Civil wars are perhaps the most tragic and bitter, when a country goes to war on itself - and it's brother against brother, homesteads destroyed by other compatriots.

Today, the United States of America seems to be at war with itself again. Not yet an all-out bloodletting as in the Civil War of 1861-65, but nevertheless the nation seems to be plunging into an internecine process of shredding itself, pulling down the very edifice of the state.

There's even reports of married couples splitting in divorce because of the growing political divisions.

The governing business of running the country is held hostage by incessant political scrapping; the institutions of governance appear in meltdown from eroding authority.

The first stage of U.S. President Donald Trump's plan to restore America's former dominance as a manufacturing country will be announced this coming weekend in Riyadh Saudi Arabia and Washington DC, but its outlines are now already more than clear. The biggest-ever foreign sale of U.S.-made weaponry will be announced at that time, and, according to a little-noticed report by Reuters on May 12^th, an unidentified U.S. government official informed Reuters that "We are in the final stages of a series of deals", whose size will be of truly extraordinary historic proportions.

Trump will announce during this, his first trip abroad as the U.S. President, starting on Friday May 19^th, deals for the fundamentalist-Sunni government of Saudi Arabia to purchase more than $100 billion, and perhaps more even than $300 billion, in U.S.-made weaponry. The announced intention of Saudi princes is to defeat what they declare to be the 'existential threat' they face from Iran and from Shia Islam, and so these weapons will presumably be used for 'defense' against the fundamentalist-Shiite government of Iran, and against any nation whose leader is Shiite (even if not fundamentalist, and including non-sectarian and even secular Shiite, such as Syria's leader Bashar al-Assad, and such as the Houthis in Yemen).

The U.S. (especially the major investors in corporations such as Lockheed Martin) will therefore be in a position to profit from intensification of the wars in Syria and in Yemen, as well as from other national battlefields between Sunni and Shia. That's the plan, and, on this basis, as soon as Trump won the 2016 election, he appointed to all of his national-security posts people who have solid records as being rabidly hostile, above all, towards Iran, and secondarily, toward Iran's allies, such as Russia and Syria. (Trump's opponent, Hillary Clinton, was hostile, above all, toward Russia; her aim was to conquer it, which would entail unlimited spending on nuclear weapons. Trump's plan is focused instead on unlimited spending on conventional weapons, and the deal that he has reached with the Sauds is designed specifically to supply them with that — not with nuclear.)

The Washington Post story is everywhere: President Donald Trump allegedly leaked "highly classified" information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in a meeting last week.

The White House called it "false," though on Tuesday morning, President Trump tweeted that he had the "absolute right" to share information with Russia about "terrorism and airline safety."

The left and the media are ecstatic: they believe they have finally produced irrefutable proof of Trump's incompetence.

One Democratic congresswoman, Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL), even said: "I believe that the president is desperate for attention and needs psychological help."

Whether Trump shared information or not, the story is less than what it seems — and the hysteria is "fake news." The real story, as Trump later suggested, is who leaked intelligence to the Post.

A display of Israeli-style community policing before an audience of hundreds of young schoolchildren was captured on video last week. Were the 10-year-olds offered road safety tips, advice on what to do if they got lost, or how to report someone suspicion hanging around the school?

No. In Israel, they do things differently. The video shows four officers staging a mock anti-terror operation in a park close to Tel Aviv. The team roar in on motorbikes, firing their rifles at the "terrorist".

As he lies badly wounded, the officers empty their magazines into him from close range. In Israel it is known as "confirming the kill". Everywhere else it is called an extrajudicial execution or murder. The children can be heard clapping.

It was an uncomfortable reminder of a near-identical execution captured on film last year. A young army medic, Elor Azaria, is seen shooting a bullet into the head of an incapacitated Palestinian in Hebron. A military court sentenced him to 18 months for manslaughter in February.

There has been little sign of soul-searching since. Most Israelis, including government officials, call Azaria a hero. In the recent religious festival of Purim, dressing up as Azaria was a favorite among children.

There is plenty of evidence that Israel's security services are still regularly executing real Palestinians.

The Washington Post's publication of sensitive information may have done actual harm to a US allied agent.

