The Phantom of the (tragic) Middle East Opera is back. A killer without a clue, he can't be blamed for not being consistent.

His most recent opus speaks for itself; like a Kabuki mask high on Earl Grey tea, the Phantom is eviscerated by his own mighty pen, actually sword.

The fact that the Phantom keeps getting away with his vast desert of convoluted lies - instead of languishing in some rotten, extraordinary rendition hotel - spells out all we need to know about so-called Western "elites", of which he's been a faithful, and handsomely rewarded, servant.

So Western "inaction" in Syria has led to the latest Iraq tragedy? Sorry, Tony; it was yours and "Dubya's" 2003 Shock and Awe "action" that set the whole Shakespearean tragedy in motion.

The Phantom always wanted the Obama administration to bomb Syria, as much as he labored for "Dubya" to destroy Iraq. Phantom logic never considered that would have installed in Damascus the same Islamic State of Iraqi and the Levant (ISIL) that is now making a push towards Baghdad.

The United States may have hoped that swapping five Guantanamo Bay prison detainees for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl would have sparked talks between the Taliban and Afghan government, but so far the deal has yet to result in movement towards reconciliation.

According to a report by the Associated Press, American officials, along with their Afghan counterparts, believe the prisoner exchange is evidence that both sides can cooperate to reach some sort of peace deal. By successfully completing the deal, some officials think moderate forces within the Taliban will gain the leverage needed to initiate negotiations.


Yet any concrete movement toward such a scenario could take months, if it happens at all. With the Afghan presidential campaign underway, peace talks would likely not take place until after July, when it is clear who the country's next president will be. Even then, the process could be dragged out by the fact that any incoming leader would need time to organize his administration.

In case you were wondering why, despite the sterling efforts of the Bush and Obama governments to bring 'freedom and democracy' to Iraq, life there appears to be worse than ever, a brief review of the nature of American and European largesse that has been bestowed on the Iraqi people over the past twenty-odd years may be instructive.

First there was the 1991 Iraq War turkey shoot that killed thousands of Iraqi civilians and killed or wounded over 100,000 Iraqi soldiers; then followed the 10 years of regular US bombing runs and the willful genocide of Iraqis, especially children, via the 'food for oil' sanctions. Then came the second Gulf War turkey shoot, justified (not 'officially', but it wouldn't have happened otherwise) by the self-inflicted wound that was the 9/11 attacks, that involved a 10-year occupation by the US military and the further direct slaughter of at least 1.5 million Iraqis by the US military and the displacement of 4 million more.

By 2011, with the country in ruins and the the bulk of US troops preparing to leave, US military 'advisers' hastily cobbled together an 'Iraqi army'. Unfortunately, the tribal nature of Iraqi society, the serious divisions between Sunni and Shia that had been provoked by 10 years of bloody foreign occupation, including the use of US-sponsored death squads (aka 'al-qaeda'), and the installation of a Shia-led government in a country previously dominated by the minority Sunnis under Saddam, made the very idea of a united Iraqi army a fantasy. But those details were of little concern to the occupiers. A few major weapons and oil deals and the US was outta there. Thanks for the memories... for a while.

Next Stop - Syria

Then came the (Israeli-sponsored) plan to 'remake' Syria. But when it was decided that a US invasion and occupation of that country was too problematic in the sense that it might set the entire Middle East alight and threaten Israeli sensitivities, plan B was to use the same fundamentalist jihadi nut-jobs from Iraq to start a 'revolution' that the majority of the Syrian people wanted nothing to do with. But after three years of direct and indirect funding and arming of the jihadis by the USA, Saudi Arabia Qatar and Turkey, and massive bloodshed, with several Syrian cities reduced almost to rubble, Assad was still there, the Syrian army were prevailing against the nut-jobs, and the psychopaths at the US state department, the CIA and in Tel Aviv, were getting antsy. 'Can't we just have NATO bomb the crap out of the place?' A pretext was needed, and last year the Saudis were used to supply sarin gas to the jihadis (or a Saudi black op team did it themselves), who happily sacrificed the lives of 1,000 Syrian civilians in Ghouta in an effort to blame the Assad government for 'war crimes' and justify NATO (i.e. USA) bombing.

The EU is exploring alternative gas sources for Ukraine, the European Commission said on Tuesday, a day after Russia cut off a key energy flow that also feeds Europe.

With the Russian gas supply to Ukraine now halted, the EU is considering ways to replenish Kiev with imports from neighbouring Poland, Hungary and Slovakia.

Moscow is strongly opposed to so-called "reverse flows", but the European Commission on Tuesday said the process was perfectly legal.

"The option of the reverse flows ... is legally perfectly sound," said the EU's Energy Commission spokeswoman Sabine Berger.


"There are possibilities (for Ukraine) to buy gas from European companies," she said.

Russia's lower house has voted against a proposed bill that would ban the promotion of all sexual material aimed at minors, with which its authors planned to amend the already existing law banning gay propaganda.

