Marawi Siege, Hydropower Version of Middle East Oilfield Battle
"As Daesh allies, aren’t the Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups used in the devastating Marawi Siege for total control of the Maranao lake hydropower just the way it is used for energy battle for future pipelines in the Middle East?"
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| Portion of devastated Marawi. (File Photo) |
Masiding Noor Yahya
Marawi City, Lanao del Sur
October 21, 2017
Sometimes ago, appeared online such headlines as: “Syrian War: ‘Nothing to Do With Daesh, it is Energy Battle for Future Pipelines’;” ‘Pipeline War’ is at the Roots of Syrian Crisis; US not interested in fighting terrorist groups in Syria: Analyst; How the US Sponsored Rise of ISIS and Aided the Fall of Mosul and Ramadi; etc
All these either connotes directly or impliedly that such terror groups as the Daesh (the so-called ISIS or ISIL, call it what you may) and the like are created to sow terrors that give reason for Zionism and its superpowers to interfere to protect nothing but their own interest – interest to have control or have great share in the produce of oilfields and maintain their superiority – in the name of world peace.
In the Philippines, the biggest source of energy is the Maranao Lake which presently provides the hydropower plants that energize almost all the islands of Mindanao.
As Daesh allies, aren’t the Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups used in the devastating Marawi Siege for total control of the Maranao lake hydropower just the way it is used for energy battle for future pipelines in the Middle East? Relatively speaking, the Marawi siege can be seen as the hydropower version of the oilfield pipeline battle.
Looking back, we have seen how the superpowers through the international agencies created and financed various non-government agencies which they now call Civil Societies Organizations (CSOs) in areas they have interests, especially in oil-rich countries. These CSOs have been playing in these areas before, during and after the war. In other words, these CSOs were created intentionally to initiate wars by sowing discontentment and anti-sentiment among the youth and discontented persons, to provide facilitation when war is established and pose as a helping hand in post-war era.
We exactly see the same in the Philippines.
Let us read and analyze, at least in the wake of the Marawi tragedy, the following online reports:
Syrian War: ‘Nothing to Do With Daesh, It is Energy Battle for Future Pipelines’
German online newspaper Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten has provided its own analysis on the developments in Syria, noting that the severest clashes occur only in places of major pipelines or where new routes are planned to run; hence it says, the conflict is nothing more than a fight for the best positions to start oil and gas supplies to Europe.
The newspaper has attentively examined the Syrian war map and noticed that the military actions are going on only in places where major oil and gas routes are either already running or are planned to go.
“Two of the most important oil markets are located in the Syrian cities of Manbij and al-Bab, both cities are located in the Governorate of Aleppo,” the newspaper says.
“Through the territories of the two cities runs a major pipeline which transports oil from Iraq to Syria, up to Idlib Governorate,” it says.
The same pipeline runs through the territory of the city of Aleppo.
Whoever takes Manbij, takes under control of the oil transportation in Syria, it says.
The same is true for the Syria’s western cities of Aleppo, Idlib and al-Bab. In the east, the same pipeline runs through the cities of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Sputnik in an exclusive interview that most Americans are unaware that Washington aims to overthrow democratically elected Syrian government.
In his recent op-ed article for Politico Magazine, US attorney and nephew of US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wrote that the US decided to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power after he refused to back a Qatari gas pipeline project.
The CIA went ahead with this plan after the multi-billion dollar pipeline project first surfaced in 2000, years before the Arab Spring uprising in Syria took place.
The project was aimed to build a gas link from Qatar through Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria and Turkey to Europe.
Kennedy writes that if completed, the pipeline would have had major geopolitical implications. For example it would have given “the Sunni kingdoms of the Persian Gulf decisive domination of world natural gas markets and strengthen Qatar, America's closest ally in the Arab world.”
The gas link would have also provided Ankara with ‘rich transit fees’, the author added. This all clearly indicates that the Syrian conflict is not a civil war for greater rights or representation, but a violent foreign-sponsored insurgency aimed at bringing a business project to life.
Radio Sputnik spoke with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to learn more about his research.
