5,147 workers died at work in the United States in 2017

Jessica Goldstein

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries for 2017 on December 18. The Census has provided statistics on the total known number of workplace deaths in the US each year since 1992 and takes its data from the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) reports.

In 2017, 5,147 fatal occupational injuries were reported in the US, down slightly from 5,190 in 2016. The fatal injury rate in 2017 was 3.5 per 100,000 full-time equivalent workers, down from 3.6 in 2016. The 2017 data shows that in the United States, an average of over 14 workers died at work each day.

Fatal falls in 2017 were at their highest rate in 26 years of reporting, causing a total of 887 deaths and accounting for 17 percent of all deaths reported.

Fishers and related fishing workers and logging workers had the highest published rates of workplace fatalities in 2017.

Grounds maintenance workers suffered 244 fatalities in 2017, a very small decrease from 247 in 2016 and still the second-highest total since 2003. Thirty-six deaths were caused by falls from trees, and being struck by a falling tree or branch caused another 35.

Transportation incidents remained the most frequent cause of death, with 2,077 deaths recorded, 40 percent of the total. The occupational groups with the highest number of fatalities were the transportation and material moving and construction and extraction sector, accounting for a total of 47 percent of worker deaths in 2017. These groups had the highest number of deaths in 2016 as well.

Among transportation workers in the occupational subgroup of driver/sales workers and truck drivers, heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers suffered the largest number of workplace fatalities, 840, in 2017. According to the BLS, this is the highest death toll for heavy and tractor-trailer truck drivers since data collection began for the occupational series in 2003.

Unintentional overdoses from non-medical use of alcohol or other drugs rose by 25 percent from 217 in 2016 to 272 in 2017. This is the fifth consecutive year that unintentional overdose workplace fatalities rose by 25 per cent. This shocking number points to the widespread social misery and decades of depressed living conditions faced by working people.

Fifteen percent of workers killed on the job were aged 65 and older—an all-time high for the series. When reporting began in 1992, eight per cent of workers killed on the job were in this age group. Workers 65 and older also had the highest fatality rate of all age groups in 2017, at 10.3 per 100,000 in 2017, up from 9.6 in 2016.

Workplace deaths among workers in private manufacturing and wholesale trade were the lowest since reporting on fatal occupational injuries began in 1992. This could be the result of large numbers of layoffs and plant and warehouse closures that have taken place over the past quarter century.

Workers killed in the private mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction industry increased by 26 per cent year over year, from a series low of 89 in 2016 to 112 in 2017.

The service sector as a whole saw workplace deaths remain virtually unchanged, 2,702 in 2016 compared to 2,707 in 2017. Retail trade accounted for 287 deaths in 2017 and transportation and warehousing 882 deaths.

The last figure speaks to the grueling conditions of workers in America’s logistics industry, including among workers at UPS and Amazon, two of the largest logistics and warehousing corporations in the world.

While the official figures record a marginal decline in reported workplace deaths from the past year, the number of workplace deaths in 2017 is still significantly higher than those recorded in each of the years 2013, 2014 and 2015. Overall, workplace deaths in the US had been steadily on the rise in the period 2009-2016.

The official statistics are put in a somewhat different perspective by the findings of a report released in 2018 by the US Department of Labor’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) that claims workplace fatality and injuries are underreported. A 2014 OSHA rule strengthened provisions that require employers to report work-related deaths and injuries to OSHA; however, this is a rule, and not a law.

The OIG found that OSHA’s data on these incidents were “deficient.” Additionally, the OIG found further deficiencies in OSHA’s assurance that employers took steps to abate hazards that caused known fatalities and injuries to workers. The OIG took several corrective actions against OSHA as a result of its findings, some to which OSHA agreed, but to others it did not respond.

The investigation was undertaken by the OIG after the results of a March 2016 report by David Michaels, the former assistant secretary of labor for Occupational Safety and Health, showed that during the first year after the revised reporting rule took effect, employers failed to report about 50 percent or more of severe injuries to OSHA.

The OIG found that OSHA’s reporting is “hampered by the lack of complete information on the number of work-related fatalities and severe injuries, challenges related to identifying underreporting, inconsistent practices for detecting and preventing underreporting, and citations not consistently used as a deterrent.”

In other words, all statistics on workplace deaths reported by OSHA are very likely significantly understated.

The fact that in the United States, one of the most developed capitalist countries in the world, workers die unnecessarily is an indictment of the economic system of capitalism. The lives of workers are being squandered for the sake of the mad drive for profits by Wall Street CEOs, hedge fund managers and investment bankers.

The representatives of the corporate elite, in the Democratic and Republican parties and their allies in the leadership of the trade unions, are also to blame for the creation of the American industrial slaughterhouse. Successive Democratic and Republican party administrations—most recently those of Obama and Trump—have worked to relax regulations on businesses and strip funding from OSHA and other official workers’ health and safety programs in order to satisfy corporate cost-cutting.

Since the 1970s, the trade unions adopted the policy of corporatism based on the claim that the interests of the working class are identical to those of the corporate masters. On this basis the unions have collaborated in the establishment of joint labor-management health and safety committees in which they work hand-in-hand with the bosses to roll back safety standards.

No amount of pressure on the unions will compel these organizations to fight for workers interests. Fundamental rights such as health and safety protections must be fought for by workers themselves. Workers need to form their own rank-and-file factory and workplace committees to oversee and enforce safe practices in the workplace. The scourge of workplace deaths and injuries can only be eradicated by uniting workers across industries and national boundaries in a common struggle against the capitalist profit system.

One year since Trump’s tax cuts: a balance sheet

E.P. Milligan

December marked one year since the passage of Trump’s corporate tax windfall legislation, cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent down to just 21 percent. Officially known as the “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017,” the legislation handed some $1.5 trillion to the major corporations and the super-rich while leaving the working class to shoulder the burden.

As the World Socialist Web Site rightly predicted in its December 21, 2017 perspective, the bill “marks a new stage in the decades-long social counterrevolution in the United States. It will make America, already the most unequal advanced economy in the world, far more unequal, entrenching the rule of an unaccountable financial oligarchy.” One year later, a balance sheet of the legislation’s effects on American society confirms this analysis.

