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Paul Merrell

"Humanitarian Supplies" for the Islamic State (ISIS): NATO's Terror Convoys Halted at S... - 0 views

www.globalresearch.ca/...5492253

war & peace Syria ISIL Russia U.S.-foreign-policy supply-lines

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • For years, NATO has granted impunity to convoys packed with supplies bound for ISIS and Al Qaeda. Russian airstrikes have stopped them dead in their tracks. If a legitimate, well-documented aid convoy carrying humanitarian supplies bound for civilians inside Syria was truly destroyed by Russian airstrikes, it is likely the world would never have heard the end of it. Instead, much of the world has heard little at all about a supposed “aid” convoy destroyed near Azaz, Syria, at the very edge of the Afrin-Jarabulus corridor through which the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) and Al Qaeda’s remaining supply lines pass, and in which NATO has long-sought to create a “buffer zone” more accurately described as a Syrian-based, NATO-occupied springboard from which to launch terrorism deeper into Syrian territory. The Turkish-based newspaper Daily Sabah reported in its article, “Russian airstrikes target aid convoy in northwestern Syrian town of Azaz, 7 killed,” claims: At least seven people died, 10 got injured after an apparent airstrike, reportedly by Russian jets, targeted an aid convoy in northwestern Syrian town of Azaz near a border crossing with Turkey on Wednesday. Daily Sabah also reported: Speaking to Daily Sabah, Serkan Nergis from the Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) said that the targeted area is located some 5 kilometers southwest of the Öncüpınar Border Crossing.  Nergis said that IHH has a civil defense unit in Azaz and they helped locals to extinguish the trucks. Trucks were probably carrying aid supplies or commercial materials, Nergis added.
  • Daily Sabah’s report also reveals that the Turkish-Syrian border crossing of Oncupinar is held by what it calls “rebels.” The border crossing of Oncupinar should be familiar to many as it was the scene of Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle’s (DW) investigative report where DW camera crews videotaped hundreds of trucks waiting at the border, bound for ISIS territory, apparently with full approval of Ankara. The report was published in November of 2014, a full year ago, and revealed precisely how ISIS has been able to maintain its otherwise inexplicable and seemingly inexhaustible fighting capacity. The report titled, “‘IS’ supply channels through Turkey,” included a video and a description which read: Every day, trucks laden with food, clothing, and other supplies cross the border from Turkey to Syria. It is unclear who is picking up the goods. The haulers believe most of the cargo is going to the “Islamic State” militia. Oil, weapons, and soldiers are also being smuggled over the border, and Kurdish volunteers are now patrolling the area in a bid to stem the supplies. The report, and many others like it, left many around the world wondering why, if the US is willing to carry out risky military operations deep within Syrian territory to allegedly “fight ISIS,” the US and its allies don’t commit to a much less riskier strategy of securing the Turkish-Syrian border within Turkey’s territory itself – especially considering that the United States maintains an airbase, training camps, and intelligence outposts within Turkish territory and along the very border ISIS supply convoys are crossing over.
  • Ideally, NATO should have interdicted these supply convoys before they even crossed over into Syria – arresting the drivers and tracking those who filled the trucks back to their source and arresting them as well. Alternatively, the trucks should have been destroyed either at the border or at the very least, once they had entered into Syria and were clearly headed toward ISIS-occupied territory. That none of this took place left many to draw conclusions that the impunity granted to this overt logistical network was intentional and implicated NATO directly in the feeding of the very ISIS terrorists it claimed to be “fighting.”
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  • Russia’s increased activity along the Syrian-Turkish border signifies the closing phases of the Syrian conflict. With Syrian and Kurdish forces holding the border east of the Euphrates, the Afrin-Jarabulus corridor is the only remaining conduit for supplies bound for terrorists in Syria to pass. Syrian forces have begun pushing east toward the Euphrates from Aleppo, and then will move north to the Syrian-Turkish border near Jarabulus. Approximately 90-100 km west near Afrin, Ad Dana, and Azaz, it appears Russia has begun cutting off terrorist supply lines right at the border. It is likely Syrian forces will arrive and secure this region as well. For those that have criticized Russia’s air campaign claiming conflicts can’t be won from the air without a ground component, it should be clear by now that the Syrian Arab Army is that ground component, and has dealt ISIS and Al Qaeda its most spectacular defeats in the conflict. When this corridor is closed and supplies cut off, ISIS, Nusra, and all associated NATO-backed factions will atrophy and die as the Syrian military restores order across the country. This may be why there has been a sudden “rush” by the West to move assets into the region, the impetus driving the United States to place special forces into Syrian territory itself, and for Turkey’s ambush of a Russian Su-24 near the Syrian-Turkish border.
  • Obviously, any nation truly interested in defeating ISIS would attack it at its very source – its supply lines. Military weaponry may have changed over the centuries, but military strategy, particularly identifying and severing an enemy’s supply lines is a tried and true method of achieving victory in any conflict. Russia, therefore, would find these convoys a natural target and would attempt to hit them as close to the Syrian-Turkish border as possible, to negate any chance the supplies would successfully reach ISIS’ hands. Russian President Vladmir Putin noted, regarding the Azaz convoy in particular, that if the convoy was legitimately carrying aid, it would have been declared, and its activities made known to all nations operating military aircraft in the region.
  • What all of this adds up to is a clear illustration of precisely why the Syrian conflict was never truly a “civil war.” The summation of support for militants fighting against the Syrian government and people, has come from beyond Syria’s borders. With that support being cut off and the prospect of these militants being eradicated, the true sponsors behind this conflict are moving more directly and overtly to salvage their failed conspiracy against the Syrian state. What we see emerging is what was suspected and even obvious all along – a proxy war started by, and fought for Western hegemonic ambitions in the region, intentionally feeding the forces of extremism, not fighting them.
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Dec 15
     
    Watch for new action to begin on the southern supply lines for Al Nusrah running from Jordan and Israel. It's a question of when rather than if.
Paul Merrell

Land Destroyer: BREAKING: Germany's DW Reports ISIS Supply Lines Originate in NATO's Tu... - 0 views

landdestroyer.blogspot.com/...-germanys-dw-reports-isis.html

war & peace ISIL-supplies U.S.-foreign-policy Turkey NATO false-flag

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Germany's international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) published a video report of immense implications - possibly the first national broadcaster in the West to admit that the so-called "Islamic State" (ISIS) is supplied not by "black market oil" or "hostage ransoms" but billions of dollars worth of supplies carried into Syria across NATO member Turkey's borders via hundreds of trucks a day. The report titled, "'IS' supply channels through Turkey," confirms what has been reported by geopolitical analysts since at least as early as 2011 - that NATO member Turkey has allowed a torrent in supplies, fighters, and weapons to cross its borders unopposed to resupply ISIS positions inside of Syria.
  • Local residents and merchants interviewed by Germany's DW admitted that commerce with Syria benefiting them had ended since the conflict began and that the supplies trucks carry as they stream across the border originates from "western Turkey." The DW report does not elaborate on what "western Turkey" means, but it most likely refers to Ankara, various ports used by NATO, and of course NATO's Incirlik Air Base. While DW's report claims no one knows who is arranging the shipments, it does reveal that the very torrent of trucks its film crew documented was officially denied by the Turkish government in Ankara. It is a certainty that Turkey is not only aware of this, but directly complicit, as is NATO who has feigned a desire to defeat ISIS but has failed to expose and uproot ISIS' multinational sponsorship and more importantly, has refused to cut its supply lines - an elementary prerequisite of any military strategy. 
  • SIS supply lines leading from NATO territory should be of no surprise. As reported since as early as 2007, the US and its regional accomplices conspired to use Al Qaeda and other armed extremists in a bid to reorder North Africa and the Middle East. It would be Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his article, "The Redirection: Is the Administration’s new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?" that explicitly stated (emphasis added): To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda. 
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  • Of course, these "extremist groups" who "espouse a militant vision of Islam" and are "sympathetic to Al Qaeda," describe the "Islamic State" verbatim. ISIS constitutes NATO's mercenary expeditionary force, ravaging its enemies by proxy from Libya in North Africa to Lebanon and Syria in the Levant, to Iraq and even to the borders of Iran. Its seemingly inexhaustible supply of weapons, cash, and fighters can only be explained by multinational state sponsorship and safe havens provided by NATO ISIS' enemies - primarily Syria, Hezbollah, Iran, and Iraq - cannot strike. DW's report specifically notes how ISIS terrorists regularly flee certain demise in Syria by seeking safe haven in Turkey.  One of NATO's primary goals since as early as 2012, was to use various pretexts to expand such safe havens, or "buffer zones," into Syrian territory itself, protected by NATO military forces from which "rebels" could operate. Had they succeeded, DW camera crews would probably be filming convoys staging in cities like Idlib and Allepo instead of along Turkey's border with Syria. 
  • With the documented conspiracy of the US and its allies to create a sectarian mercenary force aligned to Al Qaeda, the so-called "moderate rebels" the US has openly backed in Syria now fully revealed as sectarian extremists, and now with DW documenting a torrent of supplies originating in Turkey, it is clear that the ISIS menace NATO poses as the solution to, was in fact NATO all along. What is  revealed is a foreign policy so staggeringly insidious, few are able to believe it, even with international broadcasters like DW showing ISIS' supply lines leading from NATO territory itself.  
  • Paul Merrell on 20 Dec 14
     
    There is a second NATO supply line running from Saudi Arabia, across Iraq into Jordan, and from there to ISIL-Al-Nusrah in southern Syria. Also, Israel is flying combat missions for ISIL and running a resupply/medical services base for them on the Golan Heights. 
Paul Merrell

