Is Obama giving American private security contractors immunity from prosecution just like Bush did – Who will protect Iraqi civilians from them?

The US under both Bush and Obama has used more mercenaries than even Gaddafi could afford - and they have allowed them to be just as above the law. There's no sign that the formal withdrawal from Iraq will change this as 5,000 'civilian' 'private security contractors' (actually armed mercenaries) stay under the command of the US State Department

Widespread US use of mercenaries (many being former US forces) for ‘plausible deniability’ of involvement and to make operations using them allow them immunity from prosecution led to the US demand that UN resolution 1970 on Libya should include a specific clause (clause 6) exempting nationals of states not party to the ICC (International Criminal Court) from prosecution except by their own state. This made both most of Gaddafi’s African mercenaries and former US special forces hired as ‘private contractors’ and operating in Libya, immune to prosecution by the ICC (1).

This was due to the US and other NATO governments sending former members of their special forces into Libya hired as ‘private security contractors’ (2).

Private military contractors in Iraq like Blackwater (renamed ‘Xe’ in the Obama era) and Dyncorp have been proven to be involved in numerous shootings of civilians there, many seemingly almost random  (3).

The US mission in Iraq is now to be headed by the State Department rather than the US military, but private military contractors working for the State Department have an immunity from prosecution that is even more complete than the almost total immunity of those working for the Pentagon (4).

The total withdrawal of US troops seems to be the result of the Iraqi government refusing to accept Obama administration conditions that they would have immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts.

The Washington Post reported that ‘Iraqi leaders said last week that they want a small contingent of U.S. military trainers to remain, but without immunity from local prosecution, a condition the Obama administration has said it cannot accept. The administration has been planning to keep 3,000 to 5,000 military trainers in the country if the two sides can hammer out an agreement.’(5)

The Status of Forces Agreement between the US and Iraqi governments negotiated in 2008 (and which came into force in 2009) supposedly ended immunity from prosecution by Iraqi courts for private security contractors (or mercenaries) operating in the country (6).

However the UN working group on mercenaries reported in June this year that ‘It is not clear, however, whether this removal of immunity covers all contractors employed by the United States Government and whether it is fully applied in Iraqi courts’ (7).

This leaves the possibility of the kind of immunity from prosecution for mercenaries employed by the US State Department in Iraq that led to American employees of the US private security firm Dyncorp, employed by the State Department in Bosnia in the 1990s, to get off entirely unpunished after kidnapping 12 to 15 year old Bosnian girls and repeatedly raping them and buying and selling them as slaves (8) – (13).

This did not result in any prosecution of anyone involved in any court, nor has it ever stopped the British and US governments from continuing to employ Dyncorp in wars around the world (14) - (15).

It was as bad as anything the Serbs were alleged to have done in justifications given for war being necessary to stop such abuses.

The justification given for immunity from prosecution is to ‘protect American citizens’ from unfair convictions. Who will protect civilians from being shot by people placed above the law though? Who will protect young girls from American citizens in other countries when they’re placed above the law and turn out to be paedophiles and rapists?

(1) = IB Times 27 Feb 2011 ‘Full Text of UN Resolution imposing sanctions on Libya’,http://uk.ibtimes.com/articles/116663/20110227/un-resolution-libya-sanctions-original-text-un-resolution-1970-2011.htm

(2) = Guardian 31 Mar 2011 ‘Libya: SAS veterans helping Nato identify Gaddafi targets in Misrata’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/31/libya-sas-veterans-misrata-rebels ; Former SAS soldiers and other western employees of private security companies are helping Nato identify targets in the Libyan port city of Misrata, the scene of heavy fighting between Muammar Gaddafi's forces and rebels, well-placed sources have told the Guardian.

(3) = Independent 14 Dec 2011  ‘Security firms involved in 200 shootings in Iraq’ , http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/security-firms-involved-in-200-shootings-in-iraq-6276688.html

(4) = Washington Post 08 Oct 2011 ‘State Department readies Iraq operation, its biggest since Marshall Plan’,http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/state-department-readies-iraq-operation-its-biggest-since-marshall-plan/2011/10/05/gIQAzRruTL_story.html , ‘The State Department is racing against an end-of-year deadline to take over Iraq operations from the U.S. military, throwing together buildings and marshaling contractors...an estimated 16,000 civilians under the American ambassador — the size of an Army division…To do so, the department is contracting about 5,000 security personnel.’

(5) = Washington Post 08 Oct 2011 ‘State Department readies Iraq operation, its biggest since Marshall Plan’,http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/state-department-readies-iraq-operation-its-biggest-since-marshall-plan/2011/10/05/gIQAzRruTL_story.html ; ‘Iraqi leaders said last week that they want a small contingent of U.S. military trainers to remain, but without immunity from local prosecution, a condition the Obama administration has said it cannot accept. The administration has been planning to keep 3,000 to 5,000 military trainers in the country if the two sides can hammer out an agreement.’

(6) = Independent 10 Jul 2008 ‘Security firms lose immunity in Iraq deal’, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/security-firms-lose-immunity-in-iraq-deal-863931.html

(7) = UN News Centre 16 Jun 2011 ‘ Iraq should keep regulating private military and security firms, say UN experts’, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38735&Cr=iraq&Cr1=  , ‘The Group welcomed the fact that the 2009 Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between Iraq and the US contains a provision removing the immunity of some private foreign security contractors in Iraq. “It is not clear, however, whether this removal of immunity covers all contractors employed by the United States Government and whether it is fully applied in Iraqi courts,” they said. Among its recommendations, the experts urged the Iraqi Government to prioritize the adoption of legislation regulating security companies that has been pending since 2008.’