In October, the United States Treasury announced that the federal budget deficit has risen to $779 billion, up 17 percent from the previous fiscal year. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) issued a report in April projecting the national debt will now increase by $1.9 trillion over the next decade. The spike in the deficit will precipitate a new round off assaults on the few remaining social programs in the US—above all, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

After-tax profits rose nearly 20 percent in the third quarter from the previous year as a result of the cuts, while wage growth remained static. After-tax corporate profits are now growing nearly 10 percent faster than pre-tax profits, a phenomenon which usually only occurs around recessions. The first three quarters of this year saw enormous tax savings for some of America’s largest corporations. Walmart saved $1.6 billion, with Bank of America saving $2.4 billion. AT&T and Verizon saved $2.2 billion and $1.75 billion, respectively. Apple alone has collected a whopping $4.5 billion.

Corporate spokesmen and media pundits at the time had made promises of raising wages, handing out bonuses and creating new jobs. In reality, the handouts in the form of bonuses and raises for workers amounted to a small fraction of the $200 billion in savings on income tax. A recent report by the Economic Policy Institute estimated that bonuses gave workers only 2 cents more per hour over the past year. Wages overall have increased only 3.1 percent over the course of the year, barely keeping up with the rate of inflation. By comparison, dividend payouts to corporate shareholders have set a new annual record of $420 billion. The majority of the payouts went to the wealthiest 10 percent of the US population, which owns 84 percent of all stock holdings.

Capital investment—intended to fund research and development and create jobs—rose at the beginning of the year only to fall sharply in the third quarter. Conversely, stock buybacks—a method by which a corporation repurchases shares in order to artificially inflate their value without creating anything or hiring employees—surged to previously unseen heights.

The total amount of S&P 500 company buybacks alone neared $200 billion in the third quarter, with a total buybacks reaching $579 billion for the first nine months of 2018. The total amount of buybacks is expected to top $1 trillion by the end of the year, according to Goldman Sachs analysts. This is almost double the amount of the previous annual buyback record of $589 billion in 2007—the year that began the financial meltdown that triggered the worst recession since the Great Depression.

It is now clear the vast majority of corporate spending from the tax cut has gone to the further enrichment of a tiny parasitic layer of investors and CEOs. Whatever expenditures made on paltry handouts to workers have been dwarfed by buybacks and dividends, a financial orgy that once again threatens another and even greater financial meltdown. The events of the past year once again underscore the deeply intractable crisis of capitalism, marked by a degree of financialization of the world economy that has long ago surpassed the point of no return. Profit is now primarily made not through the growth of the productive forces, but rather, through their destruction.

In fact, many corporations have instead carried out layoffs in spite of their surge in profits. General Motors (GM) has announced plans to lay off 15,000 workers and shut down five plants in the United States and Canada, along with two unspecified plants internationally. While GM is planning to cut $6.5 billion in costs, it has squandered over $10 billion in stock buybacks and dividend payouts for its richest investors since 2017, and $25 billion since 2012.

Bank of America has cut 5,000 jobs this year alone. Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan has cited the growth of automation and online banking as the impetus for the layoffs. According to Moynihan himself, the corporation has cut 100,000 jobs since 2010 when he took over the company. Wells Fargo, another bank that has made billions from the cuts, followed suit in an announcement that it plans to downsize its work force by up to 10 percent. This came shortly after an announcement of $40 billion in stock buybacks since the law passed.

AT&T slashed more than 10,000 union jobs this year in an acceleration of layoffs from last year. Verizon has laid off 3,100 employees this year, while announcing a buyout offer cutting an additional 10,000 workers. The company recently made the decision to outsource 2,500 jobs to Infosys, a large Indian technology firm.

The trade unions representing many of the affected workers, such as the United Auto Workers (UAW) and Communications Workers of America (CWA), have directly collaborated in imposing the layoffs and plant closures.

The Democratic Party offered only nominal opposition to the tax cuts. While voting against the legislation last year in a party-line vote in both the House and Senate, the Democrats are not proposing to introduce legislation to repeal the cuts once they regain control of the House of Representatives January 3—neither partially nor as a whole. The Republican Party introduced legislation to repeal, deauthorize, defund, or otherwise do away with Affordable Care Act (ACA) 83 times during Obama’s presidency. The Democrats are opposed to even a symbolic gesture against the tax cuts, as doing so would risk alienating the party from its corporate base.

Amid widespread violence, Bangladesh’s ruling party re-elected

Vimal Perera

The national election was held yesterday in Bangladesh amid widespread violence mainly instigated by the ruling Awami League which was determined to return to power for a third consecutive term by suppressing the opposition parties.

More than 100 million voters were to elect 299 representatives to parliament. According to unofficial results reported last night, the Grand Coalition led by the Awami League was heading for a “landslide win.” The full official results are due to be released this afternoon.

The opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and its allies in the National Unity Front (NUF) have condemned the election as “farcical” and demanded a “fresh election under non-partisan administration.” Prime Minister Sheik Hasina Wajed has already rejected the request.

By yesterday evening, 17 people had been killed in election-related violence by Awami League and BNP supporters, while thousands were injured. Last Thursday, the BNP-led alliance alleged that eight of their activists had been killed, 12,588 injured, and 9,202 arrested.

A collective of 16 human rights organisations, including the Asian Human Rights Commission and the Asian Network for Free Elections, issued a statement on Saturday accusing the government of conducting the election under a “restrictive electoral environment” and “cracking down on civil society, the opposition and the media.”

From Saturday, the government deployed about 600,000 security personnel including soldiers across the country to intimidate political opponents and voters. In what was tantamount to censorship, the government deliberately slowed 3G and 4G internet services, saying it was a measure to counter “false propaganda.”

The crackdown on political opponents underscores Prime Minister Hasina’s nervousness about the growing opposition to her government. The Awami League won the 2014 election in a “landslide” as its chief rival, the BNP, which is also notorious for thuggery and violence when in power, boycotted the election.

The BNP decided to participate in this election in a bid to retain its voter base. Its leader and former prime minister, Khalida Zia, has been charged and jailed for 17 years over graft, thus disqualifying her from contesting the election. Many BNP leaders have also been jailed or are living in exile.

Leaders of the Islamic fundamentalist Jamaat e Islami, a BNP ally, have been tried for war crimes during the 1971 secessionist uprising against Pakistan. The party has been banned and several of its leaders hanged. Awami League’s campaign against war crimes is mainly aimed at whipping up nationalist sentiment and suppressing political opposition.

The Hasina government has also increasingly attacked media freedoms. In October, it passed a new “Digital Security Act” under the pretext of strengthening defamation laws. In reality, the legislation is to suppress criticism and dissenting views and silence the media.

Police arrested photojournalist Shahidul Alam in August for exposing police violence against students in an interview with Al Jazeera and was released only after a local and international outcry.

