The nature of the war in Afghanistan has shifted dramatically in recent months. While the US and NATO continue to be actively involved in the country - their strategic objectives having changed very little since the Bush administration launched the war nearly a decade and a half ago - the complexion of the battlefield, and the parties actively engaged in the war, has changed significantly.

The emergence of ISIS in Afghanistan, along with the impending withdrawal of US-NATO troops from the country, has driven the Taliban into a marriage of convenience, if not an outright alliance, with Iran. What seemed like an unfathomable scenario just a few years ago, Shia Iran's support for the hardline Sunni Taliban has become a reality due to the changing circumstances of the war. Though it may be hard to believe, such an alliance is now a critical element of the situation on the ground in Afghanistan. But its significance is far larger than just shifting the balance of power within the country.

Instead, Afghanistan is now in many ways a proxy conflict between the US and its western and Gulf allies on the one hand, and Iran and certain non-western countries, most notably China, on the other. If the contours of the conflict might not be immediately apparent, that is only because the western media, and all the alleged brainiacs of the corporate think tanks, have failed to present the conflict in its true context. The narrative of Afghanistan, to the extent that it's discussed at all, continues to be about terrorism and stability, nation-building and "support." But this is a fundamental misunderstanding and mischaracterization of the current war, and the agenda driving it.

A man has been beheaded in Saudi Arabia, bringing the total number of executions in the Kingdom to 110 for the year so far. This is already a 26-percent increase on the number of people put to death in 2014.

Mugrib al-Thanyan was executed after he was found guilty and sentenced to death for shooting and killing a fellow citizen following a dispute, a statement from the Interior Ministry read.

The man was sentenced to death according to the nation's strict version of Sharia law, under which such crimes as murder, rape, armed robbery and drug trafficking are punishable by death. Public executions are mostly conducted by decapitating the accused with a sword.

He is the 110th person to be executed in the country in 2015 and Saudi Arabia has already seen a 126-percent increase in death sentences. In 2014, 87 people were executed.

Below are excerpts from a July 26, 2015 speech Syrian president Bashar al-Assad delivered in Damascus.

On the West's double standards on terrorism

[Western powers] call it terrorism when it hits them, and call it revolution, freedom, democracy, and human rights when it hits us. There, its perpetrators are terrorists, and here, they are rebels and moderate opposition. They scream at the top of their voices whenever they are touched by a spark of fire while they fall deathly silent when we are burned by it.

On humanitarian intervention

Let them permit the opposition in their countries to bear arms and kill and destroy and keep calling them opposition, or permit them to become proxies or let other states decide what is the ruling system for them should be, then we will believe and accept their old recipes that have always been used to justify an aggression or interference in states' affairs under humanitarian slogans like human rights, freedom, democracy, and so on.

On the West's relationship with militant Islamists

What they want is to keep this monster in check and not eliminate it. All their military, political and media campaigns are in fact smoke screens, and what the West has done so far has led to a growth of terrorism instead of eliminating it, and this is confirmed by reality, not personal analysis, as terrorism has spread geographically, its material resources have increased, and its manpower has doubled.

An observation a propos of Assad's comments: Western newspapers talk of the Egyptian army's fight in the Sinai against militant Islamists, but of the Syrian army's fight against militant Islamists in Syria as "regime forces" waging a "brutal" war to crush a "rebellion".

During the night of July 17-18 in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley, a kidnapping took place that has turned into a strange, suspense-filled drama with international dimensions involving Beirut, Washington, Prague and Kiev.

On the night of July 17, five Czechs — Jan Svarc, Adam Homsi, Miroslav Dobes, Merlin Pesek and Pavel Kofron — arrived at Beirut's international airport, where a vehicle was waiting to pick them up. A couple of hours later, the van was found on the side of the road in Kefraya, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) east of Beirut in the Bekaa Valley. Their passports, papers and other personal belongings had been left in the car, but there were no other traces of the men or their possible whereabouts.


Lebanese security agencies launched an investigation immediately after the vehicle's discovery that night and soon found that it belonged to a Lebanese man, Munir Saeb Taan, who had picked up the Czechs. The following day, July 18, the father of the car's owner reported his son's disappearance to security officials, telling them that he had been unable to contact him. He had no idea where his son might be.

The investigation soon revealed that Taan is the half-brother of Ali Fayyad, a Lebanese man who had been arrested in April 2014 in Prague. At this point, interpretations of the Czechs' disappearance began to change, with Lebanese media outlets speculating that their kidnapping had probably been orchestrated to pave the way for a swap for Fayyad.

Illusions are at play in the modern tragedy that is the Greek economic system, particularly when it comes to notions of who benefits most from the latest bailout

Modern Greek tragedy is at play, and so are illusions.

The big myth is that Greece overspent and the Greek government was reckless with its budgets, ultimately indebting Athens. It is true that Greek officials tried to gain influence and political support through spending. It's also true that they signed lucrative contracts with local businesses.

Athens, however, is no exception here; this type of conduct has been displayed by politicians throughout the European Union and around the world.

The fact is that this is not what created the economic crisis in Greece. What is really taking place in Greece and the eurozone is something altogether different. The Greek bailouts appear to be part of a rigid restructuring of the EU that is placing other members under the control of Germany.

Banker bailouts versus national bailouts

We are not dealing with national bailouts for failing economies, but with banking sector bailouts. Almost all the money that has been given to Greece, Cyprus, Ireland, and Portugal has gone to the banks of the creditor lenders.

