Will BCCI, CIA, Iran/Contra era resuface in this campaign too?

[Armstead]

Since the last few weeks have become Return to the 60's and Early 70's, will another blast from the past return -- the whole BCCI, Iran Contra mess?

Kerry was a prime opponent against the same forces in the 80's and early 90's, with his involvement in the investigations of intelligence, Nicaragua, terrorist money laundering, etc.

Is that going to come up too, either instigated by Kerry (to show him as a tough investigastor) or by the GOP (show him as an opponent of the CIA)?

If so, it could be another double-edged sword like Vietnam. Good for Kerry in some ways, not so good in others. It would shine a light on the connections between seemingly disparate issues -- national security, intelligence, Islam, communism. financial corruption. It is another chapter in an ongoing unfolding of history, and a bridge between the Vietnam era and today. Symbolically, it also is Kerry as one side and Bush as the other in this ongoing evolution.

Anyone expecting this shoe to drop at some point in the campaign? If so, who would it benefit?

[blm]

1. Kerry's efforts on BCCI were the FIRST ever against terrorism and its

funding and the governments abetting the criminal enterprises of the terrorists.

George Bush was making deals with the banks and the criminals involved while Kerry was working to shut them down.

When the discussion turns to who can fight terrorism better, BCCI will rear up because of the stark contrast between Bush and Kerry.

GOPers will have to answer the question WHY when Kerry was investigating and exposing the funding of international terrorists so many Republican operatives and Bush cronies were working to stop Kerry.

[emad]

2. London BCCI class action started January 13 this year. Opening

defence arguments lasted until July and court now in summer recess. Defence opening argument likely to last til December according to UK press reports.

Will it affect Kerry campaign? Maybe. The Plaintiffs' case is supported by over 30 years of UN Security Council files previously not placed into the public domain citing how BCCI was a cold-war Mossad operation masterminded by the KGB via East Germany's Stasi head Marcus Wolf in close co-operation with George H Bush as CIA Head acting under the aegis of Henry Kissinger. And how Thatcher was 100% complicit in the corruption of BCCI whose operations were conducted from London under her personal authority.

If the defence opening arguments finish before end of October it's possible the key central wintesses to be called by Gordon Pollock QC for the plaintiffs may fire the sort of opening salvos which will sink the BFEE. Depends on the timing.

The material is likely to be explosive as it allegedly ties in with the Banco Ambrosiano evidence being heard in Italy at the moment in the trial of those accused of murdering God's banker Roberto Calvi. The P2 Lodge has never been officially named in public, and neither has it's second generation - the crooks who progressed from terorism, mass murder, conspiracy to high public office in the 21st century.

Those who are familiar with the P2 Lodge and know it to be a paedophile organisation funded by the KGB since its inception in 1957/58 (see Piers Compton's "The Broken Cross" and David Yallop's "In God's Name") will doubtless relish 30 years of UN Security Council intelligence files being finally aired in public naming those household names we are all by now so familiar with from the world of politics, finance, military, judiciary, assorted high public office, entertainment etc etc.

Others must just check their seatbelts and prepare for the worst...

[Armstead]

3. That sounds like it covers all the bases.

Whew.

[emad]

5. Se also previous DU:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2241594

[bobbieinok]

9. am I right? Mossad is Israel's secret service? so........

this claims the BCCI was an Israeli operation masterminded by the KGB (Soviet Union)???

I don't understand the claim that these 2 countries worked together........there is the old RW claim that communism is a Jewish conspiracy

I'm really not trying to be disruptive.......I just don't understand the basis for this claim

and Israel and the Soviet Union and BushI (US) and Thatcher (Britain) all worked together on this?????..........WHY????

[emad]

15. During the cold war most drug trafficking that financed terrorism

under the "brand names" of - for instance - IRA, Bader Meinhof, Eta, Hamas, The Jackal, Provisional IRA, Red Brigade etc etc etc was run by renegade Mossad operatives trained and hired by the Stasi's Marcus Wolf who ran these ops in close co-operation with Poppy who was CIA director at the time. Ex-CIA spook Richard McGarrach Helms and James R Bath sat on the board of BCCI Holdings (the parent company) and also held some shares in the bank.

These links are well documented in the public domain.

BCCI financed an attempted coup in the UK when Thatcher tried to take over the country and install a quasi-military republican regime, a stroke masterminded by Poppy when he was VP. Most of this was hushed up and still remains archived under the UK Official Secrets Act.

[Touchdown]

4. MIke Malloy said BCCI is too confusing to make an issue out of.

He said most people don't even know what country Noriega ruled, much less that it had to do with terrorist funds that Kerry shut down. He basically said it's a long maze of information, worthy of a Clinton size book just to scratch the surface. He mentioned this on last night's show.

Maybe DU can come up with a simpler way to explain BCCI, and call Malloy back.

[emad]

6. Expect Malloy will get the picture when it's reported blow by blow

in public during the London class action. The tentacles of the BCCI may be a complex matrix but the key relationships betwen Bush 1 and 2, Blair, Major, Thatcher etc etc are crystal clear to most people by now. How they interpret them is a mater of personal politics - I'm sure the Republican faction will never agree with their opponents but then the real background facts to today's horrendous global corruption have never ben laid bare in a public court of law.

[Bongo Prophet]

14. It IS complicated, BUT...

the overall meme can be broken into individually effective bite sizes if we were to work on it. People much less wordy than moi.