Hasina and her ministers have ridiculed criticism over the government’s human rights record. In a recent interview with the New York Times, she said: “If I can provide food, jobs and health care, that is human rights… What the opposition is saying, or civil society or your NGOs—I don’t bother with that.”

Hasina has above all suppressed strikes and protests by workers in order to attract foreign investors. Big business has praised the government for driving sound “economic growth” during its decade of rule.

Analysts cite the increases in Gross Domestic Product growth from 5.57 percent for the 2009-2010 financial year to 7.28 percent in 2016-2017, in per capita GDP from $US500 to nearly $1,800, and in export income from $16 billion to $35 billion. In its election manifesto, the Awami League promised to increase growth to 9 percent and turn the country into a middle-income economy by 2024.

The economic growth, however, has only benefited a small wealthy elite, including the politicians. The Centre for Policy Dialogue, a prominent think-tank, said the top 5 percent of income earners took home 121 times more income than the bottom 5 percent of the population in 2016.

The Awami League government has faced growing opposition and unrest over deteriorating living conditions from workers, teachers, youth and students.

Strikes of garment workers erupted sporadically since early December over demands for a rise in monthly wages of 16,000 taka or $190, as compared to the government’s recommended increase of 8,000 taka. Workers in 20 factories in Mirpur and Gazipur and adjoining districts have stopped work.

Secretary General of IndustriALL Bangladesh Council Salahuddin Shapon declared: “Along with the government, we the trade union leaders also requested workers not to hold any demonstration before national polls, but unrest continues in the sector.”

The government and trade unions fear a major eruption of protests among the country’s four million garment workers and other sections of the working class.

In June, thousands of teachers held protests demanding the nationalisation of non-government educational institutions and for pay to be determined by the government salary scheme.

In July, students and youth held protests against unemployment and the reactionary quota system for recruiting employees for the state sector jobs. Though the overall official unemployment rate is about 4 percent, youth joblessness stands at 11 percent.

The election was also intertwined with the growing rivalry between the US and China throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Despite nominal expressions of concern about election violence, the US and its strategic partner India have backed the Awami League government as a means of undermining Chinese influence.

An article in the Dhaka Tribune entitled “Why India prefers Hasina in Office” reported that India’s ambassador Harsh Vardean Shringla had met with political leaders even while claiming to have nothing to do with the election.

The newspaper pointed out that the Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi had provided Dhaka with $9 billion in credit and aid in a bid to undercut China. The Hindu supremacist Rastriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the parent organisation of Modi’s Bharatiya Janatha Party, recently praised Hasina as India’s “most trusted and tested ally.”

For its part, Beijing has offered Bangladesh $30 billion for infrastructure investment as part of its massive “Belt and Road Initiative” plans to integrate Eurasia more closely with China and undermine American influence.

The new Awami League government will inevitably face a worsening crisis as it is drawn more closely into the cauldron of geo-political rivalry on the one hand, and resorts to increasingly autocratic methods of rule, on the other, to try to crush rising discontent and opposition from working people.

Opioid overdose deaths triple among US teens and young children

Kate Randall 

Opioid overdose death rates among US teens and children have tripled over the past 17 years, a new study shows. The study, published online in JAMA Network Open, examined a group of almost 9,000 children and adolescents (under age 20) who died in all settings from opioid poisonings between 1999 and 2016.

Researchers found that young children have either died from accidentally ingesting narcotics or from intentional poisoning. Teens, meanwhile, have more often died from unintentional overdoses, using prescriptions painkillers found in their homes or drugs bought on the streets. These include prescription opioids, heroin, fentanyl and other legal and illicit drugs.

Julie Gaither, lead researcher of the study and an instructor at the Yale School of Medicine, told MedicalXpress, “These deaths don’t reach the magnitude of adult deaths from opioids, but they follow a similar pattern.” She added, “As we consider how to contain this epidemic, parents, clinicians and prescribers need to consider how children and adolescents are affected and how our families and communities are affected.”

The study shows the depth of the opioid crisis facing the youngest segments of the population and points to the woefully inadequate response of the government in dealing with this social catastrophe as it spirals out of control.

The study notes: “What began more than two decades ago as a public health problem primarily among young and middle-aged white males is now an epidemic of prescription and illicit opioid abuse that is taking a toll on all segments of US society, including the pediatric population.”

Drug overdose deaths in the US topped 72,000 in 2017, according to estimates released earlier this year by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This staggering figure was 6,000 more deaths than 2016 estimates, a rise of 9.5 percent. Some 43,000 of drug overdose deaths in 2016, the latest year examined by the JAMA study, are attributed to opioid overdoses. Other causes include alcohol poisoning and other drug overdoses.

The study categorized children and adolescents by the following ages: 0 to 4, 5 to 9, 10 to 14, and 15 to 19 years. Deaths in these age groups were then classified according to intent: unintentional, suicide, homicide, and undetermined intent. The study based its findings on death certificates since 1999.

A total of 8,986 children and adolescents died from prescription and opioid poisonings between 1999 and 2016: 605 (or 6.7 percent) among ages 0–4; 96 (1.1 percent) ages 5–9, 364 (4.1 percent) ages 10–14 and 7,921 (88.1 percent) ages 15–19. Among those under age 20, the annual estimated mortality rate from opioids more than tripled during this period—rising from 0.22 per 100,000 in 1999 to 0.81 per 100,000 in 2016.

The largest changes were seen among the oldest and youngest children. Teenagers ages 15–19 had by far the highest death rates from opioids, at 88.1 percent of the total. Of these teen deaths, more than 85 percent were unintentional. In other words, while some teens deliberately overdose, others, seeking escape from the stresses of unemployment, peer pressure, school demands, and college admissions and debt, are falling victim to the wide availability and lethal potency of both legal and illegal opioids.

While some deaths can be blamed on unscrupulous drug dealers, these deaths must above all be laid at the feet of the multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical companies who have flooded neighborhoods with these potent opioids. Workers and professionals who have been prescribed these drugs become the unwitting suppliers to their children, who find them in home medicine cabinets and ingest them, lacking adequate knowledge of the dangers they pose.

The 605 deaths among children ages 0 to 4 is the second highest, accounting for 6.7 percent of all pediatric deaths. Two hundred thirty of these deaths were unintentional, while the manner of death could not be determined in 227 of these cases.

However, 148 deaths in this age group, about one-quarter of the total, were due to homicide. And the percentage of deaths due to homicide was highest for those younger than 1 year, standing at 34.5 percent of this age group. Behind this appalling statistic stands the social desperation that would drive a parent or caregiver to kill an innocent infant with the aid of opioids. There are no figures that indicate how many of these young victims have been born addicted to opioids themselves.

