Not your fault, as it took me a fair bit of research to look into them, but yeah we are going to need some better sourcing than thecradle.co. It’s a politics website that leans heavily into anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and is running propaganda stories on behalf of the Russian government.
Here is an example of their coverage of the war in Ukraine… In the first couple of paragraphs it is very clear the angle is Russia good, West bad. https://thecradle.co/Article/Columns/14747
The author of that story is Pepe Escobar, who has been identified as a Russian propagandist by the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center. He’s a frequent contributor to RT and has admitted ignoring stories about Russian aggression previously. https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Pillars-of-Russia’s-Disinformation-and-Propaganda-Ecosystem_08-04-20.pdf
Given that the US has ~900 troops in Syria, I find it hard to believe they would be capable of removing that much oil from the country. As a very limited sample size, I have been in the Air Force for over a year now and I’ve never heard anyone mention being stationed in Syria - I’ve met people who have been to Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, Korea, Germany, Italy, the UK, Kosovo… never heard Syria get a mention. The resources on the ground are obviously very small.
One of the things that happened under Trump was significant draw down of troops in much of the middle east, only for them to be replaced with more expensive military contractors. It allowed him to score politics points for bringing the troops home while paying back major benefactors (Erik Prince is related to the De Vos family through his sister Betsy). Im sure its a lot, but how conscious are the troops of the level of Blackwater type groups being present in their arenas?
Was a video a few years ago of American troops just driving through a convey of Russian troops forcing them off the road, and trump actually hailed the taking of Syrian oil for themselves along the lines of spoils of war , the fact that America has any troops in Syria again raises questions of why are they there?
They’ve not been invited by the national government so I presume they are breaking international law and the fact that they have been quite a few stories of vehicles coming over from Iraq to “liberate” Syrian oil is quite ironic given how they lecture the world about freedoms
I would say not very conscious at all, from what I can tell there is not much cohesion with military and military contractors.
A quick google search could have answered that for you.
US troops are in the SDF controlled area of Syria (not the government of Syria) with an express intention of fighting ISIS, al-Qaida, Iranian influence and removing Assad from power. US military to maintain open-ended presence in Syria, Tillerson says | US military | The Guardian Obviously they are not invited to be there by the government they aim to remove from power. They’re there because the SDF want them there.
So you’re saying the bit in the movies where a marine is finishing a deployment and announces to his team he is staying to work for a private mercenary group for 10x salary and they all cheers with bud light isnt accurate?
That clears that up cheers, so basically America can invade any area and take their resources at will if they want to remove any government they don’t like from power at the request of an anti faction government ?
Still sounds as though it’s against international law imo which I’m sure it is .
Also a quick Google search will clarify that Russia was invited by the Syrian government to fight Isis, which I’m sure they have defeated since , yup just checked and there is a piece from the US government stating that Isis was defeated in Iraq and Syria…so again why are they there ?
It could happen I guess!
As far as the military goes I think people often overestimate the military’s ability to keep things quiet. Most servicemembers are not there for love of country or to kill enemies of the USA - they’re there to get a pension, do a bit of travelling and get free college education. Also most of them have the bare minimum of training required to do their job. The idea that you could just pump a few hundred marines into Syria and have them run an oil field, or transport hundreds of billions of dollars worth of oil out of the country without better sources than a Russian propaganda website like thecradle.co picking up on it is fanciful. Some moron would record himself driving through the border on tiktok, or have an instagram page where he’s like “Stealing oil again LOLZ”.
We have to be taught for weeks how to fold a hospital corner and by the end of training most of them still look like shit. Good luck getting those guys up to speed with what to do on an oilfield!
Military contractors may be easier to control, although I doubt it.
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Even if we consider SDF as a legitimate entity the areas controlled by them are part of Syria and, correct me if I’m wrong, only a national government can invite foreign soldiers, not any autonomous entities. So the US presence is an act of invasion.
900 soldiers don’t appear to be a sizable force but since they are in collusion with SDF who have thousands of fighters, it’s pretty feasible for them to smuggle large amounts of oils, specially since the Syrian (and Russian and Iranian) focus is on the more populous western region.
It’s quite possible the US soldiers are there illegally, I don’t know. I’m guessing the US don;t really care what anyone else thinks and will insert their soldiers anywhere they feel like particularly in that part of the world, as wrong as that is.
