Isolation and Opioids During the Pandemic

Mattea Kramer

In our new era of nearly unparalleled upheaval, as a pandemic ravages the bodies of some and the minds of nearly everyone, as the associated economic damage disposes of the livelihoods of many, and as even the promise of democracy fades, the people whose lives were already on a razor’s edge — who were vulnerable and isolated before the advent of Covid-19 — are in far greater danger than ever before.

Against this backdrop, many of us are scanning the news for any sign of hope, any small flicker of light whose gleam could indicate that everything, somehow, is going to be okay. In fact, there is just such a flicker coming from those who have been through the worst of it and have made it out the other side.

I spoke with Rafael Rodriguez of Holyoke, Massachusetts, on a sweltering Thursday afternoon in late July. He had already spent hours that day on Zoom and, though I could feel his exhaustion through our pixilated connection, he was gracious. His salt-and-pepper beard neatly trimmed, he nodded gently in answer to my questions. “Covid-19 has made it more and more apparent how stigmatizing it is to be less fortunate,” he said. As we spoke, the number of Americans collecting unemployment benefits had just ticked up to around 30 million, or about one in every five workers, with nearly 15 million behind on their rent, and 29 million reporting that their households hadn’t had enough to eat over the preceding week. Rodriguez is an expert in what happens after eviction or when emergency aid dries up (or there’s none to be had in the first place) — what becomes, that is, of those in protracted isolation and despair.

Drug-overdose deaths were up 13% in the first seven months of this year compared to 2019, according to research conducted by the New York Times covering 40% of the U.S. population. More than 60% of participating counties nationwide that report to the Overdose Detection Mapping Application Program at the University of Baltimore saw a sustained spike in overdoses following March 19th, when many states began issuing social-distancing and stay-at-home orders. This uptick arrived atop a decades-long climb in drug-related fatalities. Last year, before the pandemic even hit, an estimated 72,000 people in the United States died of an overdose, the equivalent of sustaining a tragedy of 9/11 proportions every two weeks, or about equal to the American Covid-19 death toll during its deadliest stretch so far, from mid-April to mid-May.

What people do in the face of protracted isolation and despair is turn to whatever coping strategy they’ve got — including substances so strong they can be deadly.

“I think of opioids as technologies that are perfectly suited for making you okay with social isolation,” said Nancy Campbell, head of the Department of Science and Technology Studies at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and author of OD: Naloxone and the Politics of Overdose. Miraculously, an opioid overdose can be reversed with the medicine naloxone, commonly known by the brand name Narcan. But you can’t use naloxone on yourself; you need someone else to administer it to you. That’s why Campbell calls it a “technology of solidarity.” The solidarity of people looking out for one another is a necessary ingredient when it comes to preserving the lives of those in the deepest desolation.

Yet not everyone sees why we should save people who knowingly ingest dangerous substances. “I come from a small town in northeastern Pennsylvania and I have a large extended family there,” Campbell told me. She remembers a family member asking her, “Why don’t we just let them die?”

Any of us can answer that question by imagining that the person who just overdosed was the one you love most in the world — your daughter, your son, your dearest friend, your lover. Of course you won’t let them die; of course it’s imperative that they have another chance at life. There are people like Rafael Rodriguez who have dedicated themselves to ensuring that their neighbors have access to naloxone and other resources for surviving the absolute worst. One day, naloxone may indeed save someone you love. Perhaps it already has.

Another technology of solidarity has recently become commonplace in our lives: the face mask. Wearing such a mask tells others that you care about their well-being — you care enough to prevent the germs you exhale from becoming the germs they inhale, and then from becoming the germs they exhale in the company of still others. Face masks save lives. The face mask is a technology of solidarity. So is naloxone. And so is empathy.

“The Sheer Power of Being With Someone in the Moment”

As Rafael Rodriguez slowly told his astonishing story, I could see on my computer screen a spartan office behind him and a single bamboo shoot, its stem curled beneath a burst of foliage. When he was younger, he said, he used food as his coping mechanism for an embattled life, over-eating to the point where doctors worried he would die. Then, at age 23, he underwent gastric bypass surgery and lost a dramatic amount of weight. The doctors were pleased, but now his only means of coping with life’s hardships had been taken away. When three of his dearest family members died in rapid succession, he began drinking. Eventually he sought something that could help him stay awake to keep drinking, and so he started using cocaine. Later on, he needed something that could ease him off cocaine in order to sleep.

“That’s where heroin came into my life,” he told me.

Using that illegal drug left him feeling ashamed, though, and soon he found himself pulling away from his remaining family members, becoming so isolated that, in 2005, he fell into a long stretch of homelessness. Only after he had spent almost a year in a residential rehabilitation facility and gotten a job that left him surrounded by supportive colleagues did Rodriguez begin to name the dark things in his past that had driven him to use drugs.

“No one ever knew that I was sexually assaulted as a child,” he explained. After years in recovery, he is now in possession of a commanding insight. During the most troubled years of his life, he was punishing himself for someone else’s grim actions.

Portugal famously decriminalized all substance use in 2001 and multimedia journalist Susana Ferreira has written that its groundbreaking model was built on an understanding that a person’s “unhealthy relationship with drugs often points to frayed relationships with loved ones, with the world around them, and with themselves.” The root problem, in other words, is seldom substance use. It’s disconnection and heartache.

In 2016, Rodriguez was hired by the Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community in Holyoke, where heroin use constituted a crisis long before opioid addiction registered as a national epidemic. Rodriguez now dedicates himself to supporting others in their recovery from the trauma that so often underlies addiction. And while tight funding and staffing limitations have led many community organizations across the country to reduce services during the pandemic period, the Recovery Learning Community has sought to expand to meet increasing need. When state restrictions capped the number of people the organization could allow into its indoor spaces, Rodriguez and his team improvised, offering services outside. They prepared bagged lunches, set up outlets so people could charge their phones, and distributed hand sanitizer and bottled water. And they continued to offer compassion and peer support, as they always had, to people wrestling with addiction.

Helping those in the midst of painful circumstances, Rodriguez says, isn’t about knowing the right thing to say. It’s about “the sheer power of just being with someone in the moment… being able to validate and make sure they know they’re being heard.”

In many situations, he adds, he has helped people without uttering a word.

Criminalization Versus “Any Positive Change”

It’s something of an understatement to say that, in the United States, empathy has not been our go-to answer for addiction. Our cultural tendency is to regard signs of drugs or the persistent smell of alcohol as marking users as outcasts to be avoided on the street. But medical science tells us that addiction is actually a chronic relapsing brain disease, one that often takes hold when a genetic predisposition intersects with destabilizing environmental factors such as poverty or trauma.