While the study found that the majority of pediatric deaths were among non-Hispanic white males, with each passing year non-Hispanic black children accounted for a larger proportion of fatalities. While white children saw a threefold increase in deaths, black children had a nearly fourfold increase.

A similar trend has been seen for female children, among whom death rates increased more than threefold compared with a twofold increase among males. These trends mirror those seen in the adult population, where deaths due to opioids have been rising at a faster rate than among blacks and women.

In line with the opioid crisis affecting the US adult population, the devastating toll of opioid deaths among children casts a grim light on 21st century America. While the opioid crisis spares no segment of society, the most profoundly affected are workers and the poor and the communities where they live. At the root of this crisis lies a society characterized by growing social inequality, corporate greed and profound government indifference.

In 2017, the Trump administration declared the opioid epidemic a “public health emergency,” but then allocated no new funding to the states to address it. In September, congressional Democrats and Republicans approved compromise legislation that purports to address the opioid crisis, but the bill is primarily focused on law enforcement. It allocates as little as $8 billion over five years, or roughly $1.6 billion per year—a pittance given the dimensions of the epidemic.

A health emergency on the scale of the drug epidemic requires an emergency, socialist response. The giant pharmaceutical companies, who are responsible for the scourge of opioid addiction and deaths, must be transformed into publicly owned utilities. The health insurance industry, which dedicates its resources to denying coverage and treatments instead of curing the ill, must be abolished and replaced with universal, socialized medicine.

To counter the opioid crisis, which claims increasing numbers of the young and old, the Socialist Equality Party insists that billions of dollars be allocated to fund rehabilitation centers, using the most advanced scientific methods and procedures. In order to facilitate this, profit must be taken out of healthcare, which is a social right that must be guaranteed to all.

One sixth of world’s people want to flee their home countries

Eric London

The world is pulsing with hundreds of millions of people desperate to flee their homes under the weight of the crisis of world capitalism. According to a recent Gallup study, a sixth of the world’s adult population—some 750 million people, not including children—want to flee their home countries to escape war, poverty, conflict and disease.

The statistics expose the devastating impact of decades of imperialist war and corporate exploitation. In the more than quarter-century since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the ruling classes of the major powers, led by the United States, have unleashed an unprecedented wave of military plunder and social counterrevolution, killing millions and laying waste to broad swaths of the world.

A third of the inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa want to escape. The region, which is rich in minerals and oil coveted by French, Dutch, Belgian and American corporations, has a life expectancy of 46, while 70 percent of the population lives on less than $2 per day.

In Latin America, 27 percent of people want to leave their home countries to escape the aftermath of US invasion, IMF austerity and US-backed dictatorships.

Twenty-six percent of Eastern Europeans want to flee the near-universal devastation that has followed the privatization of state industries by the Stalinist bureaucrats-turned-oligarchs.

Twenty-four percent of Middle Easterners and North Africans wish to leave in search of shelter from the storm of bombs and missiles that the US has rained down upon the region since the Persian Gulf War.

In 13 countries, nearly half or more of the adult population finds life unbearable.

In Sierra Leone, a country ravaged by the bloody fight to turn over diamonds to European jewelers, 71 percent of adults want to flee. In Haiti, 63 percent want to leave after more than a century of American invasions and occupations.

Fifty-two percent of Salvadorans and 47 percent of Hondurans want to escape the violence, poverty and corruption that dominate Central America following the civil wars of the 1980s and 1990s. Forty-eight percent of Nigerians want to leave their country, bled white from the extraction of crude oil by Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell.

This year, the ruling classes of Europe and North America implemented unprecedented anti-immigrant policies and inflamed xenophobic sentiment to distract from growing social inequality and strengthen far-right forces that will be used against the working class.

In June, the European Union agreed to cut migration and erect concentration camps to house immigrants in North Africa.

In August, French President Emmanuel Macron signed a law slashing asylum eligibility.

Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini repeated threats to deport 500,000 immigrants and the entire Roma population. In the United Kingdom, the Tory government is preparing a Brexit deal that may cut the country off to Eastern European immigrants. In Germany, the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany held anti-immigrant demonstrations this summer with the encouragement of the state.

Nowhere is the anti-immigrant scapegoating more fierce and dangerous than in the United States. In April, the Trump administration began separating children from their families at the US-Mexico border and erected tent-city internment centers to house the children.

In October, Trump deployed thousands of troops to the southern border. Thousands of participants in the Central American migrant caravan have been sleeping in the streets of Tijuana for months. When two Guatemalan children died in US custody this month, the government blamed their impoverished indigenous parents.

“Left” populist demagogues around the world play the most criminal role, justifying the anti-immigrant measures of the far-right and attempting to poison the working class with nationalism. In the United Kingdom, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn echoed United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) leader Nigel Farage when he told a Scottish Labour conference in March that Britain should curb the entrance of foreign workers.

In Mexico, the new government of “left” nationalist Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) made a deal this month with Trump to detain Central American refugees in Mexico and block them from exercising their right to asylum in the US.

In Greece, the government of the Coalition of the Radical Left (Syriza) has jailed hundreds of thousands of refugees in internment camps and recently deployed police to brutally assault immigrants attempting to cross the Evros River from Turkey.

Syriza’s position on immigration is summed up in a recent report from Human Rights Watch:

Abuse [by Greek police] included beatings with hands and batons, kicking and, in one case, the use of what appeared to be a stun gun. In another case, a Moroccan man said a masked man dragged him by his hair, forced him to kneel on the ground, held a knife to his throat, and subjected him to a mock execution. Others pushed back include a pregnant 19-year-old woman from Afrin, Syria and a woman from Afghanistan who said Greek authorities took away her two young children’s shoes.

In the US, Bernie Sanders begged Trump in January to “work with us to make sure we have strong border security.”

Earlier this month, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) wrote a statement titled “Toward a Left Position on Immigration,” which includes the subsection “It’s Not About Open Borders.”

The DSA writes: “The actual alternative to the current existing immigration policy is not ‘open borders.’ It is enforcement of existing employment laws, followed by the development of new employment and immigration laws, leading to a fair, pro-worker system of immigration.”

This is a thinly veiled, foul appeal to anti-immigrant nationalism and chauvinism, in no basic way different from that of the trade union bureaucracy, the Trump administration and neo-fascists such as Stephen Bannon.

