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

[Octafish]

Members of the Bush Family Evil Empire -- the public face of the War Party that has hijacked America -- embody the spawn of the Fourth Reich and Wall Street.


Warmonger by John Carroll.

Like the NAZI gangster warmongers they are, the BFEE's "work" serves only to enrich their cronies and their "actions" penure, enslave and kill innocent people.

How they got that way:

Allen Dulles, the NAZIs, and the CIA

By Cory Panshin
March 2005

Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg once stated that "The Dulles brothers were traitors." Some historians believe that Allen Dulles became head of the newly formed CIA in large part to cover up his treasonous behavior and that of his clients.

-- Christian Dewar, Making a Killing

Just before his death, James Jesus Angleton, the legendary chief of counterintelligence at the Central Intelligence Agency, was a bitter man. He felt betrayed by the people he had worked for all his life. In the end, he had come to realize that they were never really interested in American ideals of "freedom" and "democracy." They really only wanted "absolute power."

Angleton told author Joseph Trento that the reason he had gotten the counterintelligence job in the first place was by agreeing not to submit "sixty of Allen Dulles' closest friends" to a polygraph test concerning their business deals with the Nazis. In his end-of-life despair, Angleton assumed that he would see all his old companions again "in hell."

-- Michael Hasty, Paranoid Shift

EXCERPT…

Allen Welsh Dulles was born to privilege and a tradition of public service. He was the grandson of one secretary of state and the nephew of another. But by the time he graduated from Princeton in 1914, the robber baron era of American history was coming to an an end, ushered out by the Sherman Anti-Trust Act -- which had been used in 1911 to break up Standard Oil -- and by the institution of the progressive income tax in 1913. The ruling elite was starting to view government less as their own private preserve and more as an unwanted intrusion on their ability to conduct business as usual. That shift of loyalties in itself may account for many of the paradoxical aspects of Dulles's career.

Dulles entered the diplomatic service after college and served as a State Department delegate to the Paris Peace Conference of 1919, which brought a formal end to World War I. The Versailles Treaty which came out of this conference included a provision making it illegal to sell arms to Germany. This displeased the powerful DuPont family, and they put pressure on the delegates to allow them to opt out. It was Allen Dulles who finally gave them the assurances they wanted that their transactions with Germany would be "winked at."

Dulles remained a diplomat through the early 1920's, spending part of that time in Berlin. However, he left government service in 1926 for the greener pastures of private business, becoming a Wall Street lawyer with the same firm as his older brother, John Foster Dulles.

By the middle 20's, Germany had started recovering from the effects of the war and its postwar economic collapse, and the great German industrial firms were looking like attractive investment opportunities for wealthy Americans. W.A. Harriman & Co., formed in 1919 by Averell Harriman (son of railroad baron E.H. Hariman) and George Herbert Walker, had led the way in directing American money to German companies and had opened a Berlin branch as early as 1922, when Germany was still in chaos. At that time, Averell Harriman traveled to Europe and made contact with the powerful Thyssen family of steel magnates. It was to be a long-lasting and fateful partnership.

CONTINUED…

http://www.enter.net/~torve/trogholm/secret/rightroots/dulles.html

How they stay that way:

The CIA and Nazi War Criminals

National Security Archive Posts Secret CIA History
Released Under Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act

National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 146

Edited by Tamara Feinstein

February 4, 2005

Washington D.C., February 4, 2005 - Today the National Security Archive posted the CIA's secret documentary history of the U.S government's relationship with General Reinhard Gehlen, the German army's intelligence chief for the Eastern Front during World War II. At the end of the war, Gehlen established a close relationship with the U.S. and successfully maintained his intelligence network (it ultimately became the West German BND) even though he employed numerous former Nazis and known war criminals. The use of Gehlen's group, according to the CIA history, Forging an Intelligence Partnership: CIA and the Origins of the BND, 1945-49, was a "double edged sword" that "boosted the Warsaw Pact's propaganda efforts" and "suffered devastating penetrations by the KGB."

The declassified "SECRET RelGER" two-volume history was compiled by CIA historian Kevin Ruffner and presented in 1999 by CIA Deputy Director for Operations Jack Downing to the German intelligence service (Bundesnachrichtendienst) in remembrance of "the new and close ties" formed during post-war Germany to mark the fiftieth year of CIA-West German cooperation. This history was declassified in 2002 as a result of the work of The Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group (IWG) and contains 97 key documents from various agencies.

This posting comes in the wake of public grievances lodged by members of the IWG that the CIA has not fully complied with the mandate of the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act and is continuing to withhold hundreds of thousands of pages of documentation related to their work. (Note 1) In interviews with the New York Times, three public members of the IWG said:

• "I think that the CIA has defied the law, and in so doing has also trivialized the Holocaust, thumbed its nose at the survivors of the Holocaust and also at the Americans who gave their lives in the effort to defeat the Nazis in World War II." - Former congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman

• "I can only say that the posture the CIA has taken differs from all the other agencies that have been involved, and that's not a position we can accept." - Washington lawyer Richard Ben-Veniste

• "Too much has been secret for too long. The CIA has not complied with the statute." - Former federal prosecutor Thomas H. Baer

The IWG was established in January 11, 1999 and has overseen the declassification of about eight million pages of documents from multiple government agencies. Its mandate expires at the end of March 2005.

CONTINUED w LINKS…

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/index.htm

Who would want that NAZI records law to be ignored?



Here’s where the Bush Crime Family comes in:

Nazis and Bush family history:

Government investigated Bush family's financing of Hitler

By Carla Binion
December 21, 2000

This article on Nazis in the Republican party was originally published in Online Journal on 1/28/00. However, the following includes additional information regarding George H. W. Bush's father, Prescott, and his maternal grandfather, George Herbert (Bert) Walker, and the fact that the U. S. government investigated their financing of Adolf Hitler.

One book referenced here, Christopher Simpson's "Blowback," was praised by journalist Seymour Hersh as "the ultimate book about the worst kind of cold war thinking." Nora Levin, Director, Holocaust Archive, Gratz College, said "The full story of this country's shameful, cynical collaboration with Nazi criminals has not been told until now with the publication of Simpson's book." Congresswoman Elizabeth Holtzman said, 'Blowback' is a must read for anyone who wants to understand postwar policy on Nazi war criminals and the cold war."

In another Simpson book, "The Splendid Blonde Beast," the author wrote about George H. W. Bush's father, Prescott, and his maternal grandfather, George Herbert Walker. Both Bert Walker and Prescott Bush were powerful financial supporters of Adolf Hitler.

Walker was president of Union Banking Corporation, a firm that traded with Germany and helped German industrialists consolidate Hitler's political power. Simpson says Union Banking became a Nazi money-laundering machine.

Walker helped take over North American operations of Hamburg-Amerika Line, a shipping line and cover for I. G. Farben's Nazi espionage unit in the U. S. Hamburg-Amerika smuggled in German agents, and brought in money for bribing American politicians to support Hitler. A 1934 congressional investigation showed Hamburg-Amerika subsidized Nazi propaganda efforts in the U. S.

CONTINUED…

http://www.govsux.com/nazisandbushfamilyhistory.html

Gee. A certain class of people seem to benefit most from war. Here's a treasure trove of treason history:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/nazi.html



The class Allen Dulles and Prescott Bush worked for. And the Bushes worked for THEM.

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/stor...

“Money trumps peace.”

That does explain a lot. “Money trumps peace.”
In fact, that explains everything about everything in regards to the BFEE and their cronies in the War Party.
To them, money and power are everything.
Isn’t that the definition of a warmonger?
It also is the spirit of a NAZI.

The only thing that can stop them from becoming the Fourth Reich is...



... the Truth and We the People.

[lonestarnot]

1. Never quit speaking out Ocean Intellectual with a twist.

[Octafish]

5. Father of Lies - A Book Review

Mehr licht:

Father Of Lies -
A Book Review

By Uri Dowbenko <[email protected]>
Media Columnist
12-9-99

What can you say about a dead white guy whose own wife called him “The Shark”?

Yes, Allen Dulles was a lawyer. He worked for the powerful illuminati law firm Sullivan & Cromwell, whose clients included multinational corporations as well as foreign governments, and whose big money deals shaped the destiny of the planet.

In a high profile career which spanned two World Wars as well as the Cold War, Dulles was also a director of the Central Intelligence Agency and a director of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Most importantly, Dulles was a moral, intellectual and physical cripple. His philandering was notorious. His acquiescence to the wishes of his masters - the Anglo-American Establishment - is a matter of historical record. And ironically, he also had a club foot, like Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, the director of the CIA’s Technical Services Division, responsible for the Agency’s diabolical mind control programs.

SNIP...

Nazis Bankrolled By Wall Street


SNIP...

Srodes’s disinformational biography disregards well known facts recounted in former Hoover Institution scholar Antony C. Sutton’s landmark history, Wall Street And The Rise Of Hitler.

“Who was Schroeder?” asks Sutton in his book. “Baron Kurt von Schroeder was born in Hamburg in 1889 into an old established German banking family. An earlier member of the Schroeder family moved to London, changed his name to Schroder (without the dierisis) and organized the banking firm of J. Henry Schroder in London and J. Henry Schroder Banking Corporation in New York.”

In his well-documented story of the American financiers who provided the money and material Hitler used to launch World War II, Dr. Sutton recounts how Nazi Baron Kurt von Schroeder “acted as a conduit for I.T.T. money funneled to Heinrich Himmler’s S.S. organization in 1944, while World War II was in progress and the United States was at war with Germany.”

Furthermore, in recent correspondence with this author, Dr. Sutton writes that “New York was so determined to conceal the WWII links that a vice president of New York Schroeder Bank (Bogdan) was put in uniform and sent to Germany to grab the paperwork before US troops even reached Cologne.”

The American subsidiary of the notorious Nazi firm I.G. Farben, called American I.G., was under the control of an American citizen named Halbach, nominally a consultant to the firm.

