Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Undersecretary of the Treasury David Cohen has threatened to impose sanctions on any people could buying oil from ISIS.
In taking large portions of Syria’s oil-producing east and several oil fields in Iraq, ISIS has carved out a de facto state with a lot of oil wealth, and in addition to refining it for domestic use, they’ve reportedly been bankrolling their ongoing expansion by selling it at substantially below market values to middlemen.
These middlemen, Turkish and Kurdish buyers who smuggle the oil into their own territory, make a tidy profit. Cohen says such sanctions would be a chance to stop ISIS getting money that way.
The US air war, particularly in Syria, has focused on blowing up oil refineries and grain silos, trying to damage the internal ISIS economy. Yet ISIS territory also contains many millions of civilians, and oil exports are their economic lifeline as well. Preventing commerce may harm ISIS, but it is the sort of inexact warfare that stands to damage many others as well.
I wish. How much taxpayer money is going to IS via the USG or corporations or who knows who else?
Within the last few months http://original.antiwar.com/smith-grant/2014/09/1… IRMEP covered an org run by Meir Dagan that apparently served to stigmatize folks they'd tell you were violating Iran sanctions; one victim sued and DoJ intervened.
Also recently heard the applicable section of Treasury called 'financial terrorism.' Israeli, even.
I s'pect that biz needed some PR/rehab (at least I'm sick of them); lucky they have a more popular villain to operate on. 'Look at me. I'm useful. Really I am.'
And it's really distasteful going after the buyers–just consistent with this thing where Israel freaks out about who's interacting (e.g., you weren't s'pposed to be talking to Iran, certain Palestinian factions weren't supposed to be friendly to eachother, etc.), and/or the War on Drugs. S'pposed to get everyone else scared of buying from your enemy. I'd rather that didn't become normal, and especially not laudable.
"… I'd rather that didn't become normal…"
Ah, but it has become the norm. It's so much easier – and cleaner – to just slap some sanctions on those who oppose the demands of Empire. Eventually, the Empire will decline, and maybe even fall, when it's influence and power runs its course. History has proven that all empires fall – mostly through their own actions.
The nice thing is that it at least got a bad name with e.g. Albright/Iraq, Iran—or, to whatever extent it's true that there's a widespread impression that it's a slimeball behavior, I think it should stay that way (of course, there's a fine line between wishful thinking and body english…:)…). It get's rehabilitated when there's a more popular witch to apply it to. I'd even suggest that the-better-witch-to-burn for such rehabilitation of it's image is something that can be supplied partly for that purpose, especially if they're not the only slimeballs that need that rehab.