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I've got nothing. --- News & views ...
Cuban Doctors Provide Healthcare To Those In Need - The U.S. Wants To Stop Them
The Trump administration wants to reassert hegemony over Latin America. Cuba is one of its main targets. Through right wing allies and by its own means it targets Cuba's most successful export program - the provision of Cuban doctors to countries in need of them.
In 2002 the Bush administration created a program to train Latin American legal personal to wage a "war on corruption" in their home countries. Back in their countries the U.S. trained people would be fed U.S. intelligence on left wing politicians. It would allow them to launch which hunts on those the U.S. wanted out of the way.
Sérgio Moro, a Brazilian judge, took part in U.S. program. Fed with (dis-)information from the U.S. he launched lawfare against then President Lula of Brasil and his Worker Party. The campaign was successful. In 2018 Lula was put into jail solely based on dubious claims made by one criminal witness.
Protocols of leaked chats between Judge Moro, the prosecutor, and other people involved provide that his intent was not to serve justice but to incarcerate Lula to prevent his party from winning the presidency. The plot succeeded and the extreme right wing politician Jair Bolsonaro won the election. After his inauguration he immediately installed Moro as Minister of Justice.
Bolsonaro immediately started to take care of U.S. priorities. Especially the poor in Brazilians now have to suffer under these policies. Their access to healthcare has severely diminished:
During his campaign for the presidency, Mr. Bolsonaro, a right-wing populist, committed to making major changes to the Mais Médicos program, an initiative begun in 2013 when a leftist government was in power. The program sent doctors into Brazil’s small towns, indigenous villages and violent, low-income urban neighborhoods.About half of the Mais Médicos doctors were from Cuba, and they were deployed to 34 remote indigenous villages and the poorer quarters of more than 4,000 towns and cities, places that established Brazilian physicians largely shun.
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Cuban doctors have long complained about getting only a small cut of the money for their work, and Mr. Bolsonaro said they would have to be allowed to keep their entire salaries and to bring their families with them to Brazil. They would also have to pass equivalency exams to prove their qualifications.“Our Cuban brothers will be freed,” Mr. Bolsonaro said in an official campaign proposal presented to electoral authorities. “Their families will be allowed to migrate to Brazil. And, if they pass the revalidation, they will begin to receive the entire amount that was being robbed by the Cuban dictators!”
Two weeks after Mr. Bolsonaro won the presidency in October, Cuba ordered all its doctors out.
There were a total of 11,500 Cuban doctors in Brazil. The Economist explained the deal:
The Cuban doctors participate in Brazil's Mais Médicos (More Doctors) programme, which aims to bring medical services to remote or underserved parts of the country by employing overseas doctors, mainly from Cuba. It was created in response to the mass protests that rocked Brazil in June 2013 over the poor quality of public services, including healthcare. The programme pays each participant a salary of around US$4,500 a month. However, the participation of Cuban doctors is organised through the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). The Brazilian government disburses the payments to the PAHO, which then transfers the monies to the Cuban government after taking a 5% administrative commission. The Cuban government pays the medical professionals working in Brazil a monthly salary of US$1,245, and pockets the rest.
Under the program housing and food for the doctors is paid by local authorities. Most of the Cuban doctors who volunteered for the program like it:
Yanet Rosales Rojas, 30, spent three years working in the Brazilian town of Poços de Caldas, where on average she earned more than 10 times her monthly salary in Cuba. She returned to the island last year, and was able to buy an apartment in Havana.“You earn much more than what you get in Cuba. I always wanted to travel and treat people in other countries. This was my chance,” she said.
Leasing medical professionals is Cuba’s main export, bringing in more hard currency than tourism: last year professional services by doctors and nurse brought in $11bn, compared to $3bn in tourism.
The chance to earn abroad is major incentive to study medicine, ...
The doctors receive their education in Cuba for free. The income the Cuban Ministry of Public Health makes through the program is used to equip Cuban clinics and to import medicine. Cuba provides free healthcare to its citizens.
Not all Cuban doctors in Brazil wanted to return to their home country. They had hoped to continue to work in Brazil, but their bet on Bolsonaro's words went bad:
Cont. reading: Cuban Doctors Provide Healthcare To Those In Need - The U.S. Wants To Stop Them
The MoA Week In Review - OT 2019-32
Last week saw our biannual request to you, dear readers, to support our efforts with a donation. Many of you thankfully do so. But many more seem to have missed the chance. If you are one of those sinners please click the link below to clean your conscience.
