I’ve made this connection in the past, and have written about it here many times. The idea being, bombs won’t accomplish as much as solid case-work and efficient investigations. In Iraq today, the insurgents receive funding from the country’s oil industry. Corruption and intimidation are used in pretty much the same way American organized crime sydicates operate.
Officials compare the insurgents’ ability to infiltrate and steal oil, sabotage pipelines, with the mafia. This article I’m posting (first in a while) is a fantastic read for anyone interested in Iraq.
Oil Graft Fuels the Insurgency, Iraq and U.S. Say
In Iraq, which depends almost exclusively on oil for its revenues, the officials say that any diversion of money to an insurgency that is killing its citizens and tearing apart its infrastructure adds a new and menacing element to the challenge of holding the country together.
In one example, a sitting member of the Iraqi National Assembly has been indicted in the theft of millions of dollars meant for protecting a critical oil pipeline against attacks and is suspected of funneling some of that money to the insurgency, said Radhi Hamza al-Radhi, the chairman of Iraq’s Commission on Public Integrity. The indictment has not been made public.
The charges against the Sunni lawmaker, Meshaan al-Juburi, are far from the only indication that the insurgency is profiting from Iraq’s oil riches.
On Saturday, the director of a major oil storage plant near Kirkuk was arrested with other employees and several local police officials, and charged with helping to orchestrate a mortar attack on the plant on Thursday, a Northern Oil Company employee said. The attack resulted in devastating pipeline fires and a shutdown of all oil operations in the area, said the employee, who was granted anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Ali Allawi, Iraq’s finance minister, estimated that insurgents reap 40 percent to 50 percent of all oil-smuggling profits in the country. Offering an example of how illicit oil products are kept flowing on the black market, he said that the insurgency had infiltrated senior management positions at the major northern refinery in Baiji and routinely terrorized truck drivers there. This allows the insurgents and their confederates to tap the pipeline, empty the trucks and sell the oil or gas themselves.
“It’s gone beyond Nigeria levels now where it really threatens national security,” Mr. Allawi said of the oil industry. “The insurgents are involved at all levels.”
American officials here echo that view. “It’s clear that corruption funds the insurgency, so there you have a very real threat to the new state,” said an American official who is involved in anticorruption efforts but refused to be identified to preserve his ability to work with Iraqi officials. “Corruption really has the potential of undercutting the growth potential here.”
An example of how the insurgents terrorize oil truck drivers occurred last month, as a 60-truck convoy of fuel tankers from Baiji that was intended to alleviate fuel shortages in Baghdad was attacked by insurgents with grenades and machine guns despite the heavy presence of Iraqi security forces. In some cases Iraqi guards on the Syrian border have been paid off to let stolen shipments through, and the oil is then sold on the black market, Mr. Radhi said.
Senior officials in Iraq’s Oil Ministry have been repeatedly cited in the Iraqi press as complaining about what they call an “oil smuggling mafia” that not only siphons profits from the oil industry but also is said to control the allocation of administrative posts in the ministry.
The former oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, told the London-based newspaper Al Hayat late last year that “oil and fuel smuggling networks have grown into a dangerous mafia threatening the lives of those in charge of fighting corruption,” according to a translation by the BBC.
Mr. Ulum said in an interview with the television network Iraqiya that raids on “smuggling dens” in Baghdad had netted forged documents and tanker trucks.
The indictment against Mr. Juburi, who is now believed to be hiding in Syria, charge that he stole money intended to hire and equip thousands of guards in 2004 and 2005 to protect an oil pipeline running between Baiji and the northern city of Kirkuk, Mr. Radhi said. Iraqi officials also suspect, but have not proved, that Mr. Juburi funneled some of the money he was given to protect the pipeline to the insurgents who were attacking it.
An Iraqi Army battalion commander Mr. Juburi hired was arrested recently and accused of organizing insurgent attacks on the pipeline, said a high-ranking Iraqi official who is close to the investigation. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak about the indictment. It is not clear whether Mr. Juburi knew that the commander was helping plan the attacks, the official said.
Yeah, I have to agree on the organized crime connection except where the mafia is seeking financial gain, Islam is seeking global domination. What is intesting is if this were not a religion but a cartel, like Pablo Escobar’s, there wouldn’t be any hesitation to take out the whole organization.
From what I have learned from studying Islam recently is that the rule of the world by any means necessary under the sharia is built into the core of the religion. No other religion in the world is more destructive and conquest thirsty as Islam.