“If we study the history of America’s relation with Mideast and looking at the US’ violent intervention in Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Egypt over time and the extraordinary and astonishing thing is the solid record of the cataclysmic failure every time we venture there in violent fashion. Most Americans are completely unaware of us attempting to overthrow the democratically elected government in Syria, contrary to our own state department policy and contrary to American values.”
Kennedy Jr. went on to say that this has resulted in severe blow backs for the US. He spoke about the US and Syria’s relations and how they both fought beside each other in World War II against the French who controlled Syria at the time.
“After the war the Syrian people tried to introduce a US fashioned democracy in Syria. The elected president’s big mistake was that he was reticent about building an Arabian pipeline as the US energy project and because of that CIA overthrew him. Six years later they again tried to overthrow him and this time their attempt failed and it was highly publicized and it caused riots.”
He spoke about how the CIA agents tried to murder the Syrian chief of staff by bribing the Syrian military but that plan backfired and the Syrian government expelled all of the US diplomats from Syria.
Kennedy Jr. also talked about CIA engineered involvement in Iraq which essentially brought Saddam Hussein to power. He also mentioned how Muammar Gadhafi managed to keep Libya stable.
Kennedy also spoke about the upcoming US election and who he thinks should be president.
Kennedy to Sputnik: ‘Pipeline War’ is at the Roots of Syrian Crisis
Radio Sputnik discusses the origins of the Syrian crisis with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., attorney and nephew of US President John Fitzgerald Kennedy.
Kennedy writes that the US decided to remove Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power after he refused to back a Qatari gas pipeline project. Sputnik also touched upon US foreign policy, the refugee crisis and why Donald Trump would be a better president than Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.
http://www.inspiretochangeworld.com/2016/03/kennedy-sputnik-pipeline-war-roots-syrian-crisis/
“We’ve compromised our own constitution, including the Bill of Rights in the name of the national security state and a warfare state. We’ve gotten rid, in many cases, of the right of jury trial. We’ve gotten rid of the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment. We talked ourselves into this idea that it’s okay to water board and torture people.”
He went on to say that the US public is disillusioned to think that the US is still a beacon of democracy. He spoke about how the government stood for freedom of people before. But the United States has intervened fifty eight times since WW2.
Kennedy further said that, “WW2 was a huge lesson to us. It was a moral lesson to the United States. It was something that we learned in school, that the Allied forces have done a wonderful thing by defeating Hitler.”
“But we haven’t been responsive to the refugee crisis. And today we are doing the same thing. And the problem is that we really have been creating this refugee crisis. We are the ones that destroyed the government of Libya.”
“We are the ones that in this pipeline dispute helped destroy the government of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. We are the ones who invaded Iraq, when there were no weapons of mass destruction, when Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11. And Saddam Hussein was very hostile to al-Qaeda, as was Muammar Gadaffi. Gaddafi was helping us fight Al-Qaeda,” Kennedy said.
“Bashar Assad after 9/11 gave us the dossiers on terrorists from the Islamic jihadist groups because he saw them as mutual enemies.”
Kennedy said, “I am not saying that we should ally ourselves with the dictators. But we ally ourselves with the Saudis. And the Saudis don’t let women drive a car. You go to jail if you drive a car. They behead people every Wednesday in Mecca. They torture people and they suppress free speech and they do a lot that is probably worse.”
He went on to say that, “When we decide to overthrow those people, if you examine the real motives, almost always they serve the interests of large United States corporations who have an economic interest in the region. And in this case that was true. If you look at the roots of this war it is a pipeline war.”
“It was a Sunni revolution that was funded by our allies, by Qatar and Saudi Arabia. And in many cases the soldiers of this revolution were trained and armed by the United States.”
Here’s how the US, Israel, al-Qaeda and ISIS work together in Syria:
Simultaneous US and Israeli airstrikes on Syrian military positions in the eastern city of Deir-ez-Zour and in Al-Quneitra show how the US and Israel manipulate ISIS and Al-Qaeda to wage their war of aggression against Syria.
The Syrian battlefield is now witnessing an escalation of the war. This is despite the fact that it is supposed to be a time of cessation of hostilities brokered by the US and Russia.