I’m pushing back against the story that they are there stealing tens/hundreds of billions of dollars of oil. The only sources I can find for any of this happening are Russian propaganda websites. The one linked by Odin_Telamon and after a google search of “US soldiers syria oil” these are some of the other results… MrOnline.com - which is also a Russian propaganda website (the second story on the site is about Ukrainian schools turning children into terrorists).
teleSURenglish.net - a Russian propaganda website.
Chinadaily.com - a Chinese propaganda website.
english.news.cn - a Chinese propaganda website.
farsnews.ir - an Iranian propaganda website.
english.almayadeen.net - a “pan-Arab” news website which is highly anti-semitic and aligns with Russia in supporting their invasion of Ukraine, called the Ukrainian government a “Nazi regime”.
I think that’s proven my point.
The truth is that the US revoked a waiver which allowed a US oil company to operate in Syria in May 2021, just one year after it was granted. Biden ending Trump OK for US oil company in Syria, says official (this link is the military times but the original story is the AP)
Since then, the US reduced it’s focus on oilfield protection. It did briefly send additional resources to the country early this year after a spate of bombings but this consisted of a few jeeps and crates of ammunition.
I know the US has done a lot of shady shit that means it quite rightly gathers huge suspicion around its real actions and intentions but really, the idea that hundreds of billions of dollars have been taken out of the country by military (or allowed to happen by the military) is just a Russian propaganda story and people should really learn to identify these sources before repeating the nonsense. It’s not the first time that incredibly dodgy sourcing has been used in this thread. Some people need to apply their critical eye to every story they read, even if they happen to like the message.
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The obvious problem with this story is the math. There are no working oil pipelines. Standard oil tanker truck is 250 barrels, so 123 trucks gets you to 30750, and that batch is supposedly newsworthy - yet is less than half of what is stated to be the daily quota. At 66,000 barrels a day, even at $100/bbl, you get $2.5B, but the story’s claim is $110B in 11 years.
I just don’t buy it. The US military could not be arsed to evacuate cash in Kabul, yet they have a little money-spinner going on in Syria? Do I believe that they are happily letting the SDF sell? Sure, that makes loads of sense, but I very much doubt they are spinning $2.5B out of it.
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Anyway, that Justice Cannon decision yesterday…
Federalist society member (a given), rushed in at the end of his term in his home district and rated as unqualified by the American bar Association. She now grants an injunction in a case his team didnt even ask for on a case she cites the statute demonstrating she has no grounds to hear it. We’ve long understood that conservative activit judges are a real thing, and they start with the outcome they want and then work backwards to conjure up some shitty legal justification for it. But they’ve just stopped even trying now to pretend its on the up and up. It’s now just a case of “we’re doing this because fuck you.” With courts this lawless, I just dont see a way out.
At some point, most of the US will realize that the country no longer actually has a working system of justice, even for white people.
A bastion of truth and reliability
My next step was to do the maths but glad you’ve done it for me!
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Another western outlet but it must all be fake or russian propaganda I suppose ?
There is absolutely no doubt they moved to secure them, but that isn’t quite the same thing. I am geo-blocked from that story, so not sure of the content. But I would be shocked if the arrangement that the SDF has is that much different from what the Kurds got.
So you linked the video but didn’t watch it, I assume because every part of it debunks what you said.
- The US revealed it will not be keeping any revenue from the oilfields protected by American troops in Syria
- Estimated to be worth $45m a month (which would make it a mere $540m per year - so just 185 years to get to the $100 billion goal I guess)
- The US has ordered most troops out of Syria
- The US soldiers in the video did not talk to the media but the journalist reports it as a “meet and greet” not a tactical deployment to defend the oil fields.
- US influence in the area has been severely restricted by Russian and Syrian forces in the area.
- Towards the end of the video the journalist shows how difficult it is to defend an oilfield by just panning the skyline to see the vast space that is required to be defended.
- He ends by saying that a military spokesman said some troops were being repositioned to fight ISIS and that Trump had ordered the oilfields defended but these troops were not near the oilfields Trump was talking about.
I’m not sure what part of this video is supposed to be supporting the claim that you got from Russian propaganda outlets that US forces have stolen $100b in oil from Syria but at this point I’m starting to doubt whether you actually care about the truth or just your little conspiracy theories.
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