State Dept. Quashed 9/11 Links To Global Drug Trade

[nolabels]

(link)
http://www.kathymcmahon.utvinternet.com/mrn/Sibel-Edmonds.htm

(snip)
State Dept. Quashed 9/11 Links To Global Drug Trade
-FBI Whistleblower


Sibel Deniz Edmonds is awaiting a June 14 court hearing which will
determine if she can publicly tell the full story of intelligence failures
over the 9/11 attacks. The U.S. government wants her knowledge to
remain a state secret.

LIVE
AUDIO
INTERVIEW

7th June 9amET


Fintan Dunne
live interview with
Sibel Edmonds

Listen: mp3
Streaming Audio
Win Media Player
Duration 30 mins

Even as a judge prepares to permanently silence her, a former FBI translator of intelligence has implicated the US State Department in quashing investigations which had linked the 9/11 terrorist network to a global drug trafficking ring.

Sibel Edmonds, whose closed-door revelations to Congressional inquiries have been declared state secrets, says that as a result, FBI investigations were ordered terminated.

"There are certain points..., where you have your drug related activities combined with money laundering and information laundering, converging with your terrorist activities," Ms. Edmonds told BreakForNews.com.
(Interview - 7:00 min.)
(snip)

[struggle4progress]

1. The neocon mantra is "SHUT UP! SHUT UP! SHUT UP!"

[AwakeAtLast]

2. <Fingers stuck in ears>

La, la, la, la, I cant' hear you!

[nolabels]

3. That's what I keep on hearing, but everybody keeps talking

:D

[anarchy1999]

36. Daniel Ellsberg is standing with Sibel at a 9:30am press conference

on the steps of the courthouse on Monday the 14th. If Daniel Ellsberg is standing next to her, you can bet she has something to tell.

[PurityOfEssence]

50. Which courthouse?

That may well be a truly historical moment.

I was wondering who would be this era's Victor Hugo, but I think we've found our Ellsberg, and she'll be standing right next to him.

[JohnyCanuck]

83. Courthourse @ 3rd & Constitution Ave NW, Washington DC

An email from Sibel Edmonds:

For over two years Attorney General John Ashcroft has
been relentlessly engaged in covering up my reports and
investigations into my allegations. He has asserted the
rarely invoked State Secret Privilege in my court
proceedings, and has used it to quash a subpoena
request for my deposition from attorneys representing
9/11 family members on information regarding 9/11.

Ashcroft is not protecting 'national security' or
'state secrets' of the United States. On the contrary,
he is endangering our national security by covering up
facts and information related to criminal and terrorist
activities against this country and it's citizens.
Ashcroft is fully aware that making this information
public will bring about the question of accountability,
will expose serious criminal activities, and his
complicity in covering up.

On Monday, June 14, 2004, at 10:00 AM, Judge Reggie
Walton is expected to issue his ruling on the state
secret privilege assertion by AG Ashcroft, which is
intended to gag me. The hearing will be held in US
District Court for the District of Columbia, located at
3rd and Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, Judge
Walton's courtroom. Please attend if you can, since by
your presence both the court and Ashcroft will
understand that this attempt to cover up will not go
unnoticed.

I will be there, in front of the Court's Constitution
Avenue entrance, at 9:30 AM, and will be joined by
Daniel Ellsberg to make press statements and to meet
with all of you.

DC Court with map
http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/location.html

Hope to see you there,
Sibel D. Edmonds
__________________________________

Received the above as an email from www.septembereleventh.org

[Just Me]

94. Whoah!!! Wow!!!

I suppose that gives me comfort against whatever thoughts I had that she may have been a plant by the neocons to attack only the "State Department".

I hope a DUer will be there to take pics to post here.

[Barrett808]

4. "There are certain points..."

One of the biggest points of convergence: BFEE.

[Minstrel Boy]

5. The drug trade is a huge, but largely secret part of the 9/11 story.

Just as the drug trade is a huge but secret component of the US military-industrial complex.

During the Vietnam war, corpses of American GIs were gutted and stuffed with bags of Golden Triangle heroin, and shipped home via CIA proprietary airlines.

During the 1980s, crack was introduced to US inner cities to fund Iran/Contra.

After the Taliban were deposed, the poppies returned to Afghanistan with record yield, and "coalition forces" were directed to let them flourish.

It's not a flight of tinfoil fantasy. This is the way it is. The drug trade is a major part of the clandestine infrastructure of late-capital American fascism. The Bush family has been one of its leading exponents. In fact, it's less a family than it is a drug cartel.

And so, the State Department quashes links of 9/11 to the drug trade. "National security" and all that. Big surprise, I'm sure, to the many DEA field agents who have had countless investigations stymied because they led to CIA assets, or straight to Langley itself.

Daniel Hopsicker, the only investigative reporter on the 9/11 story in Florida, has dug up a tremendous wealth of material on the 9/11 drug connection. It stinks like Iran/Contra, and it suggests deep complicity.

A couple of pertinent threads:

Heroin, Al Qaeda and the Florida Flight School
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1294206

Mohamed Atta loved pork chops, and 49 other things you may not know
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1433886

Read through Hopsicker's archives at http://www.madcowprod.com/ for more, as well as his book, Welcome to Terrorland. It's arguably the most important work on 9/11.

[nolabels]

7. This one with madcowprod.com is interesting

This somewhat raw, so it has points

http://www.madcowprod.com/index48.html



CIA could have left him a message without incurring international phone charge
(snip)
When we checked with the manager of the Eckerd’s Drugs in Nokomis, he confirmed to us that a Middle-Eastern woman Sarah had been a pharmacist there during 1999 and 2000, just as Frederickson stated.

Thus, in addition to the phone number the Germans gave them for Marwan in the UAE, this new information suggests the CIA could have gotten in touch with Al-Shehhi through his cousin in Venice, without having to go to the trouble of punching-in a country code before the number.

How easy is that?

Frederickson, who worked part-time as a clerk in a convenience store in Venice, also said Atta and his burly sidekick (read bodyguard) Marwan began coming into her store over a year before the FBI says they arrived in America for the first time.

“Atta smoked Marlboros, and he and his buddy came into where I worked a lot in 1999,” she stated matter-of-factly. “They bought candy bars like they were going out of style, and a lot of bottles of wine.”
(snip)

[moof]

6. Hey you ....

[starroute]

8. Skull and Bones and the "China trade"

This one is still on my looking-for-outside-verification list, so I don't want to run with it too hard. But the more tinfoil sites on Skull and Bones regularly tie its origins to the "China trade" in opium in the early 19th century.

"In 1823, Samuel Russell established Russell and Company for the purpose of acquiring opium in Turkey and smuggling it to China. Russell and Company merged with the Perkins (Boston) syndicate in 1830 and became the primary American opium smuggler. Many of the great American and European fortunes were built on the "China" (opium) trade.

"One of Russell and Company's Chief of Operations in Canton was Warren Delano, Jr., grandfather of Franklin Roosevelt. Other Russell partners included John Cleve Green (who financed Princeton), Abiel Low (who financed construction of Columbia), Joseph Coolidge and the Perkins, Sturgis and Forbes families. (Coolidge's son organized the United Fruit company, and his grandson, Archibald C. Coolidge, was a co-founder of the Council on Foreign Relations.)

<snip>

"William Huntington Russell ('33), Samuel's cousin, studied in Germany from 1831-32. . . . When Russell returned to Yale in 1832, he formed a senior society with Alphonso Taft ('33). According to information acquired from a break-in to the 'tomb' (the Skull and Bones meeting hall) in 1876, 'Bones is a chapter of a corps in a German University.... General Russell, its founder, was in Germany before his Senior Year and formed a warm friendship with a leading member of a German society. He brought back with him to college, authority to found a chapter here.' So class valedictorian William H. Russell, along with fourteen others, became the founding members of 'The Order of Scull and Bones,' later changed to 'The Order of Skull and Bones'."

http://www.voxfux.com/features/scull_bones_opium.html


(And, oh yeah, did the name "Forbes" in that quote jump out at anyone else? Just another one of those things that make you go hmmm.)

[Minstrel Boy]

10. Interesting stuff. Thanks for that.

Good to remember that it's nothing new for "respectable" elites to profiteer from the drug trade.

[stickdog]

14. Do you think the record Afghani heroin crops since we took over there

are just another coincidence?

[starroute]

48. Francis Blackwell Forbes (Kerry's great-grandfather)

Francis Blackwell Forbes (1839-1908) was a China merchant, opium trader and botanist. He and other members of the Forbes family were active in the Opium trade and China trade during the Opium Wars, amassing a large fortune. Due to his family's deep involvement with the opium trade and opium, Forbes developed a lifelong interest in the poppy and other plants, and in Chinese botany in general.

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Francis%20Blackwell%20Forbes


The Forbes family of China and Boston, of which John Forbes Kerry and John Murray Forbes are members, amassed a huge fortune in the China trade, initially trading North American furs and manufactured goods for tea and other goods from China. Forbes also made a considerable fortune smuggling opium during the Opium Wars. The British wanted to keep a monopoly on supplying the Chinese with opium grown in India. However, during the Opium Wars the British ships were prevented from delivering their cargoes of opium and American ship owners such as Forbes, who could sail the final miles, made great amounts of money delivering the cargoes for the British. Forbes family members later engaged in other merchant banking and railroad investment projects around the world.

Born in France, John Murray Forbes entered the China trade at the behest of his Perkins uncles, and after his brother Tom Forbes died, and thereafter John Murray Forbes was mentored by the Chinese merchant Houqua who considered Forbes to be like a son. Following John Murray Forbes into China were several brothers and cousins, including Francis Blackwell Forbes, the great grandfather of John Forbes Kerry. The Forbes family lived and traded in China at first due to a family connection with the Perkins family. Later, some of the Forbes family sold their China trading interests to the Russell and Company, an shipping empire which was headed by Robert Bennett Forbes, and was later associated with Yale's development and endowment. Yale's Skull and Bones society was founded by William H. Russell, one of the members of the wealthy Russell family, in 1832.

The Dictionary of American Biography reports that the noted American ship captain Robert Bennet Forbes played "a prominent role in the outbreak of the Chinese Opium War."

http://www.worldhistory.com/wiki/F/Forbes-family.htm


(Kerry's grandfather, James Grant Forbes, was born in Shanghai in 1879.)

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

62. Uh oh.

[KoKo]

116. Cheney family was involved in the China Trade also. Dick's family went

out West, but the rest of them were in the East and made fortune on China Trade. Would explain some of Unca Dickies ability to be so close to the Power Centers of America, wouldn't it.

