"In the Name of the Profit"

Malek, a 13 year old Syrian, steals the show in RT's documentary on Islamic State's oil business with Turkey; there are a few moments when he's shown acting like a kid but this is an old hand at dealing with Islamic State and the Turks who's been working the oilfields for years around Shaddadi, now liberated by Kurds from Islamic State.

The documentary begins with an IS shooting execution of some oil truck drivers and it's done so casually that it's over before the drivers and the viewer realize an execution is to take place. This is the world Malek has survived, and he speaks about it with the knowledgeable shrewdness of someone five times his age.  

“Of course, [IS] wouldn’t get any weapons from Turkey if they didn’t ship them oil. They...go with the oil and come back with the guns. And so they go, back and forth, back and forth.”

In the Name of the Profit can be seen at the RT website; it's also been featured on RT's TV channel.

Although it isn't mentioned in the documentary the U.S. government has been trying to claim the credit for airstrikes that brought IS oil smuggling to Turkey via Syria to a virtual halt; it was actually the Russian who pounded the transport routes into oblivion. 

But the victory hurt Turkey and those Europeans profiting from the Turkey-Syria oil smuggling more than it did Islamic State, as this April 28 report from Reuters indicates: Islamic State turns to selling fish, cars to offset oil losses: report. The fish farms are big business:

Fishing in hundreds of lakes north of Baghdad generates millions of dollars a month, according to the report. Some owners fleeing the area abandoned their farms while others agreed to cooperate with Islamic State to avoid being attacked.

That's not talking about the IS illicit drug business, which I mentioned last month, and which is the really big revenue generator for the organization.

What is the way to victory over Islamic State? Putin explained it in two words:  "One fist."

But the terror-sponsoring states don't want to unite with Russia and Assad's government to fight IS, or al Qaeda, for the precise reason that the strategy is the only way to shut down the merchant terrorist armies. Ashraf Ghani has realized this; that's why he's sounding more like Hamid Karzai with every month that passes. 

If he doesn't shut up, soon we'll be hearing from the State Department that he's a crazed drug dealer who beats his wife.

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