- June 3 - Fundraiser - Please Support Moon of Alabama
- June 5 - How Others See MoA: "Politically Neutral And Most Distant To Power"
- June 7 - How Moon of Alabama Is Made
- June 7 - We Are Happy To Announce 40 Million Lifetime Pageviews!
Last week's regular posts at Moon of Alabama:
- June 3 - Trump Meets British Humor
- June 9 - Syria - Western Media Glorification Of Syrian Jihadist Is A Sign That The War Is Far From Its End
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Use as open thread ...
Syria - Western Media Glorification Of Syrian Jihadist Is A Sign That The War Is Far From Its End
Western media currently publish glorifying obituaries for a Syrian 'rebel' who is know for extreme sectarianism and for being a member of a Jihadi group that is aligend with al-Qaeda.
The Associated Press, the BBC, the Guardian and analysts all write of Abdul Baset al-Sarout who yesterday died of wounds he received two days earlier when his group attacked Syrian government forces.
AP:
Abdul Baset al-Sarout, 27, rose to fame as a goalkeeper for his home city of Homs and won international titles representing his country. When peaceful protests broke out against Mr. al-Assad in 2011, Mr. al-Sarout led rallies and became known as the “singer of the revolution” for his ballads.When Syria slid into civil war, Mr. al-Sarout took up arms. He led a unit of fighters against government forces and survived the government siege of Homs.
The Guardian:
A Syrian footballer who became a symbolic figure in the rebellion against the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, has died of wounds suffered in a battle with government forces.
Hassan Hassan, an often quoted 'analyst' in Washington DC, tweets:
Hassan Hassan @hxhassan - 4:11 PM - 8 Jun 2019Some individuals celebrated as heroes make you doubt all stories of heroes in history books. Others, like Abdulbasit Sarout, not inspire of but despite his flaws, make those stories highly plausible. He’s a true legend & his story is well documented. May his soul rest in peace
The BBC:
There were rumours that Mr Sarout subsequently pledged allegiance to the so-called Islamic State.He denied this, but admitted he had considered the idea when IS seemed the only force strong enough to combat the government - a sign of how the rebel cause disintegrated.
AP again:
“He was both a popular figure, guiding the rebellion, and a military commander,” said Maj. Jamil al-Saleh, leader of the rebel group Jaish al-Izza, in which Mr. al-Sarout was a commander. “His martyrdom will give us a push to continue down the path he chose and to which he offered his soul and blood as sacrifice.”
The above may leave readers with a few questions.
Q: What 'ballads' did the "singer of the revolution” sing?
A March 2012 video shows al-Sarout taking to the stage at a demonstration in the part of Homs that he and other 'rebels' occupied.
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Abdul Baset al-Sarout chants slogans each of which the crowd then repeats:
We ar all Jihadis.
Homs has made its decision.
We will exterminate the Alawites.
And the Shiites have to leave.
Q: What made al-Sarout a "symbolic figure"?
Sarout appeared as a main persona in a pro-Jihadi propagada documentary that mainstream media hyped:
Filmed during two years, from 2011 to 2013, this by turns exhilarating and devastating documentary tracks some key players in the resistance against Bashir al-Assad's regime. The foremost is Abdul Baset al-Sarout, once a goalkeeper for Syria's national youth football team, he is a charismatic character who starts out leading chants in the streets in 2011 and ends up becoming a battle-worn leader for the militia.
Q: What were the 'flaws' the 'true legend' al-Sarout allegedly had?
While al-Sarout did not mind suicide bombings and called for mass murder of people of other beliefs his drug fuelled style of life was not pure enough to be accepted by the Islamic State.
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From a 2014 interview (vid) with the 'charismatic character' recorded shortly before the Syrian Arab Army removed al-Sarout and his group from Homs:
We Are Happy To Announce 40 Million Lifetime Pageviews!
Over the last week there were several meta-post about the Moon of Alabama blog itself. This is another happy one.
A week ago we announced some minor renovations of this blog's functionality. Smaller linking issues were fixed and the 'search' feature is now again available. The best though is that Moon of Alabama is now -thanks to Philipe- perfectly readable on mobile devices. Try it out and bookmark it on your smartphone!
Yesterday your host explained how this blog gets made. It may be astonishing that the typing up of a post is actually the least time consuming task. But it is only a lot of reading and research that allows for Moon of Alabama's exceptional thematic breadth.
Today we can all see the result of this work. Moon of Alabama just passed the mark of 40 million lifetime pageviews!
Here is a screenshot of the blog's statistics page taken today at 18:48 UTC or 2:48 PM EST.
