MAKING A KILLING -- DU 2002

[Octafish]

Making a Killing

April 5, 2002
By Christian Dewar

Many Americans are probably not aware of the great extent to which U.S. corporations collaborated with the Nazi war machine during WWII. After the first world war, many wealthy American industrialists, bankers and financiers invested in Germany, in part, to avoid onerous U.S. regulations and also to reap the tremendous profits from the rebuilding of the nation.

Worried that there might be another war that would cause them to lose their investments, the directors of many of these companies plotted to protect their interests. Law firms like Sullivan and Cromwell specialized in helping to arrange these deals. When the second world war broke out, the Dulles brothers, Allen (who was a partner in that firm) and John, helped these companies hide their assets. As a result, many Nazi industrialist and their American collaborators maintained their wealth after the hostilites ceased.

Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg once stated that "The Dulles brothers were traitors." Some historians believe that Allen Dulles became head of the newly formed CIA in large part to cover up his treasonous behavior and that of his clients. Not confined to a few isolated companies, some of America's most prominent families and their financial empires worked with the Nazis well after the first bombs were dropped on Pearl Harbor.

On March 4th, 1998, a woman from Belgium brought a suit against the Ford Motor Company and it's German affiliate seeking compensation for the work she performed as a slave laborer for the company. Born in Russian, Elsa Iwanovwa claimed that she was abducted and forced to work at Ford's plant at Cologne. As many as 10,000 men, women and children may have labored there, many of them from the Buchenwald concentration camp.

The Ford plant in Germany played a major role in the Nazi war effort. While their American factories produced weapons for the allies, their German subsidiary manufactured troop transports, tracked vehicles, Panzer tanks, anti-tank guns and other crucial equipment for the Nazis. Providing weapons for both contestants in a world war was extraordinarily lucrative.

It is alleged that high ranking American officials including Edsel Ford oversaw the German plant's operations even during the war. Unlike most American businesses doing business in Germany during the war, Ford enjoyed significant independence and was never seized by the Nazi government.

The reason for this was in large part due to the close friendship that endured between Henry Ford and Adolf Hitler. Ford was known for his virulent anti-semitic views and he made substantial financial contributions to Hitler and the Nazi organization in its early years which may have sustained the party at a point where it might have otherwise collapsed.

Hitler's book, Mein Kampf borrowed heavily from Ford's anti-semitic book, The International Jew, a Worldwide Problem which was published in 1927. Hitler awarded Ford with Germany's highest civilian honor, the Great Cross of the German Order of the Eagle. Hitler's office had a large picture of Ford on the wall and stacks of Ford's books to give away to associates. Jim Mooney, GM's chief executive for overseas operations, was also awarded the Order of the German Eagle.

Ford was only one of many American corporations that eagerly helped the Germans. Some did so for ideological reasons and others for the immense profits which could be realized.

General Motors which was owned by the du Pont family during the 1930's manufactured thousands of bombers for the Luftwaffe and troop transports for the Wermacht at the same time that it's American plants were producing engines for the U.S. Air Force. Their German plant built propulsion systems for Germany's deadliest bomber, the Junker 88 and motors for their new, innovative jet fighters. They also repaired Geman trucks and converted them for alternative fuels at their facilites in Switzerland.

According to Charles Higham who wrote about the collaboration of American corporations with the Nazis in his book, Trading with the Enemy, GM may have even plotted with the Nazis against Roosevelt. Higham claims that high ranking officials in the company met with Baron Manfred von Killinger, head of a Nazi espionage rink and with Gestapo leader Baron von Tippleskirsh to sign an agreement "showing total commitment to the Nazi cause for the indefinite future" and that "in view of Roosevelt's attitude toward Germany, every effort must be made to remove him by defeat at the next election. Jewish influence in the political, cultural and public life in America must be stamped out. Press and radio must be subsidized to smear the administration" and an American fascist put in the White House.

Higham states that "Along with friends of the Morgan Bank and General Motors...certain du Pont backers financed a coup d'etat that would overthrow the president with the aid of a $3 million funded army of terrorists." The weapons were to be provided by Remington arms, a du Pont subsidiary.