When his bank accounts were blocked after Pearl Harbor, Sutton writes, “Halbach filed suit against the Alien Property Custodian through the Establishment law firm of Sullivan and Cromwell to oust the US Government from its control of I.G. Farben companies. These suits were unsuccessful, but Halbach was successful in keeping the Farben cartel agreements intact through World War II.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.mail-archive.com/[e-mail]/msg30560.html

Thanks for giving a damn, lonestarnot!

[texpatriot2004]

2. They are evil to the core. nm

[Octafish]

6. 'Money Trumps Peace' pretty much spells E-V-I-L.

From the pen of Ms. Carla Binion:

Knee-deep blood in the land of make-believe

Analysis by Carla Binion
Online Journal Associate Editor
Apr 26, 2007, 00:44

It’s astonishing that members of Congress are either unaware George W. Bush and Dick Cheney lied the nation into war with Iraq, or they are aware of the fact and don’t care. A Congress grounded in reality would have unequivocally acknowledged the administration’s lies long ago and taken appropriate action -- almost certainly impeachment.

If we say the pre-war lies don’t matter and the country should sweep them under the rug and only focus on the best way out of Iraq, what we’re really saying is that the truth itself doesn’t matter. If we say we should look away from the fact that thousands of U.S. soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died for a lie, we’re saying the lost lives don’t matter, the war-injured and maimed don’t matter, America’s honor and integrity don’t matter.

The logic-free anti-impeachment excuse is that the nation can’t handle running the country and impeachment simultaneously. John Nichols wrote in The Nation recently, “ Pelosi fears that impeachment would distract from the Democratic legislative agenda and provoke an electoral backlash.”

However, the bottom line is the country can’t afford to let Bush and Cheney get away with deceiving us into a costly and bloody war. Decisions on a matter of this weight shouldn’t be based on fear, whether fear of an impeded agenda or threat of backlash.

SNIP...

A nation that doesn’t care enough about the truth to investigate tenaciously and impeach Bush and Cheney if the probe warrants, is a nation divorced from reality and conscience. No fear-based or politically expedient excuse could possibly justify Congress’s hesitating to pursue this issue in a sober, principled and timely manner.

SOURCE:

http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2020.shtml

Thank you for giving a damn, texpatriot2004!

[moodforaday]

26. In all fairness

In all fairness, when * said "money trumps peace", he wasn't promoting that view. He was responding to a quesiton about European countries specifically, some of which trade with Iran, making it difficult to impose consistent sanctions:


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.

We know well that "money trumps peace" is practically Bush's mantra. All I am saying here is that this particular quote cannot be used as evidence of his attitude, because he appears to be lamenting it, not endorsing.

ed: typo

[Wiley50]

3. Wow!

just Wow!

[Octafish]

7. 'Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951' - Federal Documents

Remarkable, but true:

"Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951" - Federal Documents

"Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951" - Federal Documents
Posted in the database on Sunday, November 27th, 2005 @ 00:07:58 MST (615 views)
by John Buchanan and Stacey Michael Global Research

EXCERPT...

After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.

Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators.

Bush's partners in the secret web of Thyssen-controlled ventures included former New York Governor W. Averell Harriman and his younger brother, E. Roland Harriman. Their quarter-century of Nazi financial transactions, from 1924-1951, were conducted by the New York private banking firm, Brown Brothers Harriman.

SNIP...

Denial and Deceit

While Harriman was concealing his Nazi relationships from his government colleagues, Cornelius Livense, the top executive of the interlocking German concerns held under the corporate umbrella of Union Banking Corporation (UBC), repeatedly tried to mislead investigators, and was sometimes supported in his subterfuge by Brown Brothers Harriman.

All of the assets of UBC and its related businesses belonged to Thyssen-controlled enterprises, including his Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart in Rotterdam, the documents state.

SNIP...

In yet another attempt to mislead investigators, Livense said that $240,000 in banknotes in a safe deposit box at Underwriters Trust Co. in New York had been given to him by another UBC-Thyssen associate, H.J. Kouwenhoven, managing director of Thyssen's Dutch bank and a director of the August Thyssen Bank in Berlin. August Thyssen was Fritz's father.

The government report shows that Livense first neglected to report the $240,000, then claimed that it had been given to him as a gift by Kouwenhoven. However, by the time Livense filed a financial disclosure with U.S. officials, he changed his story again and reported the sum as a debt rather than a cash holding.

SNIP...

After the war, a total of 18 additional Brown Brothers Harriman and UBC-related client assets were seized under The Trading with the Enemy Act, including several that showed the continuation of a relationship with the Thyssen family after the initial 1942 seizures.

The records also show that Bush and the Harrimans conducted business after the war with related concerns doing business in or moving assets into Switzerland, Panama, Argentina and Brazil - all critical outposts for the flight of Nazi capital after Germany's surrender in 1945. Fritz Thyssen died in Argentina in 1951.

CONTINUED...

http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewcommentary.php?storyid=105

Thank you for giving a damn, Wiley50!

[formercia]

4. Some of the time line:

http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/timeline.html

1898:

Union Pacific Railroad sold to Edward Henry Harriman & partner, Judge Robert Scott Lovett. The deal was managed by Kuhn Loeb brokerage of which Felix Warburg was a partner.
1902:

Paul and Felix Warburg immigrate to the United States.
1904:

German Alfred Ploetz founds the Archive for Racial and Social Biology, which becomes the chief journal of the German eugenics or race hygiene movement. Ernst Haeckel popularized eugenics in Germany.

John D. Rockefeller issues "Occasional Letter No.1" detailing plans to mold the people, reduce national intelligence to the lowest common denominator, destroy parental influence, traditional and customs, and eliminate science and real learning, "in order to perfect human nature".

Eugenics laboratory established at Cold Springs Harbor on Long Island constructed by Charles B. Davenport. Cold Springs Harbor was also the location of the estates of both Dulles brothers. Cold Springs facility is funded in excess of $11 million by the Harrimans and the Rockefellers.
1907:

Samuel Bush elected President of Buckeye Steel Castings Co. in Columbus, Ohio. For his entire career, Samuel Bush supplied Wall Street railroads with castings. Later Bush became a close advisor of President Hoover and was the first president of the National Manufactures Association. (NAM). NAM has a history of supporting fascism and later in the 1950s, members of NAM led by Robert Welch formed the John Birch Society.

Indiana passes the first eugenics law.
1909:

The Rockefeller Foundation was established. The Rockefellers supported the eugenics movement including the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in Germany.
1911:

John Foster Dulles joins Sullivan and Cromwell.
1913:

Federal Reserve Bank created. Paul Warburg served as a governor of the bank during WWI. At the same time, his brother Max was the head of the German Secret Service.
1914:

With war close at hand Percy Rockefeller took control of Remington Arms & appoints Samuel F. Pryor as CEO.
1915:

Dulles’ uncle Robert Lansing was appointed Secretary of State. Lansing recruited his nephew to go to Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama on the pretext of company business but in reality to sound out the Latin Americans on aiding the US war effort. Costa Rica was led by the vicious dictator Federico Tinoco. Dulles advised Washington to support the dictator, as he was anti-German. Dulles also encouraged the Nicaragua dictator Emianiano Camorro to issue a proclamation suspending diplomatic relations with Germany. In Panama, Dulles offered to let Panama waive the tax on its annual canal fee as long as Panama would declare war on Germany.
1917:

Prescott Bush joins the Skull and Bones. Both his son and grandson George and George W. likewise were Skull and Bones members. Brown Brothers & Harriman had an exceptional number of members during the 1930s.
1918:

Robert Scott Lovett elected president of Union Pacific. Samuel Bush appointed to facilities division of the US War Industries Board chaired by Bernard Baruch & his assistant, Clarence Dillon.
1919:

George Herbert Walker forms W.A.Harriman & Co. Walker is president and CEO.

Averell Harriman, son of Edward Harriman is the chairman. Averell would later serve as US Ambassador to the USSR 1943-1946 and as US Secretary of Commerce 1946-1948.

Dulles brothers involved in the treaty negotiations after the war.
1920:

Averell Harriman and George Walker gain control of German Hamburg-Amerika Line. The deal was arranged through the chief executive German Hamburg-Amerika, William Cuno, & Max Warburg of the shipping line’s bankers, M.M. Warburg. The name of the firm was changed to American Ship & Commerce Corp. Samuel F. Pryor of Remington Arms had been involved in the deal & now served on the board of the renamed corporation. Cuno was later a heavy contributor to Nazi Party funds
1922:

Averell Harriman opened a Berlin branch of W.A. Harriman. A U.S. government memorandum dated Oct. 5 1942 to the Executive Committee of the office of the Alien Property Custodian indicates that sometime prior to 1924 Harriman was in Europe and met with Thyssen. They agreed to set up a bank for Thyssen in New York. Additionally, the memorandum indicates Thyssen’s agent; H. J. Kouwenhoven traveled to New York before 1924 in regard to this connection.

The Model Eugenic Sterilization Law was published by Harry Laughlin. The law led to the sterilization of over 20,000 Americans and service as the basis of the Nuremberg laws adopted by the Nazis.
--snip--

[Karenina]

8. BTTT!

:kick:

[Octafish]

9. Eugenics and the Nazis - The California Connection

Very important timeline, yours, formercia!

Here's a bit on America's role in building der Superduper Supermen:

Eugenics and the Nazis: The California Connection

by Edwin Black
San Francisco Chronicle
Sunday, November 9, 2003

Hitler and his henchmen victimized an entire continent and exterminated millions in his quest for a so-called Master Race.

But the concept of a white, blond-haired, blue-eyed master Nordic race didn't originate with Hitler. The idea was created in the United States, and cultivated in California, decades before Hitler came to power. California eugenicists played an important, although little-known, role in the American eugenics movement's campaign for ethnic cleansing.

Eugenics was the pseudoscience aimed at "improving" the human race. In its extreme, racist form, this meant wiping away all human beings deemed "unfit," preserving only those who conformed to a Nordic stereotype. Elements of the philosophy were enshrined as national policy by forced sterilization and segregation laws, as well as marriage restrictions, enacted in 27 states. In 1909, California became the third state to adopt such laws. Ultimately, eugenics practitioners coercively sterilized some 60,000 Americans, barred the marriage of thousands, forcibly segregated thousands in "colonies," and persecuted untold numbers in ways we are just learning. Before World War II, nearly half of coercive sterilizations were done in California, and even after the war, the state accounted for a third of all such surgeries.

