CIA -- Capitalism's Invisible Army

[Octafish]

Most of what we see today -- a failed economy based on indentured servitude, declining standards of living for the middle class and poor, wars without end, and a financially and morally bankrupt government -- are the direct results of policies that benefit the financial elite of this nation.



This tiny fraction of the nation's wealthiest people has owned government, pretty much continually, since the time of the first President Johnson. For those interested in learning more about the subject:

The Secret (Insurance) Agent Men

Bush Senior Early CIA Ties Revealed

Bush-Led 'Disaster Capitalism' Exploits Worldwide Misery to Make a Buck

The CIA and Riggs Bank

CIA Started by NAZI Sympathizers and Staffed by NAZIs...

I don't have anything personal against the CIA, per se, just its bosses who've looted my grandkids' future.

-- Your Friendly Enemy of Fascism,

Octafish

Idit: I took the "ass" out of fascism.

[FormerDittoHead]

1. Putting the pieces together, eh? Check out "Confessions of an Economic Hitman"

http://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Economic-Hit-John-Perkins/dp/0452287081

[Octafish]

7. John Perkins is tops.

Confessions and his second book are must-reads.

My analysis looks at the Bush political dynasty and their cronies in terms of the elite they serve.



Note: Not all Bushes are evil or beholden to the BFEE, nor are all those who gain by its existence members of the immediate or extended Bush family. Nor are the Bushes at the pinnacle of global power -- it is quite likely they serve an even wealthier class. What they all have in common is the use of the powers of the government of the United States for accumulating wealth and power for themselves, their associates and the other affiliated beneficiaries among the world's financial elite and authoritarian regimes. Always, they gain at the expense of the people and nations of the world, including the citizens of the United States and its Constitution.

Know your Bush Family Evil Empire

Know your BFEE: John McCain, Dim Knight Errant of the War Party

Know your BFEE: Goldmine Sacked or The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One

Know your BFEE: Phil Gramm, the Meyer Lansky of the War Party, Set-Up the Biggest Bank Heist Ever.

Know your BFEE: The Corrupt Bastards Club… with Lipstick

Know your BFEE: Olympic Games Show Who’s Best Friends Forever with Authoritarians and Dictators

Know your BFEE: 1984 Death of Outstanding Congressional Staffer Buried Poppy-Moon Relationship

Know your BFEE: Forget Rev. Wright! It’s Bush and His Cronies Who Owe an Apology for Rev. Moon!

Know your BFEE: GW Bush Covers Up His Lying America Into War

Know your BFEE: Bush and His Crooks with Badges Sent an Innocent Man to Jail

Know your BFEE: They Looted Your Nation’s S&Ls for Power and Profit

Know your BFEE: War and Oil are just two longtime Main Lines of Business

Know your BFEE: Bush has Killed a Million Innocent People for Their Oil.

Know your BFEE: Scions of the Military Industrial Complex

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

Know your BFEE: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ford Covered Up CIA Murder of American Scientist

Know your BFEE: Money Trumps Peace. Always.

Know your BFEE: They kill good soldiers like Col. Ted Westhusing for profit.

Know your BFEE: America’s Ruling Gangster Class

Poppy Bush brought up JFK Assassination and "Conspiracy Theorists" at Ford Funeral

Know your BFEE: Robert Gates did more than keep the doors open at BCCI

Know your BFEE: The Fellowship ‘Preys’ for America

Sink the BFEE: Foley gives us Congress. Condi sends 'em to prison.

Beat the BFEE: Poppy’s CIA warned about terror plots and did not stop them

Know your BFEE: Los Amigos de Bush

Know your BFEE: Neil Bush hangs out with Russian Mafiya Godfather

Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush was in Dallas the day JFK was assassinated.

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

Know your BFEE: At every turn, JFK was opposed by War Party

Know your BFEE: Lies Are the Currency of Their Realm

Know your BFEE: Cheney & Halliburton Sold Iran Nuke Technology

Know your BFEE: The Stench of Moussaoui Permeates the Octopus

Know your BFEE: Moussaoui Must Die for Bush and 'His' Government

Know your BFEE: Alito is just another word for Mussolini

Know your BFEE: Like a NAZI

Know your BFEE: The China-Bush Axis

Know your BFEE: Bush and bin Laden Clans Together in Bed

Know your BFEE: Libby Is the First Big BFEE Turd to Go Down

Know your BFEE: WHIG (White House Iraq Group) made phony case for Iraq War

Know your BFEE: The Secret Government

Know your BFEE: Reinhard Gehlen

Know your BFEE: Poppy Bush Armed Saddam

Know your BFEE: Killer Businessmen who put Power and Profit before Country

Know your BFEE: Nixon Threatened to Nuke Vietnam

Know your BFEE: Corrupt Craftsmen Hoover and Dulles

Know your BFEE: Poppy’s CIA Made Saddam Into the Butcher of Baghdad

Know your BFEE: Hitler’s Bankers Shaped Vietnam War

Know your BFEE: Merchants of Death

Know your BFEE: R. James Woolsey, Turd of War

Know your BFEE: Sneering Dick Cheney, Superturd-Superrich-Supercrook

Know your BFEE: Bush Lied America into War

Know your BFEE: James R Bath – Bush – bin Laden Link

Know your BFEE: War Profiteers

Know your BFEE: Dead Men Tell No Tales

Know your BFEE: Bush and bin Laden Clans Together in Bed

Know your BFEE: Rev. Sun Myung Moon OWNS Poppy Bush

Know your BFEE: Homeland Czar & Petro-Turd Bernie Kerik

Know your BFEE: American Children Used in Radiation Experiments

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

Know your BFEE: The Barreling Bushes

Know your BFEE: A Crime Line of Treason

Know your BFEE: How Smirko Got Rich

Know your BFEE: George W Bush did "community service" at Project P.U.L.L.

Know your BFEE: Vote Suppressor Supreme, the Turd Bill Rehnquist

Know your BFEE: George W Bush Knew 9-11 Was Coming and Did NOTHING!

Know your BFEE: Oliver North, Drug Dealer

Know your BFEE: Pat Robertson Incorporated a Gold Mine with a Terrorist


These aren’t labeled “Know Your BFEE,” but they’re meant in the same spirit:

Poppy Bush Involved in JFK Assassination -- BFEE's Spooked!

Vietnam and Iraq Wars Started by Same People

BFEE Turd Daniel Pipes tied to DANISH CARTOONS

JFK Would NEVER Have Fallen for Phony INTEL!

Plame Affair makes clear: USA is run by TRAITORS.

BFEE Is More than Capable of Bombing Their Own Countrymen


And for all my friends with those hard-to-reach areas between the ears:

A Short History of Conspiracy Theory

Note 2: The subject is a work in progress. The entries are not perfect, nor are they complete. They do provide a framework for a who's-who and what's-what and how we got here. Started for educational and historical purposes, these threads are meant to serve the public interest. What gives them a special quality are the contributions of DUers. May they also serve some prosecutor in the future.

Thanks for giving a damn, FormerDittoHead.

[Name removed]

48. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Lady Effingbroke]

62. Wow! Thanks Octafish!

I always enjoy reading your posts; they are an absolutely invaluable source of information. :thumbsup:

[Occam Bandage]

2. The economy sucks because of the CIA Nazis. True story.

[Octafish]

8. That's where they intersect.

Allen Dulles, the Nazis and the CIA

We're not even pawns on their chess boards. We're just mopes to be used.

[Baby Snooks]

30. Eisenhower warned us....

Eisenhower warned us about the dangers of the "military-industrial complex" as he left office - he was referring to Bush and Dulles. He knew not to name them. But warned us just the same.

It was not Allen Dulles and the Nazis and the CIA. It was Prescott Bush and Allen Dulles and the Nazis and the CIA.

Those who knew and know the truth were and still are silenced by the assassinations of John F Kennedy and Robert F Kennedy. And by what some believe was the murder of John F Kennedy, Jr.

"Note: Not all Bushes are evil or beholden to the BFEE, nor are all those who gain by its existence members of the immediate or extended Bush family. Nor are the Bushes at the pinnacle of global power -- it is quite likely they serve an even wealthier class. What they all have in common is the use of the powers of the government of the United States for accumulating wealth and power for themselves, their associates and the other affiliated beneficiaries among the world's financial elite and authoritarian regimes. Always, they gain at the expense of the people and nations of the world, including the citizens of the United States and its Constitution."

