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Israeli military exports this year could decline to just 53% of their level in 2012 and “less desire for Israeli-made products” is a key factor, according to a letter from Israel’s four largest military companies. Industry leaders are warning that military exports have steadily fallen since they reached $7.5bn in 2012. Sales in 2014 decline to $5.5bn and could drop to as low as $4bn this year, according to media reports about the letter. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has been running highly visible campaigns against military trade with Israel that have seen 12 banks and pension funds exclude Israeli arms company Elbit Systems from their investment portfolio. Israeli owned arms factories have been blockaded, and a growing number of political parties and trade unions have called for an end to military ties with Israel. The governments of Norway and Turkey have both announced military embargo policies against Israel in recent years.

During Israel’s 2014 Gaza massacre, the Spanish government announced a temporary freeze on arms exports to Israel, the USA temporarily withheld arms shipments, and the UK government came close to taking similar steps as calls for a military embargo on Israel took centre stage in the debate over Israel’s crimes.

We all know justice is blind. But that is supposed to mean that everyone before it is treated equally, not that the justice system must close its eyes and refuse to look at important legal issues facing Americans.  Yet the government continues to convince courts that they cannot consider the constitutionality of its behavior in national security cases and, last week, in an important case for anyone who has ever used Wikipedia, another judge agreed with that position.  A federal district judge in Maryland dismissed Wikimedia v. NSA, a case challenging the legality of the NSA’s “upstream” surveillance—mass surveillance of Internet communications as they flow through the Internet backbone. The case was brought by our friends at the ACLU on behalf of nine plaintiffs, including human rights organizations, members of the media, and the Wikimedia Foundation.1 We filed a brief in the case, too, in support of Wikimedia and the other plaintiffs. The judge dismissed the case based on a legal principle called standing. Standing is supposed to ensure, among other things, that the party bringing the lawsuit has suffered a concrete harm, caused by the party being sued, and that the court can resolve the harm with a favorable ruling.

But the U.S. government has taken this doctrine, which was intended to limit the cases federal courts hear to actual live controversies, and turned it into a perverse shell game in surveillance cases—essentially arguing that because aspects of the surveillance program are secret, plaintiffs cannot prove that their communications were actually, in fact, intercepted and surveilled. And without that proof, the government argues, there’s no standing, because plaintiffs can’t show that they’ve suffered harm. Sadly, like several other courts before it, the judge agreed to this shell game and decided that it couldn’t decide whether the constitutional rights of Wikimedia and the other plaintiffs were violated.  This game is mighty familiar to us at EFF, but that doesn’t make it any less troubling. In our system, the courts have a fundamental obligation to conclusively determine the legality of government action that affects individuals’ constitutional rights. For years now, plaintiffs have tried to get the courts to simply issue a ruling on the merits of NSA surveillance programs. And for years, the government has successfully persuaded the courts to rely on standing and related doctrines to avoid doing so. That is essentially what happened here. The court labeled as “speculative” Wikimedia’s claim that, at a minimum, even one of its approximately one trillion Internet communications had been swept up in the NSA’s upstream surveillance program. Remember, this is a program that, by the government’s own admission, involves the searching and scanning of vast amounts of Internet traffic at key Internet junctures on the Internet’s backbone. Yet in court’s view, Wikimedia’s allegations describing upstream—based on concrete facts, taken from government documents— coupled with a plaintiff that engages in a large volume of internet communications were not enough to state a “plausible” claim that Wikimedia had been surveilled.

On the way to reaching that conclusion, and putting on its blindfold, the court made a number of mistakes. The Government’s Automated Eyes Are Still Government Eyes First, it appears the court fundamentally misunderstood Wikimedia’s claim about upstream surveillance and, in particular, “about surveillance.” As Wikimedia alleged, “about surveillance” (a specific aspect of upstream surveillance that searches the content of communications for references to particular email addresses or other identifiers) amounts to “the digital analogue of having a government agent open every piece of mail that comes through the post to determine whether it mentions a particular word or phrase.” The court held, however, that this type of “about” surveillance was “targeted insofar as it makes use of only those communications that contain information matching the tasked selectors,” like email addresses. But what the government "makes use of" is entirely beside the point—it is the scanning of the communications for the tasked selectors in the first place that is the problem.  To put it into a different context, the government conducts a search when it enters into your house and starts rifling through your files—not just when it finds something it wants to keep. The government's ultimate decision to “make use of” the communications it finds interesting is irrelevant. It is the search of the communications that matters.