Regardless of the science, we tend to respond unkindly to folks in the throes of addiction. In her book Getting Wrecked: Women, Incarceration, and the American Opioid Crisis, Dr. Kimberly Sue describes a complex and corrupt system of prosecutors, forensic drug labs, prisons, and parole and probationary systems in which discipline is meted out primarily to low-income people, disproportionately of color, who use illegal substances. An attending physician at Rikers Island in New York, Sue is also the medical director of the Harm Reduction Coalition. The philosophical opposite of criminalization, “harm reduction” is an international movement, pioneered by people who have used or still use such drugs, to reduce their negative consequences.

“Treat people with dignity and respect, respect people’s bodily autonomy” was the way Sue described to me some of harm reduction’s core tenets. In this country, we typically expect folks to cease all substance use in order to be considered “clean” human beings. Harm reduction instead espouses a kind of compassionate incrementalism. “Any positive change,” from the decision to inject yourself with a sterile needle to carrying naloxone, is regarded as a stride toward a healthier life.

In tandem with its decision to decriminalize all substance use, Portugal put harm reduction at the heart of its national drug policies. And as of 2017 (the most recent year for which data are available), nearly two decades after that country’s groundbreaking move, the per-capita rate of drug-related fatalities in the U.S. stood 54 times higher than in Portugal.

Now, the pandemic has made addiction even more dangerous. In addition to inflicting the sort of widespread hardship that can drive people to opioids (or even greater doses of them) and to take their chances with the potent synthetic opioid fentanyl, Covid-19 has stymied efforts by Dr. Sue and others to provide effective guidance and care. In normal times, opioid users can at least protect themselves from dying of an overdose by using their drug in the company of others, so that someone can administer naloxone if it becomes necessary. Now, however, that safety mechanism has been fatally disrupted. While social distancing saves lives, stark solitude can be deadly — both as further reason for using such drugs and because no one will be present with the antidote. Referring to naloxone as a miracle medicine, Sue said that there is no medical reason why people should die of an opioid overdose.

“The reason they die is because of isolation.”

Rx: Friendship

Back in March, one of the first recommendations for reducing the transmission of the coronavirus was, of course, to stay home — but not everyone has a home, and when businesses, restaurants, libraries, and other public spaces locked their doors, some people were left without a place even to wash their hands. In Holyoke, Rafael Rodriguez and his colleagues at the Recovery Learning Community, along with staff from several other local organizations, rushed to city officials and asked that a handwashing station and portable toilets be installed for the many local people who live unhoused. Rodriguez sees such measures not only as fundamental acts of humanity, but also as essential to any viable treatment for addiction.

“It’s really hard to think about recovery, or putting down substances, when [your] basic human needs aren’t being met,” he said. In the midst of extreme summer heat, he pointed out that there wasn’t even a local cooling center for people on the streets and it was clear that, despite everything he had seen in his life, he found this astonishing. He is now part of a community movement that is petitioning the local city government for an emergency shelter.

“When you have no idea where you’re going to rest your head at night, using substances almost becomes a survival tactic,” he explained. “It’s a way to be able to navigate this cruel world.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Sue continues to care for her patients whose maladies are often rooted in systemic injustice and the kind of despair that dates back to their early lives. Affirming that substance use is indeed linked to frayed relationships, she told me that, in this pandemic moment of isolation, what drug users most often need is a sense of connection with others.

“How do I prescribe connection?” she had asked during our phone call. “How do I prescribe a friend?”

Several days later, while writing this article, I left the air-conditioned space in which I was working and walked a couple of blocks to run some errands. In the stifling midday sun, I saw a woman sitting on the ground. I realized I’d seen her before and guessed that she was homeless. Her arms and face were inflamed with a rash. She said something to me as I passed. At first, I didn’t catch it. Her words were garbled and she had to repeat herself several times before I understood.

She was asking for water.

I blinked, nodded, and went into a nearby drug store where I grabbed a water bottle, paid in a few seconds at self-checkout, and gave it to her. And yet, if I hadn’t been working on this article, I might not have done that at all. I might have passed right by, too absorbed in my life to realize she was pleading for help.

Amid the sustained isolation of a global pandemic whose end is nowhere in sight, I asked Rafael Rodriguez what lessons could be learned from people who have long experienced isolation in their lives.

“My hope is that, as a society, we gain some empathy,” he replied.

Then he added, “Now that’s a big ask.”

The Abraham Accord: Realignment, Containment, and Militarism

Jon V. Kofas

On 19 August 2020, an article in Foreign Affairs argued that a “botched peace plan” in the Middle East accidentally produced the Abraham Accord between the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Israel and the US. On the surface, the Abraham Accord appears to be a ‘botched peace plan’. However, it is consistent with the goals of the Trump administration to forge closer ties between pro-US Arab countries and Israel for several reasons that help promote America’s Middle East and global geopolitical and economic interests, while coinciding with Trump’s reelection efforts to contain Iran, limit China’s regional role, and achieve a diplomatic victory amid high unemployment and an economic recession right before the election. These goals do not amount to anything of historical significance that entails lasting peace, but do signal a hasty attempt to preserve Pax Americana amid China’s rising global economic power that will eventually translate into geopolitical power.

Among other Arab nations, the UAE has been quietly moving toward closer ties with Israel for the past decade, especially amid Saudi-Israeli-US efforts to isolate and weaken Iran and its allies China and Russia that have coalesced in the UN Security Council against the US. Considering that the Trump administration withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – Iran Nuclear Deal – on 8 May 2018, largely to pursue a tougher containment policy that would weaken Iran’s role in influencing the regional balance of power, especially in Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan, the Abraham Accord was a logical conclusion to salvage US efforts at a regional peace deal. The goal is in essence continued militarization as leverage to maximize the influence of regional US allies coalescing around Israel and Saudi Arabia.

At the same time, given that Iran has forged much closer ties with China and Russia, US containment strategy imbedded in the Abraham Accord follows the long-standing US policy of relegating the Middle East as its historic zone of influence ever since the Truman Doctrine (1947) that created the “Northern Tier” as a buffer zone against the Soviet Union. As reflected in the Accord, Middle East realignment under the aegis of the US uses Iran, and to a lesser degree Turkey, are catalysts to a containment policy along the lines of Cold War “containment militarism”, as Jerry Sanders argued in his book forty years in analyzing NSC #68 of 1950.