With such actions and statements, Corbyn, Syriza, AMLO, Sanders and the DSA expose their hostility to the international working class and to socialism. They are pledging—or in the case of Syriza and AMLO have already shown—that they will use state violence against workers demanding a redress of their grievances.

In contrast to nationalist groups like the DSA that defend the existence of national boundaries, the Socialist Equality Party fights for socialist internationalism and rejects the lie that any ruling class has the right to jail desperate workers escaping imperialist war or prevent them from seeking safety and a better life in another country. Immigrant workers are not to blame for growing poverty and declining living conditions in Europe and America. The real enemies of the workers are the same imperialist governments and transnational corporations that are responsible for forcing immigrants from their homes in the first place.

The Socialist Equality Party demands the immediate release of all interned immigrants and the provision of trillions of dollars, confiscated from the banks and corporations, to provide all immigrants with decent-paying jobs, housing, social services, education and safe passage to a destination of their choosing without fear of deportation.

Capitalism has turned broad swaths of the world into a foul prison, holding workers and the poor in nation-state straitjackets from which a sixth of the world is fighting to escape. Socialist revolution will free the productive process from the control of the world’s oligarchs, abolish national boundaries and guarantee the right of all workers to travel the world in peace.

Kashmir's Separatist Movement: Rising Challenges, Shrinking Relevance

Sarral Sharma

J&K's separatist leaders are under pressure to keep their political relevance intact in the aftermath of the outbreak of violence beginning July 2016. Despite their personal and ideological differences, three top separatist leaders–Yasin Malik, Syed Ali Shah Geelani and Mirwaiz Umar Farooq– were led to establish the Joint Resistance Leadership (JRL) in late-2016 to streamline street protests and galvanise a united front regarding developments in the so-called 'self-determination' movement. This article will look at how the 'new-age' militancy poses a challenge to the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC)-led separatist movement, with the latter finding it difficult to maintain its political and territorial influence in the Valley. 

The JRL regularly issues 'protest calendars' and calls for bandhs (shutdown) or election boycotts in pursuit of their goals. However, this is in part fuelled by challenges in light of the emerging new militancy. In the last two years, religion has been given significant relevance over politics as far as the local militancy is concerned. As a result, separatist leaders have also begun speaking on matters related to Islam, quite apart from politics, in their taqreers (speeches or sermons). Despite these contextual changes, local militants have not stopped criticising or intimidating the separatist leaders for their 'limited' participation in the Azadi (freedom) movement.

Thus, while some analysts are of the opinion that the erosion of the Hurriyat's relevance in the Valley, as popularly suggested, is somewhat over-exaggerated, there is certainly cause for concern from the perspective of the separatist movement. Recent instances such as masked youth raising pro-Islamic State (IS) slogans from Mirwaiz's pulpit, the killing of a separatist leader in South Kashmir by 'unknown' assailants, and not allowing separatist leaders at militant funerals suggest a growing anger against the Hurriyat leadership. In a rare incident, former Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) commander Zakir Musa even threatened graphic physical harm to Hurriyat leaders, including Geelani, if they continued to call their struggle a "political and not Islamic one." Further, with the emergence of IS and al Qaeda modules in Kashmir, some new-age militants are calling for the creation of an Islamic 'Caliphate' over a democratic state.

The Hurriyat faction is currently unable to translate motivation into action given Geelani's deteriorating health, and other separatist leaders failing to muster enough public support. This precarious position is a result of not just the post-2016 situation in the Valley, but also factors that existed pre-2016 that have compounded pressure on the separatist leadership. These include New Delhi's attempts to either completely sideline or limit the leadership's role in the Kashmir issue; raids conducted by the National Investigative Agency (NIA) on middle-rung separatist leaders, and growing apprehension about who would be Geelani's successor.

The Modi government, in its first year in power in 2014, called off foreign secretary-level talks with Pakistan because Islamabad's then high commissioner in New Delhi held a meeting with the Hurriyat leaders. Since then, the separatist leaders have been kept out of any bilateral engagement between India and Pakistan. In the meantime, the NIA has charged some separatist leaders for fomenting street violence in the Valley. These arrests came at a time when the Hurriyat leadership was already facing troubles in controlling the street agitations that began after Wani’s killing. The separatists–who issued several protest calendars in the hope of staying relevant – tried to use the arrests to play the 'victim' card in a bid to gain some public sympathy - but to no avail.

In terms of territory, the Hurriyat's influence has further degraded in South Kashmir in the past two and a half years. Their hold or relevance remains restricted to the traditional pockets of North and Central Kashmir. Since July 2016, there is a growing impression that the Hurriyat is no longer central to the separatist movement in Kashmir. The vacuum created due to their apparent absence in some parts of the Valley may lead to more hard-line elements taking over in the future. With the emergence of social media platforms that offer easy access to propaganda literature, the region has become more malleable to religious radicalisation. The Hurriyat may find it difficult to control an individual(s)-driven movement in today's Kashmir. So far, they have not been able to come up with an alternative or counter-strategy to address the challenges that arise from the existence of self-motivated and radicalised youth.

Given the current situation in Kashmir, the separatist leadership is likely to lose more credibility in the near future. More importantly, as the 'new-age' militancy gains more ground, separatist leaders face a realistic fear of losing their influence or being marginalised. The separatist leaders may be increasingly targeted by a disorganised, possibly 'leaderless' militant movement in Kashmir. New Delhi may seek to turn the situation to its advantage by playing with these insecurities. However, it may be wiser for New Delhi to offer an alternative arrangement to the separatist leaders, as discrediting them completely does not appear to be a favourable policy consideration in the current circumstances in J&K. 

ISQua Lucian Leape Patient Safety Fellowship Award 2019 for Physicians and Healthcare Leaders in Developing Countries

Application Deadline: 15^th February 2019

Eligible Countries: Developing Countries

About the Award: The Lucian Leape Patient Safety Fellowship Award has been established in 2018 and was announced at ISQua’s 35th International Conference in Kuala Lumpur. The objective is to fund physicians and health care leaders in developing countries, to advance and expand their expertise in patient safety, with the resultant improvement of safety of patients in their local area.
The Fellow will be linked to a mentor at the start of the programme. Mentors may be ISQua Experts or members of the International Academy of Quality and Safety in Health Care (IAQS). In collaboration with the mentor, the Leape Fellow will design a curriculum designed to ensure learning on theories of Patient Safety with a focus on measurement and interventions to decrease adverse events and harm.