Ambivalence, political twists and turns and the adoption of mutually exclusive decisions on Syria clearly show how completely lost the Saudi leaders are and their distinct lack of understanding of the fundamentals of modern foreign policy. The leaders of the wealthiest countries in the world, the leaders of the Arab and Muslim world have fully displayed their political inadequacy, inability to manoeuvre and adapt to the realities of the modern world. The once infinite riches are melting away rapidly, and soon ordinary Saudis will be faced with the issue of cost-cutting in their simple everyday problems.

The current policy which is so inconsistent and lacks any elementary logic was not only unsuccessful, but plunges Saudi Arabia ever deeper into an abyss of hardship and misery, setting new, complex problems before the King. Primarily, this concerns the economic and financial problems that the once wealthy Saudi society has not yet encountered. As the director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department of the IMF, Masood Ahmed, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the cumulative budget deficit of Middle Eastern oil-exporting countries in the next five years could reach $1 trillion. Moreover, the treasury of the regional leader, Saudi Arabia, is at risk of running dry, and the “kingdom of the welfare state” can expect bankruptcy. Up to now, financial holes – the budget deficit, which this year is projected to be 21.6 percent of GDP, has been covered by the earlier petrodollar savings. In particular, this summer the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency was forced to withdraw $70 billion from foreign investment funds assets. It can be assumed that this is only the beginning of the return of capital to their homeland, to tide over the emerging new outgoings. Otherwise, a sharp reduction in expenditure could lead to a social explosion in the Kingdom, whose citizens have become used to living a well-off life during the oil boom.

Saudi Arabia is currently exploring the possibility of higher energy prices for consumers within the country, as reported by the Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi. Responding to a question about whether the Kingdom is going to reduce energy subsidies in the near future, the Saudi official said: “Your question concerns whether we are considering such a possibility? Yes, we are considering it.” Energy prices in Saudi Arabia are among the lowest in the world. Saudi Arabia is in fact the leader of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Meanwhile, the Kingdom is losing out on potential revenue by selling oil on the domestic market at a much cheaper rate than on the foreign market. Currently, Saudi Arabia spends about 86 billion dollars a year in subsidies for oil producers.

The world’s largest private coal company misled its investors and the public about the financial risks of climate change, New York state’s attorney general announced on Monday. In a press release, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Peabody Energy violated New York laws prohibiting “false and misleading conduct” in public statements about its business. Specifically, Schneiderman found that Peabody failed to tell its investors about how regulations to fight climate change could hurt the coal industry. Instead, Peabody insisted it had no idea how climate regulations would affect its business, and provided its investors with “incomplete and one-sided discussions” of the future of coal in a climate-concerned world, Schneiderman said.

“As a publicly traded company whose core business generates massive amounts of carbon emissions, Peabody Energy has a responsibility to be honest with its investors and the public about the risks posed by climate change, now and in the future,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “I believe that full and fair disclosures by Peabody and other fossil fuel companies will lead investors to think long and hard about the damage these companies are doing to our planet.” The state laws Peabody was found to have violated are the Martin Act and Executive Law, both of which “prohibit false and misleading conduct in connection with securities transactions,” the attorney general said. Peabody did not admit or deny those findings, but signed a document on Sunday agreeing to revise its shareholder disclosures with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Per that document, Peabody will have to correct its financial statements to be honest about how a global climate deal or other carbon regulation could hurt its business. The document can be found in full here.

Peabody’s violations will not result in financial punishment, as both laws only allow monetary penalties if shareholders need to be reimbursed for financial losses. It’s difficult to know what, if any, financial harm was passed on to shareholders due to Peabody’s misleading statements, since this particular situation was about the future risks of climate change. If in the future, however, investors find that Peabody’s misleading statements cost them money, they would likely have the option to sue. The settlement comes just a few days after the two-year investigation became public. On Friday, Scheiderman announced that his office had issued subpoenas to both Peabody and oil company ExxonMobil, both related to the fossil fuel giants’ public statements on climate change.

One of the most tragic problems afflicting those who served their country is the specter of suicide, often the fallout of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). After more than a year of intense lobbying by veterans groups, Congress this year passed the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act, named for a Marine veteran who took his own life even after working as an advocate for suicide prevention. The law is designed to reduce military and veteran suicides, and improve access to quality mental health care. But veterans experts estimate that 17 of the 22 daily suicides involve vets not enrolled in the VA’s healthcare system, suggesting more research — and far greater funding — will be necessary to get a handle on the problem.

