Know your BFEE: Money Trumps Peace. Always.

[Octafish]

Warmonger, print by John Carroll.

In answer to a question during his press conference of Feb. 14, 2007, Gov. George W Bush said: “Money trumps peace.”

Q: A lot of our allies in Europe do a lot of business with Iran. So I wonder what your thoughts are about how you further tighten the financial pressure on Iran, in particular, if it also means economic pain for a lot of our allies.

BUSH: It's an interesting question. One of the problems, not specifically on this issue, just in general, that - let's put it this way: Money trumps peace, sometimes.

In other words, commercial interests are very powerful interests throughout the world. And part of the issue in convincing people to put sanctions on a specific country is to convince them that it's in the world's interest that they forego their own financial interest.

And that's why sometimes it's tough to get tough economic sanctions on countries, and I'm not making any comment about any particular country, but you touched on a very interesting point.

You know - so, therefore, we're constantly working with nations to convince them that what really matters in the long run is to have the environment so peace can flourish.

In the Iranian case, I firmly believe that, if they were to have a weapon, it would make it difficult for peace to flourish, and therefore I am working with people to make sure that that concern trumps whatever commercial interests may be preventing governments from acting.

I make no specific accusation with that statement. It's a broad statement. But it's an accurate assessment of what sometimes can halt multilateral diplomacy from working.

SOURCE:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-6416108,00.html

“Money trumps peace.”

That explains a lot. In fact, that explains everything about everything in regards to Bush and his cronies in the War Party. To them, money is everything.

It was odd, the way it rolled out of the crazy monkey’s mouth. Its off-the-cuff naturalness was at odds with Bush’s customary strangulation of the English language. “Money trumps peace” was obviously a phrase he was familiar with, one he had used often. Judging from his record, it’s likely the saying was something he had learned at home.

“Money trumps peace.”

When I heard it I was infuriated.

Later, came the shocker. News Flash: “Bush tells the truth.”

Then Duhbya adds:

“Sometimes.”

And all was normal, for that was a lie. Part of the Big Lie, actually. You see, to the Bush Family Evil Empire – the War Party, Money Trumps Peace. ALWAYS.

Money also trumps Truth.

Money also trumps Loyalty.

To Bush and the people he works for, Money is Everything.

Why? Because Money buys Power. And Power gives them more Money.



Dog and hood applied as weapons of torture, Abu Ghraib Prison, Baghdad.

Remember how Poppy gave April Glaspie the green-light for Saddam’s move into Iraq, back in 1990? Well, that may’ve been good enough for Lee Hamilton, but it didn’t sell the American people on making war for oil in the Middle East. Poppy and Cheney had to think up a causus belli with legs, so they came up with “WMDs.”

Anyway, the main witness for the prosecution just got hanged, but here he is in better days:

Shifting Price of Oil

TARIQ AZIZ: Our policy in OPEC opposes sudden jumps in oil prices.

HUSSEIN: Twenty-five dollars a barrel is not a high price.

GLASPIE: We have many Americans who would like to see the price go above $25 because they come from oil-producing states.

HUSSEIN: The price at one stage had dropped to $12 a barrel and a reduction in the modest Iraqi budget of $6 billion to $7 billion is a disaster.

GLASPIE: I think I understand this. I have lived here for years. I admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country. I know you need funds. We understand that and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. But we have no opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border disagreement with Kuwait.

I was in the American Embassy in Kuwait during the late 60's. The instruction we had during this period was that we should express no opinion on this issue and that the issue is not associated with America. James Baker has directed our official spokesmen to emphasize this instruction. We hope you can solve this problem using any suitable methods via Klibi or via President Mubarak. All that we hope is that these issues are solved quickly. With regard to all of this, can I ask you to see how the issue appears to us?

My assessment after 25 years' service in this area is that your objective must have strong backing from your Arab brothers. I now speak of oil But you, Mr. President, have fought through a horrific and painful war. Frankly, we can see only that you have deployed massive troops in the south. Normally that would not be any of our business. But when this happens in the context of what you said on your national day, then when we read the details in the two letters of the Foreign Minister, then when we see the Iraqi point of view that the measures taken by the U.A.E. and Kuwait is, in the final analysis, parallel to military aggression against Iraq, then it would be reasonable for me to be concerned. And for this reason, I received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship -- not in the spirit of confrontation -- regarding your intentions.

I simply describe the position of my Government. And I do not mean that the situation is a simple situation. But our concern is a simple one.

SOURCE:

http://www.chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/glaspie.html

Carlyle Group heavyweights include (clockwise from top, left)
James Baker III (represents all of Saudi Arabia named in a trillion-dollar lawsuit by 9-11 families),
George Herbert Walker (Poppy) Bush (poster boy for Plausible Deniability),
William E. Kennard (converted expertise as chair of the FCC into service for CG’s US Buyout and Telecom & Media desks), and
Frank Carlucci (college roommate of one Donald Rumsfeld).

Yes. War is Big Business. Mighty Profitable, too. No wonder some might say, let alone think, “Money trumps peace.”

War Profiteers

Profits Over Patriotism in Iraq

By Robert L. Borosage, Eric Lotke and Robert Gerson

The tales sound like tortures from the Arabian Nights. Drivers sent to their deaths in empty convoys dispatched because the contractor is paid by the trip; men stripped naked in prison and attacked by dogs; troops in the desert drinking contaminated water, waiting for meals that never come.

But the stories are not fiction. They come from the American occupation in Iraq, a military operation that has privatized war to an unprecedented degree, using private, commercial companies for everything from feeding the troops to patrolling the streets.

This report explores the unprecedented use of private contractors during the Iraq war and occupation. It shows how the catastrophic failures in Iraqi reconstruction derive directly from the conservative ideology and policies of those who drove this —“war of choice.”

—“There’s a lot of money to pay for this. We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon.”
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary1

— “I am reasonably certain that they will greet us as liberators, and that will help us keep the requirements down…. (W)e can say with reasonable confidence that the notion of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers is way off the mark.”
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Defense Secretary2I.

SNIP…

5—“I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR (Halliburton) represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.”

Testimony of Bunnatine Greenhouse, the highest ranking civilian in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.11

CONTINUED with all the details as of September 2006…

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:Q66wS6XXvqsJ:home.ourfuture.org/reports/report-war-profiteers.pdf+war-profiteers+borosage+lotke+gerson&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

PDF of complete article above: http://home.ourfuture.org/reports/report-war-profiteers.pdf

That explains a hell of a lot.

That explains the Gulf of Tonkin and the lies to ramp up Vietnam.
That explains the Cold War and how the Soviets never really were a threat to America.
That explains the Star Wars bogus missile bogus defense rip-off.
That explains Gulf War I and how Poppy lied to America about Saddam’s WMDs and a threat to Saudi Arabian oil back in 1990.
That explains sucking up to the Taliban by Texas Oil and ENRON way back when.
That explains 911, and how Bush and his crew ignored all those warnings and dots.
That explains why they tied 911 to Iraq and why Junior Monkey lied to America about WMDs in order to illegally invade Iraq.

That explains their warmongering ways.

It is their heritage. "The War Party."

Well, one woman has had the courage to stand up to these warmongers. Her name is Cindy Sheehan. She lost her son, Casey, on April 4, 2004 in George W. Bush’s War.



The Taming of Evil, painting by Renata Palubinskas.

Not much mention was made of Bush’s pronouncement in the “Main Stream Press,” but that is to be expected from Corporate McPravda – their job is to protect the crazy monkey with cufflinks.

Ms. Sheehan wrote an excellent article on the subject.

Cindy Sheehan: Money Trumps Peace...Sometimes

A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
by Cindy Sheehan
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Thu, 02/15/2007 - 10:23am. Guest Contribution

It is always painful to watch George stumble his way through press conferences. He can't get through a sentence without at least two-three "uhs," his eyelids flutter up and down in what my daughter Carly calls the "liar's blink." It is painful that a human like that is ostensibly the leader of the free world. There is always a plethora of things that he says, does, or screws up on to write about but this time what caught my attention happened during the Q&A. George was asked if he thought the economic sanctions on Iran would work because so many European nations trade with that country.

He stopped to collect his thoughts with what he thought must've looked like a studied and careful demeanor, but more like someone with a sour tummy, and said: "well, let's put it this way...money trumps peace, sometimes. In other words, commercial interests are very powerful interests throughout the world." (I added the italics.) It is always interesting with people who frequently play fast and loose with the truth, such as the liars in BushCo, once in a while if they talk long enough, they tell a truth.

"Money trumps peace" is the fundamental reason for the invasions and subsequent gory and violent occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. In Richard Behan's excellent article "From Iraq to Afghanistan: Connecting the Dots with Oil," he brilliantly follows the history of the oil-money trail in these countries that are 1) rich in oil, and 2) well placed for the transportation and delivery of oil. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan, or their leaders or governments had anything to do with 9-11, but they were in the way of oil and other industries that profit from oil, so they had to go. Money trumped peace in those countries and they are destroyed and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Afghanis, and Americans have been slaughtered because they were blocking American imperialistic profiteering.

"Money trumps peace" is the underlying reason for all wars as two-time Congressional Medal of Honor winner and highly decorated Major General Smedley D. Butler wrote in his reflective, prophetic work, "War is a Racket":

WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the very many. Out of war, a few people make huge fortunes.

CONTINUED…

http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/792

It isn’t fair to call them the BFEE. For they are more than a single family representing the interests of the world’s monied or gangster classes. They are more of a movement of the greedy.

Theirs is the real axis of evil – a line running through the hearts of men who use people as cannon fodder, enslave the survivors for profit, and envision a future where their chosen descendants thrive as royalty.

It is clear, theirs, truly, is a culture of death. They are a culture of warmongers. They are merchants of death. To such, money does trump everything. They worship Mammon. They are the War Party.

[Rick Myers]

1. K and R!!!

Magnificent!!! MONEY TRUMPS PEACE!

:kick:

[Octafish]

14. Money Trumps Peace ... in Iraq.

From a friend over at Democracy Rising...

The Bush Family's War Profiteering

Written by Administrator
Thursday, 24 February 2005

The extent of Iraq contracts going to corporations which involve members of President George W. Bush's family is widespread and extensive involving hundreds of millions of dollars. Often these firms receive contracts where the corporations have no expertise and certainly the Bush family members have no expertise or experience in these areas. It is a world not of know how but of know who, marinated in campaign contributions. It seems like Bush family and friends are trading on their relationship to the President. The matrix of government contracts and Bush related corporations invites further investigation by the media and Congress - inquiries that are long overdue.

Below are examples of Bush Family members who have profited from the war and occupation of Iraq. These issues have not been examined or reported by the mainstream media.

Neil Mallon Bush the younger brother of the President, infamous for his involvement in the Silverado S and L scandal, has been hired by Crest Investment Company as a consultant for $60,000 per year to assist with their efforts to serve as a middleman to advise other companies that seek taxpayer-financed business in Iraq. Working with Crest puts Neil Bush at the center of multiple organizations profiting from the war and occupation in close alliance with long-term Bush Family allies.

SNIP...

William H.T. ("Bucky") Bush, an uncle of George W. Bush, joined the board of directors of the St. Louis based company Engineered Support Systems in March 2000. (See: http://www.engineeredsupport.com/) Bucky Bush was one the Bush “Pioneers,” the campaign contributors who raised more than $100,000 in the 2000 presidential election. Engineered Support Systems has three areas: light military support equipment, heavy military support equipment, and electronics/automation systems. Since 2000, following the presidential election and the 9-11 attacks, the company's federal contracts, revenues and its stock value have all gone up. Engineered Support Systems has been in the top 100 contractors with the DoD since 2001. It’s contracts with the U.S. military have totaled over $1 billion.

SNIP...

William H.T. Bush is also a trustee for the investment firm Lord Abbott, one of Halliburton's top 10 shareholders and also a top-ten mutual fund holder in Halliburton, which has obtained prime contracts in Iraq. Vice President Cheney, the former CEO of Halliburton, still has between $18 million and $87 million invested through Vanguard, another top-ten holder in Halliburton stock.

SNIP...

Marvin P. Bush, the youngest brother of George W. Bush, shares an interest in federal contracts held by companies in his firm's portfolio. Marvin Bush is also an adviser at HCC Insurance, formerly called the Houston Casualty Company, one of the biggest insurance carriers for the World Trade Center. Bush was a director at HCC, which has benefited financially from the 9-11 insurance bailout legislation passed by Congress at the instigation of the White House. The departure of Marvin from the HCC board was announced the same day, November 22, 2002, as the passage of the bill.

CONTINUED...

http://www.democracyrising.us/content/view/57/81/

Thanks for kicking the BFEE in the pants, Rick Myers.

[Sydnie]

2. Octafish

You NEVER cease to amaze and educate. Thank you for all you do for all of us, each and every time. I LOVE you, dude!

[Erika]

4. This is the heart and soul(less) of the GOP

It's sad they hooked so many into their party under false pretenses.

[Octafish]

16. Money Trumps Peace ... in Iran.

Secrets of History:

The CIA in Iran

By James Risen
New York Times
April 16, 2000

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.

CONTINUED...

http://www.globalpolicy.org/empire/history/2000/0416ciairan.htm

PS: Thank you for caring and for the kind words, Sydnie. The same back at you. And I truly appreciate all you do.

[seafan]

3. And Jeb Bush waits in the wings, thinking that he is bred to rule.

Thanks, Octafish. It's all just stunning.

[bananarepublican]

5. No! He is to rule for even more 'bread' baby! n/t

[Octafish]

22. Money Trumps Peace ... in El Salvador.

The right-wing government of El Salvador fixed its social unrest problems by killing as many liberals as it could. Even priests and nuns and women and children and just about anyone who stood up and said the society should have a more equitable distribution of wealth. Hope this mindset doesn't come to America. Cough.

The crucifixion of El Salvador

What Uncle Sam Really Wants

by Noam Chomsky
ZNet © 1993

EXCERPT...

In February 1980, the Archbishop of El Salvador, Oscar Romero, sent a letter to President Carter in which he begged him not to send military aid to the junta that ran the country. He said such aid would be used to "sharpen injustice and repression against the people's organizations" which were struggling "for respect for their most basic human rights" (hardly news to Washington, needless to say).

A few weeks later, Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying a mass. The neo-Nazi Roberto d'Aubuisson is generally assumed to be responsible for this assassination (among countless other atrocities). D'Aubuisson was "leader-for-life" of the ARENA party, which now governs El Salvador; members of the party, like current Salvadoran president Alfredo Cristiani, had to take a blood oath of loyalty to him.

Thousands of peasants and urban poor took part in a commemorative mass a decade later, along with many foreign bishops, but the US was notable by its absence. The Salvadoran Church formally proposed Romero for sainthood.

All of this passed with scarcely a mention in the country that funded and trained Romero's assassins. The New York Times, the "newspaper of record," published no editorial on the assassination when it occurred or in the years that followed, and no editorial or news report on the commemoration.

On March 7, 1980, two weeks before the assassination, a state of siege had been instituted in El Salvador, and the war against the population began in force (with continued US support and involvement). The first major attack was a big massacre at the Rio Sumpul, a coordinated military operation of the Honduran and Salvadoran armies in which at least 600 people were butchered. Infants were cut to pieces with machetes, and women were tortured and drowned. Pieces of bodies were found in the river for days afterwards. There were church observers, so the information came out immediately, but the mainstream US media didn't think it was worth reporting.

Peasants were the main victims of this war, along with labor organizers, students, priests or anyone suspected of working for the interests of the people. In Carter's last year, 1980, the death toll reached about 10,000, rising to about 13,000 for 1981 as the Reaganites took command.

In October 1980, the new archbishop condemned the "war of extermination and genocide against a defenseless civilian population" waged by the security forces. Two months later they were hailed for their "valiant service alongside the people against subversion" by the favorite US "moderate," José Napoleón Duarte, as he was appointed civilian president of the junta.

The role of the "moderate" Duarte was to provide a fig leaf for the military rulers and ensure them a continuing flow of US funding after the armed forces had raped and murdered four churchwomen from the US. That had aroused some protest here; slaughtering Salvadorans is one thing, but raping and killing American nuns is a definite PR mistake. The media evaded and downplayed the story, following the lead of the Carter Administration and its investigative commission.

The incoming Reaganites went much further, seeking to justify the atrocity, notably Secretary of State Alexander Haig and UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick. But it was still deemed worthwhile to have a show trial a few years later, while exculpating the murderous junta -- and, of course, the paymaster.

CONTINUED...

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/sam-2-02.html

Thanks for caring, seafan. The thing these traitors and gangsters fear more than anything is the Truth.

[nolabels]

6. Technally shouldn't it be............

"Money and the power for the oligarch to steal more of it trumps the common persons ability to have peace in their time"


"Soak Up The Sun" youtube type version>>>>

http://video.google.com/url?docid=-2136380675314317537&esrc=gvpl&ev=v&q=Soak+Up+The+Sun&vidurl=http://video.google.com/videoplay%3Fdocid%3D-2136380675314317537%26q%3DSoak%2BUp%2BThe%2BSun%26hl%3Den&usg=AL29H21uWtlpb9rFAt6kQT4nAjK9oASRpg

SHERYL CROW LYRICS

"Soak Up The Sun"

My friend the communist
Holds meetings in his RV
I can't afford his gas
So I'm stuck here watching TV
I don't have digital
I don't have diddly squat
It's not having what you want
It's wanting what you've got


I'm gonna soak up the sun
Gonna tell everyone
To lighten up (I'm gonna tell 'em that)
I've got no one to blame
For every time I feel lame
I'm looking up o I'm gonna soak up the sun
I'm gonna soak up the sun
I've got a crummy job
It don't pay near enough
To buy the things it takes
To win me some of your love
Every time I turn around
I'm looking up, you're looking down
Maybe something's wrong with you
That makes you act the way you do
Maybe i am crazy too



I'm gonna soak up the sun
While it's still free
I'm gonna soak up the sun
Before it goes out on me
Don't have no master suite
I'm still the king of me
You have a fancy ride, but baby
I'm the one who has the key
Every time I turn around
I'm looking up, you're looking down
Maybe something's wrong with you
That makes you act the way you do
Maybe I am crazy too



I'm gonna soak up the sun
Got my 45 on
So I can rock on.

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/sherylcrow/soakupthesun.html

[Octafish]

24. Money Trumps Peace ... in Chile.

Prescott Bush's puppets Nixon and Kissinger were hard at work, protecting capitalism from the "Cone pointed at the heart of the United States."

The Atrocities of Gen. Augusto Pinochet and the United States

The Condor Model

By ROGER BURBACH
CounterPunch December 11, 2006

In Santiago on September 11, 1973 I watched as Chilean air force jets flew overhead. Moments later I heard explosions and saw fireballs of smoke fill the sky as the presidential palace went up in flames. Salvador Allende, the elected Socialist president of Chile died in the palace.

As an American the death of General Augusto Pinochet brings back many memories of the military coup and the role played by my government in the violent overthrow of Allende. From the moment of his election in September, 1970 the Nixon administration mounted a covert campaign against him. Henry Kissinger, then Nixon's National Security adviser, declared: "I don't see why we need to stand idly by and watch a country go Communist due to the irresponsibility of its own people." Weeks later the pro-constitutionalist head of the army, General Rene Schneider, was assassinated in a failed attempt to stop the inauguration of Allende.

For the next three years CIA-backed terrorist groups bombed and destroyed state railroads, power plants and key highway arteries to create chaos and stop the country from functioning. The goal was to "make the economy scream" as Nixon ordered. US corporations such as IT&T also participated in the efforts to destabilize the country.

In the midst of this struggle for control of Chile, Allende insisted, almost stubbornly, on maintaining the country's democratic institutions. He enjoyed immense popular support from below, even in the waning days of his government when the economy was in shambles and virtually everyone believed a confrontation was imminent. I'll never forget the last major demonstration on September 4, 1973, when the Alameda, the major avenue of downtown Santiago, was packed with tens of thousands of marchers, all intent on passing by the presidential palace where Allende stood on a balcony waving to the crowd. This was no government-orchestrated demonstration in which people were trucked in from the barrios and countryside. These people came out of a deep sense of commitment, a belief that this was their government and that they would defend it to the end.