The State Department has made it clear that the Abraham Accord aims to counter Iran, although Israel and to some degree want Turkey included in the containment policy. However, this accord, as opposed to the Truman Doctrine of 1947 when Greece, Turkey and Iran were US strategic satellites, China’s economic and geopolitical expansion is what the US fears more than any other power in the world, including Russia. Former Russian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Andrei Baklanov has argued that Russian trade would actually benefit from the UAE-US-Israel deal. Moreover, Russia advocated regional rapprochement since 1992 under Boris Yeltsin. At the same time, Russia’s concern that the Abraham Accord could signal an end to UAE as a peace broker between Iran and Saudi Arabia has forced Moscow to consider strengthening ties with Tehran. Therein rests Moscow’s ambiguity about the deal which China views in somewhat the same light. With expanding economic ties throughout the Middle East and Africa, China praised the Abraham Accord, especially since it sees Erdogan’s Turkey, not Iran, destabilizing the region with aggressive adventures of recapturing some of the Ottoman Empire’s glory. More so than Russia, China views the Abraham Accord as a containment policy toward Iran and Turkey, but also commercial containment of China in the region, as the US is committed to greater militarization of the Gulf States.

In delivering the Abraham Accord, Trump, who takes pride in bypassing America’s NATO partners and pursuing unilateral policies, has provided the US defense industry with pre-election gifts. Considering the Abraham Accord was contingent upon US sales of EA-18G Growler, made by Boeing, and a pledge to sell more advanced weapons to placate Israel, is it any wonder the Arab-American scholar Hussein Ibish noted that: “The president (Trump) thinks like a salesman, and this is what he wants in the Middle East.” In August 2020, the US announced the sale to UAE of advanced weapons (F-35 fighter jets and Reaper Drones, and EA-18G Growler jets — designed for stealth attacks by jamming enemy air defenses).

Privately approving the arms deal, Prime Minister Netanyahu publicly denounced US arms sales brokered by Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser. Some Democratic congressmen immediately objected on the grounds that Arab buyers of US weapons have used them in the protracted Saudi-led war in Yemen, mostly targeting civilians suffering the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The UAE have withdrawn their forces from Yemen, but they are involved in the Libyan civil war where the US and its Western European partners have sunk into chaos and destruction since 2011.

Although the Abraham Accord reflects American unilateralism, US Western allies are limited in how much they can criticize Washington’s efforts at realignment in the Middle East, even if such efforts signal very little peace as a goal and greater possibilities of militarism. Domestically, not just Trump’s supporters, but even establishment Democrats backing Biden, have no objection to the US selling more weapons to Middle East allies, while forging new coalitions. This regardless of the objections that some Democrats make about lack of consultation that is typical of the Trump administration across the board.

Some have compared the Abraham Accord with the Camp David Accord during the Carter administration when Egypt normalized relations with Israel in March 1979. Both the Camp David Accord and the Abraham Accord are partly symbolic owing to realignment and the projection of “making progress” toward resolving the long-standing Arab-Israeli conflict owing to the Palestinian question. While this is one dimension, the reality is that the Middle East will not change for the better because of the Abraham Accord. The US is using the Accord as a way to maintain its historic role to determine the regional balance of power, contain/isolate Iran while keeping China’s role limited, sell more weapons, and project a foreign policy victory to the American people right before the presidential election.

When considering whether more Arab states will follow the UAE example, it is important to ask whether the Middle East became more peaceful and the plight of the Palestinians ended following the Camp David Accords in 1979. It is inevitable that the so-called diplomatic breakthrough projected in the Abraham Accord will serve as an incentive to other nations closely allied with the US and Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel, no matter what Tel Aviv does with the Palestinians.

Surprised by the accord, Palestinians denounced it as treason, as did Iran and Turkey. It is expected that besides UAE joining Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania in recognizing Israel, other Arab states, including Oman, which has ties with Iran but welcomed UAE’s move, Sudan and Morocco will follow as they see benefits to such realignment and nothing to gain by ideologically backing the Palestinians whose global leverage is currently at its lowest level in history. Like the UAE, other Arab states will argue that having normalized ties with Israel and by extension stronger ties with the US, they can be a voice of influence from within such an alliance to mitigate Israel’s apartheid policies toward Palestinians.

No matter who is president, the historically unwavering US commitment to Israel will drive foreign policy. This means offering weapons sales as incentives to other Arab states to join the Abraham Accord. Militarizing the region will escalate a regional arms race and further destabilize all of them; much to the delight of weapons manufacturers, but to the detriment of the people in those countries where civilian economies will suffer in the process.

Besides a far right wing Norwegian politician nominating Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, many within the US and in the pro-US camp around the world have applauded the UAE-Israel-US deal as a historic foreign policy achievement. We need to keep in mind that in 2009 President Barak Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize and then became militarily involved in both Libya and Syria, while CIA covert operations raged during the Arab Spring uprisings. In his memoirs, in 2015, Geir Lundestad, the non-voting Director of the Nobel Institute and secretary for the Nobel Committee, noted that he had reservations about awarding Obama the prize. After 2009, Geir Lundestad witnessed Obama’s reckless military adventures and failed commitment to peace, forcing him to argue that the US president had not lived up to the Nobel Peace Prize values.

Highly unlikely that Trump will receive the Novel Peace Prize, he has been praised by people already committed to his administration ideologically and politically. Unlike Obama, Trump as a unilateralist has been more reluctant to engage in US overt and covert military operations, partly because he sees the competition with China taking precedence over all other commitments. He has been more interested in strengthening the defense industry by providing more US contracts and lobbying other countries to buy more weapons. This will be his legacy, despite criticizing the military industrial complex for domestic political reasons and uncontrollable ego.

Coinciding with the pre-election season, the Abraham Accord will not have any impact in American voters, for they do not cast a ballot on the basis of foreign policy deals that have no impact on their lives. At the same time, with the exception of benefiting defense contractors, Israel and the Gulf States allied with Saudi Arabia, the Abraham Accord will do nothing to end Israel’s apartheid policy, any more than it will limit Iran’s regional role in determining the balance of power with China and Russia on its side. Large in its symbolism, the Abraham Accord will prove far less than the failed Camp David Accords of 1979.

Will They or Won’t They? Saudi Recognition of Israel is the $64,000 Question

James M. Dorsey

Will the Saudis formalize relations with Israel or will they not? That is the 64,000-dollar question.