California was considered an epicenter of the American eugenics movement. During the 20th century's first decades, California's eugenicists included potent but little-known race scientists, such as Army venereal disease specialist Dr. Paul Popenoe, citrus magnate Paul Gosney, Sacramento banker Charles Goethe, as well as members of the California state Board of Charities and Corrections and the University of California Board of Regents.

Eugenics would have been so much bizarre parlor talk had it not been for extensive financing by corporate philanthropies, specifically the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune. They were all in league with some of America's most respected scientists from such prestigious universities as Stanford, Yale, Harvard and Princeton. These academicians espoused race theory and race science, and then faked and twisted data to serve eugenics' racist aims.

Stanford President David Starr Jordan originated the notion of "race and blood" in his 1902 racial epistle "Blood of a Nation," in which the university scholar declared that human qualities and conditions such as talent and poverty were passed through the blood.

In 1904, the Carnegie Institution established a laboratory complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island that stockpiled millions of index cards on ordinary Americans, as researchers carefully plotted the removal of families, bloodlines and whole peoples. From Cold Spring Harbor, eugenics advocates agitated in the legislatures of America, as well as the nation's social service agencies and associations.

The Harriman railroad fortune paid local charities, such as the New York Bureau of Industries and Immigration, to seek out Jewish, Italian and other immigrants in New York and other crowded cities and subject them to deportation, confinement or forced sterilization.

CONTINUED..

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/11/09/ING9C2QSKB1.DTL

This article appeared on page D - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Please ask me about Harriman's role in Vietnam, when you get a chance.

Thanks also for giving a damn, formercia!

[formercia]

10. It's all tied together

the same gang put Hitler in power and they are working behind the scenes in the good 'ol USA, promoting the same racist agenda that oversaw the genocide against the Native Americans here, in Central America and today in Colombia, Bolivia and Mexico.

Different generation, same agenda.

[Octafish]

13. Exactly. What will they do when the planet's population becomes unsustainable?

We know what they'll do. Unfortunately, most of the world doesn't. And if they knew, too many wouldn't believe what today's NAZIs would do.

They would toss as many people overboard as necessary for their own survival. That means billions.

History shows they are capable of things worse than genocide. They would wipe out peoples -- many races, including most of their own.

It is my belief that they would wipe out most all of humanity -- except those they need for labor and police work.

Oh well. We have cable and Gameboy. And the music's good.

[formercia]

18. Have another drink of Kool-Aide.

The drink of choice. You won't remember a thing.

[loudsue]

19. Harriman and Vietnam??? How did that come about??

Thanks so much for this great thread! I've been glued to my computer since I found this thread, so I'm not getting anything else done! :applause:

:kick::kick::kick: & R

[Octafish]

27. Appears Harriman answered to a higher authority than President Kennedy...

Corporate McPravda tells the story that JFK ordered the coup in South Vietnam resulting in the death of President Diem. E Howard Hunt even planted, on behalf of the turd Nixon, phone cables implicating JFK in the assassination. So, of course, ABCNNBCBSFalseNoiseNutworkWaPoNYTEtc's has worked overtime to miss any true accounting of Prescott Bush Sr's pal, Averell Harriman's, involvement in Vietnam:

Who changed the coup into the murder of Diem, Nhu and a Catholic priest?

From The Secret History of the CIA by Joseph Trento"

Who changed the coup into the murder of Diem, Nhu and a Catholic priest accompanying them? To this day, nothing has been found in government archives tying the killings to either John or Robert Kennedy. So how did the tools and talents developed by Bill Harvey for ZR/RIFLE and Operation MONGOOSE get exported to Vietnam? Kennedy immediately ordered (William R.) Corson to find out what had happened and who was responsible. The answer he came up with: “On instructions from Averell Harriman…. The orders that ended in the deaths of Diem and his brother originated with Harriman and were carried out by Henry Cabot Lodge’s own military assistant.”

Having served as ambassador to Moscow and governor of New York, W. Averell Harriman was in the middle of a long public career. In 1960, President-elect Kennedy appointed him ambassador-at-large, to operate “with the full confidence of the president and an intimate knowledge of all aspects of United States policy.” By 1963, according to Corson, Harriman was running “Vietnam without consulting the president or the attorney general.”

The president had begun to suspect that not everyone on his national security team was loyal. As Corson put it, “Kenny O’Donnell (JFK’s appointments secretary) was convinced that McGeorge Bundy, the national security advisor, was taking orders from Ambassador Averell Harriman and not the president. He was especially worried about Michael Forrestal, a young man on the White House staff who handled liaison on Vietnam with Harriman.”

At the heart of the murders was the sudden and strange recall of Sagon Station Chief Jocko Richardson and his replacement by a no-name team barely known to history. The key member was a Special Operations Army officer, John Michael Dunn, who took his orders, not from the normal CIA hierarchy but from Harriman and Forrestal.

According to Corson, “John Michael Dunn was known to be in touch with the coup plotters,” although Dunn’s role has never been made public. Corson believes that Richardson was removed so that Dunn, assigned to Ambassador Lodge for “special operations,” could act without hindrance.

SOURCE:

“The Secret History of the CIA.” Joseph Trento. 2001, Prima Publishing. pp. 334-335.

It appears that Harriman was working with his counterparts at the top of the CIA, rather than the Kennedy White House. It's also alarming to read John Newman's report the Pentagon was providing two sets of information -- one to JFK stating the advisor's role in South Vietnam was leading to victory and another to Vice President Johnson stating that only intervention by U.S. troops would lead to victory.

Thanks for giving a damn, loudsue!

[loudsue]

29. This is very reminiscent to me of the Clinton years.

There were two governments going on while Clinton was president. The republicans were operating behind the scenes all along against Clinton, and I think history will have some interesting stories about that, as well, if the true story is ever told.

Joseph Trento published this in 2001...40-or-so years after Kennedy was going through this. I think in 40-or-so years, there's going to be a LOT to come out about the bush junta, IF we're still a democracy by then, which I doubt at this point.

:kick:

[leftchick]

48. that is an incredible article Octafish!

holy shit.....

<snip>

The Rockefeller Foundation helped found the German eugenics program and even funded the program that Josef Mengele worked in before he went to Auschwitz.

Much of the spiritual guidance and political agitation for the American eugenics movement came from California's quasi-autonomous eugenic societies, such as Pasadena's Human Betterment Foundation and the California branch of the American Eugenics Society, which coordinated much of their activity with the Eugenics Research Society in Long Island. These organizations -- which functioned as part of a closely-knit network -- published racist eugenic newsletters and pseudoscientific journals, such as Eugenical News and Eugenics, and propagandized for the Nazis.

Eugenics was born as a scientific curiosity in the Victorian age. In 1863,

Sir Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, theorized that if talented people married only other talented people, the result would be measurably better offspring. At the turn of the last century, Galton's ideas were imported to the United States just as Gregor Mendel's principles of heredity were rediscovered. American eugenics advocates believed with religious fervor that the same Mendelian concepts determining the color and size of peas, corn and cattle also governed the social and intellectual character of man.

In a United States demographically reeling from immigration upheaval and torn by post-Reconstruction chaos, race conflict was everywhere in the early 20th century. Elitists, utopians and so-called progressives fused their smoldering race fears and class bias with their desire to make a better world. They reinvented Galton's eugenics into a repressive and racist ideology. The intent: Populate the Earth with vastly more of their own socioeconomic and biological kind -- and less or none of everyone else.

[Octafish]

49. Hitler's Carmaker: The Inside Story of How GM Helped Mobilize the Third Reich

Edwin Black is a living treasure. Wish the NYT would make him publisher or at least executive editor.

Hitler's Carmaker: The Inside Story of How General Motors Helped Mobilize the Third Reich

by Edwin Black

Global Research, May 5, 2007
HNNHistory News Network

Part 1

James D. Mooney thrust his arm diagonally, watching its reflection in his hotel suite mirror. Not quite right. He tried once again. Still not right. Was it too stiff? Too slanted? Should his palm stretch perpendicular to the ceiling; should his arm bend at a severe angle? Or should the entire limb extend straight from shoulder to fingertips? Should his Sieg Heil project enthusiasm or declare obedience? Never mind, it was afternoon. Time to go see Hitler.

Just the day before, May 1, 1934, under a brilliant, cloudless sky, Mooney, president of the General Motors Overseas Corporation, climbed into his automobile and drove toward Tempelhof Field at the outskirts of Berlin to attend yet another hypnotic Nazi extravaganza. This one was the annual "May Day" festival.

SNIP...

Thousands of other Nazi flags fluttered across the grounds as dense column after column of Nazis, marching shoulder to shoulder in syncopation, flowed into rigid formation. Each of the 13 parade columns boasted between 30,000 and 90,000 storm troopers, army divisions, citizen brigades and blond-blue Hitler Youth enrollees. Finally, after four hours, the tightly packed assemblage totaled about 2 million marchers and attendees.

Hitler eventually arrived in an open-air automobile that cruised up and down the field amid the sea of devotees. Accompanied by cadres of SS guards, Hitler was ushered to the stage, stopping first to pat the head of a smiling boy. This would be yet another grandiose spectacle of Fuhrer-worship so emblematic of the Nazi regime.

When ready, Hitler launched into one of his enthralling speeches, made all the more mesmerizing by 142 loudspeakers sprinkled throughout the grounds. As the Fuhrer demanded hard work and discipline, and enunciated his vision of National Socialist destiny, the crisp sound of his voice traveled across an audience so vast that it took a moment or two for his words to reach the outer perimeter of the throng. Hence, the thunderous applause that greeted Hitler´s remarks arrived sequentially, creating an aural effect of continuous, overlapping waves of adulation.

General Motors World, the company house organ, covered the May Day event glowingly in a several-page cover story, stressing Hitler´s boundless affinity for children. "By nine, the streets were full of people waiting to see Herr Hitler go meet the children," the publication reported.