(8) = Kathryn Bolkovac & Carin Lynn (2011) ‘The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors, and One Woman's Fight for Justice’, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011

(9) = Human Rights Watch Nov 2002 ‘HOPES BETRAYED : TRAFFICKING OF WOMEN AND GIRLS TO POST-CONFLICT BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA FOR FORCED PROSTITUTION ’, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/bosnia/ ; see especially ‘XI. SFOR CONTRACTOR INVOLVEMENT’, http://www.hrw.org/reports/2002/bosnia/Bosnia1102-11.htm#P1160_252276(covers involvement of Dyncorp employees contracted by the US State Department)

 (10) = BBC News 28 Jan 2011 ‘Hard Talk - Kathryn Bolkovac, Whistleblower’,http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y26qv

(11) = BBC News 27 Jan 2011 ‘Bolkovac: Male colleagues purchased girls in Bosnia’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/hardtalk/9377841.stm

(12) = Observer 29 Jul 2010 ‘British firm accused in UN 'sex scandal'’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/jul/29/unitednations , ‘A former United Nations police officer is suing a British security firm over claims that it covered up the involvement of her fellow officers in sex crimes and prostitution rackets in the Balkans….Kathryn Bolkovac, an American policewoman, was hired by DynCorp Aerospace in Aldershot for a UN post aimed at cracking down on sexual abuse and forced prostitution in Bosnia….She claims she was 'appalled' to find that many of her fellow officers were involved. She was fired by the British company after amassing evidence that UN police were taking part in the trafficking of young women from eastern Europe as sex slaves.’

 (13) = Salon 06 Aug 2002 ‘Sex-slave whistle-blowers vindicated’, http://www.salon.com/2002/08/06/dyncorp/ , ‘Two former employees of DynCorp, the government contracting powerhouse, have won legal victories after charging that the $2 billion-a-year firm fired them when they complained that co-workers were involved in a Bosnia sex-slave trade.’

(14) = HRW 25 Nov 2002 ‘Bosnia and Herzegovina: Traffickers Walk Free’, http://www.hrw.org/news/2002/11/25/bosnia-and-herzegovina-traffickers-walk-free

(15) = Guardian 29 Nov 2002 ‘American firm in Bosnia sex trade row poised to win MoD contract’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2002/nov/29/military.politics ; ‘The American defence contractor forced to pay compensation to a UN police officer unfairly dismissed for reporting colleagues involved in the Bosnian sex trade is poised to be awarded its first contract by the British government, the Guardian has learned. …DynCorp, which was ordered to pay the sacked UN investigator Kathryn Bolkovac £110,000 by an employment tribunal on Tuesday, is part of a consortium that is set to be awarded preferred bidder status by the Ministry of Defence to supply support services for military firing ranges…..Mr Johnston's case included allegations of men having sex with girls as young as 12. His claims also concerned a nightclub in Bosnia frequented by DynCorp employees, where young women were sold "hourly, daily or permanently".

The formal US withdrawal from Iraq is deceptive ; and war on Iran on the same dodgy grounds remains on the table

There’s been a lot of fanfare over the US withdrawal from Iraq, but in fact the US will keep 5,000 armed men in Iraq – many of them former US special forces – they just won’t be called US troops ; and they’ll be accompanied by CIA agents over-seeing US trained El Salvador style Iraqi death squads.

CNN reports that

‘Hundreds of nonmilitary U.S. personnel will remain in Iraq, including 1,700 diplomats, law enforcement officers and economic, agriculture and other professionals and experts, according to the State Department.

In addition, 5,000 security contractors will protect U.S. diplomats and another 4,500 contractors will serve other roles, such as helping provide food and medical services, until they can be done locally.’ (1)

These ‘private security contractors’ (a euphemism for mercenaries), working for companies like Dyncorp will include many former members of the US and British militaries and Special Forces, just as they have up until now. They have been responsible for some of the worst cases of random shootings of civilians in Iraq and the transfer of command of them from the Pentagon to the State Department will shift them from almost total immunity from prosecution to total immunity from prosecution.

They may become as immune to prosecution as the Dyncorp employees contracted by the US State Department in Bosnia who kidnapped young girls, raped them and used them as forced sex slaves, selling them to human traffickers (for details and sources on this click this link).

The reason that no US troops are being left turns out to be that the Iraqi government would not grant them immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts.

The Washington Post reported that ‘Iraqi leaders said last week that they want a small contingent of U.S. military trainers to remain, but without immunity from local prosecution, a condition the Obama administration has said it cannot accept. The administration has been planning to keep 3,000 to 5,000 military trainers in the country if the two sides can hammer out an agreement.’(2). (for more details on the immunity issue click this link)

The US military also spent the last 8 years training up El Salvador style Iraqi 'police commandos' and 'special forces' in Iraq under both Bush and Obama - units responsible for the same torture and murder that the Salvadoran military carried out against rebels and civilians alike in the 1980s (3) – (5).

