It's all about Oil and Gas, Gas and Oil, Oil and Gas, Gas and Oil

Human beings torn to tiny pieces of meat so other human beings can live in modern day luxury which only Oil and Gas can give you.  The war in Syria is to do with pipelines.  The war in Ukraine, same. The one in Iraq now, to do with both ... Oil and Gas.    

Tyler Durden writing at ZeroHedge:
Putin Scores Another Historic Victory: Austria Signs South Stream Pipeline Deal In Defiance Of Europe..........

......Which in turn brings us to the culmination of the political struggle over the South Stream, when earlier today, in yet another coup for the Kremlin, one of the most stable and respected European countries, AAA-rated Austria gave its final approval to the "controversial" Russian gas pipeline project early Tuesday, defying EU officials and welcoming Russian President Vladimir Putin to the neutral country that has been a long-standing energy customer for Moscow.

As Reuters reports, "the chief executives of Russia's Gazprom and Austria's OMV sealed the deal to build a branch of the South Stream gas pipeline to Austria, a staunch defender of the project in the face of opposition from the European Commission."

In other words, one short month after Putin concluded the Holy Grail deal with Beijing, he not only managed to formalize his conquest of Europe's energy needs with yet another pipeline, one which completely bypasses Ukraine (for numerous reasons but mostly one: call it a Plan B), but scored a massive political victory by creating a fissure in the heart of the Eurozone, after Austria openly defied its European peers and sided with Putin........