Logistics 101: Where Does ISIS Get Its Guns? | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...1-where-does-isis-get-its-guns

war & peace ISIL-logistics Syria Iraq Turkey Jordan Saudis CIA

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Jun 15 - No Cached
  • Since ancient times an army required significant logistical support to carry out any kind of sustained military campaign. In ancient Rome, an extensive network of roads was constructed to facilitate not only trade, but to allow Roman legions to move quickly to where they were needed, and for the supplies needed to sustain military operations to follow them in turn.
  • ISIS’ Supply Lines The current conflict consuming the Middle East, particularly in Iraq and Syria where the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS) is operating and simultaneously fighting and defeating the forces of Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, we are told, is built upon a logistical network based on black market oil and ransom payments. The fighting capacity of ISIS is that of a nation-state. It controls vast swaths of territory straddling both Syria and Iraq and not only is able to militarily defend and expand from this territory, but possesses the resources to occupy it, including the resources to administer the populations subjugated within it. For military analysts, especially former members of Western armed forces, as well as members of the Western media who remember the convoys of trucks required for the invasions of Iraq in the 1990s and again in 2003, they surely must wonder where ISIS’ trucks are today. After all, if the resources to maintain the fighting capacity exhibited by ISIS were available within Syrian and Iraqi territory alone, then certainly Syrian and Iraqi forces would also posses an equal or greater fighting capacity but they simply do not.
  • And were ISIS’ supply lines solely confined within Syrian and Iraqi territory, then surely both Syrian and Iraqi forces would utilize their one advantage – air power – to cut front line ISIS fighters from the source of their supplies. But this is not happening and there is a good reason why. Terrorists and weapons left over from NATO’s intervention in Libya in 2011 were promptly sent to Turkey and then onto Syria – coordinated by US State Department officials and intelligence agencies in Benghazi – a terrorist hotbed for decades.ISIS’ supply lines run precisely where Syrian and Iraqi air power cannot go. To the north and into NATO-member Turkey, and to the southwest into US allies Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Beyond these borders exists a logistical network that spans a region including both Eastern Europe and North Africa. The London Telegraph would report in their 2013 article, “CIA ‘running arms smuggling team in Benghazi when consulate was attacked’,” that:
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  • [CNN] said that a CIA team was working in an annex near the consulate on a project to supply missiles from Libyan armouries to Syrian rebels. Weapons have also come from Eastern Europe, with the New York Times reporting in 2013 in their article, “Arms Airlift to Syria Rebels Expands, With Aid From C.I.A.,” that: From offices at secret locations, American intelligence officers have helped the Arab governments shop for weapons, including a large procurement from Croatia, and have vetted rebel commanders and groups to determine who should receive the weapons as they arrive, according to American officials speaking on the condition of anonymity. And while Western media sources continuously refer to ISIS and other factions operating under the banner of Al Qaeda as “rebels” or “moderates,” it is clear that if billions of dollars in weapons were truly going to “moderates,” they, not ISIS would be dominating the battlefield.
  • Recent revelations have revealed that as early as 2012 the United States Department of Defense not only anticipated the creation of a “Salafist Principality” straddling Syria and Iraq precisely where ISIS now exists, it welcomed it eagerly and contributed to the circumstances required to bring it about. Just How Extensive Are ISIS’ Supply Lines? While many across the West play willfully ignorant as to where ISIS truly gets their supplies from in order to maintain its impressive fighting capacity, some journalists have traveled to the region and have video taped and reported on the endless convoys of trucks supplying the terrorist army. Were these trucks traveling to and from factories in seized ISIS territory deep within Syrian and Iraqi territory? No. They were traveling from deep within Turkey, crossing the Syrian border with absolute impunity, and headed on their way with the implicit protection of nearby Turkish military forces. Attempts by Syria to attack these convoys and the terrorists flowing in with them have been met by Turkish air defenses. Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) published the first video report from a major Western media outlet illustrating that ISIS is supplied not by “black market oil” or “hostage ransoms” but billions of dollars worth of supplies carried into Syria across NATO member Turkey’s borders via hundreds of trucks a day.
  • The report titled, “‘IS’ supply channels through Turkey,” confirms what has been reported by geopolitical analysts since at least as early as 2011 – that ISIS subsides on immense, multi-national state sponsorship, including, obviously, Turkey itself. Looking at maps of ISIS-held territory and reading action reports of its offensive maneuvers throughout the region and even beyond, one might imagine hundreds of trucks a day would be required to maintain this level of fighting capacity. One could imagine similar convoys crossing into Iraq from Jordan and Saudi Arabia. Similar convoys are likely passing into Syria from Jordan. In all, considering the realities of logistics and their timeless importance to military campaigns throughout human history, there is no other plausible explanation to ISIS’s ability to wage war within Syria and Iraq besides immense resources being channeled to it from abroad. If an army marches on its stomach, and ISIS’ stomachs are full of NATO and Persian Gulf State supplies, ISIS will continue to march long and hard. The key to breaking the back of ISIS, is breaking the back of its supply lines. To do that however, and precisely why the conflict has dragged on for so long, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and others would have to eventually secure the borders and force ISIS to fight within Turkish, Jordanian, and Saudi territory – a difficult scenario to implement as nations like Turkey have created defacto buffer zones within Syrian territory which would require a direct military confrontation with Turkey itself to eliminate.
  • With Iran joining the fray with an alleged deployment of thousands of troops to bolster Syrian military operations, overwhelming principles of deterrence may prevent Turkey enforcing its buffer zones. What we are currently left with is NATO literally holding the region hostage with the prospect of a catastrophic regional war in a bid to defend and perpetuate the carnage perpetrated by ISIS within Syria, fully underwritten by an immense logistical network streaming out of NATO territory itself.
Gary Edwards

Seymour M. Hersh · The Red Line and the Rat Line · LRB 6 April 2014 - 0 views

www.lrb.co.uk/...the-red-line-and-the-rat-line

Syria Gun-running Benghazi-coverup Seymour-Hersh

shared by Gary Edwards on 07 Apr 14 - No Cached
  • In 2011 Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August, after the sarin attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the ‘red line’ he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons.[*]​＊ Then with less than two days to go before the planned strike, he announced that he would seek congressional approval for the intervention. The strike was postponed as Congress prepared for hearings, and subsequently cancelled when Obama accepted Assad’s offer to relinquish his chemical arsenal in a deal brokered by Russia. Why did Obama delay and then relent on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya? The answer lies in a clash between those in the administration who were committed to enforcing the red line, and military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and potentially disastrous.
  • Paul Merrell on 07 Apr 14
     
    Sy Hersh walks us through his investigation into the reasons behind Obama's last-minute decision to postpone missile (and as it turns out, B52) strikes on Syria. His trail leads through the Benghazi incident and the CIA's running of weapons from Libya to jihadists in Syria (the "rat line") through Turkey engineering a false flag gas attack in Syria to draw Obama into attacking Syria for crossing his "red line" against Syrian use of chemical weapons. Note that Hersh's account of the "red line" events largely fits with the earlier accounts by Yossef Bodansky.  http://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/Middle-East/Syrian-Chemical-Attack-More-Evidence-Only-Leads-to-More-Questions.html http://www.worldtribune.com/2013/09/09/new-granular-evidence-points-to-saudi-involvement-in-syrias-chemical-weapons-terror-attack/ http://www.globalresearch.ca/did-the-white-house-help-plan-the-syrian-chemical-attack Note however that Hersh's account omits Bodansky's evidence that the U.S. State Department and CIA were part of the planning for the false flag attack.
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  • Paul Merrell on 07 Apr 14
     
    Note also the previous account by Wayne Madsen of events leading Obama to postpone his atack on Syria. http://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2013/09/04/american-generals-stand-between-war-and-peace.html "Obama is faced with another grim reality. Some within the Pentagon ranks are so displeased with Obama's policies on Syria, they have let certain members of Congress of both parties know that «smoking gun» proof exists that Obama and CIA director John O. Brennan personally authorized the transfer of arms and personnel from Al-Qaeda-linked Ansar al Sharia Islamist rebels in Libya to Syria's Jabhat al Nusra rebels, who are also linked to Al Qaeda, in what amounts to an illegal «Iran-contra»-like scandal. The proof is said to be highly «[un]impeachable»." This is another "red line" / "rat line" tie, suggesting that the reason the Benghazi investigation has not produced an even larger scandal is that it would expose the War Party's efforts to supply captured Libyan arms to jihadists in Syria.  On the Iran/Contra parallel, note that bills to approve supply of weapons to Syrian "rebels" were then stalled in Congress, evidencing Congressional intent that it rather than the President would authorize arming the "rebel" forces. The fact that CIA and the State Dept. were already covertly doing so completes the Iran/Contra scandal analogy.
  • Paul Merrell on 07 Apr 14
     
    See also Hersh's article in December 2013, establishing that the White House had "cooked" the alleged evidence offered in support of Obama's claim that Syria had been responsible for the attack. It also establishes Obama's prior knowledge that the "rebel" forces had sarin weapons. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n24/seymour-m-hersh/whose-sarin
  • Gary Edwards on 07 Apr 14
     
    "The Red Line and the Rat Line: Seymour M. Hersh on Obama, Erdoğan and the Syrian rebels excerpt/intro: In 2011 Barack Obama led an allied military intervention in Libya without consulting the US Congress. Last August, after the sarin attack on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta, he was ready to launch an allied air strike, this time to punish the Syrian government for allegedly crossing the 'red line' he had set in 2012 on the use of chemical weapons.​＊ Then with less than two days to go before the planned strike, he announced that he would seek congressional approval for the intervention. The strike was postponed as Congress prepared for hearings, and subsequently cancelled when Obama accepted Assad's offer to relinquish his chemical arsenal in a deal brokered by Russia. Why did Obama delay and then relent on Syria when he was not shy about rushing into Libya? The answer lies in a clash between those in the administration who were committed to enforcing the red line, and military leaders who thought that going to war was both unjustified and potentially disastrous. Obama's change of mind had its origins at Porton Down, the defence laboratory in Wiltshire. British intelligence had obtained a sample of the sarin used in the 21 August attack and analysis demonstrated that the gas used didn't match the batches known to exist in the Syrian army's chemical weapons arsenal. The message that the case against Syria wouldn't hold up was quickly relayed to the US joint chiefs of staff. The British report heightened doubts inside the Pentagon; the joint chiefs were already preparing to warn Obama that his plans for a far-reaching bomb and missile attack on Syria's infrastructure could lead to a wider war in the Middle East. As a consequence the American officers delivered a last-minute caution to the president, which, in their view, eventually led to his cancelling the attack."
Gary Edwards

Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...14-forecast-burning-down-house

Banksters

shared by Gary Edwards on 08 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 08 Jan 14
     