The Syrian war has two major fronts. The first and most important is in southern Syria, on the borderline with Israel and the occupied territories of the Syrian Golan Heights. This area is divided into two areas: the liberated area of Al-Quneitra, and the occupied area of the Golan Heights where Jabhat Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda’s base their fighters.
Israel has been attempting to drive the Syrian army out of Al-Quneitra. Israel’s objective is to join this part of the Golan Heights to the territory it controls, thereby creating a buffer zone like the one it once had in southern Lebanon. In order to achieve this objective Israel regularly bombs Syrian military positions in the area, including Syrian Arab Army artillery positions, radar stations, etc.
There is a UN Security Council Resolution (UNSC Resolution number 338) dated 22nd October 1973, which supposedly established a Syrian-Israeli ceasefire in this area. There is also a UN force – UNDOF – set up in 1974, which is supposed to supervise the ceasefire line. However, Israel has forced out most of UNDOF from the area, and in practice Israel simply ignores the terms of Resolution 338 and violates it at will.
By attacking the Syrian Army in Al-Quneitra Jabhat Al-Nusra – Al-Qaeda’s local franchise – is helping Israel. Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda fighters are attacking Syrian military positions important for the defence of Syria and of the Arab nation from Israeli aggression.
These Al-Nusra and Al-Qaeda attacks would not be possible without air support from Israel. Indeed, Israel has admitted many times that it supports these terrorists, whom it calls “moderate rebels”.
Israeli hospitals actually treat Al-Nusra terrorists, and Israeli ambulances regularly enter Syria to evacuate injured Al-Nusra terrorists via the Jbata crossing in northern Al-Quneitra to the Occupied Palestinian territories. Many of the weapons seized by the Syrian army from the terrorists as they tried to cross into Sweda Province in southern Syria to surround Damascus were made in Israel.
Lately the Syrian Army has carried out a series of successful offensives in the area, defeating the Western and Arab Gulf-backed “rebels”. Over the last few months the position of these so-called “rebels” has become desperate.
For that reason Israel has recently stepped its attacks on Syrian positions inside liberated Al-Quneitra, launching missiles into Syrian territory from its positions in the Israeli occupied section of the Golan Heights.
The Syrian military reported these attacks to the Syrian government. A senior Syrian official visited the area. He ordered the Syrian military in the area act to defend Syrian territory from Israeli attack. The very next day Syrian Air Defence shot down an Israeli F-16 warplane and an Israeli drone. The F16 was brought down on the border line in a place called Bir Ajam, which is under al-Nusra control. The drone was brought down in a place called Sa’sa’, which is inside Syrian army controlled territory.
This action marked a dramatic shift of policy on the part of the Syrian government, decisively responding to the attacks by the Israelis. It represents a direct counter to Israel’s aggression on Syrian land.
At around this time the US and the Russians, after prolonged negotiations, announced a ceasefire, the terms of which are secret.
The general opinion in Syria is that the terms of the ceasefire are secret because the US has longstanding obligations to the “moderate rebels” – who are neither “moderate” nor “rebels” but are actually terrorists – but has had to accede to demands from the Russians that it separates and identifies those fighters it supports from those it does not.
Had the US announced the terms of the ceasefire, the the morale of the fighters would have collapsed, since they would have confirmed that they had in effect been defeated. They might even have rebelled against the US.
However, what followed next shows that the US – the true master of this war, and the one which confers immunity on its chosen terrorists by calling them “moderate rebels” – can never be trusted in any quest for a peaceful solution to the war against Syria. The U.S. broke the ceasefire by striking a Syrian military airbase in Deir Al-Zour, located in the Thardeh Mountains.
This is a tough target for ISIS to capture, and it requires coordination between the US led coalition and ISIS against the Syrian Arab Army to give them the chance to do so. The objective is for ISIS to capture the airbase there, which will give ISIS control of the city and ultimately over the whole province.
The US claims that despite its powerful satellites and other methods of surveillance it could not identify the Syrian Arab Army’s positions and that the attack was a “mistake”.
