Congress wants more focus on halting ISIL oil revenues

Fuel Fix:
A bipartisan group of congressmen is urging the U.S. military to find ways to disrupt the oil production that helps fund the insurgent group ISIS.

U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, along with five other Republicans and Democrats, introduced a bill Tuesday allowing the military to coordinate with the U.S. Department of Energy on finding ways to “hinder Islamic State oil production and cut off a main source of revenue for their terrorist activities.”

“In an age where energy is a precious commodity, their energy production not only funds crimes against humanity, but it also forms the means by which would-be ‘states’ like ISIS survive,” Olson said in a statement. “We must take every measure to cut off ISIS funding at the source.”

In December, the Los Angeles Times reported ISIS now controls approximately two-thirds of oil production in Syria, which analysts estimated at around 35,000 barrels a day. At current market prices, ISIS’s share of that oil is worth more than $900,000 a day.
...
It tells you something about the lacklustre effort of the Obama administration that they have not already considered this and implemented it.  But it is not that surprising since Obama has put a greater priority on the environment than winning the war and destroying the enemy.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Washington Post: Some Democrats eye adding more justices to the Supreme Court to change its ideological bent The once-remote idea has gained the attention of liberals angered by the GOP push to remake the federal courts. Probably the easy way to defeat this court-packing scheme is for Trump to propose doing the same thing now.  It would lead to Democrat denunciations and claims that it would be wrong, thereby blowing up any attempt by them in the unfortunate event of Democrats winning a presidential election.
Read more

29 % of companies say they are unlikely to keep insurance after Obamacare

Conn Carroll: A new survey of 368 midsize to large companies found that 29% of them are considering terminating their active employee health care plans when Obamacare is full implemented in 2014. Only 71% of employers surveyed said they did not expect to drop their health coverage, while 20% said they did not know and 9% said they were planning to exit. The latest survey, conducted by Towers Watson, echoes an ealier survey by McKinsey & Co. finding that 30% of private-sector employers were planning to drop their employee health insurance coverage by 2014. When the Congressional Budget Office crunched Obamacare's spending numbers, they estimated that only 7% of employees currently covered by employer-sponsored plans would lose their plans. ... This means the cost of the health care fiasco will be hundreds of billions more than estimated by the CBO and Congressional Democrat. It is also clear that Obama's pledge that you could keep your health care plan if you wanted t
Read more

Bin Laden's concern about Zarqawi's remains

James Robbins: ... Bin Laden suggests that President Bush should allow Zarqawi’s body to be returned to his family in Jordan, but this is a matter that is up to the Jordanian government, which so far has not shown much interest in facilitating a homecoming. Bin Laden mocks King Abdullah II, calling him a Coalition minion, and asking “w hat scares you about Abu Musab after he’s dead? You know that his funeral, if allowed to happen, would be a huge funeral showing the extent of sympathy with the mujahedin.” A large crowd would definitely turn out, though most people would be on hand to demonstrate their anger and disgust. Last November’s hotel bombings in Amman , masterminded by Zarqawi, are still fresh in people’s memory, and mentioning them to Jordanians has the same visceral impact as memory of the 9/11 attacks does here. Jordan has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards those who choose to mourn the country’s least favorite son, and four opposition members of parliament who paid con
Read more