    Incredible must read analysis. Take away: the world is going to go "medevil". It's the only way out of this mess. Since the zero hedge layout is so bad, i'm going to post as much of the article as Diigo will allow: Jim Kunstler's 2014 Forecast - Burning Down The House Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/06/2014 19:36 -0500 Submitted by James H. Kunstler of Kunstler.com , Many of us in the Long Emergency crowd and like-minded brother-and-sisterhoods remain perplexed by the amazing stasis in our national life, despite the gathering tsunami of forces arrayed to rock our economy, our culture, and our politics. Nothing has yielded to these forces already in motion, so far. Nothing changes, nothing gives, yet. It's like being buried alive in Jell-O. It's embarrassing to appear so out-of-tune with the consensus, but we persevere like good soldiers in a just war. Paper and digital markets levitate, central banks pull out all the stops of their magical reality-tweaking machine to manipulate everything, accounting fraud pervades public and private enterprise, everything is mis-priced, all official statistics are lies of one kind or another, the regulating authorities sit on their hands, lost in raptures of online pornography (or dreams of future employment at Goldman Sachs), the news media sprinkles wishful-thinking propaganda about a mythical "recovery" and the "shale gas miracle" on a credulous public desperate to believe, the routine swindles of medicine get more cruel and blatant each month, a tiny cohort of financial vampire squids suck in all the nominal wealth of society, and everybody else is left whirling down the drain of posterity in a vortex of diminishing returns and scuttled expectations. Life in the USA is like living in a broken-down, cob-jobbed, vermin-infested house that needs to be gutted, disinfected, and rebuilt - with the hope that it might come out of the restoration process retaining the better qualities of our heritage.
Paul Merrell

Land Destroyer: Grisly Peshawar Slaughter - Who Created Taliban, Who Still Funds Them? - 0 views

landdestroyer.blogspot.dk/...war-slaughter-who-created.html

war & peace Taliban U.S.-foreign-policy U.S.-funding Saudis UAE Qatar must-read

shared by Paul Merrell on 17 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • Taliban militants stormed an army public school in the northern city of Peshawar, killing over 100, including many young students. It is believed up to 10 militants took part in the attack, dressed as soldiers to first infiltrate the school's grounds before beginning the attack.  While the details of the attack are forthcoming, the background of the Taliban and the persistent threat it represents is well established, though often spun across the Western media.  Who Put the Taliban into Power? Who is Funding them Now?  In the 1980's the United States, Saudi Arabia, and elements within the then Pakistani government funneled millions of dollars, weapons, equipment, and even foreign fighters into Afghanistan in a bid to oust Soviet occupiers. Representatives of this armed proxy front would even visit the White House, meeting President Ronald Reagan personally. 
  • In 1997, Taliban representatives would find themselves in Texas, discussing a possible oil pipeline with energy company Unocal (now merged with Chevron). The BBC would report in a 1997 article titled, "Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline," that: A senior delegation from the Taleban movement in Afghanistan is in the United States for talks with an international energy company that wants to construct a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan. A spokesman for the company, Unocal, said the Taleban were expected to spend several days at the company's headquarters in Sugarland, Texas.
  • However, it was already claimed by the US that the Taliban had been "harboring" Osama Bin Laden since 1996, and had branded the Taliban's human rights record as "despicable." The Telegraph in an artile titled, "Oil barons court Taliban in Texas," would report (emphasis added):  The Unocal group has one significant attraction for the Taliban - it has American government backing. At the end of their stay last week, the Afghan visitors were invited to Washington to meet government officials. The US government, which in the past has branded the Taliban's policies against women and children "despicable", appears anxious to please the fundamentalists to clinch the lucrative pipeline contract. The Taliban is likely to have been impressed by the American government's interest as it is anxious to win international recognition. So far, it has been recognised only by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It is clear that to the West, as they were during the proxy war against the Soviets, and during attempts to forge an oil pipeline across Afghan territory, the Taliban remain a tool, not an ally - to be used and abused whenever and however necessary to advance Wall Street and Washington's agenda - a self-serving Machiavellian agenda clearly devoid of principles. 
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  • The Global Post would reveal in a 2009 investigative report that the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan was mostly funded via redirected US aid. The report titled, "Who is funding the Afghan Taliban? You don’t want to know," would state:  It is the open secret no one wants to talk about, the unwelcome truth that most prefer to hide. In Afghanistan, one of the richest sources of Taliban funding is the foreign assistance coming into the country. The report would also reveal that Taliban members were in the capital city of Kabul, directly involved in redirecting the funds, apparently under the nose of occupying NATO forces:
  • But the narrative of the "accidental" funding of Taliban militants in Afghanistan is betrayed when examining their counterparts in Pakistan and their source of funding. While the US funds roughly a billion USD a year to the Taliban in Afghanistan "accidentally," their allies in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia are confirmed to be funding the Taliban in Pakistan.In the Guardian's article, "WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists," the US State Department even acknowledges that Saudi Arabia is indeed funding terrorism in Pakistan:   Saudi Arabia is the world's largest source of funds for Islamist militant groups such as the Afghan Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba – but the Saudi government is reluctant to stem the flow of money, according to Hillary Clinton."More needs to be done since Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups," says a secret December 2009 paper signed by the US secretary of state. Her memo urged US diplomats to redouble their efforts to stop Gulf money reaching extremists in Pakistan and Afghanistan."Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide," she said.Three other Arab countries are listed as sources of militant money: Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.
  • Pakistani terror organization Lashkar-e-Jhangvi - which maintains ties to the Taliban - has also been financially linked to the Persian Gulf monarchies. Stanford University's "Mapping Militant Organizations: Lashkar-e-Jhangvi," states under "External Influences:"  LeJ has received money from several Persian Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates[25] These countries funded LeJ and other Sunni militant groups primarily to counter the rising influence of Iran's revolutionary Shiism.   Astonishingly, despite these admission, the US still works politically, financially, economically, and even militarily in tandem with these very same state-sponsors of rampant, global terrorism. In fact, Wall Street and Washington are among the chief architects and beneficiaries of this global terrorism. 
  • Just as in Libya and Syria where the US and its Persian Gulf allies funded terrorist fronts in bids to overthrow each nation's respective governments, this unholy alliance is working in Pakistan to create a militant front with which to menace political groups in Islamabad and reorder the country to reflect and serve their collective interests. And just as in Syria now, where the US feigns to be locked in battle with terrorists of their own creation, the fact that the US is funding their own enemy billions of dollars while allegedly fighting them in Afghanistan creates a perpetual conflict justifying their continued intervention in the region - overtly and covertly.  When a terrorist attack is carried out in Pakistan by the "Taliban," it must then be looked at through this lens of global geopolitical reality. Attempts by the Western media to reduce this recent attack to mere "extremism," preying on global audiences emotionally, provides impunity for the state-sponsors of the Taliban - those funding, arming, and directing their operations across the region, and then benefiting from their horrific consequences.It appears, just as in Libya, Syria, and Iraq, the West and its allies are waging a proxy war in Pakistan as well. Attempts to exploit the tragedy in Peshawar compound this insidious agenda. Those across Pakistan's political landscape must understand that their is no line these foreign interests are unwilling to cross in achieving their agenda - be it a line crossed at a perceived ally's expense, or a perceived enemy's expense. 
  • Paul Merrell on 17 Dec 14
     
    How to fight the "Long War?" Well, you need a constant supply of new enemies to fight ...
Paul Merrell

The U.S. Government And The Sinaloa Cartel - Business Insider - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/-and-the-sinaloa-cartel-2014-1

Mexico DEA Holder Fast&Furious war on drugs™ gun-running

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • An investigation by El Universal found that between the years 2000 and 2012, the U.S. government had an arrangement with Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel that allowed the organization to smuggle billions of dollars of drugs while Sinaloa provided information on rival cartels. Sinaloa, led by Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, supplies 80% of the drugs entering the Chicago area and has a presence in cities across the U.S.
  • There have long been allegations that Guzman, considered to be "the world’s most powerful drug trafficker," coordinates with American authorities. But the El Universal investigation is the first to publish court documents that include corroborating testimony from a DEA agent and a Justice Department official. The written statements were made to the U.S. District Court in Chicago in relation to the arrest of Jesus Vicente Zambada-Niebla, the son of Sinaloa leader Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and allegedly the Sinaloa cartel’s "logistics coordinator."
  • El Universal, citing court documents, reports that DEA agents met with high-level Sinaloa officials more than 50 times since 2000.
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  • "The DEA agents met with members of the cartel in Mexico to obtain information about their rivals and simultaneously built a network of informants who sign drug cooperation agreements, subject to results, to enable them to obtain future benefits, including cancellation of charges in the U.S.," reports El Universal, which also interviewed more than one hundred active and retired police officers as well as prisoners and experts. Zambada-Niebla's lawyer claimed to the court that in the late 1990s, Castro struck a deal with U.S. agents in which Sinaloa would provide information about rival drug trafficking organizations while the U.S. would dismiss its case against the Sinaloa lawyer and refrain from interfering with Sinaloa drug trafficking activities or actively prosecuting Sinaloa leadership. "The agents stated that this arrangement had been approved by high-ranking officials and federal prosecutors," Zambada-Niebla lawyer wrote.
  • After being extradited to Chicago in February 2010, Zambada-Niebla argued that he was also "immune from arrest or prosecution" because he actively provided information to U.S. federal agents. Zambada-Niebla also alleged that Operation Fast and Furious was part of an agreement to finance and arm the cartel in exchange for information used to take down its rivals. (If true, that re-raises the issue regarding what Attorney General Eric Holder knew about the gun-running arrangements.)
  • El Universal reported that the coordination between the U.S. and Sinaloa, as well as other cartels, peaked between 2006 and 2012, which is when drug traffickers consolidated their grip on Mexico. The paper concluded by saying that it is unclear whether the arrangements continue. The DEA and other U.S. agencies declined to comment to El Universal.
  • Paul Merrell on 14 Jan 14
     
    Another chapter in the long-running history of U.S. government participation in drug-smuggling and gun-running. This one breathes new life into the notorious Fast & Furious scandal.
Paul Merrell

Merkel, Hollande and Poroshenko call for Ceasefire as up to 8,000 Ukrainian Troops have... - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...ian-troops-have-been-encircled

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Feb 15 - No Cached
  • Following their recent meeting behind closed doors, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko, yesterday, called for an immediate ceasefire in Ukraine. Although Poroshenko agreed, it is questionable whether he has the capacity to enforce a ceasefire. About 8,000 regular Ukrainian troops are caught in a pocket and isolated from reinforcement and supplies.
  • It is also questionable whether Ukrainian President Poroshenko has command control over all of the belligerent pro-Kiev militants who are involved in the fighting in eastern Ukraine. While Poroshenko does have nominal command over regular Ukrainian military troops he does not necessarily have direct control over National Guard Unites. Moreover, combat unites of Ukraine’s Pravy Sector, a.k.a. UNA-UNSO refuse to submit to a government dictated command structure. While files in that regard a highly classified, it is commonly known that the UNA-UNSO is part of NATO’s network of covert armies. Finally, it is noteworthy that the call for an “immediate ceasefire” comes after as many as an estimated 8,000 regular Ukrainian troops supply lines have been cut off by brigades loyal to the Donbass region. The troops are surrounded in a pocket near Debaltsevo. Although Poroshenko stressed that “the situation is under control”, a continuation of hostilities could result in a major defeat for pro-Kiev forces in Ukraine.
  • Paul Merrell on 02 Feb 15
     
