Donald Trump

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, holds a map as he addresses the Security Council session focusing on the new Trump proposal for the Mideast, Feb. 11, 2020. Abbas described the proposed land configurations by the United States and Israel as resembling “Swiss cheese.” ESKINDER DEBEBE/UN PHOTO
President Trump has made good on his campaign promises to redefine America’s relationship with the rest of the world — for better or for worse — and the United Nations has in many ways been the epicenter of his “American First” policy abroad.

It is this author’s analysis that the effect of the Donald Trump presidency has been, somewhat paradoxically, to put wind in the sails of a kind of patriotic liberalism, reaffirming confidence in the forms and functions of US governance. Since Trump’s election, the calling words have been “not my president,” “not my country,” “this isn’t the America I know”–and the protagonists in the valiant anti-Trump struggle has been Robert Mueller, the FBI, Nancy Pelosi, the CIA, and NATO.

A precious moment has been squandered, as Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, had the chance to right a historical wrong, by reinstating Palestinian national priorities at the United Nations Security Council on February 11, through a political discourse that is completely independent from Washington and its allies.

They say we’ve been down this road before.  The “last time” creakily hinged upon a hysterically hyped WMD threat from Iraq that overwhelmingly forced the W. Bush regime and its bipartisan cheerleaders to preemptively invade Iraq in order to eliminate the imminent threat that Saddam Hussein’s non-existent WMD posed to the “Freedom-loving” world.  Such was the logic then.

I have long maintained that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank defies the moral principle behind the creation of the state. Contrary to Prime Minister Netanyahu’s assertion, the occupation erodes rather than buttresses Israel’s national security and cannot be justified on either security or moral grounds. Trump’s “deal of the century” is tantamount to perpetuating the occupation, which will be to Israel’s detriment.

After lengthy delays, the United Nations finally published a database last week of businesses that have been profiting from Israel’s illegal annexation and settlement activity in the West Bank.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, announced that 112 major companies had been identified as operating in Israeli settlements in ways that violate human rights.

High-ranking CIA agent Anne Sacoolas is charged with killing a teenage British citizen. While the US demands Julian Assange’s extradition,…
The post While demanding Assange, US refuses to extradite CIA agent who killed British teen appeared first on The Grayzone.

Source : Strategic Culture, Alastair Crooke, 07-10-2019
© Photo : Flickr / whitehouse

The Duran’s Alex Christoforou and Editor-in-Chief Alexander Mercouris discuss the senators in Italy who voted on Wednesday to lift immunity for popular, nation state leader Matteo Salvini, opening the way for a trial over accusations that he illegally detained migrants in the Mediterranean Sea last year.

Take Jordan (or Lebanon) as an example: Both have a broken economic model. One, (Lebanon), has had its huge deficits financed by expatriate remittances; and the other (Jordan), has had its budget deficits (6% of GDP), until now covered by annual stipends provided by Gulf States and the US (the EU provides relatively little financial subsidy). For both, these external inflows are either in, or are heading toward draught conditions (as the low price of oil eviscerates Gulf State finances).