Middle East

"Daesh has a mother: the invasion of Iraq. But it also has a father: Saudi Arabia and its religious-industrial complex. Until that point is understood, battles may be won, but the war will be lost. Jihadists will be killed, only to be reborn again in future generations and raised on the same books. The attacks in Paris have exposed this contradiction again, but as happened after 9/11, it risks being erased from our analyses and our consciences."

"Can the government maintain this strategy of flooding the oil market? In our view, it is unlikely that Saudi leaders would want to exacerbate its ongoing reserve drain by pushing prices below $40/bbl. After all, pressure will quickly build on the riyal’s 30 year peg to the USD if Brent crude oil prices keep falling."

We wonder how long until someone finally asks the all important question regarding the Islamic State: who is the commodity trader breaching every known law of funding terrorism when buying ISIS crude, almost certainly with the tacit approval by various "western alliance" governments, and why is it that these governments have allowed said middleman to continue funding ISIS for as long as it has?

History takes no prisoners. It shows, with absolute lucidity, that the Islamic extremism ravaging the world today was borne out of the Western foreign policy of yesteryear.

It seems it is high time for a strategic rethink in the Global War On Terror, but powerful forces are arrayed against it. Apart from the fact that a truly huge racket is at stake, the situation is also reminiscent of the proverbial guy with the hammer – everything looks like a nail to him. So we should reasonably expect more of the same, only in even grander style (as the so-called “surge” has shown, any successes tend not only to be temporary, but have a habit to soon give way to even greater disasters).

"Welcoming immigrants and New Americans is a critical part of my strategy to grow Baltimore, and I hope that refugees from Syria will look to our city as a potential place to call home."

With 53% of Americans opposed to opening the nation’s borders to those fleeing the war-torn Middle Eastern nation, it is perhaps no surprise that The House just voted overwhelmingly to slap stringent - and difficult to implement - new screening procedures on refugees from Syria seeking resettlement. While 47 Democrats defied President Obama's; due to absences, the vote did not quite nullify the threat of veto, without which the bill would  effectively suspend the entry of refugees into the US for months or years.

As a result of the latest announcement by ISIS, namely that it had just executed its first Chinese hostage, China's isolationist position has now changed and as Bloomberg reports "Xi Vows Terror Fight After IS Kills Chinese Captive".  As it further adds, China's President Xi Jinping condemned the Islamic State’s execution of a Chinese national, "an act that raises pressure on China to take a greater role in resolving Syria’s civil war."

Today’s financial world is a tough place for the average person but paradise for rich guys. As easy money raises asset prices, the owners of those assets make effortless profits. Then they buy expensive toys and trophy properties. Hence the recent boom in fine art, high-end real estate, yachts and private jets. But like all financial trends, this one has a limit, and that limit is now in sight. The 1%, it seems, is rolling over...

Westerners have a deep history of a culture of myths (see Joseph Campbell).  We love to believe in Santa Claus, "The American Dream," the Tooth Fairy, housing market always goes up, and countless others.  So it's easy for us to be 'terrorized' by a myth; that hiding behind every corner are evil 'terrorists' waiting to blow themselves up because 'they hate our freedoms.' 

The 9 Ways to Stop Terrorism

On Monday, nearly as soon as the markets opened, stocks for weapons manufacturers began to soar. In fact, it could be argued that the financial incentive created by both the weapons industry and the plunder of foreign resources, is what drives governments to war to begin with. In fact, a recent study proved that resource-rich nations are 100 times more likely to have a foreign power intervene in their internal conflicts.

Below is a clip of what is a Russian cruise missile (it may or may not have been the one whose remains are shown above) launched by one of the Russian strategic bombers currently operating above Syria.