The Bush family is evil. Always has been. Always will be. And their empire is just that. An empire. A dynasty. The CIA and its "good shepherds" serve the Bushes. Or did. George HW Bush was the last of the emperors. Those who have followed have all proven to be emperors with no clothes. Blinded by the wealth that supported them. And too stupid to realize it. They sought to please their patriarch by controlling the world's economy. And in the process they destroyed it.

We are a falling empire. We may be a collapsing civilization.

[Jambalaya]

45. American Die-Nasty

Emptywheel » Grandson of Nazi Enabler Decries Talking to Nazis
Kevin Phillips book American Dynasty sure covers the involvement of Prescott Bush with the Nazis’. What a great read. Reply. GregB May 15th, 2008 at 7:29 am ...
emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/05/15/grandson-of-nazi-enabler-decries-talking-to-nazis/ - 209k - Cached - Similar pages
YouTube - Prescott Bush Interview : Hear a traitor speak! - 1 of 2

7 min - Dec 5, 2007 -
Prescott Bush Was A Nazi Banker Guilty of Treasonhttp://u... ... BBC: Prescott Bush led Nazi / Whitehouse Coup Try in 1933 ! ...
www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8pFS0P8i38

The Prescott Bush/Nazi link was brought up on "The View" by Joy ... 25 posts - 21 authors - Last post: May 19, 2008
Here is a link to an extensive story on the financial relationship between Prescott Bush and the Nazi Party for those who wish to read it. ...
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3308996

[bottomtheweaver]

3. Great title, perfect description.

Now that we've allowed ourselves to be turned into another bankrupt banana republic by this outfit, getting them off our backs is going to be a huge challenge, but getting to the bottom of the racket is a good way to start. K/R

[Octafish]

13. Bush sees the rich skipping out on taxes

Trickle down economics is nothing more than urine reverse Robin Hood.

Bush sees the rich skipping out on taxes

By Steve Benen
CrooksandLiars.com
Sunday Feb 10, 2008 8:22am

There were quite a few interesting gems in the president's Fox News interview over the weekend, but this one stood out for me:

WALLACE: How does overcome all of that and...

BUSH: Because there's two big issues. One is, who's going to keep your taxes low? Most Americans feel overtaxed and I promise you the Democrat party is going to field a candidate who says I'm going to raise your tax.

If they're going to say, oh, we're only going to tax the rich people, but most people in America understand that the rich people hire good accountants and figure out how not to necessarily pay all the taxes and the middle class gets stuck.

We've had -- we've been through this drill before. We're only going to tax the rich and all you have to do is look at the history of that kind of language and see who gets stuck with the bill.

Does this make any sense at all? Wealthy people hire accountants, so the government should leave their tax rates alone?

As Isaac Chotiner put it, "The Democrats want to raise rates on the wealthiest Americans, but Bush is saying that in fact this will screw the middle class because the rich have ways to avoid paying taxes. The obvious question is, then, why has Bush spent so much time giving tax cuts to the rich?!?!"

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/02/11/bush-sees-the-rich-skipping-out-on-taxes

An old boss of mine referred to the 20-percent of the people who do 80-percent of the work as "mules."
If things keep going the way they are, it won't be long before he'll wish he were a mule.





Until things fundamentally change, meaning a return to the Spirit of '76, that's all We the People will ever be.

[Karenina]

43. Speaking of skipping out...

Whatever became of that Bath feller? ;-)

[leftstreet]

4. K&R Thanks for all the links

:thumbsup:

DU needs a Capitalist Crime Families research forum!

[Octafish]

19. You're welcome and thank you, leftstreet!

Here's a good resource for info on the CIA - Wall Street - NAZI axis of entitlement:

Rockefeller & Associates

Truth can be an ugly thing, but democracy requires it.

[Last Stand]

58. Have you read "Confessions of an Economic Hitman?"

Horrifying tale of the (ehem) benevolence of the World Bank and the CIA. So depressing I couldn't finish it.

[jody]

5. Not "capitalism" but "distorted capitalism" as covertly implemented in the U.S. by corporatists.

I agree with all the points you make.

[originalpckelly]

11. It's an oligopoly, a few large companies and more accurately the people own them control us.

I can prove that this is a planned economy, and I can prove that it's little better than the Soviet Union.

Inside a large corporation, the employees do not sell their services to each other, and for the swath of the economy a corporation takes up, it is for all intents and purposes a planned economy.

And like the Soviet planned economy, it serves a powerful oligarchy. And just like their planned economy, it is inherently inefficient and it is bringing itself down.

[jody]

12. I believe an oligopoly implies a minimum amount of "competition" between a few competitors but IMO

we have a maximum amount of "collusion" between a few competitors who control our government and laugh at "We the People" when they meet at social functions.

[Baby Snooks]

32. Oligarchy not Oligopoly...

What we have is an oligarchy. A society in which the few control it all. Including the corporations. It is similar to communism in that the corporations become "the" corporation and the state. Which serves the corporation. Which in this case is Wall Street.

Mexico is an oligarchy. Ruled by several families. The number of families is estimated. But somewhere around 25. They in turn rule other families. There really is no middle-class per se in Mexico. The middle-class is merely the working class. The poor simply do not exist which is why an estimated 50 million Mexicans came here. To survive.

What happened in Mexico was also the result of a "military-industrial complex" and many of the patriarchs of the ruling families "liberated" Mexico during the Mexican Revolution. And found they liked wealth and used their own military to ensure they were able to keep it.

Mexico is a vision of the United States. And the Bushes are intertwined in Mexico just as they are everywhere else. Particularly with PEMEX.

Those who support oligarchy are neither Democrats nor Republicans. They are Republicrats.

The party system here has become as much of an illusion as it is in Mexico. No matter which party is in power in Mexico, they still serve the ruling families. No one else.

It is no accident that the middle-class is disappearing in this country and while the economic collapse may appear to be affecting everyone in fact it is not and is merely creating further disparity between the "haves and have-nots". The "haves" are becoming the "have-mores" and the "have-nots" are becoming the "have-nothings."

We will see a component of socialism soon simply because socialism is necessary to maintain the oligarchy. And if you want a model of what is coming, you need only look at Mexico. If you can work, you will be expected to, and do go back and look at Clinton's "welfare reform" to get a better understanding of what is coming, and if you cannot work, well, you no longer serve a purpose and you may, simply, do everyone a favor and drop dead. Which quite a few in this country already are. They simply can't afford to live. So they drop dead. Sometimes by their own hand. Sometimes by the government's hand. There really is no such thing as cancer treatment for the poor in this country. Most die before they are even scheduled to see an oncologist.

Benjamin Franklin was right. The democracy barely lasted 200 years before it collapsed under the weight of corruption. And greed.

[Jambalaya]

47. OIL-IGOPOLY

Dubai Ports to sell U.S operations to AIG unit
Original deal sparked furor after Congress raised national-security concerns

WASHINGTON - Dubai Ports World, the company whose planned takeover of major U.S. port operations ignited a political firestorm earlier this year, has agreed to sell those operations to AIG Global Investment Group.

The company announced the deal Monday. The U.S. operations at six major U.S. seaports in New York/New Jersey, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami, New Orleans and Tampa, Fla., were valued at about $700 million, but DP World did not disclose the sales price.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16153101 ________________________________<2004>

[Octafish]

33. Berezovsky: Iceland Used for Money Laundering

The problem is international and crosses class lines, including the criminal classes.

Russian Billionaire: Iceland Used for Money-Laundering

IcelandReview.com
13/02/2009 | 11:31

Boris Berezovsky, a controversial Russian businessman who is wanted in his home country on charges of fraud, claimed to Sky’s Jeff Randall in an interview yesterday that Moscow is using Iceland to launder “dirty money” before investing in other countries.

“You remember three months ago the Russian government declared that they would help Iceland,” Berezovsky said.

In October last year, in the wake of the crisis, news circulated that Iceland had been granted a giant loan from Russia to help save the economy. The news was premature, as it turned out, and although a loan from Russia is not off the table, it hasn’t been granted yet.