The next day, May 2, 1934, after practicing his Sieg Heil in front of a mirror, Mooney and two other senior executives from General Motors and its German division, Adam Opel A.G., went to meet Hitler in his Chancellery office. Waiting with Hitler would be Nazi Party stalwart Joachim von Ribbentrop, who would later become foreign minister, and Reich economic adviser Wilhelm Keppler.

As Mooney traversed the long approach to Hitler´s desk, he began to pump his arm in a stern-faced Sieg Heil. But the Fuhrer surprised him by getting up from his desk and meeting Mooney halfway, not with a salute but a businesslike handshake.

CONTINUED...

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070505&articleId=5571

If not Black, you'd make an excellent NYT publisher or EE, leftchick. I believe you'd also make a great U.S. Attorney.

[leftchick]

52. you are way too kind Octafish

and you are a treasure.

:loveya:

[Octafish]

11. Link: 'Money Trumps Peace' press conference

Messed up link in OP:

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

[Hubert Flottz]

12. You do good work Octafish

I salute your effort!

Skull and Bones



SS Totenkopf



Sometimes the best place to hide things is right out in the open...the Nazis knew that and the bushies do too.

[Octafish]

22. Our NAZI Allies

Note the detail on the top of the femurs is the same for S&B and the SS.

From John Judge:

Our Nazi Allies

Wed, 12 Dec 2001 02:53:16 -0500

Except for the work of Mae Brusell, Alex Constatine, Linda Hunt and a few others, most of those who have written about this importation of Nazis stop somewhere in the 1950s with the story and act as though there was nothing more to report than past bad judgment. The role these people played in our history and the Cold War is incalculabe. Bobby Inman, former CIA Director, admitted to me at a public talk that the Gehlen Organization spies were responsible for the Cold War being started. Thus, Germany pitted its former enemies against each other and militarized them, while it demiltarized and took American funds to build a post-war infrastructure that rivals our own now. Just for a few examples of what I mean:

Wehrner von Braun's surrender to US troops, along with many of his Pennemunde rocket scientists, was pre-arranged to happen at the border of Switzerland once Hitler fell. The aide-de-camp who affected his arrest was none other than Clay Shaw, later charged by Jim Garrison with having an intelligence background and with a conspiracy to kill JFK. Though Garrison lost his case, the new files do much to prove it for him in ways he was kept from doing at the time.

von Braun would not work for us unless we saved his mentor and supporter General Walter Dohrnberger, who was facing war crimes trials for the slave labor murders at Dora. He was let off the hook by the High Commissioner to Germany, John J. McCloy, who later presided over the Warren Commission cover-up on JFK with his pal Allen Dulles, who cut the original deals with the Overcast and Paperclip Nazis and who headed the CIA until JFK fired him over the Bay of Pigs lies.

Dohrnberger worked with von Braun here at Redstone Arsenal before spending years at Bell Helicopter in Dallas/Ft. Worth, where his right-hand man in the 1960s was former military intelligence agent Michael Paine, whose estranged wife housed Lee and Marina Oswald, and who helped to get him the job at the Book Depository that set him up as the patsy.

Dohrnberger, among other things, invented the space shuttle (originally as a weapon) and the idea of Star Wars satellites we are being pushed to develop now. Another Nazi, finally deported, was Walter Rudolph, who helped us get to the moon. NASA was full of them, and they all wanted to militarize space.

Otto von Bolschwing did live in California. The woman who brought him into the United States was Helene von Damm, who later became the appointment secretary to Ronald Reagan. Reagan himself had ties to the Nazis, their spies in the US and other sympathizers from the 30's onward, when he lived with Errol Flynn, who worked for the Nazi Brown network here. von Bolshwing also made the initial investments with von Damm, a Greek fascist who was linked to their coup d'etat, and CIA arms dealer Frank Terpil, into a computer corporation that eventually transformed into "the company" front used by Contragaters Ollie North, Richard Secord and others.

Otto Skorzeny was a dashing and flamboyant soldier and covert operations expert who rivalled Lansdale for his exploits. He was also a hard core fascist. This account says he "escaped" a camp in 1948. In fact, there was an attempt to try him for war crimes, and he was successfully defended at Nuremberg by an American military lawyer who liked him, and later bragged about how he tricked the court to get Skorzeny acquitted.

Many of the potential convictions of war criminals were foiled by "losing" documents or key witnesses, a regular practice by US Army prosecutor Leon Jaworski. The same Jaworski who spent years at a Texas based CIA-related foundation, who squelched the local investigation of the JFK murder as the official liaison between the Warren Commission and the Texas authorities. (In fact, the Warren Report draft was written by a US Army historian recruited at the end of WWII from the ranks of Hitler's official historians, and transferred to the Commission staff for this task).

CONTINUED...

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/OurNaziAllies.html

Thank you for the kind words, Hubert Flotz.
Either I stand on the shoulders of giants or fail to avert my eyes when I plagiarize.
Thanks also for giving a damn!

[ToolTex]

40. Ruth Paine

Octafish, Excellent work.

From your reference to John Judge, "Our Nazi Allies." Judge mentioned Michael Paine, former military intelligence agent, and assistant to Dohrnberger at Bell Helicopter in Dallas/Ft. Worth.

In mentioning Michael Paines wife, that befriended and housed the Oswalds, and in fact drove Lee Oswald to Oak Cliff when he carried supposed curtain rods, (in fact a rifle), the day before Kennedy was killed.

Paine's wife's name was Ruth, and she was a first cousin to Allen and John Foster Dulles. In the Warren Report she stated that shortly before JFK was assassinated, she made a week long visit to her family in the East. There were no details other than family as to whom she visited, as I recall.

And of course we all know where Geo H W B was on 22 Nov 1963.

[earth mom]

14. K &R-Another Outstanding Thread!

:applause:

[Octafish]

36. Bush and Hitler - Is History Repeating Itself?

Thanks for the kind words, TheGoldenRule!

Here's something that bears repeating, writting in July 2001 by Cheryl Seal, a most prescient Democrat.

Bush and Hitler:

Is History Repeating Itself?

by Cheryl Seal
Democrats.com, July, 2001

No one expected Hitler to rise to power. He had failed at just about everything he had even undertaken until he discovered politics. In the world of spin and power plays, a superficial gift of gab and bullish determination could replace intelligence and idealism without missing a beat. Hitler found that the path to the top was short: Just tell a discontent people what they want to hear and make promises you have no intention to keep.

SNIP...

THE GOP OF 1936 AND TODAY'S DIRTY POLITICS:

How the Former Gave Birth to the Latter

Meanwhile, back in the U.S., FDR was attempting to guide the nation safely through the depression. The outrageous treatment of American workers throughout the industrial era up until that point by the corporate "bosses" had become a major issue. Men and women worked 12-14 hours a day, had no unemployment benefits, no health insurance, no safety regulations - no job security whatsoever. In response to this sorry state of affairs, labor unions were forming, but they were being met with brutal resistance by the Bosses and their henchmen. Because FDR championed the workers cause and called for all manner of reforms - including the social security system - he was identified as "the enemy" of the bosses. The Republican Party, the attack dog of big business even then, was turned loose on the President with a vengeance. His every step was "dogged."

Just as corporate America saw FDR as an enemy, many of them, including IBM and G.W. Bushs grandfather, saw in Hitler a friend and treated this vicious genocidal maniac with far more respect and deference than they did FDR. The GOP was to learn many of its nastiest tactics from Hitler and Goebbels, including using communism as a scapegoat/enemy of the state to consolidate power just as soon as they had a Republican back in the White House (Eisenhower in 1952).

Another Hitler tactic learned by the GOP was the use of the smear. Hitler advised telling a damaging lie about an "enemy," then repeating it over and over, no matter what proof may be offered to counter it. The GOP poured an unprecedented amount of money into the 1936 campaign of their candidate Alf Landon. The party launched what was then dubbed the "nationwide selling campaign strategy." To do this, observed political writer Ralph D. Casey in 1937, the party was showered with the money and vigilant efforts of "a small but determined group of businessmen."

Casey says the campaign was designed to be "an intensive, subtle, highly-organized salesmanship drive to unsell President Roosevelt and to sell Governor Landon and his highly-advertised common sense." (You have to hand it to the GOP for single-mindedness: theyre still using the same buzzwords - "common sense," et al. - after 65 years!).

The GOP "sales team" identified several key points of attack, which they have used with almost no variation in every campaign since, whether appropriate or not.

* Accuse opposition of overspending
* Accuse opposition of supporting "big government"
* Identify a bogeyman - usually the communists and/or liberals , although they have gotten a bit creative and now include environmentalists, anti-gun folks, and scientists on their list of "enemies of freedom"
* Condemn New Deal (i.e., government social programs) as communistic or in some other way unAmerican
* Manipulate statistics to own advantage
* Accuse opposition of waging a class war.

Day in, day out, the GOP attacked FDR, throwing suspicions on everything he did, and said, and on everyone he had ever known. His family dog was not even exempt from political attacks! FDR had nothing but contempt for this self-righteous underhandedness. He denounced the GOP as a pack of "economic royalists" who used the flag and constitution as smokescreens. "I welcome their hatred," he proclaimed.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Bush_Hitler.html

Thanks for giving a damn, TheGoldenRule!

[Swamp Rat]

15. "Money trumps peace."

[Octafish]

37. The Bush Family's War Profiteering

People pass by the cube and remark:
"Thassa byootiful pic!" Compay.



I always tell them my screensavers are originals by Mr. Swamp Rat.

The Bush Family's War Profiteering

Written by Administrator
DemocracyRising.com
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.

Marvin Bush is co-founder and partner in Winston Partners, a private investment firm which is part of a larger firm called the Chatterjee Group. (See http://www.winstonpartners.com/. ) According to SEC filings, the Chatterjee Group consists of Winston Partners, LP; Chatterjee Fund Management, LP; Winston Partners II LDC, a Cayman Islands-based company; Winston Partners II LLC; Chatterjee Advisors LLC; Chatterjee Management Company; Mr. Chatterjee himself; and Furxedown Trading Limited, a company organized under the laws of the Isle of Man. The address for Winston Partners II LDC is in the Netherlands Antilles. The other subsidiaries were organized in Delaware. Governor Jeb Bush is also an investor in the Winston Capital Fund, which happens to be managed by Marvin's firm.