The odds are that Saudi Arabia is not about to formalize relations with Israel. But the kingdom, its image tarnished by multiple missteps, is seeking to ensure that it is not perceived as the odd man out as smaller Gulf states establish diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

Bahrain’s announcement that it would follow in the footsteps of the United Arab Emirates was as much a Bahraini move as it was a Saudi signal that it is not opposed to normalization with Israel.

Largely dependent on the kingdom since Saudi troops helped squash mass anti-government protests in 2011, Bahrain, a majority Shia Muslim nation, would not have agreed to establish diplomatic relations with Israel without Saudi consent.

The Bahraini move followed several other Saudi gestures intended to signal the kingdom’s endorsement of Arab normalization of Israel even if it was not going to lead the pack.

The gestures included the opening of Saudi air space to Israeli commercial flights, and publication of a Saudi think tank report praising Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s stewardship in modernizing the kingdom’s religious education system and encouraging the religious establishment to replace“extremist narratives” in school textbooks with “a moderate interpretation of Islamic rhetoric.”

They also involved a sermon by Abdulrahman al-Sudais, the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca – the world’s largest mosque that surrounds the Kaaba, Islam’s holiest site, that highlighted Prophet Mohammed’s friendly relations with Jews.

Mr. al-Sudais noted that the prophet had “performed ablution from a polytheistic water bottle and died while his shield was mortgaged to a Jew,” forged a peace agreement with Jewish inhabitants of the Khaybar region, and dealt so well with a Jewish neighbor that he eventually converted to Islam.

The imam’s comments, a day before US President Donald J. Trump was believed to have failed to persuade King Salman to follow the UAE’s example, were widely seen as part of an effort to prepare Saudi public opinion for eventual recognition of Israel.

Criticism on social media of the comments constituted one indication that public opinion in Gulf states is divided.

Expression of Emirati dissent was restricted to Emirati exiles given that the UAE does not tolerate expression of dissenting views.

However, small scale protests erupted in Bahrain, another country that curtails freedom of expression and assembly. Bahraini political and civil society associations, including the Bahrain Bar Association, issued a statement rejecting the establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel.

“What results from normalization will not enjoy popular backing, in line with what generations of Bahrainis have been brought up on in terms of adherence to the Palestinian cause,” the statement said.

Bahrain has long been home to a Jewish community and was the first and, so far, only Arab state to appoint a Jew as its ambassador to the United States.

The criticism echoes recent polls in various Gulf states that suggest that Palestine remains a major public foreign policy concern.

Polling by David Pollock of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy found that Palestine ranked second to Iran.

Earlier polls by James Zogby, a Washington-based pollster with a track record that goes back more than a decade, showed Palestine ranking in 2018 as the foremost foreign policy issue followed by Iran in Emirati and Saudi public opinion.

The same year’s Arab Opinion Index suggested that 80 percent of Saudis see Palestine as an Arab rather than a purely Palestinian issue.

Mr. Pollock said in an interview that with regard to Palestine, Saudi officials “believe that they have to be a little cautious. They want to move bit by bit in the direction of normalizing at least the existence of Israel or the discussion of Israel, the possibility of peace, but they don’t think that the public is ready for the full embrace or anything like that.”

Gulf scholar Giorgio Cafiero noted in a tweet that “Israel formalizing relations (with) unelected Arab (governments) is not the same as Israel making ‘peace’ (with) Arab people. Look at, for example, what Egypt’s citizenry thinks of Israel. Iran and Turkey will capitalize on this reality as more US-friendly Arab [governments] sign accords [with] Israel.”

This year’s Arab Opinion Index suggest that in Kuwait, the one country that has not engaged with Israel publicly, Turkey—the Muslim country that has taken a lead in supporting the Palestinians—ranked highest in public esteem compared to China, Russia, and Iran.

A rift in a UAE-backed Muslim group created to counter Qatari support of political Islam and promote a state-controlled version of Islam that preaches absolute obedience to the ruler serves as a further indication that Palestine remains an emotive public issue.

In Mr. Al-Sudais’ case, analysts suggest that the criticism is as much about Palestine as it is a signal that religious leaders who become subservient to the whims of government may be losing credibility.

Mr. Al-Sudais’ sermon contrasted starkly with past talks in which he described Jews as “killers of prophets and the scum of the earth” as well as “monkeys and pigs” and defended Saudi Arabia’s conflict with Iran as a war between Sunni and Shiite Muslims.

The criticism coupled with indications earlier this year that Saudi Arabia’s religious establishment was not happy with Prince Mohammed’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic may be one reason why Saudi Arabia is gesturing rather than formalizing already existing relations with Israel.

Authorities reportedly arrested in March Sheikh Abdullah al-Saad, an Islamic scholar, after he posted online an audio clip criticizing the government for banning Friday prayers. Mr. al-Saad argued that worshippers should be able to ask God for mercy.

An imam in Mecca was fired shortly after he expressed concern about the spread of the coronavirus in Saudi prisons.

Scholars Genevieve Abdo and Nourhan Elnahla reported that the kingdom’s Council of Senior Clerics had initially drafted a fatwa, or religious opinion, describing the closing of mosques as a violation of Islamic principles. They said that government pressure had persuaded the council not to issue the opinion.

Concern among the kingdom’s ultra-conservative religious scholars that the ruling Al-Saud family may break the power-sharing agreement with the clergy, concluded at the birth of the kingdom, predates the rise of King Salman and Prince Mohammed.

Indeed, the clerics’ concern stretches back to the reign of King Abdullah and has focused on attitudes expressed both by senior members of the ruling family who have since been sidelined or detained by Prince Mohammed and princes that continue to wield influence.

The scholars feared that the ruling family contemplated separating state and religion. This is a concern that has likely been reinforced since Prince Mohammed whipped the kingdom’s religious establishment into submission and downplayed religion by emphasizing nationalism.

Ultra-conservative Saudi religious scholars are also certain to have taken note of post-revolt Sudan’s recent decision to legally remove religion from the realm of the state.

Ultra-conservative sentiment does not pose an imminent threat to Prince Mohammed’s iron grip rule of a country in which many welcomed social reforms that have lifted some of the debilitating restrictions on women, liberalized gender segregation, and the as yet unfulfilled promise of greater opportunity for a majority youthful population.

It does however suggest one reason why Prince Mohammed, who is believed to favor formal relations with Israel, may want to tread carefully on an issue that potentially continues to evoke passions.