Some of the ‘diplomats’ operating from the vast US embassy in Baghdad, which is bigger than the Vatican and cost over $1 billion to build, will undoubtedly be CIA agents, as every major power uses embassies and diplomatic immunity as cover for intelligence operatives (6). Some of these will be CIA ‘handlers’ overseeing Iraqi death squads, just as in the past in Vietnam and countries across Latin and Central America.

So the Obama administration doesn't have much of a leg to stand on in demanding that no country 'destabilises' or 'interferes' in Iraq, unless by 'de-stabilises' they mean 'threatens to replace our puppet government with a different one' (7).

Obama may not use the phrase ‘war on terror’ any more, that doesn’t mean the death squads or the ‘extra-ordinary rendition’ for torture are over.

It doesn’t mean the calls for a re-run of the Iraq war,  this time against Iran, is off either. The supposed justification is even identical– that the Iranian government and military would commit collective national suicide by using WMDs or nuclear weapons on nuclear armed states such as the US or Israel or their allies; or would commit national suicide by proxy by giving nuclear materials to terrorists.

This is despite the fact that Iran’s Ayatollahs and the Republican Guard showed in 1988 that they preferred an inglorious peace that allowed them to survive in power to glorious national martyrdom, just as Saddam showed the same during the 1991 Iraq war (when he did have chemical warheads for his scuds) by only using conventional warheads in scud missile attacks on Kuwait and Israel; and despite Israeli military historian Martin Van Creveld and former US General John Abizaid saying we can live with a nuclear Iran, which, if it develops nuclear weapons, will want them for the same reason as the US and Israel – as a deterrent against attacks on it by others (8) – (9). Creveld also points out that US or Israeli intelligence have been claiming Iran was on the verge of building nuclear weapons for at least 20 years (10).

(1) = CNN 13 Dec 2011 ‘Obama says U.S. goal is successful Iraq’, http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/12/politics/obama-maliki/index.html

(2) = Washington Post 08 Oct 2011 ‘State Department readies Iraq operation, its biggest since Marshall Plan’,http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/state-department-readies-iraq-operation-its-biggest-since-marshall-plan/2011/10/05/gIQAzRruTL_story.html ; ‘Iraqi leaders said last week that they want a small contingent of U.S. military trainers to remain, but without immunity from local prosecution, a condition the Obama administration has said it cannot accept. The administration has been planning to keep 3,000 to 5,000 military trainers in the country if the two sides can hammer out an agreement.’

(3) = New York Times Magazine 01 May 2005 ‘The Way of the Commandos’, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/01/magazine/01ARMY.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

(4) = Shane Bauer ‘Iraq’s new death squad’ in The Nation 6th June 2009, http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090622/bauer

(5) = See the blogpost linked below – the part under the sub-heading ‘Killing and torturing Iraqis’ and sources 16 to 41 on it http://inplaceoffear.blogspot.com/2010/09/are-iraqis-better-off-as-result-of-2003.html

(6) = Mother Jones 11 Jun 2011 ‘How Not to Withdraw from Iraq’http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/06/withdrawal-iraq-american-embassy-size

(7) =  White House Office of the Press Secretary 12 Dec 2011 ‘Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister al-Maliki of Iraq in a Joint Press Conference’, http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/12/12/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-al-maliki-iraq-joint-press-co

(8) = Forward 24 Sep 2007 ‘The World Can Live With a Nuclear Iran’, http://www.forward.com/articles/11673/

(9) = CNN 18 Sep 2007 ‘Retired general: U.S. can live with a nuclear Iran’, http://articles.cnn.com/2007-09-18/world/france.iran_1_nuclear-weapon-nuclear-program-nuclear-fuel?_s=PM:WORLD

(10) = NYT 21 Aug 2004 ‘Sharon on the warpath : Is Israel planning to attack Iran?’, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/21/opinion/21iht-edcreveld_ed3_.html

If you’re blaming public sector employees, the unemployed or immigrants, you’re being divided and conquered by the real culprits

While the majority of people in employment in the UK have had pay rises below inflation,  effective cuts of an average of 4.5% ; the average city (i.e London financial sector) employee has seen their pay increase by 12% in the last six months, while managing directors have had a 21% increase (1) – (2). That’s equivalent to 19% and 37% rises in a year, after inflation. So the real division on pay and conditions is not public vs private sector, but ‘the city’ and top bank executives versus everyone else.

The endless rhetoric about supposedly ‘privileged’ public sector workers and unemployed ‘scroungers’ (while there are at least 6 people unemployed for every job vacancy) is just crude divide and conquer tactics.

The average London financial sector employee will get paid £83,000 plus a £20,000 bonus – or £103,000, compared to a median wage of £26,000 for the UK as a whole (3) – (4).

Around 710,000 public sector workers have either lost their job or are about to lose it, along with many people in the private sector  who’ve lost their jobs due to the knock on effects of a fall in consumer demand caused by the reduced income of the now unemployed public sector workers, or because banks have refused their business routine bridging loans.

It’s not so good either, if you are on a low income and live in socially rented housing, with the government having capped housing benefit and allowed rents in the social sector to rise to 80% of private sector rates, which are also rising as less people can afford to buy their own house, resulting in more renting (5) – (7). In fact many people who relied on social housing are being made homeless – and in the case of the others taxpayers are being forced to pay more to support them by the lifting of the cap on how much landlords in the ‘social’ sector can charge.