This blog was created on June 30 2004. As it says on its About page:
This site's purpose is to discuss politics, economics, philosophy and blogger Billmon's Whiskey Bar writings.Some time ago the commenting at Billmon's Whiskey Bar became a bit excessive. Billmon therefore closed the comments at his place on June 29, 2004. The community of commentators was left behind to search for a new place.
Moon of Alabama was opened as an independent, open forum for members of the Whiskey Bar community.
Bernhard started and still runs the site. Once a while you will also find posts and art from regular commentators.
Billmon since closed his Whiskey Bar and Bernhard, aka b, became an accidental blogger.
The first post on Moon of Alabama was headlined KISS for 'keep it simple stupid'. I still stick to that principle and therefore keep the original design. Don't expect any nifty updates or features.
Throughout the first years this blog was called up only a few dozens times per day. The "7332.37 Pageviews/Day" in the above statistics are thereby a bit misleading. Currently a page of this site is called up and viewed some 25,000 times per day.
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Compared to some other sites the 25,000 pageviews per day are a small number. But it means that there are more than 10,000 people who visit the Moon on any average day.
During its first 12 years this blog was run as a private hobby. It is now one authors full time activity. He depends on the generosity of the reader of this site to keep it going. Please consider to donate to him.
Email - MoonofA @ aol.com - (take out the blanks) to receive my mail address and bank transfer data. Or use the Paypal button below to send whatever you think is appropriate down my way. (The Paypal account is in Euros. 1 Euro is currently about US$1.15.)
Thanks! - b.
U.S. 7th Fleet Cruiser Ignores Rules At Sea - Nearly Collides With Russian Destroyer
The accident prone U.S. 7th fleet is again in trouble. CNN sensationally reports of a near collision of a U.S. navy ship with a Russian navy one:
The United States and Russian navies are at odds over an apparent near collision in the Pacific Friday with each side blaming the other. The US and Russian warships came somewhere between 50 feet and 165 feet of each other, according to the two opposing reports, with both sides alleging their ships were forced to perform emergency maneuvers to avoid a collision.
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"A Russian destroyer .... made an unsafe maneuver against USS Chancellorsville, closing to 50-100 feet, putting the safety of her crew and ship at risk," US Navy spokesman Cmdr. Clayton Doss told CNN in a statement."This unsafe action forced Chancellorsville to execute all engines back full and to maneuver to avoid collision," Doss said.
The US guided-missile cruiser was traveling in a straight line and trying to recover its helicopter when the incident occurred, he said. "We consider Russia's actions during this interaction as unsafe and unprofessional," Doss said.
There are international nautical rules that apply to any ship at sea. Those rules give no special right to any ship that is traveling in a straight line or tries to recover a helicopter.
The Russian navy says that its ship had the right of way and that the U.S. ship hindered its passage:
Russia has voiced a protest to the US command after its guided-missile cruiser hindered the passage of the Admiral Vinogradov anti-submarine destroyer some 50 meters in front of it, forcing the vessel to perform a dangerous maneuver, the Pacific Fleet’s press service told reporters on Friday.The incident occurred at 6.35 a.m. Moscow Time in the southeastern part of the East China Sea, when a task force of the Russian Pacific Fleet and a US carrier strike group were heading in parallel directions. "The US cruiser Chancellorsville suddenly changed its course and crossed the Admiral Vinogradov destroyer’s course some 50 meters away from the ship. In order to prevent a collision, the Admiral Vinogradov’s crew was forced to conduct an emergency maneuver," the press service said.
The U.S. Navy provided CNN with a picture of the incident taken from a helicopter. It clearly shows that U.S. ship was in the wrong and that the Russian view of the incident is the correct one.
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The picture shows both ships with their bows towards the camera. The ship seen on the left is the Russian destroyer Admiral Vinogradov. The ship seen on the right side of the picture is the U.S. cruiser Chancellorsville. The stern waves show that the Russian ship was on a straight course and made a last-minute maneuver by taking a sharp turn to its right to avoid an imminent collision.
To judge the situation one must take the view of both bridge crews at the time before the emergency maneuver happened. The crew of the U.S. cruiser saw the Russian ship coming up on its right or starboard side. The crew of the Russian ship saw the U.S. ship coming up on its left or port side. The rules for such a crossing of courses at sea are clear.
The Handbook of Nautical Rules lists as the International Maritime Organization Rule 15:
When two power-driven vessels are crossing so as to involve risk of collision, the vessel which has the other on her own starboard side shall keep out of the way and shall, if the circumstances admit, avoid crossing ahead of the other vessel.
The book explains further:
Cont. reading: U.S. 7th Fleet Cruiser Ignores Rules At Sea - Nearly Collides With Russian Destroyer
How Moon of Alabama Is Made
In one of the interviews Seymour Hersh gave last year about his life as a reporter he was asked to give advice for other writers. He offered three tips:
- Read before you write.