When Bushco pushes the "did nothing in the Senate" canard, the trap is ready to close.
JK can point to:
1> his work on veterans health related matters, eg Agent Orange, Gulf War Syndrome, etc.
2> his work on digging out corruption in BCCI, Iran/contra, Iraqgate etc.
"Funny how often your cronies showed up in these investigations George."
3>Healing the wounds of Vietnam in a bi-partisan way. This also hilights his tendency to not just burn bridges and abandon them, like W has, but to heal relationships with a nation we invaded and did great damge to. Relevant to today, don't you think?

The trick of course is to soundbite some of these, while planting the overarching "Ubermeme" that makes each soundbite support the next.
"cutting terrorist funding"
"Stopping nuclear proliferation"
"thwarting corrupt shadowy organized crime groups"
etc.
Similarly, the Ubermeme on Bushco, regrding swiftboat brouhaha, etc is that they are SERIAL liars, even sociopaths, JUST like Nixon-- surrounded by a support network of PROFITEERS. Smear and Fear, indeed.

In fact, I think it is VERY important for the younger minds to know about the historical thread that we are facing- in this election, particularly- between the criminal investigative and intellectually curious vs the criminally insane and decidedly INcurious. Open Gov vs CLOSED gov, etc.
(And to a slightly lesser degree in the 200 election vis a vis war profiteering and energy dialectice between Green/Gore approach and Bush/oil cabal)

/rant off
I know I'm gonna get called on overusing the "meme" as shothand, but democracy IS a form of meme warfare, is it not? And any shorthand I can use, I need to.
:evilgrin:

[Octafish]

7. WM: "Kerry Busted the Terrorist's Favorite Bank"

This recent Washington Monthly article provides an excellent overview of why BCCI and all that stuff is relevant and important. Kerry needs our help in getting the word out. The BFEE is running afraid...

Follow the Money: How John Kerry Busted the Terrorists' Favorite Bank

by David Sirota and Jonathan Baskin

Two decades ago, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was a highly respected financial titan. In 1987, when its subsidiary helped finance a deal involving Texas oilman George W. Bush, the bank appeared to be a reputable institution, with attractive branch offices, a traveler's check business, and a solid reputation for financing international trade. It had high-powered allies in Washington and boasted relationships with respected figures around the world. All that changed in early 1988, when John Kerry, then a young senator from Massachusetts, decided to probe the finances of Latin American drug cartels. Over the next three years, Kerry fought against intense opposition from vested interests at home and abroad, from senior members of his own party; and from the Reagan and Bush administrations, none of whom were eager to see him succeed.

By the end, Kerry had helped dismantle a massive criminal enterprise and exposed the infrastructure of BCCI and its affiliated institutions, a web that law enforcement officials today acknowledge would become a model for international terrorist financing. As Kerry's investigation revealed in the late 1980s and early 1990s, BCCI was interested in more than just enriching its clients--it had a fundamentally anti-Western mission. Among the stated goals of its Pakistani founder were to "fight the evil influence of the West," and finance Muslim terrorist organizations. In retrospect, Kerry's investigation had uncovered an institution at the fulcrum of America's first great post-Cold War security challenge.

More than a decade later, Kerry is his party's nominee for president, and terrorist financing is anything but a back-burner issue. The Bush campaign has settled on a new strategy for attacking Kerry: Portray him as a do-nothing senator who's weak on fighting terrorism. "After 19 years in the Senate, he's had thousands of votes, but few signature achievements," President Bush charged recently at a campaign rally in Pittsburgh; spin that's been echoed by Bush's surrogates, conservative pundits, and mainstream reporters alike, and by a steady barrage of campaign ads suggesting that the one thing Kerry did do in Congress was prove he knew nothing about terrorism. Ridiculing the senator for not mentioning al Qaeda in his 1997 book on terrorism, one ad asks: "How can John Kerry win a war if he doesn't know the enemy?"

SNIP...

But legislation is only one facet of a senator's record. As the BCCI investigation shows, Kerry developed a very different record of accomplishment--one often as vital, if not more so, than passage of bills. Kerry's probe didn't create any popular new governmental programs, reform the tax code, or eliminate bureaucratic waste and fraud. Instead, he shrewdly used the Senate's oversight powers to address the threat of terrorism well before it was in vogue, and dismantled a key terrorist weapon. In the process, observers saw a senator with tremendous fortitude, and a willingness to put the public good ahead of his own career. Those qualities might be hard to communicate to voters via one-line sound bites, but they would surely aid Kerry as president in his attempts to battle the threat of terrorism.

CONTINUED...

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0820-04.htm

[dpbrown]

11. This article is very easy to understand

I've been forwarding it widely, and I think everyone should.

This bites wingers in the ass over the weak-Kerry stuff.

DPB

Use the original link to Washington Monthly if you want:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0409.sirota.html

[blm]

13. The article is VERY easy to understand and that is why it is SO important

to keep it alive by spreading it further.

Malloy CANNOT be serious about keeping BCCI under wraps. What a major league abandonment of what will be THEE most critical issue of the campaign by the end of the Republican Convention. The media will make certain terror war is the issue and they will spin it to benefit Bush if WE on the left don't push the truth.

[Armstead]

8. kick

:kick:

[Karenina]

16. Kick!

:kick:

[Gloria]

10. Kick....I bet Jon Stewart could do a "Kevin Bacon" on this, like

he did last night with the ties from Bushco's campaign to the Swift Boat liars..............If you missed it, catch the rerun.....

[Warren DeMontague]

12. Not unless somehow Scott Peterson was involved. n/t

[LynnTheDem]

17. Don't forget

The big one most Americans never heard of; IraqGate.