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The US-led invasion of Iraq: "A war crime, pure and simple"

Dahr Jamail
Truthout
Mon, 10 Aug 2015 00:00 UTC
Image


A dozen years after the US-led invasion of Iraq, that country, now effectively another Middle East failed state, remains a bloody, chaotic symbol of the failed US imperial project.

Margaret Griffis, a journalist who has been covering casualty numbers in Iraq since 2006 for Antiwar.com, has published these recent headlines that give one an idea of how life is in today's Iraq:

"Mass Executions Terrorize Mosul; 141 Killed in Iraq"

"132 Killed across Iraq as Airstrikes Continue"

"At Least 4,693 Killed across Iraq in July"

"154 Killed in Iraq, including Dozens of Displaced Children"

"Mass Grave Unearthed in Mosul; 194 Killed across Iraq"
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Newspaper

Israeli president Reuven Rivlin criticizes Netanyahu's Iran deal rhetoric


Huffington Post
Thu, 13 Aug 2015 23:40 UTC

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spent the past month slamming the U.S.'s proposed nuclear deal with Iran. But even Israel's President Reuven Rivlin is calling on Bibi to tone down his rhetoric, for fears he's damaging U.S.-Israeli relations.
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Play

South Front Foreign Policy Diary: Unrest in Moldova - another Western imperial 'success'?


South Front
Thu, 13 Aug 2015 22:38 UTC
south front
Moldova, a small country with strong ties to Russia, is an important component of the ongoing developments in Eastern Europe. Since the collapse of the USSR, the US and the European Union have been increasing their influence in Moldova by supporting political parties and social movements, encouraging Chisinau's participation in their trade blocs, or boosting security cooperation with it in their military alliances. Additionally, in 1992 Transnistria practically broke away from Moldova and has since administered itself as an independent territory. An important feature of the stability of the territory is a Russian peacekeeping mission located there. In this case Moldavian elites shifted between Russia and the West till 2009 to get the best terms for themselves.


Comment: There is no such thing as national sovereignty. The politics of those countries unfortunate enough not to be empires is pretty much entirely a matter of selling themselves to the highest bidder (i.e., the U.S./EU), or struggling against the grain and meeting defeat. Whether Ukraine or Moldova, the U.S. tends to get its way, or kill thousands trying.

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Book 2

Hillarious: Hillary Clinton emails reveals she was reading a book on how to delete emails

Michael Krieger
Liberty Blitzkrieg
Thu, 13 Aug 2015 21:29 UTC
Hillary Clinton
As I've said many times before, the best part about Hillary Clinton running for President, is that she's so unbelievably corrupt and shady, not a week goes by without a new scandal or embarrassment. It makes the insulting charade of U.S. elections at least somewhat comical.

In the latest gaffe, we learn (through her own emails), that she asked to borrow a book titled, Send: Why People Email So Badly and How to Do It Better." Chapter Six of this book is titled, "The Email That Can Land You In Jail," which includes a section titled: "How to Delete Something So It Stays Deleted."

You can't make this stuff up.

Comment: Looks like the advice in the book didn't work out so well or she didn't get the book in time.

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Eye 1

Bailout terms for Athens are 'most extreme austerity measures we've ever witnessed'


RT
Thu, 13 Aug 2015 15:03 UTC
Greek flag
© Petros Karadjias / APA demonstrator waves a Greek flag during an anti-austerity rally in central Athens on Friday.
Requirements attached to Greece's latest bailout package are "extreme" free market fundamentalism designed to punish ordinary Greek people, a leading social justice campaign has said.

After all-night negotiations in Athens, the European Commission (EC) came to an agreement with Greek representatives on Tuesday to provide Greece with an €85 billion (£95 billion) rescue loan.

UK campaign group Global Justice Now slammed the deal as an excuse for imposing radical economic restructuring on Greece, including privatization and deregulation measures.

The group's director, Nick Dearden, said it was one of the most radical examples of neoliberal reforms being forced on a country that the organization had ever seen.
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Quenelle

The devaluation of the Chinese yuan is good for the Russian economy


Fort Russ
Thu, 13 Aug 2015 15:20 UTC
Yuan Rublo Ruble
© Ria Novosti
"The devaluation of the Chinese yuan is good for the Russian economy and in the long term will lead to the strengthening of the ruble" - said financial analyst, asset Manager of the company "Spektr invest" Andrey Esin in an interview to RT on Wednesday.

The expert noted that many Chinese companies are working with Russian raw materials, so the intensification of production in the PRC, in his estimation, will inevitably cause an increase in the volume of supplies.

"The weakening of the yuan increases the export revenue of China, and the whole economy of that country is based on this. If the export revenue increases, China will begin to expand production. (...) If the PRC will increase production that will involve more of our raw materials, our commodity companies will start to sell more, and this contributes to the strengthening of the ruble," — said Esin.