States who are publicly opposed to ISIS, often share intelligence on highly confidential matters. It happens between Britain and France, America and Germany, Russia and Syria, China and Russia.

The fact that no one in America has officially declared Russia an enemy state and that Donald Trump has very publicly stated that he would like Russia to be a partner in the fight against ISIS, means that Donald Trump was acting as any leader would do in sharing information with a partner or possible partner.

The fact that many in Congress do not feel Russia is a potential partner is in this specific instance a legal non-issue. I could and indeed have equally complained that the US sharing any intelligence or military know-how with the war criminal regime in Ukraine is against the interests of the US. But this is an individual opinion, not US policy.

Officially Russia is not an enemy state and as President, Donald Trump had every right to privately share intelligence with a potential partner.

To put things in an even more poignant perspective, the US shares intelligence with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar, states which are openly supporting violent jihadist groups in Syria. Few if any in the mainstream media have questioned whether this is in the interests of a US population frightened of jihadist attacks.

The fact that a portion of the content from the private meeting between Donald Trump and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was disclosed by the Washington Post means that any liability of any kind arising from such an unauthorised disclosure lies exclusively with the Washington Post.

Nine people were injured, including one seriously, in a brutal fight between supporters and opponents of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan outside the Turkish ambassador's residence in Washington, DC.

Footage from the scene shows men in suits viciously attacking a group of anti-Erdogan protesters, pushing them to the ground - men and women alike - and kicking some of them repeatedly in the head. The men in suits, according to media citing eyewitnesses, are members of the Turkish president's security detail.

The protest, which took place during the evening rush hour, hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with President Donald Trump at the White House, shut down Sheridan Circle and the area surrounding the Turkish ambassador's residence.

On May 17, US whistleblower Chelsea Manning is being released from prison, after her sentence was commuted by President Barack Obama. Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for violating the US Espionage Act in 2013 by leaking approximately 700,000 documents to WikiLeaks for publication online.

Most of the data shared by Manning was focused on the Middle East and Afghanistan as well as US military activities in the region. Here are the top five revelations that turned Manning into a human rights defender and transparency advocate, partly triggering the 2011 Arab Spring in the Middle Eastern countries.

New developments in the investigation of the 2016 murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich appear to be raising more questions than they answer about why he was killed and what, if any, contact he had with WikiLeaks.

Who was Seth Rich?

The 27-year-old data analyst who grew up in Omaha, Nebraska was working for the DNC developing software to help voters locate their polling places.

What happened to him?

Rich was shot around 4:19 a.m. on July 10, 2016 in the 2100 block of Flagler Place NW near his home in the Bloomingdale neighborhood of DC. According to a police report, he was still conscious and breathing when officers arrived, but he died soon afterward at an area hospital.

The murder remains unsolved.

What's new?

Two new media reports claim Rich was in contact with WikiLeaks before his death. Less than two weeks after his murder, the group posted tens of thousands of internal DNC emails that escalated tension within the party and led to the resignation of DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has greatly contributed to fleshing out China's most ambitious economic project, known as the Belt and Road Initiative, political analyst Dmitry Kosyrev asserted.

"The recent One Belt, One Road International Forum held in Beijing was bound to succeed since a word uttered during a protracted global pause of ideas an additional weight. The event was not simply organized to discuss ongoing transport and infrastructure projects in Eurasia. They would have been carried out even if no one came up with an idea to name them One Belt, One Road. What is important is that Beijing offered an idea of what the world should do and the means of achieving these goals," the analyst said.

Last week, I published two posts on cyber security firm CrowdStrike after becoming aware of inaccuracies in one of its key reports used to bolster the claim that operatives of the Russian government had hacked into the DNC. This is extremely important since the DNC hired CrowdStrike to look into its hack, and at the same time denied FBI access to its servers.

Before reading any further, you should read last week's articles if you missed them the first time.

• Credibility of Cyber Firm that Claimed Russia Hacked the DNC Comes Under Serious Question
• What is CrowdStrike? Firm Hired by DNC has Ties to Hillary Clinton, a Ukrainian Billionaire and Google

Now here are the latest developments courtesy of Voice of America: