Saturday, March 06, 2021

UK
NHS pay: Nursing union sets up £35m strike fund as anger grows over ‘insulting’ 1% offer

The proposed award would amount to only an extra £3.50 per week take-home pay for an experienced nurse


By Paul Gallagher
March 5, 2021

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) is preparing for potential strike action over the Government’s support for a 1 per cent pay increase for NHS staff amid mounting anger at the “insulting” offer.

The College’s governing council met in an emergency meeting on Thursday evening and voted unanimously for the College to immediately set up a £35m strike fund – an amount of money that can be used to support workers, who are members of a trade union, to provide some compensation for loss of earnings and campaigning during industrial action.

A spokesman for the RCN said: “RCN Council are determined to have the finances available to our members should they wish to take action. In setting up this fund, the RCN will create the UK’s largest union strike fund overnight. The next steps will be decided in conjunction with our members. Further announcements will be made in the coming weeks.”

The RCN said the pay award would amount to only an extra £3.50 per week take-home pay for an experienced nurse and that the Government can expect “a backlash from a million NHS workers” between now and when a final decision is taken by Ministers in May.

Read More
NHS pay rise row could worsen staff shortages just as the health service faces biggest backlog on record

Unite has also warned of industrial action amid mounting anger over the Government’s recommendation. The leading union, which represents tens of thousands of health service staff, said it will now be considering all its options, including holding an industrial action ballot, as part of its campaign for a decent pay rise.

The Government has said there had to be ‘trade-offs’ over bigger pay rise and boosting staff numbers in the NHS (Photo: PA)

Unite national officer for health, Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe, said: “We will be fully consulting our members on the next steps, given that inflation could be 2 per cent by the end of 2021, so what Prime Minister Boris Johnson is recommending is another pay cut in real terms. It shows an unyielding contempt by ministers for those who have done so much to care for tens of thousands of Covid-19 patients in the last year.

“The public is rightly outraged by a Government that can spend £37bn on the flawed private sector Test and Trace programme, but can’t find the cash for a decent pay rise for those on the NHS front line. Public opinion will be key in shaming the Government into changing its recommendations to the NHS Pay Review Body.


“Chancellor Rishi Sunak will suffer severe reputational damage if he fails to deliver the money necessary to fund a decent pay rise after a decade of austerity that has seen the pay packets of many NHS staff shrink by 19 per cent in real terms since the Tories came to power in 2010.”

Unison, which is calling on the Government to give all NHS workers a pay rise of at least £2,000, called the proposal “the worst kind of insult”.

Health Minister Nadine Dorries said the Government could not afford to give NHS staff in England a pay rise of more than 1 per cent following uproar after the figure was submitted to the sector’s pay review body (PRB). She defended the Government’s position in a series of interviews on Friday, saying nurses have received a 12 per cent increase in pay over the last three years and the average nurse’s salary is around £34,000.

Read More
Tory MPs attack Government’s ‘inept’ and ‘unacceptable’ 1% NHS pay rise offer

“Everybody in an ideal world would love to see nurses paid far more… but we are coming out of a pandemic where we have seen huge borrowing and costs to the Government,” she told Sky News.

“I think it is important to note that the priority of the Government has been about protecting people’s livelihoods, about continuing the furlough scheme, about fighting the pandemic, and we’ve put huge effort into that.

“We do not want nurses to go unrecognised – or doctors – and no other public sector employee is receiving a pay rise, there has been a pay freeze. But the 1 per cent offer is the most we think we can afford which we have put forward to the pay review body.”

Ms Dorries, a former nurse, said she was “pleasantly surprised” when a 1 per cent pay rise for NHS staff in England was proposed.

Asked by BBC Breakfast what her reaction was to the news, she said: “I was actually surprised because I knew that we’d frozen public-sector pay, that no-one in the public sector was receiving a pay rise, so I was pleasantly surprised that we were making an offer.”