Comment: Also see:
Forget the hysteria. The heart of the matter is that Beijing has stepped on the gas in a quite complex long game; to liberalize the yuan exchange rate; allow it to free float against the US dollar; and establish the yuan as a global reserve currency.

What the latest currency 'war' is all about


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Piggy Bank

Best of the Web: What the latest currency 'war' is all about

Pepe Escobar
Sputnik
Thu, 13 Aug 2015 13:34 UTC
yuan
© REUTERS/ Jason Lee
It took the Bank of China to devaluate the yuan on two consecutive days — moving within the 2 percent band that it's allowed to — for the proverbial global financial banshees to go completely bonkers.

Forget the hysteria. The heart of the matter is that Beijing has stepped on the gas in a quite complex long game; to liberalize the yuan exchange rate; allow it to free float against the US dollar; and establish the yuan as a global reserve currency.

So this is essentially exchange rate policy liberalization — not a currency "war", as the frenetic spin goes from Washington/Wall Street to Tokyo via London and Brussels.

Comment: The Bank of China (PBoC) has issued this press release in an apparent effort to calm foreign exchange markets, where there has been carnage since the yuan devaluation, with every strategist from New York to Beijing scrambling to figure out the read-through for the US Fed in September.

What's fairly obvious to everyone now (and what's been very clear to Sott.net all year), is that China had no choice but to devalue. A string of policy rate cuts hadn't succeeded in boosting the export-driven economy, and keeping the yuan pegged to the strong dollar had led to real exchange rate (REER) appreciation on the order of 15% in the space of a year.

Between the pace of the three-day plunge and rampant accusations that Beijing is conducting a 'global currency wars' solely to export China's deflation and prop up the economy, the PBoC had apparently seen enough, hence the after-the-fact press statement.

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Books

Visas for Al Qaeda: The U.S. empire program to recruit, train, and provide visas to 'terrorists'

Barrie Zwicker
Truth and Shadows
Thu, 13 Aug 2015 03:50 UTC
If you don't want to know
Visas for Al Qaeda
© Michael Springmann
how sausages are made, don't start reading Visas for Al Qaeda: CIA Handouts That Rocked the World by Michael Springmann. The sausages in this case: the string of too-easily-swallowed accounts of bloody events in the "global war on terror," served up daily with relish by the mainstream media. In reality these sausages are filled with tainted meat that's making everyone sick.

Springmann is a brave whistle blower living in Washington, D.C. He's written an accessible book, safe to digest, highlighting details of the corruption of the American Empire (and its accomplices, including Canada) as he experienced them from the inside during his years with the U.S. State Department.
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Stock Down

12 signs that an imminent global financial crash is continuing

Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
Tue, 11 Aug 2015 20:59 UTC
Time Spinning Skyline
Did you see what just happened? The devaluation of the yuan by China triggered the largest one day drop for that currency in the modern era. This caused other global currencies to crash relative to the U.S. dollar, the price of oil hit a six year low, and stock markets all over the world were rattled.

The Dow fell 212 points on Tuesday, and Apple stock plummeted another 5 percent. As we hurtle toward the absolutely critical months of September and October, the unraveling of the global financial system is beginning to accelerate. At this point, it is not going to take very much to push us into a full-blown worldwide financial crisis. The following are 12 signs that indicate that a global financial crash has become even more likely after the events of the past few days...

Comment: The economic instability warning signs are increasing and difficult to ignore.

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Quenelle - Golden

While the US wages a global holocaust Iran fights the real war on terror

Catherine Shakdam
New Eastern Outlook
Wed, 12 Aug 2015 18:06 UTC
Iran nuke deal
© AP Photo / Ebrahim Noroozi
While many world nations remain under the impression that Washington and its regional allies in the Middle East - Saudi Arabia in the lead, are indeed conducting just wars in the region, fighting and opposing the rise of Wahhabi radicalism, it is really East they should be looking, as it is Iran which has risen a barrier and a bulwark against the cancer of this black plague.

For all its statements and promises, for all its officials engineered narrative and its corporate media flamboyant accusations against Muslims and so-called "enemy" Muslim nations, who more than the United States has contributed to both the rise and dissemination of ISIS?

To be perfectly accurate, while Washington provided political cover and military assistance, it is Riyadh which took care of the logistics: funding and networking its radical interpretation of Islam to better introduce the enslavement and subsequent balkanization of the Middle East and Central Asia.

Comment: This is one reason why Iran has been so demonized in Western media. Iran is seen by the majority of Westerners as a state sponsor for terrorists even though it stands as a bulwark against NATO's terrorist agenda in the Middle East. Check out:

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