[Carl Brennan]

82. Allen Dulles headed United Fruit and a Samuel Huntington

was a key Trilateral Commission player.

[starroute]

88. The overthrow of Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954

This was one of Dulles's first major operations after he became CIA Director under Eisenhower, and it was directly connected with his ties to United Fruit. It was the start of active CIA involvement in Central America and the Caribbean.

[starroute]

103. Samuel P. Huntington *is* related to William Huntington Russell

Samuel P. Huntington (b. 1927) is the author of Clash of Civilizations, the book which the Neocons rely on as evidence for the incompatibility of Western values and the Islamic world.

I found an online interview in which he said, "The Huntingtons arrived in Boston in 1633. Almost all Huntingtons in the U.S. are descended from Simon and Margaret Huntington, who were part of a group of settlers from Norwich, England, who founded Norwich, Conn."

William Huntington Russell (1809-85), founder of Skull and Bones, was the son of Matthew Talcott Russell and Mary Huntington. Mary was the great-great-great-granddaughter of this same Simon and Margaret Huntington.

However, I don't know how close the relationship is. If their last common ancestor was back in the 17th century, it's of no significance. But if Samuel were descended from a brother or first cousin of William Russell's mother, that would be very interesting.

[Carl Brennan]

105. That is worthy of further research. Thank You

[icymist]

9. Shit!!! I gave up doing drugs after 9/11!

Now, I just don't want to do them (drugs) again....so fuck you Bush!

edit for spelling

[lostnfound]

59. Congrats, you are no longer supporting terrorists..

like the cia?

[seemslikeadream]

11. Riggs - laundering bank of choice this time around - Jonathan J. Bush

Jonathan J. Bush uncle to President George Walker Bush


Jonathan J. Bush (Jonathan James Bush) (1931- ) is an uncle to President George Walker Bush.

A Wall Street financier, Jonathan Bush pulled together two dozen investors to raise $3 million to help launch Arbusto. Among the investors was Dorothy Bush, George W.’s grandmother. At the same time, Jonathan Bush was lining up investors for Arbusto, he also was raising money for George H.W. Bush’s presidential explorations. Many of the funders were the same. <1>

Bush is a Trustee of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation<2>


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Speaking of the Watergate, Riggs National Bank, where Saudi Princess Al-Faisal had her 'Saudi money trail' bank account, has as one of its executives Jonathan Bush, an uncle of the president. The public has not learned whether Riggs - which services 95 percent of Washington's foreign embassies - will be turning over records relating to Saudi finance.
"Meanwhile, Bush has nominated William H. Donaldson to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Donaldson, a longtime Bush family friend, was a Yale classmate of Jonathan Bush."

Source.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 31, 2000: Riggs Bank N.A. today announced that the Board of Directors of RIMCO, a wholly owned investment management subsidiary, has elected Jonathan J. Bush President & Chief Executive Officer and a Director, replacing Philip Tasho who resigned. In addition, Henry A. Dudley, Jr. was elected Chairman.
"Mr. Bush will continue as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of J. Bush & Co., an investment management company he founded in 1970, which Riggs acquired in 1997. Mr. Dudley, a 24-year veteran of Riggs, will continue to be responsible for all of Riggs Bank's investment management, trust and private banking business.

"Located in the nation's capital, Riggs Bank has 53 branches in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, as well as banking offices in Miami, London and Berlin."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 26, 1991: "State Fines Bush's Brother in Stock Case" by Frank Phillips, Globe Staff.
"Massachusetts securities regulators have fined the stockbrokerage firm owned by President Bush's brother Jonathan $30,000 and barred it from trading with the general public for one year because the company and Bush violated state registration laws.

"As part of a consent order worked out with Secretary of State Michael J. Connolly's securities division, the New York firm of J. Bush & Co., whose only principal is Jonathan J. Bush, also agreed that it would offer to reimburse its clients in Massachusetts for stocks it had sold them since January 1988. . . .

"Connolly's securities chief, Neal Sullivan, said yesterday that Bush's problems began in February when Bush informed his agency that he had never registered as a broker-dealer in Massachusetts. But Sullivan said Bush compounded his legal problem by taking a cavalier attitude toward the violation of the Uniform Securities Act when he continued to carry out transactions even as state regulators were negotiating a consent decree with him.

"'That created great concern for us. We were dismayed,' Sullivan said. 'Anyone who has been notified that he is violating state law and continues to do so certainly exemplifies a cavalier attitude toward the registration laws.'" . . .


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Federal bank regulators are preparing to impose fines on Riggs Bank as soon as this week for not reporting millions of dollars in suspicious transactions at its embassy banking division and have notified bank officers and directors that they may be sanctioned individually, according to people familiar with the investigation. "
"Investigators are looking at the Saudi accounts for evidence of money laundering, which is the use of complex transactions to hide the origin or destination of funds related to illegal activities such as drug smuggling or terrorist acts. The Saudis ended their ties to the bank last month."

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2514119

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Jonathan_J._Bush

The checks from Princess Haifa were drawn on Riggs Bank in Washington D.C. One of the chief officers of Riggs Bank is Jonathan Bush, an uncle of President George W. Bush.

According to Margie Burns in her article titled Bush-connected firm provided security at World Trade Center, "Given that Jonathan Bush, the president's uncle, is a Riggs executive, it is difficult to understand any obstacle for US authorities pursuing the recently reported "Saudi money trail." The princess's charitable activities were processed through Riggs, but attention focused on the Saudis seems not to extend to the US bank they used."

http://www.opednews.com/duncan_bush_should_cry_uncle_and_releas.htm

"Riggs Bank’s failure to alert investigators to a large number of unusual cash transactions by the Saudi Embassy and other foreign bank customers has led to a wide-ranging investigation by Treasury Department regulators....

"'Anytime, you have suspicious money movements, and it’s not reported as needed, it hurts our overall efforts,' a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said ..."


http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4687305 /

The president and CEO of Riggs Bank is Jonathan Bush, whose father was Prescott Bush, money-launderer to the Nazi party, and whose nephew is the court-appointed CEO of the United States of America.

So where has the money gone?


Oil Boom Enriches African Ruler.


That has been declared a "state secret" by Equatorial Guinea's ruler, Brig. Gen. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. But the Guinean ambassador to the U.S. and other sources close to Obiang say the country's oil funds are held in an account at Riggs Bank in Washington.

Multiple sources, including another Guinean government official, have since told the Los Angeles Times about the Riggs account. Several sources familiar with the account said it was controlled exclusively by Obiang and its balance has ranged from $300 million to $500 million during the last two years. An ExxonMobil spokeswoman declined to comment on payments it makes to Equatorial Guinea, citing a confidentiality agreement with the country. Amerada Hess and Riggs did not return phone calls.

The bank has provided mortgages on one of Obiang's two luxury homes in Maryland and on an official residence for Nsue in Virginia. A Riggs banker assisted Obiang's brother -- accused in State Department reports of ordering the torture of political prisoners -- in the purchase of a home in Virginia. The banker vouched for Obiang's brother as a "valued customer" in correspondence with the seller's agent.

Concerns about Equatorial Guinea are rooted in a history of petroleum-fueled corruption in its neighboring nations. Angola ranks 161st out of 173 countries on the United Nations' Human Development Index, which ranks nations according to their citizens' quality of life, and its president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, is believed to have accumulated a vast personal fortune. The London-based group Global Witness, which investigates the oil business in Africa, estimates that at least $1.4 billion of Angola's energy revenue disappeared last year.

The situation in Nigeria is equally grim. In April, the family of former strongman Gen. Sani Abacha agreed to return $1 billion that he stole between 1993 and 1998. That was only about one-quarter of the money that the current Nigerian government accuses Abacha of embezzling during his reign. African countries provide the United States with about 15% of its oil, nearly as much as Saudi Arabia. That figure could grow to 25% by 2015, according to a study by a U.S. intelligence panel. Urged on by the oil industry, the administration hopes to use African oil to reduce the United States' dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

more
http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/econ/oil1.html

..According to two articles in the Progressive Populist written by Margie Burns, from 1993 to 2000, Bush served on the board of Securacom (since renamed Stratesec). The chairman of the board of Stratesec is Wirt D. Walker III, a cousin of Marvin and George W. Bush. Securacom had contracts to provide security for Dulles International Airport (the airport from which American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, originated) and the World Trade Center in New York.

Securacom's backers include a number of Kuwaitis through a company called KuwAm Corp (Kuwaiti-American Corp.). Stratesec also has Saudi investors.

Walker also serves as a managing director of KuwAm, which maintains offices within the Watergate complex along with Riggs Bank, on whose board Bush's uncle, Jonathan Bush, sits. Saudi Princess Haifa al Faisal, the wife of Saudi Ambassador to the US Prince Bandar, used a Riggs account to funnel money to Omar al Bayoumi and Osama Basnan, two Saudi students in California associated with two of the 911 hijackers.

http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/10-16-03/discussion.cgi.16.html



Oo-oo that smell,
can't you smell that smell?
Oo-oo that smell,
the smell of death's around you.

Angel of darkness is upon you,
stuck a needle in your arm.
So take another toke, have a blow for your nose.
One more drink, fool, will drown you.




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

more
http://www.davidsirota.com /

Riggs fails to detect, report suspicious cash transactions


The Federal Reserve ordered Riggs International Banking Corp. to hire an outside consultant to conduct a thorough review of the bank's transactions.

BY CHRISTINA HOAG

[e-mail]


BANKING

Riggs Bank has been fined $25 million by the Treasury Department for failing to detect and report tens of millions of dollars in suspicious transactions by foreign governments, particularly Saudi Arabia and Equatorial Guinea.

On Friday, the Federal Reserve ordered Riggs' Miami operation, Riggs International Banking Corp., to hire an outside consultant to conduct a thorough review of the bank's transactions and money-laundering controls.

The McLean, Va.-based bank said last month that it planned to shutter the 24-year-old Miami subsidiary, located at 800 Brickell Ave., ``to significantly reduce its risk exposure.''

Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency also ordered the bank on Thursday to adopt new anti-money-laundering controls including implementing internal audits and ensuring competent management.

In a statement, the bank said: ``Riggs is 100 percent committed to fulfilling all of our regulatory responsibilities and to doing our part to protect the financial system, and we will hasten our efforts toward these goals.''

The Treasury agency found that Riggs had violated the Bank Secrecy Act on numerous occasions


more
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/8670766.htm


"Pioneers" and "Rangers" raised almost $300 M for Chimperror.