The independent pay review bodies will report in late spring and the Government said it will “consider their recommendations carefully when we receive them”.

 

Was there a big cut to NHS frontline   services buried in the budget?

Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth claimed a £30.1bn shortfall was hidden in Rishi Sunak’s statement


    An NHS ‘thank you’ sign in Canvey Island, Essex
An NHS ‘thank you’ sign in Canvey Island, Essex. Labour’s Jonathan Ashworth claimed the health budget has been quietly cut by £30.1bn. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images
 Health policy editor

Rishi Sunak barely mentioned the NHS in his budget. So what’s the issue?

Labour claims the chancellor has quietly cut the Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) budget for 2021-22 by £30.1bn. Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, said: “Rishi Sunak promised to be ‘open and honest’ with the British public. But buried in the small print of his budget is a cut to frontline NHS services that will increase pressure on staff and do nothing for patients stuck on growing waiting lists.”

Is Ashworth right?

No. The reduction in the DHSC’s budget only relates to the extra costs it and the NHS in England have incurred from tackling the Covid-19 pandemic over the last year. That has involved spending billions on personal protective equipment (PPE) for staff and £22bn on the government’s test-and-trace programme, which has performed poorly. Importantly, despite Ashworth’s claim, the budget cut does not relate to frontline NHS services such as A&E care, diagnostic tests, surgery and outpatient appointments.

What are the sums of money involved here?

The Treasury gave the DHSC an extra £58.9bn in emergency additional funding this year to cover the huge extra costs resulting from the pandemic, which took its total budget for this year up to £199.2bn. However, in the new year starting on 1 April, Matt Hancock’s department will receive just £22bn over and above its core budget for Covid expenses. That means its overall budget will fall to £169.1bn.

Ashworth depicts the difference between those two sums as a £30.1bn “cut to frontline NHS services”. It is not, though. The extra £58.9bn was exceptional, and by definition temporary, funding. It was never meant to be permanent. With the pandemic receding for now, and a huge stockpile of PPE stored in warehouses, the DHSC is receiving much less this year than last from the Treasury.

So what is happening to the money the DHSC receives to fund normal NHS services?

This involves what in Whitehall speak is called the DHSC’s “resource departmental expenditure level (DEL or RDEL)”. It is actually going up, from £140.3bn this year to £147.1bn – an increase of £6.8bn.

But many NHS organisations are unhappy about the budget. Why is that?

The NHS Confederation (hospital trust bosses), British Medical Association (doctors) and the Health Foundation thinktank say the NHS in England needs at least £10bn more in 2021-22 to meet the extra costs Covid has caused, notably a big backlog of surgery and extra demand for mental health care. Sunak gave the service £3bn more in 2021-22 for those things in his autumn statement last November. But the confederation says that is “not enough”. They point to the fact that 4.5 million people are waiting to have treatment in hospital such as an operation – the highest number on record – and that it is estimated up to 10 million people, or almost 20% of England’s population, will need either new or extra mental health support as a direct result of the pandemic.


BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL
Covid 19: Why we can’t risk another wave

BMJ Editor's Choice

(Published 04 March 2021)Cite this as: BMJ 2021;372:n609

Fiona Godlee, editor in chiefAuthor affiliations
fgodlee@bmj.com
Follow Fiona on Twitter @fgodlee

The opening of schools across the UK and elsewhere in the world will bring relief to many families. It will also give children back the educational, social, and safeguarding benefits of interacting with teachers and friends. This is a vital, but still risky, step toward emerging safely from lockdown. Children’s futures are not the only things at stake if we get this wrong.

The risks to children of serious covid-19 illness are low,1 and cumulative international evidence indicates that schools are not amplifiers of transmission.2 But this does not mean that nothing further needs to be done to make schools safe. Nor does it mean an end to the many controversies around school closures during the pandemic, as our webinar on covid-19 and schools showed.3

Countries have taken a range of approaches, from keeping schools almost entirely open throughout the pandemic to prolonged periods of school closure. Scotland is phasing the return to school for different year groups, whereas England is opening them all at once. The Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies has recommended that schools reopen only when there are fewer than 100 confirmed cases per 100 000 population per week,4 but levels in England are currently higher than this. Then there are the questions of how to reduce class sizes, whether children should wear masks, and how to ensure proper ventilation.