Berezovsky stated that since Iceland is not a member of the European Union, it is vulnerable to money-laundering, RÚV reports.

“Their trick is very simple because Russian, let's say top level bureaucrats like Putin, like others, oligarchs together created a system how to operate on the West,” he said in the interview.

SOURCE w Links: http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=21123&ew_0_a_id=319890

Thank you for understanding the nature of what We the People are up against, jody.

[Name removed]

36. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Jambalaya]

37. P.S.

The above commentary is an excerpt ,not the entire piece.

[mod mom]

41. or as KO called it "COWBOY capitalism". I thought that was a perfect descritption.

[old mark]

6. I have also seen it referred to as "Christians In Action". nt

[Octafish]

35. Who the heck is Peter Waldron?

Thank you for bringing up that aspect of the thing: evangelism as a front for imperialism (and the Rev Moon bit is telling):

Who the Heck is Peter Waldron?

jclifford
irregular times

It all begins with one question: What was Peter Waldron doing in Uganda with a bunch of guns hidden in his house?

The government of Uganda intends to find out, and so is putting Waldron on trial for terrorism. In the process of that trial, the American people may find out quite a bit about their own government that they don’t like.

Let’s list what we know about Peter Waldron, and then we’ll try to piece the picture together a bit later:

- Peter Waldron is from Wyoming - Dick Cheney’s home state
- Like Dick Cheney, Peter Waldron seems to be fond of guns. Waldron was found with assault rifles hidden in his bedroom by a crowd of Ugandans in his Kisugu home (outside Kampala) just after the re-election of Yoweri Museveni
- Two men were seen leaving Waldron’s house carrying a bag that contained two assault rifles just before Waldron himself was apprehended
- Waldron claims to have been working as an information technology consultant for the Ugandan ministry of health
- Waldron also claims to have been working as the publisher of a news magazine, the Africa Dispatch, but other accounts list Waldron as just a freelance writer and photographer
- The Africa Dispatch appears to be created in partnership with a writer affiliated with the right wing Reverend Moon’s Unification Church
- Waldron worked with a company known as the Contact America Group
- Documents found on Waldron indentify him as an advisor to the Rocky Mountain Technology Group
- Waldron is also the founder of a right wing Christian group, the Cities of Faith Ministries. The mission of the Cities of Faith Ministries is to expand and extend “the Kingdom of God on earth by teaching Biblical principles and precepts that build civil society blessed by the Almighty God of the Bible”, and justifies its work as “addressing God’s governments and a Believer’s Biblical responsibilities in society in which one lives and to the institutions that influence, and in some cases, govern the world’s society”, and writes in its central document that “The Bible represents the absolute source for the guiding principles and precepts for all governments in man (self-government), of families (family government), churches (church government), and for nations (civil government).”
- The Ugandan Inspector General of Police says that Waldron had links to an unnamed organization in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and “planned to set up a political party here based on Christian principles.”
- According to the Ugandan police, Peter Waldron was also thought to be a diplomat representing the United States government
- In an interview with the New Republic, a right wing American magazine, the following information about Waldron is made available:
— When the reporter asked about the nature of his work, Waldron replied “I’m not at liberty to say.”
— Some of Waldron’s work resulted in people getting executed by a firing squad
— Waldron claims to be a veteran of the United States military
— Waldron has visited the White House, accompanied by MC Hammer
— Waldron has been a syndicated radio talk-show host
— Waldron has been a lobbyist
— Waldron has worked as a political consultant for campaigns affiliated with the Republican Party
— Waldron has met with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni
— (The New Republic writer ends his section on Peter Waldron by commenting, “The United States may have a born-again president, but it is far too diverse to ever fully be, as conservatives call it, ‘a Christian nation.’ But Uganda is on its way to becoming one.”)
- Peter Waldron is quoted by the National Alliance Against Christian Discrimination, “The enemies of God won’t tolerate Christian cultural and political action.”
- The Contact America Group describes Peter Waldron’s work as “for clients desiring to either pioneer work or maintain relationships with foreign countries”.
- Waldron claims to have worked on several Republican presidential campaigns, as well as for Republican congressional campaigns. Among these have been Gary Bauer for President, Alan Keyes for President, John McCain for President, and the Bush/Quayle presidential campaign of 1988
- Waldron lists the Republican National Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee, National Republican Senatorial Committee as among his clients
- Waldron describes his political specialty as “organization of the faith-based community” and “Faith-based and Ethnic Specific Coalitions for marketing and campaigns”
- Waldron appears to have had his hands in the campaign to push oil drilling into the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge
- Waldron’s work in Uganda - whatever it is - goes back to the 1970s, in the time of Idi Amin
- Waldron conducted some kind of work with the apartheid regime in South Africa
- Waldron’s web site’s reference to his work in Afghanistan contains only three words: “War, war, war”
- In the Sudan, Waldron writes of encountering “civil war”
- An unnamed “US embassy spokeswoman” has been quoted as refusing comment on Waldron, “citing his protections under the “US Government’s Privacy Act” - suggesting that Waldron is working as an agent of the US government

Peter Waldron may turn out to be the Eugene Hasenfus of the Bush Administration, or may turn out to be a dead end. However, whatever Peter Waldron turns out to be, if he is doing some kind of work in Uganda on behalf of the US government, the American people deserve a straight answer.

SOURCE: http://irregulartimes.com/index.php/archives/2006/02/28/peter-waldron-one/

Uganda dropped charges against this fellah. But there are hundreds, if not thousands more, just like him.

Thanks for giving a damn, old mark.

[MinM]

64. CIA involvement with religious groups not a new charge

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_4474.shtml

http://www.ctka.net/2008/certain_arrogance.html

[MinM]

68. The CIA's Buddhist affair

Mar 14, 2009 04:30 AM

Brett Popplewell
Staff Reporter

Around the world this week, as monks, exiles and supporters of the Dalai Lama marked the 50th anniversary of a failed Tibetan uprising, politicians and state-run media outlets in Beijing preached at length about the Communist Party's liberation of Tibetan slaves.

Meanwhile, in suburban Washington, John Kenneth Knaus, a retired CIA officer who led a covert command centre from New Delhi 50 years ago, worked on a new book about 100 years of American involvement in Tibet, including his own experiences feeding weapons and supplies to monks and resistance fighters.

On March 10, 1959, thousands of Tibetans surrounded the Dalai Lama's palace in Lhasa for fear that their spiritual leader might soon be abducted by the occupying force Mao Zedong had maintained in Tibet since 1950. Soon, protesters across the region were declaring Tibet's independence.

Seven days later the Dalai Lama was gone, spirited out of the country on horseback to India.

Some estimate more than 85,000 Tibetans died in the conflict that ensued as the Chinese army cracked down on the revolt.

Knaus had been working on the CIA's Tibetan file since the mid-1950s. Before taking up his post in New Delhi, he had helped train some 300 Tibetan resistance fighters in Colorado.

He says no American operatives were ever dropped into Tibet, though he says that in July 1958 and February 1959, the CIA did airdrop guns, hand grenades and rounds of munitions...

No surprises

That the CIA and Allen Dulles are to be found as one of the reasons for the rift between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama comes as no surprise. That the U.S. bears a large chunk of responsibility for the ongoing disaster in the China-Tibet relationship is unlikely to be acknowledged, just like similar screw-ups in SE Asia, Iran, and Latin America. At the very least the U.S. should come clean about the true role of the Dalai Lama in this misbegotten exercise, if they are really serious about helping these two parties resolve their 50-year-long conflict.

Submitted by anatman29 at 11:06 AM Saturday, March 14 2009
http://www.thestar.com/News/Insight/article/602187

[originalpckelly]

9. It is the TOP SECRET EMPIRE!

And we must END IT NOW!

[Octafish]

39. Fed Refuses to Release Bank Data, Insists on Secrecy

I wonder what they're trying to hide?

Who got what? Who's using what for? Who's zooming Whom?

Fed Refuses to Release Bank Data, Insists on Secrecy

By Mark Pittman and Craig Torres
Bloomberg

March 5 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve Board of Governors receives daily reports on bailout loans to financial institutions and won’t make the information public, the central bank said in a reply to a Bloomberg News lawsuit.

