from the if-you-have-the-cash-anything-is-for-sale dept.
WikiLeaks published on Monday a searchable archive of nearly 58,000 emails from the private email account of Berat Albayrak - Turkey's incumbent energy minister and son-in-law of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – revealing the influence Albayrak has in Turkey and his correspondence regarding Powertrans, a company implicated in oil imports from ISIS-controlled oil fields.
The emails encompass 16 years between April 2000 and September 23, 2016. A search by the 'Powertrans' keyword in the published WikiLeaks emails returns 32 results, including emails sent to Albayrak regarding personnel and salary issues at Powertrans.
Turkey banned oil transportation by road or railway in or out of the country in November 2011, but included a provision in the same bill that it could revoke the ban in specific cases, such as meeting the needs of the military. The Turkish government later gave exclusive privilege to Powertrans for transit of oil, WikiLeaks says.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:46PM
Dammmmmmnnnnnnnnnnnn
ISIS just got fucked up by a radical fundamentalist organization.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday December 07 2016, @07:57PM
b-but, weren't wikileakers terrorists who put US at risk of getting hit by ISIS?
I have a lot of facts to rewrite nao.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:56PM
Turkey just attacked Syria to "liberate their people from Assad," coincidentally sharing a common enemy with ISIS.
Saudi Arabia is also a friend of ISIS, Wikileaks reveals, and coincidentally, an enemy of Russia.
Good thing the warmongering, region-destabilizing, and weapons-dealing Presidential candidate didn't win this year.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @06:06PM
Get back to me in a year or two when all of our warmongering, region-destabilizing, and weapons-dealing in the middle east has come to an end. Oh wait, it won't happen because it makes a lot of people VERY fucking rich.
If for no other reason we should be sinking billions into renewable energy development just to get the hell out of that shitfest. Lets play nice with South America and work on building a better world so that we don't get out own "middle americas" shitfest of our own.
(Score: 2) by zocalo on Wednesday December 07 2016, @06:32PM
That's pretty much meaningless. Just about everyone is an enemy of ISIS in Syria so, unless you actually side with ISIS directly, then any allies you might have are going to have a common enemy in ISIS, regardless of whether they are supporting Assad's regime, fighting against it, or just trying to prevent the fighting from spilling over into their part of the country.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 4, Informative) by bob_super on Wednesday December 07 2016, @08:26PM
> Just about everyone is an enemy of ISIS in Syria
Not quite. The Turkish government was happy to help ISIS fight the Kurds (oil, porous border for fighters), to avoid a Kurdish state across the border. Before ISIS, they were fine with Assad for the same exact reason.
Whoever "wins" the Syrian war will get he support of Turkey if they prevent Kurdish independence. Similarly, anyone about to win without taking position against Kurdish independence had better be ready for some incidents with the Northern neighbor.
Turkey isn't a one-issue player in Syria, but their main objective isn't exactly a secret.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zocalo on Thursday December 08 2016, @12:17AM
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by tfried on Wednesday December 07 2016, @08:50PM
Hm, so I thought the new plan was to hit on Iran, instead (friend of Assad, friend of Russia, enemy of ISIS, enemy of Saudi Arabia)? Not that this will be any worse than the current mess, I'm just having difficulty to grasp how it will lead to stabilization of the region.
On the upside, pretty much the entire Middle-East has learnt to take America seriously but not by their word, long ago. So I guess they'll cope [soylentnews.org] just fine...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @05:58PM
Its turtles all the way down, then on the streets you have some poor misguided fools ready to give their lives away...
The terrorist boogeyman is just about maintaining a presence in the middle east, and surprise surprise there are a huge number of state level actors keeping it going so that the gravy train doesn't stop. The death and destruction is just a nice bonus for the corrupt bastards in the middle east, and basically a line item in the quarterly reports for western corporations. "Hey Jim, we need some good media stories, people are starting to wonder why we're here again." "Ok, how about some nutjobs in France go crazy?" "Perfect! Those cowardly fucks deserve some 'action' hahahaha."
Its a big game to those in power, how to tuck as much cash away for themselves while the grabbing is good. From their perspective we really are just cattle to the slaughter. If it turns a profit it must be good business...
(Score: 3, Flamebait) by jmorris on Wednesday December 07 2016, @06:45PM
We knew ISIS was funding itself by selling oil. It follows that somebody was buying and a look at a map narrowed the list of suspects quite a bit. We were watching the trucks carrying the oil for a long time before we decided to bomb a few of them. We knew exactly where they were going. But once you realize ISIS was Hillary Clinton and Obama's creation, as a weapon against Assad, it makes sense. Once ISIS ceased to be useful their fortunes reversed very fast. Now Turkey will use Wikileaks revealing an oil program they were involved in, all of their intelligence knew of and approved, to purge those who have fallen out of political favor and ignore those involved who are still in favor. In other words, business as usual.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @07:22PM
Take a few steps back...