Helen Salisbury writes that we have a responsibility to minimise exposure to infection for those who can’t control their own environments. As well as people in schools, this means those in workplaces, prisons, and asylum detention centres.5 What seems abundantly clear is that, although the success of the vaccine rollout is to be celebrated,6 we can’t rely on the vaccine alone. Avoiding another wave and further lockdowns will need, among other things, speedier access to accurate data for local public health teams and, as has been repeatedly called for, proper financial and practical support for those who need to self-isolate.7

“Getting back to normal” is what we all want, but this won’t be easy for the health service and those working in it. Recovering from the pandemic will be as challenging as the pandemic itself, say Christina Pagel and Edward Palmer.8 The past year has taken a heavy toll on all healthcare workers, with high rates of mental ill health and post-traumatic stress. Doctors have been particularly hard hit.9 Redeployment to unfamiliar roles and disruption to training have added to the burdens of delivering care. Healthcare leaders must ensure that staff have time to rest, recuperate, and reflect. And they must urgently look beyond the immediate demands of the current outbreak to act now on measures that will increase recruitment and retention, without which there will be little hope of delivering high quality care for all.

There are many reasons for doing everything possible to avoid another wave of the pandemic. The impact on healthcare staff and the future of our health services are two of them.


This article is made freely available for use in accordance with BMJ's website terms and conditions for the duration of the covid-19 pandemic or until otherwise determined by BMJ. You may use, download and print the article for any lawful, non-commercial purpose (including text and data mining) provided that all copyright notices and trade marks are retained.https://bmj.com/coronavirus/usage

References


Rubens JH,
Akindele NP,
Tschudy MM,
Sick-Samuels AC. Acute covid-19 and multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children. BMJ2021;372:n385. doi:10.1136/bmj.n385 pmid:33648933
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Lewis SJ,
Munro APS,
Smith GD,
Pollock AM. Closing schools is not evidence based and harms children. BMJ2021;372:n521. doi:10.1136/bmj.n521 pmid:33622685
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Covid-19 and schools—known unknowns https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/02/03/covid-19-and-schools-known-unknowns/


Independent Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies. The return to school: a consultation document. iSAGE report https://www.independentsage.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Schools-consultation-Feb-2021-2.pdf



Salisbury H. Helen Salisbury: Stepping back from vaccination priorities and focusing on minimising the risk of exposure. BMJ2021;372:n591. doi:10.1136/bmj.n591 pmid:33653701
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Mahase E. Covid-19: Where are we on vaccines and variants?BMJ2021;372:n597. doi:10.1136/bmj.n597 pmid:33653708
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Rae M. The government has set out its covid roadmap for England—will it avoid a fourth lockdown? https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/02/23/the-uk-government-has-set-outs-its-covid-roadmap-will-it-avoid-a-fourth-lockdown/


Pagel C, Palmer E. “We are setting ourselves on fire to keep everyone else warm”—what does the recovery look like for NHS staff? https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/02/01/we-are-setting-ourselves-on-fire-to-keep-everyone-else-warm-what-does-the-recovery-look-like-for-nhs-staff/



Appleby J. NHS sickness absence during the covid-19 pandemic. BMJ2021;372:n471.
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ROOTS
Pamela Anderson Sells Malibu Mansion, Will Live On Vancouver Island

She's planning to settle down in the town she was born in.

By Al Donato
03/05/2021 

Pamela Anderson is planning to sell her multi-million Malibu mansion and settle down in the Vancouver Island town she was born and raised in, the New York Post reports.