The Fed refused yesterday to disclose the names of the borrowers and the loans, alleging that it would cast “a stigma” on recipients of more than $1.9 trillion of emergency credit from U.S. taxpayers and the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed secrecy was the focus of a Senate Banking Committee hearing today in which the panel’s top two members said the central bank’s reluctance to identify companies benefiting from the American International Group Inc. bailout risks undermining public confidence in the government.

“If the American taxpayer’s money is at stake, and it is, big time, I believe the American taxpayers, the people, and this committee, we need to know who benefited, where this money went,” said Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama, the committee’s top Republican. “There is no transparency here. We are going to find out.”

The bank provides “select members and staff of the Board of Governors with daily and weekly reports” on Primary Dealer Credit Facility borrowing, said Susan E. McLaughlin, a senior vice president in the markets group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in a sworn statement. The documents “include the names of the primary dealers that have borrowed from the PDCF, individual loan amounts, composition of securities pledged and rates for specific loans.”

Information Shared

The Board of Governors contends that it’s separate from its member banks, including the Federal Reserve Bank of New York which runs the lending programs. Most documents relevant to the Bloomberg suit are at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which isn’t subject to FOIA law, according to the Fed. The Board of Governors has 231 pages of documents, which it is denying access to under an exemption under trade secrets.

CONTINUED...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aG0_2ZIA96TI&refer=home

It seems a lot of the money has gone overseas. In addition to foreign companies, I bet a lot of it has disappeared into the Caymen Islands, Switzerland and a lot of nations that specialize in, eh, sheltering money.

Prison's too good for these traitors.

[scarletwoman]

10. This thread is incomplete without Steve Kangas' "Origins of the Overclass"

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html

The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

During the 1970s, these men would take the propaganda and operational techniques they had learned in the Cold War and apply them to the Class War. Therefore it is no surprise that the American version of the machine bears an uncanny resemblance to the foreign versions designed to fight communism. The CIA's expert and comprehensive organization of the business class would succeed beyond their wildest dreams. In 1975, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of America’s wealth. By 1992, they would nearly double that, to 42 percent — the highest level of inequality in the 20th century.

How did this alliance start? The CIA has always recruited the nation’s elite: millionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers, members of the national news media, and Ivy League scholars. During World War II, General "Wild Bill" Donovan became chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Donovan recruited so exclusively from the nation’s rich and powerful that members eventually came to joke that "OSS" stood for "Oh, so social!"

(I urge everyone to go to the link and read the whole piece)

sw

[G_j]

14. Bill Blum

interview (*done by DUers)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWM5qOFZEhU


:hi: :loveya:


thanks for that amazing resource!

[Octafish]

40. Philip Agee - ''The Big Business mentality pervades everything.''

Kangas was tops. He absolutely pegged "Them." From "Origins of the Overclass"...

In a 1975 interview, Ex-CIA agent Philip Agee summed up his personal observations of the agency:

To the people who work for it, the CIA is known as The Company. The Big Business mentality pervades everything. Agents, for instance, are called assets. The man in charge of the United Kingdom desk is said to have the "U.K. account"…

American multinational corporations have built up colossal interests all over the world, and you can bet your ass that wherever you find U. S. business interests, you also find the CIA… The multinational corporations want a peaceful status quo in countries where they have investments, because that gives them undisturbed access to cheap raw materials, cheap labor and stable markets for their finished goods. The status quo suits bankers, because their money remains secure and multiplies. And, of course, the status quo suits the small ruling groups the CIA supports abroad, because all they want is to keep themselves on top of the socioeconomic pyramid and the majority of their people on the bottom. But do you realize what being on the bottom means in most parts of the world? Ignorance, poverty, often early death by starvation or disease…

Remember, the CIA is an instrument of the President; it only carries out policy. And, like everyone else, the President has to respond to forces in the society he's trying to lead, right? In America, the most powerful force is Big Business, and American Big Business has a vested interest in the Cold War. (6)

SOURCE: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html

Thank you for understanding what it's all about, scarletwoman. Thanks also for praying for us all.

More on Agee and The Company: http://www.covertaction.org/

The site's a resource for articles and background on the Military-Industrial-Intelligence Complex.
Put simply: It's the War Party.

[Grinchie]

42. Enlist those which have so much to lose if they refuse.

That's the basic tool the controllers use to enlist willing participants.

Honestly, how many rich people would react to becoming poor. Having their family destroyed, besmirched.

Look what happened to Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame! I hate to say it but people are interested in self preservation, and are easily manipulated in providing aid to this mechanism. Through the use of Psychological, Financial, Physical and Media, they can destroy someones will to be ethical, and get them to focus on being alive, because "Everyone Else is doing it."

That's why people like Gandhi scares these idiots to death. When people have nothing to lose, when they don't have any debt, can live on pennies a day and can take care of themselves, they cannot be controlled through the highly organized Media/Money channel or the police state. When these people decide to stop the system in its tracks, all the controllers can do is mow them down with machine guns, or cause them to riot in order to legally mow them down with machine guns, or to split them up so they tear themselves apart.

Americans are too fat and lazy to ever think of walking in a demonstration and demand what is their American born right of the Constitution, because their free will has been subverted to believe they are not strong enought to do anything about it. That is exactly the kind of citizenry they want. Docile, easily riled up to point of rage, but completely passive nonetheless.

Labor Unions scare the hell out of them. Look at the Air Traffic Controllers strike during the Reagan years. Pay attention to the way the strike was portrayed in the media. Those damn rich Controllers wanted more money! They were holding America Hostage! You never heard that Air Traffic Control is one of the most difficult professions on earth, and maybe 1% of the population actually has the skill to do it. No, they didn't deserve a pay raise. No Mr. Air Traffic Controller, you're fired, and we'll replace you will slave labor from our own Air Force.

There is a basic truth to life. If you kill everyone that disagrees with you, you will have nobody to grow your food, build your house, or buy your products. Additionally, you'll have to live with the mess that's left over. No matter how many you destroy, more will eventually show up, a lot like bacteria.

Gandhi was right. The less you consume, the less power they have over you. It is exhilirating. They have manipulated Capitalism to the point of Debt Slavery by taking over institutions such as the Central Banks (Federal Reserve), World Bank and the IMF. The dictators that succumb are forever slaves to the pursestring and subject to margin calls at the whim of the masters. God forbid they can't pay the loan back, but it is assured that they never will, since the central banks can shrink the money supply in a couple of years, just as we see today.

There is no difference in scope of power whether Democrat or Republican parties are in control. Both parties cater to the masters equally well, and they know how to milk each set of policies to maximum benefit. Whether the congressional leaders are complicit or not, it makes no difference, other than the ones that are complicit may get better perks or protection or a louder voice at the Media Megaphone.

There have been plenty of mistakes over the years, and the world know it. They are gun shy and loathe America due to the meddling, and with this systemic collapse of the world economy, a major power shift is taking place. The local gang will need something to keep raiding the non-existant coffers.

[starroute]

15. The insurance stuff is important because it's where AIG comes from

From your second link:

http://articles.latimes.com/2000/sep/22/news/mn-25118

Newly declassified U.S. intelligence files tell the remarkable story of the ultra-secret Insurance Intelligence Unit, a component of the Office of Strategic Services, a forerunner of the CIA, and its elite counterintelligence branch X-2. . . .

The men behind the insurance unit were OSS head William "Wild Bill" Donovan and California-born insurance magnate Cornelius V. Starr.

Starr had started out selling insurance to Chinese in Shanghai in 1919 and, over the next 50 years, would build what is now American International Group, one of the biggest insurance companies in the world. He was forced to move his operation to New York in 1939, when Japan invaded China. . . .

Starr sent insurance agents into Asia and Europe even before the bombs stopped falling and built what eventually became AIG, which today has its world headquarters in the same downtown New York building where the tiny OSS unit toiled in the deepest secrecy.

[Jambalaya]

46. You are NOT in good hands

I recently read somewhere that 911 was about insurance claims.

I thought that was ridiculous.

I am reassessing my opinion,now.

