[Keith_McClary]

"...how on short notice we can drop hundreds of smart bombs on nonmilitary targets on their opposite side of the world." Yes, you should go hide in your garage. Better then embarrassing yourself by trying to explain why the 12+ month period that the US knew ISIS was shipping out oil by tankers is "short notice". LOL.

Say "Hi" to Ken and Barbie for me.

It took days for the US to develop this ability after Russia started doing it.

[Shaved Monkey]

Putin says he showed everyone footage of the oil trucks at the G20 meeting

The Russian President said that reconnaissance footage, shared with world leaders at the G20 summit earlier this month, showed that oil was being smuggled through rebel-held Syria and into Turkey “day and night”.
There were “vehicles, carrying oil, lined up in a chain going beyond the horizon”, he claimed.

Mr Putin accused Ankara of false naivety over Isis’s huge oil operation. “Let’s assume that Turkey’s political leadership knows nothing about it – it’s theoretically possible, albeit hard to believe,” he said. “There may be elements of corruption and insider deals. They should deal with it.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 52216.html

[GregT]

Also, I don't know where our planes were based, but they were refueling in midair, so no we haven't had the ability to just show up and dump a hundred smart bombs at the drop of a hat.

"Our" planes? So you have a part ownership in those planes? Cool! Being a pilot I would love to go for a ride in one of them. Any chance you could PM me and set up a time and place so we could take one up? That would be awesome. I'd even chip in for fuel. I'm especially interested in flying one of "your" A-10s.

An opportunity like this doesn't come up very often. Thanks Preston!

[dissident]

So some people honestly believe that the US was actually doing something to stop the ISIS oil trade? Talk about deluded. Why did the US only impose sanctions on individuals only in the past week then? (Of course they did not target Erdo-turd-land and Iraqi businessmen but Syrian government associates as the new 1984 meme is that it is Assad who is backing ISIS; recall the lunatic US propaganda about Saddam being behind the 9/11 attacks). Please point to any actual attack on the ISIS oil transport and production infrastructure by the US and its minions before the Russian attack.

It is clear that Erdo-turd is the key figure in the ISIS oil trade. By definition, the US cannot attack his interests as there is no hint that they want him removed. If the US attacked ISIS for real, then it would have been doing the same bombing runs that Russia is currently doing in northern Latakia, which is the main ISIS oil, arms and men corridor to Erdo-turd-land. So the US would be attacking the interests of a NATO member directly. This ain't gonna happen. Now that Russia has done the damage, the US can step in a pretend like it was doing all the fighting. Erdo-turd can't complain.

[ROCKMAN]

Keith - "It took days for the US to develop this ability after Russia started doing it.". The US has had a year to bring additional assets into the theater. Perhaps you aren't aware of the US Navy's presence and duties in the Med: The Sixth Fleet is the United States Navy's operational fleet and staff of United States Naval Forces Europe. The Sixth Fleet is headquartered at Naval Support Activity Naples, Italy. The officially stated mission of the Sixth Fleet in 2011 is that it "conducts the full range of Maritime Operations and Theater Security Cooperation missions, in concert with coalition, joint, interagency, and other parties, in order to advance security and stability in Europe and Africa" according to the commander of the Sixth Fleet is Vice Admiral James G. Foggo. BTW the US Navy also has a base in Rota, Spain. IOW any time the US wanted to move carriers into the Med all the POTUS had to do was make a local call to the Pentagon. LOL.

Greg - "... so no we haven't had the ability to just show up and dump a hundred smart bombs at the drop of a hat." You might want to do Preston a favor and send him some pictures of US aircraft carriers. Apparently he isn't aware of our ability to park 100's of aircraft and thousands of smart bombs in the Med less than an hours flight time to ISIS controlled areas. I don't know about you but this conversation about the best armed (and most expensive) military force on the planet being too impotent to strike a piss ant force like ISIS is becoming embarrassing. LOL.

[Shaved Monkey]

Sounds like Putin may be suggesting it wasnt just Turkey trying to protect the oil deliveries.
“The American side, which leads the coalition that Turkey belongs to, knew about the location and time of our planes’ flights, and we were hit exactly there and at that time,” he said.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/n ... nst-turkey

[ROCKMAN]

So from the Guardian: "Turkey maintains that the SU-24 fighter jet had flown into its airspace and ignored repeated warnings to leave, and says it would not have shot it down if it had known it was Russian." So are the Turks saying they didn't know whose plane it was...maybe a US or even a Turk aircraft? Or they thought they knew whose plane it was and that it wasn't Russian?