With U.S. combat operations winding down in Afghanistan and Iraq, the suicide rate among ex-military members has risen from 18 a day in 2010, although studies undertaken by the Veterans Administration have failed to pinpoint a direct cause. Only about a third of all vets use the VA for healthcare, which leaves a wide swath of people who once wore the uniform outside the reach of the military’s data gathering.“Common sense would have us expect a correlation between number of deployments and combat with suicide risk,” says Fred MacRae, lead suicide prevention coordinator at the VA hospital in Palo Alto. But recent research suggests that’s not necessarily the case. #AD_text{ font-size: 11px; color: #999999; } Advertisement Not even the horrors of battle are a proven cause. “More and more,” says Jackie Maffucci, research director for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), “the data are suggesting that exposure to combat is not one of the high-risk factors.”

Almost everyone who has served in the military now knows someone — often several someones — who suffers from disabling depression. Some end their own lives. Members of the IAVA were asked in a survey last year if they knew at least one post-9/11 veteran who had attempted suicide, and 47 percent answered yes. Another 40 percent knew at least one veteran who had died by suicide. “And 31 percent indicated they had thought about taking their own life since joining the military,” says Maffucci. “Those are startling numbers.”Daniel Faddis told another veteran in his family that he felt he had let down his military buddies when he was booted out. “He carried around a lot of guilt about that,” Stan Faddis says. “Some guys he knew ended up dying in combat, and he felt bad he wasn’t there to save them, or to die with them.”The current wait time for a mental health appointment at the VA in Palo Alto is about 12 days, and in a recent national study by the Government Accountability Office it averaged 26 days. Still, that’s considerably shorter than when the country went on a wartime footing following 9/11. “In 2001, your chances of dying by suicide were greater if you got your care in the VA system than if you got it elsewhere,” MacRae acknowledges. The new federal legislation is creating a program to help the VA recruit psychiatrists by assisting with their tuition payments, and it also requires an annual evaluation of VA mental health and suicide-prevention programs.

Zahran Alloush, the commander of the Jaysh al-Islam alliance was killed in a Damascus suburb. August 21, 2013 the Saudi intelligence asset Alloush was commanding Liwa-al-Islam when he gave the order to launch the chemical weapons attack against the East Ghouta suburb of Damascus. Zahran Alloush has been on the payroll of Saudi intelligence since the 1980s.

The Central Command of the Syrian Arab Army confirmed that it successfully launched an air strike in the Damascus suburb of Otaya, targeting and killing several Jihadist commanders. Among them the leader of Jaysh al-Islam, Zahran Alloush. Jaysh al-Islam is an alliance of several Jihadist militia, including Liwa-al-Islam. Jaysh al-Islam is allied with the Syrian Al-Qaeda Franchise Jabhat Al-Nusrah. An in-depth investigation by nsnbc international, in 2013, concluded that Zahran Alloush was the commander who gave the direct order to launch the chemical weapons attack in East Ghouta on August 21, 2013.

The investigation also concluded that command responsibility for Alloush’s decision led directly to the U.S.’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the White House, and to the Saudi government. Alloush would also be in control over choosing the “security guards” UN inspectors had to submit to while gathering evidence after the chemical weapons attack in East Ghouta. (see details and names in the report). Zahran Alloush, Liwa-al-Islam and Saudi intelligence also played central roles in the attempt to obstruct Syria’s decommissioning of chemical weapons by launching attacks against chemical weapons transports. The information about these transports was highly classified, leading the Syrian government to the conclusion that Saudi intelligence provided information to Liwa-al-Islam. Zahran Alloush was since the 1990s involved in the Salafist – Wahabbist terrorist networks in Syria which led to his arrest by Syrian intelligence. He was released in early of 2011, when the Assad administration granted a general amnesty. Immediately after his March 2011 release from prison, Zahran Alloush began receiving substantial funds and weapons from Saudi intelligence, which enabled him to establish Liwa-al-Islam as a de facto Saudi Arabia sponsored mercenary brigade under the auspices of the Saudi Interior Ministry.

After almost two decades of discussion, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will be proclaimed on 31st December. The AEC is a potentially significant and competitive economic region, should it be allowed to develop according to the aspiration of being a “single market and production base, with free flow of services, investments, and labour, by the year 2020”.