Deadly Dark Ages USA–“Herd Immunity”

Nayvin Gordon

If Covid-19 was as lethal as Ebola, the six million US infections registered on 9/1/20, would have already resulted in 3 million Covid -19 deaths.  This is the reality of the murderous; let them die “herd immunity” policy the administration is intentionally following, by forcing us back to unsafe work/school.  How many deaths will they accept with this abuse and misuse of science?? https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-scott-atlas-herd-immunity

“Herd immunity” is a concept primarily used for the science of vaccinations to PROTECT THE PEOPLE from dangerous infectious diseases such as measles and smallpox.  Greater percentage of vaccinations (90% plus), mean greater protection for the population, or herd immunity.

If no vaccine is available, we use the science of Public Health to PROTECT THE PEOPLE with testing, contact tracing and isolation.  For a hundred years this science has been used to treat and prevent infectious disease such as sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis. The robust Public Health

System in Taiwan has been able to suppress and eradicate Covid-19.

“Herd immunity” that follows as a result of deliberately allowing an infection to spread through the community does not protect the people, it allows them to sicken and die. This policy is responsible for the deaths from Covid-19 in the US now approaching a quarter of a million.  Only those who survive may have herd immunity.  This is the horror people faced in the 1800’s before the development of the science of Public Health. This is not science but a deadly return to the Dark Ages.

Over the last 40 years the politicians have closed public hospitals and massively defunded and cut back on the people’s Public Health Facilities to privatize the health system.  Now that the for-profit system is clearly unable to protect the people, the government has abused and misused the science of “herd immunity” by intentionally promoting this homicidal policy as a legitimate scientific approach to the pandemic.  It is simply eugenics, homicidal criminal negligence, and a crime against humanity.

The government did not spend $Trillions on the people’s Public Health System

The government did not spend $Trillions on a massive national strategy to test, trace and isolate infected individuals.

The government did give $Trillions to bail out the financial elite of Wall Street.

How many preventable deaths are we willing to accept??

Time for a radical change, towards a society built on the people’s health needs and an egalitarian world.

A “Persistent Eye in the Sky” Coming to a City Near You?

Medea Benjamin & Barry Summers

“Gorgon Stare will be looking at a whole city, so there will be no way for the adversary to know what we’re looking at, and we can see everything.” That same persistent eye in the sky may soon be deployed over U.S. cities.

At the time he made that comment about surveillance drones over Afghanistan, Maj. General James Poss was the Air Force’s top intelligence officer. He was preparing to leave the Pentagon, and move over to the Federal Aviation Administration. His job was to begin executing the plan to allow those same surveillance drones to fly over American cities.

This plan was ordered by Congress in the 2010 National Defense Authorization Act. It directed the Departments of Defense and Transportation to “develop a plan for providing expanded access to the national airspace for unmanned aircraft systems of the Department of Defense.” Gen. Poss was one of nearly two dozen ex-military officers who, starting in 2010, were put into positions at the FAA to oversee drone integration research. With little public scrutiny, the plan has been moving forward ever since.

If you’re thinking that this is a partisan issue, think again. This plan has been enacted and expanded under Presidents and Congresses of both parties. If you’re uncomfortable with a President Biden having the ability to track the movements of every Tea Party or Q-Anon supporter, you should be. Just as we should all be concerned about a President Trump tracking…well, everybody else.

Along with civil liberties, a major concern must be safety. The military and the drone manufacturers, principally General Atomics, are arguing that the technology has advanced far enough that flying 79-ft. wingspan, six-ton drones over populated areas and alongside commercial air traffic is safe. We have one response: self-driving cars. Self-driving cars present a technological problem that is an order of magnitude simpler than aircraft flying hundreds of miles per hour in three dimensions. Yet they still can’t keep these cars from plowing into stationary objects like firetrucks (or people) at 60 mph in two dimensions. Are we really comfortable with pilotless aircraft operating in the same airspace as the 747 at 30,000 feet that is bringing your children home for Christmas? These drones have a troubled history of crashing and unfortunately, the process for determining whether these drones are now truly safe has been compromised by having the military, which wants this approval, largely in charge of the testing.

Which brings us to San Diego. Last October, General Atomics announced that they would be flying their biggest, most advanced surveillance drone yet, the SkyGuardian, over the City of San Diego sometime this summer. The stated purpose was to demonstrate potential commercial applications of large drones over American cities. In this case, the drone would be used to survey the city’s infrastructure.

But when General Atomics first began preparing for the flight, the goal was a very different one: Back in 2017, military technology analysts were predicting that by 2025, drones similar to those used in Afghanistan and Iraq would be hovering above U.S. cities, relaying high-resolution video of the movement of every citizen to police departments (and who knows who else). When there was public pushback to this police department drone use—even a pro-industry reporter called the idea “dystopian”—General Atomics changed the purpose of the flight from providing data to the police to “mapping critical infrastructure” in the San Diego region.

The FAA, which is responsible for granting permission to General Atomics, has kept the process secret. When the Voice of San Diego asked for more information, the FAA refused on the grounds that this supposed commercial demonstration was actually “military.” The Voice of San Diego is now suing to get answers and the ACLU has also expressed concern about the flight. Amid the scrutiny, General Atomics quietly announced that the flight was cancelled, but this is certain to be a small hiccup in their long-term plan.

In fact, General Atomics’ drones are already being used domestically. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) flies Predators over parts of the U.S.- Mexico and U.S.-Canadian borders. Recently, CBP has expanded their reach, using these drones to assist police in Minneapolis, San Antonio and Detroit in the wake of protests against police brutality. Deeply concerned, members of Congress wrote to federal agencies denouncing the chilling effect of government surveillance on law-abiding Americans and demanding an immediate end to surveilling peaceful protests.

The concerns of these members of Congress should be echoed by the general public. What are the possible effects on our civil liberties from having high-tech surveillance platforms circling over millions of Americans, gathering information about our every move? We know from past experience that every government surveillance technology that can be abused has been abused. Allowing this powerful technology to be taken from overseas wars and turned inward on American citizens isn’t something that should happen without a robust public debate. The implications for civil liberties are too profound.

Australian CEO pay hits record high, boosted by JobKeeper subsidies

Jason Quill

Last month’s annual chief executive pay report produced by the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors (ACSI), an advisory firm for the largest companies on the Australian Stock Exchange, revealed a new record amount for the highest-paid CEO.

The ACSI report showed Andrew Barkla of International Development Program Education (IDP), received $37.7 million in 2019. A company part-owned by Australia’s universities, IDP places international students in universities in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom and United States.