Type: Fellowship, Award

Eligibility: To be considered for this Programme, candidates must possess a number of key skills and attributes. Candidates will be shortlisted based on their completed application form, and in particular, their personal statement. Successful candidates will then take part in a telephone interview with a panel representing ISQua and two of our strategic partners.
Candidates for the Lucian Leape Patient Safety Fellowship will be health professionals who:

• – Are physicians who have completed their clinical training (speciality residency or equivalent) OR
• – Are Health Care Providers who have completed the equivalent training to a residency in their field of practice.
• – Will commit to include patient safety as a core value of their future work in health care
• – Have a commitment from their home institution to provide them with a role in the organisation’s patient safety programme on completion of their Fellowship.
• – Have completed either the first year of the ISQua Fellowship Programme requirement, or the HPM-affiliated Master’s degree programme at the Harvard Chan School or an equivalent.
• – Were born in and work or intend to return to work in Africa, Latin America or any Low or Middle Income Country, as identified by the World Bank.
• – Have not been previously awarded an ISQua Education or Conference Fellowship.

Selection Criteria: Applicants will be assessed on:

• – The reason for the application
• – The benefit of the Fellowship to the clinical or managerial role of the applicants
• – The benefit of the Fellowship to the applicant’s professional career
• – The benefit of the Fellowship to healthcare and quality in his/her home country
• – An assessment of an applicant’s professional interest in Patient Safety

Number of Awards: Not specified

Value of Award: The programme is clinically oriented, designed to provide the Leape Fellow with additional training in the theory of Patient Safety Science and interventions to improve patient safety. This will include training to identify and analyze adverse events and to develop interventions to address these events at a system level.

Duration of Programme: 1 year

How to Apply: Apply and/or Nominate in the Link below

Visit Programme Webpage for Details

Problem of ‘ e- waste’ management

Sheshu Babu

Use of electronic materials has increased over the years and waste emanating from disbanding of the equipment is rising rapidly particularly in cities and towns. The city of Moradabad in U. P.( Located on the banks of Ramganga, a tributary of Ganga) is the largest e- waste hub in the country. The city air quality index had peaked at 500 in 2017 , the highest reading that year. (The afterlife of e- goods, by Isher Judge Ahluwalia and Almitra Patel, updated December 26, 2018, indianexpress.com). A study by Assocham and NEC finds that a mere 5 per cent of India’s e-waste gets recycled less than the global rate of 20 per cent.

‘E-waste’ estimates

The term ‘ E- waste’ is an informal popular name for electronic products nearing the end of their useful life. The electronic goods like computers, TVs, VCRs, Wires or cables,etc have to be disposed after they become old or damaged or stop functioning. In India, solid waste management along with emergence of e- waste has become a complicated task. The he total waste generated by obsolete and broken down electronic and electrical equipment was estimated to be 1, 46,000 tonnes for the year 2005 which is expected to cross 8,00,000 tonnes by 2012. According to the Greenpeace Report in 2007, India generated 380,000 tonnes of e- waste. Only 3% of the waste made up to the authorized recyclers facilities. According to the article’E-waste management: As a Challenge to Public Health in India ‘ by Monika and Jugal Kishore published in Indian Journal of Community Medicine ( 31-12-2009, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). , one of the reasons for this is that India has become a dumping ground for developed nations.

Toxic components

E- toxic components in computers could be summarized as circuit boards containing heavy metals like lead and cadmium or batteries with cadmium, cathode ray tubes with lead oxide and barium or brominated flame retardants are hazardous. In the article ‘ Environmentally Sound Options for E-wastes Management’ by Ramachandra T. V and Saira Varghese K. (Published by Envis Journal of Human Settlements, March 2004, wgbis ces.iisc.ernet.in), an in-depth study on contamination of water, air and land and the health hazards is presented.

Management and disposal

The waste produced due to unused electric goods is rising. The developed nations tried to get rid of their waste by disposing to the developing countries. This sparked outrage and led to the drafting and of strategic plans and regulations at the Basel Convention. The Convention secretariat at Geneva, Switzerland, facilitates the proper way for implementation of the Convention and related agreements. It also provides assistance and guidelines on legal and technical issues, gathers statistical data and conducts training on the proper management of hazardous waste. The main aims of the Convention are to reduce and control trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes, prevention and minimization of generation and transfer of latest technologies of management which are eco – friendly.

Mechanism

An efficient mechanism for recycling the e-waste should be developed. In India, 95% of the waste is managed by unorganized sector mainly ‘ kabadiwalas’ , scrap dealers and dismantlers using dangerous methods to recover metals. The Global E-waste Monitor estimates 44.7 million tonnes (mt) was generated in 2016 with China, US and Japan leading producers and India stood fourth. As the danger of e- waste increases, efficient ways of collection and disposal mechanism should be developed. Collection centers at major points in cities and towns should be started. Also, the manufacturers of goods may provide discounts on new products and collect waste goods so that they can recycle at their factories. Special locations to burn or dismantle electronic goods must be made available so that the health of people and environment remain unaffected. Proper planning is necessary to tackle e-waste and its growing menace.

Thousands face loss of mental health coverage in the US

Matthew Taylor 

Behavioral health clinics in eight states that administer addiction and mental health services under a pilot program authorized by the federal government in 2014 face a shutdown due to Congress’ failure to renew funding for the program. Approximately 9,000 patients will lose coverage and three thousand jobs will be eliminated, according to the Washington Post .

The legislation passed in 2014, titled the Excellence in Mental Health Act, established a Medicaid-reimbursed program wherein Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHCs) could provide a range of services including mental health and addiction services, free screening, assessment and diagnosis, individual and family-centered treatment plans, psychiatric rehabilitation services, outpatient mental health services, and outpatient primary care screening and monitoring of key health indicators and health risk.

The program was aimed at providing mental health services at an earlier stage then Medicaid-eligible patients usually receive it and encouraged participating states to search out innovative methods to administer treatment to the most vulnerable members of society, including children placed in foster care and new inmates in jails and prisons.

Integration of various forms of treatment and coordination between different providers aimed to “provide a comprehensive collection of services needed to create access, stabilize people in crisis and provide the necessary treatment for those with the most serious, complex mental illnesses and substance use disorders,” according to a document released by the National Council for Behavioral Health.

By integrating various treatments and services under a single program, the CCBHCs are allowed to bill Medicaid for the resulting bundled services, resulting in a higher payout to clinics than would normally be provided by Medicaid. Psychiatry, for example, is one of several treatments that are typically reimbursed at a lower rate than the cost of delivering service. By charging Medicaid a single fee per patient the program is able to recoup some of the losses that would otherwise be absorbed by the healthcare providers.

