Was Trump talking Turkey?

(The video embedded above may seem, at first, quite unrelated to the text that follows. Keep reading. The connection will soon become clear.)

Speaking to Joe Scarborough on the topic of ISIS, Donald Trump made an admission that many will consider startling -- not because he said something wrongheaded, but because he dared to mention the unmentionable. I thank this writer for the transcript.

Donald Trump

Right now things are going on right now that you don’t know about, that I don’t know about, that nobody . . . right now, there are things going on . . . that you have so-called people that you think are on our side and they’re not reporting it, they’re not talking about it, and, in some cases, they’re involved with it.

Look, I’ll give you an example. Some of our so-called “allies,” that we work with and we protect and we protect them militarily, they’re sending massive amounts of money to ISIS and al-Qaeda and to others.

Joe Scarborough
So who are we talking about there?

Donald Trump
You know who it is. What do I have to bring it up for? You know who it is.

Joe Scarborough
Because you’re running for president. Who? The Saudis?

Donald Trump
Joe, other countries are giving massive amounts of money. People from other countries are giving massive amounts of money . . .

Joe Scarborough
Are you saying the Saudis are doing this?

Donald Trump
Of course, they’re doing it. Everyone knows that.

Joe Scarborough
Ok. Any other countries?

Donald Trump
There are, but I’m not going to say it, because I have a lot of relationships with people. But there are. And you know that and everybody knows that, and nobody says it. Nobody talks about it.

Joe Scarborough
But you’re not even saying the countries that are doing it right now. Why aren’t you willing to name those . . . you say you have a lot of relationships there.

Donald Trump
Hey, Joe. All you have to do is check your records. Our government knows the countries, and one of them happens to be Saudi Arabia. And our government knows that.

And why aren’t we doing anything about that? Why aren’t we being firm as to why are we allowing that to happen.

Some believe that when Trump's remark about "other countries" is code for Israel. Perhaps -- but I think that the reference here goes to Qatar (frequently cited as a source of jihadist funding: See here, for example) and Turkey.

Since the Erdogan family now derives massive profits from ISIS oil, the investment appears to have been quite lucrative. Dig it: The funds that went to ISIS no doubt came from secret government sources, while the oil money goes into Erdogan's pockets directly. Nice scheme, huh?

Just days after we completed a four-part series (here, here, here, and here) outlining everything mentioned above in exhaustive detail, the Russian MoD delivered a devastatingly convincing presentation showing photos of oil trucks, videos of airstrikes and maps detailing the trafficking of stolen oil. Moscow has been pounding the table ever since and The Kremlin has explicitly stated that Erdogan and his family are behind the trade.

“No one in the West, I wonder, does not cause the issue that the son of the President of Turkey is the leader of one of the largest energy companies, and son-in-law was appointed Minister of Energy? What a brilliant family business!,” Deputy Minister of Defence Anatoly Antonov said, in opening remarks before the press event. Then, late last week, CHP lawmaker Eren Erdem said he, like Moscow, will soon provide proof of Erdogan’s role in the smuggling of Islamic State oil. "I have been able to establish that there is a very high probability that Berat Albayrak is linked to the supply of oil by the Daesh terrorists,” Erdem said at a press conference on Thursday, referring to Erdogan’s son-in-law.

The oft-heard allegation that Assad buys oil from his enemies -- a claim which has found its way into these very pages -- now appears to be disinformation. If you follow ISIS oil, you will find the Erdogans.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan's son Bilal denies that he has a fleet of ships capable of transporting oil -- but if you hit the link above, you will see pictures of his cargo ships. They are all painted a nice, cheerful orange. Seems to me that if you can put barrels of ISIS-brand oil in a whole bunch of trucks (and we have damning video evidence of the truck convoys crossing the Turkish border), then you can also place those barrels in Bilal's ships.

So what have we learned from this? We have learned that Donald Trump -- for all of his vulgarity and racism and numbskullery -- is the only candidate who will occasionally blurt out the truth about what's going on in the Middle East. To that extent, I can respect him. I won't vote for him, but I can respect that aspect of his personality.

As for the Erdogan crime clan: I'd call them a bunch of pigs, but pigs are cuter. We can fairly call Recep Tayyip Erdogan a dictator, since the "election" which kept him in power was clearly rigged.

Even Stephen Colbert has noticed the unmistakable stench of asshole wafting around the Turkish strongman, as evidenced by the video clip embedded above. I hope that other comics follow suit.

One day, historians will sneer at this administration for supporting Erdogan while trying to topple Bashar Assad of Syria. Assad is no angel, but by any rational metric, the Syrian is better than the Turk.

Vladimir Putin, may I make a humble suggestion? Both of Erdogan's sons own cargo ships. Both sons deny vehemently that those ships are used to transport oil. It occurs to me that if one of those huge orange ships were to meet with, like, you know...an accident...the result would be a big, black oil spill in the Mediterranean.

Wouldn't that be embarrassing?

Don't you think that Bilal would look very amusing as he sputtered and fumed and tried to explain where all of that oil came from? The look on his face...!