CONTINUED...

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

Thanks for giving a damn, Swamp Rat.

PS: I tried signing up for your www.Swamp-Rat.com thing and never heard from that Administrator who looks like Karl Marx.

[Swamp Rat]

41. You can register at that site?

:D

I edited your account to "registered user." I hope that helps. ;)

I'm new to the software and I'm short on time these days, so it may be a while before I get the site tweaked right.



If you see anyone who looks like Karl Marx, run in the other direction. :D

[unblock]

16. why tar wall street with the same brush as the third reich???

hey, we're not all evil on wall street, you know. most of us are democrats, in fact.

wall street is subject to abuse, and the bfee does have an ignominious history in that regard. but then again, pretty much every industry has its share of assholes and scumbuckets and corrupt jerks.

[tomp]

39. hey, averell harriman was a democrat.

it all depends what KIND of democrat you are (i.e., clinton or kucinich. remember clinton was annointed by harriman's wife).

[formercia]

50. The boys morph to whatever political party

gives them the most leverage. It's not about party affiliation, it's about ideology and hidden agendas.

[Octafish]

45. Capitalism's Invisible Army or Conspiracies In Action...

Agree completely, unblock. The majority of Wall Street folks are good people.

And not all Bushes are bad people.

And not all bad Bushes are all bad.

Just a few.

Until they come forward and testify under oath, for the record, a detailed and truthful accounting for their actions, including their alleged treasons, I will hammer away at them. It's not an obsession. I believe this is a nation of laws where all are held accountable, not just the upper middle class on down.

Here's recent news about how Poppy played the game:

CIA Helped Bush Senior In Oil Venture

Bush Senior Early CIA Ties Revealed

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

January 8, 2007

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

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

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

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

“Their joint activities culminated in the establishment of Zapata Oil,” the memo reads. In fact, early Zapata corporate filings do not seem to reflect Devine's role in the company, suggesting that it may have been covert. Yet other documents do show Thomas Devine on the board of an affiliated Bush company, Zapata Offshore, in January, 1965, more than a year after he had resumed work for the spy agency.

CONTINUED...

http://realnews.org/rn/content/zapata.html

Please know that I really am sorry if I implied all of Wall Street was aligned with the Reich. Several members of my family work there. Derivatives and REITs and complex stuff.

As to why I sound like a broken record regarding the BFEE: I find this stuff and put it out there so they -- and all good people who care about the Nation and the future -- can learn about the Who's Who and What's What of our nation's secret history.

I believe you understand. Thanks for giving a damn, unblock.

[unblock]

46. thekey to understanding the bfee is that they will abuse ANY institution

to their advantage.they have zero respect for laws, congress, the courts, the federal/state distinction, the people, the concept of a public company, etc.

at any given time, in any given situation, they will do whatever seems best for themselves and their own power/money situation. this includes coming up with a post hoc explanation that may or may not be truthful and may or may not be reasonable cover.

hence whatever they do doesn't reflect negatively on the institutions they abuse, beyond pointing out that it is possible to abuse them. this is true for wall street. but as we've seen, this is true for our electoral process, the presidential appointee process, the supreme court decision-making process, the budget process, the campaign process, the media, the news, and so on.

yes i give a damn and please keep hammering away at the bfee.

[zippy890]

17. do you think we'll be rid of them after the 2008 election?

Jeb Bush said he had no political future.

I would like to think no man or woman named bush will ever be elected again.

Thanks for the info

[formercia]

20. Nah, they're survivors

they will be competing with the cockaroach as the last species left alive on the Planet.

As Tony Montana would say: "Bunch of cockaroaches"

[moodforaday]

23. Um, because

Wall Street largely bankrolled Hitler and hs pals? Would that be reason enough?

It's called metonymy, by the way - a substitution, just like you say "the White House" to mean the Prez. Not every Wall Street financier bankrolled Hitler... just a bunch of the richest ones.

[Octafish]

47. Jebthro could end up as Romney's veep...

...and afterward quickly assend to the Oval Office.

Remember the coincidental Hinckley-Bush connection:

NEIL BUSH (AND HIS FAMILY)—I

In the millions of words written in the national news media about Neil Bush and his part in the Silverado Savings & Loan scandal, no reference has been made to an extremely significant fact of his life.

Neil Bush, son of the then vice president of the United States, was scheduled to have dinner on March 31, 1981, with Scott Hinckley, brother of John Hinckley, the day after a bullet came within an inch of making Neil Bush's father the new president of the United States.

Even though John Chancellor had let slip out this most remarkable assassination coincidence shortly after John Hinckley tried to kill President Reagan, it was censored by NBC News and the other organs of the national news media during the subsequent 10 years. And even in the several months of extensive coverage of Neil Bush's part in the massive savings and loan fraud, no mention was made of his role in the continuing coverup of the most significant story in the 1980s.

Back in 1981, I thought the dinner engagement was so extraordinary that I looked everywhere for it in the days following Chancellor's raised-eyebrow report in the hours after the shooting. One magazine laughed at it and a few smaller papers carried a story by United Press International, but the Associated Press and the other major news outlets, in response to my numerous protests, made clear to me that they had no intention of letting the American people learn of Neil Bush's connection to the Hinckleys or, for that matter, the many other astonishing unanswered questions in the wake of the Bush-Hinckley coverup.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nathanielblumberg.com/neil.htm

These are the "interesting times" we were warned about.

You're welcome, zippy890. And thank you for giving a damn.

[formercia]

57. The Hinkleys are part of the network

I've had run-ins with that bunch too.

Sacrificing a 'defective' to the cause.

[deutsey]

69. They just have the most amazing "coincidences", don't they?

**Prescott Bush has his assets seized in 1942 for doing business with the Nazis.

**According to a report in The Nation, days after the Kennedy assassination in 1963 a memo from J. Edgar Hoover stated that a "Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency" had been briefed regarding the reaction of anti-Castro Cuban exiles in Miami to the murder. Although George H.W. Bush claims the name he shares with the "Mr. George Bush of the CIA" is coincidental, a source for the story observed: "I know was involved in the Caribbean. I know he was involved in the suppression of things after the Kennedy assassination. There was a very definite worry that some Cuban groups were going to move against Castro and attempt to blame it on the CIA." (see Joseph McBride, "'George Bush,' CIA Operative," The Nation, July 16/23, 1988, p. 42).

**The Bushes knew Hinkley's family and Jeb even was to have dinner with them when John shot Reagan.

**The Bushes know the bin Laden's and Poppy even was meeting with one of them in DC during the 9/11 attacks.

Almost leads one to certain conclusions, don't it? :eyes:

[Initech]

21. Money does not trump peace sometimes... it trumps peace 150% of the time.

[Octafish]

51. The Inexplicable Enrichment of Bush Cronies

Ms. Evelyn Pringle also hits the nails on the head:

The Inexplicable Enrichment Of
Bush Cronies

By Evelyn Pringle

20 April, 2007
Countercurrents.org

It's time for Americans to face the cold hard truth that nothing will be accomplished by allowing the daily carnage in Iraq to continue, and if Bush has his way, our young people will be dying in this war profiteering scheme until hell freezes over. Congress needs to authorize funding to pull our troops out of that deathtrap and not one dime more.

SNIP...

The only people who are benefiting from Bush's war on terror are members of the Military Industrial Complex. Since 9/11, the pay for the CEOs of the top 34 defense contractors in the US has doubled, according to the August 2006 report, "Executive Excess 2006," by the Institute for Policy Studies, and the United for a Fair Economy.

The bill is rising so fast because the level of war profiteering is unprecedented. The Excess Report lists George David, CEO of United Technologies, as the top earner, making more than $200 million since 9/11, despite investigations into the poor quality of the firm's Black Hawk helicopters.

Halliburton CEO David Lesar made $26.6 million in 2005, and nearly $50 million since 9/11, an amount that even beats the $24 million that Dick Cheney received in exchange for the guarantee that Halliburton would be the number one military contractor during the Bush administration.

Cheney himself is also taking in war profits, contrary to what he told Tim Russert on "Meet the Press" in 2003, when he denied making any money off his former employer. "Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush's vice president," he said, "I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest."

"I have no financial interest in Halliburton," Cheney told Tim, "of any kind and haven't had, now, for over three years."

Those statements were proven false when financial disclosure forms showed that Cheney had received a deferred salary from Halliburton of $205,298 in 2001, $262,392 in 2002, $278,437 in 2003, and $294,852 in 2004.

CONTINUED...

http://www.countercurrents.org/pringle200407.htm

Thank you for giving a damn, EOO.

[Initech]

58. Holy crap! Dick Cheney recieved $24 million from Halliburton?

:wow:

And this isn't treasonous?

[wildbilln864]

24. K&R!

Octafish....:yourock:
Keep up the great work!

[Octafish]

53. The Madness of the War Profiteering in Iraq - 'Iraq for Sale'

Thank you for the kind words, wildbilln864.

Here's what it's all about: An illegal and immoral war waged for profit and power:

The Madness of the War Profiteering in Iraq

"Iraq for Sale" director Robert Greenwald explains to Congress that the billions that defense contractors and war profiteers are making out of the Iraq war is a madhouse run amuck.

By Robert Greenwald, AlterNet. Posted May 10, 2007.

The following is Robert Greenwald's testimony to the House Appropriations Committee, Subcommittee on Defense about war profiteering.

Thank you for inviting me to testify today. I appreciate the opportunity to share with you what I have learned in the course of making the documentary film, "Iraq For Sale: The War Profiteers." Along with my colleagues at Brave New Films, I spent a year researching the experiences of soldiers, truck drivers and families affected by the presence of private military contractors in Iraq. They shared with us their harrowing experiences of how military privatization and war profiteering have affected their lives, and in some cases taken the life of a loved one.