Tha's a lot of knockin' around money. What do you suppose they expect in return? Will they survive Chimpageddon?

Pioneers Fill Campaign War Chest, Then Capitalize

By Thomas B. Edsall, Sarah Cohen and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 16, 2004; Page A01

First of two articles

GREENSBORO, Ga. -- Joined by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and a host of celebrities, hundreds of wealthy Republicans gathered at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge here in the first weekend in April, not for a fundraiser but for a celebration of fundraisers. It was billed as an "appreciation weekend," and there was much to appreciate.

As Bush "Pioneers" who had raised at least $100,000 each for the president's reelection campaign, or "Rangers" who had raised $200,000 each, the men and women who shot skeet with Cheney, played golf with pros Ben Crenshaw and Fuzzy Zoeller and laughed at the jokes of comedian Dennis Miller are the heart of the most successful political money operation in the nation's history. Since 1998, Bush has raised a record $296.3 million in campaign funds, giving him an overwhelming advantage in running against Vice President Al Gore and now Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). At least a third of the total -- many sources believe more than half -- was raised by 631 people.

BIG SNIP...

"This is the most impressive, organized, focused and disciplined fundraising operation I have ever been involved in," declared Dirk Van Dongen, president of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, who has been raising money for GOP candidates since 1980. "They have done just about everything right."

For achieving their fundraising goals, Pioneers receive a relatively modest token, the right to buy a set of silver cuff links with an engraved Lone Star of Texas (Rangers can buy a more expensive belt buckle set). Their real reward is entree to the White House and the upper levels of the administration.

CONTINUED...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29142-2004May15.html


Jonathan Bush's campaign cash...in detail 1993-2004


From Connecticut:
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=CT&last=Bush&first=J ...

From New York:
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=NY&last=Bush&first=J ...

CNN: Bank fined $25 million in terrorism probe


<SNIP>
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators fined Riggs Bank a record $25 million on Thursday for allegedly violating anti-money laundering laws in its handling of tens of millions in cash transactions in Saudi-controlled accounts under investigation for possible links to terrorism financing.

The civil fine against the midsize Washington bank with a near-exclusive franchise on business with the capital's diplomatic community is the largest ever imposed on a financial institution for such violations, experts said. It had been expected.
</SNIP>

Wouldn't it be interesting to see if any of the Saudis secretly flown out of the US on 9/12-9/13 were on the list?

If I had the money, I would place a large bet on it. I imagine I would be quite rich as well...

JM


Riggs and Equatorial Guinea

British businessman accused of leading role in failed coup

Exclusive Investigation: Mercenaries held over Equatorial Guinea plot identify west London consultant as mastermind
By Paul Lashmar and Adrian Gatton
16 May 2004

A management consultant from west London has been accused of being one of the masterminds behind a plot to overthrow the government of the oil-rich African state of Equatorial Guinea.

The failed coup - strikingly reminiscent of Frederick Forsyth's mercenary tale The Dogs of War - came to light in March with the dramatic arrests of 67 soldiers of fortune at Harare airport in Zimbabwe. Now a witness statement seen by The Independent on Sunday names Greg Wales, 53, an accountant and management consultant, as a key organiser behind the plot.

He vehemently denies any involvement. But the government of Equatorial Guinea has confirmed to the IoS that it now wishes to interview Mr Wales, who has homes in Chiswick and Wiltshire and a history of business in Africa.

A statement on behalf of the state and President of Equatorial Guinea said yesterday: "The appropriate authorities are anxious to interview Mr Wales in view of his apparent involvement in the attempted coup d'état." British lawyers acting for the government have asked Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch to investigate Mr Wales's role. "We believe attempting a coup against an elected government by the use of force is an act of international terrorism and should be investigated as such," one lawyer said

more
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=521746


Mr du Toit claims that Mr Wales arranged much of the finance for the coup.


Mr Wales denies involvement in the coup. While he says he knows most of the key figures said to be involved in the failed plot, he stressed: "I was not involved in a coup. I do not even believe that there was a coup plot. This is all a deal between Mugabe and Obiang. If the government of Equatorial Guinea is saying I was involved then it is a joke."

But Mr du Toit identifies Mr Wales as a key organiser, in a statement seen by the IoS. It was signed in the presence of a British lawyer working for the government. In the statement he says: "The first person who I spoke to about the coup was Greg. I had not met him before. I do not know how he got my telephone number but this was probably through Simon Mann. I do not know his family name."

The IoS has confirmed that Mr du Toit had Greg Wales's personal mobile number in his notebook. Mr Wales is an old Africa hand and has been involved with Mr Mann over many years; Mr du Toit claims that Mr Wales arranged much of the finance for the coup.

At the time, Mr du Toit was based in Equatorial Guinea starting up businesses, including a deep-sea fishing project and an airfreight operation in partnership with ministers. In his statement he says: "He called me and asked me to meet him on 4 January 2004 in Sandton, South Africa. He said he had a business proposition for me ... I decided to see what he proposed."

more
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=521746

The weapons supplied to Nick Du Toit's customers


The alleged mercenaries, arrested in March, are to be extradited to Equatorial Guinea to stand trial for plotting the overthrow of the government there. The Harare authorities announced the extradition last week, not long after receiving legal documents from lawyers representing the arrested men outlining their defence to various minor charges laid against them in Zimbabwe.

A court case would have revealed that the parastatal Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI) has been working for the past few years with a number of white South Africans in joint ventures to ship arms around the continent.

'There was no way he would have got involved in a coup'
The South African arms brokers, operating with offshore companies, registered in places like the Bahamas, were able to guarantee delivery of weapons "within 24 hours of payment being received, to anywhere in Africa," according to a source in Pretoria.

Once payment had been received, an aircraft would be dispatched from South Africa to Harare. It would load the weapons from military facilities at Harare airport and would then fly on to its final African destination, said the source
The weapons supplied to Nick Du Toit's customers could have come from three sources: The Zimbabwe National Army armouries; from weaponry captured by Zimbabwean troops in their involvement in the DRC or could be have been bought new.

more
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=vn20040508105453653C ...

Equatorial Guinea also involved in the Riggs bank scandal


but laundering money for the government (Obiang) and likely paying out the bribes from the oil companies.

LA Times story (somewhere odd) has good details: http://www.ocnus.net/cgi-bin/exec/view.cgi?archive=43&num=11319&printe ...

That's the Jonathan Bush linked company that there were other stories about today and recently--funneling money from Saudi's to the West Coast 9/11 terrorist cell.

I don't yet get if or how the coup money would be related. Greg Wales doesn't google very well, for one. But naturally we have a Bush linked company doing something hokey with oil rich EG, so there's got to be more to it. From some reading today, I think the International arm of Riggs is based in Miami--maybe throw in some Jeb, Cubans, drugs or other crazy Florida stuff that always makes up a nice BFEE crime conspiracy. I'm catching a strong wiff of BCCI.

Mugabe to barter mercenaries for fuel


Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has struck a deal with Equatorial Guinea to extradite the 70 suspected mercenaries held in Harare to the oil-rich country in exchange for fuel worth US1.2-billion.

Official sources say Mugabe has agreed with Equatorial Guinea's President Teodora Obiang Nguema Mbasogo to hand over the mercenaries, accused of plotting a coup in the West African nation, on condition that he received a two-year supply of fuel.


The deal was first discussed at a meeting between Mugabe and Obiang in Pretoria on April 27.


Mugabe and Obiang were in South Africa to attend President Thabo Mbeki's inauguration.


"Initially, Mugabe did not want to send the suspects to Equatorial Guinea because he wanted to use them to gain cheap publicity and later to bargain for fuel," a source said. "Obiang had to send at least three teams to Zimbabwe to negotiate the extradition but Mugabe refused. It was only after Obiang accepted the fuel deal that he agreed."

more
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/2004/05/16/news/africa/africa04.asp


Zim strikes detainees-for-fuel deal

author/source:Zimbabwe Independent
published:Fri 14-May-2004
posted on this site:Sat 15-May-2004


Deal entails US$50 million worth of fuel monthly for two years

Gift Phiri/Dumisani Muleya

In an unusual diplomatic arrangement, Zimbabwe has entered a US$1,2 billion deal to extradite the 70 suspected mercenaries currently held in Harare to Equatorial Guinea in exchange for fuel. Intelligence sources say President Robert Mugabe discussed the deal with his Equatorial Guinea counterpart, Teodora Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, at their initial meeting in Pretoria with South African president Thabo Mbeki on April 27. Mugabe and Obiang were in South Africa to attend Mbeki's inauguration. The three leaders are said to have met over the mercenaries' saga after Zimbabwe had earlier refused to send the suspects for trial in the oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. Sources said the meeting agreed in principle that Zimbabwe would extradite the suspected mercenaries on agreed terms and conditions. Mugabe and Obiang finalised the mercenaries-for-fuel arrangement at a meeting in Bulawayo the following day. The two leaders met at State House in the second city on April 28. After the meeting Obiang told journalists that they had been discussing the issue of the suspects' extradition. High-level sources said Mugabe agreed to extradite the suspected soldiers of fortune on condition Equatorial Guinea - the third largest oil producer after Nigeria and Angola in sub-Saharan Africa -would supply Zimbabwe with fuel.


more
http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=9292



Business
Bank and African Oil State Ties Probed
By Ken Silverstein, LA Times 9/4/04
Apr 11, 2004, 07:50



A federal grand jury and a Senate subcommittee are investigating the relationship between a prominent Washington bank and a tiny, oil-rich West African state.

Investigators are scrutinizing hundreds of millions of dollars in accounts held at Riggs Bank by the government of Equatorial Guinea and its ruler, Brig. Gen. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. Sources familiar with the probes said investigators were trying to determine whether any deposits into Obiang's personal accounts were the fruits of corruption and whether funds from a state account were diverted to the president or his family members.

The Times first reported on Riggs' relationship with Equatorial Guinea last year, which prompted the bank to conduct an internal investigation. Riggs subsequently dismissed Simon Kareri, a senior executive overseeing the Equatorial Guinea accounts.

In February, Riggs ordered Equatorial Guinea's government to withdraw all of its assets from the bank. U.S. government and banking sources said Equatorial Guinea has had difficulty finding another U.S. bank to take its money, and most, if not all, of its deposits are still held at Riggs.

"Riggs' security procedures detected questionable activities on the part of Simon Kareri," said Mark Hendrix, a bank spokesman. "Riggs turned the matter over to U.S. criminal authorities. Riggs is cooperating with authorities and, in light of the investigations, views it as inappropriate to comment further on these matters."