    This has happened repeatedly. The coup government's military forces are a mish-mash of raw conscripts and independent neoNazi paramilitaries. Their military competence is way down the scale. The Donetsk and Lughansk secessionist provinces, on the other hand, are major manufacturing areas some 80 per cent populated by ethnic Russians, with a high population of former Soviet and Russian soldiers. They are light years ahead of the coup government forces in military competency.  Repeatedly, the coup government forces advance with inadequate protection in their rear and supply lines. The secessionist forces encircle them from the rear, cutting them off in "pockets." Then the coup government begins pushing for a cease fire.  But after each cease-fire, pushed by the U.S. the coup government has gone back on the offensive as soon as its surrounded troops are released. So I wouldn't count on the secessionist commander agreeing to a cease-fire this time around. On the cease-fires so far, the secessionists have offered Ukraine prisoners of war the choice between returning to western Ukraine or emigrating to Russia. Very significant numbers of the conscripts choose the Russia option.That's unsuprising since the coup government's conscription it incredibly unpopular, they are inadequately trained and supplied, and are led by incompetent officers willing to accept high casualty rates. This is a case of U.S. officials controlling the coup government viewing coup government conscripts as mere cannon fodder expendables whose deaths and wounds are unimportant. 
Paul Merrell

Russia Reports Discovery of Rebel-Held Chemical Weapons at Site of Idlib Gas Attack - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...226633

war & peace Syria Idlib-gas-attack Russia opposition-sarin

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Apr 17 - No Cached
  • In the aftermath of yesterday’s chemical gas attack in Syria’s Idlib Province, numerous governments – including those that have funded and armed rebels in an attempt to overthrow the Syrian government – have accused the Syrian army of being primarily responsible for the attack, despite no independent confirmation of their claim and no investigation into who was truly responsible for the tragedy. As MintPress recently reported, the only information available regarding the attack so far has come from only two sources: the White Helmets and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Both groups have strong ties to pro-interventionist governments that have armed and funded rebel groups and even have ties to al-Qaeda.
  • However, pro-interventionist elements in foreign governments and within the Syrian opposition seem disinterested in obtaining valid information, jumping on initial accusations from dubious sources to support long-standing efforts to destabilize and overthrow the Syrian government. Wednesday morning, while media outlets throughout the West ran headlines calling for foreign intervention in Syria with headlines like “We Must Not Look Away,” the Russian Defense Ministry announced a surprising discovery in Khan Sheikhoun the very township where the gas attack took place. Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov publicly stated Wednesday morning that a warehouse in the vicinity of Khan Sheikhoun had been destroyed as part of a Syrian Air Force airstrike conducted midday Tuesday, several hours after the gas attack. According to Konashenkov, the facility produced and stored shells that contained toxic gas, many of which had been delivered to Iraq and repeatedly used there by Daesh militants and other extremists. He also pointed out that the same weapons had been used by foreign-funded rebels in Aleppo in 2016 – a conclusion derived by the analysis of samples taken by Russian military experts. He also stated that the victims of yesterday’s gas attack displayed identical symptoms to those shown by victims of the Aleppo attack. Rebels operating in the area – all of which are allied with the al-Nusra Front and Ahrar al-Sham, both al-Qaeda affiliates – have rejected Konashenkov’s claims. Hasan Haj Ali, commander of the al-Nusra affiliate Free Idlib Army rebel group, told Reuters: “all the civilians in the area know that there are no military positions there, or places for the manufacture [of weapons]. The various factions of the opposition are not capable of producing these substances.”
  • However, it was proven back in 2013 that not only were the rebels capable of producing chemical weapons, but they had used them repeatedly in both Syria and Iraq. For instance, UN officials have confirmed that anti-Assad rebels were responsible for the 2013 sarin gas attack in Ghouta, another attack that was prematurely blamed on the Assad regime. In addition, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh established in his 2014 piece “The Red Line and the Rat Line” that rebels have long had the capacity to carry out chemical weapon attacks and that countries such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia have supplied them with such weapons. Sria’s government, by contrast, no longer has chemical weapons, a fact established by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). The organization confirmed in 2016 that all Syrian government chemical weapons had been destroyed under their supervision per Assad’s affirmation of the International Chemical Weapons Convention three years prior. OPCW’s fact-finding mission, a joint effort with the United Nations, is still active within Syria and has yet to report its findings regarding Tuesday’s attack, according to a statement released Wednesday. In addition, questions have been raised regarding the information that has come from opposition sources regarding the gas attack in Idlib, particularly the now widely-shared images purporting to show victims of yesterday’s attack.
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  • As Paul Antonopoulos of Al-Masdar News wrote: […] in the above picture, the White Helmets are handling the corpses of people without sufficient safety gear, most particularly with masks mostly used, as well as no gloves. […] Within seconds of exposure to sarin, the affects [sic] of the gas begin to target the muscle and nervous system. There is an almost immediate release of the bowels and the bladder, and vomiting is induced. When sarin is used in a concentrated area, it has the likelihood of killing thousands of people. Yet, such a dangerous gas, and the White Helmets are treating bodies with little concern to their exposed skin. This has to raise questions.” While Western governments and the corporate media have already assured themselves of Assad’s guilt, this latest discovery – along with other notable evidence – suggests that the basis for this assumption is faulty at best. The warehouse was discovered less than a day prior to a UN Security Council emergency meeting over Tuesday’s gas attack, leading many pro-interventionist governments to suggest that Russia is merely trying to protect its ally from international criticism and retaliation. Though the timing could be construed as suspect, Assad – on the verge of reclaiming nearly all Syrian cities from the opposition – stands little to gain from using internationally banned weapons, while the increasingly desperate NATO-armed and funded rebels are the greatest beneficiaries from the renewed calls for foreign intervention in Syria following Tuesday’s attack. At the very least, this latest discovery of a chemical weapons warehouse demands that world leaders, pro-intervention and otherwise, must wait for a complete investigation of the incident before taking drastic action. As Antonopoulos noted: “Before the war cries begin and the denouncement of the government from high officials in power positions begin, time must be given so that all evidence can emerge.”
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Apr 17
     
    As the U.S. prepares to go to war against Syria for its alleged gas attack in Idlib province ...
Paul Merrell

Turkey could cut off Islamic State's supply lines. So why doesn't it? | David Graeber |... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...tate-supply-lines-erdogan-isis

war & peace Turkey ISIL PKK YPG

shared by Paul Merrell on 20 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • n the wake of the murderous attacks in Paris, we can expect western heads of state to do what they always do in such circumstances: declare total and unremitting war on those who brought it about. They don’t actually mean it. They’ve had the means to uproot and destroy Islamic State within their hands for over a year now. They’ve simply refused to make use of it. In fact, as the world watched leaders making statements of implacable resolve at the G20 summit in Antalaya, these same leaders are hobnobbing with Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a man whose tacit political, economic, and even military support contributed to Isis’s ability to perpetrate the atrocities in Paris, not to mention an endless stream of atrocities inside the Middle East.
  • How could Isis be eliminated? In the region, everyone knows. All it would really take would be to unleash the largely Kurdish forces of the YPG (Democratic Union party) in Syria, and PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ party) guerillas in Iraq and Turkey. These are, currently, the main forces actually fighting Isis on the ground. They have proved extraordinarily militarily effective and oppose every aspect of Isis’s reactionary ideology. But instead, YPG-controlled territory in Syria finds itself placed under a total embargo by Turkey, and PKK forces are under continual bombardment by the Turkish air force. Not only has Erdoğan done almost everything he can to cripple the forces actually fighting Isis; there is considerable evidence that his government has been at least tacitly aiding Isis itself. It might seem outrageous to suggest that a Nato member like Turkey would in any way support an organisation that murders western civilians in cold blood. That would be like a Nato member supporting al-Qaida. But in fact there is reason to believe that Erdoğan’s government does support the Syrian branch of al-Qaida (Jabhat al-Nusra) too, along with any number of other rebel groups that share its conservative Islamist ideology. The Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University has compiled a long list of evidence of Turkish support for Isis in Syria.
  • And then there are Erdoğan’s actual, stated positions. Back in August, the YPG, fresh from their victories in Kobani and Gire Spi, were poised to seize Jarablus, the last Isis-held town on the Turkish border that the terror organisation had been using to resupply its capital in Raqqa with weapons, materials, and recruits – Isis supply lines pass directly through Turkey. Commentators predicted that with Jarablus gone, Raqqa would soon follow. Erdoğan reacted by declaring Jarablus a “red line”: if the Kurds attacked, his forces would intervene militarily – against the YPG. So Jarablus remains in terrorist hands to this day, under de facto Turkish military protection.
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  • How has Erdoğan got away with this? Mainly by claiming those fighting Isis are “terrorists” themselves. It is true that the PKK did fight a sometimes ugly guerilla war with Turkey in the 1990s, which resulted in it being placed on the international terror list. For the last 10 years, however, it has completely shifted strategy, renouncing separatism and adopting a strict policy of never harming civilians. The PKK was responsible for rescuing thousands of Yazidi civilians threatened with genocide by Isis in 2014, and its sister organisation, the YPG, of protecting Christian communities in Syria as well. Their strategy focuses on pursuing peace talks with the government, while encouraging local democratic autonomy in Kurdish areas under the aegis of the HDP, originally a nationalist political party, which has reinvented itself as a voice of a pan-Turkish democratic left.
  • They have proved extraordinarily militarily effective and with their embrace of grassroots democracy and women’s rights, oppose every aspect of Isis’ reactionary ideology. In June, HDP success at the polls denied Erdoğan his parliamentary majority. Erdoğan’s response was ingenious. He called for new elections, declared he was “going to war” with Isis, made one token symbolic attack on them and then proceeded to unleash the full force of his military against PKK forces in Turkey and Iraq, while denouncing the HDP as “terrorist supporters” for their association with them. There followed a series of increasingly bloody terrorist bombings inside Turkey – in the cities of Diyarbakir, Suruc, and, finally, Ankara – attacks attributed to Isis but which, for some mysterious reason, only ever seemed to target civilian activists associated with the HDP. Victims have repeatedly reported police preventing ambulances evacuating the wounded, or even opening fire on survivors with tear gas.
  • As a result, the HDP gave up even holding political rallies in the weeks leading up to new elections in November for fear of mass murder, and enough HDP voters failed to show up at the polls that Erdoğan’s party secured a majority in parliament. The exact relationship between Erdoğan’s government and Isis may be subject to debate; but of some things we can be relatively certain. Had Turkey placed the same kind of absolute blockade on Isis territories as they did on Kurdish-held parts of Syria, let alone shown the same sort of “benign neglect” towards the PKK and YPG that they have been offering to Isis, that blood-stained “caliphate” would long since have collapsed – and arguably, the Paris attacks may never have happened. And if Turkey were to do the same today, Isis would probably collapse in a matter of months. Yet, has a single western leader called on Erdoğan to do this? The next time you hear one of those politicians declaring the need to crack down on civil liberties or immigrant rights because of the need for absolute “war” against terrorism bear all this in mind. Their resolve is exactly as “absolute” as it is politically convenient. Turkey, after all, is a “strategic ally”. So after their declaration, they are likely to head off to share a friendly cup of tea with the very man who makes it possible for Isis to continue to exist.
Paul Merrell