Barkla’s payout, which amounts to $103,452 a day, or 420 times the official average wage, was awarded after he exercised share options granted to him before the company’s public listing in 2015. This beat the previous record set by Domino’s Pizza CEO Don Meij, who took home $36.84 million in 2017.

The amounts paid to the CEOs on the rest of the top 20 list are a no less obscene contrast to the protracted decline in workers’ real wages, long before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

Paul Perreault of Commonwealth Serum Laboratories, in second place, received $30.5 million. In eighth place, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce took home $12.2 million, while JS Jacques of Rio Tinto was in tenth place, on $10.3 million.

The 20th highest paid CEO, Peter Allen of the Scentre group, went home with $7.4 million. That is still 90 times the average yearly pay of $84,968, a figure that is itself skewed by soaring executive salaries (the median wage was just $48,360 in 2017).

ACSI’s research partner Ownership Matters published a second report, showing that these same companies have exploited government subsidies schemes, supposedly created to keep businesses afloat throughout the pandemic, to increase CEO pay.

Since March, federal and state governments have allocated more than $400 billion for business bailout packages and cheap central bank-provided loans, all with the bipartisan backing of both the Liberal-National Coalition and the Labor Party.

The biggest single scheme has been the JobKeeper wage subsidy program, which pays companies up to $1,500 per fortnight per employee. Far from protecting jobs, as Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government claimed, it has provided a corporate bonanza.

Some 3.5 million workers have barely survived on these payments, which are being slashed from September 28, and many of them will end up jobless. But CEOs have enriched themselves from the scheme, which was always its purpose.

On the back of JobKeeper subsidies, corporate profits have soared as well—up by 15 percent in the June quarter, even as the economy crashed into recession, already throwing more than two million workers into unemployment or under-employment.

The Ownership Matters report, entitled “JobKeeper and Other Government Subsidies,” which covers the period from March to July, shows that of 81 publicly-listed companies receiving government subsidies related to COVID-19, 63 received JobKeeper payments. Within that group, 25 have paid upward of $24 million in executive pay.

The Accent group, a retail chain, received $21.4 million in JobKeeper payments as well as $7.6 million in rent waivers. It awarded chief executive Daniel Agostinelli and CFO Matthew Durbin a combined $1.7 million in bonuses, and increased full-year dividends by 12.5 percent.

Star Entertainment, the operator of Sydney’s Star Casino, was the fourth biggest recipient of JobKeeper payments, receiving some $65 million in total. It paid $1.4 million to its five top executives, including $830,000 to CEO Matt Bekier.

Qube, a company that specialises in industrial logistics, received $19.4 million in JobKeeper subsidies and paid its five top executives $2.8 million worth of bonuses, including $1.2 million to chief executive Maurice James. It also paid $43.3 million in dividends to its shareholders.

At least another 17 companies paid out 20 percent or more of their subsidies in the form of dividends to shareholders, though the full extent of this is unknown as JobKeeper lacks transparency or public accountability.

A spokesperson for Qube defended the executive payments, saying the company aimed “to appropriately reward and incentivise management to deliver value for its shareholders."

For appearances sake, some CEOs of the Australian Stock Exchange’s top 300 companies have decided for the coming year to trim their own pay packets, but only by an average of 2 percent. There is a tacit agreement that they will be rewarded when the immediate crisis passes.

For himself, Prime Minister Morrison has refused to reduce his own salary, which stands at more than half a million dollars a year, and has opposed any lowering of other politicians’ remuneration.

The issue of exorbitant CEO pay is not new. However, the latest reports have come amid the worst economic crash and destruction of jobs since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Labor MP Andrew Leigh made a brief speech on the revelations in parliament on August 31, stating: “If you’re getting taxpayer subsidies, the CEO shouldn’t be getting a bonus.” His speech was retweeted more than 3,000 times, with some describing the situation as “astonishing,” “disgraceful” or “disgusting.”

But Leigh’s speech was steeped in hypocrisy, as Labor voted for all the business bailout measures, including JobKeeper. Nor did he or Labor make any proposal to take back the money and redirect it to healthcare, aged care, housing or education.

Interviewed by the New Daily, Leigh only called on companies to “act in the interests of the whole community, not just their shareholders and managers.” Naturally, no company responded to his call. To do so would violate the entire purpose of big business on a global scale—the generation of private profit and wealth.

Leigh’s main concern, on behalf of his party, was the discontent brewing in the working class. “Paying bonuses while taking subsidies risks bringing corporate Australia into disrepute,” he said.

Woodward revelations: Canada’s political elite implicated in Trump’s suppression of COVID-19 threat

Omar Ali & Roger Jordan

The revelations from Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward documenting how US President Donald Trump lied to the American people about the danger posed by COVID-19 have also served to further expose the callous and calamitous response of Canada’s ruling elite to the pandemic.

Trump was informed by his National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien on January 28 that the coronavirus was the greatest national security challenge of his presidency to date. This was only one of a series of high-level briefings in which the gravity of the novel-coronavirus threat was repeatedly brought to Trump’s attention.

Then, on February 7, Trump told Woodward, in an exchange captured on tape, that Chinese President Xi Jinping had informed him the disease is transmitted through the air and could have a fatality rate of 5 percent. Trump would later tell Woodward that he nonetheless continued to “downplay” COVID-19 because he did not want to trigger a “panic,” i.e. a collapse of Wall Street and the financial markets. In this criminal enterprise, which has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the Democratic Party leadership is complicit, since they were provided with essentially the same intelligence in security briefings, yet also did nothing to alert the public.

Canada is Washington’s closest military-security partner, bound to the Pentagon and US intelligence and Homeland Security agencies through a vast web of alliances and networks, including NATO, NORAD, and the Five Eyes. Given the breadth of this partnership, which politicians from all major parties never tire of extolling when the issue is supporting war and intrigue abroad or increasing military spending, it is inconceivable that Canada’s national-security apparatus and Liberal government were not privy to the intelligence warnings received by Trump and the Democrats in January and early February.

Moreover, the only plausible explanation for Canadian authorities’ failure to alert the public and immediately initiate large-scale preventive measures is that they were motivated by the same mercenary concerns—that is class interests—as the US political establishment. They didn’t want to roil the financial markets or otherwise impede big business profit-making; with the possible added motivation on Ottawa’s part of not wanting to do anything that would rile Trump and damage relations with Washington.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan has admitted that the military’s medical intelligence unit was gathering information on the new virus and its impact in China for several weeks before it provided him with a briefing in mid-January. The information contained in this briefing was subsequently shared widely across the government.