The ASEAN region as a composite trading block has the third highest population at 634 million, after China and India. GDP per capita is rapidly rising. The AEC would be the 4th largest exporter after China, the EU, and the United States, with still very much scope for growth from Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam from a diverse range of activities ranging from agriculture, food, minerals and commodities, electronics, and services. The coming AEC is already the 4th largest importer of goods after the United States, EU, and China, making it one of the biggest markets in the world. Unlike the other trade regions, the AEC still has so much potential for growth with rising population, rising incomes, growing consumer sophistication, and improving infrastructure. Perhaps the biggest benefit of the upcoming AEC is the expected boost this will give to intra-ASEAN trade. Most ASEAN nations have previously put their efforts into developing external relationships with the major trading nations like the EU, Japan and the US through bilateral and free trade agreements. To some extent, the potential of intra-ASEAN trade was neglected, perhaps with the exception of the entrepot of Singapore. The AEC is an opportunity to refocus trade efforts within the region, especially when Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia are rapidly developing, and Myanmar is opening up for business with the rest of the region.

There are no integrated banking structures, no agreement on common and acceptable currencies (some ASEAN currencies are not interchangeable), no double taxation agreements, and no formal agreements on immigration. There is not even any such thing as a common ASEAN business visa. These issues are going to hinder market access for regional SMEs. Any local market operations will have to fulfil local laws and regulations which may not be easy for non-citizens to meet and adhere to. Even though there are some preferential tariffs for a number of classes of ASEAN originating goods, non-tariff barriers are still in existence, which are insurmountable in some cases like the need for import licenses (APs) in Malaysia, and the need to have a registered company which can only be formed by Thai nationals within Thailand. Some of these problems are occurring because of the very nature of ASEAN itself. ASEAN was founded on the basis of consultation, consensus, and non-interference in the internal affairs of other members. This means that no formal problem solving mechanism exists, and the ASEAN Secretariat is a facilitator rather than implementer of policy. Illegal workers, human trafficking, money laundering, and haze issues between member states have no formal mechanisms through which these issues can be solved from an ASEAN perspective. This weakens the force for regional integration.

A lawsuit has been filed in a US court seeking to stop non-profit groups from sending billions of dollars worth of tax-exempt donations to support illegal Israeli settlements and the Israeli army.

A group of American citizens filed the suit on December 21 against the US Department of Treasury, claiming about 150 non-profits have sent an estimated $280bn to Israel over the past two decades. The lawsuit claims, according to Al Jazeera, that the donations were “pass-throughs” and “funnels” to support the Israeli army and the illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The lawsuit claims that certain non-profit groups (including the Falic Family Foundation, FIDF (Friends of the Israeli Defence Force), American Friends of Ariel, Gush Etzion Foundation, American Friends of Har Homa, and Hebron Fund) directly contributed, tax-exempt, to violations of US law and international law, subverted US foreign policy, and contributed to countless crimes and human rights abuses targeting Palestinians. The Treasury Department, which has 60 days to respond to the lawsuit, declined to comment, stating in an email to Al Jazeera: “We don’t comment on pending litigation.”

Israeli Foreign Ministry officials have expressed surprise at the United Methodist Church’s decision to divest from five Israeli banks on the grounds of human rights concerns.

Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, First International Bank of Israel, Israel Discount Bank and Bank Mizrahi-Tefahot are among 39 companies blacklisted by the UMC pension fund for failing to meet the guidelines of a human rights investment policy. An Israeli construction company, Shikun & Binui, was also excluded for its involvement in settlement building. According to Haaretz newspaper, the US decision is being taken seriously and is causing concern within the Foreign Ministry. It is being considered one of the most dangerous decisions made by a US institution to date regarding the imposition of sanctions on Israeli companies due to their activities in the West Bank. The newspaper quoted, according to Middle East Monitor/Al Ray, officials in the Israeli Foreign Ministry as saying that they are still studying the decision and its consequences. They also said that they will try to make contact with the head of the church in an attempt to push for a withdrawal of the decision or, at least, reduce its impact. The United Methodist Church is one of the largest Protestant denominations in the United States, with an estimated seven million members.

The US military plans to maintain a presence of thousands of US forces in Afghanistan for “decades,” unnamed senior US military officials told theWashington Post Tuesday. “The US was supposed to leave Afghanistan by 2017. Now it might take decades,” unnamed US military leaders cited by the Post said. The confirmation of long-term US troop deployments to Afghanistan has been prompted by the instability of the US-backed regime in Kabul, whose tenuous hold over the capital is threatened by insurgent forces including the Taliban, al Qaeda and ISIS, the US officials said. Current Afghan President Ashraf Ghani is a US and NATO stooge imposed through a managed election geared to deflect popular hatred of the previous US- backed ruler, Hamid Karzai. Ghani was described by the US officials as a “willing and reliable partner” who can “provide bases to attack terror groups not just in Afghanistan, but also throughout South Asia for as long as the threat in the chronically unstable region persists.” US officials added, “There’s a broad recognition in the Pentagon that building an effective Afghan Army and police force will take a generation’s commitment, including billions of dollars a year in outside funding.”