The former “Baywatch” actor told the outlet that she decided to move back to Canada following her surprise wedding to her bodyguard, Dan Hayhurst, last Christmas Eve.

“I feel more settled on my sustainable ranch on Vancouver Island with space to rescue more animals. It’s still beachfront. One foot away from the water — and I’m lost,” Anderson said

Her Malibu beachfront is listed by Tomer Fridman of The Fridman Group for $14.9-million USD, or $18.8-million CAD. Anderson originally bought the property in 2008; she’s tried to sell it before and has previously rented it for upwards of $50,000 a month, according to the Los Angeles Times.


JOEL DANTO OF THE LUXURY LEVELA
 photo of Pamela Anderson's Malibu home.

Before moving into that home, she lived in a “shabby chic” Malibu home, which was featured in an episode of “MTV Cribs” that aired in 2000.


Anderson wanted to get back to her roots in Ladysmith, B.C., where she owns property that once belonged to her grandmother.

“I left my small town in my early twenties for ′Playboy,′ travelled all around the world, just to come home — one of the most beautiful places on earth,” she told People. “I made it home in one piece, a miracle. I’m a lucky girl.”

“I left my small town in my early twenties for 'Playboy,' travelled all around the world, just to come home — one of the most beautiful places on earth.”

- PAMELA ANDERSON VIA PEOPLE


Anderson and her husband have stayed in Ladysmith since 2019, often visiting pre-pandemic to fix up the property, as it had fallen into disrepair after her grandmother’s death.

Rumours that she planned to re-develop or build condos in town were shut down in a 2019 interview with local outlet Ladysmith Chemainus Chronicle.

The Canadian star has posted glimpses of her life on Vancouver Island on social media. She enjoys spending her time there in the great outdoors with her pets

.

The 53-year-old environmental activist has always had a special place in her heart for Ladysmith. She told the Wall Street Journal that she’s been busy there renovating her grandma’s land, building a greenhouse and pickling vegetables.

As far as B.C. life goes, sounds like Anderson fits right in.


What The F**k': Canadians Aren't Pleased With NYT's Nanaimo Bar Recipe


New York Times Nanaimo Bar Recipe Dragged By Canadians
The New York Times’ track record on Canada is … not great.

By  
Mel Woods 
HUFFPOST CANADA
03/05/2021 


A custard-fuelled controversy is brewing on Canada’s West Coast and one of the largest newspapers in the United States is to blame.

The New York Times Cooking Instagram account shared a recipe and accompanying image for classic Canadian Nanaimo bars this week. But as many Canadians were quick to point out, something wasn’t quite right with the bars pictured.



“What da f**k have u done to it,” one user wrote.

The glaring issue with the NYT bars is the truly egregious ratio of crumb to buttercream to chocolate in the image. Dozens of Canadians commenters agreed, calling out the recipe for getting one of the dessert’s most basic things wrong.

“The near absence of a buttercream layer is most un-Canadian indeed,” wrote another.

While others pointed out that it adds to the Times’ already questionable coverage of the great white north.

“Another one in the ongoing NYT series: We didn’t speak to any Canadians but here’s a story about Canada,” another commenter wrote.

While this may not be as bad as the Times’ declaring we’re experiencing “Kamala Mania” or celebrating cannabis legalization with “C-Day,” my partner, who grew up in the central Vancouver Island city for which the bar is named, described the image in one simple word: “haunting.”

Nanaimo bars are a big deal in B.C. and Canada as a whole. The City of Nanaimo’s website has an entire page dedicated to the sweet treat.

“This creamy, chocolatey treat’s origin is elusive, shrouded in mystery, and claimed by many as their own. Of course, we know that Nanaimo Bars originated in Nanaimo, or they would be called New York Bars, or New Brunswick Bars,” reads the intro, followed by an official recipe.

They’re composed of three components: a coconut/nut crumble layer, a buttercream frosting with custard powder and a thin layer of chocolate on top. You would think that’s not that hard to get right.

