[Peace-discuss] Westerners Living In Near Total Ignorance About ISIS Oil Sales

Sun Dec 6 11:39:03 EST 2015

Westerners Living In Near Total Ignorance About ISIS Oil Sales

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 <https://www.popularresistance.org/category/educate/> Educate!
<https://www.popularresistance.org/tag/foreign-policy/> Foreign Policy,
<https://www.popularresistance.org/tag/media/> Media,
<https://www.popularresistance.org/tag/russia/> Russia 
By Gilbert Doctorow,
<http://usforeignpolicy.blogs.lalibre.be/archive/2015/12/03/news-blackout-ci
vil-society-living-in-near-total-ignorance-1148164.html>
www.usforeignpolicy.blogs.lalibre.be
December 5th, 2015

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Above Photo: From PopularResistance.org.

While it is good that the Russian narrative is reproduced in leading news
outlets, the arms-length approach implies confusion in the editorial offices
over how to handle these developments which do not match the image of Russia
as the West's enemy.

Is it any wonder that your average, well educated, public minded American,
Briton, Frenchman, or Belgian is largely clueless about the key
international events that are today leading the international community to
the brink of world war after reading his or her favorite newspaper of
record, be it The New York Times, The Guardian, Le Figaroor Le Soir, and
after catching the news bulletins on local state television, or on Euronews
or the BBC for that matter.

I will take one vivid example from this week to drive home the reality of a
news blackout that cuts across the United States and Europe media when
something which might upset the complacency of the audience about Russia
comes up. On Wednesday, 2 December, the Russian Ministry of Defense invited
several hundred journalists and military attaches of accredited embassies in
Moscow to a briefing at which Deputy Minister Anatoly Antonov presented
reconnaissance photos taken from satellites and aircraft proving the
existence of a massive logistical operation that has been bringing illicit
oil from wells in Iraq and Syria controlled by the Islamic State jihadists
by tanker truck across the border with Turkey and onward to processing
facilities for domestic use and to port installations from where it is
shipped to third countries. The key points in this operation were identified
explicitly. Given the scale, involving thousands of tankers on the move, the
revenue from these sales would amount to hundreds of millions of euros per
year, if not over a billion, sufficient to finance extensively the
recruitment of fighters and military supplies for the terrorists.

The context for this presentation was Russian insistence that the
destruction of their bomber by Turkish F-16s at the Syrian-Turkish border
the preceding week was an ambush intended to put a stop to Russian attacks
on this lucrative trade in illicit oil and also to disrupt the grand
alliance against the Islamic State now in formation between Russia, France
and several other NATO states. Since Turkish President Erdogan pledged he
would resign if anyone could prove his complicity in financing terror
through the oil trade, the slide show raised the stakes in the week-old
Russian-Turkish confrontation.

Russian television gave extensive coverage to this extraordinary briefing,
showing in particular, officers from NATO states photographing the slides
being displayed and taking notes furiously. In the West, however, almost all
media made no mention of it at all. Not a word in The New York Times, which
could fill its front page already the same evening with details of the San
Bernardino shootings in California. Not a word in leading German and British
dailies, which also turned coverage inward on home stories.

The French were odd man out on this, but in a very qualified way. Shortly
after the briefing in Moscow, both Le Figaro and Le Monde did devote a few
paragraphs to it, but in terse and noncommittal manner. That is to say they
referred to Russian 'allegations' about the connection between the Erdogan
family and the illicit oil trade, which by all appearances were indeed not
proven at the briefing. However, they said nothing about the material which
was presented and which proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the
jihadists have a complete logistical chain for very large traffic in oil
across the territory they control in Syria and through the Turkish border.
If this is not a smoking gun, one may reasonably ask what is?

Surely no US or NATO presentations on their military operations in the
region have been better prepared or more persuasive than what the Russian
Ministry of Defense delivered. And a great deal of what the US has presented
to the press over the downing of MH-17 over the Donbass to implicate Russia
and/or its local supporters never rose above video images from social
networks. Yet, the US 'proofs' were accepted by the media and the Russian
'proofs' were spoken of as allegations, or simply ignored altogether.
Further to my remarks several days ago about Euronews taking a turn to
greater balance on Russian issues, the channel did in fact show some images
from the Ministry of Defense briefing in Moscow. But like the French print
press, they were sparing in coverage and avoided giving any sense of the
depth of documentation made available.

In today's annual Address to the Federal Assembly, Vladimir Putin opened and
closed his speech with mention of the clash with Turkey going back to the
downing of the Russian aircraft in Syria and he once again charged the
governing elite in Turkey with supporting jihadist terror by its trade in
illicit oil. This part of the speech was duly reported by Figaro, and also
by the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which had published not a word
about the briefing for military attaches the day before. While it is good
that the Russian narrative is reproduced in these leading news outlets, the
arms-length approach implies confusion in the editorial offices over how to
handle these developments which do not match the image of Russia as the
West's enemy and give a perplexing twist to the EU's current rapprochement
with Turkey over refugees.

Meanwhile, from another stage, another 'opera,' we see that within the
chancelleries of some major powers in Europe, the Russian charges against
Turkey are taken very seriously indeed. Today's Financial Times and other
British newspapers reporting the start of British bombing in Syria that
followed directly on the vote in the House of Commons yesterday tell us
specifically that 'Tornado jets target Syrian oil field.' So apparently it
is now right and proper for US Allies to bomb the sources of financing of
the Islamic State, as the Russians have been doing for two months in the
face of US derision that they were not finding the right targets.

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