We – the Arab people of Syria and Iraq – have long become accustomed to such “mistakes”. After all we remember the US-led coalition using similar rhetoric to drop weapons for ISIS in their stronghold along the border with Iraq, which it just so happens is also, interestingly enough, the border of Deir Al-Zour province.
That was the US’s gift to the barbarians of ISIS. Over 100 brave Syrian soldiers were martyred, and Syrian military positions resisting ISIS were destroyed and overrun.
Maybe I have got it the wrong way round. Maybe I should say it another way: What a great gift the barbarians of ISIS have given to the US – giving them the pretext to bomb Syria – the main country of the Resistance Front, and the only Arab country which together with Hezbollah resists Israel!
Meanwhile, Israel bombed a Syrian site in the south of Syria, claiming the life of another Syrian soldier.
Are we to believe this is all just coincidence?
The good news is that the Syrian Arab Army with Russian air support has been able to stop ISIS taking over the airbase near Deir-ez-Zour. However in the fighting the terrorists, who have been given advanced anti-aircraft weapons, managed to down a Syrian airplane.
Syrians deserve the right to counter any aggression against their country and their army. They deserve the right to respond in the same way that they have recently responded to the aggression launched against them by Israel.
I have personally met a Syrian soldier who survived the US coalition bombing in Deir-ez-Zour. He told Syrian Formal TV that US drones were flying over the airbase for more than four and a half hours before the US aircraft made their “mistake”. He said that he originally thought they were scanning the area to help the fight against ISIS. However he gradually realised that the drones were actually undertaking surveillance of the base itself – of its equipment, tanks, ammunition, etc. Later, the US aircraft destroyed all this whilst the ISIS terrorists were screaming Allah Akbar!
That brought back memories of the US led coalition drone that flew over the Presidential Palace in Lattakia, which our air defenses shot down over a year ago.
Would any sovereign country accept foreign powers bombing its army in its own land?
Add to that the Turkish troops in northern Syria who are – under UN cover – wanting to send 40 trucks of who knows what into Syria!
The UN prevented the Syrian authorities from checking these trucks, but they were still labeled “humanitarian aid.”What kind of aid is it really and who is it heading to? “Moderate” suicide bombers? ISIS?
And why are so many areas in Syria that are being besieged by terrorists being ignored by the UN? After all no one asks the ‘international community’ (ie. the US and its friends) to lift the unjust sanctions on Syria to prevent starvation!
Syrians are wondering: is our war really with ISIS and Al-Qaeda or with the US and Israel – the true aggressors and puppet-masters – who have always wanted a long war against Syria in order to break and occupy us?
US not interested in fighting terrorist groups in Syria: Analyst
The United States is not interested in fighting terrorist groups in Syria and has attempted to find ways to support extremist militants in the country, a political activist in Damascus says.Senior US officials are not sincere in their public statements and say one thing while doing the opposite, Afraa Dagher told Press TV on Thursday.The US is also not serious in cooperating with Russia to end the 4-year-long conflict in Syria, Dagher said.“The USA has been trying to destabilize Syria and topple our president since 2011,” she noted.Russia launched its air campaign against terrorists in Syria on September 30. The US has also been carrying out its own airstrikes in Syria, allegedly pounding Daesh positions inside the country.However, observers have long said that while the US and its allies claim they are fighting against terrorist groups like Daesh (ISIL), they in fact helped create and train those organizations to advance their policies in the Middle East.The CIA began its covert operation in 2013 to arm, fund and train terrorists to overthrow the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
However, the covert program has floundered for years, so much so that some lawmakers in Congress proposed cutting its budget.