Obama and Clinton are figureheads, if you continue focusing on blaming just them we will never see any change. I'm fine with charging them for their war crimes, but removing them won't change the policies. We have to stop chasing the individuals and focus on the actual actions / policies our gov and military are following.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday December 08 2016, @01:42PM
This is why Trump is in trouble. He may want to do the right thing by the USA, but he is filling his cabinet with the same dangerous war hawks and robber barons. Same thing with a republican congress who happily voted yea on the Iraq Resolution. They would be more than happy to convince him that invading somefuckistan is a good thing. Those fuckers are going to drag him down.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by fritsd on Wednesday December 07 2016, @08:48PM
No, no, you're getting the narrative all wrong..
(1) Project for the New American Century writes a book "wouldn't it be nice if we attacked Iraq?"
(2) A Saudi religious nutcase, whose family is friends with the Bushes, convinces several other Saudi nutcases to cause the 9/11 suicide attacks
(3) Because the Saudi Al Qaida nutcases, sheltered by Afghanistan's Taliban, did that, the USA with its poodle(*) UK decides to attack Iraq (sic)
(4) Saddam is toppled, Iraq is destabilized, the upper crust of Baath government is fired and out of a job and looking for a way to regain power
(5) Sectarian violence, long suppressed by secular Saddam Hoessein, flares up in Iraq and spreads to neighbouring Syria
(6) ???
(7) Out of the chaos, the tyranny of Daesh (ISIS) emerges, and starts conquering the empty east bits of Syria and west bits of Iraq
(8) People flee for their lives to neigbouring countries and then try to reach Europe
(9) Full civil war in Syria erupts between all kinds of factions including Al Qaida (goodies now?) and Daesh (baddies)
(9) ???
(10) IT's ALL MERKEL'S FAULT!!!1!!!
(*) George Michael videoclip "Shoot the Dog" no longer available on Youtube
PS jmorris: it's a good question, why wasn't that oil well bombed? No idea.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jmorris on Wednesday December 07 2016, @09:38PM
PS jmorris: it's a good question, why wasn't that oil well bombed? No idea.
Because the people targeting the bombs didn't want it bombed. Many reasons have been floated, none entirely satisfactory. But the bottom line is the people who could press a button and destroy it, would could have pressed a button and blew up the trucks carrying it, could have pressed a button and blew up the road the trucks drive on, could have pressed a button and seized the funds, all chose to stay their hand. No it wasn't about the oil itself, the quantity involved is a rounding error in world production.
The only answer that fits the available information is ISIS was a creature of the West. We didn't hit their cash flow because we would have had to make it up ourselves. But like most monsters, it turned on its creators and had to be put down. We did lay the groundwork for AQ with the Mujahideen too, nobody disputes that. They were a good solution to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, arm the locals (and Saudi jihadis like Bin Laden who went to fight the infidel) and let them free their own country. Obama had tried making nice with Assad and it didn't work out. So the same idea was at work with ISIS, arm a band of militant misfits to attack Assad. Pretty obvious if you are paying attention that the whole Bengazi mess was arms smuggling to ISIS, which was why they acted crazy when they got attacked, they were terrified it would go public. They didn't succeed though, and ISIS instead went rogue and invaded Iraq. So once it was clear they weren't following the approved attack plan they had to go. Pull the oil money and they couldn't make payroll anymore, no more Islamic State.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 07 2016, @11:16PM
Just some news articles about it http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/629409/Russian-jets-smash-ISIS-oil-tankers-after-spotting-12-000-head-for-Turkish-border [express.co.uk] http://www.globalresearch.ca/russia-counts-12000-turkey-bound-isis-oil-trucks-from-iraq-and-syria/5497998 [globalresearch.ca] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/russia-releases-fresh-footage-of-air-strikes-in-syria-claiming-to-hit-isis-oil-targets-a6787211.html [independent.co.uk]
So yep, it was possible to attack the trucks, and it was done. Not by West, but Russia.
As to why war around Syria, check the plans form oil pipes. Bashar Al-Assad said no to the USA one. And plays along with Russians, that want based in the east of Mediterranean Sea, better if not having to cross Bosphorus. So must be punished. Saddam and Gaddafi wanted to deal in Euro their oil exports, or unify Africa. Punished.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Thursday December 08 2016, @01:59AM
It didn't just "erupt". Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton designed a US policy that supported creating the civil war in order to utterly destroy Syria as a favor to their Israeli allies.
It's odd, I distinctly remember a conversation over a decade ago, back when the Official Enemy was Iraq, when I suggested that the US was going to create problems with Syria as soon as they declare victory in Iraq. Why, my incredulous audience asked? Because it's a neighbor of Israel that isn't a US lapdog like Egypt and Jordan are.
Their next target is Iran. It's easy to see coming: Iran, like Syria, is a salient on the much longer Oceania-Eurasia border.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Wednesday December 07 2016, @11:01PM
There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels.
-- http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0013121/quotes [imdb.com]