In the aftermath of the coup over three thousand people perished, including two American friends of mine, Charles Horman and Frank Terrugi. The United States knowing of these atrocities, rushed to support the military regime, reopening the spigot of economic aid that had been closed under Allende. When the relatives of Horman and Terrugi made determined inquires about their disappearances and deaths, the US embassy and the State Department stonewalled along with the new military junta. Four weeks after the coup, I fled across the Andes, returning to the United States to do what I could to denounce the crimes of Pinochet and my government.

SNIP...

http://www.counterpunch.org/burbach12112006.html

Thank you for kicking the War Party in the pants, nolabels. I also really appreciate that great song. Wow!

[nolabels]

42. People and Democracy trump >>>anything

I was just trying to lighten things up. Hoping that people might decide that looking at the positive aspects in the negative information and news we receive might be more productive.

This thing called the internet depends on everybody to make it work and to that point we can all thank each other for making it work. It's one of those things that looks like the sum is greater than the parts, but on careful examination we see the parts are much greater than the whole. This portal of the internet brings great insight that seems to only be getting even better. I personally have fiddled around as a novice with P.C.s for about 15 or 16 years and never dreamed how much the technology has changed around them. The even stranger thing is how much some people resist the information that it now can bring.

The greatest thing is that this phenomena, the internet and P.C.s, might be upending the grip wealth and privilege that has been stifling the rest of the population. There are many things that are happening all around and mostly in quite a few ways it's that things are getting better. To be able to watch it all happen in front of us, we are just kind of lucky some how :shrug:

As for Venezuela..............

The Revolution will not be Televised
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=3119073

[fooj]

7. The War Party run by WAR CRIMINALS!

[Octafish]

25. Money Trumps Peace ... in Indonesia.

Such a happy war criminal. He was probably drunk when all this happened:

Indonesia 1958: Nixon, the CIA, and the Secret War

Blood ran in the streets. Villages were wiped out
and a million people massacred in a battle for the
riches and political control of Indonesia. Nixon
and the CIA wanted Sukarno overthrown. But the
creator of Indonesia knew how to fight.

By L. Fletcher Prouty
reprinted with the permission of the author

A letter from one of the most beautiful women in the world lies buried in a stack of mail on President Ford's desk. Written in Paris on July 24, 1975, by Dewi Sukarno, the former First Lady of Indonesia and widow of Dr. Achmed Sukarno, the charismatic Father of Indonesia, the letter is an appeal to President Ford for a complete explanation of the CIA-led and supported rebellions that took place in Indonesia in 1958 and 1965.

It is not well known in the United States that the 1958 rebellion led to a major Indonesian civil war. The CIA-inspired uprising in Indonesia, unlike the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, was a full-scale military operation. The Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 was made by a thin brigade of about 1,500 Cuban exiles trained by the CIA in Guatemala. But the 1958 Indonesian action involved no less than 42,000 CIA-armed rebels supported by a fleet of bombers and vast numbers of four-engine transport aircraft as well as submarine assistance from the U.S. Navy. It also involved a major training and logistical supporting effort on the part of the Philippines, Okinawa, Taiwan, and Singapore. But despite this massive armed force, the 1958 rebellion, like the Bay of Pigs invasion, was a total failure. Sukarno's army drove the rebels on Sumatra and Celebes into the sea.

There are some who might call the 1965 uprising a success. At least the rebels were not driven into the sea. However, for the United States it was a fantastically costly endeavor. The rebellion ended in the most massive and ruthless bloodbath since World War II. While the headlines in the United States dealt with the slaughter in Vietnam, the press of the rest of the world heaped blame on the United States for the barbaric massacre in Indonesia. The victorious new government of General Suharto proceeded to assassinate nearly one million people. This terrible slaughter and the ensuing imprisonment of tens of thousands of Indonesians stirred Dewi Sukarno to seek President Ford's assistance in gaining the release of her countrymen from prison.

Dewi Sukarno has received no answer. But even without a reply she knows. The silence from Washington speaks for itself. A denial, if true, would have come without hesitation. The Indonesians know. The Latins had a phrase for it, "Is fecit cui prodest" -- the perpetrator of a crime is he who profits by it. Today, major U.S. enterprises are plundering the raw material wealth of Indonesia -- rubber, tin, and oil -- in a manner that is more vile than what is happening in Chile. And there is no one to stop them.

Achmed Sukarno was one of those rare men who rose during the hours of crisis to unite one hundred million people and lead them out of the ashes of World War II. Sukarno came to liberate his country from the Japanese, the Dutch, the Portuguese, and from all others who were ready to enslave his country once again. He established his government on the "Five Pillars": (l) belief in one supreme God (2) just and civilized humanity (3) unity of Indonesia (4) democracy (5) social justice.

CONTINUED...

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/Indo58.html

"Indonesia for the Indonesians." -- Firesign Theatre.

Thanks for giving a damn, fooj.

[yowzayowzayowza]

8. Mammon, indeed.

And the fundies still line up rite behind 'em.

K&R

[Octafish]

31. Money Trumps Peace ... in Guatemala.

Perhaps as many as 100,000 were murdered as a direct result of the coup toppling democratically elected President Arbenz.

The ten years of spring

... The second president during this era, President Jacobo Arbenz (1951-1954), permits free expression, legalizes unions, allows diverse political parties, and initiates basic socioeconomic reforms.

And for what?



Money.

Guatemala 1953-1954
While the world watched

excerpted from the book

Killing Hope

by William Blum

To whom does a poor banana republic turn when a CIA army is advancing upon its territory and CIA planes are overhead bombing the country?

The leaders of Guatemala tried everyone-the United Nations, the Organization of American States, other countries individually, the world press, even the United States itself, in the desperate hope that it was all a big misunderstanding, that in the end, reason would prevail.

Nothing helped. Dwight Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles and Allen Dulles had decided that the legally-elected government of Jacobo Arbenz was "communist", therefore must go and go it did, in June 1954.

In the midst of the American preparation to overthrow the government, the Guatemalan Foreign Minister, Guillermo Toriello, lamented that the United States was categorizing "as 'communism' every manifestation of nationalism or economic independence any desire for social progress, any intellectual curiosity, and any interest in progressive liberal reforms."

*****

The Guatemalan president , who took office in March 1951 after being elected by a wide margin, had no special contact or spiritual/ideological ties with the Soviet Union or the rest of the Communist bloc. Although American policymakers and the American press, explicitly and implicitly, often labeled Arbenz a communist, there were those in Washington who knew better, at least during their more dispassionate moments. Under Arbenz's administration Guatemala had voted at the United Nations so closely with the United States on issues of "Soviet imperialism" that a State Department group occupied with planning Arbenz's overthrow concluded that propaganda concerning Guatemala's UN record "would not be particularly helpful in our case". And a State Department analysis paper reported that the Guatemalan president had support "not only from Communist-led labor and the radical fringe of professional and intellectual groups, but also among many anti-Communist nationalists in urban areas".
CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Guatemala_KH.html

Money should not trump anything. Most of all, people.

Isn't that what the Golden Rule is about?

[DemReadingDU]

9. morning kick

[Octafish]

32. Money Trumps Peace ... in Liberia.

Some conservative televangelists are doing quite well these days. I'd bet Rev Rolex Robertson has a bigger cashflow than most African nations. With good reason. Pat "The Korean War Deserter & Liquor Officer" Robertson is just the kind of dominionist rat bastard who benefits from the war racket.

Pat Robertson's Gold

By Colbert I. King
Washington Post Saturday, September 22, 2001; Page A29

Last week's terrorist attacks brought out the worst in televangelists Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Three days after hijacked jetliners slammed into the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and the Pennsylvania countryside, Robertson posted a statement on his Christian Broadcast Network (CBN) Web site announcing that pornography, rampant secularism, the occult, abortion, the absence of prayer in schools and insults of God "at the highest level of our government" had sent the Almighty over the edge. America was attacked, Robertson asserted, "because God Almighty is lifting His protection from us."

Appearing on CBN's "700 Club" the day before Robertson's blast, Falwell had also cut loose.

Falwell (who you may recall feared that Tinky Winky the Teletubby was gay and out to damage the moral lives of children) singled out homosexuals, supporters of abortion rights, pagans, the American Civil Liberties Union and People for the American Way as groups to blame for the Tuesday massacres. But a day later and facing a firestorm of criticism, Falwell backtracked. Labeling his own comments "insensitive, uncalled for at the time, and unnecessary as part of the comment on this destruction," Falwell said he blamed no one but the hijackers and terrorists for what happened.

Robertson, who had joined Falwell's blame game during the show, ("Jerry, that's my feeling") cut and ran when it hit the fan. "Severe and harsh in tone" was how Robertson characterized pal Falwell's remarks in a later press release. "Totally inappropriate," he later said during a Fox News appearance.

SNIP...

Which is the subject of today's column, and the basis for this humble question: What, pray tell, does the Good Lord make of Pat Robertson's gold-mining venture in Liberia with Charles Taylor, international pariah and one of the most ruthless, greedy and terror-producing heads of state in all of sub-Saharan Africa?

SNIP...

But in May 1999, Robertson, through Freedom Gold Limited, an offshore company registered in the Cayman Islands but based at CBN headquarters in Virginia Beach, signed an agreement with Taylor and key cabinet members allowing the for-profit Freedom Gold to explore and receive mining rights in southeastern Liberia, where gold is believed to be in the ground.

CONTINUED...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A7124-2001Sep21

Pay The Lord.

Oops. I mean,

Pass The Loot.

[conscious evolution]

10. Once again

I'm kicking and recommending one of your posts.
Thanks for your work on getting the facts about the bfee out to the world.

[Octafish]

33. Money Trumps Peace ... in Honduras.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB27/02-01.htm

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/latin_america/honduras/

Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler, U.S.M.C. made things "right" in Honduras.

Major-General Smedley Butler (1881-1940)

By Richard Sanders, Editor, Press for Conversion!

Major-General Smedley Darlington Butler, a 33-year veteran of the Marine Corps who was twice decorated with the Medal of Honor, blew the whistle on the fascist plot to oust FDR. He also confessed to having been a “high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.”

In his book War is a Racket, 1935, Butler opens with these lines:

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope.... the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.
A racket is best described as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it.... I must face it and speak out."

In “Time of Peace,” Common Sense, Nov. 1935, Butler said:

"There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its ‘finger men’ (to point out enemies), its ‘muscle men’ (to destroy enemies), its ‘brain men’ (to plan war preparations), and a “Big Boss” (super-nationalistic capitalism).

It may seem odd for a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups.