Yet even Canada Post messed it up. In 2019, the service released a series of stamps inspired by Canadian desserts, including the Nanaimo bar. But the image pictured was heavy on the custard, light on everything else, and people took offense.

The mayor of Nanaimo even called out Canada Post for not consulting with his city’s residents, obviously the foremost experts on the bar.

WATCH: Canada Post unveils dessert stamps. Story continues below.


This is also not the first time an American outlet has gone after the beloved west coast treat.

Last September, BuzzFeed’s Canadian Twitter account shared a video to social media featuring recipes for variations on the beloved treat, except they called them “Canadian chocolate bars.”

A Coffee Crisp is a Canadian chocolate bar. A Nanaimo bar is not.

Even B.C. Premier John Horgan was quick to call them out.



BuzzFeed Canada quickly apologized for the Nanaimo bar slander.

“Our friends in LA made this video and named it Canadian Chocolate Bars. I’m sorry to all the Canadians we’ve offended with this video. It was never our intention. - Sincerely, a real Canadian,” BuzzFeed Canada wrote.

It’s not even the first time the Times has come under fire for its Nanaimo bar coverage. A 2019 piece garnered similar questions from B.C. residents.

We never got an apology for that situation, but New York Times food editor Sara Bonisteel told the CBC an “offset spatula situation” was to blame for the recent bar ratio issues in the NYT Cooking Instagram post.

Ultimately though, it does come down to preference. Some people like a little custard, some people like a lot. One thing we can all agree on is that the Nanaimo bar is truly a Canadian icon.


 

As Scientists Rally to His Defense, Lieber Rules Out Plea Deal, Plans To Stand Trial

Former Harvard Chemistry chair Charles M. Lieber will fight six felony charges brought against him by federal authorities, including that he lied to federal investigators about funding he received from the Chinese government.
Former Harvard Chemistry chair Charles M. Lieber will fight six felony charges brought against him by federal authorities, including that he lied to federal investigators about funding he received from the Chinese government. By Camille G. Caldera
By Meera S. Nair and Andy Z. Wang, Harvard Crimson Staff Writers
4 days ago 

Former Harvard Chemistry chair Charles M. Lieber is set to go to trial on federal charges after his attorney eliminated the possibility of a plea in a Friday status conference.

“At this time, Your Honor, there is no possibility of a plea and there will be a trial,” Marc L. Mukasey, Lieber’s counsel, told Magistrate Judge Marianne B. Bowler of the U.S. District Court of Massachusetts.

Last June, a federal grand jury indicted Lieber — who serves as a University Professor, Harvard’s highest academic honor — on charges that he lied to federal investigators who were examining funding he had received from the Chinese government. He was also indicted on four tax offenses the following month.

Lieber, who pleaded not guilty on all of the charges, has maintained his innocence throughout the proceedings. A federal charge for making false statements allows for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $250,000 fine.

Lieber received backing from an influential group of academics Monday. In a public letter, 41 professors from several American universities — including seven Nobel laureates — questioned the federal government’s prosecution of Lieber, describing the case as “unjust.”

In the letter — which was co-written by Harvard Chemistry and Chemical Biology professor Stuart L. Schreiber, co-founder of the Broad Institute, and Chemistry and Chemical Biology professor emeritus Elias J. Corey, a Nobel laureate in chemistry — the scientists argued that government efforts to eliminate foreign espionage have unjustly targeted academics like Lieber.

“In the name of combatting economic espionage, the Department of Justice has increasingly scrutinized members of the academic community,” the letter reads.

The scientists wrote that prosecutions like the one against Lieber have had a “chilling effect” on international scientific collaboration.

“Despite his standing in the scientific community — or perhaps because of it — he has become the target of a tragically misguided government campaign that is discouraging U.S. scientists from collaborating with peers in other countries, particularly China,” the letter reads.