The program was in part designed to address the surging opioid epidemic in the US, which has seen overdose rates skyrocket in recent years.

Administrators of the program in participating states have implemented various measures which have resulted in better health outcomes for their residents.

In Oregon, for example, a data analysis funded by the program showed higher rates of emergency room visits for patients who suffered from chronic back pain and mental illness. The pain management program that was subsequently developed for those patients resulted in fewer emergency room visits and lower reported incidences of pain, depression and anxiety, according to the Post .

Niagara County, New York, officials developed a program which offered expanded drug and alcohol treatment for inmates in the county jail, and free transportation for newly released inmates to attend addiction counseling. This program has reportedly reduced rates of recidivism in that county.

The program also offers expanded services for military veterans, especially those in rural areas who are underserved by the existing Veterans Affairs system.

The program was initially authorized for eight states, including Oregon, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Since the program began in 2017 it has served an estimated 381,000 patients.

In October, Congress failed to authorize continued funding for the program, estimated at $520 million per year, when they passed an $8.4 billion package aimed at addressing the opioid epidemic. Because the program had only been funded for two years in the initial legislation, clinics in participating states will begin closing as early as January. The remaining programs would run out of funding in May 2019.

The elimination of the CCBHCs and the resulting loss of care for hundreds of thousands of patients have received little coverage in the media, with an article in the Post being the only reporting from a major national news site. This is unsurprising since the impoverished beneficiaries of the program are hardly the upper-middle-class target audience of the New York Times, CNN and other mainstream media outlets.

Indeed, the larger question of why the provision of basic health services, which are a routine part of the state-run medical programs in most industrialized countries, requires special funding from Congress and only extend to eight states remains unasked. The politicians in both the Democratic and Republican parties have little interest in passing any legislation which will reduce the profitability of the insurance and pharmaceutical companies.

The elimination of this program by Congress is only a small part of the larger drive by the ruling class to dismantle the various social assistance programs conceded to the working class through decades of struggle in the 20th century. For the Democrats’ part, this process is concealed behind populist rhetoric and is embodied in the Obama-era Affordable Care Act, which mandated the purchase of insurance from the private market and shifted billions of dollars annually from the public to private interests.

For Trump and his supporters, the attack on social programs is pursued more openly, though usually accompanied by right-wing nostrums about improving “personal responsibility” and “accountability.” This approach is exemplified in Trump’s executive order in April of this year titled “Reducing Poverty in America by Promoting Opportunity and Economic Mobility” which ordered his cabinet secretaries to aim for the elimination of any public assistance programs that do not have work requirements attached to them.

Japan plans for massive military build-up aimed at China

Ben McGrath 

The cabinet of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe approved new so-called National Defense Program Guidelines (NDPG) on December 18 that will rapidly accelerate Tokyo’s remilitarization, including the acquisition of offensive weaponry. The new 10-year policy explicitly targets China and North Korea, as well as Russia.

The document makes clear that Japan is preparing for war alongside the United States. It states that the US “remains the world’s most powerful nation, but national rivalries are surfacing and we recognize the importance of the strategic competition with both China and Russia as they challenge the regional order.”

The NDPG states, “Further strengthening relations with the US, which shares the same universal values and strategic interests with our country, has become more important than ever for our national security.”

While this relationship is couched in terms of defense, Tokyo is calling for a vast expansion of its military. This is in violation of Article 9 of the constitution that bans Japan from possessing the ability to make war on other countries, a ban which has been in place since the end of World War II. The NDPG calls for the acquisition of obviously offensive weaponry such as aircraft carriers and cruise missiles. Until now, governments have maintained the charade that the Japanese military has a purely defensive character.

Japan intends to convert its Izumo-class helicopter carriers, which it claimed were defensive weapons, to carry and launch United States-made F-35 fighter jets. While the Defense Ministry admits that aircraft carriers are prohibited by the constitution, it claims that because the ships will not always carry fighters, that they continued to be “defensive” in nature.

Japan will purchase 147 F-35 fighter jets, including 42 of the F-35Bs for the aircraft carriers. Other jets will be stationed on islands in the East China Sea, around the uninhabited Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands, that are claimed by both Tokyo and Beijing.

Japan intends to equip these jets with long-range cruise missiles, capable of hitting targets at a distance of 900 kilometers. These Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missiles (JASSM), would, in the words of their developer US-based Lockheed Martin, give Japan the ability to “destroy hostile air defenses and high value, well defended, fixed and relocatable targets while keeping aircraft safely out of range from hostile air defense systems.” Japan will also pursue the development of hypersonic guided missiles that evade radar systems.

The new guidelines also place increased emphasis on cyber and outer space with the government seeking to develop the ability to obstruct the use of cyberspace if the country is supposedly under attack. A new unit will be created within the Air Self-Defense Force to continuously monitor space.

The cost of this military expansion will inevitably fall on the working class in the form of increased austerity measures. Over the next five years, Tokyo intends to spend approximately 27.47 trillion yen ($248 billion), a record high and three trillion yen more than the period from 2014 to 2018. Part of this money will be spent on two land-based Aegis Ashore missile batteries from the US, as announced last year.

A major factor behind Japan’s decision to purchase so much military hardware is the demand from US President Trump that allies spend more money on US weaponry or face trade tariffs. The result, in part, is to ensure these allies are prepared for war, namely with China.

The fact that Japan views China as one of its primary targets also belies the apparent warming of ties earlier this year with Beijing. Tokyo has looked to improve relations with China as a means of heading off uncertainty in the face of tariff threats from Trump. However, Tokyo remains undeterred from its broader goal of using renewed military power to achieve its economic goals and boost its strategic position in Asia and internationally.

Japan’s Defense Ministry also made this clear in its annual White Paper, released at the end of November, saying, “China’s recent activities, including its rapid military modernization and enhancement of operational capabilities, its unilateral escalation of actions in areas around Japan, and with the lack of transparency in the military build-up, present a strong security concern for the region including Japan and the international community.”

In reality, US imperialism with the aid of Japan has sought to maintain and strengthen its hegemony in the Asia-Pacific since the dissolution of the Soviet Union and to head-off economic challengers like China. This intensified under the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia,” which included provocatively sailing warships near Chinese-claimed islands in the South China Sea.

Trump has stepped up these provocations, deepened military and political connections with Taiwan, which Beijing regards as part of its territory, and previously threatened to completely destroy North Korea, a Chinese ally.

