Stephen Lendman

My great thanks to everyone now wishing me well. I was offline, unconnected with no email addresses so unable to communicate until now. Physically for a good while I wasn't in good shape enough to do it. Now I'm back. My output won't be my customary 2 articles a day. I'll do what I can as health and strength permits.

I've been ill and unable to do what I love best for 2 months. Yesterday, August 6, I came home for the first time since hospitalized on June 4.

At the time, I posted a brief message on my blog site. I expected a few days of treatment. Then home to resume my writing and media work.

Things didn't turn out that way. I owe my friends, colleagues and readers an explanation. Multiple problems developed. One rather serious one. Thankfully they were resolved. But it took time - 2 weeks at Northwestern Memorial Hospital followed by 6 weeks at Warren Barr rehab facility.

The experience was life changing. I wondered at times if I'd ever be me again. I still have lots of recovery to go as an outpatient. I worked very hard with good therapy people helping me daily. I'm deeply grateful to them for taking me from a very low point to going home yesterday.

It never felt so good to walk through my front door. I began emailing friends and colleagues to explain. More emailing coming. Wonderful responses came. Means so much to this old guy - age 80 in mid-August. Still with so much I want to do - articles, media work and another book or 2 - maybe more as able.

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Paul Craig Roberts

Russia’s best weapon can be used to peacefully resolve the conflict that Washington has orchestrated

More evidence, about which I hope to write at length, is piling up that Europe has acquiesced to Washington’s drive to war with Russia, a war that is likely to be the final war for humanity. By Russia’s low key and unthreatening response to Washington’s aggression, thereby giving the West the mistaken signal that Russia is weak and fearful, the Russian government has encouraged Washington’s drive to war.

It appears that the Russians’ greatest weakness is that capitalism has raised enough Russians to a comfortable living standard that the war that Washington is bringing to them is scary, and they want to avoid it in order to continue living like decadent Western Europeans.

The same thing happened to the once fierce Vandals in North Africa in the 6th century when the Vandals were exterminated by a small force from the Eastern Roman Empire.The Vandals had lost the valor that had given them a rich chunk of the Roman Empire.

Russia needs to save the world from war, but the avoidance of war requires Russia to make the costs clear to Europeans. - Faced with economic sanctions, essentially illegal and warlike actions, applied to various Russian individuals and businesses by Washington and Washington’s EU puppets and by Switzerland, a country taught to be more fearful of Washington than of Moscow, Russian President Putin has asked the Russian government to come up with countermeasures to be implemented in response to the gratuitous sanctions imposed against Russia.

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Richard Seymour

A degree of caution is necessary. Just because a ceasefire is announced is no surety in this conflict that it will be adhered to. However, making the plausible assumption that this ceasefire marks the end of Operation Protective Edge, I want to make a few observations about what the outcome means for Israel.

1. Israel has achieved none of its stated objectives. It has certainly not destroyed Hamas militarily, and nor has it weakened Hamas politically. Israel still demands the demilitarisation of Gaza in negotiations, but that isn't going to happen. Insofar as that is the case, this is first and foremost a political and diplomatic defeat for Israel, and secondarily a military defeat. That is not to downplay the ingenuity displayed by Palestinian fighters, but if the military struggle was dominant then Israel would have won already.

2. Israel comes out of this war with its global supporters in Europe and North America sending relatively strong signals that it has over-stepped. The qualms of Israel's allies and sponsors are articulated in a moral idiom, because that is how hegemonic languages work, but moral concern would not explain why these massacres, and none before, have so seriously rattled Israel's allies. This is a real strategic fracture.

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