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Cohen begins by putting the current bipartisan Senate campaign to impose new, "crushing" sanctions on Russia in historical context. Broadly understood, sanctions have been part of US policy toward Russia for much of the past 100 years. During the Russian civil war of 1918-20, President Woodrow Wilson sent American troops to fight against the emerging Soviet government. Though the "Reds" were clearly the established government of Soviet Russia by 1921, Washington continued to deny the USSR diplomatic recognition until President Franklin D. Roosevelt established formal relations in 1933. During much of the 40-year Cold War, the United States imposed various sanctions on its superpower rival, mainly related to technological and military exports, along with periodic expulsions of diplomats and "spies" on both sides.
© AFPLabour party leader Jeremy Corbyn • Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.
Everyone and their brother in the UK - at least the tabloid media and pro-Israel apologists - has got it into their heads that the Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn laid a wreath on the grave of the Palestinian mastermind of the Munich massacre while visiting Tunisia in 2014. Is any of this true?
Well, yeah, some of it. He was in Tunisia. He did lay a wreath. He did honour the memories of dead Palestinians. But nothing beyond that. He laid a wreath that commemorated the 60 Palestinians and Tunisians who died in an Israeli revenge attack on PLO headquarters in Tunis. He did not lay a wreath at the grave of Salah Khalaf, also known as Abu Iyad, the former deputy to Yasser Arafat, who was assassinated by Israel in 1991 and who is buried nearby in the same cemetery.
Comment: Corbyn is the latest prime target for Israeli false narrative. Netanyahu is bent to control his message and smear leaders who differ. Each provocation provides a calibration of Israel's 'public and political programming' levels of achievement. It is not about this particular incident as much as it is a factor in an overarching plan.
© Glenn Waters/Getty Images
Tokyo dumped $82.9 billion, or seven percent of its US Treasuries holdings, over the twelve months ending in June - the latest month for which data is available.
In June alone, the country sold off $18.4 billion worth of the US securities. Japan's holding as of June totals $1.03 trillion, the lowest since October 2011, though the country still remains the second-biggest holder of US debt.
China, the biggest holder of the US sovereign debt at $1.178 trillion, sold $4.4 billion worth of the US bonds in June. Since October 2011, China's share of US Treasuries has declined by $138 billion. A fairly insignificant amount, but the escalating trade conflict with Washington could prompt Beijing to start massively dumping its holdings. The move could spell disaster for the US financial system.
Comment: While the US imposes sanctions to coerce other countries to conform to its edicts, other countries are retaliating by dumping America's financial buffer and hastening the demise of the dollar. Maybe a financial crisis will be the critical event to jolt the US into sanity.
© Infowars
A growing body of evidence, however, indicates that the meeting may have been a setup -- part of a broad effort to tarnish the Trump campaign involving Hillary Clinton operatives employed by Kremlin-linked figures and Department of Justice officials. This view, that the real collusion may have taken place among those who arranged the meeting rather than the Trump officials who agreed to attend it, is supported by two disparate lines of evidence pulled together for the first time here: newly released records and a pattern of efforts to connect the Trump campaign to Russia.
The first line of evidence includes emails, texts, and memos recently turned over to Congress by the Department of Justice. They show how closely senior Justice Department officials and the Federal Bureau of Investigation worked with employees of Fusion GPS, a Washington-based research firm reportedly paid $1 million by Clinton operatives to dig up dirt on the Trump campaign.
Comment: The loose ends all have to fit and perhaps we now know enough that they do.
© Hammurabi’s Justice News/APA U.S.-backed anti-government fighter mans a heavy automatic machine gun, left, next to an American soldier as they take their positions at Tanf, a border crossing between Syria and Iraq.
A recent report from the UN Security Council's Sanctions Monitoring Team has found that many of the places in Syria where the terror group Daesh (ISIS) continues to operate, recuperate and extract oil for profit are in areas of the country occupied by the United States.