So the Coalition’s policies are good for a small minority – mostly in the markets or the city, advertising, public relations and media ownership, at the expense of the vast majority. It talks about the need to ‘protect’ the city and ‘maintain market confidence’, rewarding the people who caused the crisis, while punishing people who do jobs that benefit other people (8).

That’s why it’s been vital for the political success of the Conservative party (and their allies in the ‘city’ or ‘markets’ and banks) that the majority who are suffering should be divided from one another to eliminate the risk of the majority uniting against the small minority in whose interests the Conservatives are acting.

The unemployed as ‘scroungers’ – even though there aren’t nearly enough jobs for all of them

Decades of propaganda from tabloids owned by billionaires and from a Conservative party (and sometimes a New Labour party) largely funded by billionaires and multi-millionaires has been devoted to creating scapegoats – targets to divert blame away from the people who have the actual power and wealth.

One target has been the unemployed – supposedly all parasites who don’t want to work, despite the fact that the figures show there have never been enough jobs for all the unemployed during economic booms never mind during the worst recession since the 1930s.

The Office for National Statistics figures for July to October 2011 show that there were 462,000 job vacancies,  compared to 2.62 million people unemployed – around 6 people unemployed for every job  (and due to many methods of fiddling the figures developed by governments over the years, that is almost certainly an underestimate of the number of people unemployed) (9) – (10).

It’s undoubtedly true that a minority don’t want to work. If there are no jobs available for them even if they did want to, that’s pretty academic though.

The Daily Mail was outraged that Chancellor George Osborne increased benefits in line with inflation – by 5.2%, talking about this as a ‘big rise’ – it’s not. It only stops them being reduced by inflation – in practice they stay at the same level – about £60 a week – rather than being cut.

The propaganda seems to work as intended though, dividing the employed from the unemployed and even getting some of each to vote entirely against their own interests in and in the interests of billionaires and big multinational companies, on the assumption that any ‘benefit reforms’ will target only the undeserving, lazy unemployed and not them.

Which is more of a parasite? Someone on unemployment benefit getting £60 a week? Or a large company, a primary PFI contractor, which gets taxpayers to pay it dozens of times the amount they would pay in interest on a loan to fund construction of a new hospital or school? There’s no doubt the latter get a lot more public money for nothing.

Immigrants and the EU

Then there are immigrants – who don’t get any benefits unless granted refugee status – and then get benefits well below those given to British citizens. They, like the EU, are foreign – and so an easy target to deflect blame on to. The city traders who helped cause the crisis are British; and so supposedly on our side, even after causing the entire problem and being grossly over-paid for jobs many of which harm the majority of people.

Public sector Vs Private Sector

Finally there are the supposedly ‘cushy’ jobs held by public sector workers with ‘gold plated’ pensions. Osborne talks about public sector workers being ‘paid for’ by workers in the private sector, as if public sector workers aren’t doing vital jobs looking after NHS patients, saving people from fires, arresting criminals, teaching children; and as if public sector workers don’t pay tax at the same rate as private sector employees.

While Cameron and Osborne sack hundreds of thousands of these people to keep ‘the markets; who caused the crisis happy, Cameron has pledged to protect ‘the city’ against any EU actions that might reduce their profits.

There are some private sector workers who do vital jobs – there are a lot who fit the description ‘parasite’ very well though – the hedge fund managers trading in food futures traders in  ‘the city’ who effectively spend their time betting that the price of food will rise, then buying up food to ensure it does, causing starvation for many of the poorest people in the world and hunger even for some of the poorest here.

What I don’t understand is how so many people are so easily conned over and over again? How long will they continue to fall for such obvious divide and conquer tactics and be diverted into pointless arguments between the middle class and the working class, between the employed and the unemployed, between public sector workers and private sector workers?

(New Labour government ministers who were on a pay of over £100,000 a year and many of them – including Tony Blair – formerly lawyers – also played the ‘middle class’ vs ‘working class’ divide and conquer card, pretending that lawyers turned MPs and government ministers were working class heroes.)

The vast majority of people working in the public and private sectors, even up to the managers of small and medium sized businesses, are doing work that does benefit society as a whole and are paid a fraction of what the bank and hedge fund managers get.

Yet while bank managers and the heads of the biggest firms are paying themselves between millions and tens of millions a year, plus the same again in bonuses, often at taxpayers’ expense in bailed out banks, the Conservatives’ tactics of divide and rule ensure many peoples’ anger is directed not at the real parasites, but at other people who are also their victims.

 (1) = Astbury Marsden Compensation Survey 2011 – Banking Infrastructure London,http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:tN8-iJkGpa8J:www.astburymarsden.com/documents/Astbury%2520Marsden%2520Compensation%2520Survey%25202011_Banking%2520Infrastructure%2520London%2520small.pdf+Astbury+Marsden+report+city+pay&hl=en&gl=uk&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESjCp35WxasQC0uKU6hyPufcF3PKQgqywr0k1qNAEGK_4wMSeFBhohPhKrGo7oTiY4RLukF4E51KGYTxH6kmRfhX-1zs80hIKdv6Ckao6ZzZxFrjD6HI5anmt52lZR3QiNTc0ttx&sig=AHIEtbS9vlPCGJzgvi4HFde7s45wAlnw_w

(2) = guardian.co.uk 23 Nov 2011 ‘UK incomes fall 3.5% in real terms, ONS reveals’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/nov/23/uk-household-earnings-fall?commentpage=last#end-of-comments(including people in part-time jobs, fall is 4.5% including inflation – a 0.5% rise minus 4.5% inflation)