Viewing it as a mafia, or crime family, is an interesting take that I had not thought of before. Another difference between the mafia nd Islam is no loss is too great for Islam. 1 guy or a million guys, death is irrelevant as long as the world bows to Islam. Muslims are trying to be the new aristocracy, theocracy and monarchy all in one.
I don’t think all the money that funnels to the ‘insurgency’ goes to purchase bullets and C4. An example I remember from the story had hijacked oil moved into Syria, and the kingpin at the top of the food chain on that score is probably already a rich man…just got a bit richer that day.
Look at Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. The countries both make billions on oil revenue, but the average citizen cannot brag of a lifestyle comparable to an average American or European. Those with power horde the money.
Same with the area’s clerics, who have plenty to wear, much influence, nice houses, etc…they are the ‘spiritual leaders’, clearly too comfortable amidst impoverished followers, who cling to their religion and the promise of a blissful afterlife for the old-fashioned reasons…dirt poor, shit education, grim outlook.
This dynamic is at the core of all religious extremism, regardless of denomination. Muslims attaching a bomb to their body, confident that lots of sex will be waiting for him on the other side…they’re just products of the hungry, oppressed masses that exist in alarming numbers from the Middle East on down to South Africa and even to the right in Indonesia.
There’re too few jobs, schools, utilities…basic opportunities we take for granted, nonexistant for a lot of these people.
Religion is a conduit, but insanity is what pulls the trigger. Growing up like that can make people crazy, clingy and eager to believe that their suffering is God’s will.
They are lied to consistently from birth until the day they die.
Here is a list of countries that, due to terrorism, have instituted policies of censorship in the media. Free speech is being sharply curtailed, for all you separation of church and state people, here is a true endorsement of religion(islam)
Canada
Sweden
U.N. (not a country but important)
Poland
Ukraine
South Africa
Yemen
Malaysia
American Left (also not a country but seeking control of U.S.)
Denmark
E.U. (working on rules protecting islam from free speach)
We talked about this in a prior post. This is the message I was telling you, Chris, about and I don’t think you fully understood my meaning. It’s not that Islam is going to invade, take over the U.S. and convert us all to islam. They don’t need to invade, the Left is fully prepared to surrender to intimidation. Bill Clinton and Jimmah Carter have already surrendered.
Islam is on the march and, so far, they are winning.
You’re saying that each of those countries have laws against the media running religious political cartoons? Or is this merely a list of countries that have newspapers within them who chose to not run it?
Publications that count on a Muslim reader base aren’t going to flush profits down the toilet for the sake of chest thumping.
The decision to run it or not to run it has to do with freedom of the press, but that freedom isn’t diminished when they choose not to run it.
They’ve got businesses to run. FoxNews isn’t going to lose many viewers if they show that cartoon…not true for every media outlet in the world.
Isn’t it funny that some Western nations will bend over backwards to protect Muslims from cartoons and take the “Evangelical” Christians to task at any opportunity ad nauseum! There is a double standard here – and I am a Unitarian NOT a Christian.
You’re saying that each of those countries have laws against the media running religious political cartoons?
It’s worse, the police and government agencies are working outside the law, in most instances, and shutting down web servers and newspapers that try to talk about the cartoons in context.
Publications that count on a Muslim reader base aren’t going to flush profits down the toilet for the sake of chest thumping.
Yeah, because without that leass than 1% of the population of muslims buying newspapers the media industries of Sweden, Canada, Denmark, Poland, Ireland and Japan will colapse. This has nothing to do with business or profits and everything to do with fear of being murdered.
but that freedom isn’t diminished when they choose not to run it.
It is if they don’t run it because of intimidation. What is this was Bill Clinton threatening to murder newspaper writers if they ever write anything bad about him? Bad example, some liberals might actually go for this. How about if George Bush threatened to murder Joe Wilson so Wilson didn’t write his fraud piece abouit yellow cake? Whould that be ok?
FoxNews isn’t going to lose many viewers if they show that cartoon…not true for every media outlet in the world.
That’s because Fox News holds true to journalism…not true of media outlets like the NYT, L.A. T or CNN.
Isn’t it funny that some Western nations will bend over backwards to protect Muslims from cartoons and take the “Evangelical” Christians to task at any opportunity ad nauseum!
Christians and Jews don’t have Homicide/suicide bombers and they also don’t target women or children. Chrisians and Jews are safe to persecute.
Cudos RT !