[Octafish]

52. A top insurance company as the new Enron? (AIG 2005)

Since 2005, Department of Justice should've been on AIG's case. I can see why they'd say, "Fuhgedaboudid," though.

A top insurance company as the new Enron?

An accounting probe at AIG worries Wall Street, and involves some of America's richest men.

By Ron Scherer | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
April 1, 2005

NEW YORK – American business is facing yet another major scandal involving more accounting shenanigans.
But, this scandal has the potential to cause tsunami-sized damage: It involves a highly respected insurance company, American International Group (AIG) - which is part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average - which has now admitted to $1.7 billion in improper accounting. And, it has enveloped some legends in the financial arena: Maurice "Hank" Greenberg, forced out as chairman of AIG, and Warren Buffet, the Omaha stock market guru, who will be questioned about his possible involvement.

Because AIG is so massive and important to the financial world, regulators will have to tread carefully. The company's main business is providing reinsurance, that is, it insures insurance companies. This helps the industry to spread its risk among many large and financially sound companies so a single event does not become a financial disaster for one company.

Also, because of AIG's huge size, lawyers don't think the government will bring a criminal charge against the company as it did for Arthur Andersen, Enron's accountant. The criminal charge was a death sentence for the accountant.

"There is an increased reluctance to bring criminal charges that ultimately have the effect of killing a company that otherwise employs a lot of innocent people and has lots of value to it," says Michael Gass, an expert on SEC enforcement at Palmer & Dodge, a Boston law firm. "Instead, there is an increased focus on the individuals responsible."

Past lessons

If the past is any indication of the future, the government will work its way up the food chain at the company. A host of executives, including the chief financial officer, have already resigned or been forced out. The government will try to pressure them to provide evidence against higher officials, particularly Mr. Greenberg.

"I would be shocked if nothing criminal comes out of this," says Mr. Gass. "The concept that there is a $1.7 billion fraud on the stock holders and not a criminal action is ridiculous."

CONTINUED...

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0401/p03s01-usju.html

Weird how so many of the nation's wealthiest people seem also to number among the world's most crooked.

Har har. It is good to laugh. April Fool's. Nixon was a saint, compared to his backers.

Thank you for understanding and doing something about these enemies of the future, starroute.

[midnight]

16. Isn't that the truth.

[Octafish]

53. Nugan Hand Bank

There once was a bank outta Australia that helped the connected class move money and other stuff around...

Nugan Hand Bank

From SourceWatch

The Nugan Hand Bank developed in that grey area of the intelligence community involving alumni, assets, allies, and affiliated companies that handle much of the CIA's covert work. Although not a propriety of the agency like the Castle Bank and Trust of Nassau, Bahamas, Nugan Hand was started by and filled up with CIA alumni and personnel. Frank Nugan, a drunk, mediocre lawyer from Australia with a wildly exaggerated resume teamed up with ex CIA operative and Green Beret Michael Jon Hand who had experience in Vietnam and with the Hmong guerrillas of Laos. The third major player in the beginning and direction of the bank was a mysterious expatriate from Texas named Bernie Houghton who was much alive in intelligence community. Many of the actions involved with the bank are shrouded by destroyed records and sudden deaths, but two things remain certain: 1) The bank employed many retired CIA operatives 2) They were heavily involved with drug trafficking.

Unable to secure all the money needed to wage covert wars around the world, the CIA has maintained front companies, banks, and illegal trades to supply the needed revenue. Connections and leverage in the outland world of drugs and weapons allows for factions within the agency and like minded interests to act outside the confines of laws to influence the futures of countries in the process of defining themselves.

The Nugan Hand Limited was established in 1973 with $80 in the company's bank account and $5 in paid up capital. Frank Nugan went ahead and wrote the company a $980,000 check out of his personal account to purchase $490,000 in shares of its stocks. Since he did not have $980,000 in his personal account, he wrote himself a check from the bank's account to cover it, claiming at the same time the company's paid up capital was a million dollars. This is not advanced accounting fraud, however it worked, and the bank continued to bring funds in through crude methods of deception.

They assured potential clients with language like "absolute security, anonymity and confidentiality" and promised customers "the utmost in personal service and attentive specialist assistance". They even offered for "valued" clients child welfare accounts that would "give faithful and attentive care and supervision to all aspects of the education, health, welfare and advancement in life of the children of the beneficiary". However when stock holders showed up for an annual meeting, Frank Nugan enlisted the help of retired police detective and crook Frederick Krahe, and they filled the meeting with a bunch of drunk thugs holding a single share each who railroaded approval of the company's questionable accounts over the dissent some minority shareholders.

By 1975, Michael Hand, with the help of Bernie Houghton had opened a branch in Hong Kong which led to more international branches finally registered as a corporation in the Cayman Islands. Their partnership in the international arena is when the bank headed into the fields of drug finance, arms trading, and support work for CIA covert activities. Hand set up shop in southern Africa for fifteen months where he coordinated guns, ammunitions and helicopters for delivery to Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and Angola. In Pretoria, South Africa he incorporated the company, Murdoch Lewis Proprietary Ltd., to handle the delivery of these shipments.

Houghton enabled the resources of shady Edwin WIlson, a CIA agent working for Task Force 157, a covert arm of the Office of Naval Intelligence, to set up shipments out of Boston for South Africa and a spy ship for the Shah of Iran. Wilson, who bought a thousand acre farm in northern Virginia, supplied Colonel Muammar al-Qaddafi with thousands of CIA designed bomb timers, more than 21 tons of Composition C-4 and years of training for his commandos by U.S. Green Berets, was finally sentenced in 1982 to life in prison.

Bernie Houghton also brought on board Admiral Earl F. Yates, a retired chief strategist for the U.S. Pacific Command, who became the president of the bank stationed out of Sydney Australia, where it was founded. This opened the gates for more from the military intelligence communitiy to fill posts: General Leroy J. Manor (manager of the Manila branch); General Edwin F. Black (president of Hawaii branch); General Erle Cocke, Jr. (president D.C. branch); Dr. Guy Parker (an expert from the RAND Corporation who came on as a bank consultant); Richard Secord; Walter McDonald (retired CIA deputy director, headed Annapolis branch); Dale Holmgreen (former chairman CIA's Civil Air Transport, manager Taiwan branch); Theodore Shackley (former CIA deputy director for clandestine operations); Richard L. Armitage (was special consultant to the Pentagon in Thailand who oversaw the transfer of heroin profits from Indonesia to Shackley's account in Tehran, Iran)<1>; William Colby (former director of the CIA as legal counsel).

Many of these men knew each other from Vietnam and Laos, which for some, was the training ground for developing traits in covert profits, information gathering and shadow communities that relied on companies and banks to remain secure and hidden from the press and congressional oversight. The most obvious of the ties involved around the bank was the development of a new company,API Distributors Inc., which was owned by Ted Shackley and recently retired thirty year vet of the agency, Thomas Clines (a man who, upon resigning, borrowed a half million from Ed Wilson to set up a new company which won a $71 million contract for arms delivery to Egypt). API's goal had been to break into the Middle East oil market. This is certainly a clear example of former high ranking personnel in the U.S. government seeking to exert clandestine influence in the Middle East oil market via privileged connections in the intelligence, banking, law, and government communities of the United States.

The connections sewing the fabric of the bank could not continue. The bank had never made a real profit, rather it ripped people off, laundered drug money coming out of the Golden Triangle (Australia experienced their first heroin epidemic in over fifty years at the height of the bank's activities), and blocked investigations through its connections. Due to increased obviousness, the fabric rotted, Frank Nugan was found dead in his car by apparent suicide, Michael Hand escaped Australia with the help of Thomas Cline and ex-Green Beret James O. Spencer, only after months of pulling funds out and declaring the bank insolvent.

Despite the fantastic abuse of position and connections, and the immediate criminality of funneling drug money to support arm transfers to places determined to be Cold War conflicts by people who were not in a legal position to make that determination, this story was reported in the U.S. almost only by Jonathan Kwitney, a Wall Street Journal reporter who made the front page three days in a row with it, and then it was buried. Kwitney went on to write The Crimes of Patriots, a True Tale of Dope, Dirty Money, and the CIA; New York: W.W. Norton, 1987 ISBN# 0-393-02387-7 which is one of only a few studies of the Nugan Hand disaster. Alfred McCoy adds it in the second edition of his The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade New York: Harpers and Row, Publishers Inc.,1972, 1991 ISBN# 1-55652-125-1, but it is not in the later revised edition with the ISBN# 1-55652-483-8. The story was covered extensively in the then National Times of Australia, but still remains on the fringe of common knowledge in the U.S. with other bank scandals like Savings and Loan and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International ringing the memory bells.