Tokyo has acted in a similar fashion, in 2012 “nationalizing” three of the five Senkaku Islands, also claimed by China. Abe is pushing to revise the so-called pacifist constitution by 2020 and whitewashing the historical war crimes of Japanese imperialism in preparation for new conflicts. Tokyo also pushed through military legislation in 2015 to allow it to take part in wars abroad alongside an ally, namely the US.

The White Paper specifically cites this legislation as one method of deepening cooperation with the US, stating it will “enable SDF personnel to protect the weapons and other equipment of the units of the United States Forces and the armed forces of other foreign countries that are in cooperation with the SDF and are currently engaged in activities that contribute to the defense of Japan.”

China along with both Koreas expressed concern over the new guidelines. Beijing’s Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying criticized Tokyo for “[making] irresponsible remarks about China’s normal national defense construction and military activities.” She pointed out that, “For historical reasons, Japan’s movements in the military security field have greatly concerned its Asian neighbors and the international community.”

North Korea denounced Japan as a “war criminal country, saying “Japan remains unchanged in its wild ambition for overseas aggression.” South Korea’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Noh Kyu-duk was more restrained, stating, “Japan’s defense policy should contribute to peace and stability in the region under the spirit of its pacifist Constitution. This is the South Korean government’s stance.”

Syrian government troops deployed to flashpoint city of Manbij

Bill Van Auken

The Syrian government announced Friday that its troops had entered the northeastern city of Manbij in an apparent bid to forestall a Turkish invasion aimed at driving out the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

The YPG, which has served as the Pentagon’s principal proxy ground force in controlling nearly a third of the Syrian territory near the Turkish border, is regarded by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as a branch of the Turkish Kurdish PKK, against which Turkey’s security forces have waged a bloody, decades-long counterinsurgency operation.

Erdogan vowed earlier this month that the Turkish military would intervene to push the YPG back from the border. US President Donald Trump’s December 19 announcement that he was ordering the withdrawal of all 2,000-plus US troops from Syria and leaving the military campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Ankara’s hands appeared to open the door to a Turkish intervention and a broader scramble for control of northeastern Syria, which consists largely of sparsely populated desert, but also contains the country’s main oil and natural gas reserves.

In a statement posted on Twitter, the YPG said that it had invited the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad “to send its armed forces to take over these positions and protect Manbij in the face of Turkish threats.” The tweet, which was sent in the morning, was subsequently deleted and then reposted later in the day, likely reflecting the tensions between the YPG and its US military patrons following Trump’s announcement.

While the Syrian government issued a statement saying that its troops had entered Manbij, a city of approximately 100,000, and hoisted the national flag, the US military, which still has special operations units based near the city, as well as some local residents speaking to the Western media denied that the Syrian army was deployed in the city.

Other reports indicate that the Syrian military has doubled the number of troops that had already taken up positions on the city’s outskirts and has deployed them between the Turkish and Kurdish forces.

Manbij fell to US and Turkish-backed “rebels” in 2012, including the Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front, and was subsequently overrun by ISIS in 2014. In the summer of 2016 the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, the YPG-dominated US ground proxy force, took control of the city.

The Turkish military has massed troops, tanks and armored personnel carriers on the border near Manbij in recent days, while Reuters quoted the main Turkish-backed Syrian “rebel” group, the “Free Syrian Army,” as stating on Friday that it had sent convoys, together with Turkish forces, toward the frontlines with Manbij, in “full readiness … to start military operations to liberate” the city. An FSA commander said that the group had 15,000 fighters prepared to attack the city.

Turkey carried out a similar operation in March of this year against the predominantly Kurdish town of Afrin, west of the Euphrates River, forcing over 200,000 people to flee their homes. Since then, Ankara has given free rein to the so-called “rebels” to carry out looting, arbitrary detentions, torture and killings, according to human rights groups.

Erdogan responded to the report of the movement of Syrian government forces to Manbij by calling it a “psychological” operation, amounting to “waving their own flag there.” He said that Damascus carried out a similar action in Afrin before the Turkish invasion.

He added that “It’s not just about Manbij, we are aiming to wipe out all terrorist organizations in the region. Our main target is that the YPG takes the necessary lessons here.”

The Trump White House appears prepared to sacrifice its erstwhile Kurdish proxy force in the interests of repairing ties with Ankara. Relations between the two NATO allies have been strained since an abortive July 2016 military coup against Erdogan that enjoyed US backing and had further deteriorated over the Pentagon’s alliance with the YPG.

Among Washington’s objectives is undoubtedly driving a wedge between Turkey and Russia, which have established closer ties as relations between Washington and Ankara soured. Turkey has collaborated with Russia and Iran in the so-called Astana peace process for Syria, which has eclipsed the Geneva talks backed by the US.

A delegation from Turkey consisting of its foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, and defense minister, Hulusi Akar, along with other officials, is due to arrive in Moscow today to discuss with their Russian counterparts the implications of the US troop withdrawal.

The precise timetable and conditions for the US troop withdrawal remain far from clear. On December 23, Trump tweeted that he had discussed with Erdogan a “slow and highly coordinated pullout of U.S. troops from the area” of northeastern Syria.

At the same time, during his December 26 lightning visit to the Pentagon’s Al Asad airbase in western Iraq, the US president declared that American troops were in Iraq to stay—despite the overwhelming hostility to their presence among the Iraqi people—and that the base could be used to carry out cross-border raids into Syria.

The clear suggestion was that US special operations troops will continue to operate in northeastern Syria. Whether their operations are directed at suppressing ISIS or reviving it for use against the Syrian government remains to be seen.

The US State Department, meanwhile, issued a ringing endorsement Friday of Israeli air strikes carried out against alleged Iranian-tied targets inside Syria. The Israeli military has acknowledged carrying out over 200 such strikes since 2017.

“Iranian support of and supply to terrorist groups in Syria and across the region that have the clear intent and capability to strike Israel are unacceptable,” the State Department said. “The United States fully supports Israel’s right to defend itself against the Iranian regime’s aggressive adventurism, and we will continue to ensure that Israel has the military capacity to do so decisively.”

The statement came just three days after Israeli strikes on targets in Syria that were denounced by Moscow as “a gross violation of the sovereignty of Syria” that also threatened two civilian passenger planes.

Whatever the tactical shift carried out by the Trump administration in relation to US troop deployments in Syria, it is clear that Washington is continuing its strategy of military aggression aimed at asserting US hegemony—and rolling back Iranian and Russian influence—in Syria and the entire oil-rich Middle East. The threat that these efforts will spill over into a region-wide and even world war have in no way been lessened.