Higham writes that Irenee du Pont was obsessed with Hitler and once made a speech to the American Chemical Society in 1926 "advocating a race of supermen to be achieved by injecting special drugs into them in boyhood to make their characters to order. He insisted his men reach physical standards equivalent to that of a marine and have blood as pure as that in the veins of the Vikings." The du Ponts financed anti-semitic, facist groups in the U.S. and along with some of America's most prominent families, promoted sterilization programs to assist in the effort to promote the white race over those deemed to be defective.

Higham also states that the du Ponts used their tremendous wealth "to finance the notorious Black Legions. This terrorist organization had as it's purpose the prevention of automobile workers from unionizing. The members wore hoods and black ropes, with skull and crossbones. They fire-bombed union meetings, murdered union organizers, often by beating them to death, and dedicated their lives to destroying Jews and communists. They were linked to the Ku Klux Klan."

The du Ponts formed an armed gang of men "modeled on the Gestapo to sweep though the plants and beat up anyone who proved rebellious. They hired the Pinkerton Agency to send its swarms of detectives through the whole chemicals, munitions and automobile empire to spy on left-wingers or other malcontents." The du Ponts also formed and financed the American Liberty League, "a Nazi organization whipping up hatred of blacks and Jews, love of Hitler, and loathing of Roosevelts." This group had chapters at 26 colleges and subsidiaries nationwide.

Standard Oil has also been implicated in providing crucial support for the Nazi war machine. The helped the Germans develop plants and gave them the necessary technology for the manufacture of synthetic fuels and leaded gas. Standard also assisited the Germans in stockpiling $20 million worth or petrolium products in anticipation of the war. This deal was concluded with the assistance of the Wall Street investment firm Brown Brothers Harriman where the senior managing partner was George H.W. Bush's father, Prescott Bush.

It also is alleged that Standard made a deal with the Germans to thwart the development of synthetic rubber in the United States and to withhold a method of producing synthetic ammonia. The U.S. government eventually seized some of Standard's patents. When the oil giant sued to retain the them, their case was denied. A judge who reviewed the appeal stated that "Standard Oil can be considered an enemy national in view of it's relationships with I.G. Farben after the United States and Germany became active enemies."

When threatened with sanctions, Standard essentially blackmailed the U.S. government, threatening to cut off supplies to the American military. Standard executives received a token fine of a few thousand dollars divided among several defendants. Roosevelt is said to have been reluctant to prosecute the heads of the company for fear of sparking another depression.

ITT also collaborated with the Nazis extensively. They owned significant shares of stock in several companies producing weapons for the Nazi including Focke-Wolfe which built fighter planes and bombers. Their subsidiaries, according to Higham, produced vital supplies such as "switchboards, telephones, alarm gongs, buoys, air raid warning devices, radar equipment and 30,000 fuses per month for artillery shells used to kill British and American troops" as well as "ingredients for the rocket bombs that fell on London."

The Curtis-Wright Aviation Corporation was another U.S. company doing business with the Nazis. Their planes were well suited for dive bombing. Although the Nazi pilots used this technique as an integral part of their blitzkrieg strategy of warfare, it was developed by the US. It was so effective that air plane manufacturers were forbidden to teach this to foreigners. Curtis-Wright managed to manuever around this inconvenient policy by not 'teaching' it, but rather demonstrating it at air shows in order to boost sales to Hitler.

Adding insult to injury, several of these American corporations who had collaborated had the audacity to sue the American government for damage that had been inflicted on their German plants by Allied bombers. GM managed to extract $33 million for the destruction of their Folke-Wulf plant. ITT received $27 million and Ford, a mere $1 million.

American banks have also been implicated in assistance to Nazi Germany including J.P. Morgan, Guaranty Trust of New York, Bank of the City of New York, Chase National Bank and American Express which turned over Jewish accounts to the Nazis. Higham reports that "the Nazi government through Chase National Bank offered Nazi in America the opportunity to buy German marks with dollars at a discount. The arrangement was open to those who wished to return to Germany and would use the marks in the interest of the Nazis."

The Chase Bank of Paris was involved in substantial financing of the Nazi embassy's activities throughout the war with the full knowledge of Chase's American headquarters. The Vichy branch of Chase "were strenuous in enforcing restrictions against Jewish property even going so far as to refuse to release funds belonging to Jews because they anticipated a Nazi decree with retroactive provisions prohibiting such a release."

Other Nazi collaborators include William Hearst, the media giant. After meeting with top Nazi officials and the payment of substantial sums of money, Hearst agreed to a policy whereby his newspaper would only report favorably on Nazi affairs.

Many Americans today might be surprised to discover that President Bush's family fortune was in large part compiled as a result of collaborating with the Nazis after the WWII had commenced. Author John Loftus has written about this recently and it is also covered extensively in the online book, The Elkhorn Manifesto.

According to the online book, George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, written by Webster G. Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin, accessible only on the internet, George Bush senior's family "played a central role in financing and arming Adolf Hitler for his takeover of Germany; in financing and managing the buildup of Nazi war industries for the conquest of Europe and war against the U.S.A.; and in the developent of Nazi genocidal theories and racial propaganda".

The authors claim that "The president's family fortune was largely a result of the Hitler project" and that Bush's banking activities were "not just politically neutral money-making ventures which happened to coincide with the aims of of German Nazi" but rather that all of the firm's European business during that time "was organized around anti-democratic political forces." The book states that "Certain actions taken directly by the Harriman-Bush shipping line in 1932 must be ranked among the gravest acts of treason in this century."

One of the most influential players in financing Hitler's war industries was Brown Brothers Harriman. Prescott Bush, the current president's grandfather, was the managing director. Bush was also director of the Union Banking Corporation. The stock shares were owned by Bush, E. R.Harriman and three Nazi Nazi executives including Fritz Thyssen, one of Hitler's primary financiers. The U.S. government eventually confiscated the Nazi banking operations of Union Banking Corporation in which Bush was a director under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

Another Bush business associate was Friedrick Flick who gave considerable financial support for the SS. Flicks's steel plants used about 48,000 slave laborers from Dachau, most of whom died.

Bush and his business associates were also involved in the operation of the Hamburg-Amerika Line. It was later shown to be a cover for Nazi espionage, spy infiltration and propaganda activities. The U.S. government also seized the Holland-American Trading Corporation, Seamless Steel and the Silesian-American Corporation in which Bush and his associates were involved.

Ultimately, the international corporations, the lawyers, bankers and financiers who collaborated with the Nazis prevailed. They exerted tremendous influence to thwart investigators delving into their seditious activities after the war. Many of the key players were elevated to senior postions in the U.S. government. Many of them were able to maintain their fortunes intact after the war. Officers from the Nazi intelligence and scientific communities became U.S. allies in the Cold War against the Soviets.

Americans at the highest levels of finance, industry and government willingly cooperated with the Nazis for political, ideological and financial reasons. They were heavily responsible for the rise of Hitler. They sustained his war effort and helped to shelter the perpetrators after the war. It would have been a bitter death for the brave American soldiers fighting in Europe if they had realized that comfortable American businessmen back in the States were making fortunes financing the same industrial cartels that manufactured the weapons that were being used to kill them.

Now Prescott's son, former George H.W. Bush, is making another fortune as a merchant of death, marketing weapons thorough the secretive Carlyle group. His power and influence is so pervasive that he can sell the Pentagon obsolete equipment such as the 70-ton Crusader cannon which is poorly suited to the realities of combatting terrorism and which the generals don't even want. George Bush Senior helped to arm both sides, Iran and Iraq, during their murderous war. This was a policy promulgated by his friend Ted Shackley, the legendary CIA spook, who advocated selling arms to both sides in a conflict as a way of enhancing the bottom line.

Historians know that Bush Senior arranged for the U.S. to sell millions of dollars of weapons to Hussein almost up to the time that he decided to invade Iraq country during the Gulf War. His administration sold weapons to the Iranians at a time when they were declared a terrorist nation and held American citizens hostage. As Yogi Berra once said, it's "Deja vu all over again."

Now his son, this administration and their corporate cronies who put them in office are poised to make obscene amounts of money from the weapons industries and oil. This war against a faceless foe and with no end game is costing our country over a billion dollars a month and George Bush wants even more money for defense. President Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex.

Like grandfather, like father, like son. Some things never change. The Bushes know that there is a killing to be made in killing.

SOURCE: http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/04/p/05_killing.html

Déjà vu breaking out all over all of a sudden again.

[snooper2]

1. wrong way to capitalize on the all caps thing going on in GD

less lines dude!

[Octafish]

3. Subject deserves all caps...

Last edited Mon Jul 21, 2014, 01:39 AM - Edit history (1)

Know your BFEE: Spawn of Wall Street and the Third Reich

...don't you think?

[RobertEarl]

5. I see the fan club is active tonight

We need a better class of fan club members, eh?

It is good to see the reminders of the basis for much of what infests our government, Octafish. It, of course, makes many folks a little nervous to see the Truth so displayed. The fan clubbers would like nothing better than to make jokes about it, but i am kinda sure they too learn something... that is if they even read the posts... which i think maybe they don't and why they are just clubbers?

[Octafish]

10. Don't think they don't read these things.

They do. And some number used the electronics vapor trailes we leave online to find and identify others who are interested in similar ideas. The thing is, they also know the truth when they see it. Perhaps a small number, but some people of integrity will remember.

[RobertEarl]

15. Don't get me wrong

The fan clubbers have no integrity. I just label them the fan clubbers so I don't get posts deleted.

One thing they do is kick your threads and so they actually do help, they are just not wise enough to understand that.

[Octafish]

26. Please forgive me...

...In re-reading that I see it came across the wrong way. What I wanted to make clear was the importance of stating your case, presenting data to back up an argument, and posting sources and links. Those who oppose democratic progress can't stop an idea.

[dixiegrrrrl]

31. thanks for the book link.

I just got a free copy from my online book swap site!
tis a subject I have been interested in for quite some time.

superb work, Octafish, as always.

[sabrina 1]

11. I love the caps. There can never be enough lines to expose all these warmongering, profiteering

criminals.

Do you have any comment on the topic? How about that Bush family, generations of the them profiting from War with the fourth poised to keep up that family tradition.

And all those Corporations, traitors and war profiteers. And they got away with it, each and every time. Seems we have ROYALS in this country.

And how about their using the media for propaganda, even then.

Every penny of their fortunes should have been confiscated and their Banks and Corps nationalized. But as we are learning, this IS this country, THEY apparently run it. Until the people take it back, stop supporting their murderous wars for profit and put all of them in jail where they belong. But that's not going to happen so long as they have support from at least half the country. And they do, sadly.

[grahamhgreen]

43. What about the content? How do you feel about war mongering in America?

[MannyGoldstein]

2. Really? I'm confused.

When I suggested on DU yesterday that Hitler got serious support from corporations, I was told, emphatically, that Hitler was funded by party dues. Corporations don't do that kind of stuff, or so I hear.

[Octafish]

4. Got a link?

Which is where I'd like to post this:

Know your BFEE: Nazis couldn’t win WWII, so they backed Bushes.

[MannyGoldstein]

8. Sure.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=5262773

[Octafish]

13. Vielen Danke.

This is most unpleasant:

Know your BFEE: Eugenics and the NAZIs - The California Connection

[merrily]

27. Manny, ya gotta stop posting with Prescott.

[deutsey]

35. Shaking my damn head

That's just...

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Octafish.

[Octafish]

14. You are most welcome, Uncle Joe!

Know your BFEE: Reinhard Gehlen

Thank you for everything!

[Uncle Joe]

17. That was a good read, Octafish, it's amazing how deep this shit goes!

[JEB]

7. Important post and supporting links, Thanks.

[Octafish]

29. You are most welcome, JEB! ''Money trumps peace.''

Last edited Sat Feb 21, 2015, 12:14 PM - Edit history (1)

The very words of George W Bush on Feb. 14, 2007, uttered at a press conference. Then he laughs and not even one member of the nation's callow, cowed press corpse saw fit to ask the giggling mass murderer a follow-up.

I remember Cindy Sheehan tried to bring it to our nation's attention.*

As for his Poppy: Bush Sr told the FBI he was in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.

* Original article used to be on Common Dreams, but no more.

[DocMac]

41. Nobody even noticed Jeb Bush

buying into a disaster relief company. He was convinced that the GOP would end FEMA. It didn't happen, but he will wait it out.

[DeSwiss]

9. K&R!

''Paradigm shift underway. Drive carefully.''

~DeSwiss

[center][/center]

[Octafish]

40. Whistleblower John Napier Tye said it's been ''On'' since Executive Order 12333 of 1981.

NSA vacuum cleaner action turned on America.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/07/a-new-surveillance-whistleblower-emerges/374722/

[RufusTFirefly]

12. The day after his massive May Day rally at Tempelhof field in 1934, Hitler met with reps from GM...

... and inked a deal

[defacto7]

16. Big K&R

for just a smidgen of the history behind corporate industrial Imperialism, the history that your grade school never revealed. It's deep in there and very clandestine. Nice to see little bits and peaces floating to the top finally.

[Octafish]

53. POLITICAL USES OF ECHELON AND UKUSA

EXCERPT...

Several incidents of domestic spying involving ECHELON have emerged from the secrecy of the UKUSA relationship. What these brief glimpses inside the intelligence world reveal is that, despite the best of intentions by elected representatives, presidents and prime ministers, the temptation to use ECHELON as a tool of political advancement and repression proves too strong.

Former Canadian spy Mike Frost recounts how former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher made a request in February 1983 to have two ministers from her own government monitored when she suspected them of disloyalty.

In an effort to avoid the legal difficulties involved with domestic spying on high-level governmental officials, the GCHQ liaison in Ottawa made a request to CSE for them to conduct the three-week-long surveillance mission at British taxpayer expense. Frost’s CSE boss, Frank Bowman, traveled to London to do the job himself. After the mission was over, Bowman was instructed to hand over the tapes to a GCHQ official at head office.

Using the UKUSA alliance as legal cover is seductively easy.

As Spyworld co-author Michel Gratton puts it:

"The Thatcher episode certainly shows that GCHQ, like NSA, found ways to put itself above the law and did not hesitate to get directly involved in helping a specific politician for her personal political benefit…

"[T]he decision to proceed with the London caper was probably not put forward for approval to many people up the bureaucratic ladder. It was something CSE figured they would get away with easily, so checking with the higher-ups would only complicate things unnecessarily."

Frost also told of how he was asked in 1975 to spy on an unlikely target: Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s wife, Margaret Trudeau.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s (RCMP) Security service division was concerned that the Prime Minister’s wife was buying and using marijuana, so they contacted the CSE to do the dirty work. Months of surveillance in cooperation with the Security Service turned up nothing of note. Frost was concerned that there were political motivations behind the RCMP’s request:

"She was in no way suspected of espionage. Why was the RCMP so adamant about this? Were they trying to get at Pierre Trudeau for some reason or just protect him? Or were they working under orders from their political masters?"

The NSA frequently gets into the political spying act as well. Nixon presidential aide John Ehrlichman revealed in his published memoirs, Witness to Power: The Nixon Years, that Henry Kissinger used the NSA to intercept the messages of then Secretary of State William P. Rogers, which Kissinger used to convince President Nixon of Rogers’ incompetence.

Kissinger also found himself on the receiving end of the NSA’s global net. Word of Kissinger’s secret diplomatic dealings with foreign governments would reach the ears of other Nixon administration officials, incensing Kissinger.

As former NSA Deputy Director William Colby pointed out:

"Kissinger would get sore as hell…because he wanted to keep it politically secret until it was ready to launch."

[font color="red"]However, elected representatives have also become targets of spying by the intelligence agencies. In 1988, Margaret Newsham, a former Lockheed software manager who was responsible for a dozen VAX computers that powered the ECHELON computers at Menwith Hill, came forth with the stunning revelation that she had actually heard the NSA’s real-time interception of phone conversations involving South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond.
[/font color]
Newsham was fired from Lockheed after she filed a whistle-blower lawsuit alleging that the company was engaged in flagrant waste and abuse. After a top-secret meeting in April 1988 with then Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Louis Stokes, Capitol Hill staffers familiar with the meeting leaked the story to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. While Sen.

Thurmond was reluctant to pressure for a thorough investigation into the matter, his office revealed at the time that it had previously received reports that the Senator was a target of the NSA. After the news reports, an investigation into the matter discovered that there were no controls or questioning over who could enter target names into the Menwith Hill system.

[font color="red"]The NSA, under orders from the Reagan Administration, also targeted Maryland Congressman Michael Barnes. Phone calls he placed to Nicaraguan officials were intercepted and recorded, including a conversation he had with the Foreign Minister of Nicaragua, protesting the implementation of martial law in that country. Barnes found out about the NSA’s spying after White House officials leaked transcripts of his conversations to reporters.
[/font color]
CONTINUED...

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/echelon/echelon_2.htm

That is an excellent analogy, defacto7! The bits of flotsam and jetsam making it to the surface are our nation's lost history. The War Party ran the ship of state aground on the rocks and evidence of the sinking is finally washing onto the beach.

[JackRiddler]

18. I remember when you first posted this! Thanks Octafish.

Damn we are old.

[Octafish]

54. Snowden says NSA engages in industrial espionage: German TV

News for the 99-plus:

Snowden says NSA engages in industrial espionage: German TV

By Erik Kirschbaum, Reuters
Jan. 26, 2014

BERLIN — The U.S. National Security Agency is involved in industrial espionage and will grab any intelligence it can get its hands on regardless of its value to national security, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden told a German TV network.

In text released ahead of a lengthy interview to be broadcast on Sunday, ARD TV quoted Snowden saying the NSA does not limit its espionage to issues of national security and he cited German engineering firm, Siemens as one target.

"If there's information at Siemens that's beneficial to U.S. national interests — even if it doesn't have anything to do with national security — then they'll take that information nevertheless," Snowden said, according to ARD, which recorded the interview in Russia where he has claimed asylum.

Snowden also told the German public broadcasting network he no longer has possession of any documents or information on NSA activities and has turned everything he had over to select journalists.

He said he did not have any control over the publication of the information, ARD said.

Questions about U.S. government spying on civilians and foreign officials burst into the open last June when Snowden, leaked documents outlining the widespread collection of telephone records and email.

The revelations shocked Germany, a country especially sensitive after the abuses by the Gestapo during the Nazi reign and the Stasi in Communist East Germany during the Cold War.

Reports the NSA monitored Chancellor Angela Merkel's mobile phone have added to the anger in Germany, which has been pushing for a 'no-spy' agreement with the United States, a country it considers to be among its closest allies.

You are most welcome, JackRiddler! And people wonder why the rich get richer.

PS: Getting old happens fast. Older one gets, the faster it happens. LOL!

PPS: Honored to have it happen with You.

[loudsue]

19. The most powerful people in the world are, for the most part, fucked up.

The ones who really pull the strings, that have an effect on the lives of the greatest number of people, are, unfortunately, pretty sick bastards.

Just my opinion.

[DocMac]

42. I have the same opinion. nt

[defacto7]

55. That's the nature of human beings.

It's always been that way. We might ask just out of curiosity, whether they were fucked up from the start or whether they found it along the way? In the case of the Bush family among others, it's inherited.

[BlueMTexpat]

20. Great timing!

I've been reading Russ Baker's Family of Secrets and it is literally hair-raising. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_of_Secrets

[Blue_In_AK]

21. Excellent book.

Dense, but well worth the effort.

[BlueMTexpat]

51. Hi, Blue!

Nice to "see" you, as always!

[deutsey]

36. I had to stop reading it a while ago

It was just making me too sick.

I have been thinking about picking it up again.

[BlueMTexpat]

49. It does tend to make one ill ...

the sheer "cumultativeness" and arrogance of power described are breathtaking.