Syria Right to Hit NATO Warplanes - 0 views

sputniknews.com/...ia-nato-planes-cunningham.html

war & peace Syria sovereignty NATO airstrikes S-300

shared by Paul Merrell on 09 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Translated from Arabic language Alrai Media (thanks to the reliable Fort Russ Russian news site), the senior Syrian officer at the operations room is quoted as saying: “Soon Syria will announce that any country using the airspace without coordinating with Damascus will be viewed as hostile and [we] will shoot the jet down without warning. Those willing to fight terrorism and coordinate with the military leadership will be granted safe corridors.” This may seem like a dangerous escalation. American fighter jets have been bombing Syrian territory since September 2014, having carried out thousands of air strikes allegedly against the Islamic State (IS) terror group (also known by its Arabic name Daesh). Since the Paris terror attacks last month, France has stepped up its air strikes in Syria too. In the past week, Britain and Germany parliaments have voted for their air forces to join the other NATO members in aerial operations. The US-led bombing coalition in Syria also includes Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Russia is the only country whose military aircraft are legally deployed in Syria because Moscow has the full consent of the Syrian government. All the others do not have consent from Damascus. So we have at least seven foreign powers deploying their warplanes to bomb Syrian territory – all in violation of international law.
  • It is irrelevant whether the US-led alliance claims to be fighting terrorists, or whether they claim it is in “self-defence” as France, Britain and Germany are. The Germany justice minister Heiko Maas, speaking after the Bundestag voted for military action this week, claimed that the United Nations Security Council resolution passed last month in the wake of the Paris attacks makes the German intervention legal. That UNSC resolution does not specifically sanction military action. In any case, the ultimate legal criterion is the position of the Syrian state authorities. Western governments and their media have done everything to discredit, demonise and delegitimise the Syrian government. That’s part of the US-led criminal enterprise for regime change in Syria. But the fact remains, Syria is a sovereign state fully entitled the legal rights of all other UN members. If the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad – which is the internationally recognised governing authority of Syria and retains its seat at the UN – does not consent to foreign military intervention, then that intervention is illegal, as Moscow and Damascus have repeatedly pointed out. Syria, with the S-300 missile system supplied by its Russian ally, now has the technical means to defend its borders and airspace from all intruders. It also has the legal right to defend the inviolability of its territory. After all, US President Barack Obama invoked this right with regard to Turkey after the shoot-down of the Russian Su-24. Obama said Turkey had “every right to protect its skies” (even though the evidence shows that the Russian fighter jet did not breach Turkish territory). In other words: what’s good for Turkey is good for Syria, as for any other nation.
  • Now, some might say it is a reckless move for Syria to train its skies with the powerful S-300. If a US, French, British or German warplane is shot down then that may ignite a full-on war with the American NATO military alliance. Russia would inevitably be dragged into the fight, which could slide into a world war between nuclear powers. But hold on a minute. That logic amounts to the US and its allies using such fear as a weapon to disarm others and to prevent sovereign states from exercising their rights. Such a dynamic is a blank cheque for powers to bully and oppress others. As Russian President Vladimir Putin has said time and again, the issue is one abiding by international law. Without respect for international law then the world resorts to the law of the jungle and barbarism, as Putin said in his recent state of the nation speech. What we have seen in recent years since the US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001-2003 is the wholesale erosion of sovereignty. This has involved the overt deployment of military force and the covert use of “asymmetric war”, says American political analyst Randy Martin (who writes at crookedbough.com).
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  • “The use of proxy military force by the US and its NATO allies has been seen in regime-change operations in Libya, Syria and Ukraine, combined with media propaganda campaigns and economic sanctions,” says Martin. “A key strategy here by the Washington-led powers is to erode sovereign rights of designated enemy states.” The deployment of so-called Islamist terror groups to destabilise Syria as with neo-Nazi paramilitaries in Ukraine is all part of the West’s asymmetric warfare. For whatever reason, the US bombing coalition is claiming that it is combating the IS jihadists in Syria. However, the evidence shows that Western “combat” efforts in Syria are very late in coming and not very effective, indicating a lack of commitment to genuinely defeat the terror network.
  • There is also reason to believe that the NATO rush to bomb IS oil smuggling routes in Syria is really motivated by a need to cover up the tracks of Western collusion with the terror groups. The American CIA and British MI6, along with Turk military intelligence, have been implicated in running the terror “rat lines”. Russian intelligence is lifting the lid on this sordid racket. Western air strikes without the approval of the Syrian government are not only illegal, they lack credibility in their stated aim. But either way, the imperative here is that Syria re-establishes its sovereignty and the principles of international law. If Syria is lost, then Western state sponsored banditry and terrorism will only escalate. Russia is already being targeted by the West’s asymmetric warfare, as is Iran and China. Therefore, a line has to be drawn. And with Russia’s military support, Syria has the power to do just that. From now on, NATO warplanes violating Syrian territory should be put on notice. Keep out or get shot down.
  • Paul Merrell on 09 Dec 15
     
    I'm not seeing that Syria has much else in the way of choices. It's either re-establish its sovereignty rights or completely lose control of its airspace.My guess is that this winds up with some kind of deal that enables NATO to keep flying missions in Syria but requires more cooperation and coordination with Syria and Russia. Which will have the neocons and neolibs in Washington, D.C. screaming for a lynch mob.
  • Paul Merrell on 10 Dec 15
     
    On the reasons that Syria has to take this hard "line in the sand" to protect its sovereignty, see Tony Cartalucci at http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/07/americas-creeping-war-in-syria/ and the analysis by The Saker at http://thesaker.is/week-nine-of-the-russian-intervention-in-syria-the-empire-strikes-back/ Add in the facts that Turkey has already invaded Syria to establish a firebase in order to protect its Syrian oil smuggling racket (and ISIL supply lines) and that Turkey has massed an entire heavy armored division on the Syrian border poised for full-scale invasion. See http://southfront.org/turkey-invaded-syria-captured-tal-ziyab/ and http://southfront.org/turkey-is-ready-to-invide-syria-concentrated-1000-units-of-military-equipment-at-the-border/ So far it's an incremental invasion, perhaps probing to see how Syria and Russia will react. The answer: a line in the sand on any more NATO flights over Syria.
Paul Merrell

Map, images from Russian military show main routes of ISIS oil smuggling to Turkey - RT... - 0 views

www.rt.com/...324303-isis-oil-routes-turkey

war & peace Turkey ISIL oil-smuggling Russia

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • Russia’s Defense Ministry published images and a map it says reveal a chain of oil smuggling to Turkey from Islamic State – from extraction to refining facilities. At least three ISIS oil supply routes were located, all leading to Turkey.
  • “The General Staff of the Russian Federation Armed Forces has irrefutable evidence of Turkey’s involvement based on aerial and space reconnaissance data,” Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy said during the Defense Ministry briefing on Wednesday.
  • According to Rudskoy, Russia has identified “three main oil transportation routes from ISIS-controlled Syrian and Iraqi territories into Turkey.”“The western route leads to the Mediterranean ports, the northern route leads to the Batman oil refinery on the Turkish territory and the eastern one leads to a large transfer base in Cizre [Turkey].”The documents published by the ministry show “the entire chain of oil supply into Turkey - from extraction to refining facilities.”
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  • “In total, in their illegal oil smuggling business, terrorists are using at least 8,500 trucks to transport up to 200,000 barrels of oil every day.”He added that the vehicles with illegal oil that are crossing Turkey are not checked at the border.“The presented photos, which were taken this August, demonstrate hundreds of oil trucks and heavy vehicles moving both to and from the Turkish border.”Rudskoy concluded that most of the oil is being transferred from eastern Syria to a large oil refinery plant in Batman, 100km from the Syrian border.The 200,000 barrels of oil that Russia says is smuggled by IS every day is roughly equivalent to the average daily oil export of Gabon in 2014 or Australia in 2013, according to an OPEC annual statistical bulletin.It is also only slightly less than the average daily oil export of pre-war Syria in the second half of the 2000s, which amounted to 247,000-250,000 barrels per day. 
  • Paul Merrell on 04 Dec 15
     
    I wonder why the U.S. military never bombed the ISIL supply lines into Turkey for 14 months, until Putin embarrassed Obama into doing it --- once. 
Gary Edwards