It is their personal stories that compel me to testify today. I am not a lawyer or a financial specialist or a government expert, but I can tell you from my extensive first-hand experience with these folks that something is seriously wrong. We are hurting our country and the many patriots who serve in the military. Our taxpayer dollars are being spent, abused, mis-used, and wasted on profiteers. It is a true tragedy, and it is costing the lives of Americans and Iraqis.

SNIP...

I remember clearly my interview with Stewart Scott, a former Halliburton employee. With pain and rage in his voice, he said how dare Halliburton put its people up at five-star hotels, while the soldiers, who he was there to help, were sleeping on the ground. I did not believe in him at first, but then he began naming the hotels and the locations. It was all true.

Another young Halliburton worker named James Logsdon told me about the burn pits. Burn pits are large dumps near military stations where they would burn equipment, trucks, trash, etc. If they ordered the wrong item, they'd throw it in the burn pit. If a tire blew on a piece of equipment, they'd throw the whole thing into the burn pit. They burn pits had so much equipment, they even gave them a nickname -- "Home Depot."

The trucker said he would get us some photos. And I naively asked, how big are they, the size of a backyard swimming pool? He laughed, and referred to one that he had seen that was 15 football fields large, and burned around the clock! It infuriated him to have to burn stuff rather then give it to the Iraqis or to the military. Yet Halliburton was being rewarded each time they billed the government for a new truck or new piece of equipment. With a cost- plus contract, the contractors receive a percentage of the money they spend. As Shane told me, "It's a legal way of stealing from the government or the taxpayers' money."

These costs eat up the money that could be used for other supplies.


CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/51719/

Thank you for giving a damn, wildbilln864!

[wildbilln864]

65. my pleasure Octafish....

:hi:

[fooj]

25. We should have hung Prescott when we had the chance...

Now the world is stuck with these evil monsters! F*cking WAR CRIMINALS!

The truth will set u.s. free.

[ozymandius]

35. This family is a damned menace.

Secrecy and subterfuge have been their M.O. from the beginning.

[Octafish]

55. How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Despite the facts, I'm not sure we could get a conviction. Like they've done so many times since, Prescott Sr's lawyers would've claimed "national security" in order to get the charges dismissed. The guy had enough money to hire the best.

The most recent layer-of-the-onion in this saga states Prescott and Friends were helpin' Hitler in order to encourage a Great War with the commies. That way, Germany and the Soviets would duke it out while the USA stayed safely out of the mix and profit by selling to both sides.

Any guesses as to who'd be the ones to profit most?

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president

Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington
Saturday September 25, 2004
The Guardian

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
SNIP...

While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.

Tantalising

Bush was also on the board of at least one of the companies that formed part of a multinational network of front companies to allow Thyssen to move assets around the world.

Thyssen owned the largest steel and coal company in Germany and grew rich from Hitler's efforts to re-arm between the two world wars. One of the pillars in Thyssen's international corporate web, UBC, worked exclusively for, and was owned by, a Thyssen-controlled bank in the Netherlands. More tantalising are Bush's links to the Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC), based in mineral rich Silesia on the German-Polish border. During the war, the company made use of Nazi slave labour from the concentration camps, including Auschwitz. The ownership of CSSC changed hands several times in the 1930s, but documents from the US National Archive declassified last year link Bush to CSSC, although it is not clear if he and UBC were still involved in the company when Thyssen's American assets were seized in 1942.

Three sets of archives spell out Prescott Bush's involvement. All three are readily available, thanks to the efficient US archive system and a helpful and dedicated staff at both the Library of Congress in Washington and the National Archives at the University of Maryland.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html

Thank you for giving a damn, fooj!

[seemslikeadream]

28. Neon Meate Dream Of A Octafish

:hi:

[Octafish]

56. Don Van Vliet is a Bodhisattva

You must be, too, seemslikeadream.



When She Dropped The Flower 1969 by Don Van Vliet (Captain Beefheart)

www.beefheart.com

[seemslikeadream]

63. On kakaka bisanmaei sowaka

[mod mom]

30. Another informative history lesson compliments Octafish. Rec'd as always!

[Octafish]

54. Pentagon as Casino - 'War Profiteer' are no longer dirty words.

Thank you, mod mom.

Here's a real giant pegging the wrong crowd running the MI-Complex:

Pentagon as Casino

Versailles on the Potomac

By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

War profiteer. It used to be one of the dirtiest slurs in American politics, potent enough to sully the reputations of the rich and powerful. Now it's a calling card, something you might find highlighted in a defense contractor's corporate prospectus as a lure to attract investors looking for bulging profits and escalating dividends.

In the summer of 2000, the defense industry was mired in a prolonged slump, as was the US economy, which under the unforgiving lash of its neo-liberal architects had become dependent on the financial engines of the munitions makers. Unhappily for the defense industry and its investor class, the Soviet Union had disintegrated before their very eyes and the People's Republic of China, long considered the bogeyman state in waiting, had lustily embraced state capitalism instead of stepping up to the plate as a brawny military rival.

The big ticket items of the Cold War, from Stealth bombers to nuclear subs, from aircraft carriers to the Star Wars scheme, that had sustained the industry to the tune of tens of billions every year no longer had the slightest pretext for continued production, except as the most extravagant form of corporate welfare. Those weapons systems that weren't obsolete, such as the B-2 bomber and F-22 fighter, simply didn't work, such as Star Wars-lately remarketed as Ballistic Missile Defense.

To make matters more fraught for the weapons industry, the Pentagon was poised to put the finishing touches on its Quadrennial Defense Review, which sets procurement, budget and policy goals for the Defense Department. Of course, the Pentagon would never slash its own budget and, in fact, many anticipated that the QDR would call for increasing annual defense spending to something approaching 4 percent of the gross domestic product. However, it seemed likely that the generals would call for the termination of many of the multi-billion dollar relics of the Cold War in exchange for massive increases in spending on newer killing technologies geared for what has come to be known as "4th Generation Warfare."

Then 9/11 happened and all the anxieties of the weapons lobby evaporated in the flames of one fateful morning. The QDR, once so threatening, was simply another fat white paper that came and went without leaving so much as a scratch on the old Imperial Guard.

As we revealed here in CounterPunch, the Taliban offered Osama Bin Laden, and his top associates, the Bush administration on several occasions after the attacks of 9/11. Bush refused. They wanted a prolonged and ever-escalating war, not a deftly executed police action and not justice for the families of those slain and maimed by Bin Laden's kamikazes.

Instead, thousands of Cruise missiles were ordered up and, just like that, Boeing and Lockheed were back in business. For months, cruise missiles, J-DAM bombs and CB-87 cluster munitions shredded the hamlets and hovels of Afghanistan, killing more than 3,500 civilians in the early days of that one-sided war. But this was simply a bloody prelude to a more profound slaughter. For Afghanistan, in the immortal words of Donald Rumsfeld, wasn't a "target rich" environment. But Iraq certainly was. And only hours after the 9/11 attacks, Rumsfeld and his neocon coterie of laptop bombardiers began plotting the war on Saddam and the domestic propaganda campaign for how to sell it to a psychologically shattered and anxiety-ridden American public. The civilian body count in Iraq would climb much higher, topping 650,000 by the winter of 2007, with more than 200 Iraqis dying every day.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair04282007.html

Thanks also for giving a damn, mod mom!

[DrDebug]

31. Prescott Bush continued dealing with the nazis after UBC was seized

Bush Family - Nazi Dealings - WWII to 1951
by John Buchanan and Stacey Michael
from The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 3, November 7, 2003

(...)

After the war, a total of 18 additional Brown Brothers Harriman and UBC-related client assets were seized under The Trading with the Enemy Act, including several that showed the continuation of a relationship with the Thyssen family after the initial 1942 seizures.

The records also show that Bush and the Harrimans conducted business after the war with related concerns doing business in or moving assets into Switzerland, Panama, Argentina and Brazil - all critical outposts for the flight of Nazi capital after Germany's surrender in 1945. Fritz Thyssen died in Argentina in 1951.

One of the final seizures, in October 1950, concerned the U.S. assets of a Nazi baroness named Theresia Maria Ida Beneditka Huberta Stanislava Martina von Schwarzenberg, who also used two shorter aliases. Brown Brothers Harriman, where Prescott Bush and the Harrimans were partners, attempted to convince government investigators that the baroness had been a victim of Nazi persecution and therefore should be allowed to maintain her assets.

It appears, rather, that the subject was a member of the Nazi party, government investigators concluded.

At the same time the last Brown Brothers Harriman client assets were seized, Prescott Bush announced his Senate campaign that led to his election in 1952.

(...)

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Politicians/Bush_Nazi_Dealings.html

[Octafish]

59. CIA, the NAZIs and America

Thanks for the info, DrDebug. An interesting couplaposts from the Education Forum:

Joe Trento does not mention the assassination of JFK in his new book, Prelude to Terror. However, I believe that this was the most important book on the assassination published in 2005.

Trento’s book is based largely on interviews carried out with Edwin Wilson, Tom Clines and Shirley Brill. Trento also uses documents provided by Wilson. Critics will claim that Trento is over-reliant on Wilson. He seems to believe everything Wilson has told him (he is more wary about accepting some of the information provided by Clines). Brill is also believed, although as Clines’s former badly treated girlfriend, she obviously has her own agenda. Despite these problems, I agree with Trento, that Wilson and Brill are telling the truth. My problem with Wilson is that I don’t believe he is telling the full story. His main concern is to prove that he was set-up by Ted Shackley. He tells us virtually nothing about what Wilson, Shackley and Clines were up to in the early 1960s. I think there are reasons why Trento has not explored these areas. Hopefully, Joe will be willing to discuss these issues here:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5753

The first chapter takes a look at the activities of Allen Dulles and Prescott Bush. He looks in some detail at Bush’s business dealing during the Second World War. On page 3 he states that John J. McCloy and Allen Dulles were both involved in covering up Bush’s dealings with Nazi Germany. Of course, McCloy and Dulles were also both members of the Warren Commission. I believe this is highly relevant but Trento ignores this connection.

