US Democracy in danger': time is ticking as midterm elections are approaching

Less than six weeks before the U.S. midterm elections and after an explosive spring and summer of Jan. 6 congressional hearings, some analysts are sounding the alarm on what they say are serious threats to American democracy.

There's the ongoing impact of disinformation and hyperpolarization, as well as a sizable segment of the public that now questions the results of the 2020 election. Public trust in the government is at a near-historic low, polling shows, and 43 per cent of respondents in one poll said they think a civil war could be likely in the next decade. 

Read more at: https://www.cbc.com

 

USA - Civil War ? No, America is not on the brink of a civil war

According to a number of polls and surveys, significant majorities of Republican-aligned voters seem to believe the big lie that Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 US presidential election and, consequently, the Biden administration is illegitimate.

Fortunately for all of us, these dire predictions are almost certainly overblown. We are not living in a “post-truth” world. We are not on the brink of a civil war. The perception that we are is almost purely an artifact of people taking poll and survey data at face value despite overwhelming evidence that we probably shouldn’t.

Read more at: No, America is not on the brink of a civil war | Musa al-Gharbi | The Guardian

USA: The next US civil war is already here – we just refuse to see it - by Stephen Marche

Nobody wants what’s coming, so nobody wants to see what’s comingOn the eve of the first civil war, the most intelligent, the most informed, the most dedicated people in the United States could not see it coming. Even when Confederate soldiers began their bombardment of Fort Sumter, nobody believed that conflict was inevitable. The north was so unprepared for the war they had no weapons.

In Washington, in the winter of 1861, Henry Adams, the grandson of John Quincy Adams, declared that “not one man in America wanted the civil war or expected or intended it”. South Carolina senator James Chestnut, who did more than most to bring on the advent of the catastrophe, promised to drink all the blood spilled in the entire conflict. The common wisdom at the time was that he would have to drink “not a thimble”.

The United States today is, once again, headed for civil war, and, once again, it cannot bear to face it. The political problems are both structural and immediate, the crisis both longstanding and accelerating. The American political system has become so overwhelmed by anger that even the most basic tasks of government are increasingly impossible.

Read more at: The next US civil war is already here – we just refuse to see it | The far right | The Guardian

NATO: Afghanistan: two decades of Nato help leaves a failed and fractured state on the brink of civil war

Afghanistan is falling apart. With US and Nato troops leaving the country earlier than planned, experts are warning that the Taliban could take control of the country within six months. Currently the insurgents control the strategically important province of Helmand, and control or contest territory nearly every province in the war-torn country.

As many as 188 of Afghanistan’s 407 districts are directly under Taliban rule. With up to 85,000 full-time fighters), the insurgents have already forced thousands of troops belonging to the US-trained Afghan army to surrender or flee.

In response to the Taliban’s onslaught, local militias are fighting back. Most notable among them is a coalition of militias in northern Afghanistan called the Second Resistance, led by Ahmad Massoud (the son of Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was assassinated in September 2001).

The Second Resistance has several thousand fighters and militia commanders who have fought against the Taliban, mostly of Tajik origin. Massoud insists that the Taliban will not have the same success in fighting his coalition due to far greater resolve of his soldiers compared to the Afghan military. But henceforth he will have to operate without the help of Nato troops.

Read More at: Afghanistan: two decades of Nato help leaves a failed and fractured state on the brink of civil war

USA: Made By Putin? A 21st Century Slow-Burn US Civil War - by Alexei Bayer and Stephan Richter

Periods of leadership vacuum are by their very nature notoriously dangerous. In mature democracies — and the United States certainly considers itself as one — this shouldn’t be so. But it is.

Read more at: Made By Putin? A 21st Century Slow-Burn US Civil War - The Globalist

USA; Presidential elections: 40% of GOP Voters Think Civil War Likely - Rasmussen Reports®

With race-driven anti-police protests nationwide, one-in-three voters continue to believe America is on the brink of another civil war. Blacks are the least optimistic that the protests will lead to positive change but the most supportive of removing Confederate symbols from public display.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 34% of Likely U.S. Voters think the United States will experience a second civil war sometime in the next five years, but that includes only nine percent (9%) who say it’s Very Likely. This compares to 31% and 11% respectively two years ago. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Read more at:
40% of GOP Voters Think Civil War Likely - Rasmussen Reports®

USA: America commemorates end of Civil War 150 years on, as healing continues

It’s an unremarkable spot in the lush Virginia countryside, but the meadows, woods and rolling hills surrounding the handful of homes in Appomattox, 150 kilometers west of the state capital Richmond, have come to symbolize perhaps the most consequential place in US history.

It was here where on April 9, 1865 Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Lt. General Ulysses S. Grant, supreme commander of all Union forces, thus effectively ending the American Civil War.

150 years later, America celebrates the events on that afternoon and the following days with a series of commemorations that highlight the importance of what ultimately became the second birth of a nation.

On Thursday April 9, thousands of people gathered at the historic site around Appomattox Courthouse to watch re-enactments of the surrender, listen to the stories of living historians and descendants of soldiers, civilians and slaves and hear the ringing of bells that marked the end of the fighting and the freeing of African Americans.

Roughly 620,000 million American soldiers have died in the Civil War from 1861 to 1865, more than in all US wars combined prior to Vietnam.

Appomattox set in motion a string of events that would eventually lead to the re-integration of the secessionist Southern states in the final decades of the 19th century, known in US history as “Reconstruction”, the liberation of the slaves and the establishment of full civil rights for black citizens a century later.

It is still very much work in progress.

Read more: America commemorates end of Civil War 150 years on, as healing continues | euronews, world news

Syria death toll now exceeds 210,000: rights group

The death toll after nearly four years of civil war in Syria has risen to 210,060, nearly half of them civilians, but the real figure is probably much higher, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.

The Observatory, which is based in Britain and has a network of activists across Syria, said that 10,664 children and 6,783 women were among the dead.

Reuters tried to contact Syrian authorities for comment, but they were not immediately available.

Note EU-Digest: This is totally unacceptable in whatever way you look at it

Read more:  Syria death toll now exceeds 210,000: rights group | Reuters

Berlusconi supporters threaten 'civil war'

Could Silvio Berlusconi's sentence at Italy's highest court on Thursday bring the Italian government to its knees? His supporters talk of "civil war" if Berlusconi is not allowed to continue practicing politics. 

You have to admit, Silvio Berlusconi is a publicity maestro, proving the old adage that even bad news is good publicity. A conviction for tax evasion - the first time the media mogul and former prime minister has been definitively convicted of a crime - brought him center stage once again. Most summers, his publishing and broadcast empire contributes to the seasonal diet of celebrities in bikinis and gossip about who's sleeping with whom.

But this August, the former Italian prime minister has not only managed to hog the headlines, but potentially caused another crack in the country's fragile governing coalition.

Read more: Berlusconi supporters threaten 'civil war' | Europe | DW.DE | 05.08.2013

EU's Ashton calls for restraint in Turkey-Syria violence

European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on Thursday condemned a mortar strike from Syria that killed five civilians in Turkey, and called for restraint from all sides.

"I strongly condemn yesterday's shelling by Syrian forces of the Turkish border town," she said in a statement. "I once again urge the Syrian authorities to put an immediate end to the violence and fully respect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all neighbouring countries."

Turkey has retaliated against the attack, hitting targets nears Syria's Tel Abyad border but Ashton said violence should stop.

"I call for restraint from all sides and will continue to follow the situation extremely closely," she said.

Read more: EU's Ashton calls for restraint in Turkey-Syria violence - AlertNet