“In so doing, it is threatening not only the United States’ position as a world leader in academic research, but science itself,” the scientists added.

The scientists also criticized Harvard for failing to indemnify and support Lieber in his legal proceedings. Harvard's stance contrasts MIT’s decision to come to the defense of MIT mechanical engineering professor Gang Chen, who was arrested earlier this year for allegedly failing to disclose his financial ties to China when applying for a grant from the U.S. Department of Energy.

Separate from his criminal trial, Lieber is pursuing a civil suit against Harvard, alleging the University violated its indemnification clause for professors by refusing to reimburse his criminal defense fees.

At the Friday status conference, Assistant U.S. Attorney James R. Drabick said Harvard had provided the government with nearly 3,000 pages of documents — primarily emails from Lieber’s official Harvard email account — in response to a federal grand jury subpoena.

University spokesperson Jonathan L. Swain declined to comment on the scientists’ letter and Lieber’s plans to take the case to trial. Harvard placed Lieber on paid administrative leave the day he was arrested in January 2020. University officials have previously argued that Lieber’s conduct — which they say led Harvard to submit false statements to the government — falls within exclusions in the indemnification policy for faculty “determined not to have acted in good faith.”

Corey, one of the authors of Monday’s letter, wrote in an emailed statement that global collaboration — including through publications and meetings — is necessary to advance scientific progress.

“How ironic that the USA has emerged as a critic of harmonious academic collaboration that benefits the whole world,” Corey wrote.

School of Engineering and Applied Sciences professor Evelyn L. Hu — who signed the letter — said she has found “a lot of things that are a little bit disturbing” about the Lieber case, though she declined to cite specific examples.

“What I will say is that this is a lingering issue, what happened to Professor Lieber, what happened to Professor Gang Chen in MIT,” Hu said.

The letter concludes by calling on the Department of Justice to cease prosecution in Lieber’s case to protect “the entire global scientific community.”

“While the damage that the federal government’s case has done to [Lieber] cannot be reversed, the Department of Justice should prevent further harm to him and the scientific process by declining prosecution of his case and others like it,” the scientists wrote.

A representative for the U.S. District Attorney for Massachusetts declined to comment, citing the pending case.

Lieber’s final pretrial status conference has been tentatively scheduled for March 26.

Friday, March 05, 2021

 

The Biden Administration Just Broke International Law. 

Why Doesn’t Anyone Care?

Joe Biden just authorised airstrikes on Syria without congressional approval.

by Aaron Bastani

5 March 2021

Gage Skidmore/Flickr

In January 2020, Iran’s most powerful general Qassem Soleimani was killed in a US airstrike along with four members of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces. Authorised by Donald Trump, the attack took place near Baghdad International Airport, with the US claiming Soleimani was in Iraq to coordinate attacks on US diplomatic and military personnel. Soon afterwards, however, Iraq’s prime minister disclosed that the major general was in fact delivering Iran’s response to a letter Iraq had despatched on behalf of Saudi Arabia.

At the time, leading Democrats criticised Trump for authorising the strike. Joe Biden accused the president of having “tossed a stick of dynamite into a tinderbox”, leaving the region “on the brink of a major conflict”. Elizabeth Warren, meanwhile, said Trump risked escalating tensions with Iran, while Pete Buttigieg declared there were “serious questions about how this decision was made”. Nancy Pelosi echoed such sentiments, saying the president was wrong to authorise the attack without first consulting Congress.

Yet last week, after president Biden approved his first military action, leading Democrats appeared by and large unconcerned. This is especially notable given that Biden, like Trump, authorised the action without congressional approval. 

What was the Biden administration’s motivation here? Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby claimed the strikes, which were aimed at “infrastructure utilised by Iranian-backed militant groups in eastern Syria” in response to attacks against US and coalition personnel in Iraq, were intended to punish the militias – but not escalate tensions with Iran. A separate official attempted to justify the action by claiming it may have killed only a “handful” of people, while the targeted “compound” was also, according to the US, previously used by Isis. 