However, the government’s Incident Response Group did not meet to discuss the coronavirus until January 27. One day later, Health Minister Patty Hajdu responded to a question on whether the federal government would provide additional resources to the provinces to strengthen their health care systems by saying, “I think it’s very premature to say that there will be additional resources needed at the hospital level. Every indication is that we will not at this point in time.”

The first handful of Canadian COVID-19 cases were reported that same week, and on January 28 the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that transmission was “high at the global level,” indicating that community transmission was already underway in many countries. Three days later, the WHO declared a global health emergency.

Yet during the next five weeks, the Trudeau government failed to take substantive action, such as procuring increased resources, informing the public of the scope of the threat and its plans to halt the virus’ spread, or instituting distancing guidelines. Not until March 10, more than two months after first learning about the virus, did the Trudeau Liberal government even write the provinces to inquire about their stockpiles of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other critical medical supplies. Vital time that could have been used to prepare a health care system already buckling due to decades of budget cuts and the privatization of much of senior care was thus squandered.

In Ontario, the hard-right government of Doug Ford also systematically downplayed the pandemic. On March 8, the provincial Ministry of Health declared that the risk to Ontarians remained low and Ford advised Ontarians to go out and enjoy the spring break holiday. By this point, hospitals were already struggling with an influx of patients. After efforts at quietly lobbying the government to take drastic steps fell on deaf ears, the Ontario Hospital Association wrote a petition demanding the premier declare a state of emergency.

The intervening months have brought to light documents underscoring how the federal government ignored warnings and failed to undertake even the most basic preparatory measures in February. Documents obtained by public broadcaster CBC indicate that government officials were warning of looming shortages of PPE in the National Emergency Stockpile (NESS) in early February. In an internal presentation on February 13, the Public Health Agency of Canada was reporting that the federal stockpile contained only “a modest supply of personal protective equipment including surgical masks, respirators, gloves, gowns and coveralls,” and warned that global supplies would soon dwindle in the face of an enormous spike in demand.

Unless the government moved quickly to acquire these products, argued officials, lives of healthcare workers across the country would be in jeopardy once they were called upon to treat those stricken with the coronavirus. Yet, according to the CBC report, all the contracts the government awarded for PPE in the ensuing days totaled less than $300,000.

The first orders for significant additional supplies of PPE and ventilators were issued only on March 14, at which point the crisis was already in full swing and much of the country was under lockdown. The procurement of N95 masks was made even more difficult due to the fact that the government had a contract with just one lab in the United States to validate them.

The lack of PPE has been a major factor in the spread of the virus, contributing to the deaths of both patients and health care workers. In July, Statistics Canada reported that frontline health care workers had accounted for more than 21 percent of all COVID-19 cases nationwide.

As of yesterday, Canada has recorded over 139,000 infections and 9,188 deaths, the vast majority of which occurred among long-term care residents of nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

The government’s dilatory and negligent response to what the WHO publicly and Canada’s principal intelligence partner privately were warning was a colossal public health emergency contrasts sharply with the official response to the pandemic’s economic impact on investors and big business. No sooner did the pandemic cause financial markets to quake and force provincial governments across the country to belatedly announce lockdown measures than the Trudeau government and Bank of Canada intervened with a massive bailout for investors, the banks and corporate Canada.

Like Trump and the Democrats in the United States, the Liberal government, Canada central bank and other state agencies came to the rescue of the financial elite, funneling $650 billion into their coffers by the end of March. This massive heist of public funds was aided and abetted by the NDP and the trade union bureaucracy. They remained silent about the enormous transfer of wealth to the capitalist elite, while lauding the Trudeau government for providing a meager $2,000 a month through the makeshift and soon to be terminated Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) to the millions of workers who lost their jobs and income.

In keeping with their role as corporatist allies of the Liberal government and big business, the unions have supported the back-to-work campaign, including the drive to reopen the schools so parents can be forced back on the job amid the pandemic. The unions have opposed job action against what they concede are unsafe conditions, on the grounds such action would be “illegal”.

The Canadian media’s coverage of the Woodward revelations and how they implicate the Trudeau government and Canada’s lavishly funded military-security apparatus in a conspiracy to conceal the threat posed by COVID-19 has been extremely muted.

One of the fe w report s in a major media outle t to even suggest that Woodward’s revelations and the intimate Canada-US security- intelligence partnerships raise the questions “ what did the federal government know” about the developing COVID-19 pandemic “and when?” was a CBC article published Monday. It was entitled “Woodward’s Trump revelations raise questions about Canada’s response to COVID-19.”

However, the article is largely devoted to promoting unconvincing claims that Ottawa would not have had access to the same intelligence as Trump. Its main criticism of the Trudeau government is not that it deliberately downplayed the threat posed by the pandemic in league with the US president and political establishment, but that it relied too heavily on information from China and the World Health Organization during January and February. This echoes the bellicose, geopolitically-motivated campaign spearheaded by the Conservative Official Opposition, the National Post, Toronto Sun, and other right-wing outlets to blame China for the pandemic, and attribute the Liberal government’s ruinous response to the pandemic to its supposed pandering to Beijing.

The CBC and other media outlets have conveniently blacked out the fact that Trump was briefed on February 7 by Chinese President Xi about the seriousness of the disease, after which he delivered his grim assessment privately to Woodward.

US defence secretary phones Sri Lankan president about increased military cooperation

Vijith Samarasinghe

Late last month, US Defence Secretary Mark T. Esper phoned President Gotabhaya Rajapakse. Esper later Tweeted: “Good talk today with Sri Lankan President @Gotabaya R. We discussed our cooperation in responding to COVID 19 & the international security environment.”

The Colombo media reported that the call was about COVID-19 and claimed Esper had praised Rajapakse for “controlling” the pandemic. This was a ridiculous attempt to cover-up the real content and implications of the discussion.

The extraordinary phone call—the first in living memory from a US defence chief to a Sri Lankan president—was not about the coronavirus, but the expansion of existing military agreements between the two countries, in line with President Donald Trump’s preparations for war against China.

Gotabaya Rajapaksa (AP Photo/Eranga Jayawardena)

While Rajapakse and the Sri Lankan media have kept their mouths shut about the real purpose of the call, the US defence department later released a statement, indicating some of the issues raised.

The conversation, according to the statement, centred on the “shared commitment” of the two countries “to a free and open Indo-Pacific”—a euphemism for Washington’s ongoing campaign against Beijing and unchallenged US military operations in the region. It involved a “review of the defence priorities,” such as “military professionalization, counter-terrorism, and maritime security cooperation.” The defence secretary also called for “continued progress on reconciliation and human rights in Sri Lanka.”

