Free Republic

The TurkStream pipeline, which brings natural gas from Russia to Türkiye across the Black Sea and then into southeastern Europe, was controversial in certain quarters of the West ever since it was conceived. Now the flow of natural gas to Europe from Russia via Türkiye is reaching all-time highs. TurkStream has a capacity of 31.5 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year, roughly half of which stays in Türkiye, and the rest continues on to the Balkans and Central Europe. Serbia and Hungary are the primary European consumers. According to S&P Global, supplies via TurkStream into Southeast Europe rose...

Russia has violated a four-year-old agreement with the U.S. by flying armed jets over a U.S. garrison in Syria nearly every day this month, according to Lt. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, who is in charge of air operations in the area....The U.S. has more than 900 troops, and hundreds more contractors, in Syria, working with Kurdish fighters to quell any resurgence of the Islamic State, which was defeated as a caliphate in 2019. Russia's military has been backing Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad during his country's 12-year-old civil war....Grynkewich said Russia might be trying to put more pressure on the U.S. military...

A Syrian was killed and another was wounded when government supporters attacked American troops and tried to block their way as their convoy drove through an army checkpoint in northeastern Syria, prompting a rare clash, state media and activists reported. The U.S. military said its force came under fire, and that troops responded in self-defense. It said an investigation of the incident was underway.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will repel any attempt to take Syria’s oil fields away from U.S.-backed Syrian militia with “overwhelming force,” whether the opponent is Islamic State or even forces backed by Russia or Syria, the Pentagon said on Monday. The U.S. military announced last week it was reinforcing its position in Syria with additional assets, including mechanized forces, to prevent oilfields from being taken over by remnants of the Islamic State militant group or others. U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper offered some of his most detailed remarks to date about the mission at a news briefing on...

<p>Roughly 500 soldiers from the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division headquarters are headed to the Middle East, with 200 of them to end up in Iraq.</p>

The 1st Infantry Division headquarters will deploy to Iraq soon as the U.S. military steps up its campaign against Islamic State militants, the Pentagon said Thursday. It will be the first division headquarters assigned to Iraq since U.S. forces withdrew from the country at the end of 2011. About 500 soldiers from the Fort Riley, Kan.-based division will be heading for the Middle East next month with about 200 of them going to Iraq, Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said. “They’re going to provide command and control of the ongoing advise-and-assist effort in support of Iraqi and peshmerga...

No link now, they are just announcing it now.

Former detainee at Guantánamo Bay has taken a leading role in the military opposition to Col Muammar Gaddafi, it has emerged, alongside at least one other former Afghan Mujahideen fighter. Rebel recruits in the eastern port city of Derna are being trained by Sufyan Bin Qumu, a Libyan who was arrested following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, and held at Guantánamo for six years. Port city of Derna, Libya Abdel Hakim al-Hasidi, a senior Libyan rebel commander in Derna, was also held following the invasion of Afghanistan and handed over to Libyan custody two months later. Both men...

Libyan rebels carry the coffin of assassinated Army Chief Abdel Fatah Younis on July 29 in Benghazi, Libya. Even as it prepares to hand over the Libyan embassy in Washington to the rebel government, the State Department is warning the Transitional National Council to get its act together. An administration official told CNN the United States has warned the TNC that this is a "do-or-die moment" for the organization to carry out a credible and thorough investigation of the killing of its military commander, Abdel Fatah Younis. Last week's mysterious assassination has raised concerns that it might have been carried...

Obama moved on from incompetent to reckless when he released 30 million barrels of oil from the U.S. strategic reserve in a bid to save the summer tourist season. But he told us he would do that in his first prime-time press conference."That whole philosophy of persistence, by the way, is one that I'm going to be emphasizing again and again in the months and years to come as long as I'm in this office. I'm a big believer in persistence." I would agree. No one knows how to double-down on a mistake better than Obama.  U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim...

"No blood for oil" was a popular slogan chanted by the left in opposition to President George W. Bush's push to send U.S. forces into Iraq. Now that President Obama has authorized Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya, I have been waiting to hear chants of "no blood for oil." I am happy to report, I don't hear them. I went to the No Blood For Oil website; its lead item opposes efforts to strike wolves from the endangered species list. In fact, as NATO forces are lobbing missiles to enforce a no-fly zone over the country with Africa's largest oil...