I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras “right” for American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927, I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested....

I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket.... I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was operate his racket in three city districts. We Marines operated on three continents....

Our exploits against the American Indian, the Filipinos, the Mexicans, and against Spain are on a par with the campaigns of Genghis Khan, the Japanese in Manchuria and the African attack of Mussolini. No country has ever declared war on us before we first obliged them with that gesture. Our whole history shows we have never fought a defensive war."

Butler made these conclusions in his book War is a Racket:

"* We must take the profit out of war.
* We must permit the youth..., who would bear arms, to decide whether or not there should be war.
* We must limit our military to defense purposes....

Secretly each nation is studying and perfecting newer and ghastlier means of annihilating its foes wholesale.... Ships will continue to be built, for shipbuilders must make their profits. And guns still will be manufactured... powder and rifles will be made, for the munitions makers must make their huge profits.... Victory or defeat will be determined by the skill and ingenuity of our scientists.

If we put them to work making poison gas and more and more fiendish mechanical and explosive instruments of destruction, they will have no time for the constructive job of building greater prosperity for all peoples. By putting them to this useful job, we can all make more money out of peace than we can out of war – even the munitions makers.

So...I say, TO HELL WITH WAR!"

SOURCE:

http://coat.ncf.ca/our_magazine/links/53/butler.html

Gen. Butler won two Medals of Honor for his heroism. He knew what war was all about. And he knew more than most good men about rackets.

Thank you for everything, conscious evolution. We've got these fascist turds on the run (They are buying land in Paraguay?).

[conscious evolution]

39. Too bad we don't have more Smedley Butlers.

General Clark is ok but we need him and other Generals to start speaking up.We need more Genaerals to come forward with what they know about the crimes of the bfee.

If more did so then maybe the 30%'s would start to wake up and smell the grits.

What the bfee is doing needs to be totally exposed.

[Virginia Dare]

11. That, in fact, is the Bush family motto...

and sums up in three words their entire existence in this world.

[blm]

20. Perpetual war means perpetual control and perpetual PROFITS. In a word - FASCISM.

That is why it is so imperative to some of us that the next Democratic administration not continue the coverups for BushInc.

There is no real change if we just put up a friendlier fascist face to replace the more aggressive one.

[Octafish]

35. Money Trumps Peace ... in Brazil.

They have no shame, the War Party.

BRAZIL MARKS 40th ANNIVERSARY OF MILITARY COUP

DECLASSIFIED DOCUMENTS SHED LIGHT ON U.S. ROLE

Audio tape: President Johnson urged taking "every step that we can" to support overthrow of Joao Goulart

U.S. Ambassador Requested Pre-positioned Armaments to aid Golpistas; Acknowledged covert operations backing street demonstrations, civic forces and resistance groups

Edited by Peter Kornbluh
[email protected] / 202 994-7116

Washington D.C., 31 March 2004 - "I think we ought to take every step that we can, be prepared to do everything that we need to do," President Johnson instructed his aides regarding preparations for a coup in Brazil on March 31, 1964. On the 40th anniversary of the military putsch, the National Security Archive today posted recently declassified documents on U.S. policy deliberations and operations leading up to the overthrow of the Goulart government on April 1, 1964. The documents reveal new details on U.S. readiness to back the coup forces.

The Archive's posting includes a declassified audio tape of Lyndon Johnson being briefed by phone at his Texas ranch, as the Brazilian military mobilized against Goulart. "I'd put everybody that had any imagination or ingenuity… McCone… McNamara" on making sure the coup went forward, Johnson is heard to instruct undersecretary of State George Ball. "We just can't take this one," the tape records LBJ's opinion. "I'd get right on top of it and stick my neck out a little."

Among the documents are Top Secret cables sent by U.S. Ambassador Lincoln Gordon who forcefully pressed Washington for direct involvement in supporting coup plotters led by Army Chief of Staff General Humberto Castello Branco. "If our influence is to be brought to bear to help avert a major disaster here-which might make Brazil the China of the 1960s-this is where both I and all my senior advisors believe our support should be placed," Gordon wrote to high State Department, White House and CIA officials on March 27, 1964.

To assure the success of the coup, Gordon recommended "that measures be taken soonest to prepare for a clandestine delivery of arms of non-US origin, to be made available to Castello Branco supporters in Sao Paulo." In a subsequent cable, declassified just last month, Gordon suggested that these weapons be "pre-positioned prior any outbreak of violence," to be used by paramilitary units and "friendly military against hostile military if necessary." To conceal the U.S. role, Gordon recommended the arms be delivered via "unmarked submarine to be off-loaded at night in isolated shore spots in state of Sao Paulo south of Santos."

Gordon's cables also confirm CIA covert measures "to help strengthen resistance forces" in Brazil. These included "covert support for pro-democracy street rallies…and encouragement democratic and anti-communist sentiment in Congress, armed forces, friendly labor and student groups, church, and business." Four days before the coup, Gordon informed Washington that "we may be requesting modest supplementary funds for other covert action programs in the near future." He also requested that the U.S. send tankers carrying "POL"-petroleum, oil and lubricants-to facilitate the logistical operations of the military coup plotters, and deploy a naval task force to intimidate Goulart's backers and be in position to intervene militarily if fighting became protracted.

Although the CIA is widely known to have been involved in covert action against Goulart leading up to the coup, its operational files on intervention in Brazil remain classified-to the consternation of historians. Archive analyst Peter Kornbluh called on the Agency to "lift the veil of secrecy off one of the most important episodes of U.S. intervention in the history of Latin America" by completely declassifying the record of CIA operations in Brazil. Both the Clinton and Bush administrations conducted significant declassifications on the military regimes in Chile and Argentina, he noted. "Declassification of the historical record on the 1964 coup and the military regimes that followed would advance U.S. interests in strengthening the cause of democracy and human rights in Brazil, and in the rest of Latin America," Kornbluh said.

On March 31, the documents show, Gordon received a secret telegram from Secretary of State Dean Rusk stating that the Administration had decided to immediately mobilize a naval task force to take up position off the coast of Brazil; dispatch U.S. Navy tankers "bearing POL" from Aruba; and assemble an airlift of 110 tons of ammunition and other equipment including "CS agent"-a special gas for mob control. During an emergency White House meeting on April 1, according to a CIA memorandum of conversation, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara told President Johnson that the task force had already set sail, and an Esso tanker with motor and aviation gasoline would soon be in the vicinity of Santos. An ammunition airlift, he reported, was being readied in New Jersey and could be sent to Brazil within 16 hours.

Such U.S. military support for the military coup proved unnecessary; Castello Branco's forces succeeded in overthrowing Goulart far faster and with much less armed resistance then U.S. policy makers anticipated. On April 2, CIA agents in Brazil cabled that "Joao Goulart, deposed president of Brazil, left Porto Alegre about 1pm local time for Montevideo."

CONTINUED...

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB118/

Their legacy is death.



Money Trumps Peace.

[mod mom]

12. I hope every DUer takes the time to thoroughly read your posts, Octafish.

I have learned more history with your series than all through grad school. Looks like I have some good reading for after the kids are in bed. Thank you!

:patriot:

[Octafish]

46. Money Trumps Peace ... on Earth.

At the continued risk of sounding pedantic...

How White House Warmongers Learned to Love Empire

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on September 27, 2006, Printed on September 27, 2006

Long before President Bush articulated his Middle East doctrine, an earlier Republican administration argued that a different region was so corrupt, so in need of reform, and was saddled with such oppressive and backward rulers that bringing about stability and the potential for prosperity for its citizens was beyond the realm of politics or diplomacy.

Ronald Reagan smilingly asserted that only U.S.-backed violence and American-style nation building could give the benighted people of Central America a chance to join the modern world.

He followed the claim with his infamous "dirty wars," and his administration framed the bloodshed in the loftiest and most idealistic terms. The Reagan administration launched an intensive public relations campaign to convince Americans that the tens of thousands of civilian deaths that resulted were regrettable but necessary, not only because of the United States' mission to promote human rights and democracy around the world but also in order to defeat terrorism.

Clearly, there are differences between Reagan's wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua two decades ago and Bush's debacle in Iraq today. But there are also threads that bind the two.

In his new book, Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism, historian Greg Grandin pulls those threads together and argues that U.S. intervention in Latin America, especially during the 1980s, served as a laboratory in which a group of neocons -- many of whom served both administrations -- distilled their unique and lethal worldview.

AlterNet caught up with Grandin recently to get the scoop on his new book.

Joshua Holland: Your book looks at the United States’ long history with Latin America, and you argue that during Reagan’s dirty wars in the 1980s in Central America, much of the ideology and the tactics and -- how should I put it? -- the sales pitch for supporting aggressive military action back home that we’ve come to associate with the Bush Doctrine were developed, and you say that it was possible precisely because Central America wasn’t important, that it wasn’t a focus of the international community and wasn’t caught up in the competition of the Cold War.

Greg Grandin: Of course Latin America as a whole has been extraordinarily important in terms of the development of both American foreign policy and our own domestic politics. What I try to do with the book is look at how U.S. corporate elites -- the Guggenheims, the Rockefellers and so forth -- first established themselves in Latin America with their overseas subsidiaries and how U.S. political elites viewed the region as the first place to project American power.

But Central America in the 1980s, I argue, was really a backwater and securely within the U.S. sphere of power. Washington could act there without fear of real consequences.

When Reagan came to power, despite his rhetoric as a Cold Warrior, he actually carried out a policy of moderation, and even conciliation, in much of the rest of the world; he pulled out of Lebanon, in the end he agreed to sanctions against South Africa and he negotiated with Gorbachev. And this is where Central America’s unimportance comes in. He gave the region to conservative movement cadres – it was a form of “wish fulfillment,” the place where they could match words to deeds, where they could carry out their fantasy of not just rehabilitating aggressive American militarism after our defeat in Vietnam, but of hitching that militarism to a reinvigorated sense of American purpose. This I argue is the core of the Bush Doctrine, or what I call in the book “punitive idealism.”

Holland: Let me pull that apart a bit. After Vietnam there was a lot of opposition to the kind of militarism that dragged us into that war, and many in the New Right reacted to that backlash by adopting some of the rhetoric of democratization and human rights that the war's critics had used. That's something we see from the Bush administration as well -- the idealistic wrapping. But one thing isn't clear to me: At times you seem to credit them with being true believers in the benevolence of American power, and at other times you suggest it was just pure spin.