(3) = Guardian 28 Nov 2011 ‘Banks under fresh pressure to curb bonus and dividend payouts’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/nov/28/banks-curb-bonuses-dividends

(4) = Office for National Statistics ‘2011 Annual Survey of Hours and Earning -Median full-time gross annual earnings’, http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/ashe/annual-survey-of-hours-and-earnings/ashe-results-2011/ashe-statistical-bulletin-2011.html#tab-Annual-earnings

(5) = BBC News 27 Oct 2010 ‘No change to housing benefit plan – Cameron’, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11633163

(6) = guardian.co.uk 22 Nov 2011 ‘Housing strategy prices people out of homes’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/nov/22/housing-strategy-prices-people-homes

(7) = guardian.co.uk 16 Sep 2011 ‘UK rents rise by record amount in August’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/sep/16/rents-rise-record-amount-august

(8) = Guardian 07 Dec 2011 ‘David Cameron threatens veto if EU treaty fails to protect City of London’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/07/cameron-threatens-veto-eu-treaty

(9) =  Office for National Statistics ‘Labour Market Statistics, November 2011’, http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/november-2011/index.html

(10) = Labour market statistics: 16 Nov 2011 – Vacancies - http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lms/labour-market-statistics/november-2011/statistical-bulletin.html#tab-Vacancies

Cameron’s ‘public service reforms’ would mean a privatised but publicly subsidised NHS – without any electoral mandate

Prime Minister David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ ‘public service reforms’ would be PFI on steroids – the end of free healthcare paid for by taxes and it’s replacement with private healthcare only for those who can afford it, but subsidised by all tax payers and effectively paid for twice by those who can get it – once in taxes and once in charges.

Cameron in his recent speech on ‘public service reform’ and ‘The Big Society’, claimed that ‘Sometimes, a charity or social enterprise trying to come into public services will find strong forces trying to keep them out…vested interests, people who want to stick to the status quo…We need a level playing field so that anyone with a good idea can get involved.’ (1)

Here Cameron pretends that the main bidders for health service contracts will be charities or not-for-profit groups. In fact most bidders will be private healthcare firms such as ‘Assura’ a firm he also referred to in his speech as one which could provide ‘NHS walk in clinic’ services, or privatised GP consortia profit sharing with these firms.’

The Bureau for Investigative Journalism found that ‘At least half the board members of some GP consortia, the new bodies that will take over commissioning, have links with… Assura Medical, majority controlled by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group… Most were GP members of Assura, meaning their practice had formed a joint company with it…. with profits split 50:50 between Assura Medical and member practices.’ (2)

One of Cameron’s principal advisers on healthcare ‘reform’ is Mark Britnell, who is employed in the Healthcare division of accountancy firm KPMG. He has told private healthcare firms that “GPs will have to aggregate purchasing power and there will be a big opportunity for those companies that can facilitate this process” and that “The NHS will be shown no mercy”. (3) – (4)

Britnell also wrote in the Health Service Journal that the NHS’ ‘funding mechanism is no longer resilient’ and that in future patients will be charged for treatment. (5)

The GP who headed the government’s review of it’s ‘healthcare reform’ policy- Professor Steve Field – has said that introducing internal competition into the NHS would be ‘destroy key services’. He’s also said that allowing private sector patients to be treated in NHS hospitals would open up the NHS to EU competition law, potentially allowing private firms the legal right to be allowed to bid for contracts for all NHS activity. (6) – (7)

Cameron also claimed in the speech that “A study published by the London School of Economics found hospitals in areas with more choice had lower death rates.”

This is true – the study was made by Zack Cooper, an LSE researcher, but it is far from undisputed. Professor Allyson Pollock, an expert on NHS funding, found serious problems with the methodology and the data it used . Pollock concluded that based on Cooper’s study ‘the only safe conclusion is that if you live near an NHS hospital or have many NHS hospitals in your area, you may get care quicker and be less likely to die from an acute heart attack. This is hardly a ringing endorsement for competition, or the Department of Health policy of centralisation and hospital closures under the expensive private finance initiative.’ (8) – (9)

Pollock, on the proposed healthcare ‘reforms’ in general writes that ‘The bill, as designed, will allow commissioners (purchasers of healthcare or insurers) to pick and choose patients and services. It abolishes the duty to secure or provide comprehensive care, and permits GP consortiums to recruit members, and introduce charges and private health insurance, as well as enter into joint ventures with private companies. In a market, insurers and commercial providers must be able to limit their risks by carefully selecting members on the basis of ability to pay and predictable costs.’ (10)

In other words it would mean the end of guaranteed free public healthcare and instead returns to a system where people can only get what healthcare they can pay for. Even worse, the private healthcare firms and privatised or ‘mutualised’ GP consortia would be getting huge taxpayer subsidies without any limit on how much they can charge or any requirement for them to treat people who can’t pay what they demand. (This would repeat the disaster of privatised but publicly subsidised railways).

This would not be greater efficiency or greater choice, but the worst kind of privatisation, including a public subsidy for private firms. It’s not reform, but PFI on steroids.

