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This excerpt features Dr. Gus Abu-Sitta and Andre Vltchek discussing the Ecology of war and its effects on people living in war conditions.  One of their digressions from the main topic was the idea that sanctions, and other Western initiatives are designed to denude the State of its non-coercive powers i.e utilities, education, and medical services.  Once those non-coercive state faculties are destroyed, internal collapse is all but inevitable.  

Looking back a touch in history certain cases come immediately to mind.  The UN (US) sanctions on Iraq for instance, and the terrifying cost 500,000 children dead.  Now underlying this appalling strategy we can see what one of the aims of the sanctions actually were – deprive the Iraqi State of the ability to help its citizens, with the goal of weakening the fabric of society, paving the way for future military and corporate conquest.

Scary shit.

“G.A-S: In the South, medicine and the provision of health were critical parts of the post-colonial state. And the post-colonial state built medical systems such as we had in Iraq, Egypt and in Syria as part of the social contract. They became an intrinsic part of the creation of those states. And it was a realization that the state has to exercise its power both coercively, (which we know the state is capable of exercising, by putting you in prison, and even exercising violence), but above all non-coercively: it needs to house you, educate you, and give you health, all of those things. And that non-coercive power that the states exercise is a critical part of the legitimizing process of the state. We saw it evolve in 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. So as a digression, if you want to look at how the state was dismantled: the aim of the sanctions against Iraq was not to weaken the Makhabarat or the army, the aim of the sanctions was to rob the Iraqi state of its non-coercive power; its ability to give life, to give education, and that’s why after 12 years, the state has totally collapsed internally – not because its coercive powers have weakened, but because it was robbed of all its non-coercive powers, of all its abilities to guarantee life to its citizens.

AV: So in a way the contract between the state and the people was broken.

G.A-S: Absolutely! And you had that contract existing in the majority of post-colonialist states. With the introduction of the IMF and World Bank-led policies that viewed health and the provision of health as a business opportunity for the ruling elites and for corporations, and viewed free healthcare as a burden on the state, you began to have an erosion in certain countries like Egypt, like Jordan, of the non-coercive powers of the state, leading to the gradual weakening of its legitimacy. Once again, the aim of the IMF and World Bank was to turn health into a commodity, which could be sold back to people as a service; sold back to those who could afford it.

AV: So, the US model, but in much more brutal form, as the wages in most of those countries were incomparably lower.

G.A-S: Absolutely! And the way you do that in these countries: you create a two-tier system where the government tier is so under-funded, that people choose to go to the private sector. And then in the private sector you basically have the flourishing of all aspects of private healthcare: from health insurance to provision of health care, to pharmaceuticals.”

[Source:Counterpunch]

    It is horrifying enough the results of the planned destruction of a nation’s society, but what is worse, is the fact that this is a carefully planned and codified strategy employed by the so called (self described) ‘good-guys’ of the world.  If that doesn’t chill your cornfritters, I’m not sure what could.