Interesting but not surprising that whatever congressional inquiry is flying under the radar. The $25 million is nothing but a slap (Riggs has $6.4 billion in assets), as someone here pointed out. But the fact that Allbritton stepped down, and they are shutting down Miami and some of the other money laundering capabilities, suggests the shit has hit the fan.

Here's the guy who runs the London Riggs: Steve Pfeiffer (who googles better).

Bio: http://www.fulbright.com/site_map/FindAttorney/371.htm

I'd guess his operation would the point for paying out the British mercs. He's some sort of Africa specialist, former assistant to Sec of the Navy (and assistant CINC Europe and NATO muckty-muck) sometime around Regan. (Yale Law too).

Here's the Riggs 2002 annual report:
http://www.riggsbank.com/Discover_Riggs/annualreport2002.pdf

Lots of names worth checking out--I'm going to see what comes up with Juan Luis Toro, who ran the Miami international operation. I'll bet there's some connection to Haiti, Columbia/Venezuela and/or something more with 9/11.

Cool that we get a Walker involved and they have offices in the Watergate. "It's all the same fucking day, man" (--Janis J).

Random thoughts


Panama Noreiga - BCCI money - US grabs him

Haiti bAristide - Riggs money? maybe - US grabs him

Equatorial Guinea President, Teodore Obiang - Riggs money - US tries to grab him?

What other coups have we done and are they related to bank money?


I'm all over the map there, Snazzy if you want me to head down some road let me know. I'll go wherever you think.

How much was BCCI? Was it 500 million?

6.5 billion Riggs. Is that right or am I way off. I've got stuff to get done, be back later. PM me if you want. Thanks for everything you've brought.

Saudi-ization of African oil


Same plan, different country. Take oil rich nation, find dictator who can be educated on siphoning off oil profits for his own personal wealth (to the further impoverishment of his people) and in exchange for preferential treatment of us companies.

Were they about to double-cross Obiang? His money was initially frozen in DC--it has now left. Was he just exiting to his Maryland mansion? Dunno, but this Riggs bank connection sure seems to be the follow-the-money thread to pull on Bushco for several different plots. Enough material here for a book.

For one, I'd like to ask someone who knows WTF, say an economist (can we get Krugman?), how an "Edge Act" bank functions, and what's up in Miami with international banking in general. How does that tie in with the export/import bank in DC and Riggs? The Edge Act is something about a bank that can only lend to foreign banks--that Jonathan Bush and Riggs in general could control such an entity while also engaging in other business like investments and domestic lending apparently violates the "Edge Act" (and a bunch of other regulations) and is partly why Riggs is dumping that portion of the business. I wonder whether there have been changes under Jeb that had led to Miami expanding the definitions of what's allowable into money laundering for oil and terror. The answer is: of course he did, just need to find that.

A complicated thread to pull--18 browser windows open so far! Like I found this great Newsweek Isikoff piece from April that I missed:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4661093


Among the payments that have drawn scrutiny, documents show, were $19,200 in checks between December 2000 and January 2003 from the Saudi Embassy to an Islamic cleric, Gulshair Muhammad al-Shukrijumah. The Florida-based imam has been on the FBI's radar screen for some time: he once testified on behalf of convicted terrorist Clement Hampton-El.

Hampton-El was convicted in trying to blow up the WTC the first time in '93. al-Shukrijumah is apparently still missing, also served as the blink sheik's interpreter and may have had a serious role in 9/11. So, it's not just the princess sending money to the West Coast cell.

(Another browser window has the odd factoid that the former head of Riggs international lending (Paul Cushman III) died with Ron Brown in '96. Wild. Kareri succeeded him.)

Plenty to run down here, although a tangent (or the opposite side of the coin) to the original news story in this post. Haven't come across anything that links Riggs to funding of the coup. Maybe it's more like switch dictators and get to keep the Riggs money.

Pinochet


Revealed: Pinochet drug smuggling link
Special report: Pinochet on trial

Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Sunday December 10, 2000
The Observer

The Chilean army and secret police have spent almost two decades secretly flooding Europe and the US with massive shipments of cocaine. The trafficking began during the 17-year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet and continues to this day, a year-long investigation for The Observer has established.

Twelve tons of the drug, with a street value of several billion pounds, left Chile in 1986 and 1987 alone. The drugs, destined for Europe, have often been flown to Spanish territory by aircraft carrying Chilean-made arms to Iraq and Iran. Distribution to Britain and other European countries has been controlled by secret police stationed in Chilean embassies in Stockholm and Madrid.

...

Pinochet, who is now fighting arrest on kidnapping and murder charges in Santiago, has not clarified how he and his wife, Lucia, bhad $1,169,308 (around £730,000) in their account in the Riggs Bank in Washington on 1 March 1997. As commander-in-chief of the Chilean army, his annual salary in March 1997 was $16,000 (£10,000).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Pinochet_on_trial/Story/0,2763,409367,00.htm ...

Pinochet's account was also mentioned in the recent WSJ article on Riggs.

Interesting that the possible new mercs, according to today's African newspaper story, are Chilean.


Bush, the Saudi billionaire and the Islamists: the story a British firm is


MUST SEE: stories on Riggs National Bank -- note links to 2 of 19 hijackers in San Diego through wire transfer from Saudi Arabia. Jonathon Bush, George W. Bush's uncle, is a top official within the bank and the Motley suit brought by the 9/11 families has issued a subpoena of the bank's records. -KFH


Articles / Current News about 9-11
Date: Apr 02, 2004 - 04:25 PM
Publication of book cancelled as libel laws blamed for stifling free speech
David Leigh -- Wednesday March 31, 2004 -- The Guardian

A book investigating links between rich Saudis and US politicians has been suppressed by the giant publishing firm Random House because, it says, of growing "libel tourism" by wealthy foreigners, and exorbitant legal "success fees".

Libel lawyers are stifling free speech, the deputy chairman of Random House, Simon Master, said yesterday.

The UK publication of House of Bush, House of Saud, by the American writer Craig Unger, has been cancelled because Secker and Warburg, a Random House subsidiary, says it can no longer afford such risks.

The book focuses in part on the activities of a Jeddah-based Saudi billionaire, Khalid bin Mahfouz, who has been engaged in a war of words in the US, where there have been public accusations by officials linking him and others to funding received by Osama bin Laden.

more
http://www.911citizenswatch.org/print.php?sid=176


Hijacked bank

Questions also remain regarding the web of money transfers from Princess Haifa, Prince Bandar and the daughter of late King Faisal, some of which reached Nawaf Alhazmi and fellow terrorist Khalid Almihdar.Princess Haifa's bank account--the source of the funds which ultimately supported the alleged hijackers--was with Riggs Bank where Jonathan J. Bush, the brother of former President George H. W. Bush and uncle of President George W. Bush, is CEO, President and Director of Riggs' investment management subsidiary.

snip

After Al Bayoumi fled the U.S. to England in July, 2001--two months before the attacks, Princess Haifa's Riggs Bank checks were then sent to Osama Basnan, who with his wife Majeda Dweikat, were both later to be found in the U.S. illegally as a result of poor or suspicious State Department visa supervision.

Former FBI linguist Sibel Edmonds said she found evidence of espionage in both the State Department and the FBI in pre-9/11 translations of intelligence intercepts--which also warned about planes used as weapons well before the attacks.A federal law enforcement source said Basnan was a known "al-Qaeda sympathizer" who "celebrated the heroes of September 11" at a party after the attacks and openly talked about "what a wonderful, glorious day it had been," according to Newsweek.

Al Bayoumi and Basnan both befriended Alhazmi and fellow Saudi hijacker Khalid Almihdar after they arrived in San Diego, according to the sources; and the Riggs checks from Prince Bandar's wife helped the terroists pay rent and living expences in the months just prior to the attacks, according to reports. Newsweek said Al Bayoumi helped them obtain social security cards and helped them arrange for flying lessons in Florida--indicating dramatic evidence of the state of congressional internal security oversight.

Basnan was convicted of visa fraud and deported to Saudi Arabia on November 17, 2002. His wife Majida Ibrahim--who had also laundered checks from Riggs Bank--was deported the same day to her native Jordan for visa violations. (Washington Post, 9-24, 2002) Reasons were not given why the White House allowed the high profile suspects to leave the country on charges much less important than being implicated as an accessory to mass murder.

more
http://www.tomflocco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=53

Exclusive: New Questions About Saudi Money—and Bandar

Eric Draper / The White House


The White House is monitoring a joint FBI-Treasury Department probe into wire transfers overseas by Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, pictured with the president in August 2002
By Michael Isikoff
Investigative Correspondent
NewsweekApril 12 issue - A federal investigation into the bank accounts of the Saudi Embassy in Washington has identified more than $27 million in "suspicious" transactions—including hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to Muslim charities, and to clerics and Saudi students who are being scrutinized for possible links to terrorist activity, according to government documents obtained by NEWSWEEK. The probe also has uncovered large wire transfers overseas by the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The transactions recently prompted the Saudi Embassy's longtime bank, the Riggs Bank of Washington, D.C., to drop the Saudis as a client after embassy officials were "unable to provide an explanation that was satisfying," says a source familiar with the discussions.



A Saudi spokesman strongly denied that any embassy funds were used to support terrorism and said Bandar chose to pull the embassy's accounts out of Riggs. The Saudis point out that an earlier FBI probe into embassy funds that were moved to alleged associates of the 9/11 hijackers has not led to any charges. The current probe, by the FBI and Treasury Department, is one of the most sensitive financial inquiries now being conducted by the government and is being closely monitored by the White House. The federal commission investigating 9/11 was also recently briefed on developments, sources say. U.S. officials stress that they have identified no evidence of any knowing Saudi aid to terrorist groups. But they express frustration at their inability to penetrate a number of large and seemingly irregular transactions. "There's a lot of money moving in a lot of directions—maybe not all that carefully," said one senior law-enforcement official. "Everyone wants to get to the bottom of it."
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4661093 /


but only found this
Teodorin Nguema Obiang, son, wanted to live in a building where the arms superdealer Adnan Khashoggi once lived -

so far!