The bill containing the radical restrictions was drafted by MP Maria Maksakova-Ingebergs of the centrist conservative United Russia party, which currently holds the majority of seats in the parliament. It suggested a change in the federal law on children's rights and the one protecting children against potentially harmful information.

In particular, the MP wanted to recognize "any information that promotes the priority of sexual relations before life values, spiritual and intellectual development" as harmful for the children's health and development. The measures would be backed by fines for those publishing such concepts in the mass media, cinema and internet sites.

The Lower House committee for family women and children opposed the draft claiming that Russian legislation already had bans on distributing information products containing sexual references among minors. The committee's members also said that if the bill was passed it would practically replace the recently introduced ban on gay propaganda towards children which is undesirable as the ban was protecting the foundations of the family institution.

Reverse flows of Russian gas from some of the European countries like Slovakia and Poland are neither legal nor viable, experts tell RT. The comments follow Ukraine's claims it's going to use reverse schemes, after Gazprom cut its supplies.

On Monday, Russia switched Ukraine to a prepayment system for gas supplies, saying it wouldn't send gas directly unless it paid its $4.5 billion debt in full.

Ukraine has responded by saying it could receive up to 20 billion cubic meters in reverse flow from neighboring Slovakia, Poland and Hungary, a practice Gazprom and RT experts doubt is legal.

"It depends on the contracts between Gazprom and the European recipient. As far as we know, there is a non re-export clause that means gas received in Europe should actually be utilized in Europe for downstream purposes, it shouldn't be re-exported, there is strong legal question there," Marat Terterov, Executive Director of the Brussels Energy Club, told RT.

One of the main, and most simple stumbling blocks, is the contract itself, which doesn't allow the importing countries to redistribute the supplies as they please.

The Internal Revenue Service is about to get slapped with a harsh payback for messing around with conservative groups, blowing wads of tax dollars on employee conferences and helping implement Obamacare.

The House Appropriations Committee is set to OK an IRS budget of $10.9 billion, $1.5 billion under President Obama's request for fiscal year 2015, reducing the agency's budget to 2008 levels.

The goal is to keep the tax agency focused on its "core duties," and eliminate efforts to judge the political activities of tax-exempt groups and brake its implementation of Obamacare.

The funding is part of a larger $21 billion bill for several agencies including the IRS, Treasury Department and Securities and Exchange Commission. Noting that it cuts $2.3 billion from the president's overall request, Chairman Hal Rogers said, "the bill focuses cuts on lower-priority or poor-performing agencies, such as the scandal-plagued and inefficient Internal Revenue Service."

Aberdeen - Soon, Maryland will be the home to a couple of new landmarks. Actually, sky-marks.

As Mike Schuh reports, two large blimps will soon rise over Harford County and stay put.

Radar blimps like these have been used on the battlefield to track the enemy, and in the Caribbean to intercept drug runners.

Testing in Utah is complete. Now they're being packed up and sent to Maryland.

"There is some equipment already on grounds, yes," said Kelly Luster, a spokesman for Aberdeen Proving Ground.

What will they be looking for? Anti-ship cruise missiles, unmanned aircraft and swarming boats.

These blimps are a lot like a toy balloon. They are unmanned and are held in place by a very long tether.

Hovering over Aberdeen, some days you'll be able to see them from Baltimore.

Somali militants who murdered 48 people in a Kenyan village as they watched the World Cup went door to door asking residents if they were Muslim or spoke Somali - and shot them dead if either answer was 'no', witnesses revealed today.

The attack on the coastal village of Mpeketoni, about 30-miles southwest of the tourist centre of Lamu, came at the end of a weekend of bloodshed that has exposed the world to the shocking depravity of terrorists, apparently emboldened by each other's acts.

Witnesses told how about 30 gunmen - believed to be members of Somali terror group al-Shabaab - arrived in the town in minibuses at 8pm yesterday before bursting into residents homes, shooting dead any man they thought was not Muslim.

'They came to our house at around 8pm and asked us in Swahili whether we were Muslims,' said Anne Gathigi. 'My husband told them we were Christians and they shot him in the head and chest.'

Residents of Slavyansk and its suburbs were awoken overnight on Thursday by what they say were incendiary bombs that were dropped on their city by Kiev's military. Witnesses and local media reports suggested that the bombs might be phosphorous.

Much of the village of Semyonovka, located in the Slavyansk suburbs, was set ablaze. Local residents told RT that the ground didn't stop burning for some time.

"We all saw what happened here yesterday. They used rocket launchers as well as incendiary bombs against us. The ground was on fire. How can the ground burn by itself. It burned for about forty minutes," resident Roman Litvinov told RT over the phone.

"Starting from 2 a.m. everyone I've met has a sore throat and is coughing all the time. I think this is because of the burning. I think we'll feel the true consequences later. There are still a lot of people here, a lot of children we haven't managed to get out yet," resident Tatyana told RT.

The use of incendiary bombs - designed to start fires using materials such as napalm, white phosphorus or other dangerous chemicals - is strictly prohibited by the UN.