It will also lead to chaos, with many people lacking vital services in their areas due to the government letting hospitals and schools go under if they fail to compete in internal markets. In fact government ministers have been encouraged by their advisers to allow public sector hospitals to fail in order to hasten “reform” and the entry of the private sector (expect budget cuts to public services like the NHS with claims of lack of the money to fund them, followed by greater levels of public funding appearing for private healthcare firms) (11)

If all this goes ahead we’ll see cases like the one of the American man who had no way to get the healthcare he needed, so in desperation staged a bank robbery of one dollar in order to get sent to jail so he could get treatment (12).

Devolution in Scotland could prevent this happening North of the border, assuming the government don’t try to impose it here by cutting funding or making future funding conditional on such ‘reforms'. That might boost support for independence and Cameron and the Conservatives might want to encourage that to remove a lot of Labour MPs from the British parliament. However while many voters in Scotland would like to avoid involvement in more Iraq and Afghanistan wars by independence, just as many may be nervous of independence after the financial crisis brought down RBS, fearing ending up like Iceland. So with independence no certainty the British government's policies on public services may still affect Scotland's.

Cameron also claimed that New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina provides a model for British public services.

What’s actually happened in New Orleans since Katrina is that people have been forced out of much public housing which was never flooded by armed private mercenary companies like Blackwater and the properties sold off to private developers to build luxury flats to rent. This resulted in mass protests against the enforced evictions and homelessness. To stop this and to stop them trying to return to homes many of them had lived in for decades, many have been sent to trailer parks, surrounded by razor wire fences and guards, effectively imprisoned and not allowed to leave (13) – (16).

That is not a good model to follow. It certainly provides profits for some, but as with Cameron’s plans, at the expense of the majority and especially the poorest. The same goes for government plans for ‘mutualised’ and ‘for profit’ ambulance and fire fighting services (17)

Cameron and the Coalition have no electoral mandate whatsoever for their plan for a privatised, publicly subsidised healthcare system. The plan did not appear in his election campaign or his party’s manifesto – in fact he made election pledges to end the endless and disruptive reorganisation of the NHS (18). A YouGov poll in January showed only 34% support the ‘reforms’ and only 5% ‘strongly’, while 37% oppose them (16% strongly opposing them). The other 30% didn’t know (19)

The more people hear of the details of the ‘reforms’ the more people who supported them are becoming "don't knows" and the more ‘don’t knows’ are becoming opposed. A Comres poll in June found 49% of people thought the NHS reforms should be scrapped, with only 19% supporting them and 32% unsure (20). Only 27% of British voters support allowing private companies to provide NHS services (21). If Cameron goes ahead and attempts privatisation he is virtually certain to be a single term Prime Minister – if he even survives that long.

Finally, Cameron repeatedly made bizarre comparisons to buying mundane services or goods from private firms – for instance ‘You wouldn’t pay for a gym membership and then get told you’re only allowed to use the running machine or only allowed to come in on a Tuesday’ and ‘Imagine you’re buying a mobile phone. You go to the shop – only one shop – and there they’re selling one model of phone. You can guarantee the service wouldn’t be what you’d expect, the quality wouldn’t be great.’

He also claimed that ‘choice’ and ‘competition’ in healthcare will ‘get real value for money’

Cameron ignores the incompatibility of motives between maximising profit by treating only those patients who can pay and those illnesses that are profitable to treat (the primary and often sole aim of private firms) and providing good healthcare, education or social care based on providing it to everyone equally according to need.

Heart operations or cancer treatment or fire-fighting or ambulances are not mobile phones or gym memberships, nor are they comparable to them. Mobile phones are incredibly cheap compared to healthcare and no-one selling mobile phones needs to have had many years of training and experience to sell a mobile phone to someone without endangering their health or life by recommending the wrong phone. A gym membership can affect your health over the longer term, but you won’t die if you can’t afford the gym membership you want. You will die if you can’t afford health care and have a serious illness. Choosing whether to use a running machine does not require years of training, education and experience to avoid someone dying. Healthcare does. As a result private health care will always be more expensive than public sector healthcare as private firms have to make a profit. It also follows that the more share of the healthcare provision market is given to private healthcare firms, the more costs will rise, especially as public services will end up short of fully qualified and trained doctors and nurses.

(1) = 10 Downing Street Press Office 11 Jul 2011 ‘Speech on Open Public Services’,http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/speech-on-open-public-services/

(2) = Bureau of Investigative Journalism 15 Jun 2011 ‘Conflict of interest fears in NHS shakeup plans’ by Emma Slater and Sophie Clayton-Payne , http://thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/06/15/half-on-some-consortia-have-links-to-virgin-group/  ; ‘At least half the board members of some GP consortia, the new bodies that will take over commissioning, have links with a single private healthcare company, an investigation by Bureau of Investigative Journalism, published in the Independent and Pulse Magazine can reveal.

Assura Medical, majority controlled by Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, has links with 50 per cent or more of the board members at three of the 52 first-wave GP pathfinders… More than 60% of those with private links were associated with Assura Medical. Most were GP members of Assura, meaning their practice had formed a joint company with it…. with profits split 50:50 between Assura Medical and member practices….At the Sutton Consortium in Surrey, 19 out of 25 board members are linked to Assura Medical. In the South Reading Consortium, three out of five board members are GP members of Assura, and two are employees of an Assura member practice. At the Calleva Consortium in Basingstoke, Hampshire, six out of 11 voting members on the consortium board have links with Assura, as does the non-voting board secretary..’