The US-NATO intervention in Afghanistan will also require “constant support from thousands of foreign advisers on the ground,” the officials said. “We’ve learned that you can’t really leave,” an unnamed Pentagon official said. “You’re going to be there for a very long time.” Unnamed Obama administration officials confirmed the White House’s support for the plans, saying that the US intervention is analogous to that in South Korea, where Washington has deployed tens of thousands of soldiers since the end of the Second World War to cement its domination over the Pacific Rim. The Post report, which amounts to a de facto US government press release, comes amid a broader upsurge of escalatory moves by the US military in Central Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. Last week the Obama administration signed orders authorizing the US military to expand its military operations in northeast Afghanistan in the name of targeting the Islamic State. US Department of Defense chief Ashton Carter announced further deployments of US ground forces to Iraq, pledging to put “boots on the ground.” US Vice President Joseph Biden declared that Washington is prepared to seek a “military solution” in Syria. On Friday, US General Joseph F. Dunford said that the US is on the verge of launching “decisive military action” in Libya, in coordination with a NATO coalition.

Dunford’s statements have signaled “the opening of a third front in the war against the Islamic State,” according to a New York Times editorial Tuesday. The new US war in Libya “could easily spread to other countries on the continent,” the Times admitted, before calling for the US Congress to pass a new authorization to use military force. With the US and European powers engaged in a competitive scramble over the redivision of the world, the announcement that US forces will remain in Afghanistan for untold decades underscores the centrality of the Central Asian region in the strategic calculations of US imperialism. The US ruling class and military establishment seek to utilize Afghanistan as a permanent military outpost for operations throughout South and Central Asia. Washington is determined to project power throughout the entire Eurasian landmass as part of its campaign to destabilize Russia and China and foster conditions more suitable to US control over the world’s decisive economic centers.

America's 14-year project to defeat the Taliban and build a stable Afghanistan is teetering on the brink of failure, according to a sobering report Friday by a government watchdog. The Taliban controls more of the country than at any time since U.S. troops invaded in 2001, notes the quarterly report to Congress by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. The fragile economy is worsening. One of the few bright spots of the troubled reconstruction effort — getting more girls in school — has been tainted by allegations of fraud. "The lack of security has made it almost impossible for many U.S. and even some Afghan officials to get out to manage and inspect U.S.-funded reconstruction projects," wrote John Sopko, the inspector general. The U.S. has spent more than $113 billion on Afghan reconstruction, more in constant dollars than it spend rebuilding Western Europe after World War II under the Marshall Plan. It is on track to spend billions more, but many critics view the Afghan civilian aid effort as a wasteful failure. Sopko has examined a fraction of the spending, but his audits have uncovered $17 billion in questioned costs in just three years, according to a tally by ProPublica, the investigative group.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced on February 2nd that he approves of US ‘Defense’ Secretary Ash Carter’s proposal to quadruple US armaments and troops in Europe, against ‘Russian aggression’. Secretary Carter said earlier that same day, in his announcement of America’s arming for war against Russia: We are reinforcing our posture in Europe to support our NATO allies in the face of Russia’s aggression. In Pentagon parlance, this is called the European Reassurance Initiative and after requesting about $800 million for last year, this year we’re more than quadrupling it for a total of $3.4 billion in 2017. That will fund a lot of things: more rotational US forces in Europe, more training and exercising with our allies, more preposition and war-fighting gear and infrastructure improvements to support all this. And when combined with US forces already in and assigned to Europe – which are also substantial – all of this together by the end of 2017 will let us rapidly form a highly capable combined arms ground force that can respond across that theater, if necessary.