Since 2013, the CIA has trained approximately 10,000 terrorists. The effort was separate from a failed US military program to train “moderate” militants to supposedly fight the Daesh (ISIL) terrorist group.That $500 million Pentagon program is widely considered a failure, and on Friday, the US Defense Department announced it was abandoning those efforts and instead opting to arm existing groups to fight Daesh.On Wednesday, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter threatened Russia, saying the US will take all necessary steps to counter Moscow's “malign influence” in Syria. (
How the US Sponsored Rise of ISIS and Aided the Fall of Mosul and Ramadi
The US-led coalition now attempting to appear as though they are fighting ISIS knowingly aided the rise of the Islamic State for the purpose of isolating Assad and combating expanding Iranian influence. At least as far back as August of 2012 the very same anti-IS coalition knew full well that the precursors to ISIS, al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and Islamic State in Iraq (ISI), dominated the Syrian opposition along with other al-Qaeda affiliated groups. They knew that AQI was declining during 2009-10, yet was resurrected due to the insurgency in Syria. In spite of this, the US and her allies continued to provide aid, funding, weaponry, and training to these same extremist groups, specifically seeing their rise (and the horrendous crimes against humanity that they partook in) as a strategic asset for their geopolitical aims. The rise of the Islamic State was not only predicted, it was the expressed aim of the powers sponsoring the sectarian Syrian opposition for the purpose of opposing Assad and containing Iran. Despite the fact that the rise of an Islamic State was predicted to have dire consequences for Iraq, including the fall of Mosul and Ramadi, support from the US-coalition to the Syrian opposition continued to manifest, leading to the conclusion that this was either the expressed intent, or an accepted byproduct of these policy decisions.
A 7-page Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) document dated to August of 2012, recently released under a Freedom Of Information Act, request specifically states that the Syrian opposition was by that time “taking a clear sectarian direction,” and that “the Salafist, the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI are the major forces driving the insurgency in Syria.” AQI, the precursor to the Islamic State, as well “supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning,” and had “a regression… during the years of 2009 and 2010; however, after the rise of the insurgency in Syria, the religious and tribal powers in the regions began to sympathize with the sectarian uprising.” Despite these facts, it was “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey [who] support[ed] the opposition,” while “Russia, China, and Iran support[ed] the regime.” Furthermore, it was predicted by the DIA that “ISI (Islamic State in Iraq) could also declare an Islamic State through its union with other terrorist organization in Iraq and Syria” and that “there is a possibility of establishing a declared or undeclared Salafist principality in eastern Syria.” This is exactly what transpired in the years after 2012 with the declaration of the Islamic State. Yet not only was this a possibility, this was instead “exactly what the supporting powers to the opposition want, in order to isolate the Syrian regime, which is considered the strategic depth of the Shia expansion” with Iran and Iraq being labelled as integral parts of this expansion. The supporting powers are said to be “the West, Gulf countries, and Turkey.” The report goes on to state that “the future assumptions of the crisis” are that “the regime will survive” and that the current events are developing “into a proxy war” between Iran-Russia-China and the West, Gulf, and Turkey. Further, the report accurately predicts the fall of Mosul and Ramadi, stating that “the deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation… This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters.” This could as well “create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.”
This document was classified as “secret” and distributed to the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the DIA, FBI, CIA, the Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, Central Command, and other agencies. It is an Intelligence Information Report, not a “finally evaluated intelligence” assessment, yet its information was vetted before distribution.
Therefore the US-led coalition that is now “fighting” ISIS continually supported an opposition it knew to be dominated by sectarian extremists, lying to the public while describing them instead as “moderates,” and predictably knew that this support would result in the establishment of an “Islamic State” and further continued to aid in such an establishment in order to weaken and oppose Assad and combat Iranian expansion. It is a tenant of law that the “doer of an act must be taken to have intended its natural and foreseeable consequences.”(1) Therefore, even absent the documents own admission of complicity of intent given that the rise of ISIS was a “natural and foreseeable consequence” of continually aiding the sectarian opposition the US and her allies must therefore be taken to have intended this outcome. Furthermore, the document specifically demarcating Iraq as a center for unwanted Iranian "Shia"expansion while accurately predicting the fall of both Mosul and Ramadi to Sunni extremists, thereby assuring against such an expansion, all lead to the conclusion that the recent ISIS gains in both of these cities was not something that the US opposed, but instead something that it desired. Given that the fall of Mosul and Ramadi too were “natural and foreseeable consequences”, given as well the severely questionable ways in which each city fell and the fact that although these outcomes were predictable the US-coalition still continued the policies that were known to lead to them, the US and her allies must therefore be taken to have intended these outcomes as well, either directly or indirectly.