The Fourth Industrial Revolution: what it means and how to respond - Agenda - The World... - 0 views

agenda.weforum.org/...at-it-means-and-how-to-respond

shared by Gary Edwards on 26 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • The First Industrial Revolution used water and steam power to mechanize production. The Second used electric power to create mass production. The Third used electronics and information technology to automate production. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is building on the Third, the digital revolution that has been occurring since the middle of the last century. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres.
  • Like the revolutions that preceded it, the Fourth Industrial Revolution has the potential to raise global income levels and improve the quality of life for populations around the world. To date, those who have gained the most from it have been consumers able to afford and access the digital world; technology has made possible new products and services that increase the efficiency and pleasure of our personal lives. Ordering a cab, booking a flight, buying a product, making a payment, listening to music, watching a film, or playing a game—any of these can now be done remotely.
  • In the future, technological innovation will also lead to a supply-side miracle, with long-term gains in efficiency and productivity. Transportation and communication costs will drop, logistics and global supply chains will become more effective, and the cost of trade will diminish, all of which will open new markets and drive economic growth.
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  • As automation substitutes for labor across the entire economy, the net displacement of workers by machines might exacerbate the gap between returns to capital and returns to labor. On the other hand, it is also possible that the displacement of workers by technology will, in aggregate, result in a net increase in safe and rewarding jobs.
  • I am convinced of one thing—that in the future, talent, more than capital, will represent the critical factor of production.
  • This will give rise to a job market increasingly segregated into “low-skill/low-pay” and “high-skill/high-pay” segments, which in turn will lead to an increase in social tensions.
  • In addition to being a key economic concern, inequality represents the greatest societal concern associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
  • The largest beneficiaries of innovation tend to be the providers of intellectual and physical capital—the innovators, shareholders, and investors—which explains the rising gap in wealth between those dependent on capital versus labor.
  • Technology is therefore one of the main reasons why incomes have stagnated, or even decreased, for a majority of the population in high-income countries: the demand for highly skilled workers has increased while the demand for workers with less education and lower skills has decreased. The result is a job market with a strong demand at the high and low ends, but a hollowing out of the middle.
  • A winner-takes-all economy that offers only limited access to the middle class is a recipe for democratic malaise and dereliction.
  • An underlying theme in my conversations with global CEOs and senior business executives is that the acceleration of innovation and the velocity of disruption are hard to comprehend or anticipate and that these drivers constitute a source of constant surprise, even for the best connected and most well informed. Indeed, across all industries, there is clear evidence that the technologies that underpin the Fourth Industrial Revolution are having a major impact on businesses.
  • On the supply side, many industries are seeing the introduction of new technologies that create entirely new ways of serving existing needs and significantly disrupt existing industry value chains. Disruption is also flowing from agile, innovative competitors who, thanks to access to global digital platforms for research, development, marketing, sales, and distribution, can oust well-established incumbents faster than ever by improving the quality, speed, or price at which value is delivered.
  • Major shifts on the demand side are also occurring, as growing transparency, consumer engagement, and new patterns of consumer behavior (increasingly built upon access to mobile networks and data) force companies to adapt the way they design, market, and deliver products and services.
  • A key trend is the development of technology-enabled platforms that combine both demand and supply to disrupt existing industry structures, such as those we see within the “sharing” or “on demand” economy. These technology platforms, rendered easy to use by the smartphone, convene people, assets, and data—thus creating entirely new ways of consuming goods and services in the process. In addition, they lower the barriers for businesses and individuals to create wealth, altering the personal and professional environments of workers. These new platform businesses are rapidly multiplying into many new services, ranging from laundry to shopping, from chores to parking, from massages to travel.
  • On the whole, there are four main effects that the Fourth Industrial Revolution has on business—on customer expectations, on product enhancement, on collaborative innovation, and on organizational forms.
  • Overall, the inexorable shift from simple digitization (the Third Industrial Revolution) to innovation based on combinations of technologies (the Fourth Industrial Revolution) is forcing companies to reexamine the way they do business. The bottom line, however, is the same: business leaders and senior executives need to understand their changing environment, challenge the assumptions of their operating teams, and relentlessly and continuously innovate.
  • governments will increasingly face pressure to change their current approach to public engagement and policymaking, as their central role of conducting policy diminishes owing to new sources of competition and the redistribution and decentralization of power that new technologies make possible.
  • Ultimately, the ability of government systems and public authorities to adapt will determine their survival. If they prove capable of embracing a world of disruptive change, subjecting their structures to the levels of transparency and efficiency that will enable them to maintain their competitive edge, they will endure. If they cannot evolve, they will face increasing trouble.
  • In the end, it all comes down to people and values. We need to shape a future that works for all of us by putting people first and empowering them. In its most pessimistic, dehumanized form, the Fourth Industrial Revolution may indeed have the potential to “robotize” humanity and thus to deprive us of our heart and soul. But as a complement to the best parts of human nature—creativity, empathy, stewardship—it can also lift humanity into a new collective and moral consciousness based on a shared sense of destiny. It is incumbent on us all to make sure the latter prevails.
Paul Merrell

US-Turkey Invasion Derailed by Syrian Army Triumph at Kuweires - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...yrian-army-triumph-at-kuweires

war & peace Syria Russia ISIL Turkey supply-lines

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) achieved its greatest victory in the four year-long war on Tuesday when it recaptured the strategic Kuweires military airbase in North Syria. Hundreds of ISIS terrorists were killed in intense fighting while hundreds more were sent fleeing eastward towards Raqqa. The victory was announced just hours after Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said in an interview with CNN’s  Christiane Amanpour that Turkey would be willing  to invade Syria as long as Washington agreed to provide air support, create a safe zone along the Syrian-Turkish border, and remove Syrian President Bashar al Assad. Now that Kuweires has been liberated, Davutoğlu will have to reconsider his offer taking into consideration the fact that  Russian warplanes will now be within striking distance of the border while troops and artillery will be positioned in a way that makes crossing into Syria as difficult as possible. The window for Turkish troops to enter Syria unopposed has closed. Any attempt to invade the country now will result in stiff resistance and heavy casualties.
  • The fact is, Kuweires changes everything. ISIS is on the run, the myriad other terrorist organizations are progressively losing ground, Assad is safe in Damascus, the borders will soon be protected, and the US-Turkey plan to invade has effectively been derailed. Barring some extraordinary, unforeseeable catastrophe that could reverse the course of events; it looks like the Russian-led coalition will eventually achieve its objectives and win the war. Washington will have no choice but to return to the bargaining table and make the concessions necessary to end the hostilities.
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15
     
    The U.S. coalition's supply lines for ISIL in Syria are nearly closed, with perhaps only a single push by the Syrian Army and allies to complete the closure. If that happens, look for ISIL to dissolve, with most of its mercenaries defecting to al Nusrah in southern Syria.  
Paul Merrell

Russia, Assad deliver blow to Turkey in Syria - Business Insider - 0 views

www.businessinsider.com/key-syria-rebels-aleppo-2016-2

war & peace Syria Turkey Russia

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Feb 16 - No Cached
  • Pro-government forces in Syria have reportedly broken a rebel siege of two villages northwest of Aleppo, effectively cutting off Turkey's supply line to opposition groups operating in and around Syria's largest city. Government troops, accompanied by Iran-backed Shiite militias and Hezbollah forces, apparently reached the cities of Nubl and Zahraa with the help of heavy Russian airstrikes on Wednesday. The opposition had held these cities since 2012, according to the Institute for the Study of War. Russian airstrikes across northern Syria had been steadily shifting the epicenter of the war toward the corridor north of Aleppo since late November, in retaliation for Turkey's decision to shoot down a Russian warplane that it said violated its airspace.
  • A stepped-up Russian bombing campaign in the Bayirbucak region of northwest Syria, near the strategically important city of Azaz, had primarily targeted the Turkey-backed Turkmen rebels and civilians — and the Turkish aid convoys that supplied them. As a result, Turkey's policy in Syria of bolstering rebels fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime — and establishing a "safe zone" for displaced Syrians that might hinder the regime's efforts to take Aleppo — has been unraveling for months, and now appears to have been defeated entirely.
  • "It cuts Turkey off from Aleppo via Azaz," Aaron Stein, an expert on Turkey and Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, told Business Insider on Wednesday. "Ankara can still access Aleppo via Reyhanli, through Idlib," Stein said in an email. But "Turkey is on the back foot in Syria and is at a disadvantage now that Russia is deterring them from flying strike missions," he added. Indeed, Turkey's ability to retaliate against the Russian bombing campaign in northern Syria was severely limited by the de facto no-fly zone Russia created in the north following Turkey's downing of the Russian warplane in November. "This has to be Turkey's weakest position in Syria in years," David Kenner, Foreign Policy magazine's Middle East editor, noted on Twitter. "Shooting down of that Russian jet was a pivot point — backfired in a major way."
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  • On Twitter, Stein noted that another aspect of Turkey's Syria policy is on the brink of total collapse — namely, restricting the movements of the Kurdish YPG, with whom Turkey has clashed, to east of the Syrian city of Marea. "Weapons and aid now must be sent through Bab al Hawa via Idlib," Stein wrote. "Turkish efforts to secure Marea line in trouble. Huge implications." To Turkey's chagrin, Russian President Vladimir Putin offered to help the Kurds consolidate their territorial gains in northern Syria by linking the Kurdish-held town of Kobani with Afrin in September. He apparently began to make good on his after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane, offering to arm and support the Kurdish YPG in the name of cutting Turkey's rebel supply line to Aleppo.
  • In December, "Moscow delivered weapons to the 5,000 Kurdish fighters in Afrin, while Russian aircraft bombed a convoy of trucks that crossed the Turkish border into Syria at Bab al-Salam," the Washington Institute's Fabrice Balanche wrote in an analysis of the Azaz corridor's strategic importance. As Stein noted on Twitter, "A viable way for Kurds to connect Efrin with territory East of the Euphrates now in play. Route is out of range of TR [Turkish] artillery." Efrin is an alternative spelling for the Kurdish-held Syrian city. Aykan Erdemir, a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former member of Turkish parliament, told Business Insider in December that Turkey trying to intervene to stop the Kurds' expansion westward would "undoubtedly have serious drawbacks." Any intervention, Erdemir said, "could further escalate the Turkish-Russian crisis, prompting heavier sanctions, and even new episodes of clashes between the two armies."
Gary Edwards

The Libertarian View: Are Tariffs Bad? - 1 views

www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php

Libertarian Austrian-Economics Tariffs-NAFTA China Ron-Paul

shared by Gary Edwards on 26 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 26 Jan 12
     