SOURCE w Links: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Nugan_Hand_Bank

Mr. Kwitney, who chronicled the above, unfortunately, passed away too young from cancer.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mnemosyne]

18. It is really tough to take the ass out of fascism. You show great talent!

:evilgrin:

Great thread Octafish, thanks.

[Octafish]

55. Riggs Bank

There once was a bank outta Washington that helped the connected class move money and other stuff around...

Bush's Uncle Is Executive At Bank Fined for Lax Oversight of Saudi Money

David Sirota

As if the Bush-Saudi ties couldn't get any deeper, check this out (you really can't make this up):

RIGGS BANK FINED FOR LAX OVERSIGHT OF SAUDI MONEY, WHICH MIGHT HAVE GONE TO TERRORISTS

According to the 5/14/04 New York Times, Federal regulators fined the Riggs National Corporation, the parent company of Riggs Bank, $25 million yesterday for "failing to report suspicious activity, the largest penalty ever assessed against a domestic bank in connection with money laundering. The fine stems from Riggs's failure over at least the last two years to actively monitor suspect financial transfers through Saudi Arabian accounts held by the bank." The 5/14/04 Wall Street Journal reported that of particular concern, Riggs failed to monitor "tens of millions of dollars in cash withdrawals from accounts related to the Saudi Arabian embassy," including "suspicious incidents involving dozens of sequentially numbered cashier's checks and international drafts written by Saudi officials, including Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan." According to the 4/18/04 Washington Post, Saudi Prince Bandar's wife, Princess Haifa al-Faisal, "may have used a Riggs account to donate money to a charity that then gave some of it to the Sept. 11 terrorists." According to the Washington Post, federal regulators "called Riggs actions a "'willful, systemic' violation of anti-money-laundering law." Riggs officials have "acknowledged years of deficiencies in reporting to law enforcement hundreds of millions of dollars in suspicious financial transactions by foreign customers, particularly those connected with the embassies of Saudi Arabia."

PRESIDENT BUSH'S UNCLE IS A CHIEF EXECUTIVE AT RIGGS BANK

According to the nonprofit Texans for Public Justice, Jonathan Bush is the President and CEO of Riggs Investment Management - a major arm of Riggs Bank. He is also the uncle of President George W. Bush. The President "credits the investors sent his way by this banker uncle as a key to his 'success' in the Texas oil industry in the early '80s." According to Public Citizen, the uncle Jonathan was a Bush Pioneer, having raised more than $100,000 for his nephew in 2000.

CONTINUED w Links: http://www.davidsirota.com/2004/05/bushs-uncle-is-executive-at-bank-fined.html

Money. It makes sane people do crazy things. Like treason.

Thanks for the kind words, Mnemosyne. It'd be an impossible job, alone.

[Raksha]

20. K & R, bookmarked.

[Octafish]

56. BCCI - Bank of the CIA

There once was a bank outta Karachi that helped the connected class move money and other stuff around...

BCCI: Bank of the CIA

Jack Colhoun
Covert Action Quaterly
Spring 1993

Jack Colhoun was Washington correspondent for the (New York)
Guardian news weekly from 1980 to 1992. He has a Ph.D. in
history and specializes in post-World War II U.S. foreign
policy. His soon-to-be-published book The George Bush File (Los
Angeles: ACCESS, 1993) includes reprints of several of his
articles cited below.

The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) scandal
opens a window with a spectacular view of a subject usually
shrouded in secrecy: How the CIA uses banks to finance
clandestine operations.


The view is spectacular because BCCI, which earned the
moniker the “Bank of Crooks and Criminals International,” worked
closely with former Director of Central Intelligence William
Casey and the Reagan administration’s off-the-shelf arms
Enterprise. BCCI financed some of the Enterprise’s arms-for-
hostages deals with Iran. Arms merchants linked to the October
Surprise banked with BCCI. The CIA funneled funds through the
bank to underwrite the Agency’s secret wars in Afghanistan and
Nicaragua.

But BCCI’s ties to the shadowy world of intelligence go deeper.
Clark Clifford and Richard Helms--retired, but still connected
senior members of the U.S. intelligence community--helped pave
the way for BCCI’s secret acquisition of the Washington, D.C.-
based banking network, Financial General Bankshares. Sheikh
Kamal Adham, the founder of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service,
also played a key role on behalf of BCCI in the takeover of
Financial General, which was renamed First American Bankshares.

Casey met “every few months” with Agha Hassan Abedi, the
Pakistani founder of BCCI, in Washington, D.C. and Islamabad,
Pakistan, over a three-year period in the 1980s. Casey and Abedi
talked about Iran-Contra arms deals, the Agency-funded war in
Afghanistan, and the ever volatile situation in the Persian
Gulf. Abedi even made arrangements for Casey’s travels in
Pakistan.1

1. For the Casey-Abedi meetings, see Peter Truell and Larry
Gutwin, False Profits: The Inside Story of BCCI, The
World’s Most Corrupt Financial Empire (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1992), p. 133; and NBC News, Sunday Today, February 23, 1992.

Abedi founded BCCI in 1972 in Pakistan, but the bank’s main
office was in London. BCCI also had major international banking
centers in the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg, where banking
regulations are virtually nonexistent. By 1991, when it was shut
down by international banking regulators, BCCI had branches in
more than 70 countries. This far-flung network was well suited
as a clandestine conduit for financing weapons transactions,
arranging bribes, and laundering money. Not surprisingly, the
CIA had accounts at BCCI branches around the world, including
more than 40 separate accounts at First American in Washington.

BCCI, utilizing its operations in the Cayman Islands and
Luxembourg, escaped the scrutiny of international banking
regulators. It moved money around the world for weapons
merchants and intelligence operatives through a convoluted web
of BCCI accounts and shell companies designed to camouflage
the transactions. The bank’s good connections in the Third World
enabled it to provide local financing for arms deals and covert
operations.

“What Abedi had in his hand was magic,” said a former BCCI
official. “Abedi had branches and banks in at least 50 Third
World countries. The BCCI people in all of these countries were
on a first-name basis with the prime ministers, the presidents,
the finance ministers, the elite in these countries--and their
wives and mistresses.” Casey could ask Abedi whether a country’s
leader had “a girlfriend or a foreign currency account,” the
BCCI official continued. “Abedi could say: ‘We’ll tell you how
much he’s salted abroad and how much money he gives to his
girlfriend.’“ 2

CONTINUED...

http://web.archive.org/web/20001117161900/http://www.alternatives.com/library/pol/polintel/cova0008.txt

Who'd a known that people with big money would break the law? That never happens on the TV news shows.

The above article is from the now-defunct Covert Action Quarterly (nee Covert Action Information Bulletin). Those interested in the subject may want to download and share a copy before it's wiped from the Internets.

Most importantly: Thanks, Raksha!

[sce56]

21. K&R now if only we could get Jon Stewart to show some of this on TDS

We might actually get the so called real media to start reporting on it! I especially like the part in a previous DU post listed above about Poppy Bush

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x3073592
Bush Senior Early CIA Ties Revealed

By Russ Baker and Jonathan Z. Larsen | The Real News Project

January 8, 2007

NEW YORK--Newly released internal CIA documents assert that former president George Herbert Walker Bush's oil company emerged from a 1950's collaboration with a covert CIA officer.

Bush has long denied allegations that he had connections to the intelligence community prior to 1976, when he became Central Intelligence Agency director under President Gerald Ford. At the time, he described his appointment as a 'real shocker.'

But the freshly uncovered memos contend that Bush maintained a close personal and business relationship for decades with a CIA staff employee who, according to those CIA documents, was instrumental in the establishment of Bush's oil venture, Zapata, in the early 1950s, and who would later accompany Bush to Vietnam as a “cleared and witting commercial asset” of the agency.

According to a CIA internal memo dated November 29, 1975, Bush's original oil company, Zapata Petroleum, began in 1953 through joint efforts with Thomas J. Devine, a CIA staffer who had resigned his agency position that same year to go into private business. The '75 memo describes Devine as an “oil wild-catting associate of Mr. Bush.” The memo is attached to an earlier memo written in 1968, which lays out how Devine resumed work for the secret agency under commercial cover beginning in 1963...

[Octafish]

59. Richard Grasso, when head of the New York Stock Exchange, HUGS FARC TERRORIST.

This should be news.



It's doubtful Viacom, the owners of The Daily Show would go for anything that rocks the real boat -- the owners of Corporate McPravda. It's the same class who benefits from the arms trade and the petroleum trade and the drug trade. Side shows is what they want, from Bush the Crook to Cheney the Torturer, they'll talk about until they're blue in the face because they know nothing will happen. But get at the root of the matter, and they'll spare no expense in ignoring the truth.

For example, did the "mainstream media" report much on

The Real Deal: The Ultimate New Business Cold Call

Monday, 18 February 2002, 10:13 am
Column: Catherine Austin Fitts

Narco-Dollars For Dummies (Part 3)
How The Money Works In The Illicit Drug Trade

Lest you think that my comment about the New York Stock Exchange is too strong, let's look at one event that occurred before our "war on drugs" went into high gear through Plan Colombia, banging heads over narco dollar market share in Latin America.

In late June 1999, numerous news services, including Associated Press, reported that Richard Grasso, Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange flew to Colombia to meet with a spokesperson for Raul Reyes of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), the supposed "narco terrorists" with whom we are now at war.

The purpose of the trip was "to bring a message of cooperation from U.S. financial services" and to discuss foreign investment and the future role of U.S. businesses in Colombia.

Some reading in between the lines said to me that Grasso's mission related to the continued circulation of cocaine capital through the US financial system. FARC, the Colombian rebels, were circulating their profits back into local development without the assistance of the American banking and investment system. Worse yet for the outlook for the US stock market's strength from $500 billion - $1 trillion in annual money laundering - FARC was calling for the decriminalization of cocaine.

To understand the threat of decriminalization of the drug trade, just go back to your Sam and Dave estimate and recalculate the numbers given what decriminalization does to drive BIG PERCENT back to SLIM PERCENT and what that means to Wall Street and Washington's cash flows. No narco dollars, no reinvestment into the stock markets, no campaign contributions.

CONTINUED...

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0202/S00069.htm

Thank you for the kind words, sce56. I'm especially thankful you give a damn about Dallas.

[sce56]

63. I remember that day! Home from school due to Parent Teacher conferences

I was in second grade the bulletin interrupted reruns of the I Love Lucy Show! Thanks to the internet I now have a better understanding of what really happened but I also remember seeing books in the late 60's trying to explain the discrepancies in the Warren report and showing how a cross triangulation would show there was more than one shooter. I also thought it is real interesting that the man that ran the commission was the same man JFK Fired Allen Dulles! I especially like the the banned episodes of the The Men Who Killed Kennedy by the history channel only available on line on youtube or bit torrent

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=C780026FDB5FA168

[yurbud]

22. so what do we do about it?

[Octafish]

60. Use the truth to wake up We the People.

For starters. It's why the Founders put a free press into the Constitution -- the only business mentioned by name in the document.

I'm amazed at the places around the Internet where DU shows up...

[indimuse]

23. k&r!

...

[OnyxCollie]

24. Another excellent post, Octafish. K&R.

I've been investigating the capitalist imperialism of Halliburton and Blackwater for school and this ties right in.

My copy of War is a Racket arrived in the mail yesterday.

[NashVegas]

25. "The Secret Insurance Man" Explains Why AIG Is Getting Bailed Out

Germany had 45% of the worldwide wholesale insurance industry before the war began and managed to actually expand its business as it conquered continental Europe. As wholesalers, or "reinsurers," these companies covered other insurers against a catastrophic loss that could wipe out a single company. In the process, the wholesaler learned everything about the lives and property they were reinsuring.

...

"This story is incredible because the unit begins as part of the desire of American interests to contribute to the war effort and exploit it for future economic gain," said historian Timothy Naftali, a consultant to the Nazi War Criminals Interagency Working Group that was created by Congress last year.

Starr** had started out selling insurance to Chinese in Shanghai in 1919 and, over the next 50 years, would build what is now American International Group, one of the biggest insurance companies in the world. He was forced to move his operation to New York in 1939, when Japan invaded China.

In the early years of the war, the German insurance industry expanded its business as it conquered continental Europe. Nazi insurance brokers who traveled with combat troops during invasions also scoured local insurance files for strategic data.

German-owned companies were blacklisted by the Allies, but the Insurance Intelligence Unit found that the Nazis did business through countries such as Switzerland and laundered transactions through South American affiliates, particularly in Argentina.

"The blacklist is of no good use because the firms not blacklisted are full of Germans," one of the Insurance Intelligence Unit's reports complained in 1943.

Starr's people and other insurance executives had intimate knowledge of the people involved in the global insurance business, so they were able to track potential collaborators.

** refers to Cornelius Starr, Kenneth Starr's uncle.

[formercia]

26. During the Contra War against Nicaragua

Fishing boats, supplying Red Lobster, were poaching Lobster in Nicaraguan waters. US spy Satellites were used to track the Nicaraguan Patrol boats and their locations were relayed to the poachers to keep them from getting caught. This was officially sanctioned activity designed to damage the Nicaraguan economy.

[conscious evolution]

67. I have always thought

that one of the reasons that cocacola and other food makers switched to HFCS was also done to damage their sugar industry.
Remember the Dixie Crystal Sugar plant that blew up in Savannah Ga last year?They also owned a plant in Nicaragua that was shutdown by the Sandanistas.

[Echo In Light]

27. K&R Iran/Contra alone speaks volumes about the phony "war on terror"

[formercia]

28. Big Sugar

I remember one incident where the boys sank a ship loaded with Sugar in Nicaragua. The worse part is that it was a whole year of production from some 500 or so small farmers that had formed a co-op to market their produce. The boys thought if they hurt the little people enough, they would revolt against the Sandinistas.

I think it was done to keep the Sugar off of the market, thus protecting the profits of Big Sugar.

[unhappycamper]

29. Here's a book that documents all the good things the CIA has done and gotten correct.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qrPWpbewL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg

In its sixty two years of existence, the CIA has gotten exactly one thing correct - they called the six-day was between Egypt and Israel.

[MinM]

34. Tim Weiner's "history" of the CIA

That's right. The CIA has been completely inept. :sarcasm:

That's certainly the myth that Mr. Weiner and the CIA like to perpetuate. But which has been debunked by anyone looking at their real history:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/MinM/177

http://realhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/2007/07/tim-weiners-history-of-cia.html

A Timeline of CIA Atrocities... By Steve Kangas

:kick: & R

[MinM]

61. The CIA's favorite newspaper similarly tries to downplay the role...

that the CIA has played through it's history:

Washington Post: 'Good Shepherd' Taps Into Blue-Blooded Vein of Secrecy

"The Good Shepherd" makes a good case for the secrecy of the organization: It has to stay secret, because if we knew how stupid it all was, we'd laugh it out of existence...

Here are some credible critiques of "The Good Shepherd":

The Parts Left Out of the Good Shepherd

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/MinM/177
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/MinM/138
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/MinM/74

[WestSeattle2]

31. "Family of Secrets" by Russ Baker...

This is a very revealing book about the Bush family. Sleaze with a capital "S". And yes, there is absolutely no doubt that GHWB was a CIA guy for decades.

Truly, a very twisted and shallow set of family values. It seems that power and money is their sole purpose in life.

[XXXMADAM]

38. CIA/FBI TERRORIST PIMPS

I'm trying to elicit the attn of the Judiciary Committe and will prolly have to go thru the military and/or banksters to get their marching orders!. xxx


Prostitution, Blackmail, and Political Corruption
By Agents of the United States


Sex Slavery, Forced Prostitution, Human Trafficking, extortion, blackmail―of the most egregious kind―of U.S. Citizens by the U.S. Government Brothel of Bureaucrats

My name is Robin Head, previous owner of Playboy Escorts in Houston, Texas. I was approached by various law enforcement agency's, FBI, ATF, etc... who wanted me to abet them in entrapping "State and political officials" having sex so they could extort, control and blackmail them, not to charge them with misdemeanor prostitution. At the same time, women at my service were being tricked and trafficked overseas to Bangkok and called me collect from a jail in Vienna.