Western business has followed on the heels of the Texan oil men with gusto.
Only 15 years ago Malabo had just one hotel with no electricity, food or
running water. Two cars in the street was a traffic jam, and the phone
directory had just two pages, listing subscribers by their first name. The
airport terminal was a tin-roofed shack that received just one international
flight. Today, however, the French have built a mobile phone network, sports
utility vehicles whizz through the streets, and several international
carriers service the smart new airport terminal. Prostitutes clamour around
the gates of several new hotels. The US re-opened its embassy in October
last year, following an eight-year closure in protest at torture and other
human rights abuses. At around the same time the Dutch carrier KLM renamed
one of its planes after Mr Obiang, to mark the opening of the new airport
terminal. "It was like calling a plane Pol Pot," said one analyst. A
campaign against US involvement in Equatorial Guinea is building. The
influential US news programme 60 Minutes criticised the pact between Mr
Obiang and the oil companies last autumn. The latest State Department human
rights report, released last month, cataolgued an array of police torture,
arbitrary arrest and detention and the failure of the courts to administer
justice. In Washington, the FBI has started investigating a $700m bank
account at the Riggs Bank, of which Mr Obiang is apparently the main
signatory. One bank employee has already lost his job over the scandal.

But the greatest threat to Mr Obiang's dictatorial dominance comes from his
own family. The president has been sick, reportedly from prostate cancer,
and tensions have arisen among the ruling clan over his succession plans.
Some are worried over apparent plans to hand power to his son Teodorin - a
government minister, rap music entrepreneur and international playboy. The
30-something Teodorin parties in Rio de Janeiro, does business in Hollywood
and lives at five-star hotels in Paris, where he drives in Bentley and
Lamborghini cars. Some years ago he invested several hundred thousand
dollars to start his own rap label, TNO Entertainment, standing for Teodorin
Nguema Obiang. It apparently failed to release any records, but according to
Hollywood gossip he has had a relationship with the American rap star Eve.
Teodorin is also fond of female company from other countries - according to
one associate, he once turned up for a meeting in Paris accompanied by
several Russian women. He is a keen property investor, owning a $6m mansion
in Bel Air. But when he tried to buy a multi-million dollar apartment in New
York - in a building where the arms superdealer Adnan Khashoggi once lived -
the board of management rejected his application.

http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/mar18_2004.html



At Riggs, problems passed on with legacy
Joe L. Allbritton won control of Riggs Bank in 1981 and used it as a launching pad into Washington`s top business and political circles. He assiduously cultivated "The Riggs" cachet as the bank for foreign governments and diplomats and steadfastly refused to sell the institution even as most of his competitors sold out, The Washington Post reported. Riggs has cultivated the diplomatic community and one quarter of its $4 billion in deposits come from that source. "My pride in Riggs has been paramount in my activities," he said in an interview when he retired in February 2001. "And you know, if you have just enough money, you`ll do more for pride than you`ll do for money…. My object was to put Riggs in a position where it could be the survivor. It is that." But when he bequeathed Riggs to his son Robert after retiring, he also passed on Riggs`s long-simmering problems complying with banking secrecy laws. Most controversial has been the use of hundreds of millions of dollars in funds controlled by the Saudi embassy in Washington, as well as suspicious transactions involving officials of Equatorial Guinea.

http://www.diplomatictraffic.com/embassy_briefs.asp?ID=Americas


This has probably been posted before but lets read it again


The action followed the $25 million civil fine against the midsize Washington bank, which has a near-exclusive franchise on business with the capital’s diplomatic community. The fine, which had been expected, is the largest ever imposed on a financial institution for such violations, experts said.


The FBI and regulators have investigated, for possible connections to terrorism financing, large cash transactions in Riggs accounts controlled by Saudi diplomats.

The Senate Finance Committee chairman, Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa, recently asked the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks to examine Saudi transactions at Riggs and FleetBoston Financial Corp.

“Riggs Bank deserves every penny of this huge fine,” Grassley said Thursday. “Banks have a patriotic duty, not to mention legal requirement, to report suspicious activity. When banks look the other way, they put our national security at risk.”

Grassley said members of the bank’s board of directors should be held to account.

The Treasury regulators had earlier accused Riggs of failing to comply with a law requiring banks to notify the government of suspicious transactions. The bank also had been classified by the comptroller’s office as a “troubled institution” for not complying fully with a July 2003 consent order under which it agreed to strengthen its anti-money laundering controls.

more
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4973033 /

FleetBoston Financial?????



http://www.archives.gov/research_room/independent_counsel_records/wate ...

Foundation of the Friends of Equatorial Guinea and the United States

Kareri could not be reached for comment. His attorney, Jonathan Shapiro, did not return phone calls. Shapiro, a high-profile attorney based in Virginia, previously represented convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad.
Sources also confirmed that Riggs held accounts for Teodoro Biyogo Nsue, Equatorial Guinea's ambassador to the U.S. and Obiang's brother-in-law, and for Obiang's son, Teodorin Nguema Obiang.

The latter is a government minister but spends little time in the country. Housing and business records show that the son owns a $6-million home in Los Angeles as well as a music company in L.A. called TNO.

Armengol Ondo Nguema, Obiang's brother and the country's feared security chieftain, also held a personal account at Riggs. In correspondence obtained by The Times, Kareri referred to Nguema -- who is accused in U.S. State Department reports of employing torture -- as a "valued customer."
Kareri is close to Obiang and his family. Records show that he is also a board member of the U.S.-based Foundation of the Friends of Equatorial Guinea and the United States, whose aim is to promote stronger ties between the two countries. Other board members of the group include Equatorial Guinea's representative to the International Monetary Fund and the country's minister of justice.

Sources told The Times that Riggs' demand that Equatorial Guinea withdraw its funds reportedly occurred after a tense meeting in Washington among bank officials, Obiang, the FBI and several government representatives. An FBI official said the agency could not comment on an ongoing investigation.


http://www.ocnus.net/cgi-bin/exec/view.cgi?archive=43&num=11319&printe ...


"warbusiness"

Child soldiers wait in Bule for orders to move. When this photo was taken, they were the only defense forces in a 25-mile radius. Two days later they too pulled out, and Bule was attacked.


http://www.zwnews.com/warbusiness.doc

one tiny snip:

In April 2001, an MPRI representative met with the Pentagon’s regional director for Central Africa to discuss the company’s hopes of winning the contract to train Equatorial Guinea’s forces. “They may need our help or moral support,” Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski wrote in a memo on the meeting, obtained by ICIJ under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. She quoted the MPRI representative as saying that Equatorial Guinea was “the Kuwait of the Gulf of Guinea” and, in a briefing paper three months later, advanced that characterization to “a possible ‘Kuwait of Africa’ with huge oil reserves” that was “US-friendly for both investment and security reasons.” Kwiatkowski also noted in her April memo that the highest-ranking U.S. official to meet with Obiang when he visited Washington early in 2001 was an assistant secretary of agriculture – that after French President Jacques Chirac had spared time to meet with him.

Despite concerns about Equatorial Guinea’s human rights record, Obiang’s currency rose dramatically after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. When he visited the United States as it marked the first anniversary of the attacks, Obiang was among 10 African leaders to meet with President George Bush for talks on the prospect of war with Iraq and peace and development on the African continent.


ended up here because of this:

If you've been reading the news the last few days you may have noticed this odd and somewhat mysterious story of a US-registered cargo plane loaded with 64 "mercernaries" and various military equipment which was impounded

Sunday night at Harare International Airport in Zimbabwe "after its owners had made a false declaration of its cargo and crew."

When asked about it on Monday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said "We have no indication this aircraft is connected to the U.S. government."

That seemed like a rather less than unequivocal response. And behind the scenes US government officials said they didn't believe the US government had any connection with this operation. But they wanted to make sure before saying anything definitive.

Now, if you look at the press accounts, what's caught people's attention is the US registry of the plane. Specifically, it's registered to a company called Dodson Aviation, which is based in Kansas.

Now, Dodson says they sold the plane to a "reputable" firm in South Africa about a week ago. "I think they were going to use it for charter flights," company director Robert Dodson told the Associated Press.

Now here's a little more detail.

Dodson Aviation of Kansas has a South African subsidiary, Dodson International Parts SA Ltd (According to their website, "Dodson International Parts SA (Pty) Ltd is the African division of United States based companies Dodson International Parts Inc. and Dodson Aviation. The company was established in 1998 and is based at Wonderboom Airport, Pretoria.") And it was from this subsidiary's hangar at an airport just north of Pretoria that the aforementioned mercenaries boarded the plane.

Now, here's where this gets a little murky.

I wanted to find out more about Dodson International Parts SA Ltd. What I found something out about was a company that sounded very similar: a South African company called Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts.

They're also in the airplane business.

Not exactly the same name. But remember, the South African company is the subsidiary of two American companies, Dodson Aviation and Dodson International. If these aren't the same company, or closely related companies, I'd figure they often get confused for one another.

In any case, here's what I found about Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts.

They come up in the December 2000 Report of the Panel of Experts to the United Nations on Sierra Leone, in the section of the report dealing with the arms trade.

Here's the section that caught my eye (italics added) ...

187. Fred Rindel a retired officer of the South African Defence Force and former Defence Attaché to the United States, has played a key role in the training of a Liberian anti-terrorist unit, consisting of Liberian soldiers and groups of foreigners, including citizens of Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Niger and The Gambia.
188. The panel interviewed Mr Rindel extensively. Rindel was contracted as a security consultant by President Charles Taylor in September 1998, and training started in November 1998. The contract included consultancy services and strategic advice to convert Charles Taylor's former rebel militia into a professional unit. The Anti-Terrorist Unit is used in Liberia to protect government buildings, the Executive Mansion and the international airport, and to provide VIP Security and the protection of foreign embassies. The numbers trained were approximately 1200. Because of negative media attention, Rindel cancelled his contract in Liberia in August 2000.

189. In 1998, ECOMOG identified a plane, registration number N71RD, owned by a South African company, Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts, as having carried weapons to Robertsfield in September of that year. The plane is a Gulfstream 14-seater business jet that cannot be used for arms transport, but there are other relevant connections. Fred Rindel was the owner of Dodson. The company was closed on 31 December 1998, but during the period under investigation, the plane was leased to, and operated by, Greater Holdings (Liberia) Ltd., a company with gold and diamond concessions in Liberia. The plane was used for the transport of the Greater Holdings' staff to and from Liberia.



Mr. Rindel's name came up earlier in 2000 in testimony at the UN Security Council by then-UN Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke in a discussion of Sierra Leone (italics added) ...

In regard to arms trafficking to Sierra Leone, Mr. Chairman, we remain concerned and I would like to add a few more items to the record. The principal Africa countries involved in arms trafficking to the RUF - though they deny it - include Burkina Faso, Liberia and Libya.
In 1999, planes landed in Ouagadougou, allegedly coming from the Ukraine, with several tons of small arms and ammunition. This incident, which the Ukrainians say has stopped, is one that we believe should be brought to the attention of your committee.