(3) = Health Service Journal 11 Jan 2009 ‘Mark Britnell quits NHS for private sector’,http://www.hsj.co.uk/news/policy/mark-britnell-quits-nhs-for-private-sector/5002713.article

(4) = guardian.co.uk 14 May 2011 ‘David Cameron's adviser says health reform is a chance to make big profits’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/may/14/david-cameron-adviser-health-reform

(5) = Health Service Journal 11 May 2011 ‘Mark Britnell: the NHS funding model is no longer 'resilient'’,http://www.hsj.co.uk/comment/opinion/mark-britnell-the-nhs-funding-model-is-no-longer-resilient/5029675.article

(6) = guardian.co.uk 13 May 2011 ‘Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms are unworkable, says review chief’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/may/13/andrew-lansley-nhs-reforms-unworkable ; ‘Prof Steve Field, chairman of the NHS Future Forum – set up last month to undertake the coalition's "listening exercise" – flatly rejects the health secretary's plan to compel hospitals to compete for patients and income, which he says could "destroy key services". The proposal, contained in Andrew Lansley's health and social care bill, has led key medical organisations to warn that it will lead to the breakup of the NHS and betray the service's founding principles.’

In an interview with the Guardian, Field says Lansley's plan to make the NHS regulator Monitor's primary duty to enforce competition between healthcare providers should be scrapped. Instead it should be obliged to do the opposite, by promoting co-operation and collaboration and the integration of health services.

(7) = guardian.co.uk 28 Jun 2011 ‘NHS forum GP admits private patient doubts’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jun/28/nhs-private-patients-doubts ; ‘The government is facing renewed pressure over its health bill after the GP who led its "listening exercise"…Steve Field acknowledged that the government would leave hospitals vulnerable to European Union competition law due to the presence of private patients in NHS hospitals.’

(8) = London School of Economics working health paper No.16  Does Hospital Competition Save Lives? Evidence from the English NHS Patient Choice Reforms’,  by Zack Cooper http://www2.lse.ac.uk/LSEHealthAndSocialCare/LSEHealth/pdf/Workingpapers/WP16.pdf

(9) = guardian.co.uk 16 Jun 2011 ‘A return to pre-NHS fear’, by Professor Allyson Pollock,http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/16/nhs-fear-tory-reforms-competition

(10) = See (9) above

(11) = Guardian 11 Jul 2011 ‘Ministers urged to let schools and hospitals fail to hasten reforms’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/11/nhs-health

(12) = guardian.co.uk 21 Jun 2011 ‘US man stages $1 bank robbery to get state healthcare’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/21/verone-one-dollar-robbery-healthcare

(13) = Klein, Naomi (2007), 'The Shock Doctrine' , Penguin , London, 2007, Chapter 20

(14) = Greg Palast 29 Aug 2007 ‘“They wanted them poor niggers out of there.” – New Orleans Two years after’, http://www.gregpalast.com/%E2%80%9Cthey-wanted-them-poor-niggers-out-of-there%E2%80%9D/

(15) = Mail & Guardian (South Africa) 21 Dec 2007, 'Housing protests grip New Orleans', http://mg.co.za/article/2007-12-21-housing-protests-grip-new-orleans

(16) = Greg Palast 24 Aug 2010 ‘Five Years and Still Drowning - The New Orleans CNN Would Never Show You’,http://www.gregpalast.com/five-years-and-still-drowning-the-new-orleans-cnn-would-never-show-you/

(17) = guardian.co.uk 09 Nov 2010 ‘Ambulance drivers and firefighters could break away from national service under new plans’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/nov/09/ambulance-firefighters-mutualise-plans ; ‘Ambulance drivers, paramedics and firefighters could be given the right to breakaway from the national rescue service to form for-profit groups and run their services themselves, the Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude has said.

The government is to unveil a white paper that will give nearly all public sector workers a right to "mutualise" services, along the lines of a John Lewis model whereby employees own the service they work for, and can profit if it makes money.

Maude said that almost all public services – bar the police and the armed forces – could be mutualised. One ambulance service had already expressed an interest and he would also look at options for the fire service, he said.’

(18) = New Statesman blog 14 Apr 2011 ‘Video: Cameron slams “pointless reorganisation” of the NHS - The Prime Minister – then in opposition – addresses the Royal College of Nursing conference in 2009’, http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/the-staggers/2011/04/royal-college-opposition

(19) = YouGov 20 Jan 2011 – Politics – The National Health,http://today.yougov.co.uk/politics/national-health

(20) = Comres 13 Jun 2011,http://www.comres.co.uk/systems/file_download.aspx?pg=796&ver=2

(21) = guardian.co.uk 21 Jan 2011 ‘Poll reveals widespread suspicion of NHS reforms’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jan/29/nhs-private-companies-yougov-poll

Private creditors and banks' refusal to write down Greek debts likely to lead to Argentina style default

The Guardian has reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel tried to get Greece’s private sector creditors, including the banks, to forgive some of Greece’s debts to them as part of a bail-out package for the Greek government. Some IMF and other economists argued for the same thing (1) – (2). The banks and other private creditors refused (3).

If they continue in their greed in refusing to give up any of the money owed to them Greece will most likely default on it’s debts and they will get not one penny.

French President Nicholas Sarkozy has claimed that leaving the Euro is not an option for either France or Greece as if they did their debts would still be denominated in Euros, the Greek and French currency would be worth far less than 1 euro per unit of currency and so their debt would effectively increase (4).