The US is preparing for an invasion of Russia. «By the end of 2017» the US will be prepared to invade Russia. Secretary Carter went on to say: Russia and China are our most stressing competitors. They have developed and are continuing to advance military system[s] that seek to threaten our advantages in specific areas. And in some case[s], they are developing weapons and ways of wars that seek to achieve their objectives rapidly, before they hope, we can respond. Because of this and because of their actions to date, from Ukraine to the South China Sea, DOD has elevated their importance in our defense planning and budgeting. Since he is a Secretary of ‘Defense’ instead of a Secretary of Offense, he immediately added: While we do not desire conflict of any kind with either of these nations – and let me be clear. That’s all there was to the assertion there; he didn’t finish the sentence, nor even the thought. But in this offhanded way, he did at least try to give the impression that the US is never an aggressor – for example: that, though the US is expanding NATO right up to Russia’s borders, Russia is being the ‘aggressor’ to move troops and weapons up to those borders – up to Russia’s own borders (to counter the US & NATO invasion-threat, of course; but, no: it’s to threaten NATO, if you believe the West).

Hillary Clinton refuses to make public the transcripts of her speeches to big banks, three of which were worth a total of $675,000 to Goldman Sachs. She says she would release the transcripts “if everybody does it, and that includes Republicans.” After all, she complained, “Why is there one standard for me, and not for everybody else?” As the New York Times editorial board pointed out, “The only different standard here is the one Mrs. Clinton set for herself, by personally earning $11 million in 2014 and the first quarter of 2015 for 51 speeches to banks and other groups and industries.” Hillary is not running in the primaries against Republicans, who, the Times noted, “make no bones about their commitment to Wall Street deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.”

She is running against Bernie Sanders, “a decades-long critic of Wall Street excess who is hardly a hot ticket on the industry speaking circuit,” according to the Times. Why do voters need to know what Hillary told the banks? Because it was Wall Street that was responsible for the 2008 recession, making life worse for most Americans. We need to know what, if anything, she promised these behemoths. I Scratch Your Back, You Scratch Mine Hillary has several super PACs, which have recently donated $25 million to her campaign, $15 million of which came from Wall Street. Big banks and large contributors don’t give their money away for nothing. They expect that their interests will be well served by those to whom they donate. Hillary recently attended an expensive fundraiser at Franklin Square Capital, a hedge fund that gives big bucks to the fracking industry. Two weeks later, Hillary’s campaign announced her continuing support for the production of natural gas, which comes from fracking. Bernie opposes fracking. He said, “Just as I believe you can’t take on Wall Street while taking their money, I don’t believe you can take on climate change effectively while taking money from those who would profit off the destruction of the planet.”

We’ve been very patient. For the last 12 hours we’ve been constantly refreshing Google News for just one — one — western article about Putin’s bombshell comments at the G20 summit in Antalya. You would think that the Russian President stating publicly that ISIS is receiving money from 40 different countries, including G20 members, would be “newsworthy”. Right?  But the western media has defied even our worst expectations: Not a single mainstream western outlet reported on Putin’s comments. Typically, at least the Daily Beast has the common courtesy to distort or misrepresent the most recent Putin press conference. But in this instance, there is literally no written western record of Putin saying anything about who finances ISIS during the G20 summit in Turkey. This is insane.

The Russian Ministry of Defense held a press conference, presenting satellite images documenting the smuggling of Syrian oil by Daesh via Turkey. The Defense Ministry stressed that a terrorist organization without funds is like a predator without teeth. Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated that part of the Turkish leadership is trading with terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq. 

On Wednesday the Russian Defense Ministry held a press conference, briefing the press on oil smuggling operations by the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS / ISIL / Daesh) as well as other Islamist terrorist organizations from Syria and Iraq via Turkey. Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov, stressed that Russia is aware of three main oil smuggling routes to Turkey. Antonov noted that the Ministry would only be presenting some of the facts that confirm that “a whole team of bandits and Turkish elites are stealing oil from their neighbors”, operating in the region. Antonov stressed that smuggling operations have such proportions that they constitute a de facto pipeline – on wheels – consisting of thousands of trucks. The Defense Ministry released images from Russian air strikes against smuggling operations. Besides that, the Ministry presented satellite images that show how thousands of trucks, including oil tankers are crossing the border between Syria and Turkey, unimpeded and uncontrolled. The flow of oil is in part refined in Syria or northern Iraq, while much is transported to refineries in Turkey. While part of the product is used for the domestic market, much of the oil is exported via Turkish parts such as Iskenderun, as shown in Satellite images.