In regard to trafficking, arms brokers have played a vital role in keeping the RUF supplied with weapons and other military materiel. A well-known arms and diamond dealer in Sierra Leone, Zief Morganstein, in July 1999 arranged for a Continental Aviation-based charter out of Dakar to fly a shipment of small arms from Bulgaria to Sierra Leone. Last year the RUF received 68 tons of weapons from Bulgaria, which Morganstein may have helped arrange. There have been other connections between former government officials from South Africa during its Apartheid regime who now operate as private individuals, including Fred Rindel, the South African Defense Attache in Washington, who now works as a security consultant in Liberia and trains Liberian troops and RUF insurgents. There are other charges about other businessmen who are reportedly helping the Sierra Leone government coming from various countries around the world.



Now, I've scanned the news coverage of this and I haven't seen any mention of this seeming connection. So perhaps these are two utterly unrelated companies?

As of Tuesday the situation in Zimbabwe seems to be calming down, though now there are apparently fears in Equatorial Guinea that these mercenaries were somehow intended to assist a coup in that country. (No, I can't keep up either.) "Some 15 mercenaries have been arrested here," the country's Information Minister Agustin Nse Nfumu told Reuters. "It was connected with that plane in Zimbabwe. They were the advance party of that group."

Equatorial Guinea is next door to Gabon. And Joe Wilson used to be the US Ambassador there back in the day. So maybe he can make some sense of this. I can't. But I'd be very interested to talk to the investigators who put together that UN report and see if there's any connection between Dodson International Parts SA Ltd and Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com /

I just can not forget that Poppy's gold mining buddies Barrick



War is Golden for the Bush Administration
And the commodities connection? President Pretzel's relentless hissy-fit for war on Iraq has of course goosed the price of gold enormously--and that's set Bush Family coffers a-clinking. How so? In the waning days of his failed presidency, Bush I invoked an obscure 1872 statute to give a Canadian firm, Barrick Corporation, the right to mine $10 billion in gold from U.S. public lands. (U.S. taxpayers got a whopping $10,000 fee in return.) Bush then joined Barrick as a highly-paid "international consultant," brokering deals with various dictators of his close acquaintance. Barrick reciprocated with big bucks for Junior's presidential run. And in another quid for the old pro quo, last year Junior dutifully approved Barrick's controversial acquisition of a major rival. (Barrick is also one of the biggest polluters in America, by the way.)

http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd02152003.html

The money behind Barrick is from Saudi arms dealer and Bush family friend Adnan Khashoggi, who was identified as conduit in the Iran-Contra conspiracy. In 1986 he was arrested and charged with fraud but failed to be convicted. In one of his last acts as president Bush pardoned Khashoggi's alleged co-conspirators, who were key members of Bush's own cabinet. As a result, no case could be made against Khashoggi – or against Bush himself.

http://www.penfield-gill.com/presentations/bush_the_elder.htm

Where was flight N4610 heading?

March 10 2004 at 08:11AM



They were 64 "heavily built men", mostly white. No, they were all black. No, only 40 of them were black.

The plane left South Africa illegally from Wonderboom airport, strayed into Zimbabwe airspace and was ordered down. No, the plane left the country legally, having filed a flight plan to Harare and then on to Burundi. No, the plane was headed for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The men on board were suspected of being mercenaries hired to overthrow Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. No, they were on their way to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. No, they were going to the eastern DRC to carry out security duties.

These are just some of the stories surrounding the flight of N4610, a Boeing 727-100 cargo plane that has been impounded in Harare.

And 64 - though some reports say there are 67 - of those who were aboard, whether they were white, black or a mixture, and whether they were mercenaries or honest men, are in Harare cells facing intense interrogation.

On Tuesday, a company named in connection with the flight disputed all the speculation, saying the "mercenaries" were in fact security people "going to eastern DRC".

They were stopping in Zimbabwe to pick up mining equipment, "Zimbabwe being a vastly cheaper place for such".

Charles Burrow, a senior executive of Logo Logistics which had chartered the Boeing 727 freighter, said via telephone from London that most of the people on board were South African and had military experience, but were on contract to four mining companies in the DRC. He declined to name the companies.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=vn20040310081125342C ...

Plane Did Stop At Grantley Adams - Thursday 11, March-2004

A UNITED STATES registered plane at the centre of controversy after being detained on Monday with 64 suspected mercenaries aboard by the Zimbabwean government did stop at Grantley Adams International Airport last Saturday morning.
Informed sources told the DAILY NATION yesterday that the aircraft, a Boeing 727 (100 series), with registration number N4610, landed in Barbados shortly after midnight for refuelling before leaving around 6:30 a.m.

Sources also indicated that the aircraft, which Zimbabwean officials alleged also carried military equipment, had arrived from the Hope Air Force Base in North Carolina, United States, before its stop-over in Barbados.

Further reports stated that the plane, originally a commercial PanAm Airways aircraft up until a week ago, was being operated by the American Air Force, but international Press reports stated it had been sold to a South African company.

http://www.nationnews.com/StoryView.cfm?Record=48033&Section=Local&Cur ..


_____________________________________________________________

Corporate Mercenaries - Executive Outcomes Leads to Bush


Executive Outcomes is the most infamous mercenary company in operation today. Unlike traditional mercenary companies, it operates as the heavy partner in a web of related companies. Sandline international is such a sister company: 170 elite South African dogs of war were hired to crush the Bougainville freedom Fighters for $22m. Just another job for the likes of Sandline international? Paul Vernon investigates...

Set up in 1993 by Tony Buckingham and Simon Mannl <1>, Executive outcomes (EO) has worked in Asia, Africa and South America. Most of it's personnel are hired from South Africa.

Buckingham is the chief executive of Heritage Oil and Gas, which is now registered in the (tax-free) Bahamas. When EO was hired by the Sierra Leone government to crush people's revolt, Heritage received much of the payment in the form of mining rights. Sir David Steel MP happens to be a director of Heritage as well as a close friend of Buckingham. Recently Sierra Leone was thrown back into chaos with another military coup.

Eeben Barlow, the present CEO of Executive Outcomes, is a veteran of the Civil Co-operation Bureau, which allegedly assassinated antiapartheid activists. Barlow is the frontman for the group he told Newsweek (2) in February: "I'm a professional soldier. It's not about politics. I have a job to do. I do it." EO is thought to have a annual turnover of more that £20 million.

The South African government, with help from officials from the United Nations, has begun to draft proposals of legislation aimed to counter what officials called "the increasing frequency with which our soldiers-of-fortune are operating overseas".(7)

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/magazine/issue4/cw4f8.html

Executive Outcomes ties lead to London and Bush
Executive Intelligence Review January 31, 1997, pp. 42-43
by Roger Moore and Linda de Hoyos

Exposes appearing on both sides of the Atlantic on the mercenary group Executive Outcomes, threaten to blow the lid off the British intelligence nexus already identified as responsible for the February 1986 murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, and for the current cataclysmic destabilization of Africa on behalf of circles associated with the Queen of England's Privy Council and Sir George Bush.
The exposes appeared in the French daily {Le Figaro} on Jan. 16, the {London Observer} on Jan. 17, and the February issue of the American magazine {Harper's.}
Executive Outcomes is the mercenary arm of a vast
network of British-South African corporations dealing in gold, diamonds, and oil, primarily, but not exclusively, in Africa, that come under the umbrella of Strategic Resources Corporation, headquartered in Pretoria, South Africa. Described universally as an ``advance guard of a corporate network that includes mining, oil, and construction companies,'' Executive Outcomes is active in 13 African countries, including Uganda. For its services, it demands a lien or franchise on the exportable raw resources, particularly mineral wealth, of the client country--in the same fashion as the British East India Company of the 18th and 19th centuries, which in turn functioned as the ``advance guard'' of the British monarchy.
Executive Outcomes was incorporated offshore, on the Isle of Man, in 1993, by Anthony Buckingham, a British businessman, and Simon Mann, a former British officer, the {Observer} reported, based on a leak to it from British intelligence. Buckingham is also chief executive of Heritage Oil and Gas, which in turn is linked to the Canadian firm Ranger Oil. Other firms operating out of the same headquarters in Chelsea Plaza 107, London, include Branch International Ltd. and Branch Mining Ltd.
Preliminary investigation by {EIR} has further determined that Executive Outcomes lies at the heart of the British monarch's raw materials cartels and secret intelligence operations, in conjunction with Bush's rogue apparat:
Through Sir David Steel, a former leader of the Liberal Party, Executive Outcomes and, presumably, its deployment, is a subsumed operation of the Queen's Privy Council. Steel is a close friend of EO's Buckingham, and is on the board of directors of EO's sister firm, Heritage Oil and Gas, according to {Le Figaro.} In 1977, Steel was inducted into the Privy Council, making him the youngest member of Britain's highest-level policy-making body.
The links between Executive Outcomes and Ranger Oil point to operational ties with the Bronfman family of Canada, whose scion, Edgar Bronfman of Toronto Broncorp, sits on the board of directors of Ranger. Recently, the Bronfman family merged its mammoth real estate firm, Trizec, with Barrick Gold, whose senior advisory board includes Sir George Bush. Barrick Gold is deeply involved in northeastern Zaire, where it has purchased 83,000 square kilometers of land. Zairean sources report that the so-called Zairean rebel Laurent Kabila is no more than a mercenary for Barrick and Anglo American Corp., sponsored by the British Crown-backed Ugandan and Rwandan militaries. Executive Outcomes, {Le Figaro} and other sources further verify, is deeply entrenched in Uganda, the key British marcher-lord state in the region.

http://www.aboutsudan.com/action/geopolitical/executive_outcomes.htm

Mercenaries aimed to topple oil-rich despot

The inside story of the ties that bind President Obiang and powerful American interests

By Paul Lashmar
14 March 2004

The tale of the 67 men of assorted nationalities now in a Zimbabwe jail accused of being mercenaries continued to unfurl yesterday like the plot of a lurid airport novel.

A bit too much like fiction, in fact, involving as it does a cast that includes the despotic leader of a little-known West African state, the Eton-educated son of an English cricket captain, fake passports, and a shadowy company registered in the Channel Islands that is linked to SAS old boys. All this, plus talk of CIA, MI6 and Spanish secret service activity, and a plane now impounded at Harare airport that contained equipment more suited to burglary than seizures of power.