Independent sources, however, now put the death toll from the strike at at least 22. Moreover, given those militias now subject to US bombing helped defeat Isis, a perennial question re-emerges: whose side is the US on in Syria? And what does it actually want from its westernmost ‘forever war’ in Asia?

Questionable grounds are accompanied by dubious legality, with the White House claiming the strikes were an act of “self defence”. In so doing, it cited Article 51 of the UN Charter, which states nothing “shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a member of the United Nations.” 

But what they neglected to mention were the words that come after this: “…until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security”. Given the attack wasn’t on American soil – and the US had adequate time to work with the Security Council to punish Iran through diplomacy – the attacks had no legal basis. “They are citing the correct sources of law,” a leading scholar in the field told Vox, but “are wildly misinterpreting them.”

What’s more, if Iran is the target of Washington’s ire, then what is the basis for strikes in a neighbouring state? Assad is a brutal dictator. But Syria is a sovereign country.

Before you call me an apologist for the Syrian president, these were in fact the words of Jen Psaki in 2017 after Trump authorised a similar attack without congressional approval, when Psaki was a political contributor for CNN. In her new job as White House press secretary, however, she doesn’t pose such questions, but rather deflects them. Such hypocrisy also applies to vice president Kamala Harris, who tweeted in 2018 that she was “deeply concerned about the legal rationale” for strikes in Syria. Similar comments in recent days, unsurprisingly, have not been forthcoming.

Even more galling than the double standard from senior Democrats – from Psaki and Harris to Pelosi and Buttigieg – is how behaviour reminiscent of Trump is actually celebrated by some of his biggest critics. “So different having military action under Biden,” tweeted Amy Suskind, who worked on Wall Street for two decades before rising to prominence opposing the former president. “No middle school level threats on Twitter”. One reply to that tweet read: “Such a quiet attack. No drama, no TV coverage of bombs hitting targets…what a difference!” This was in response to seven 500-pound bombs and significant loss of life.

The idea that US drone strikes in Syria constitute “self-defence” would be funny were it not so serious. The strikes were undertaken, after all, in response to events in Iraq – a country whose elected government requested the withdrawal of US forces a year ago. There is a term for when a foreign power remains in a country despite being asked to leave by its legitimate government: it’s a military occupation. Appeals to “self-defence” are doubly strange when one considers that the city of Erbil is 6,000 miles away from Washington, while Iran, which has denied any involvement in the attack, shares a land and sea border with 11 countries that are home to US military bases.

Despite having denied involvement in the Erbil attack, Kata’ib Hezbollah, one of the groups targeted, was allied with the US air force in 2015 during the capture of Tikrit. As with Soleimani, their reward for helping neutralise the world’s most dangerous terrorist organisation was for the US to then turn on them. As late as last year, the Washington Post described the organisation as “part of Iraq’s conventional security forces since helping Iraqi and coalition forces defeat the Islamic State”. Six months on, they are a foe whose deaths are an afterthought.

Rather than self-defence, the truth is that the targeting of militias in Syria – in response to events in Iraq – was done to avoid inflaming a volatile situation in the latter, with the US military already asked to leave. As with the execution of Soleimani, the Pentagon would not disclose the threat US forces faced in either country, saying instead the attack was to deter future Iranian assaults on Americans – although not a single Iranian national was among the 22 dead in Syria. Last week showed that for Biden, like Trump, making a political statement matters more than any loss of life or international law.

Murdering people in the name of ‘deterrence’ isn’t just immoral, but illegal too – and if those who criticised Donald Trump as commander-in-chief wish to enjoy a shred of credibility, they should say as much. As one tweet put it: “We got an airstrike before we got a stimulus check.” Continuing America’s forever wars isn’t just ethically disastrous – it may also allow a Republican back into the White House in 2024.  

Aaron Bastani is a Novara Media contributing editor and co-founder.