- Know more than you write.
- Get yourself out of the way of the story.
Moon of Alabama writings try to follow those rules. This though is a meta piece about our writing for Moon of Alabama. The third rule thus does not apply.
To publish five to six original pieces per week, each on a different issue, requires appropriate tools, time, and a disciplined workflow.
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The first half of my days is spent with gathering news. It starts at at 7:00 or 8:00 am with scrolling through the last night's tweets of the 600 Twitter accounts I follow. If there are links of interest they get opened for later reading. Then comes a walk through the major newspapers' headlines and news agency sites. At the end of this process there are 20 or more open browser tabs that require further attention.
After a quick glance they get either closed or saved. The links and headlines will be copied into Notepad++ where each general current issue - Syria, Boeing 737 MAX, China tariffs, etc - has its own file. If there are usable excerpts or quotes they are added too. It is pretty much noon by the time the general reading is finished.
After a quick lunch comes a short check of Moon of Alabama. Comments caught in the spam folder ask to be liberated. The last night's treads might be in a need of a clean up.
Another reading round follows through the dozens of blogs on our Links page. In between more stuff comes up on Twitter that again deserves attention. Now, six hours after the workday began, the information collection phase is mostly finished.
Then comes the big question of the day. What should I write about? What is the issues where I could make an interesting point that others have missed?
At times the answer is obvious. On other day there is absolutely no idea and even a walk through the neighborhood does not help to make that decision.
Luckily there are also days where I get help from my neighbors and friends.
The writing itself is rather quick. To type up the raw version of an 800 word story takes only about two hours. Most of the details come from earlier research or from previously collected links. The following editorial and production process now often takes longer than that.
The first reading through the raw story checks for the basic logic and completeness of a piece. Does it really make the point it is supposed to make? Are there claims in it that need to be substantiated? Is this or that detail necessary to make the point or is it just fluff? Do the quotes or excerpts make sense? If necessary, details and links get added or cut at this time. Pictures will have to be found, cropped, resized, uploaded and linked.
So far all this is is done in basic HTML directly in the editor the Typepad system provides. Only now follows the switch to the better readable rich text mode that you see here.
The second reading includes style and layout issues. Are there boring repetitions or long nested construct over which a reader might stumble? Does this sentence use the right tense? English is not my first language and I never lived in an English speaking country. I often need help with it. I use Leo.org to find synonyms or better English expression for whatever meaning I have in mind.
The last reading is abstract from the content and strictly to eliminate typos. Inevitably some will escape.
Time to publish? Not yet. A break is necessary to distance oneself from the text. Filling the cloth washer or running some errant helps with that.
Then follow the last three tasks - find a headline, write a summarizing intro sentence and formulate the end. All three are most important for the attractiveness of a piece to readers and to commentators.
Only after all three are edited and rechecked for mistakes the 'Publish' button gets pressed. The day's work is finally on its way to you, the readers of this site.
It is also you, the readers, who make Moon of Alabama possible.
Your writer and host lives alone and is quite frugal. My apartment is in a small town that has now became part of a big city. Everything I need is within easy walking distance. This is the ideal place to do such time consuming work.
But there is also a need for income. I depend on you who read this to contribute to it. Email 'MoonofA @ aol.com' for my address and bank connection. Or use the Paypal button below to send whatever you are willing to spare down my way.
Thank you. - b.
Odd NYT 'Correction' Exculpates British Government And CIA From Manipulating Trump Over Skripal Novichok Incident
A piece in the New York Times showed how in March 2018 Trump was manipulated by the CIA and MI6 into expelling 60 Russian diplomats. Eight weeks after it was published the New York Times 'corrects' that narrative and exculpates the CIA and MI6 of that manipulation. Its explanation for the correction makes little sense.
On April 16 the New York Times published a report by Julian E. Barnes and Adam Goldman about the relation between CIA Director Gina Haspal and President Donald Trump.
Gina Haspel Relies on Spy Skills to Connect With Trump. He Doesn’t Always Listen.
The piece described a scene in the White House shortly after the contentious Skripal/Novichok incident in Britain. It originally said (emphasis added):
During the discussion, Ms. Haspel, then deputy C.I.A. director, turned toward Mr. Trump. She outlined possible responses in a quiet but firm voice, then leaned forward and told the president that the “strong option” was to expel 60 diplomats.To persuade Mr. Trump, according to people briefed on the conversation, officials including Ms. Haspel also tried to show him that Mr. Skripal and his daughter were not the only victims of Russia’s attack.
