Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:

• Aug 4 – China Does Not Want To Be Hit By Missiles Produced With Its Parts
  Related:
  – China is winning the trade war Trump started (archived) – Washington Post
  – The real reason the West is warmongering against China – AlJazeerah
  – A smarter strategy for AI chip export controls to China – High Capacity

• Aug 5 – The Secondary Sanctions Squeeze
• Aug 6 – By Punishing India Trump Is Creating More Tariff Damage For The U.S.
  Related:
  – Donald Trump’s awful trade policy will outlast him (archived) – Economist
  – MAGA Is Being Conned: Trump's Tariffs Are Just Taxes by Another Name – Zeteo
  – New Tariff on ‘Transshipped’ Goods Mystifies Importers (archived) – NY Times
  – Trump expands use of tariffs to reach national security goals (archived) – Washington Post
  – ‘Stagflation is coming to the U.S.,’ says this economist. Here’s what it means for the dollar, bonds and stocks. – Market Watch

• Aug 7 – Ukraine – Trump And Putin To Hold Peace Talks
• Aug 9 – Ukraine – Setting The Stage For U.S.-Russia Talks
  Related:
  – With Desertions, Low Recruitment, Ukraine's Infantry Crisis Deepens – RFL/RE
  – Living With Russia. – The alternative is what, exactly? – Aurelian
  – It Gets Worse. – This time, there will be consequences. – Aurelian
  – Has Putin Learned the Lessons of the Battle of Debaltseve and Minsk II? – Sonar 21

—
Other issues:

Europe:

• Michael Hudson: Europe’s Surrender – Naked Capitalism
• Europe’s century of humiliation Trump has outwitted von der Leyen – Yanis Varoufakis / Unherd
• Europe’s Capitulation in the EU–US Trade Deal and Europe’s Strategic Blindness – Hungarian Conservative
• To Free Itself From Trump’s Grip, Europe Needs New Allies – MSN
• Irish exporters ‘told to shut their mouths’ over Trump tariffs (archived) – Irish Times
  ‘Trump’s trade war is good for Irish beef’ but nervousness pervades the dairy, pharmaceutical and computer chip sectors

Zionism:

• Prof. John Mearsheimer : A Brief History of Israel (video) – Judging Freedom
• This is not aid. This is orchestrated killing. – MSF
• Israel's Church of Zionism and the Battle for Jewish Identity – Joseph Dana
• Ultra-Orthodox media declares 'war' in Israel over mandatory conscription of Haredim – The Cradle
• It’s Not Just 'Netanyahu': The Rise of Liberals’ One Bad Man Theory to Explain Away Gaza Genocide – Adam Johnson
• The West’s Ethical Framework Might Not Recover After the Israeli Genocide in Gaza – Naked Capitalism
• ‘Civilisation is no longer the norm.’ – The 18 truths of Mahathir bin Mohamad. – The Floutist

Lebanon:

• Barrack’s visit: Washington Seeks Timelines, Lebanon Wants Guarantees – Al-Akhbar
• What Does a Cabinet Decision to Disarm the Resistance Really Mean? – Al-Akhbar
• A Weakened Hezbollah Resists Pressure to Give Up Its Weapons (archived) – NY Times

NGOs:

• Sovereignty, foreign influence, and the search for the Georgian dream (2023) – LeftEast
• Georgia launching investigation into German ambassador’s rental arrangement – DFWatch
• The Decline and Fall of NGOs (archived) – WSJ
  ‘Civil society’ looked like the future when the Cold War ended. It doesn’t anymore.

> These NGOs—nongovernmental organizations—and their supporters see themselves as representing “civil society,” a phrase often conflated with society as a whole that in practice means the consensus of upper-middle-class liberal opinion. Amnesty International is a pillar of civil society. The National Rifle Association isn’t. <

Russiagate:

• Open Letter to the Columbia Journalism Review, on the Atrocious New York Times – The Racket
• Gabbard overrode CIA officials’ concerns in push to release classified Russia report (archived) – Washington Post
• Whistleblower Ties Clinton Campaign to Fake Russia Hack – RealClearInvestigations

Zeitgeist:

• We're Losing The Internet. But It's Not Too Late – Do Not Panic
• The Rise of Silicon Valley’s Techno-Religion (archived) – NY Times
  The Rationalists, a community focused on the risks of artificial intelligence, regularly gather with tech figures and other like-minded people in a complex that covers much of a city block.

Statistics:

• Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics – The Racket
• Several million US-born teenagers have just appeared out of nowhere (archived) – FT
  Or maybe the labour statistics are a mess
• The Urgent Need For Revolutionizing Economic Statistics – Noema

Epstein:

• A Look Inside Jeffrey Epstein’s Manhattan Lair (archived) – NY Times
• ‘I was Epstein’s butler for 18 years. There’s no way he killed himself’ – Telegraph
• Julie K. Brown: Groundbreaking Epstein journalist, or ridiculous myth-peddler? – Michael Tracey
• Whitney Webb Just Makes Stuff Up – Michael Tracy

Use as open (not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine) thread …