A madam from Alabama was found hanging in a federal jail cell in nearby Brazoria County. When I refused to abet in the extortion, I was thrown in jail, no bond, a 'Life' sentence filed on me, and then my son and family were harassed and attacked endlessly in some kind of gang like Mafia style.

I went to the FBI, but it was like reporting the devil to the witch, they said they would help me but only if I would help them, again, to set up officials. They had no interest in the corruption aspect. Some very high profile names were involved, people seen on TV news commentary.

Who are these agents with this monstrous agenda and what do they want? This is not a left/right wing thing it is a most vicious entity in this country.

This country has become as fearful as any other 3rd world country when it comes to reporting crime to officials just exactly like in Russia, Iraq, Africa, Mexico, etc... where it is the officials that are the perpetrators of the crimes, kidnapping, ransom, drugs, and it is dangerous to report to them.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[e-mail].

http://fbicorruption.250free.com
http://www.DefraudingAmerica.com/robin_head.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

More details on other blackmail activities against American citizens by agents of the DEA, FBI, and other government entities in the book, Defrauding America, by Rodney Stich (available through http://www.amazon.com

[Greyhound]

44. K&R

[JDPriestly]

49. Thanks. Always Interesting, Octafish.

[malaise]

50. Great thread

K & R

[jakeXT]

51. United Fruit in Guatamala(1954) or BP in Iran (1953)

CIA involved in Guatemala coup, 1954

At the end of May, the Central Intelligence Agency declassified 1,400 pages of reports on the 1954 coup it engineered in Guatemala to remove president Jacobo Arbenz from office. Arbenz became a target of U.S. imperialism for threatening to carry out modest land reforms against the interests of produce giant, United Fruit Company. In 1952, U.S. president Harry Truman gave the secret police approval to begin shipping guns and money to opposition forces and training mercenaries.

The released documents show that CIA cops trained assassins to kill 58 people put on a "disposal list." They include a 22-page how-to manual on murder. Secret intelligence officials claim none of the missions were carried out. The list of CIA targets were also subjected to "nerve war," which included death threats, phone calls "preferably between 2 and 5 A.M.," frame-ups, and other forms of intimidation. Less than 1 percent of the CIA files on the Guatemala coup were included in the declassification, with many details blacked out.

http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/50s/guatemala.html

THE CIA in Iran

By JAMES RISEN


Requires Adobe Acrobat


The Central Intelligence Agency's secret history of its covert operation to overthrow Iran's government in 1953 offers an inside look at how the agency stumbled into success, despite a series of mishaps that derailed its original plans.

Written in 1954 by one of the coup's chief planners, the history details how United States and British officials plotted the military coup that returned the shah of Iran to power and toppled Iran's elected prime minister, an ardent nationalist.

The document shows that:

Britain, fearful of Iran's plans to nationalize its oil industry, came up with the idea for the coup in 1952 and pressed the United States to mount a joint operation to remove the prime minister.

The C.I.A. and S.I.S., the British intelligence service, handpicked Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi to succeed Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh and covertly funneled $5 million to General Zahedi's regime two days after the coup prevailed.

Iranians working for the C.I.A. and posing as Communists harassed religious leaders and staged the bombing of one cleric's home in a campaign to turn the country's Islamic religious community against Mossadegh's government.

The shah's cowardice nearly killed the C.I.A. operation. Fearful of risking his throne, the Shah repeatedly refused to sign C.I.A.-written royal decrees to change the government. The agency arranged for the shah's twin sister, Princess Ashraf Pahlevi, and Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, the father of the Desert Storm commander, to act as intermediaries to try to keep him from wilting under pressure. He still fled the country just before the coup succeeded.

http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html

[JohnyCanuck]

65. Here is another account of the CIA/MI6 conspiracy

to overthrow the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran.

A 'great venture': overthrowing the government of Iran
by Mark Curtis From Lobster 30

This is a slightly abridged version of part of chapter four of Mark Curtis's book The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy since 1945 (Zed Press, 1995).

In August 1953 a coup overthrew Iran's nationalist government of Mohammed Musaddiq and installed the Shah in power. The Shah subsequently used widespread repression and torture in a dictatorship that lasted until the 1979 Islamic revolution. The 1953 coup is conventionally regarded primarily as a CIA operation, yet the planning record reveals not only that Britain was the prime mover in the initial project to overthrow the government but also that British resources contributed significantly to the eventual success of the operation. Two first-hand accounts of the Anglo-American sponsorship of the coup - by the MI6 and CIA officers primarily responsible for it - are useful in reconstructing events. (1) Many of the secret planning documents that reveal the British role have been removed from public access and some of them remain closed until the next century - for reasons of 'national security'. Nevertheless, a fairly clear picture still emerges. Churchill later told the CIA officer responsible for the operation that he 'would have loved nothing better than to have served under your command in this great venture'. (2)

In the 1950s the Anglo Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) - later renamed British Petroleum - which was managed from London and owned by the British government and British private citizens, controlled Iran's main source of income: oil. According to one British official, the AIOC 'has become in effect an imperium in imperio in Persia'. Iranian nationalists objected to the fact that the AIOC not only made revenues from Iranian oil 'greatly in excess of the revenues of the Persian government but dominates the whole economic life of Persia, and therefore impairs her independence'. (3) The AIOC was recognised as 'a great foreign organisation controlling Persia's economic life and destiny'. The British oil business fared well from this state of affairs; the AIOC made £170 million in profits in 1950 alone. (4)

Iranians could also point to AIOC's effectively autonomous rule in the parts of the country where the oilfields lay, its low wage rates and the fact that the Iranian government was being paid royalties of 10% or 12% of the company's net proceeds, whilst the British government received as much as 30% of these in taxes alone. (5) Shown the overcrowded housing afforded to some of the AIOC workers, a British official commented: 'Well, this is just the way all Iranians live'. (6)

SNIP

The origin of British planning to aid the overthrow of Musaddiq lay in his decision to nationalise oil operations in Iran, which was passed into law in May 1951, the month after he became Prime Minister. In the dispute that followed, Musaddiq offered to compensate the AIOC but Britain demanded either a new oil concession or a settlement that would compensate for loss of future profits. 'In other words', according to Iranian scholar Homa Katouzian,'the Iranians would have had either to give up the spirit of the nationalisation or to compensate the AIOC not just for its investment but for all the oil which it would have produced in the next 40 years'. (11) Nationalisation and the offer of compensation were perfectly legitimate in international law though this did not appear to be relevant in guiding subsequent British actions. 'If Musaddiq seemed to be inflexible', Katouzian comments further, 'it was because he insisted on basic principles which would have been observed if the dispute had been between two equal nations'. (12) It was a fatal misunderstanding for which he - and one might add ultimately the Iranians - paid dearly. 'Persian public opinion', the British Ambassador commented, 'is unanimous in rejecting the offer'. (13) But Britain did 'not consider that a deal on acceptable terms can ever be made with' Musaddiq'. (14) According to the Foreign Office's description of the US State Department's view, 'a reasonable solution with Musaddiq is impossible': nevertheless, it added ominously, 'there is hope of a change which would bring moderate elements into control'. (15)

http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/articles/l30iran.htm

[Aviation Pro]

54. Well they're also known as.....

...Christians in Action or Clowns in Action depending on who you talk to. (Incidentally, the work force of the CIA is compromised of some of the most dedicated employees of the U.S. government. The Clowns and Christians refer to the morons in senior management).

[formercia]

57. That's how you get to be Senior Management

Anyone with any common sense left long before qualifying for SES.

Any Officer who is worth a damn is too busy in the field to have time for such nonsense.

http://www.opm.gov/fedcdp/

I would be leery of anyone who retired from the CIA.

[varelse]

66. Kick

so I can find this when I get home from work :)

Idit: I took the "ass" out of fascism.

I didn't think that was even possible :P