However if Greece has defaulted on all it’s debts this would not be a problem for them. It might affect their balance of payments negatively (i.e increase the value of what they import compared to what they export) but compared to the harsh conditions set for bail-out and the massive size of Greece’s debts this might seem like a minor problem.

The IMF and Greece’s governmental creditors in the EU have set the usual conditions of privatisation of public services and assets, sacking of public sector employees and cuts in welfare payments (5).

The privatisations demanded include the privatisation of water, which will price many of the poorest out of being able to afford water at all. Privatisation of water supplies led to cholera epidemics when it was done in South Africa as many people couldn’t afford piped water any more; and to riots in Cochabamba in Bolivia after the foreign water firms who bought up Bolivian water infrastructure started charging for the entire cost of new investments by raising prices in advance to cover the whole cost of major investments up front (6)  - (9).

They also include electricity (10). This would remove the revenues of one of the few public services that could turn a profit from government.

If the Greek government agrees to all this the likelihood is that the country will be tipped into a second even worse ‘double dip’ recession. Given that and massive public opposition to the rescue package conditions, since most Greeks don’t see why they should pay for the decisions of bankers and politicians who caused the crisis through lobbying for and implementing deregulation of the financial sector across most of the developed world, it seems likely the Greek government will either have to default, partially or entirely, on it’s debts, or else it will fall and whatever government replaces it will be forced to.

The IMF and EU conditions on the bail out are not addressing the main cause of Greece's debts either. This is tax avoidance through corruption. Many people and companies who can afford to, bribe officials or politicians to allow them to evade taxes altogether, resulting in the gap between tax revenues and government expenditure and placing the tax burden on those who can least afford it - the people and small businesses who can't afford to pay bribes (along with those who could but decide it would be wrong to) (11).

Defaulting on a large percentage of their other foreign debts did not work out badly for Argentina, in fact leading to it finally getting out of a situation of mass unemployment and massive debt. The debt default and repudiation of IMF conditions was followed by rapid growth which was interrupted briefly in 2009 by a recession caused by the global financial crisis, followed by more rapid growth. (The table on this link shows Argentina’s growth rate since 2002 if you change the start year to 2002.)   (12) – (14).

 Argentina did have help from Venezuela’s government, which had a surplus when oil prices were high due to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and tension over whether there’d be war with Iran. Venezuela funded Argentina paying off it’s debts to the IMF. Foreign creditors were then forced to accept 25% of the money initially owed to them (15) – (16).

As a result last year Argentina was  able to pay off  it’s debts at a rate equivalent to creditors getting 51% of what was initially owed to them despite suffering a recession due to the global financial crisis and having to default on debt payments again in 2009 (17) – (18).

Development economist Ha Joon Chang has pointed out that many developing countries have defaulted on their debts without disaster ensuing in the past and they were rapidly able to get new loans from new investors (19).

The IMF is usually far more concerned with what is good for foreign creditors than what’s good for the people of countries it’s imposing conditions on for loans and grants, because it’s funded by the richest countries and they appoint it’s head.

 

(1) = guardian.co.uk 17 Jun 2011 ‘Germany climbs down over Greece bailout demands’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jun/17/greece-bailout-germany-private-banks

(2) = guardian.co.uk 03 Jun 2011 ‘Anger mounts in Greece as eurozone ministers edge nearer to bailout deal’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/03/greece-debt-crisis-second-bailout-talks

(3) = See (1) above

(4) = EU business 27 Jun 2011 ‘Sarkozy says France will propose new plan to aid Greece’, http://www.reuters.com/video/2011/06/27/greece-debates-new-austerity-plan?videoId=216516632

(5) = Reuters 14 May 2011 ‘EU,IMF pushing Greece to fully privatise utilities – reports’,http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/14/greece-economy-idUSLDE74D02920110514

(6) = See (5) above

(7) = J. Pauw (2003)‘The politics of underdevelopment: metered to death-how a water experiment caused riots and a cholera epidemic’ in  Int J Health Serv. 2003;33(4):819-30. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14758861

(8) = Water Justice 19 Oct 2004 ‘The UK Government and Water Privatisation’,http://www.waterjustice.org/analysis.php?componentID=2&articleID=83

(9) = The Nation 28 Jan 2005 ‘The Politics of Water in Bolivia’,  http://www.thenation.com/article/politics-water-bolivia

(10) = See (5) above

(11) = BBC Radio 4, 11 Feb 2010 'From Our Own Correspondent - No Tax Please we're Greek', http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/8509244.stm

(12) = BBC News 21 Nov 2002 ‘Crisis-hit Argentina defaults on debt’, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2471617.stm

(13) = Guardian 02 Apr 2009 ‘Argentina heads for return of debt default that 'left it out of the world' seven years ago’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/02/argentina-debts-economic-crisis

(14) = Trading Economics -  ‘Argentina GDP Growth rate’, http://www.tradingeconomics.com/argentina/gdp-growth

(15) = guardian.co.uk 19 Dec 2005 ‘Goodbye and Good Riddance’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2005/dec/19/argentina.internationalnews

(16) = See (11) above

(17) = Guardian.co.uk 16 Apr 2010 ‘Argentina to repay 2001 debt as Greece struggles to avoid default’,http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/16/argentina-to-repay-2001-debt

(18) = See (12) above

(19) = Ha Joon Chang (2010) ‘23 Things they don’t tell you about capitalism’, Allen Lane, 2010