The fall of Mosul in June of 2014 it must be remembered was, as described by Noam Chomsky, “pretty remarkable. In fact, western military analysts were astonished. Remember what happened, Iraq has an army, and the Iraqi army knows how to fight. During the Iran-Iraq war that army fought hard and viciously, and in fact ultimately won the war, with US support. There was an Iraqi army of 350,000 men, armed to the teeth with all kinds of advanced weapons. They had been trained by the United States for over a decade. They were faced by a couple of thousand lightly armed jihadi’s. First thing that happened was all the generals ran away. Then all the troops ran away, leaving their weapons behind them. And then the jihadi forces just marched into Mosul and then into large parts of Iraq. It was a pretty amazing phenomenon, it tells you a lot if you think about it.”
Furthermore “the Iraqi security forces disintegrated and fled, the rout led by their commanding officers,” one Iraqi army soldier describing that “on the morning of June 10 his commanding officer told the men to stop shooting, hand over their rifles to the insurgents, take off their uniforms, and get out of the city.”(2) Mosul was simply given away to by a battle-hardened army of 350,000 men to a lightly armed brigade of roughly 1,300 Islamists(3), the commanding military officers specifically ordering their subordinates to leave their weapons for the jihadi’s and to flee. Had this “remarkable” fall been desired by the US-coalition in order to “isolate” the “strategic depth of Shia expansion” in Iraq? Or rather “Had the senior Iraqi commanders been instructed by their Western military advisers to hand over the city to the ISIS terrorists? Were they co-opted?” as Professor Michel Chossudovsky had asked when this occurred?
Similarly, the more recent fall of Ramadi is equally as dubious. The US-led coalition, which had promised to defend Iraq against the Islamic State, basically allowed Ramadi to fall, conducting only 7 airstrikes during the battle, which is such a low number as to be completely irrelevant. The remarkably weak excuse was that a great sandstorm had prevented them from conducting regular attacks. This despite the fact that the next day ISIS was holding victory parades among perfectly clear skies, the militants assembling in massive rows down the wide open street.
With no “sandstorm” excuse, airstrikes could have easily wiped out entire factions of the extremists the US is supposedly fighting, yet none occurred. Why? Had this too been desired by the US-coalition in order to “isolate” the “strategic depth of Shia expansion” in Iraq?
Wahda Al-Jumaili, an advisor to Iraq’s parliamentary speaker, speaking of the city's fall the day after stated “Whether this was the result of treason, neglect, or conspiracy, or a regional or international plot… Even the international coalition has played a bad role. People saw the international coalition dropping weapons for ISIS. They dropped heavy weaponry to the forces of terrorism in Ramadi. This is an act of treason by the international coalition forces.”
This, however, is not the first time an Iraqi politician has accused the US-coalition of dropping weapons and aid to ISIS, this is instead a phenomenon that has been going on for some time now, in one incident two British planes were even shot down by the Iraqi’s under charges that they were dropping weapons to ISIS. Photographic evidence was taken of the downed planes. Iraqi parliamentarian Jome Divan stated that “The international coalition is only an excuse for protecting the ISIL and helping the terrorist group with equipment and weapons. The coalition has not targeted ISIL's main positions in Iraq.” This being only one of a plethora of Iraqi politicians who have consistently been making these claims for some time now.
In any event the spillover to Iraq and the fall of Mosul and Ramadi were predictable consequences of the Wests' Syria policy, and in some instances it appears as though the West aided in their fall, so at the very least they were an accepted consequence in the strategy against Syria and Iran, and at the worst they were an intended partition of Iraq.
Given this, and the fact that the US-coalition continuously aided the sectarian Syrian opposition knowing full well that this would then lead to an “Islamic State”, the consequence of which was the predictable fall of Mosul and Ramadi, coupled with the unbelievable manner in which both fell, it would be wise to consider the numerous Iraqi politicians claims very seriously, and to seriously question whether or not the fall of these cities really does have a more believable, albeit much more sinister, explanation behind them. (Published May 23, 2015)