Grandin: Well, obviously it’s a big question in the way one thinks about the motivation of what propels the Bush administration and what propels U.S. foreign policy more broadly. On one level, it was pure manipulation -- I mean you can look at memos from people like Elliott Abrams in which he discusses in a very calculated manner how the concept of human rights should be appropriated to re-establish American policy on a more moral footing. Or you can look at Otto Reich’s Office of Public Diplomacy, which was set up in 1983 to sell the wars in Central America using modern PR techniques -- his PR experts polled Americans and found out that concepts like human rights and democracy played well.

So on that level, it’s certainly very calculated, but on another, the reason that it works is that it taps into a deep and abiding strand of American political culture -- of American nationalism -- this sense of having a special providential purpose in the world and having a kind of moral mission to bring freedom or democracy to benighted lands. So, yes, it’s calculated, but it wouldn’t be effective if it didn’t have real resonance, including among policy makers.

Observers also contrast real politik, or realism, with the human rights rhetoric of the Bush administration. Some “old right” conservatives, like Pat Buchanan, call for a restoration of an old-fashioned realism rooted in a defense of national interests and not designed to spread democracy through the world. But if you look back at the kind of hard-headed realism that they’re talking about – the kind embodied during the Reagan era by Jeane Kirkpatrick, his ambassador to the U.N. -- there is a deep moralism embedded in it. Even though Kirkpatrick repeatedly chided the Democrats for believing they could democratize the world, there is in her writings and speeches a sense of moral righteousness that easily morphs into neocon idealism, a belief that if the U.S. acts with purity of purpose to defend its national interests, it will benefit the rest of the world. In the book, I describe it as Hobbes meeting Kant in Central America.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/42073/

Thank you very much, mod mom. You caring means the world to me, my Friend.

[calimary]

13. Keep up the drumbeat. The more people know about this...

Well, you get the idea.

BTW: TOLL FREE Capitol Hill switchboard numbers updated here:

Posted in General Discussion forum:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x250991


Also posted in General Discussion-Politics forum:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3123083

Granted, this is on another issue (the utterly scandalous Building 18 disgrace), but I'm still spreading it around. These are useful for ANY of your bush/republi-CON pet peeves.

[Octafish]

47. Money Trumps Peace ... in Cambodia.

Those weren't dominoes. They were people.

Pol Pot And Kissinger

On war criminality and impunity

By Edward S. Herman

The hunt is on once again for war criminals, with ongoing trials of accused Serbs in The Hague, NATO raids seizing and killing other accused Serbs, and much discussion and enthusiasm in the media for bringing Pol Pot to trial, which the editors of the New York Times assure us would be "an extraordinary triumph for law and civilization" (June 24).

The Politics of War Criminality

There are, however, large numbers of mass murderers floating around the world. How are the choices made on who will be pursued and who will be granted impunity? The answer can be found by following the lines of dominant interest and power and watching how the mainstream politicians, media, and intellectuals reflect these demands. Media attention and indignation "follows the flag," and the flag follows the money (i.e., the demands of the corporate community), with some eccentricity based on domestic political calculations. This sometimes yields droll twists and turns, as in the case of Saddam Hussein, consistently supported through the 1980s in his war with Iran and chemical warfare attacks on Iraqi Kurds, until his invasion of Kuwait in 1990, transformed him overnight into "another Hitler." Similarly, Pol Pot, "worse than Hitler" until his ouster by Vietnam in 1979, then quietly supported for over a decade by the United States and its western allies (along with China) as an aid in "bleeding Vietnam," but now no longer serviceable to western policy and once again a suitable target for a war crimes trial.

Another way of looking at our targeting of war criminals is by analogy to domestic policy choices on budget cuts and incarceration, where the pattern is to attack the relatively weak and ignore and protect those with political and economic muscle. Pol Pot is now isolated and politically expendable, so an obvious choice for villainization. By contrast, Indonesian leader Suharto, the butcher of perhaps a million people (mainly landless peasants) in 1965-66, and the invader, occupier, and mass murderer of East Timor from 1975 to today, is courted and protected by the Great Powers, and was referred to by an official of the Clinton administration in 1996 as "our kind of guy." Pinochet, the torturer and killer of many thousands, is treated kindly in the United States as the Godfather of the wonderful new neoliberal Chile. President Ford and Secretary of State Kissinger, who gave the go ahead to Suharto’s invasion of East Timor and subsequent massive war crimes there, and the same Kissinger, who helped President Nixon engineer and then protect the Pinochet coup and regime of torture and murder and directed the first phase of the holocaust in Cambodia (1969-75), remain honored citizens. The media have never suggested that these men should be brought to trial in the interest of justice, law, and "civilization."

U.S./Western Embrace of Pol Pot

The Times editorial of June 24 recognizes a small problem in pursuing Pol Pot, arising from the fact that after he was forced out of Cambodia by Vietnam, "From 1979 to 1991, Washington indirectly backed the Khmer Rouge, then a component of the guerrilla coalition fighting the Vietnamese installed Government ." This does seem awkward: the United States and its allies giving economic, military, and political support to Pol Pot, and voting for over a decade to have his government retain Cambodia’s UN seat, but now urging his trial for war crimes. The Times misstates and understates the case: the United States gave direct as well as indirect aid to Pol Pot—in one estimate, $85 million in direct support—and it "pressured UN agencies to supply the Khmer Rouge," which "rapidly improved" the health and capability of Pol Pot’s forces after 1979 (Ben Kiernan, "Cambodia’s Missed Chance," Indochina Newsletter, Nov.-Dec. 1991). U.S. ally China was a very large arms supplier to Pol Pot, with no penalty from the U.S. and in fact U.S. connivance—Carter’s National Security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski stated that in 1979 "I encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot...Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him but China could."

In 1988-89 Vietnam withdrew its army from Cambodia, hoping that this would produce a normalization of relationships. Thailand and other nations in the region were interested in a settlement, but none took place for several more years "because of Chinese and U.S. rejection of any...move to exclude the Khmer Rouge. The great powers...continued to offer the Khmer Rouge a veto," which the Khmer Rouge used, with Chinese aid, "to paralyze the peace process and...advance their war aims." The Bush administration threatened to punish Thailand for "its defection from the aggressive U.S.-Chinese position," and George Shultz and then James Baker fought strenously to sabotage any concessions to Vietnam, the most important of which was exclusion of Pol Pot from political negotiations and a place in any interim government of Cambodia. The persistent work of the Reagan-Bush team on behalf of Pol Pot has been very much downplayed, if not entirely suppressed, in the mainstream media.

The Times has a solution to the awkwardness of the post-1978 Western support of Pol Pot: "All Security Council members...might spare themselves embarrassment by restricting the scope of prosecution to those crimes committed inside Cambodia during the four horrific years of Khmer Rouge rule." We must give the Times credit for semi-honesty in admitting that this is to avoid embarrassing the Great Powers. It is interesting, though, that the Times finds no real problem in the "dirty hands," and hypocrisy, so apparent in the lengthy support of war criminals, and that it offers no reflections on how "law and civilization" are served if the criminals were protected and supported for more than a decade by the forces of law and order.

CONTINUED...

http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/hermansept97.htm

Four or five million people.



"Money trumps peace." -- George W Bush, Feb. 14, 2007.

[Annces]

15. I had a dream that James Baker and others

were working to see who they wanted for the next President. This stuff is getting to me.

[Octafish]

49. Money Trumps Peace ... in China.

Chinese are among the worst human-rights violators ever. No problem, though, when it comes to getting a big piece of the action. Poppy's brother -- that would be W's "Uncle" for the lurking freeper set -- was head of the US-China Chamber of Commerce during the time when the USA opened wide for the flood of cheap products and America's manufacturing base was eroded down to a shadow of its former self.

President's uncle shares Bush family ties to China

By Debbie Howlett, USA TODAY
02/18/2002 - Updated 10:33 PM ET

CHICAGO — When President Bush arrives in Beijing on Thursday, he'll embrace a policy that's something of a family tradition.

Bush's approach centers on promoting U.S.-China economic ties. That's a course favored not only by his father, the first President Bush, but also by his uncle, Prescott Bush Jr., a longtime acquaintance of Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

The Bush family's ties to China go back to 1974, when President Nixon named George Bush ambassador to China. The college-age George W. Bush spent two months in China visiting his parents during his father's two-year stint.

Seven years after his brother left the ambassadorial post, Prescott Bush made his first trip to China. He later joined with Japanese partners in 1988 to build a golf course in Shanghai, the first in China. He met Jiang, who was then the mayor of Shanghai.

Prescott Bush, now 79, also developed a close working relationship with Rong Yiren, a former trade minister and vice president, who in 1993 introduced Bush to a group of Chinese business leaders as "an old friend." In 2000, Forbes publications reported that Rong, who has retired from government, was the richest man in China.

The president's uncle concedes that he sometimes relied on his name to open doors, but he says any deals he made were the result of his own hard work.

"You can get a meeting because of it, you can meet a lot of people because of it," he said in a recent interview in Chicago, where the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce has its headquarters. "But I don't get a lot of business because my nephew is president or my brother was president."

CONTINUED...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002/02/19/usat-prescott-bush.htm

Never mind the downed spy plane. Everybody got a Bible.

[donkeyotay]

17. Another excellent post

Theirs is the real axis of evil – a line running through the hearts of men who use people as cannon fodder, enslave the survivors for profit, and envision a future where their chosen descendants thrive as royalty.

It is clear, theirs, truly, is a culture of death. They are a culture of warmongers. They are merchants of death. To such, money does trump everything. They worship Mammon. They are the War Party.

That is the thing. They privatized our defense and all that secrecy and power helped create a class of war profiteers who have ENSLAVED us. If your vote doesn't count, if you don't have the money to purchase a representative (let alone a majority), if you don't own a teevee studio to have a voice, then really, what are you but a slave? The GOP, before they morphed into the terra-all-the-time party, was the party of the so-called free market. Does anyone remember what a dismal failure for democracy those policies were? But having arranged for money to triumph democracy, they proceeded to create the fascist state premised on terra that we have now resigned ourselves and our children to live in.