Russian Air Forces have, over the past two months struck 32 oil complexes, 11 refineries, 23 oil pumping stations, said Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy . Rudskoy stressed that the air strikes have cut the smuggling operations which are estimated at a value between 1.4 and 3 million dollar US per day by about 50 percent. The Chief of the National Center for State Defense Control Lt.Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev said that the Defense Ministry is aware of that up to 2,000 fighters, 120 tons of ammunition and 250 vehicles have been delivered to Islamic State and Al-Nusrah militants from Turkish territory recently. Such operations have, however, been ongoing for a long time. Turkish President R. Tayyip Erdogan responded to the Russian Defense Ministry dipping his nose in ISIS oil, claiming that it was purely slander. Speaking in the Qatari capital Doha, Erdogan attempted to distract from the presented satellite data by accusing Russia of doing business with Daesh. Pentagon spokesman Steve Warren responded by saying that Washington flatly denies that the Turks are somehow working with ISIL. Warren denounced these “allegations” based in satellite images as “preposterous“.

On December 8, the IMF’s Chief Spokesman Gerry Rice sent a note saying: “The IMF’s Executive Board met today and agreed to change the current policy on non-toleration of arrears to official creditors. We will provide details on the scope and rationale for this policy change in the next day or so.” Since 1947 when it really started operations, the World Bank has acted as a branch of the U.S. Defense Department, from its first major chairman John J. McCloy through Robert McNamara to Robert Zoellick and neocon Paul Wolfowitz. From the outset, it has promoted U.S. exports – especially farm exports – by steering Third World countries to produce plantation crops rather than feeding their own populations. (They are to import U.S. grain.) But it has felt obliged to wrap its U.S. export promotion and support for the dollar area in an ostensibly internationalist rhetoric, as if what’s good for the United States is good for the world. The IMF has now been drawn into the U.S. Cold War orbit. On Tuesday it made a radical decision to dismantle the condition that had integrated the global financial system for the past half century. In the past, it has been able to take the lead in organizing bailout packages for governments by getting other creditor nations – headed by the United States, Germany and Japan – to participate. The creditor leverage that the IMF has used is that if a nation is in financial arrears to any government, it cannot qualify for an IMF loan – and hence, for packages involving other governments. This has been the system by which the dollarized global financial system has worked for half a century. The beneficiaries have been creditors in US dollars.

But on Tuesday, the IMF joined the New Cold War. It has been lending money to Ukraine despite the Fund’s rules blocking it from lending to countries with no visible chance of paying (the “No More Argentinas” rule from 2001). With IMF head Christine Lagarde made the last IMF loan to Ukraine in the spring, she expressed the hope that there would be peace. But President Porochenko immediately announced that he would use the proceeds to step up his nation’s civil war with the Russian-speaking population in the East – the Donbass. That is the region where most IMF exports have been made – mainly to Russia. This market is now lost for the foreseeable future. It may be a long break, because the country is run by the U.S.-backed junta put in place after the right-wing coup of winter 2014. Ukraine has refused to pay not only private-sector bondholders, but the Russian Government as well. This should have blocked Ukraine from receiving further IMF aid. Refusal to pay for Ukrainian military belligerence in its New Cold War against Russia would have been a major step forcing peace, and also forcing a clean-up of the country’s endemic corruption. Instead, the IMF is backing Ukrainian policy, its kleptocracy and its Right Sector leading the attacks that recently cut off Crimea’s electricity. The only condition on which the IMF insists is continued austerity. Ukraine’s currency, the hryvnia, has fallen by a third this years, pensions have been slashed (largely as a result of being inflated away), while corruption continues unabated.

Despite this the IMF announced its intention to extend new loans to finance Ukraine’s dependency and payoffs to the oligarchs who are in control of its parliament and justice departments to block any real cleanup of corruption. For over half a year there was a semi-public discussion with U.S. Treasury advisors and Cold Warriors about how to stiff Russia on the $3 billion owed by Ukraine to Russia’s Sovereign Wealth Fund. There was some talk of declaring this an “odious debt,” but it was decided that this ploy might backfire against U.S. supported dictatorships. In the end, the IMF simply lent Ukraine the money. By doing so, it announced its new policy: “We only enforce debts owed in US dollars to US allies.” This means that what was simmering as a Cold War against Russia has now turned into a full-blown division of the world into the Dollar Bloc (with its satellite Euro and other pro-U.S. currencies) and the BRICS or other countries not in the U.S. financial and military orbit. What should Russia do? For that matter, what should China and other BRICS countries do? The IMF and U.S. neocons have sent the world a message: you don’t have to honor debts to countries outside of the dollar area and its satellites. Why then should these non-dollarized countries remain in the IMF – or the World Bank, for that matter. The IMF move effectively splits the global system in half,between the BRICS and the US-European neoliberalized financial system.