SNIP...

But if who paid whom for what services has not yet been revealed, the intended target is not in doubt: President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, leader of a country whose lack of renown belies its strategic significance. And for "strategic" read oil. Not for nothing is this land known in US government circles as the "Kuwait of the Gulf of Guinea". Not without reason has President Bush welcomed President Obiang, a confirmed if not convicted corrupt despot, to the White House. He may be a despot, but as presider over an oil-rich state, he is their despot.

The sight and smell of oil is everywhere palpable in the port of Malabo. From here you can see the flames shooting into the night sky from the offshore oilrigs. Every day tens of thousands of barrels are extracted from huge crude oil reserves underneath the seabed off Equatorial Guinea.It is one of the oil-rich sub-Saharan countries that now supplies 15 per cent of American oil. Experts predict that the amount of oil the US receives from the prolific fields of Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Angola will double in the next five years. Hence the succour that American companies - and, since 9/11, the American government - have given to Obiang. Vice President Dick Cheney has said: "Along with Latin America, West Africa is expected to be one of the fastest-growing sources of oil and gas for the American market."

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=501017&host=3&di ...

[al bupp]

16. Impressive Work There

I appreciate the effort it must have taken to pull these articles together. It's going take me a while to go through it all!

I wonder if you're familiar w/ the Nugan-Hand Bank fiasco in Australia during the 80s, I believe? I'd say it has many parallels to what you outline. For more on this see "The Crimes of Patriots" by Jonathan Kwitny ('87). This tale includes many individuals who would later appear in the Iran-Contra affair. It's written by a former WSJ investigative reporter.

At the risk of proving my tinfoil hat credentials, there's also the Banco Ambrosiano scandal in Italy w/ it's connections to P2, the Vatican and right-wing financiers of south american dictators. For more on this see "In God's Name" by David Yallop ('84). Although primarily a polemic which makes the case that rightist elements of the Catholic churh assassinated Pope John Paul I, it also goes into considerable detail regarding the allegedly nefarious activities of the Vatican Bank.

They're both somewhat dated, but give a good picture of how this sort of thing (may have or may not have) operated in the recent past.

As for the BFEE, there's "The Conspirators" by Al Martin. Although it may be the worst written book I've ever read, containing considerable repetition in the form of hard-to-read, run-on sentences (somewhat like this one), it does make an astounding number of explosive charges about the criminal activities of the Bush clan, all purportedly from an a former insider.

Regards

[Minstrel Boy]

18. We have the same reading list!

I'm reading The Crimes of Patriots right now, and read In God's Name a couple of months ago. Next up: The Outlaw Bank, about BCCI.

When you follow the money, you find it's all of a piece: the same networks of spooks, fascists, drug traffickers, gunrunners, terrorists and "respected business leaders."

[Zan_of_Texas]

21. Outlaw Bank

Hey Minstrel Boy. Ha, I was just checking the index of Crimes of Patriots this morning. Outlaw Bank gave me nightmares -- I couldn't finish it. Extremely convoluted. I'll be interested to hear if you crawl through there.

For those who think drug trade is in someone's imagination, I've posted this at DU before but here it is again. Drug trade is up, much higher than ever before, in Afghanistan. Gotta love that democracy.....

‘Afghanistan at risk of becoming a failed, narco state’

* Produces three-quarters of global opium, warns a UN report
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_30-10-2003_pg4_15
Daily Times from Pakistan Nov 3 2003

KABUL: Afghanistan, the world’s leading producer of opium, risks becoming a failed state once again in the hands of drugs cartels and narco-terrorists, the United Nations warned Wednesday.
Opium cultivation was virtually eradicated in 2001 by the hard-line Taliban regime, but since it was forced from power two years ago, Afghanistan has massively resumed harvesting and now accounts for three-quarters of global opium production, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in its latest annual report.

“The country is clearly at a crossroads. Either major surgical drug-control measures are taken now, or the drug cancer in Afghanistan will keep spreading and metastatise into corruption, violence and terrorism,” UN anti-drugs chief Antonio Maria Costa said in the report. “There is a palpable risk that Afghanistan will again turn into a failed state, this time in the hands of drugs cartels and narco-terrorists,” he added. In the war-ravaged country, this year the area under opium poppy cultivation increased by eight percent, from 74,000 hectares in 2002 to 80,000 in 2003, the Vienna-based body said in its report, due to be presented in Moscow on Wednesday.

Opium production went up by six percent, from 3,400 to 3,600 tonnes. Even more alarmingly, 28 out of 32 provinces in Afghanistan now harvest the drug crop, up from 18 provinces in 1999, as cultivation spreads outside the traditional eastern and southern producing areas.

The total revenues earned by poppy farmers and traffickers amounted to more than half of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product of 4.4 billion dollars. “The income of Afghan opium farmers and traffickers was about 2.3 billion dollars, a sum equivalent to half the legitimate GDP of the country,” the report said. “Out of this drug chest, some provincial administrators and military commanders take a considerable share: the more they get used to this, the less likely it becomes that they will respect the law, be loyal to Kabul and support the legal economy. <snip> With up to 90 percent of heroin on the streets of Europe derived from Afghan opium, the international trafficking chain from Afghanistan to Western Europe has an estimated annual turnover of 30 billion dollars and involves half a million people.
<snip>
--AFP

[Minstrel Boy]

23. "Bush Will Not Stop Afghan Opium Trade" - Newsmax (!)

How's that for a headline? (And a source!)

It takes a helluva lot of denial to refuse to see just how good laundering heroin money is for banks, and how much it nourishes the "Octopus" of spooks, crooks and terrorists.

I wonder just how many Western economies would fail if the narcotics trade was ended?

March 28, 2002
The Bush administration has decided not to destroy the opium crop in Afghanistan. President Bush, who previously linked the Afghan drug trade directly to terrorism, has now decided not to destroy the Afghan opium crop.

...

Several sources inside Capitol Hill noted that the CIA opposes the destruction of the Afghan opium supply because to do so might destabilize the Pakistani government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf. According to these sources, Pakistani intelligence had threatened to overthrow President Musharraf if the crops were destroyed.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/3/28/95240.shtml

[seemslikeadream]

24. It seems as if it was all part of the plan

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Buy 3 boxes of our Turkish special and get 1 box free.
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opium poppies
Afghan growers of opium poppies, back in business
By Trent Seibert
Denver Post Staff Writer

Tuesday, December 04, 2001 - SULTAN PUR, Afghanistan - Ahmed Azim is thrilled that the Taliban is no longer in control here.

Now he can grow all the opium poppies he wants.

"I wasn't allowed to cultivate poppies on my land when the Taliban ruled," said Azim, 40, as he spread yellow grainy seeds on dark, tilled dirt. "Now I can make money again."

Azim and his fellow farmers in the dusty plains outside of the eastern city of Jalalabad are planting opium poppies where last year they grew wheat or vegetables.

Some farmers have even ripped up the wheat seedlings they planted last month, replacing them with the new cash crop.

"There's no alternative'
Where now there are rows of dirt as far as the eye can see, in four months there will be miles of scarlet-flowered opium poppies, the prime ingredient for heroin.

"I know it's wrong. I know it's negative," said Khalid, a 35-year-old farmer who hoes land next to Azim. "But there's no alternative to support ourselves and our families. All of us are doing this now."

It's not just the dozens of farmers who live outside of Jalalabad. Countless others are doing the same thing across Afghanistan as the Taliban flees and its strict anti-drug laws go up in smoke.

http://www.poppiesinternational.com/opium_poppies/opium_poppies.html

[Minstrel Boy]

27. Deutsche Bank, the ISI, and heroin money

Remember Deutsche Bank's connection to the 9/11 story? Buzzy Krongard, insider trading, surprising resignation of Alex Brown/Deutsche Bank head Mayo Shattuck III on September 12, and all the rest?

Well, here's a little something:

In the aftermath of the September 11 plane-bombings of the World Trade Center and the U.S. Pentagon, Inner City / Finance Watch has prepared a report on bank links to Al Qaeda and other state-and non-state terrorist groups. As to Deutsche Bank, we note that Business Line of August 10, 2001 (distributed through the Financial Times Asia Intelligence Wire) reported that "in the 1980s, at the instance of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Internal Political Division of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), headed by Brig (retd) Imtiaz... started a cell for the use of heroin for covert actions. This cell promoted the cultivation of opium and the extraction of heroin in Pakistan as well as in those parts of Afghanistan under Mujahideen control for being smuggled into the Soviet-controlled areas to get the Soviet troops addicted. After the withdrawal of the Soviet troops, the ISI's heroin cell started using its network of refineries and smugglers to send heroin to the West and use the money to supplement its legitimate economy....After capturing power on October 12, 1999, Gen Pervez Musharraf had Brig Imtiaz, because of his proximity to Mr Nawaz Sharif, arrested and prosecuted for having assets disproportionate to his known sources of income as an officer of the ISI and the Intelligence Bureau. He was convicted by a court on July 31, 2001, and jailed for eight years. According to evidence produced in the court by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Brig Imtiaz had foreign exchange bearer certificates worth $20.08 million, a Pakistani rupee account in the Union Bank with a balance of Rs 2.13 billion, a dollar account in Deutsche Bank with a balance of $19.1 million, five residential houses, five commercial units and three shops. This huge wealth was allegedly accumulated by him through heroin smuggling."
http://www.innercitypress.org/dbbt.html

[seemslikeadream]

30. There is just so much Minstrel Boy

I really appreciate everything you post. You are a DU hero.

Do you have that GD thread about "something big is going to happen" I think that was the name of it, bookmarked?
Search is not working right now.

[Minstrel Boy]

32. Here you go, seemslikeadream:

"Something big coming. Something bad. Very soon"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1701699

I'm sorry this is archived; I'd like to have kept it alive a bit longer. I've heard a buzz the last few days - unconfirmed rumours and all that, but multiple and diverse sources - that suggests a big story is breaking this weekend, that will possibly explain the unusual naval deployments. (As Paranoid Larry sings, "But let us pray, for just a normal day!")

No hero, me. Just a guy with Google as his home page. But thanks, and much thanks for all your efforts. It's invaluable.

[seemslikeadream]

37. Just a normal day!

I was also trying to think of that guy that was in jail in Canada the one that wrote the note about 9/11 haven't heard much about him lately

[Minstrel Boy]

39. You mean Delmart Vreeland?

He disappeared while on bail, awaiting his extradition hearing.