Octafish, you give people all the information they need to open their eyes, if they choose to invest some time in educating themselves. For the attention-challenged, I offer this simple bedtime story:

Once upon a time, there was a war privateer who wanted to have a big war to steal some more oil. Since his party had previously conspired with a foreign nation whose name we must not speak to betray the government that the stupid people had elected, it was natural for these two somewhat separate interests to be united by private defense contracting bidness. This war privateer wanted to be elected president, but was told he was too fucking ugly to get elected. So, he turned to the clueless one who had staked out a turf in the born again industry. The clueless one was reassured that the teevee could sell him like soap. It was hard to believe, but they could and did. At long last the war privateer only needed one last coup d'etat to place the country under his control and - trifecta time - he got it. These motherfuckers plan to drain every drop of profit from this country, and then I imagine they will move on because they are, after all, an international crime family, not particularly affiliated with the United States other than the fact that its military has been its prize. So, now that the war profiteers have us firmly under their grip, they will live happily ever after. We, however, will not.

[Octafish]

50. Money Trumps Peace ... in Saudi Arabia.

Guess who cares if the House of Saud is filled with corrupt gangsters who squander their petrobillions at the baccarat table in Monaco and at the annual global gun shows?



W's Texas Air National Guard buddy, James R Bath, cares.



"El que lee mucho y handa mucho, vee mucho y sabe mucho."



Thank you for caring and for understanding what this is all about, Don Q.

[Bobbie Jo]

18. Required reading, indeed.....

Truth trumps everything else....


Thank you Octafish! O8)

[Octafish]

52. Money Trumps Peace ... in Korea.

A pattern has emerged over the decades, when it comes to the BFEE, there's money to be made playing both sides off each other.

Moon/Bush 'Ongoing Crime Enterprise'

From petty local scams to international money-laundering, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s political/media/business/religious empire has all the looks of a global “ongoing criminal enterprise,” albeit one with enough powerful friends in Washington to protect it from serious consequences.

By Robert Parry
February 17, 2007

Benefiting from relationships with the Bush family and other prominent Republicans, Moon’s Unification Church slips away from one illegal scheme after another – despite overwhelming evidence and first-person admissions about the systematic pattern of the criminality. Somehow U.S. authorities never put two and two together.

Even Moon’s 1982 felony conviction for tax evasion arising from an earlier money-laundering scheme and public confessions from his ex-daughter-in-law and other church insiders about later financial conspiracies don’t clue in the feds to the bigger picture before them.

So, while prosecutors mostly look the other way, Moon continues to pour an estimated $100 million a year into his influential Washington Times newspaper and other pro-Republican media outlets. Additional millions have gone to fund right-wing political conferences; to pay speaking fees to world leaders, such as former President George H.W. Bush; and to bail political allies out of financial troubles.

SNIP...

Those ties date back several decades to negotiations conducted by one of Moon’s early South Korean supporters, Kim Jong-Pil, who founded the Korean CIA and headed up sensitive negotiations on bilateral relations between Tokyo and Seoul.

The negotiations put Kim Jong-Pil in touch with two other important figures in the Far East, Japanese rightists Yoshio Kodama and Ryoichi Sasakawa, who had been jailed as fascist war criminals at the end of World War II. A few years later, however, both Kodama and Sasakawa were freed by U.S. military intelligence officials.

The U.S. government turned to Kodama and Sasakawa for help in combating communist labor unions and student strikes, much as the CIA protected German Nazi war criminals who supplied intelligence and performed other services in the intensifying Cold War battles with European communists.

Kodama and Sasakawa also allegedly grew rich from their association with the yakuza, a shadowy organized crime syndicate that profited off drug smuggling, gambling and prostitution in Japan and Korea. Behind the scenes, Kodama and Sasakawa became power-brokers in Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party.

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/021707.html

Thank you for caring, bobbiejo!

[Jcrowley]

19. From pdf file

Billions for Halliburton

Hallibuton, of course, is the ultimate of crony companies, wired to the administration through the office of United States Vice President Dick Cheney, who was Halliburton‘s CEO before taking his oath of office and still owns Halliburton stock options. Halliburton quickly became the leading firm pocketing sole source contracts in Iraq. Halliburton received over $16 billion from the Pentagon for work in Iraq between the March 2003 invasion andJuly 2006.8Halliburton‘s two biggest contracts with the military in Iraq are the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) for troop support and the Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) contract to rebuild the oilfields. The $2.5 billion RIO contract to restore Iraqi oil production was awarded without competitive bidding and against Pentagon procurement requirements. The decision was apparently made by top Pentagon officials and political appointees, and against the recommendations of procurement professionals. E-mail messages uncovered by Judicial Watch suggest that Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz was personally involved, and that decisions were —coordinated with the Vice President‘s office.“9Representative Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) spent months trying to obtain information about the Halliburton deals, running into a wall of official secrecy and evasion. Long after the RIO deal was done, he learned that a modest contract to put out oil-well-fires had grown into full restoration of the Iraqi oil industry. —We thought it was supposed to be a short-term, small contract, but now it turns out Halliburton is restoring the entire oil infrastructure in Iraq,“ Waxman said. The Defense Department‘s only public acknowledgment of the deal was a pair of press releases announcing that it had asked Halliburton to prepare to help put out oil-well fires.10
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 5
5—I can unequivocally state that the abuse related to contracts awarded to KBR represents the most blatant and improper contract abuse I have witnessed during the course of my professional career.“ Testimony of Bunnatine Greenhouse, the highest ranking civilian in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.11Both RIO and LOGCAP are —cost-plus“ contracts, under which the company purchases all goods and services to complete the job, and is then reimbursed by the government for all costs plus a percentage of costs as a fee. Such contracts contain a built-in incentive to waste money: the higherthe cost runs, the higher the profit will be. So while taxpayers want to keep costs down, —cost-plus“ contractors want to run costs up. • For LOGCAP, Halliburton receives a base fee of 1% of its costs and an additional award fee of up to 2%. This guarantees a profit range of $83 million to $248 million.12• For RIO, Halliburton‘s base fee is 2% of its costs and its additional award fee is up to 5%. This guarantees a profit range of $50 million to $176 million.13Bottlenecks on Body ArmorBody armor was a procurement problem with deadly consequences. Eight months after the war began, nearly 50,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, more than one-third of the total force, lacked modern body armor.14In the anodyne language of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, —We consider this item to have a shortage because demand exceeded the production output necessary to meet the needs of the war fighter.“15The shortage was artificial and unnecessary, a result of a broken procurement process. Roughly twenty U.S. companies can make the required vests, but David Brooks, CEO of Point Blank Body Armor, successfully lobbied for a contract to produce all the body armor œ even though Point Blank alone could not possibly manufacture enough to satisfy the full demand in time.16The Brooks bottleneck created a shortage that kept soldiers and marines out of modern armor for months, at a literal cost of lives and limbs. • After securing the exclusive contract, Brooks‘ personal compensation rocketed from$525,000 in 2001 to more than $70 million in 2004.17To celebrate, he spent $10 million on a party in New York City‘s Rainbow Room, featuring music by Aerosmith rockers and Brooks himself reportedly cavorting in a hot pink, metal-studded suede pantsuit.18• The price of Brook‘s additional salary could have manufactured 63,000 new interceptor vests œ enough to fill the entire shortfall.19• Not until eight months after combat operations were declared over, did all military in Iraq have appropriate body armor.20
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Page 6
6"You go to war with the Army you have… not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfield21Abuse at Abu GhraibThe abuse in Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is not simply a sordid stain on U.S. honor, but a disastrous crime that roused fury across the Muslim world. The pictures now are infamous: Guards urinating on inmates; men on leash, beatings; dogs; allegations of rapes. Contracting didn‘t cause the abuse at Abu Ghraib; failures of government did. But private contracting is implicated at every level. CACI International, Inc. provided more than half the analysts and interrogators at Abu Ghraib. Titan Corporation provided the translators. The CACI contract had problems from the start. It was not awarded after competitive bidding but under a —Blanket Purchase Agreement“ expansion of a pre-existing contract to provide information technology to the Department of the Interior œ a function in no way related to interrogating prisoners in Iraq. The military review of the contract after the scandal came to light concluded, —it is not clear who, if anyone, in Army contracting or legal channels approved the use of the BPA , or why it was used.“22It is also unclear why CACI employee Thomas Howard helped to draft the contract itself, a practice that appears to violate federal law.23Once it secured the contract, CACI rushed to fill the billable interrogator jobs, skipping essential details like applicant screening or training. Former CACI employees said that many of their fellow investigators were hired after five-minute telephone interviews, and without checking fingerprints or criminal records.24Some of these employees œ hired in a hurry after the award of a contract without bidding œ engaged in abuse and torture that violated U.S. law, the Geneva Convention and modern laws of war. Performance In Iraq, flawed procurement has too often been followed by flawed performance. Iraqis enjoyed more electricity, better schools and better hospitals under a brutal Sadaam Hussein dictatorship shackled by sanctions than they have under the U.S. occupation. In a battle for the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people, the ability to deliver such services is essential. But contractors have repeatedly fallen down on the job.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


K&R

[Octafish]

53. Money Trumps Peace ... in Nigeria.

Amy Goodman interviewed Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka. The Nobel laureate talked about the Big Picture…

Legendary Nigerian Writer Wole Soyinka on Oil in the Niger Delta, the Effect of Iraq on Africa and His New Memoir

DemocracyNow.org
Wednesday, April 19th, 2006

EXCERPT…

AMY GOODMAN: So, it was right before. But can you talk about your country, Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa and when, in a case like Sani Abacha, you had a military dictator who was shored up by other countries and, perhaps more importantly, other companies, and that's the oil companies that take their oil from the Niger Delta?

WOLE SOYINKA: You see, the outside world, especially during the Cold War and for some time afterwards, both sides -- includes both the Soviet bloc and the western capitalist bloc -- believe very much in collaborating with the -- what I call the mythological strongman, the strongman of Zaire, the strongman of Ghana, the strongman of Zimbabwe. That syndrome, “strongmanism,” as I call it, was very much an obsession with western and eastern powers. Sekou Toure was a strongman for the Soviet Union. So, it was both sides of the ideological divide.

And what that meant, of course, was that in one case, you dealt directly with one individual who imposed his political and economic will, strategies of social transformation, on the entire population, very rigid draconian totalitarian form of government, but leaning presumably towards the progressive side. On the other, you had direct unabashed exploitation, the multinational companies, the agents, you know, the business agents of various governments, and they enjoyed that facility of being able to pick up the phone, speak to only one individual, receive oil concessions, receive troops -- no, even to suppress, to oppress the people, you know, whose land they were exploiting for the either oil or diamonds or whatever.

So, this preference, instead of going through a democratic process in which your activities are monitored by the house of assembly, complaints are brought, committees are set up, commissions are set up. Accountability is the law on the proper democratic dispensation. And these companies, of course, didn't want that. All they had to do was pay one individual, you know, just “What’s your bank account in Switzerland? What’s your bank account in Saudi Arabia, in Britain?” And so, this “strongmanism” created an atmosphere of suppression -- a reality of suppression and corruption which is still with us today. They’re not dealing with military dictators, because everything was simple.

AMY GOODMAN: Which is still with you today. Explain.

WOLE SOYINKA: Very much with us in certain parts, but it's changing slowly. It's changing slowly. But the legacy is still with us. In Nigeria, for instance, we are supposed to be practicing a democracy, but we have an ex-military man who has not given up his bad old ways.

AMY GOODMAN: I remember when Obasanjo first -- well, second became, because he had been a leader before and had come back, and he was being introduced in this country. He was taken to Dr. Martin Luther King's church in Atlanta and escorted around by the head of Chevron Corporation and then brought up here to New York.

WOLE SOYINKA: That is itself significant. See, they're accustomed to dealing with corporate heads, you know, directly, and those corporate heads were very much at home with dictators.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/19/1312253

Truly appreciate you get the big picture, Jcrowley. My what sharp eyes you have. Thanks also for an excellent illustration.

[Richard Steele]

21. Those three words sum up the BFEE worldview fairly well, don't they?

[Octafish]

54. Money Trumps Peace ... in South Africa.

Beauty photo, dicksteele. Flowers, idyllic smiles, petrobillion...

From the Architect of Oilplomacy:

Kissinger’s Crimes

How Dr. Henry Kissinger orchestrated global repression

by Nora King
CovertAction Quarterly, April / June 2001

Some stones tossed in the pond make an amazing splash. Weight, not luster, causes the best splashes, and so it is with Christopher Hitchens' slim new volume, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, whose weight is in the gravity of the human loss it documents.

Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and East Timor stand out for the sheer casualty numbers, Chile and Cyprus for the conniving and intrigue.

SNIP...

The U.S. was also extremely active in covert actions to stop U.S. citizens breaking out of our homegrown apartheid while we fought bloodthirsty policies. As on other continents, some paid with their lives, many with their freedom or health. There was plenty of suffering here, some having to do with Operation CHAOS, the CIA's illegal spying on domestic activists from 1967 until discovery by Congresswoman Bella Abzug in 1976. When she called the then CIA chief (later President) George Bush and challenged him about it, he admitted the CIA had over-reached its legal authority.

What about Africa? The war in Angola was a hastily manufactured war using Africans to play psychological warfare with the Soviets and to my mind cannot be overlooked. CIA Angola Task Force leader John Stockwell left the agency in disgust to write In Search of Enemies because the decision to make an illegal war was based on a Kissinger underling interpreting a grunt by the good doctor.

Some African governments implored the U.S. not to assign some of their CIA agents, because they knew what it meant to have a coup team come to town. The violent death of 21 year old student leader Steven Biko and other crimes of South African apartheid in which CIA was complicit can now be extensively explored using the South African truth and reconciliation provisions.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Kissinger/Kissingers_Crimes.html

Thanks for all you do, dicksteele. Really appreciate you giving a damn, my Friend.

[EFerrari]

23. Terror is the New Communism.

Sometimes I'd like to send your "Know Your BFEE" posts to my Senator Diane Feinstein. But, she'd probably have me detained and sent to cool my heels at Gitmo.

Thank you, my friend, for the sanity.

K&R

[Octafish]

56. Money Trumps Peace ... in Micronesia.

War's the bomb. And the bigger the bomb, the bigger the money to be made.

The Nuclear History of Micronesia and the Pacific

by Richard N. Salvador*, Republic of Belau, August 1999

"The first shot, Bravo, the largest single nuclear explosion conducted by the United States, with a destructive capability more than one thousand times that of the Hiroshima bomb, was detonated on 1 March 1954. The explosion was so powerful it vaporized several small islands …"

"...To this day, peoples of Rongelap, Bikini, Enewetak, and many in the Marshall Islands continue to suffer from cancer, miscarriages, and tumors."

While it is harrowing that Japanese cities became the ultimate target, Micronesians (Marshallese) and French-Polynesians have never really overcome the disastrous consequences of the nuclear testings that made the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki possible. In French-Occupied Polynesia, 180 tests were conducted for over 30 years beginning with atmospheric testing in the Tuamotos in 1966. Only sometime later did the testings move underground in the atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa; but unlike the Americans, in the case of documentation of test results and effects on environmental and human health, the French have always been and continue to be secretive about their own tests in Polynesia. Tahitians and Marshall Islanders who were exposed, including test site workers, have been dying slow, excruciating deaths. Often they are unable to receive proper medical treatment because French authorities continue to deny officially that the nuclear tests did in fact cause any significant environmental or human damage.

At the conclusion of World War II after Japan’s defeat, Micronesia was taken by America. In January 1946, the US Naval Military Government selected the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands chain for the first series of nuclear tests--known as Operation Crossroads--which were intended to demonstrate the destructive capacity of the atomic bombs on a fleet of wartime ships (Robie 1989, p.142). In July 1947, the US Government became our "Administering Authority," with the blessings of the UN. Immediately after the war, eleven territories were under UN supervision. Micronesia became administratively the "Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands," and consisted of the Marshall Islands, the Caroline Islands (which included the islands of Kosrae, Pohnpei, Truck/Chuuk, Yap, and Belau), and the Marianas Islands (which include Guam, Saipan and Tinian).

In Belau (Palau), where I come from, we were spared the harrowing experiences of the atomic testings. Kwajalein, Bikini and Enewetak in the Marshall Islands, however, were chosen for a supply base and a smaller command center, respectively, and which were used for the bomb testings. The Marshall Islands suffered the most from these military occupations and tests. Kwajelein also became a vital link in the supply route for American forces during the Korean War as well as a base for missile tests later. On Saipan, the main island of what is now the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas, the Central Intelligence set up a camp which operated a secret training for Chinese nationalist guerillas who were part of an unsuccessful plan to invade the Chinese mainland (Robie p.144).

Micronesia, therefore, was where the beginnings of important aspects of these US military activities took place. These integral aspects of US military strategy in the western Pacific were the beginnings of a strategic concept at work in U.S. Asia-Pacific policy. Ever since, as Joseph Gerson has written, Micronesia has been shaped and influenced by "the goal of maintaining and increasing U.S. power and advantage in the region." In the Marshall Islands, the US tested a total of 66 atomic and hydrogen bombs between 1946 and 1958. Six islands were vaporised by nuclear weapons and hundreds of people were irradiated. Today, more than 40 years later, many islands are still uninhabited. Many Bikinians and Rongelapese who were downwind of the bomb explosions remain exiled peoples. (Alexander 1994, pp. 28,30).

In the book, Blood on their Banner: Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific, David Robie writes,

...the more than 2000 islands of Micronesia have played a vital role in modern strategic history. Japanese aircraft launched their attack on Peal Harbor from Micronesia, plunging the United States into the Second World War. And it was from Tinian Island in western Micronesia that the Enola Gay took off with its deadly weapons for the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which ended the war and ushered in the nuclear age. The islands of Micronesia have been used by Washington ever since as pawns to enhance its strategic posture (Robie, ibid, p.142).

This 'strategic posture' was largely the result of a Cold War strategy that relied on massive military might. It emerged as well from a rational calculation of the use of deadly power. Cold War strategy, Alexander observed:

...required an assessment of both the political and military potential of the atomic weapon in a strategic sense. While the political assessment was made in the context of East-West rivalry, the military assessment required taking note of both the strengths and weaknesses of the new weapon. Two of these weaknesses, the scarcity of bombs and the limited range of the only available delivery vehicle, the B-29 bomber, served to govern US strategy in the first years after World War II, and prompted an all-out effort for research and development, including an ambitious testing program. At the same time, US confidence in its ability to maintain its nuclear lead was bolstered by a new-found strength, the efficacy of which had been demonstrated by the Manhattan Project (Alexander, ibid, p.18).

CONTINUED...

http://www.wagingpeace.org/articles/1999/08/00_salvador_micronesia.htm

Thank you for the kind words, sfexpat2000. I'd rather be with you in Gitmo than have a brain that could accept George Walker Bush as a real president.

[snappyturtle]

26. Will you be my Valentine? Opps,too late I know but this has been

THE best reading! I even tried to K&R twice--!!!

[Octafish]

58. Money Trumps Peace ... in Bangladesh

Back in the day when East Pakistan wanted independence, Nixon, Kissinger and Prescott's cabal...

Nixon/Kissinger Saw India as "Soviet Stooge" in 1971 South Asia Crisis

New Documents Show White House Ignored Regional Nature of Crisis and Risked Confrontation with Moscow to Look Tough

June 29, 2005

Washington, D.C., June 29, 2005 - President Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger saw India as a "Soviet stooge" during the South Asia crisis of 1971, downplayed reports of Pakistani genocide in what is now Bangladesh, and even suggested that China intervene militarily on Pakistan's side, according to startling new documentation from White House files and tapes contained in the State Department's Foreign Relations of the United States series and reposted today by the National Security Archive.

Earlier this week, the Office of the Historian at the State Department hosted a major conference on U.S. policy in South Asia focusing on the 1971 India-Pakistan war triggered by the crisis over Bangladesh. (Note 1) Much of the discussion focused on, and flowed from, a new volume of documentation edited by Louis J. Smith for the FRUS series. (Note 2) Besides including the usual cables and memoranda, the editors of this volume made significant use of the White House tapes and the transcripts of Henry Kissinger's telephone conversations. "This volume deserves the attention of the widest possible readership because of its fascinating, sometimes startling, revelations on Nixon administration policy. It gives the reader an unparalleled perspective on the inner workings of White House policy throughout the crisis," said Dr. William Burr, senior analyst at the National Security Archive, who attended the conference.

Triggered by East Pakistan's (now Bangladesh) quest for independence, the 1971 crisis quickly raised human rights issues because of what White House officials characterized as a "reign of terror" (Note 3) orchestrated by Pakistani forces. While consular officials in Dacca, East Pakistan privately criticized the U.S. government's "failure to denounce atrocities," (Note 4) Nixon and Kissinger did not want "to get West Pakistanis turned against us," in part because President Yahya was providing a secret communication link for their quest for rapprochement with China. (Note 5) The close China-Pakistan relationship was central to Nixon's wish to "tilt" U.S. policy toward Pakistan in part to show Beijing that Washington would support its allies. (Note 6) With Pakistani refugees fleeing into India, the crisis quickly turned into a clash between India and Pakistan. Quickly defining and dramatizing a regional national/ethnic crisis in geo-political terms, Nixon and Kissinger saw India as a Soviet client state that was determined to weaken Pakistan fatally. China, however, had a close relationship with Pakistan and Nixon wanted to "tilt" U.S. policy toward Pakistan to show Beijing that Washington would support its allies.

As the crisis turned to war, Nixon and Kissinger saw the event as a Cold War confrontation which could involve a China-Soviet conflict and U.S. confrontation with the Soviet Union. "The documents show that Nixon and Kissinger overlooked the regional, ethnic, and national dimensions of the crisis and instead saw it in terms of the Cold War and macho terms, which made the crisis even more dangerous; they risked a China-Soviet conflict so they could demonstrate what they thought was toughness and resolve," commented Dr. Burr. (Note 7)

Some of the most fascinating documents in the volume concern Nixon and Kissinger's reactions to developments just before and during the war and their discussions of policy options. Among the highlights:

Their reactions to Nixon's meetings with Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on November 5, 1971. According to Kissinger, the "Indians are bastards anyway. They are starting a war there … hile was a bitch, we got what we wanted to … She will not be able to go home and say that the United States didn't give her a warm reception and therefore in despair she's got to go to war." (Note 8)

Their agreement that China could put pressure on India: " I think we've got to tell that some movement on their part … toward the Indian border could be very significant." On December 8, Nixon and Kissinger agreed to transfer planes to Pakistan and to tell the Chinese that "if you are ever going to move this is the time." Kissinger noted the danger that may arise "if our bluff is called." (Note 9)

The controversial CIA report that led Kissinger and Nixon to believe that India intended to dismember Pakistan and destroy its armed forces. (Note 10)

Later on December 8, Nixon and Kissinger decide to send an aircraft carrier and other naval forces into the Bay of Bengal in order to prevent a "Soviet stooge, supported by Soviet arms" from overrunning Pakistan. (Note 11)

Interpreting the regional crisis in geo-strategic terms, Kissinger justifies intervention to "prevent the West Pakistani army from being destroyed. And secondly to retain our Chinese arm. And thirdly, to prevent a complete collapse of the world's psychological balance of power, which will be produced if a combination of the Soviet Union and the Soviet armed client state can tackle without anybody doing anything." While U.S. action could jeopardize the developing détente with Moscow, Kissinger suggested to Nixon that "your card your willingness to jeopardize it." (Note 12)

Nixon's hot line message to Brezhnev on 10 December urging the Soviets " in the strongest possible terms to restrain India with which … you have great influence and for whose actions you must share responsibility." (Note 13)

On December 10, Kissinger delicately encourages the Chinese to take action against India guaranteeing U.S. support if the Soviets retaliate: "if the People's Republic were to consider the situation on the Indian subcontinent a threat to security, and if it took measures to protect its security, the US would oppose efforts of others to interfere with the People's Republic." (Note 14)

On December 12, Kissinger tells Nixon that by taking a tough stand with the Soviets he was making a "typical Nixon plan. I mean it's bold… But my view is that if we do nothing there's a certainty of disaster. This way there is a high possibility of one, but at least we're coming off like men." With Beijing's UN ambassador calling for an urgent meeting in New York with White House officials, Kissinger was sure that Beijing was "going to move. No question, they're going to move." If the Chinese intervene, Nixon asked "what do we do if the Soviets move against them? Start lobbing nuclear weapons." Kissinger later answered that "We don't have to lob nuclear weapons. We have to go on alert… We may have to put forces in. We may have to give them bombing assistance." This will provide an "opportunity to clean up Vietnam at that point" by giving an ultimatum to Hanoi and blockading Haiphong harbor. (Note 15)

Nixon was not as sure as Kissinger that Beijing and Moscow would go to war and when General Alexander Haig met with the Chinese later that day, Nixon and Kissinger learned that the Chinese had not made any military decisions but would call for a cease-fire and mutual troop withdrawal and support a stand-still cease-fire if necessary.

Even before they realized that Beijing was not going to intervene, the Soviets had assured the White House that the Indians were not going to attack West Pakistan and that they were working with Prime Minister Gandhi on a cease-fire. Ever the courtier, Kissinger praised Nixon for his willingness to confront the Soviets: "What you did this morning Mr. President was a heroic thing." On December 16, Pakistani forces surrendered in East Pakistan and a cease-fire took effect the next day. (Note 16)

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20050629/index.htm

Thank you for the kind words and thank you for caring, snappyturtle.



And it's never too late for a valentine.

[Mr Rabble]

27. Son of a Bi&*h! Thank you as always Octa.

[Octafish]

60. Money Trumps Peace ... in Grenada.

Remember how 241 Marines, Airmen, Sailors and Soldiers were left exposed and killed by a suicide truck bomber in Beirut in 1983?

Who could remember the same thing had happened to the U.S. and French embassies only weeks before when we had an invasion to think about?

Then, again, that seems to have been the point.

Remembering Reagan's Invasion of Grenada

We take a look at the 1983 U.S.-invasion of Grenada that led to the installation of a pro-American government to replace the former rule of the leftist President Maurice Bishop. We speak with Bishop's former Press Secretary Don Rojas, who was deported from Grenada by the U.S. military.

DemocracyNow.org
Thursday, June 10th, 2004

In the early morning hours of October 25, 1983, the United States invaded the small Caribbean nation of Grenada. The fiery leftist President Maurice Bishop had been assassinated days earlier. The initial invasion consisted of some 1,200 US troops. At the time of the invasion, a delegation of 500 Cubans were in the country.

They included doctors, engineers, teachers and construction workers, who were there to help build an international civilian airport for Grenada. When the US forces moved in they landed at the airport, they killed more than a dozen Cubans and more than 40 Grenadian soldiers. The U.S. quickly consolidated its occupation of the island and expanded its force to more than 7,000. By December a pro-American government was established.

Don Rojas, the former Press Secretary for President Maurice Bishop of Grenada from 1981-1983. Before that he was the Editor in Chief of Grenada's national newspaper "The Free West Indian." When US Marines invaded Grenada in 1983, he was deported by the US military to Barbados. He is currently the General Manager of Pacifica station WBAI in New York.

SNIP...

DON ROJAS: I was serving the Maurice Bishop government at the time as the press secretary to the prime minister. Prior to that, I had served in the capacity of editor of the national newspaper, editor-in-chief, as you pointed out in your introduction. Maurice Bishop was attempting to empower the Grenadian people, a people who had a long history of slavery followed which British colonialism, followed by independence in 1974. Five years after formal independence from Britain, Maurice bishop attempted to begin a social experiment to empower the Grenadian people, to involve them in the decision-making that would affect their daily lives. To bring a popular form of democracy to a country that had for, as I said for centuries, had been under the thumb of foreign rulers, in this particular case, the British. Maurice Bishop's vision for Grenada was of a small country standing tall and proud in the Caribbean region, and in the world community. He was able to bring his message very successfully of a new way for Grenada and the Caribbean to the world, to the United Nations, to the non-aligned movement, et cetera, and received tremendous acclaim around the world at a time. At the time of his death, he had an international stature that was -- you might say, it was far out of proportion to the size of the country.

AMY GOODMAN: How did he die?

DON ROJAS: He was killed. He was assassinated on the morning of October 19 in a bloody coup d'état. Several of the members of his cabinet and others --

CONTINUED...

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/06/10/1425246

Thank you for giving a damn, emperor72. Your caring means the world to me.

[lonestarnot]

28. Octafish.

Ever see the movie the Constant Gardener? Same lyme pit, only much larger.

[Theres-a]

29. K

[Theres-a]

38. I

[Theres-a]

44. C

[Theres-a]

45. K

[Megahurtz]

59. Cool!

:)

[Initech]

30. I think that we need to establish that money is an addiction.

If addictions are so trod upon in America, Bush and his clan are fucking addicted to money. Beyond addicted.

[Amonester]

34. K&R. Money Trumps Life more and more everyday for this war criminal

and his family of despicable crooks and their cronies.

Every single day this fragile planet is getting destroyed a little more - somtimes a lot more - than the previous day, and instead of working to help reduce the constant destruction that endangers Life itself, they can't stop searching for ways that will enrich their small circle of already wealthy enough gangsters and war criminals.


For the busche family and their ilk: money trumps peace.
And more today than yesterday: Money Trumps Life Itself.

[ftr23532]

36. kick!

:kick:

[ShortnFiery]

37. And another for an excellent thread!

:dem:

[bobthedrummer]

40. Money trumps peace in PERU

More than a thousand former Peruvian military and police were "recruited" and are in Iraq and Afghanistan; there are reports of "Operacion El Diablo" targeting Peruvian human rights activists and opposition to the Yanacocha gold mining company-over half the shares of Yanacocha are owned by the world's largest gold mining company Denver based Newmont Mining Corp.


"PERU: UN Mission Probes Private Security Groups"
by Angel Paez via CorpWatch.org
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=14350

on edit: fair use cited

[bobthedrummer]

41. Newmont Mining Corporation: Officers and Board of Directors

Col. William Boyce Thompson was the founder. He was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve 1917-19 and Treasurer of the Republican Party in 1921-he was a lot of things. He supported the Bolsheviks and manipulated the American Red Cross, he loved diamonds, gold and other metals.
He said he loved peace.
http://www.yonkershistory.org/8_2_2.html

Newmont Mining Corporation
Officers
http://www.newmont.com/en/investor/governance/executives.asp

Board of Directors
http://www.newmont.com/en/investor/governance/board.asp

fair use cited

[KoKo]

43. kick...for overnight read.........

[Karenina]

48. TGIF!

:kick:

[Sydnie]

51. Yes! Finally, some truth!

[bobthedrummer]

55. .

[conscious evolution]

57. kick