I had to read it in several sittings - my BP would just get too high.

[nikto]

22. With this kind of context...

Is it so off-the-map to think there could be a possibility that the Malaysian jet last week was shot down
by neocon operatives desiring the Ukraine's asset$ for western financial interests,
and possibly even desiring war with Russia?

Remember WMDs? The Maine? Gulf Of Tonkin? Last fall's gas attack in Syria (the source of which is still in question, and seems
very possibly to have been a false-flag attack intended to bring us into war in Syria)?.

Is the idea of a false-flag attack in Ukraine so far-fetched?


At the very least, I'll wait until we know what's on those black boxes before
I decide to be "sure" of what happened there.


IMO, The historical skullduggery outlined in the article provides a good context for suspicion TODAY.

[BlueMTexpat]

50. It's always good to be skeptical

about ANY M$M media - especially any US M$M narrative - about anything.

Until the actual facts are known, there are indeed other possible scenarios, even if some clearly (e.g., accidental shootdown by Ukrainian separatists) are more likely than others. "Cui bono?" is ALWAYS a good question to ask.

Who indeed would benefit most from deliberately shooting down a civilian airline flying over a war zone where neocons are clearly urging the US to intervene militarily?

Just because some may call those who refrain from automatically assigning blame and call them "conspiracy theorists" or worse in an attempt to discredit or intimidate does not mean that there are no conspiracies.

[nikto]

52. I'll tell you one thing...

If it were the separatists who shot down the plane, the group of men involved in actually deciding to shoot and
executing the shot are frikkin' doomed, I would think.

Putin may have had them killed (or worse) already.

This incident is excruciatingly bad for Putin. It really makes him look awful, and sets him back in his ambitions
in Ukraine, for sure.

If it were a foolish group of separatists who did it, I wouldn't be them for anything in the world.

Meanwhile, neocons celebrate at some cushy corporate hideaway with toast after toast after toast...

[Enthusiast]

23. Kicked and recommended!

Well done, Octafish!

[G_j]

24. K&R!

[annabanana]

25. A stellar edition of "History is IMPORTANT, Damn it!"

Courtesy of the context-meister, Octafish.

Thank you friend.

[merrily]

28. If we could figure out a way that only the top 10% could profit from peace,

we might save countless lives.

They know they can make money from war.

They know they can make money from (excuse the laughter) "the peace process."

It's up to us to convince them they can get rich from peace.

[defacto7]

56. Or it's up to us

to help them see that they will loose if they don't make peace. There is a point where their only choice is to make the 90% into slaves and that always fails.

[Generic Other]

30. Thanks Octafish for reminding us

that fascists in America come wrapped in red, white and blue. Just reading this makes my blood boil.

Makes me feel like my father's sacrifices in WW2, all the people's sacrifices were for nothing. FDR tried to save us, others like Ike tried to warn us, and we went down that road anyway. I am not sure any sitting president since has had the power to stop these fuckers from destroying anything that stood in the way of their profits.

FDR should have nationalized the traitors' companies. That would have been taking a page out of their own playbooks. Then incarcerate and sterilize the lot of them: Fords, Harrimans, du Ponts, Bushes. How much better off the world would have been without the true "defectives." They relocated the Japanese to prison camps. They should have done the same for these fascists. What an ugly world our parents and grandparents' generation tried to save us all from. How sad to see the failure of their efforts in our time.

[dixiegrrrrl]

32. 2 things...

1. Brown Brothers Harriman bankrolled LBJ from the early days of his political career.
Robert Caro wrote about it in his bio of LBJ.

2. This plot against Roosevelt....was that the one that Smedly Butler revealed in 1933.?

[sabrina 1]

33. Deja Vu, that is exactly what it is, all over again. The media manipulation

Other Nazi collaborators include William Hearst, the media giant. After meeting with top Nazi officials and the payment of substantial sums of money, Hearst agreed to a policy whereby his newspaper would only report favorably on Nazi affairs.

continues. Eg, the Western media published a photo of a Ukrainian rebel holding up a child's toy at the crash site seemingly callously rampaging through the victims' most precious possessions, it went viral, outraged people naturally responded, as expected.