McCloy was also German High Commissioner after the war. In February, 1951, he ordered the release of Alfred Krupp from Landsberg Prison. Krupp was tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg. He was accused of plundering occupied territories and being responsible for the barbaric treatment of prisoners of war and concentration camp inmates. Krupp was found guilty of being a major war criminal and sentenced to twelve years in prison and had all his wealth and property confiscated.

When he was released, Krupp had his is property, valued at around $45 million, and his numerous companies were also restored to him. He was not the only wealthy war criminal released by McCloy. Is it possible that Krupp and his Nazi colleagues went on the fund CIA illegal covert activities? In other words, was McCloy part of CIA’s “Secret Team” as early as 1951? If that is the case, could this be the reason why he was on the Warren Commission with Dulles in 1964?

Trento quotes John Loftus to argue that “Bush and his associates did not invest in Nazi-controlled companies out of any ideological devotion to Hitler, but because this was simply good business practice”. I disagree with this proposition. A significant number of businessmen in the US and the UK supported the Nazis in the 1930s for “ideological reasons”. The main reason for this was that they supported the way the Nazis were dealing with the threat of socialism and communism. Remember, the first thing that Hitler did when he gained power was to put left-wing activists in concentration camps (the Jews were dealt with at a later date).

This was very popular with right-wing elements in the Western World (it of course helps to explain why the Pope and the Catholic Church refused to condemn what was going on in Nazi Germany). I believe that people like Prescott Bush, Allen Dulles and John McCloy did have ideological reasons for their political activities. After all, the main thing that drove the CIA agenda was the perceived fear of communism.

In Prelude to Terror, Joe Trento argues that Ted Shackley’s “Secret Team” began during the Carter presidency. Carter had campaigned against the “rogue CIA” and promised to do something about it. When he took office he sacked George Bush as director of the CIA. He initially selected Ted Sorenson to become the new head of the CIA (that would have been interesting as he was one of JFK’s aides who had doubts about the Warren Commission). However, he was blocked by the Senate and instead he appointed Stansfield Turner, who was ordered to clean-up covert operations. In August, 1977, Turner ordered that the CIA reduce the Directorate of Operations by 823 positions. People like Shackley and Clines were told their careers were finished. Trento argues that it was at this point that Shackley decided to privatise some of CIA’s covert operations. The money for these activities came what was called the Safari Club. This was established when George Bush was director of the CIA. This was admitted by a speech made by Prince Turki (February 2002). He claimed:

“In 1976, after the Watergate matters took place here (in the US), your intelligence community was literally tied up by Congress. It could not do anything… In order to compensate for that, a group of countries got together in the hope of fighting Communism and established what was called the Safari Club. The Safari Club included France, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, and Iran. The principal aim of this club was that we would share information with each other and help each other in countering Soviet influence worldwide, and especially in Africa.”

Turki admitted that Saudi Arabia had taken over financing some covert operations. The Safari Club needed a network of banks to finance its intelligence operations. According to Joe Trento: “with the official blessing of George Bush, Sheikh Kamal Adham transformed a small Pakistani merchant bank, the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), into a worldwide money-laundering machine” (page 104).

Shackley used some of this money to run some covert operations that could not be traced back to the CIA. He also used Edwin Wilson to use his companies to raise money for other operations. This included arms dealing and drug running. Trento argues that it was this decision that compromised US intelligence and led to 9/11.

According to Trento, Shackley’s “manipulation of the CIA bureaucracy allowed Osama bin Laden’s fundraising to thrive, as al Qaeda flourished under Saudi and CIA protection.”

CONTINUED...

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5764

This is old news to you, I'd bet.

Still, it's news to 99-percent of the USA.

Thanks for giving a damn, Doctor.

[Karenina]

61. It's also "news" to Germans

This week 2 students of mine in 2 different classes hijacked our lesson because they'd seen MM's F911. I tell them what I know, encourage them to do their own research and send them to KNOW YOUR BFEE. Was sonst?

[DrDebug]

62. Thanks. Bush used the Safari Club for October Surprise as well

I'm sorry that I've pasted in a story which you already put up. I noticed it later.

The Safari Club was created without informing Congress or President Carter. It is unclear who originated the idea, because George H.W. Bush, Prince Turki al-Saud and Alexandre de Marenches (Head French Intelligence) all take credit for that clandestine intelligence agency which they specifically set up to circumvent President Carter and U.S. Congress.

It is not clear why President Carter fired George H.W. Bush, however it is very likely that it was related to George H.W. Bush starting clandestine intelligence agencies behind the President's back among other depravity.

The Safari Club is very important for what happened next, because George H.W. Bush decided to take revenge and even though he no longer had access to the CIA, he had the Safari Club to play with. Using the Safari Club he convinced Ayatollah Khomeini to keep the hostage until after the election. President Carter's popularity decreased significantly as the hostage crisis went on especially after his attempts to free the hostages failed (was that because George H.W. Bush used his own intelligence agency against the CIA and President Carter?)

The Bushes: The perfect crime family. Always near the crime, however they always seem to get away with it.

[bobthedrummer]

32. Wisconsin is full of strongholds within those parameters-we've even got living Nazis here. n/t

[Octafish]

67. The NAZI Hydra in America

How Right Wing Politicians are Plunging America into a Fascist Police State:

http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/nazihydra.html

WARNING: The above site's graphics and Flash or whatever are a menace to your graphic sensibilities.
Not knowing the info it contains is a menace to your world's future.

[ftr23532]

33. K&R!

Keep up the great work Octafish!

[Octafish]

68. Thanks, ftr23532! Remember TEAM B?

Seems to me Poppy and his, um, friends decided they didn't like detente and peace and stuff because it was unprofitable. So DCI Poppy ordered his CIA to come up with some estimates of Soviet strength that helped Uncle Sam justify buying more guns and less butter.

Team B: The trillion-dollar experiment

Two experts report on how a group of Cold War true believers were invited to second-guess the CIA. Did the "outside experts" of the 1970s contribute to the military buildup of the 1980s?

By Anne Hessing Cahn
April 1993 pp. 22, 24-27 (vol. 49, no. 03) © 1993 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Election years have much in common. They produce a profusion of punditry, media attention, and politically expedient action, quickly forgotten, and with little lasting impact. But not always; sometimes events are set into motion that have long lifetimes. This was the case in 1976 when, as in 1992, an incumbent Republican president faced a strong challenge from the right wing of his own party. Then (as last year) sops were offered to placate the far right and, while it is too early to know which of the 1992 capers will endure, we now know a great deal about one of the most political events of 1976, and its remarkably long-lasting effects on U.S. policy.

Late last year, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) released the 1976 "Team B" reports. Team B was an experiment in competitive threat assessments approved by then-Director of Central Intelligence George Bush. Teams of "outside experts" were to take independent looks at the highly classified data used by the intelligence community to assess Soviet strategic forces in the yearly National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs). NIEs are authoritative and are widely circulated within the government. U.S. national security policy on various issues as well as the defense budget are based on their general conclusions. Although NIEs represent the collective judgment of the entire intelligence community, the lead agency is the CIA.

There were three "B" teams. One studied Soviet low-altitude air defense capabilities, one examined Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) accuracy, and one investigated Soviet strategic policy and objectives. But it is the third team, chaired by Harvard professor Richard Pipes, that ultimately received considerable publicity and is commonly referred to as Team B.

The Team B experiment was concocted by conservative cold warriors determined to bury détente and the SALT process. Panel members were all hard-liners. The experiment was leaked to the press in an unsuccessful attempt at an "October surprise." But most important, the Team B reports became the intellectual foundation of "the window of vulnerability" and of the massive arms buildup that began toward the end of the Carter administration and accelerated under President Reagan.

How did the Team B notion come about? In 1974, Albert Wohlstetter, a professor at the University of Chicago, accused the CIA of systematically underestimating Soviet missile deployment, and conservatives began a concerted attack on the CIA's annual assessment of the Soviet threat. This assessment--the NIE--was an obvious target.

SNIP...

While Team B waxed eloquent about "conceptual failures," it was unable to grasp how the future might differ from the past. In 1976 mortality rates were rising for the entire Soviet population, and life expectancies, numbers of new labor entrants, and agricultural output were all declining. Yet Team B wrote confidently, "Within what is, after all, a large and expanding GNP . . . Soviet strategic forces have yet to reflect any constraining effect of civil economy competition, and are unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future." (Emphasis in original.) And When Ronald Reagan got elected, Team B became, in essence, the "A Team."

CONTINUED...

April 1993 pp. 22, 24-27 (vol. 49, no. 03) © 1993 Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

http://www.fullmoon.nu/sources.bak/CHAPTER%2010/PART%201/Team%20B.htm

Thank you for giving a damn, ForTheRecord Man!

[conscious evolution]

34. K & R

[Octafish]

70. Darth Rumsfeld

The BFEE takes Mao's dictum about political power coming from the barrel of a gun to extremes, equating nuclear weapons with ultimate political power.

Darth Rumsfeld

By Jason Vest
Issue Date: 2.26.01

Since Donald Rumsfeld's appointment as secretary of defense was announced on December 28, approbatory phrases have been the order of the day. The Washington Post cast him as "elder statesman," while The New York Times characterized him as a "tough-minded manager." At his January 11 confirmation hearing, the servile aria started by the press was taken up by the Senate Armed Services Committee: Save for a few pointed questions on fiscal oversight by Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona and Senator Robert Byrd, the West Virginia Democrat, Rumsfeld's hearing could have passed for a mannerly colloquy of academics discussing the future of defense. On January 20, moments after George W. Bush was sworn in, Donald Rumsfeld--"Rummy," as he is known to his friends--was confirmed by the Senate.

SNIP...

