Iraq

“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. It must be noted that oil from both Iraq and Syria come through this [Zakho] checkpoint."

We apologize, but 2015 had so many negatives that we’re having trouble seeing the positives. It’s like we’re on the Titanic, and it’s tilting at an 85-degree angle with its propellers way up in the air, and we’re dangling over the cold Atlantic trying to tell ourselves: “At least there’s no waiting for the shuffleboard courts!” Are we saying that 2015 was the worst year ever? Are we saying it was worse than, for example, 1347, the year when the Bubonic Plague killed a large part of humanity? Yes, we are saying that.

101 years after the Christmas truces along the Western Front there is still no peace on earth. And the long suffering American taxpayers, who foot the massive bills generated by the War Party’s demented and destructive policies, have no clue that Imperial Washington is the principal reason.

"Be confident that God will grant victory to those who worship him, and hear the good news that our state is doing well. The more intense the war against it, the purer it becomes and the tougher it gets."

"Our troops are now advancing toward their targets but were delayed because the criminals have booby-trapped everything."

In a major blow for one of Syria's most powerful opposition forces, a Russian airstrike has killed Jaysh al Islam chief Zahran Alloush and several of his deputies. 

"...the march towards secularism and freedom is not inevitable. In fact, it’s problematic because we have a situation where every year the West becomes more secular, open, tolerant and liberal while many parts of the Muslim world are going the other way. So it would seem that we might be moving towards a head-on collision of some sort... In most Muslim countries the majority of people are tolerant. They want to live in a more inclusive society and have a more liberal religious doctrine. The problem is that Islam seems to have been hijacked by a vocal minority of people who are prepared to use violence to advance their very intolerant and conservative version of Islam."

"Oil and gas sector bankruptcies have reached quarterly levels last seen in the Great Recession. At least nine U.S. oil and gas companies, accounting for more than $2 billion in debt, have filed for bankruptcy so far in the fourth quarter."

"The apostate's life and organs don't have to be respected and may be taken with impunity. A group of Islamic scholars have permitted, if necessary, one to kill the apostate in order to eat his flesh."

In American politics the nation of Russia, especially as personified in its leader Vladimir Putin, becomes all things to all men. To American leftists, Russia is a neo-fascist, violently nationalist country that ruthlessly suppressed minority groups, especially homosexuals. To the American Right, Putin is the second coming of Stalin who is working to subvert good old-fashioned American values around the world.

"Erdogan's adventurism has been quite successful so far, but it amounts to an extraordinary departure for Turkish foreign policy, and maybe even risks the destruction of the country. How on earth could this happen? The background is an inferiority complex, and megalomania."

Every year, Pew Research Center looks back at the most memorable facts that illustrate important trends shaping our world. From faltering faith in government to the decline of Christians in America and from increased racial tensions to the shrinking American middle-class, here are some of our most striking findings of 2015.

The fight against ISIS makes for some strange bedfellows. “The Taliban interest objectively coincides with ours. We've already said earlier that we and the Taliban have channels for exchanging information."

According to WSJ, "the Obama administration pursued secret communications with elements of Syria’s regime over several years in a failed attempt to limit violence and get President Bashar al-Assad to relinquish power, according to U.S. and Arab officials. Early on, the U.S. looked for cracks in the regime it could exploit to encourage a military coup, but found few.”

This cannnot end well...