    As many know, i spent quite a bit of time working for a Chinese Company seeking to enter the USA-European software market.  My task was to research the market, discover and define a market opportunity, design the product, and then work as product manager to get that service to market.  I took this job to better understand the Chinese marketplace and how sovereign Chinese companies work.  What i learned is how the Chinese seek to exploit and totally dominate open markets.  Software is just a category whose time has come.  and there are thousands of Chinese companies lining up.  The first step though is to fine tune the existing blueprint used by other Sina sovereigns.  amazing stuff. My take away from this experience is that the USA MUST set up a 30% tariff on ALL imports, and do so IMMEDIATELY!!!  Yesterday is not soon enough! As a newly minted libertarian, i wondered about the obvious conflict with Austrian Economics and their dedication to free markets and free trade?  I found the answer at this Libertarian forum, where many members were in heated discussion.  Comment #7 sums it up best i think.  Including a link to Ron Paul's Tariff-NAFTA speech. The thing is, the 30% Tariff should be part of an overall TAX REDUCTION PLAN.  I support the FAIR TAX and the Balanced Budget Amendment.  As an alternative to the Fair Tax, I would also support a 17% flat tax with no exceptions.  The ideal situation being an immediate, uncompromising, no exceptions 30% tariff on ALL imports coupled with the Fair Tax and the Balanced Budget Amendment.   And yes, i do believe this plan is consistent with the Founding Fathers Constitution.  But it took some kind of research to establish that opinion.   I've also concluded that "conservatism" is a convenient philosophical vehicle for the corrupt crony corporatism of both the military-industrial-complex, banksters and, international corporations.  Free trade and open markets concepts are perverted to become a thin veil
Paul Merrell

Asia Times Online :: The Syria-Iran red line show - 0 views

www.atimes.com/...WOR-01-020513.html

war & peace Israel Iran Syria CIA DoD Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 04 May 13 - No Cached
  • The Nenets of Siberia - crossing the Ob river to enter the Arctic Circle - could teach a thing or two about real strategy to those limping armchair warriors in US Think Tankland. Even the Nenets would know that the current chemical weapons hysteria is a total fabrication by the CIA, MI6 and Israeli intelligence - corroborated by zero evidence. Still, the prevailing Washington "wisdom" is that a "red line" must be enforced over Syria so a "red line" must be enforced on Iran. The fact is that the al-Assad government initially accused the "rebels" of using chemical weapons - and asked the United Nations for an official investigation.
  • Even the New York Times was forced, grudgingly, to admit the "rebels" acknowledged an attack happened in territory controlled by the government, with 16 Syrian Army dead, plus 10 civilians and over a hundred injured. But then the "rebels" changed the narrative, blaming Damascus of bombing their own soldiers. It was Moscow that introduced a measure of reality, detailing how Washington was stalling the UN investigation. Our Nenets of Siberia would also know there's hardly anything secular leading the "rebels" in Syria; it's a motley crew of varying degrees of fanaticism. Once again, the Nenets would not need to freeze to death reading the New York Times to find out that the CIA is "secretly" funneling a free for all weaponizing to the "rebels" via Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Still the Obama administration peddles the fiction that Washington only supplies "non lethal" aid as Capitol Hill nutters keep insisting that Obama install a "no fly zone" over Syria - as in Libya-style NATO war remix.
  • Follow-on strike package, anyone? US Think Tankland nonetheless is ecstatic that the GCC petro-monarchies now have access to precision-guided munitions to "strike Iranian targets". But nothing compares to the cheerleading of Israel's new access to KC-135 aerial refueling tankers - or Stratotankers. Then there's the imminent transfer of anti-radiation missiles as well - advanced versions of the AGM-88 HARM missiles. These toys will "reduce the threat to Israel's follow-on strike package." No, this is not exactly about "US circumspection", or "US resolve in the campaign against Iranian nuclear weapons"; it's unqualified Dog of War barking.
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  • Meanwhile, that police state run by King Playstation, also known as Jordan, has opened its airspace to Israeli drones now engaged in "monitoring" Syria. As Asia Times Online has repeatedly warned, Obama in Syria is fast becoming a remix of Reagan in 1980s Afghanistan. We all know what came out of those "freedom fighters" afterwards. In this context, Robert Ford, Obama's alleged Syria expert, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it's important for Washington to "weigh in" to affect "the internal balance of power in Syria" qualifies as a joke line, not a red line.
Paul Merrell

Putin's Line in the Sand: No Regime Change in Syria - 0 views

www.counterpunch.org/...sand-no-regime-change-in-syria

war & peace Syria U.S.-foreign-policy Russia Turkey Iran HezbAllah

shared by Paul Merrell on 18 Sep 15 - No Cached
  • The Syrian war can divided into two parts: The pre-Incirlik period and the post-Incirlik period. The pre-Incirlik period is roughly the four year stretch during which US-backed Islamic militias and al Qaida-linked groups fought the Syrian army with the intention of removing President Bashar al Assad from power. This first phase of the war ended in a draw. The post-Incirlik period looks like it could produce an entirely different outcome due to the fact that the US will be able to deploy its drones and warplanes from a Turkish airbase (Incirlik) that’s just 15 minutes flying-time from Syria. That will boost the number of sorties the USAF can able to carry out while increasing the effectiveness of its jihadi forces on the ground which will conduct their operations under the protection of US air cover. This will greatly improve their chances for success. The New York Times calls the Incirlik deal a “game-changer” which is an understatement. By allowing US F-16s to patrol the skies over Syria, Washington will impose a de facto no-fly zone over the country severely limiting Assad’s ability to battle the US-backed militias that have seized large swaths of the countryside and are now descending on Damascus. And while the war cannot be won by airpower alone, this new tactical reality tilts the playing field in favor the jihadis. In other words, the Incirlik agreement changes everything.
  • The Obama administration now believes that regime change is within its reach. Yes, they know it will require some back-up from US Special Forces and Turkish combat troops, but it’s all doable.  This is why Obama has shrugged off Russia’s plan for a transitional government or for forming a coalition to defeat ISIS.  The US doesn’t have to compromise on these matters because, after all, it has a strategically-located airbase from which it can protect its proxy-army, bomb cross-border targets, and control the skies over Syria. All Obama needs to do is intensify the war effort, put a little more pressure on Assad, and wait for the regime to collapse. This is why we should expect a dramatic escalation as we begin Phase 2 of the conflict. Russian President Vladimir Putin knows this, which is why he’s sending more weapons, supplies and advisors to Syria. He’s signaling to Washington that he knows what they’re up to and that he’ll respond if they carry things too far. In an interview with Russia’s state Channel 1, Putin said, “We have our ideas about what we will do and how we will do it in case the situation develops toward the use of force or otherwise. We have our plans.”
  • The administration is very nervous about Putin’s plans which is why they keep probing to see if they can figure out what he has up his sleeve.
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  • But the fact is, Putin is not going to allow Assad to be removed by force. It’s that simple. Obama and his advisors suspect this, but they are not 100 percent certain so they keep looking for confirmation one way or the other. But Putin is not going to provide a clear answer because he doesn’t want to tip his hand or appear confrontational. But that doesn’t mean he’s not resolute. He is, and Washington knows it. In effect, Putin has drawn a line in the sand and told the US that if they cross that line, there’s going to trouble. So it’s up to Obama really. He can either seek a peaceful solution along the lines that Moscow has recommended or push for regime change and risk a confrontation with Russia. Those are the two choices. Unfortunately, Washington doesn’t have an “off” switch anymore, so changing policy is really not in the cards. Instead, the US war machine will continue to lumber ahead erratically until it hits an impasse and sputters to a halt. Once again, the immovable object will prevail over the unstoppable force (as it did in Ukraine), albeit at great cost to the battered people of Syria, their nation and the entire region.
  • It’s clear that Obama is emboldened by the Incirlik deal and believes that, with Turkey’s help, he can achieve US imperial ambitions in Syria. But it’s not going to happen.  Russia, Iran and Hezbollah are prepared to defend their ally Assad and stop Washington dead-in-its-tracks.  Obama will have succeeded in destroying another sovereign nation and scattering its people across the Middle East and Europe. But the US mission will fall short of its original objectives. There will be no regime change in Syria. Putin, Nasrallah and Khamenei will make sure of it.
Paul Merrell

Erdogan Says Will Resign If Oil Purchases From ISIS Proven After Putin Says Has "More P... - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...rkey-after-erdogan-slams-claim