“We have received additional information confirming that the oil controlled by Islamic State militants (ISIS) enters Turkish territory on an industrial scale. We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure the security of this oil’s delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers.” –Russian President Vladimir Putin, Paris, 11-30-15

In candid remarks to the Russian media, Putin implicated the US in the downing of the Su-24 stating that the US military was briefed on the warplane’s flight path and then immediately passed along that information to Turkey. Here’s what he said: “We told our US partners in advance where, when at what altitudes our pilots were going to operate. The US-led coalition, which includes Turkey, was aware of the time and place where our planes would operate. And this is exactly where and when we were attacked. Why did we share this information with the Americans? Either they don’t control their allies, or they just pass this information left and right without realizing what the consequences of such actions might be. We will have to have a serious talk with our US partners.” Putin’s damning remarks have not appeared in any of the western media. The censorship of this information is similar to the blackout of comments Putin made just two weeks earlier at the G-20 summit where he announced that “40 countries” are financing ISIS including members of the G-20.

Here’s an except of Putin’s bombshell announcement: “I provided examples based on our data on the financing of different Islamic State units by private individuals. This money, as we have established, comes from 40 countries and, there are some of the G20 members among them,” Putin told the journalists. “I’ve shown our colleagues photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products. The motorcade of refueling vehicles stretched for dozens of kilometers, so that from a height of 4,000 to 5,000 meters they stretch beyond the horizon,” Putin added, comparing the convoy to gas and oil pipeline systems.” (Putin: ISIS financed from 40 countries, including G20 members, RT)

Would you be willing to defend your country against a foreign invasion? That’s all Putin is doing in Syria. He’s just preempting the tidal wave of jihadis that’ll be coming his way once the current fracas is over.  He figures it’s better to exterminate these US-backed maniacs in Syria now than face them in Chechnya, St Petersburg and Moscow sometime in the future.  Can you blame him? After all, if Washington’s strategy works in Syria, then you can bet they’ll try the same thing in Beirut, Tehran and Moscow. So what choice does Putin have? None. He has no choice.  His back is against the wall. He has to fight.  No one in Washington seems to get this. They think Putin can throw in the towel and call it “quits” at the first sign of getting bogged down. But he can’t throw in the towel because Russia’s facing an existential crisis.  If he loses, then Russia’s going to wind up on the same scrap heap as Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya. You can bet on it. So the only thing he can do is win. Period. Victory isn’t an option, it’s a necessity.

Of course they’ve noticed. Everyone’s noticed. Everyone knows Washington is on the warpath and its leaders have gone stark raving mad. How could they not notice? But all that’s done is focus the mind on the task at hand, and the task at hand is to whoop the tar out of the terrorists, put an end to Washington’s sick little jihadi game, and go home. That’s Russia’s plan in a nutshell.  No one is trying to cobble together the long-lost Soviet empire. That’s pure bunkum.  Russia just wants to clean up this nest of vipers and call it a day. There’s nothing more to it than that. But what if the going gets tough and Syria becomes a quagmire? That doesn’t change anything, because Russia still has to win. If that means sending ground troops to Syria, then that’s what Putin will do. If that means asymmetrical warfare, like arming the Kurds or the Yemenis, or the Taliban or even disparate anti-regime Shiites in Saudi Arabia, then he’ll do that too. Whatever it takes. This isn’t a game, it’s a fight for survival; Russia’s survival as a sovereign country. That’s what the stakes are. That’s not something Putin takes lightly.

The reason I ask this now is because, on Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry is scheduled to attend an emergency meeting in Moscow with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov to discuss issues that are too sensitive to reveal to the public. There’s a lot of speculation about what the two men will talk about, but the urgency and the secrecy of the meeting suggests that the topic will be one of great importance. So allow me to make a guess about what the topic will be. When Kerry arrives in Moscow tomorrow he’ll be rushed to meeting room at the Kremlin where he’ll be joined by Lavrov, Putin, Minister of Defense Sergey Shoygu and high-ranking members from military intelligence. Then, following the initial introductions, Kerry will be shown the evidence Russian intelligence has gathered on last Sunday’s attack on a Syrian military base east of Raqqa that killed three Syrian soldiers and wounded thirteen others. The Syrian government immediately condemned the attack and accused US warplanes of conducting the operation. Later in the day,  Putin delivered an uncharacteristically-harsh and threatening statement that left no doubt that he thought the attack was a grave violation of the accepted rules of engagement and, perhaps, a declaration of war.