The Turks seem to have forgotten the first thing you do when you find your digging yourself into hole: stop digging. LOL

[Donetsk]

It was not a murder and it wasn't WAR or any other crime. Not according to law and common sense anyway.

I pretty sure it's defined as an act of war. A legit, but very unwise and stupid, kill as a result of an enemy aircraft violating a border.

An act of war is not a "war crime". The "warning" thing is meaningless. It neither validates nor invalidates the legality of the kill.

But that's not why it was stupid.

Its stupid because now Putin can justify to his home audience a much more aggressive air defense posture from Latakia, all the way to the Turkish border. Basically, Russia has created a no-fly zone to exclude NATO over North and Western Syria. And Turkey gave him the pass to do it.

What would be the odds of Turkey doing this without a green light or even encouragement from other NATO members? It wasn't a first or second or a third time their borders were violated. I have no doubts that a situation like this was discussed over and over again. Erdogan is not flying solo here.

[AgentR11]

What would be the odds of Turkey doing this without a green light or even encouragement from other NATO members? It wasn't a first or second or a third time their borders were violated. I have no doubts that a situation like this was discussed over and over again. Erdogan is not flying solo here.

I think he probably had an OK from the US, but probably didn't discuss it with the other members. Not really fair, because the US, in the first few iterations wouldn't suffer any harm from a substantial war between Turkey and Russia; but it is what it is. It was really stupid to do after the cruise missile demo by Russia. Those could all carry nukes, those are all immune to all defenses save small area point defense, and they can hit most of Europe from places the US can't touch without entering full WW III with ICBMs and the whole mess.

The rapidity of the public anxiety jump after the event is the likely reason things went a bit pear shaped.

Turkey now has a bunch tanks on the border; if Turkey invades Syria with their armor, and gets a bunch of them blown up by Russia, Art 5 isn't even on the table. So I would suspect that's what they have a green light for now. Russia has brought in the helicopters they use for their anti-armor mission, as well as fairly modern T90s; and Turkey's shoot down hasn't discouraged their air campaign; so it seems to me if Turkey enters the fight, Russia will engage them fully. The result will be terrible, and very dangerous.

But I'm a doomer, so maybe they'll just kiss and exchange flowers.

[PrestonSturges]

You might want to do Preston a favor and send him some pictures of US aircraft carriers. Apparently he isn't aware of our ability to park 100's of aircraft and thousands of smart bombs in the Med less than an hours flight time to ISIS controlled areas. I don't know about you but this conversation about the best armed (and most expensive) military force on the planet being too impotent to strike a piss ant force like ISIS is becoming embarrassing. LOL.

Well there's lots of bad people with guns in southern mexico who are at least as bad as ISIS. Why aren't we parking a carrier group off their coast and bombing nonmilitary targets without the support of our allies? Just in case this is all sailing over you head (and it probably is) I am making an analogy to our situation in Syria a year ago.

If you want to imagine me cringing in fear of your next devastatingly dumb comment and "LOL," feel free to let your imagination run wild, but I'll actually be cleaning the gutters.

[Keith_McClary]

How a Texas plumber's truck wound up in ISIS' hands
December 15, 2015

It would seem Oberholtzer’s truck made the same journey many potential jihadis from the US make to get to Syria — largely through Turkey.

Oberholtzer is suing a Houston car dealership where he traded in the truck in October 2013. He's seeking more than $1 million in damages after the 2005 Ford F-250, which sold at auction the following month, was shipped to Turkey with decals still affixed. The truck eventually ended up in Syria, where it was outfitted with an anti-aircraft gun and used in the country’s civil war.

The truck, emblazoned with the name and phone number of Oberholtzer’s business, was featured in a tweet Dec. 15, 2014. It was first tweeted by the extremist group Ansar al-Deen. The next day, the photo was used in the closing segment of Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.” It also happened to be the show’s final episode, pulling in almost 2.5 million viewers, the largest audience in the show’s history.

What followed were more than 1,000 calls from across the country to Oberholtzer’s business and personal phones, Wilonsky said. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Oberholtzer said his office got 10 to 15 death threats.

The harassment became so unnerving that the plumber took his family to McAllen, Texas, for a week.