According to the report's executive summary:
Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), having been defeated militarily in Iraq and most of the Syrian Arab Republic during 2017, rallied in early 2018 [owing to] a loss of momentum by forces fighting it in the east of the Syrian Arab Republic, which prolonged access by ISIL to resources and gave it breathing space to prepare for the next phase of its evolution into a global covert network."While the text itself doesn't explicitly state who controls these areas of Syrian territory, maps of eastern Syria make it clear that the pockets of Daesh within U.S.-controlled territory have remained unchanged in size since November 2017 while the Daesh pockets in the Syrian government-controlled portion of eastern Syria have shrunk considerably since last November.
Comment: The US abuses circumstances to self-justify its continued involvement in the Syrian war in order to maintain proximity to Iran. In this regard, a prolonged Syrian war is the excuse and US-held territory will be the last Daesh segments to be eliminated.
© Debbie Hill/APIsraeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu
"We confirm that the prime minister was questioned in his residence in Jerusalem within the framework of the investigation run by Lahav 433 police unit and the securities department," the press release said, adding that the questioning lasted for several hours.
In February, former Netanyahu spokesman Nir Hefetz, and Shlomo Filber, the ex-director of the communications ministry, were arrested on suspicion of promoting regulatory benefits worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Israeli telecom company Bezeq in return for favorable coverage of the prime minister on Bezeq's highly popular news site, Walla. Bezeq chairman Shaul Elovitch is also in custody, along with his wife, son and other Bezeq executives.
Netanyahu himself has not yet been named as a suspect in the case. Today's questioning is the 11th for Netanyahu in a series of corruption probes.
Comment: See also:
- Netanyahu caught on tape offering favors to opposition newspaper in exchange for more positive coverage
- The screws tighten around Netanyahu as he's named by state prosecutor in new bribery scandal
- Netanyahu's scandals reflect corruption at the heart of Israeli society
- Israeli police: Possible bribery and fraud in cases related to Netanyahu
© AFPNew Pakistani PM Imram Khan
In the vote at the National Assembly, Khan secured 176 votes, defeating opposition candidate Shahbaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, who got 96 votes. Khan's Tehrik-e Insaf party won the most seats in Pakistan's July 25 general elections.
Parliament's move cleared the way for the 65-year-old Khan to set up a coalition government, after his party fell short of the 172 seats needed to control an outright majority.
Khan, a populist who ran on an anticorruption platform, promised voters a "new Pakistan."
© Mustafa Andalib / Reuters
But unlike past empires defeated in Afghanistan, the US stands out as singularly contributing to its own ill-fate through excessive blundering and its legacy of criminal duplicity.
In particular, Washington's obsession with confronting neighboring Iran and plotting regime change in Tehran could well be the tipping point in Afghanistan. The point, that is, where the US tips itself into a strategic, military grave it has been digging in Afghanistan over the past two decades.
After 17 years of US military occupation costing the US taxpayer trillions of dollars, the Taliban insurgents seem to be able to launch spectacular attacks at will against the Washington-backed government in Kabul. By any measure, that portends a historic defeat for Washington's imperial ambitions. And not just in Afghanistan.
© ReutersParaguay's new President Mario Abdo Benitez and Paraguay's First Lady Silvana Lopez Moreira in the Lopez Palace in Asuncion
Mario Abdo Benitez was sworn in Tuesday morning in Asuncion; the 46-years-old former senator was elected in April with 46 percent of the vote representing the right-wing Colorado Party.
Abdo Benítez was sworn-in by the president of the Congress, Silvio Ovelar, after the vice president of the country, Hugo Velazquez, took his oath. The ceremony was attended by several foreign dignities, Evo Morales (Bolivia), Mauricio Macri (Argentina), Ivan Duque (Colombia), Tabare Vazquez (Uruguay), Tsai Ing-wen (Taiwán), among others.
Comment: Perhaps there's a little hope for Benitez if Morales saw fit to show some level of support in attending the swearing in.
"I want to show that my commitment is to the future of the Republic, I come to respect the institutions," said Benitez in a press conference moments before the swearing-in ceremony.
Comment: As Cohen brilliantly points out - sanctions, for the US, are a dead end.