Esper’s phone call was motivated by the fact that Washington and its regional allies are intensifying their military build-up against China, in the Indian Ocean region, and are determined to further expand military relations with, and operations on, the strategically located island.

The call, which was made just a few weeks after the landslide victory of Rajapakse’s party in the parliamentary election, also reflected Washington’s concerns about the new administration and its previous links with China.

Two days after the election, the Wall Street Journal published an article headlined “Pro-China Populists Consolidate Power in Sri Lanka.” It stated that the previous Rajapakse administration had “embraced China,” and become “a showcase for Beijing’s global infrastructure initiative.”

While the US and India had backed Rajapakse’s brother—the former president and current prime minister, Mahinda Rajapakse—in the last phase of Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war in 2009, Washington was hostile to the regime’s economic and military relations with Beijing.

In 2015, the US orchestrated a regime-change operation to oust Rajapakse as president and replace him with the pro-US Maithripala Sirisena. The subsequent Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration rapidly and systematically expanded Sri Lanka’s defence ties with the US. The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe regime strengthened defence agreements with Washington and involved the Sri Lankan military force in numerous drills and training exercises with the US and its allied armed forces.

The Access and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) between the US and Sri Lanka, which was first signed in 2011 by Gotabhaya Rajapakse, then defence secretary, was renewed indefinitely under Sirisena. ACSA gives the US military unrestrained access to Sri Lanka’s seaports and airports, while the American navy is currently investigating the feasibility of establishing a US “logistics hub” at the strategic eastern port of Trincomalee.

Further ties are also in the pipeline. These include the proposed renewal of a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the US, the hand-over of Colombo Port’s Eastern Terminal to India, and a $US480 million grant agreement with the Millennium Challenge Corporation, an instrument of US foreign policy. Ratification of these agreements and other defence proposals, however, were stalled by conflicts in 2018 that divided the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration.

Gotabhaya Rajapakse was elected president last year by capitalising on the political instability and exploiting deep-seated popular opposition to the International Monetary Fund austerity program implemented by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe regime.

Esper’s phone call constitutes another clear message to the Rajapakses that Washington is insisting that pending military agreements be ratified immediately, and that US-Sri Lanka defence cooperation is taken to a new level.

As the US embassy in Colombo declared, following the August 5 general election, “We look forward to partnering with the government and the new parliament.”

Even before last month’s election results were finalised, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Washington’s chief regional ally, rushed to congratulate Rajapakse. In Colombo, the Indian high commissioner held a dinner for the new cabinet ministers, just days after their swearing-in.

Following his election as president last November, Rajapakse quickly demonstrated his loyalty to Washington and India, and made his first official foreign visit to New Delhi, on the invitation of Prime Minister Modi.

Last month, Rajapakse appointed retired Admiral Jayanath Colambage, who is director of the pro-US Pathfinder Foundation, as foreign secretary. Senior career diplomat and former foreign secretary Ravinath Ariyasinghe was named ambassador to the US.

In an August 26 interview with the Daily Mirror, Colambage said, “as far as strategic security is concerned, Sri Lanka will always have an India-first approach.”

In another diplomatic posting, Rajapakse appointed Milinda Moragoda— a former minister with long established loyalties to Washington—as a “cabinet-ranked” high commissioner to India. Cabinet rank means he can directly talk to the president and his top ministers.

Moragoda, a founder of the Pathfinder Foundation in Colombo, was described in 2003 by the former US Ambassador to Colombo, E. Ashley Wills, in a diplomatic cable, later published by WikiLeaks, as a “perfect fit” for “cultivating relations with the US and India.” His appointment as the Indian High Commissioner is another indication of Colombo’s endorsement of the anti-China, military-strategic build-up in the region.

The Rajapakse administration has signaled that it will go ahead with the pending US-Sri Lanka defence agreements. Both the president and prime minister have also confirmed that they will hand over the strategic Colombo Port East Terminal to India, despite mounting opposition from port workers.

Colambage told the Daily Mirror that the transfer of the terminal was agreed in a 2017 deal between Sri Lanka, India and Japan, and that President Rajapakse was “committed to honour” the deal.

Rajapakse is also advancing the close military-to-military ties with the US, established by the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe administration. In March, when the whole country was under strict COVID-19 lockdown and curfew, US Green Berets conducted combat training exercises with Sri Lankan forces in Trincomalee harbour.

President Rajapakse’s refusal to disclose the content of his discussion with Defence Secretary Esper indicates that he has no concerns about the preparations for war against China. This silence, at least for the time being, also reflects the sensitivity of Colombo’s ruling elite to popular concerns about this issue. During the election, Rajapakse’s nationalist allies attempted to posture as anti-imperialist. At the same time, the debt-ridden Rajapakse regime is also seeking extensive financial assistance from Beijing.

Esper’s phone call came as military and economic tensions in the Asia-Pacific region have reached the highest level since the Second World War. Late last month, Beijing fired “aircraft carrier killer” missiles into the South China Sea, in response to the provocative manoeuvres of the US naval flotilla led by the USS Ronald Reagan in the disputed marine territory.

Early last week, Japan, India and Australia—all members of the US-led quadrilateral military alliance against China—agreed to restructure commercial supply chains in the region to counter so-called “China trade dominance.”

The US has also banned 24 Chinese companies, including the China Communication Construction Company (CCCC), from buying American products, citing their involvement in the development of artificial islands in the disputed South China Sea. CCCC is involved in the construction of the massive Colombo Port City project, the largest single Chinese investment in Sri Lanka. The Chinese embassy in Colombo has appealed to the Rajapakse government to oppose the US sanctions.

Attempting to navigate its path through this geo-strategic minefield, Colombo has said nothing about the latest trade bans and their possible impact on the Colombo Port City project.

In a veiled threat, the US embassy in Colombo warned that the US “further encourages countries to manage risk when dealing with CCCC,” which it claims has done “untold environmental damage… and caused instability in the Indo-Pacific.”

In his August 26 Daily Mirror interview, Sri Lankan Foreign Secretary Colambage said: “We have to balance. The President has outlined a few specific things. Sri Lanka should be a neutral country. Sri Lanka does not want to be caught up in the power game.”

Notwithstanding the rhetoric about “balancing,” the Rajapakse regime is signalling to Washington that Colombo is not siding with Beijing, and will continue to expand its military operations with US imperialism against China. The Rajapakses know, from their own experience, that any deviation from this line could have severe repercussions for the current government.