[vox_mundi]

Russia Claims 12,000 Oil Trucks At Turkey-Iraq Border

Russian intelligence has spotted up to 12,000 tankers and trucks on the Turkish-Iraqi border, the General Staff of Russia’s armed forces has reported.

“The [aerial] imagery was made in the vicinity of Zakho (a city in Iraqi Kurdistan), there were 11,775 tankers and trucks on both sides of the Turkish-Iraqi border,” Lieutenant-General Sergey Rudskoy told journalists on Friday.

... The Russian Air Force in Syria has destroyed about 2,000 tankers used by the Islamists for oil transportation. In the last week, Russian warplanes eliminated 17 convoys of oil tankers and a number of installations used by terrorists for oil extraction and processing.

The Russian Air Force’s effective strikes in Syria have forced the terrorists to look for new routes for crude oil transportation. Today, tankers loaded with oil in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor province, under Islamic State control, are moving towards the Iraqi border in the direction of Zakho and Mosul.

“However, despite a considerable diversion, the finishing point of the trafficking route remains Turkey,” Rudskoy said.

[SeaGypsy]

Just keep blowing them up Mr Pu.

[Synapsid]

vox m,

Seems odd to me that ISIS would be shipping oil through Iraqi Kurdistan, since the Kurds have been the most effective force against ISIS.

I wonder what I'm missing.

[dissident]

vox m,

Seems odd to me that ISIS would be shipping oil through Iraqi Kurdistan, since the Kurds have been the most effective force against ISIS.

I wonder what I'm missing.

The Iraqi Kurd leadership is aligned with Turkey. That is why the are allowing the Turks to build an air base in Iraqi Kurd controlled territory even though the government of Iraq wants the Turk invaders out. The Syrian Kurds are not under the same leadership as the Iraqi Kurds and are fighting Daesh (ISIS).

[Synapsid]

dissident,

Thanks. I was forgetting that Ankara and Erbil are on good terms. Still seems odd to me; I wonder what the benefit to Iraqi Kurdistan is? There must be one.

I hadn't heard about an air base--is that at the location north of Mosul that received Turkish troops some weeks ago? That had been announced as supporting the training mission but it seemed that no one believed it.

There were some reports a few weeks back that some ISIS oil had been sent to the port at Ceyhan along with Kurdish oil, and that a good part of it ended up in Israel. Israel does get a good deal of its oil from the Kurds. An ISIS spokesman said that ISIS didn't have any say in where the oil ends up after it's transferred to the middlemen (in Turkey) who sell it on.

"I just make them go up. Who knows where they come down? That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.

[Keith_McClary]

Hitting Islamic State’s oil operations
BBC
25 September 2014

The US military's Central Command (Centcom) said the latest wave of air strikes by American, Saudi and Emirati jets and drones had targeted several small refineries in areas of Syria under the control of the Islamic State (IS).
These refineries and the fields supplying them with oil have played a vital role in fuelling IS military units and in generating an estimated $2m (£1.2m) in daily revenue for the group.
Damaging this infrastructure is clearly part of the wider strategy of the US and its allies of weakening IS's capabilities.

[Tanada]

dissident,

Thanks. I was forgetting that Ankara and Erbil are on good terms. Still seems odd to me; I wonder what the benefit to Iraqi Kurdistan is? There must be one.

I hadn't heard about an air base--is that at the location north of Mosul that received Turkish troops some weeks ago? That had been announced as supporting the training mission but it seemed that no one believed it.

There were some reports a few weeks back that some ISIS oil had been sent to the port at Ceyhan along with Kurdish oil, and that a good part of it ended up in Israel. Israel does get a good deal of its oil from the Kurds. An ISIS spokesman said that ISIS didn't have any say in where the oil ends up after it's transferred to the middlemen (in Turkey) who sell it on.

"I just make them go up. Who knows where they come down? That's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.

Iraqi Kurds control the norther oil fields of the country which happen to be in their ethnic territory. I doubt they are doing much business with ISIS, they are much more in the mode of selling the oil they control and shooting the ISIS bunch whenever possible.

[Synapsid]

Tanada,

It's not the Iraqi Kurds who would be putting ISIS oil into the pipeline. The truckers who take it into Turkey sell it to the middlemen who sell it on to the major buyers. The ISIS has nothing to do with it after it's taken to Turkey--that's the picture we're given anyway.

Everything we're told about the whole effort comes from sources in the Middle East. That doesn't leave us in a good position to know what is going on on the ground. Google "Uncle Farid" and look for references to oil for one picture.