Allegations that the Bush administration was driven to invade Iraq by a lust for the country's oil have been part of the antiwar movement's narrative since even before the war's first shots were fired. The image of a White House hijacked by a cabal of former oil executives who steer foreign policy to advance Big Oil's interests gained credence as disillusionment from the war grew. This idea is being reinforced by former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, whose memoir hit bookstore shelves in September. "I'm saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows -- the Iraq war...

BAGHDAD — Iraqi oil production could double in five years, according to a new study. The report found that Iraq's oil reserves may be almost twice as much as previously estimated. The study by the U.S. consultancy IHS said another 100 billion barrels of oil reserves could be found in Iraq. IHS said the estimate would rank Iraq as having the second largest reserves in the world, following Saudi Arabia. Currently, Iran has the second largest oil reserves in the world.

I don't know if this will interest anyone, but I had an e-mail exchange yesterday with a former co-worker now working for a different company out in New York City. He was a major lib. when he worked for the company I'm with and he and I use to get into some heated exchanges. I'm providing this not to pat myself on the back, but to provide something you can use when you get similar boilerplate attacks from your liberal friends since they're all basically reading off the same script. Anyway, after first e-mailing me yesterday saying he doesn't know...

Please pay close attention because we're going to be discussing numbers, and I happen to know that most of you are lousy at math. In 1933, a movie ticket cost a quarter, a hamburger was a dime, and a soda pop was a nickel. Assuming you actually had a dollar in 1933, you could go out on a date for a dollar and come home with change. In 1936, a gallon of gas cost 25 cents. A year later, my dad bought a new Plymouth sedan for less than $800. In 1946, it was the car he was still driving...

So it seems that the plotline for this season's '24' is that a dark, shadowy conspiracy of white American puppetmasters is exploiting the threat of terrorism in order to 'secure the flow of oil for the next generation,' manipulating a weak, dim-witted President to achieve their diabolical goals of world domination and economical power.

A moped -- or hoofing it -- are not the only answers to the energy crunch. If you own a diesel-powered car, truck or SUV, salvation may be as close as your local greasy spoon. It's possible to run a diesel engine on used -- albeit filtered and otherwise prepared for internal combustion -- fry oil, also known as Waste Vegetable Oil (W.Va.). There's also Straight Vegetable Oil (aka "SO" and a bit less stinky), a mix of grease and diesel -- or "biodiesel," which is also sourced from vegetable oil or animal fat. The upside to "going greasy" is...

President Bush was very wise to make his Iraqi speech this week. He and his advisors are following the same public opinion polls we all are. Polls show that support for the war among Americans has been falling. Time has now become an enemy, almost as threatening as the insurgents, to the President's ability to achieve a victory. Our nation does not have much patience for fighting wars that are not discernibly winnable in a relatively short period of time. With congressional elections next year, anti-war sentiment could easily be expressed by voters -- resulting in the erosion of the...

Charles Pasqua, a former French minister of interior, has emerged as one of the highest-ranking targets of the widening investigations into the Iraq oil-for-food scandal. United Nations, US and French investigators are examining Iraqi documents that show officials in Baghdad were instructed to transfer his lucrative oil allocations to an offshore company, to shield him from criticism. Mr Pasqua's alleged role has emerged as inquiries turn to the role of foreign governments in the corruption within the humanitarian aid programme. France and Russia, which opposed the 2003 invasion, have long been accused in the US of being too close to...

CNBC's Ron Insana sat down with President Bush for an exclusive interview on topics including Social Security, personal savings accounts, the stock market, budget deficit, Medicare, oil prices, the dollar, international trade, and terror. Here is a transcript of that interview. President Bush: No. Listen, now's the right time to talk about permanently fixing Social Security because every year we wait it costs $600 billion more for the next generation. In other words, it's going to cost that much more money a year by -- if there's political delay. Secondly, I mean, I think most people will tell you that...