panel of experts, made up of academics, civil servants and insurance professionals, commissioned by the government to examine different alternatives for pension funding. Additional proposals, planned for the near future, include allowing contributors to choose where they invest their contributions and the level of risk of their investment. The report proposed that entry to the framework should be made compulsory from January next year.

That the current and previous governments have been able to proceed with such impunity is chiefly down to the trade union bureaucracy, which has stifled opposition and diverted it into harmless channels. Opposition to the Katrougalos Law was demobilised by the unions, who sowed illusions in the Council of State’s ruling.

True to form, opposition to the current bill has been limited to a single 24-hour general strike called by public sector union ADEDY on February 18, and a few isolated rallies over the last two weeks in different cities.

The complicity of the bureaucracy in facilitating the passing of the legislation was underscored in a live interview given to Open TV on the day of the strike by ADEDY President Yiannis Paidas. Responding to the government’s accusations relayed by the interviewer that the strike was being organised by “union firebrands” of Syriza and the Stalinist union trade federation PAME (All Militant Workers Front), Paidas insisted, “We are not firebrands, neither of PAME nor of Syriza. Personally, I am a member of [ND’s Trade Union faction] DAKE and I’m a liberal.”

During the interview Paidas paid lip service to the fact that there will be increases to pensions as a result of the bill, even after alluding to the fictitious character of these increases as borne out by the figures themselves.

PAME postures as the militant wing of the trade union bureaucracy. On the day of the strike, Dimitris Koutsoumbas, the general secretary of the Stalinist Communist Party of Greece (KKE), declared, “The ND government will pay dearly for the further dismantlement of the social security system, just like [the social democratic] PASOK and Syriza before it. Because the Greek people don’t forget, they organise and they win.”

Koutsoumbas wants to turn reality on its head by a liberal dose of hot air. Since 2010, pensions have been cut by between 20 and 60 percent, representing nearly €70 billion wiped out. These devastating attacks on living standards, as with every austerity measure carried out by PASOK, Syriza and ND, were only possible due to the pernicious role of all wings of the trade union bureaucracy, including PAME.

Washington increases pressure on Beijing over Chinese media

Ben McGrath

The Trump administration stepped up its punitive measures against Chinese media in the US after Beijing expelled three Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reporters last month. It has placed a limit on the number of Chinese citizens eligible to work at five of Beijing’s news outlets. The State Department announced on March 2 that the five agencies will be required to reduce the total number of Chinese nationals from 160 to 100 by March 13.

The five media outlets include China’s official news agency, Xinhua, China Radio International, China Global Television Network, China Daily Distribution Corporation and Hai Tian Development USA, which print and distribute the newspapers China Daily and People’s Daily respectively.

In response to the latest restrictions, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying suggested Beijing will take further measures. She posted on Twitter, “Reciprocity? 29 US media agencies in China VS 9 Chinese ones in the US. Multiple-entry to China VS Single-entry to the US. 21 Chinese journalists denied visas since last year. Now the US kicked off the game, let’s play.”

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo justified the decision saying, “For years, the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has imposed increasingly harsh surveillance, harassment, and intimidation against American and other foreign journalists operating in China. President Trump has made clear that Beijing’s restrictions on foreign journalists are misguided. The US government has long welcomed foreign journalists, including PRC journalists, to work freely and without threat of reprisal.”

Beijing announced on February 19 that it would expel three journalists after accusing the WSJ of denigrating China’s efforts to deal with the Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak. None of the three journalists had been involved in writing an opinion piece published February 3 that provided the impetus for the expulsions, but all had been involved in criticizing the treatment of Uighurs in China’s Xinjiang Province.

The day before Beijing’s decision, Washington had designated the five media outlets currently at the center of the conflict as foreign diplomatic missions. As a result, they are required to declare all of their property holdings and seek approval for acquisition of new property. Their employees are forced to register with the State Department and all five agencies are subject to greater monitoring by the US government.

Washington is no defender of a free press. Trump and his allies have regularly accused the media of being the “enemy of the people” while encouraging violence against journalists. Trump even praised the 2017 assault of Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs by then-candidate Republican Greg Gianforte, who slammed Jacobs to the ground. The reporter was covering Gianforte’s campaign for the US House of Representatives. Gianforte subsequently won the election but was also convicted of assault.

So volatile has the situation become for reporters covering the US presidential election that the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is issuing “safety kits” to journalists covering the election for the first time in the CPJ’s forty-year history. The kits offer “basic safety information on physical, digital and psychological safety resources and tools.”

The Trump administration’s most vicious attack on freedom of the press is the persecution of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, the goal of which is to intimidate journalists and whistleblowers into remaining silent about Washington’s crimes. This began under President Barack Obama and the Democrats, which support the punitive measures against Assange and Manning no less than the Republicans.

Washington is demanding Assange’s extradition from the United Kingdom, where the Australian journalist is being subjected to psychological torture in Belmarsh prison. Assange, along with whistleblower Manning, exposed US war crimes and other offenses and now could face the death penalty if sent to the US. Manning has been vindictively held behind bars for refusing to give false testimony in Assange’s case.

Washington’s decision last week to further restrict Chinese media in the US is a continuation of its anti-China policy that has been prosecuted by both the Republicans and the Democrats. As with the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia,” the Trump government is increasingly moving the US onto a war footing with China, applying military and economic pressure to Beijing in an attempt to force the Stalinist regime to bow to US demands.

However, such an agenda finds no mass support among American workers and youth after nearly 30 years of unending war. Therefore, Washington is using empty phrases about free press and democracy in order to justify its war preparations. Publications like the WSJ and the New York Times have contributed to this by demonizing China in support of so-called “human rights.” They have even claimed that Chinese censorship contributed to the Covid-19 outbreak, stating that it never would have happened in the supposedly free and democratic West.

In a January 29 article in the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof, an ardent supporter of neocolonial campaigns waged in the name of “human rights,” denounced Chinese President Xi Jinping, in a comment headlined as “Coronavirus spreads, the world pay’s for China’s dictatorship.”

Criticizing Beijing’s initial cover-up of the novel coronavirus outbreak, Kristof wrote, “One reason for the early cover-up is that Xi’s China has systematically gutted institutions like journalism, social media, nongovernmental organizations, the legal profession and others that might provide accountability.”

The claims that the US’s “free press” would have somehow stopped the crisis is belied by the fact the US media has engaged in countless cover-ups leading to complete disasters including the Iraq War and destruction of broad regions in the Middle East and North Africa. The US media is now aiding Washington in deflecting fears and anger over the virus onto China as it becomes increasingly clear that the US ruling class is not only totally unprepared but is entirely indifferent to the fate of broad masses of people.