war & peace Syria oil-smuggling ISIL Erdogan Turkey Russia

shared by Paul Merrell on 02 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • “I’ve shown photos taken from space and from aircraft which clearly demonstrate the scale of the illegal trade in oil and petroleum products,” Vladimir Putin told reporters earlier this month on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Antalya. Putin was of course referencing Islamic State’s illicit and highly lucrative oil trade, the ins and outs of which we’ve documented extensively over the past two weeks: The Most Important Question About ISIS That Nobody Is Asking Meet The Man Who Funds ISIS: Bilal Erdogan, The Son Of Turkey's President How Turkey Exports ISIS Oil To The World: The Scientific Evidence ISIS Oil Trade Full Frontal: "Raqqa's Rockefellers", Bilal Erdogan, KRG Crude, And The Israel Connection Turkey’s move to shoot down a Russian Su-24 warplane near the Syrian border afforded the Russian President all the motivation and PR cover he needed to expose Ankara’s alleged role in the trafficking of illegal crude from Iraq and Syria and in the aftermath of last Tuesday’s “incident,” Putin lambasted Erdogan. “Oil from Islamic State is being shipped to Turkey,” Putin said while in Jordan for a meeting with King Abdullah. In case that wasn’t clear enough, Putin added this: “Islamic State gets cash by selling oil to Turkey.”
  • To be sure, it’s impossible to track the path ISIS oil takes from extraction to market with any degree of precision. That said, it seems that Islamic State takes advantage of the same network of smugglers, traders, and shipping companies that the KRG uses to transport Kurdish crude from Kurdistan to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. From there, the oil makes its way to Israel and other markets (depending on which story you believe) and if anyone needs to be thrown off the trail along the way, there’s a ship-to-ship transfer trick that can be executed off the coast of Malta. The maneuver allegedly makes the cargoes more difficult to track.  Some believe Erdogan’s son Bilal - who owns a marine transport company called BMZ Group - is heavily involved in the trafficking of Kurdish and ISIS crude. Most of the ships BMZ owns are Malta-flagged.  In light of the above, some have speculated that Turkey shot down the Su-24 in retaliation for Russia’s bombing campaign that recently has destroyed over 1,000 ISIS oil trucks. Here’s what Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoub said on Friday:
  • “All of the oil was delivered to a company that belongs to the son of Recep [Tayyip] Erdogan. This is why Turkey became anxious when Russia began delivering airstrikes against the IS infrastructure and destroyed more than 500 trucks with oil already. This really got on Erdogan and his company’s nerves. They’re importing not only oil, but wheat and historic artefacts as well." Al-Zoub isn’t alone in his suspicions. In an interview with RT, Iraqi MP and former national security adviser, Mowaffak al Rubaie - who personally led Saddam to the gallows - said ISIS is selling around $100 million of stolen crude each month in Turkey. Here are some excerpts:  “In the last eight months ISIS has managed to sell ... $800 million dollars worth of oil on the black market of Turkey. This is Iraqi oil and Syrian oil, carried by trucks from Iraq, from Syria through the borders to Turkey and sold ...[at] less than 50 percent of the international oil price."   "Now this either get consumed inside, the crude is refined on Turkish territory by the Turkish refineries, and sold in the Turkish market. Or it goes to Jihan and then in the pipelines from Jihan to the Mediterranean and sold to the international market.”
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  • Hilariously, the man who just finished starting a civil war just so he could regain a few lost seats in Parliament and who would just as soon throw you in jail as look at you if he thinks you might be a threat to his government, now says he will resign if Putin (or anyone else) can present "proof": “We are not that dishonest as to buy oil from terrorists. If it is proven that we have, in fact, done so, I will leave office. If there is any evidence, let them present it, we’ll consider [it]."  Hold your breath on that. And so, the Turkey connection has been exposed and in dramatic fashion. Unfortunately for Ankara, Erdogan can't arrest Vladimir Putin like he can award winning journalists and honest police officers who, like Moscow, want to see the flow of money and weapons to Sunni militants in Syria cut off.  The real question is how NATO will react now that Turkey is quickly becoming a liability. Furthermore, you can be sure that the US, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar (who are all heavily invested in the Sunni extremist cause in Syria), are getting nervous. No one wants to see this blown wide open as that would mean the Western public getting wise to the fact that it is indeed anti-ISIS coalition governments that are funding and arming not only ISIS, but also al-Nusra and every other rebel group fighting to wrest control of the country from Assad. Worse, if it gets out that the reason the US has refrained from bombing ISIS oil trucks until now is due to the fact that Ankara and Washington had an understanding when it comes to the flow of illicit crude to Cehyan, the American public may just insist on indicting "some folks." 
  • On Monday, Putin was back at it, saying that Russia has obtained new information that further implicates Turkey in the Islamic State oil trade. “At the moment we have received additional information confirming that that oil from the deposits controlled by Islamic State militants enters Turkish territory on industrial scale," Putin said on the sidelines of the climate change summit in Paris. "We have traced some located on the territory of the Turkish Republic and living in regions guarded by special security services and police that have used the visa-free regime to return to our territory, where we continue to fight them." "We have every reason to believe that the decision to down our plane was guided by a desire to ensure security of this oil’s delivery routes to ports where they are shipped in tankers," he added, taking it up another notch still.  As for Erdogan, well, he "can't accept" the accusations which he calls "not moral": ERDOGAN: TURKEY CAN'T ACCEPT RUSSIA CLAIMS THAT IT BUYS IS OIL LATEST - Erdo?an: Russia’s claim that Turkey bought oil from Daesh is not ‘moral’, such claims have to be proved pic.twitter.com/PZka8MwzpL — DAILY SABAH (@DailySabah) November 30, 2015
  • lars generated by selling Iraqi and Syrian oil on the Turkish black market  is like the oxygen supply to ISIS and it’s operation,” he added. “Once you cut the oxygen then ISIS will suffocate.”   "There isn't a shadow of a doubt that the Turkish government knows about the oil smuggling operations. The merchants, the businessmen [are buying oil] in the black market in Turkey under the noses – under the auspices if you like – of the Turkish intelligence agency and the Turkish security apparatus."   “There are security officers who are sympathizing with ISIS in Turkey. They are allowing them to go from Istanbul to the borders and infiltrate ... Syria and Iraq.”   “There is no terrorist organization which can stand alone, without a neighboring country helping it – in this case Turkey.”
  • Remember, when it comes to criminal conspiracies, the guy who gets caught first usually ends up getting cut loose. It will be interesing to see if Erdogan starts to get the cold shoulder from Ankara's "allies" going forward.
Paul Merrell

Mystery Sponsor Of Weapons And Money To Syrian Mercenary "Rebels" Revealed | Zero Hedge - 0 views

www.zerohedge.com/...d-money-syrian-rebels-revealed

war & peace Syria Qatar Saudis Russia China Pipelinestan

shared by Paul Merrell on 25 May 13 - No Cached
  • Previously, when looking at the real underlying national interests responsible for the deteriorating situation in Syria, which eventually may and/or will devolve into all out war with hundreds of thousands killed, we made it very clear that it was always and only about the gas, or gas pipelines to be exact, and specifically those involving the tiny but uber-wealthy state of Qatar. Needless to say, the official spin on events has no mention of this ulterior motive, and the popular, propaganda machine, especially from those powers supporting the Syrian "rebels" which include Israel, the US and the Arabian states tries to generate public and democratic support by portraying Assad as a brutal, chemical weapons-using dictator, in line with the tried and true script used once already in Iraq. On the other hand, there is Russia (and to a lesser extent China: for China's strategic interests in mid-east pipelines, read here), which has been portrayed as the main supporter of the "evil" Assad regime, and thus eager to preserve the status quo without a military intervention
  • However, one question that has so far remained unanswered, and a very sensitive one now that the US is on the verge of voting to arm the Syrian rebels, is who was arming said group of Al-Qaeda supported militants up until now. Now, finally, courtesy of the FT we have the (less than surprising) answer, which goes back to our original thesis, and proves that, as so often happens in the middle east, it is once again all about the natural resources. From the FT: The tiny gas-rich state of Qatar has spent as much as $3bn over the past two years supporting the rebellion in Syria, far exceeding any other government, but is now being nudged aside by Saudi Arabia as the prime source of arms to rebels.
  • Why would Qatar want to become involved in Syria where they have little invested?  A map reveals that the kingdom is a geographic prisoner in a small enclave on the Persian Gulf coast.   It relies upon the export of LNG, because it is restricted by Saudi Arabia from building pipelines to distant markets.  In 2009, the proposal of a pipeline to Europe through Saudi Arabia and Turkey to the Nabucco pipeline was considered, but Saudi Arabia that is angered by its smaller and much louder brother has blocked any overland expansion.   Already the largest LNG producer, Qatar will not increase the production of LNG.  The market is becoming glutted with eight new facilities in Australia coming online between 2014 and 2020.   A saturated North American gas market and a far more competitive Asian market leaves only Europe.  The discovery in 2009 of a new gas field near Israel, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Syria opened new possibilities to bypass the Saudi Barrier and to secure a new source of income.  Pipelines are in place already in Turkey to receive the gas.  Only Al-Assad is in the way.
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  • Qatar has proposed a gas pipeline from the Gulf to Turkey in a sign the emirate is considering a further expansion of exports from the world's biggest gasfield after it finishes an ambitious programme to more than double its capacity to produce liquefied natural gas (LNG).   "We are eager to have a gas pipeline from Qatar to Turkey," Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, the ruler of Qatar, said last week, following talks with the Turkish president Abdullah Gul and the prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the western Turkish resort town of Bodrum. "We discussed this matter in the framework of co-operation in the field of energy. In this regard, a working group will be set up that will come up with concrete results in the shortest possible time," he said, according to Turkey's Anatolia news agency.   Other reports in the Turkish press said the two states were exploring the possibility of Qatar supplying gas to the strategic Nabucco pipeline project, which would transport Central Asian and Middle Eastern gas to Europe, bypassing Russia. A Qatar-to-Turkey pipeline might hook up with Nabucco at its proposed starting point in eastern Turkey. Last month, Mr Erdogan and the prime ministers of four European countries signed a transit agreement for Nabucco, clearing the way for a final investment decision next year on the EU-backed project to reduce European dependence on Russian gas.
  • Specifically, the issue at hand is the green part of the proposed pipeline: as explained above, it simply can't happen as long as Russia is alligned with Assad.
  • So there you have it: Qatar doing everything it can to promote bloodshed, death and destruction by using not Syrian rebels, but mercenaries: professional citizens who are paid handsomely to fight and kill members of the elected regime (unpopular as it may be), for what? So that the unimaginably rich emirs of Qatar can get even richer. Although it is not as if Russia is blameless: all it wants is to preserve its own strategic leverage over Europe by being the biggest external provider of natgas to the continent through its own pipelines. Should Nabucco come into existence, Gazpromia would be very, very angry and make far less money! As for the Syrian "rebels", who else is helping them? Why the US and Israel of course. And with the Muslim Brotherhood "takeover" paradigm already tested out in Egypt, it is only a matter of time.
  • Perhaps it is Putin's turn to tell John Kerry he prefer if Qatar was not "supplying assistance to Syrian mercenaries"? What is worse, and what is already known is that implicitly the US - that ever-vigilant crusader against Al Qaeda - is effectively also supporting the terrorist organization: The relegation of Qatar to second place in providing weapons follows increasing concern in the West and among other Arab states that weapons it supplies could fall into the hands of an al-Qaeda-linked group, Jabhat al-Nusrah. Yet Qatar may have bitten off more than it can chew, even with the explicit military Israeli support, and implicit from the US. Because the closer Qatar gets to establishing its own puppet state in Syria, the closer Saudi Arabia is to getting marginalized:
  • What Saudi Arabia wants is not to leave the Syrian people alone, but to install its own puppet regime so it has full liberty to dictate LNG terms to Qatar, and subsequently to Europe.
  • Sadly, when it comes to the US (and of course Israel), it does have a very hidden agenda: one that involves lying to its people about what any future intervention is all about, and the fabrication of narrative about chemical weapons and a bloody regime hell bent on massacring every man, woman and child from the "brave resistance." What they all fail to mention is that all such "rebels" are merely paid for mercenaries of the Qatari emir, whose sole interest is to accrue even more wealth even if it means the deaths of thousands of Syrians in the process. A bigger read through of the events in Syria reveals an even more complicated web: one that has Qatar facing off against Syria, with both using Syria as a pawn in a great natural resource chess game, and with Israel and the US both on the side of the petrodollars, while Russia and to a lesser extent China, form the counterbalancing axis and refuse to permit a wholesale overthrow of the local government which would unlock even more geopolitical leverage for the gulf states. Up until today, we would have thought that when push comes to shove, Russia would relent. However, with the arrival of a whole lot of submarines in Cyprus, the games just got very serious. After all the vital interests of Gazprom - perhaps the most important "company" in the world - are suddenly at stake.
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