Killing SALT II

In 1975, when Gerald Ford fired James Schlesinger from the Pentagon and replaced him with Donald Rumsfeld, Washington's hawks were apoplectic: While Schlesinger was an advocate of big defense spending, Rumsfeld was an unknown; worse, he was seen to be a sop to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

As the 1976 election approached, a Kissinger ally was not the best thing to be. Ford was running scared from archconservative Ronald Reagan and his supporters, who held that two of the Ford administration's higher profiles--Kissinger and Vice President Nelson Rockefeller--were too liberal. ("Under Kissinger and Ford," Reagan intoned, "this nation has become number two in a world where it is dangerous--if not fatal--to be second best.") Conservatives were convinced that Kissinger's policy of détente with the Soviet Union would ultimately embolden the Russians to fight and win a nuclear world war.

So a friendly hawk phoned Rumsfeld and asked him if he had ever heard of Albert Wohlstetter, at the Rand Corporation. Rumsfeld said no. The friend told Rumsfeld to ask Wohlstetter to lunch--and to make sure the press knew about it. A low-profile but eminently influential shaper of nuclear strategy, Wohlstetter was spiritual godfather to the Cold War's atomic hawks; his Rand Corporation reports had been a guiding light to hard-line strategists since the 1950s. Wohlstetter flew in from Rand for a two-and-half-hour lunch with Rumsfeld--and "the hawks were rapturous," says Rumsfeld's comrade.

His conservative credentials established, Rumsfeld began to chip away at Kissinger's access and public image. Some of Kissinger's partisans in the press corps found Rumsfeld's campaign against the K so heavy-handed they virtually outed him as Kissinger's nemesis, by making Rummy's identity as a Kissinger-bashing source obvious. Then, on November 1, 1975, Ford fired William Colby, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Schlesinger, the secretary of defense, replacing them with George H.W. Bush and Rumsfeld, respectively. Though Kissinger remained as secretary of state, Ford stripped him of his position as national-security adviser. The greatest ignominy, however, was yet to come.

This year, in his January 11 confirmation hearing, Rumsfeld told Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy that if President Bush wants arms reductions lower than required by treaty, he'd support the president. But, he added, he would "offer his views" to the contrary: "I mean, people, honorable people, can come to different views, and I did with respect to SALT II." But the reality of SALT II--the second phase of the strategic-arms-limitation talks between the Soviet Union and the United States--belies Rumsfeld's gentle revisionism; in fact, Rumsfeld and his allies used hardball and subterfuge to kill the treaty and undermine Henry Kissinger.

In early December 1975, Ford and Kissinger embarked on a Pacific Rim swing. Afterward, Kissinger was going to head to Moscow, hoping to conclude negotiations for SALT II. En route to Jakarta from Hong Kong, however, Rumsfeld cabled Air Force One, rebuking Kissinger for even considering a Moscow trip without consulting Rumsfeld and others. Kissinger's Russia sojourn was nixed. Then, on December 6, columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak reported that a number of Ford advisers were "outraged" at Kissinger's "drafting top secret proposals for major concessions to Moscow." The column implied that only one man could save the republic from the betrayal of giving away the nuclear farm: Donald Rumsfeld.

SNIP...

The Committee on the Present Danger

By March 1976, the word détente had disappeared from Gerald Ford's vocabulary. Meanwhile, a group of like-minded gentlemen continued to meet at Washington's exclusive Metropolitan Club for a series of discussions on what to do about the menace of détente and, in their view, the insatiable Soviet Union.

Out of these meetings came the Committee on the Present Danger (CPD), whose existence revolved around the die-hard belief that the United States was failing to keep pace with the Soviet war machine. Though originally seen as an extremist organization, the group--which included a number of Rumsfeld's adepts and comrades-in-arms--managed to prevail upon the Ford administration to let its members have access to CIA data in the service of providing an "alternative" assessment of the Soviet threat.

In CPD's view, the agency chronically minimized the Soviet military threat, thus creating a false basis for what CPD saw as insufficient U.S. defense expenditures. At the Pentagon, Rumsfeld was pushing hard for new strategic endeavors, such as the MX missile and the B-1 bomber. Though William Colby had successfully fought against outside analysis, new CIA Director George Bush was much more receptive to the suggestion from the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board--which included CPD members--that the agency's analysts hadn't been on the ball. It was no surprise, then, that when Bush asked the White House for permission to bring in the CPD, he obtained an enthusiastic response.

SNIP...

CONTINUED...

http://www.theprospect.com/print/V12/4/vest-j.html

Thanks for giving a damn, conscious evolution.

[Cerridwen]

38. K & R

Those who forget history...

You know the rest.

[Octafish]

71. Billions in Oil Missing in Iraq, U.S. Study Says

This you know, but it is news for historically unaware:

Billions in Oil Missing in Iraq, U.S. Study Says

By JAMES GLANZ
NYT May 12, 2007

Between 100,000 and 300,000 barrels a day of Iraq’s declared oil production over the past four years is unaccounted for and could have been siphoned off through corruption or smuggling, according to a draft American government report.

Using an average of $50 a barrel, the report said the discrepancy was valued at $5 million to $15 million daily.

The report does not give a final conclusion on what happened to the missing fraction of the roughly two million barrels pumped by Iraq each day, but the findings are sure to reinforce longstanding suspicions that smugglers, insurgents and corrupt officials control significant parts of the country’s oil industry.

The report also covered alternative explanations for the billions of dollars worth of discrepancies, including the possibility that Iraq has been consistently overstating its oil production.

Iraq and the State Department, which reports the numbers, have been under relentless pressure to show tangible progress in Iraq by raising production levels, which have languished well below the United States goal of three million barrels a day. Virtually the entire economy of Iraq is dependent on oil revenues.

The draft report, expected to be released within the next week, was prepared by the United States Government Accountability Office with the help of government energy analysts, and was provided to The New York Times by a separate government office that received a review copy. The accountability office declined to provide a copy or to discuss the draft.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/12/world/middleeast/12oil.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Thanks for giving a damn, Cerridwen!

[ClayZ]

42. Thanks, Octafish. K and R

May they all rot in prison!

[Octafish]

72. A History of Threat Escalation: Remembering Team B

The NAZIs the CIA brought built the case for the Soviets being on a war footing against the West. So, the CIA Wall Street types built a case for building up the arms race in response. Of course, they didn't use their inside information for personal benefit. Hah.

A History of Threat Escalation

Remembering Team B

By Tom Barry | February 12, 2004

The most notorious attempt by militarists and right-wing ideologues to challenge the CIA was the Team B affair in the mid-1970s. The 1975-76 “Team B” operation was a classic case of threat escalation by hawks determined to increase military budgets and step up the U.S. offensive in the cold war. Concocted by right-wing ideologues and militarists, Team B aimed to bury the politics of détente and the SALT arms negotiations, which were supported by the leadership of both political parties. 1

The historical record shows that the call for an independent assessment of the CIA's conclusions came from the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB--pronounced piffy-ab ). But the fear-mongering and challenges to the CIA's threat assessments--known as National Intelligence Estimates--actually started with nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter, who laid down the gauntlet in a 1974 Foreign Policy article entitled “Is There a Strategic Arms Race?” 2 Wohlstetter answered his rhetorical question negatively, concluding that the United States was allowing the Soviet Union to achieve military superiority by not closing the “missile gap.” Having inspired the Gaither Commission in 1957 to raise the missile gap alarm, Wohlstetter applied the same threat assessment methodology to energize hawks, cold warriors, and right-wing anticommunists in the mid-1970s to kill the politics of détente and increase budget allocations for the Pentagon. Following his Foreign Policy essay, Wohlstetter, who had left his full-time position at RAND to become a professor at the University of Chicago, organized an informal study group that included younger neoconservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz and longtime hawks like Paul Nitze.

PFIAB, which was dominated by right-wingers and hawks, followed Wohlstetter's lead and joined the threat assessment battle by calling in 1975 for an independent committee to evaluate the CIA's intelligence estimates. Testimony by PFIAB President Leo Cherne to the House Intelligence Committee in December 1975 alerted committee members to the need for better intelligence about the Soviet Union. “Intelligence cannot help a nation find its soul,” said Cherne. “It is indispensable, however, to help preserve the nation's safety, while it continues its search,” he added. George Bush Sr., who was about to leave his ambassadorship in China to become director of intelligence at the CIA, congratulated Cherne on his testimony, indicating that he would not oppose an independent evaluation of CIA intelligence estimates.

Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush Support Team B

Joining in the chorus of praise, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Bechtel's president George Shultz also congratulated Cherne, implicitly adding their backing for an independent threat assessment committee. 3 Led by several of the board's more hawkish members--including John Foster, Edward Teller, William Casey, Seymour Weiss, W. Glenn Campbell, and Clare Booth Luce--PFIAB had earlier in 1975 called for an independent evaluation of the CIA's national intelligence estimates. Feeling that the country's nuclear weapons industry and capacity was threatened, PFIAB was aiming to derail the arms control treaties then under negotiation.

Shortly after President Gerald Ford appointed Bush to be the new director of intelligence, replacing the beleaguered William Colby, Bush authorized PFIAB's plan for an alternative review. The review consisted of three panels: one to assess the threat posed by Soviet missile accuracy; another to determine the effect of Soviet air defenses on U.S. strategic bombers; and a third--the Strategic Objectives Panel--to determine the Soviet Union's intentions. The work of this last panel, which became known as the Team B Report, was the most controversial. As Paul Warnke, an official at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency at the time of the Team B exercise, wrote: “Whatever might be said for evaluation of strategic capabilities by a group of outside experts, the impracticality of achieving useful results by ‘independent' analysis of strategic objectives should have been self-evident. Moreover, the futility of the Team B enterprise was assured by the selection of the panel's members. Rather than including a diversity of views ... the Strategic Objectives Panel was composed entirely of individuals who made careers of viewing the Soviet menace with alarm.” 4

CONTINUED...

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/analysis/2004/0402teamb.php

Thanks for giving a damn, ClayZ!

[Norrin Radd]

43. k+r

[formercia]

44. K&R for the Sunday Morning Crowd. n/t

[nam78_two]

60. K&R

An Octafish thread has been long overdue in GD :toast:

[unkachuck]

64. I wish to kick this....

....simply because I can....excellent thread....

[Karenina]

66. May I join you?

:kick: