Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, is asking President Obama to "ensure accountability" in the ongoing IRS investigation by providing his committee with "all communications between Lois Lerner and any persons within the Executive Office of President for the period between January 1, 2009 and May 1, 2011."

The IRS informed Congress on Friday that an untold number of Lerner's emails to outside agencies, including the White House, were lost during the 2009-2011 time frame due to a "computer crash."

Ways and Means is one of three congressional committees investigating the way the IRS, during Lerner's tenure, handled groups seeking tax-exempt status. The IRS admits that conservative groups were singled out for inappropriate scrutiny and delay before the 2010 midterm election.

"Dear Mr. President," Camp wrote to Obama on Monday, reminding him that he promised to "work hand in hand with Congress to get this thing fixed."

Gaddafi's overthrow broke all kinds of local ethnic, tribal and commercial bargains and power-broking arrangements that we never understood

"Take but degree away, untune that string, and hark what discord follows."

This Jacobean plea for stability should be ringing in our ears as we watch the latest manifestation of instability in the Middle East/North Africa (Mena), this time in Algeria. And while much of the Arab Spring was self-generated, current troubles in the Sahel owe a great deal to the Nato "triumph" in assisting in the downfall of Gaddafi.

Described as covert aid to insurgents targeting al-Assad

Members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or ISIS, were trained in 2012 by U.S. instructors working at a secret base in Jordan, according to informed Jordanian officials.

The officials said dozens of ISIS members were trained at the time as part of covert aid to the insurgents targeting the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. The officials said the training was not meant to be used for any future campaign in Iraq.

The Jordanian officials said all ISIS members who received U.S. training to fight in Syria were first vetted for any links to extremist groups like al-Qaida.

In February 2012, WND was first to report the U.S., Turkey and Jordan were running a training base for the Syrian rebels in the Jordanian town of Safawi in the country's northern desert region.

That report has since been corroborated by numerous other media accounts.

Last March, the German weekly Der Spiegel reported Americans were training Syrian rebels in Jordan.

Tony Blair has urged western governments to recognise that they need to take an active role in the Middle East, saying the west should consider military options short of sending ground troops.

The former prime minister said there was a huge range of options available, including air strikes and drones as used in Libya.

Blair was speaking on UK morning TV shows after writing a lengthy essay setting out how to respond to the Iraq crisis, including his belief that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was not the cause of the country's implosion.

He said: "It is in our interests for this jihadist extremist group to be stopped in its tracks. I understand entirely why people say 'it is nothing to do with us and I don't want to hear about it'."

But he said the jihadis "are not simply fighting Iraqis and they are also willing to fight us and they will if we don't stop them".

"It is vitally important that we realise what is at stake here and act. We are going to have to engage with it or the consequences will come back on us as we see in Syria today.

"The best policy for us to realise that whatever form of intervention we choose is going to be difficult but it's better than the alternative. You do not need to engage as we did in Afghanistan or Iraq, but we do have interests in this."

The Kiev power-grabbing regime is not only acting like Nazis, it is now sounding like the Third Reich. The latest outburst comes from the pretend Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk who has labeled the people of Eastern Ukraine «sub-human».

Yatsenyuk's statement was made in English, but the reference to «sub-human» has an unmistakable Nazi connotation, harking back to the Third Reich's description of «Untermenschen» for populations whom that erstwhile regime targeted for extermination. Foremost among the victims of historic Nazi genocide were the Slavic people of Russia, Ukraine and other Eastern European countries, as well as Jews and Romany.

It seems significant that Yatsenyuk's abhorrent rhetoric was published on the website of the Ukrainian embassy in the United States. It is just the latest in a long list of provocations emanating from the Kiev regime that appear to be directed under Washington's tutelage to maximize aggression towards Russia.

Over the past three months, the US has clearly emerged as the main sponsor of the Kiev junta. When the Western-backed regime change plot in Ukraine got underway with earnest last November, the US, Berlin and other EU allies were all playing prominent roles in destabilizing the government of elected President Viktor Yanukovych.

Land parcels will be given out for free to the servicemen of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and other military formations, as well as to the employees of Interior Ministry and the Security Service of Ukraine that are defending territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country in eastern and southeastern regions of Ukraine.

A short time after the worst US war defeat in the nation's history - the Vietnam War - a growing wave of films began emerging in attempts to grapple with America's open war wounds. Some focused on allegorical cautionary tales such as Apocalypse Now, an epic masterpiece showing the war in Southeast Asia as a nightmare of misguided confusion and terror, and ultimately its senseless brutality.

The caricatures depicted left an indelible imprint on viewers with Robert Duvall's perverse character proclaiming that napalm in the morning "smells like victory." Or the decorated war hero-West Pointer renegade colonel played by Marlon Brando who saw the evil Empire war for what it was worth and jumped ship to the other side to become a hero worshipped, warrior God to the indigenous deep jungle inhabitants.

Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 tour-de-force of an anti-war film became both a box office smash as well as Oscar nominated Best Picture with Coppola himself nominated as Best Director.

Just the year before in 1978 an Oscar winner for its stars was Coming Home, exploring the devastating impact of war on relationships. War's collateral damage manifesting at home in the form of marital infidelity centered on stateside wife (Jane Fonda's character), her wayward, war-fighting, PTSD-stricken husband (Bruce Dern) amidst the burgeoning intimacy of another war victim-paraplegic played by Jon Voight. The powerful reality drama in its raw emotional delivery depicted how different individuals participating in that debacle of a war each responded to their own pain, trauma and suffering. The film poignantly transcended its challenge as a potential soap opera-ish tearjerker to bring us as an audience closer home than we might comfortably want in understanding the war's very real catastrophic consequences on vulnerable and frail human beings.

Also the year before Apocalypse Now came another Oscar winning portrait of the before- and aftereffects of Americans living through the Vietnam War in Michael Cimino's 1978 Deer Hunter. Capturing the pro-war sentiment of a small steel mining town in Pennsylvania with a huge wedding celebration as a joyful tribute to three young men about to join the war effort, the second half of the film focuses on the costly toll that combat takes on the fragile human psyche and the deep sense of loyalty amongst war buddies. The mountainous treks in search of conquering the hunted act as a metaphorical backdrop to the complex nuance of male bonding juxtaposed by man's inhumanity toward both all that is beautiful and natural as well as the brutality of man's inhumanity to man. This film also offers deep human insight as another allegorically dark, cautionary tale of the heavy lessons of war.

Perhaps the most accurate Oscar winning depiction of what it must have been like as an American soldier trying to stay alive in the jungles of Southeast Asia was Vietnam veteran Oliver Stone's 1986 Oscar winner Platoon. The graphic horror of war in all its senselessness including a glimpse into atrocities committed by the US military is brilliantly shown bringing out both war's best and worst in human nature.

As the implacable advance of ISIL (Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant) militants in Iraq continues, several US senators called for a new bombing campaign against the jihadists and for the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to step down.

Senators Dianne Feinstein and John McCain are calling for the US intervene in Iraq again, this time to bomb the groups of ISIS terrorists who have captured a series of Iraqi cities in rapid succession and to kill everyone they regard as a security risk.

According to a new report by the Center for American Progress (CAP), the US should "prepare for limited counterterrorism operations against ISIL, including possible air strikes."

"I think most important is that we take direct action now against ISIL, marching down to Baghdad, and prevent them from getting into Baghdad," said Feinstein (D-CAL), head of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin welcomed on Wednesday the choice of Ukrainian president, saying Pavel Klimkin, proposed for the post of Ukraine's Foreign Minister, was a professional and a very experienced diplomat. "We know Pavel Klimkin very well, as he was Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine, and after that ambassador to Germany," Karasin said to Tass on Wednesday.

"He is a professional, one of the most experienced people in Ukraine's diplomatic service, so we wish him success in a new key position," the top Russian diplomat said.

On Wednesday President Pyotr Poroshenko suggested to deputies of Ukraine's unicameral parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, to dismiss Andrei Deshchitsa and proposed ex-ambassador to Germany Pavel Klimkin for the post of the top Ukrainian diplomat.

The decision comes after Russian Embassy in the Ukrainian capital Kiev came under a violent attack on Saturday, June 14, with embassy cars overturned, the Russian flag torn down and the premises pelted with eggs, smoke barrels and firecrackers. Ukrainian police did nothing to stop the attack.

Deshchitsa came to the embassy. While addressing radicals who gathered in front of it in what he claimed was an attempt to calm them down, he said a swear word about Russian President Vladimir Putin. Later Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he has nothing to talk about with Deshchitsa.

I wish I had only good news to bring to readers, or even one item of good news. Alas, goodness has ceased to be a feature of US policy and simply cannot be found in any words or deeds emanating from Washington or the capitals of its European vassal states. The Western World has succumbed to evil.

In an article published by Op-Ed News, Eric Zuesse supports my reports of indications that Washington is preparing for a nuclear first strike against Russia.

US war doctrine has been changed. US nuclear weapons are no longer restricted to a retaliatory force, but have been elevated to the role of preemptive nuclear attack. Washington pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with Russia and is developing and deploying an ABM shield. Washington is demonizing Russia and Russia's President with shameless lies and propaganda, thus preparing the populations of the US and its client states for war with Russia.