Ms. Haspel showed pictures the British government had supplied her of young children hospitalized after being sickened by the Novichok nerve agent that poisoned the Skripals. She then showed a photograph of ducks that British officials said were inadvertently killed by the sloppy work of the Russian operatives.
The 60 Russian diplomats were expelled on March 26 2018. Other countries only expelled a handful of diplomats over the Skripal incident. On April 15 2018 the Washington Post reported that Trump was furious about this:
The next day, when the expulsions were announced publicly, Trump erupted, officials said. To his shock and dismay, France and Germany were each expelling only four Russian officials — far fewer than the 60 his administration had decided on. The President, who seemed to believe that other individual countries would largely equal the United States, was furious that his administration was being portrayed in the media as taking by far the toughest stance on Russia.
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Growing angrier, Trump insisted that his aides had misled him about the magnitude of the expulsions. ‘There were curse words,’ the official said, ‘a lot of curse words.
In that context the 2019 NYT report about Haspel showing Trump dead duck pictures provided by the Brits made sense. Trump was, as he himself claimed, manipulated into the large expulsion.
The NYT report created some waves. On April 18 2019 the Guardian headlined:
No children or ducks harmed by novichok, say health officials
Wiltshire council clarification follows claims Donald Trump was shown images to contrary
The report of the dead duck pictures in the New York Times was a problem for the CIA and the British government. Not only did it say that they manipulated Trump by providing him with false pictures, but the non-dead ducks also demonstrated that the official narrative of the allegedly poisoning of the Skripals has some huge holes. As Rob Slane of the BlogMire noted:
D-Day And The Myth That The U.S. Defeated The Nazis
Each D-Day anniversary the same question comes up. Who defeated Germany and its allies? The answer is, without any doubt, the Soviet Union.
But after decades of western propaganda the claims that the U.S. defeated the Reich has taken over many minds. Polls show that such propaganda works. More than half of the French people now believe that the U.S. contributed the most to the defeat of Germany.
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The U.S. lost 411.000 people due to World war II, Great Britain lost 450,000, Germany some 7 million and the Soviet Union more than 20 million.
Many people think that the Soviet Union, now "the Russians", were always the bad guys and that Germany was a loyal ally during that war. That is at least what the verified account of the British Royal Family seems to believe.
The Royal Family @RoyalFamily - 10:30 utc - 5 Jun 2019The Queen was introduced to leaders by the Prime Minister @10DowningStreet - each representing the allied nations that took part in D-Day. #DDay75
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The Russian President Vladimir Putin was not invited to the royal reception commemorating the 75th anniversary of D-Day. Instead the Queen shook hands with German Chancellor Merkel. Merkel should have rejected to be there unless Putin would also be invited. The leaders from other Soviet countries, Vladimir Zelensky of the Ukraine and Alexander Lukashenko from Belarus, should also be there.
There is of course some truthiness in saying that a few German divisions took part in D-Day. And a few dozens sub-par German division later joined the fight at the Western front. But at the same time some 200 division of German led forces were engaged in the east.
Two weeks after D-Day the Red Army launched Operation Bagration and attacked the German Army Group Centre lines in the east on a thousand miles long front. Within eight weeks the German led forces were pushed back some 200 miles. Most of the 30 some divisions under Army Group Centre's command were destroyed. It was that attack that broke the back of the German Wehrmacht. Cynically said - the U.S. led invasion in the west was a mere diversion for the much larger attack in the east.
Ten years ago Anatoly Karlin wrote in The Poisonous Myths of the Eastern Front:
Cont. reading: D-Day And The Myth That The U.S. Defeated The Nazis
How Others See MoA: "Politically Neutral And Most Distant To Power"
The Swiss Propaganda Research group is an independent nonprofit organization investigating geopolitical propaganda in international media. Its major articles are available in English language.
One of its recent projects is the Media Navigator. It classifies more than 70 English language news outlets based on their political stance and their relationship to power.
The relationship to power on the X-axis varies for 'Close' to 'Distant', the political stance from 'Conservative' to 'Liberal'.
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According to their judgment Moon of Alabama is neutral in its political stance while being most distant to power.
Your host is quite happy with this classification. It reflects our effort to base our analysis on facts and logic, and not on feelings or a personal agenda.
If you believe that a neutral medium with due distance to power is of value, please consider to contribute to this effort.
You send cash or a check to keep Moon of Alabama going. You can also use a bank-wire transfer. Send email to MoonofA @ aol.com for the necessary details. To use a credit card or other means please donate through the PayPal button below.
Thanks you very much.