And then we saw the real footage from which this one still was extracted. The man was responding to reporters, he picked up the toy to show the tragic consequences of the flight as it turns out, then got down on his knees and respectfully replaced it, blessing himself to show his sympathy.

We of course will never see the actual film on the Corporate Media. But the rest of the world will.

Excellent history of our criminal war profiteers, who seem to be getting ready for more war profits and with the help of a gullible public, this time on the left.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

34. K&R

[deutsey]

37. I remember when I first read "Catch-22" back in high school,

I assumes Heller was just being an absurdist when he had war profiteer Milo Minderbinder do business with both the Americans and the Germans.

Little did I know.

[Scuba]

38. "Providing weapons for both contestants in a world war was extraordinarily lucrative."

Gee, doesn't Rupert Murdoch not only own Fox "News" but also an Arab TV station that airs great gobs of anti-America and anti-Israel propaganda?

Yes, he does, it's called Rotana.

Jon Stewart gleefully points out Murdoch’s ownership of anti-American network

On his show Thursday night, The Daily Show host Jon Stewart mocked the “four hour erection” of Fox News over Al Gore’s sale of Current TV. The late-night comedian ended up using their own criticisms to slam the owner of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch.

Current TV, a fledgling cable network, was bought by the Arab news network Al Jazeera last week. Various Fox News personalities have blasted Gore for selling his channel to an allegedly “anti-American” network that was owned by Qatar. To see what all the fuss was about, Stewart played a clip of a Saudi cleric saying that Jews made matzos with human blood, among other absurdities.

“You know, if that were true you’d think matzos would be more flavorful, but its not,” he joked. “That’s just awful. To air that on Al Jazeera — oh, I’m sorry, that didn’t air on Al Jazeera, that aired on a network called Rotana. That’s my fault, that’s another television station in the Arab world. That one is owned not by Qatar, but by a Saudi prince named Al-Waleed bin Talal and also 20 percent of that is owned by a guy named Rupert Murdoch.”

Stewart noted Rotana had also aired a movie that portrayed American soldiers as “the bad guys,” who massacred Iraqi civilians and sold their organs to Jews.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

39. Baron von Tippleskirsh is totally my new porn name

[Liberal_Dog]

44. War Is Big Business

As long as war is profitable, we will continue to be manipulated into fighting them.

K & R.

[Jim Lane]

45. Question about the postwar payments to corporations

You write:

Adding insult to injury, several of these American corporations who had collaborated had the audacity to sue the American government for damage that had been inflicted on their German plants by Allied bombers. GM managed to extract $33 million for the destruction of their Folke-Wulf plant. ITT received $27 million and Ford, a mere $1 million.

The Wikipedia article about the Focke-Wulf company states: "ITT Corporation, which had acquired a 25% stake in the company prior to the war, won $27 million in compensation in the 1960s for the damage that was inflicted on its share of the Focke-Wulf plant by WWII Allied bombing." So there's a minor point of difference here about which US company had a stake in Focke-Wulf. (The Wikipedia article cites Anthony Sampson's book The Sovereign State of ITT as its source.)

My major question, though, is how these lawsuits succeeded. What legal theory did they assert? Did the Government actually have no exposure (because no real chance of losing), but settled the claims for far more than they were worth because the fix was in?

If you happen to know anything about this aspect of the story you recount, I'd be interested in hearing it. I don't have ready access to Sampson's book.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

46. As always, your contribution is exacting and informative.

My hope, is that the reach of your research/dialog continues to find eyes and ears that would otherwise be less able to see and hear.

"Through knowledge and understanding, we gain perspective and wisdom."

[arikara]

47. IBM also enabled the nazi's in a very big way

another good read is IBM and the Holocaust by Edwin Black.

[zeemike]

48. This whole thread rocks...

I am glad I got to it late because not only the OP was great but the comments were too.
Very informative, and I did know some of it but not as many details as there are here.

Octafish scores again. (standing ovation)

[Zorra]

57. Great post, thanks. nt