In his 2013 documentary The Secret Bank Bailout, German investigative journalist Harald Schumann documents how the peoples of Ireland, Cyprus and Spain were not bailed out. The biggest recipients of the Irish bailout that saved Anglo-Irish Bank were British, French and German banks, including Union Investment Privatfonds, Rothschild et Compagnie Gestion, and Deutsche Bank. German and French banks accounted for 50 out of the 80 bondholders. The blogger Guido Fawkes revealed that the Irish government was protecting German investors when he published a list of the bondholders that he had obtained from an insider.

Surprise! In what must be the most predictable geopolitical event in recent days, WSJ reports that Iran has refused to let United Nations inspectors interview key scientists and military officers to investigate allegations Tehran maintained a covert nuclear-weapons program. This comes hours after CNN reported that the intelligence community believes Iran has been attempting to clean up the suspected nuclear site at Parchin prior to the arrival of international inspectors based on new satellite imagery. While the administration attempts to 'clear up' any misunderstandings, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker told reporters."It was not a reassuring meeting...I would say most members left with greater concerns about the inspection regime than we came in with."

For now, the landmark nuclear agreement forged between world powers and Iran on July 14 in Vienna is on hold. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Iran's stance complicates the International Atomic Energy Agency's investigation into Tehran's suspected nuclear-military program - a study that is scheduled to be finished by mid-October, as required by the treaty.

The IAEA and its director-general, Yukiya Amano, have been trying for more than five years to debrief Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi, an Iranian military officer the U.S., Israel and IAEA suspect oversaw weaponization work in Tehran until at least 2003.

Mr. Amano said Tehran still hasn't agreed to let Mr. Fakhrizadeh or other Iranian military officers and nuclear scientists help the IAEA complete its investigation. The Japanese diplomat indicated that he believed his agency could complete its probe even without access to top-level Iranian personnel.

Tehran has repeatedly denied it ever had a secret nuclear weapons program.

But Mr. Amano said in a 25-minute interview in Washington that Iran still hasn't agreed to provide access to Mr. Fakhrizadeh or other top Iranian military officers and nuclear scientists to assist the IAEA in completing its probe.

"We don't know yet," Mr. Amano said about the agency's interview requests. "If someone who has a different name to Fakhrizadeh can clarify our issues, that is fine with us.

President Barack Obama has warned that without the Iran nuclear deal, there will be another war in the Middle East. He said that those who voted for the War in Iraq are now opposing diplomacy with Iran.

"The choice we face is ultimately between diplomacy and some sort of war, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not 3 months from now, but soon. Military action will be far less effective than this deal in preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon," the President said.

President Obama argued that the deal with Iran is the best way to prevent the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon and to prevent war, and that the deal being rejected by Congress would be bad for the security of the United States.

In a column I wrote in early July, based on research by my colleagues and my own analysis of government documents and eyewitness statements, I argued that in 2011 and 2012 then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton waged a secret war on the governments of Libya and Syria, with the approval of President Obama and the consent of congressional leadership from both parties and in both houses of Congress.

I did err in that column with respect to an arms dealer named Marc Turi. I regret the error and apologize for it. I wrote that Turi sold arms to Qatar as part of Clinton's scheme to get them into the hands of rebels. A further review of the documents makes it clear that he applied to do so but was denied permission, and so he did not sell arms to Qatar. Other arms dealers did.

I also erred when referring to Qatar as beholden to Washington. In fact, Qatar is in bed with the Muslim Brotherhood and is one of the biggest supporters of global jihad in the world — and Clinton, who approved the sales of arms to Qatar expecting them to make their way to Syrian and Libyan rebels, as they did, knew that. She and her State Department caused American arms to come into the possession of known al-Qaida operatives, a few of whom assassinated U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

When Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., asked Clinton in January 2013 at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing whether she knew of any weapons coming from the U.S. and going to rebels in the Middle East, she denied such knowledge. She either has a memory so faulty that she should not be entrusted with any governmental powers, or she knowingly lied.

It gets worse.

70 years after the US dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the real reasons behind the decision still divide historians. Recently declassified documents from the time suggest the nuclear strikes may have been performed not out of military necessity but to intimidate the USSR. RTD's Peter Scott travels to the two Japanese cities that were devastated by the attacks, where he visits a victims' memorial and meets nuclear blast survivors still haunted by their memories. He also interviews President Truman's grandson, Clifton Truman Daniel, on the subject of his grandfather's controversial legacy.

Watch the Russia Today 28 minute documentary 'Atomic Message' below for details.

It's so ridiculous, no intelligent and informed person would give it any serious consideration whatsoever. It insults the public's intelligence.

Here's a typical example of the ridiculousness of U.S. propaganda: On July 16th, the U.S. State Department issued a «Ukraine Travel Warning». It says:

The Department of State warns U.S. citizens to defer all travel to Crimea and the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, and recommends those U.S. citizens currently living in or visiting these regions to depart...

Russia-backed separatists continue to control areas in the Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts. Despite the signing of a ceasefire agreement by representatives of Ukraine, Russia and the OSCE, violent clashes between combined Russian separatist forces and Ukrainian forces continue in parts of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, resulting in thousands of injuries and deaths. The ceasefire agreement established a de facto dividing line between Ukrainian government-controlled and separatist-held areas of Ukraine, with numerous checkpoints controlled by government and separatist forces. Individuals, including U.S. citizens, have been threatened, detained or kidnapped for hours or days after being stopped at separatist checkpoints...

The Department of State also warns U.S. citizens to defer all travel to the Crimean Peninsula, which is occupied by Russia. The Russian Federation is likely to take further actions in Crimea throughout the remainder of 2015 consistent with its attempted unlawful annexation and occupation of this part of Ukraine. The international community, including the United States and Ukraine, does not recognize this purported annexation. The Russian Federation maintains an extensive military presence in Crimea and along the border of eastern Ukraine...