Last mention of him is in this Toronto Star article from December: "Post-9/11, this doesn't seem all that weird":

"Did Vreeland skip town? Slansky argued no. He said he believed his client had been 'killed, kidnapped or harmed' because he had evidence that the U.S. government knew ahead of time about the Sept. 11 attacks."

I've known Vreeland's attorney, Paul Slansky, since the fifth grade, and he's the most honourable man I know. I blame him for sending me down the 9/11 rabbit hole. :)

http://www.thestar.ca/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&call_pageid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1070579408676%20%20

[seemslikeadream]

41. Yes and now I remember you knowing that lawyer

I think God_bush_n_cheney had some contact with Vreeland. I'll have to ask him about that. What a story that was, is!

Part One: A White Knight?

"The question of could <9/11> have been prevented will haunt us
as long as we exist as a country." - Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.)

Delmart "Mike" Vreeland wants to meet me in the parking lot of the Loblaw grocery store on Lake Shore Drive in Toronto. I arrive as a silver Lincoln circles the parking garage. I park and the car silently glides to me. The passenger door opens. Vreeland is sitting in back, hair cropped short into a Caesar cut, wearing a tight black ribbed t-shirt and black parachute pants. He looks like Eminem. He leans forward and says, "Lock your car. Get in."

As a black storm builds out in the harbor, we head to a big tourist restaurant on the waterfront called "Docks." Vreeland buys us two beers each, we drink and talk. He wonders aloud if anyone is tailing us. Suddenly everyone around me is middle-aged, dressed inconspicuously and wearing sunglasses. The storm breaks and we run inside. The middle-aged men follow us in, still wearing their sunglasses.

That night the limo takes me, Vreeland, Vreeland's son, and the son's best friend up north to a resort lodge. Vreeland feels safer there. He says he's buying a condo for $600,000, in one lump sum to be wired over. From where? He won't say. Does it have to do with his work with former U.S. Treasury operatives, people who claim to be attempting to recover over $27.6 trillion lost in 1993 when a secret Israeli/Palestinian peace deal went awry? (Yes, that's right, $27.6 trillion) Perhaps . . . or perhaps it's just another Vreelandism: a wild story that dissolves in the waters of scrutiny.

Vreeland was no ordinary jailbird. He told Canadian authorities he was a spy for the Office of Naval Intelligence.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/092602_vreeland_gnn.html

Thanks

[seemslikeadream]

67. Delmart Edward "Mike" Vreeland

Delmart Edward "Mike" Vreeland, an American citizen whose claims to being a US Naval Lieutenant assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) are being increasingly corroborated in open court, has been in a Canadian jail since December 6, 2000. On August 11 or 12 of 2001, the date is uncertain, after trying to verbally alert his Canadian jailers to the coming World Trade Center attacks, he wrote down key information and sealed it in an envelope which he then had placed in jailers’ custody. This event is not disputed by Canadian authorities. The letter specifically listed a number of targets including The Sears Towers, The World Trade Center, The White House, The Pentagon, The World Bank, The Canadian parliament building in Ottawa and the Royal Bank in Toronto.

A chilling sentence follows the list of targets, "Let one happen. Stop the rest!!!"

When the envelope was opened on September 14th it set off alarms in the US and Canada.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/1252_rev_12802.html

[Beam Me Up]

78. Vreeland document tied Iraq to 9/11 ??

I haven't read the story in a long time but as I recall, that was Vreeland's claim. Understand where I'm coming from, here. I don't know what to think of Vreeland, first of all -- although he certainly did have all the characteristics of some kind of spook. Secondly, he was a mule and so far as I can tell didn't know very much about what he was carrying (if, indeed, his story was true). Even if he was carrying documents and even if they did implicate Iraq in 9/11, that doesn't mean the documents were authentic.

I just think it is VERY INTERESTING that Vreeland, who has been missing now for quite some time, was speaking of holding documentation for an Iraq 9/11 link long before the significance of (the absence of) such documentation became aparent.


Edit: pronoun/tense agreement

[seemslikeadream]

28. Thank you so much

It's alot of research from alot of great people here. I try to bunch it all together. It's a system :crazy:


Great to see you here
al bupp

[starroute]

47. Nugen Hand had indirect ties to Harken Oil

In 1983, an investment group headed by Alan Quasha bought Harken Oil, and Quasha became the director and chairman of the board. His father, William Quasha, was a supporter of Ferdinand Marcos and legal advisor to two Nugen Hand executives. A few years later, in 1986, Harken acquired Bush Jr.'s Spectrum 7 and started developing major BCCI connections.

Harken's 1987 stock offering was placed with the Union Bank of Switzerland, which had ties to both BCCI and Nugen Hand. Al Martin claims that UBS was involved in securities fraud through Harken and other stock offerings.

In many ways, BCCI seems to have been the direct successor of Nugen Hand, with the same people involved, the same methodology, and the same CIA manipulations.

[al bupp]

71. Any References for This?

Although the parallels btw N-H and BCCI were apparent to me, I hadn't realized there was a such a close connection. If you have a URL, I'd appreciate it. I suppose it's all the BCCI book others have mentioned in this thread. I'll have to add that to my reading list.

It's been obvious to me since the 80s that illegal drugs have been the main funding mechanism for black-ops, not ot mention a major source of income for banks and other capitalists, since at least the 50s and probably much earlier, as illustrated by the Opium wars of 19th century.

[Just Me]

22. Seriously, Dream,...if you are not putting together a book,...

,...you should be. You are incredibly talented at pulling information together into an informative whole picture!!!

I am in awe of you!!

:yourock:

[seemslikeadream]

25. You mean that all made sense to you!

Thanks Just Me. It just a stange way for me to keep track of things.

[Just Me]

29. How do you do it?

Track and pull together all that information?

By the way, the graphics you post are also very impactful. I love the Oliva creation you just shared.

<on edit - it would be really cool if a sort of "logic tree" could be put together to graph your info>

[al bupp]

70. I agree, write a book

[loudsue]

12. This is huge! This is soooo fucking huge!!!! The internet is going to be

the death of the drug-dealing bush cartel, if we're allowed to continue.

Either the damn crooks will have to take over the world and shut down the internet, or the internet will have to take down the crooked world mafia leaders.

This information needs to go mainstream so that all these right wing holier-than-thou repuke fundies will understand who and what is running our government, and who is profiting. I want this OUT IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN!!!

If the media wasn't so damn complicit, they might try to get this great country on the right track.

These fucking criminals are throwing people in privatized, "profit-making" jails ..... BECAUSE THE PEOPLE IN JAILS ARE SUPPORTING THEM, before AND after the "crime" of using/selling drugs!! What is wrong with this picture???

This is so dysfunctional it is making me CRAZY!!!!

:kick::kick::kick:
:kick::kick:

[noonwitch]

42. Or, people will ignore it like the Iran/Contra cocaine connection

It was reported during the investigation, but mainstream media gave it a pass for the most part. I read about it in an alternative paper, The Metro Times. I think the original story was in the San Jose Mercury, or a paper with a name like that. It was dismissed at the time, later proven true, but the later story was on about page 10 of the local paper.

[bearfan454]

73. It is HUGER than huge loudsue.

So was the Iran contra thing and the CIA plane crashing in the 80's full of cocaine while poppy was still at the helm behind the scenes. But you know they do own the news. I hate it too, but that is how it is for all the sheeple to not be able to know what we know here at DU.

[juajen]

13. This is simply infuriating

Gee, what could happen if Ms. Edmonds is allowed to disclose what she knows? Another attack? Aren't we under a serious terrorist alert right now? This secrecy is, in itself, tantamount to treason. Heads should roll.

[goforit]

15. Holy COW!!!!..........Go Sibel!!!!....I love it....EXPOSE them all the way

"However, as soon as the Motley Rice legal firm subpoenaed her for it's legal suit on behalf of 9/11 victims' families, the government went hotfoot to Bush-appointed Judge Reggie B. Walton, to seek to bar her testimony from the case."


PANIC!!!!........Follow their tracks and we shall find
the treasure of truth and humility!!!

[sniffa]

17. so a key to starving terrorism funding

is to LegaLize narcotics. no more funding.

new tax revenue.

for the then unempLoyed DEA agents... they can merge with homeLand security (and they can shake down different dark skinned peopLe).

vote sniffa

[saigon68]

19. The entire Bush Clan

Can go Fuck themselves

Over 5000

[seemslikeadream]

20. Anger - such a terrible thing to waste

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=609762&mesg_id=609762

Let's play a game.

Where is this?

[saigon68]

26. Its the DR 1965

That was my 5000 post I had to make it memorable LOL

[seemslikeadream]

31. "A lovely little war" Ok no cheating now where's this

[saigon68]

38. Some type of jump school in the mid 80's

Just a guess

I didn't cheat

[seemslikeadream]

40. The picture was pretty obscure but I did give you a hint

"A lovely little war"




People & Events
The Invasion of Grenada

written by Julie Wolf

"A lovely little war" was what one correspondent called the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada. Most saw Operation Urgent Fury, its official name, as a guaranteed victory. The Caribbean island, the smallest independent country in the Western Hemisphere, was no match for American military might. Reagan championed the invasion as another step toward ridding the world of Communism, but the big victory over the little island also served as a major public relations coup for the recently battered administration.


Reagan was most concerned by the presence of Cuban construction workers and military personnel building a 10,000-foot airstrip on Grenada. Though Bishop had claimed the purpose of the airstrip was to allow commercial jets to land, Reagan believed its purpose was to allow military transport planes loaded with arms from Cuba to be transferred to Central American insurgents.

Also weighing on Reagan was the security of the 800 American medical students enrolled at St. George's School of Medicine in the former British commonwealth. After the coup, there was violence and anarchy, and with martial law and a shoot-on-sight curfew in effect in Grenada, Reagan was joined by many of his advisers, as well as much of the American public, in believing that the rescue of the American students was justification for an invasion.

Grenada had been something of a pet project for Reagan since his visit to Barbados in 1982, where Caribbean leaders echoed Reagan's own fear: that Grenada, with its socialist government and proximity to Cuba, could become a Communist beachhead in the Caribbean. While Reagan had been focused on Grenada for some time, he was unfairly accused of using the invasion to distract attention from other world events. Although the final decision to invade Grenada was made shortly after the Beirut bombings, by the time of the massacre in October 1983, Reagan had all but officially approved the invasion of Grenada. The accusation that the bombing in Lebanon motivated the invasion was, therefore, unfounded. If anything, one reporter argued, the destruction of the Marine barracks may have caused Reagan to hesitate.



Reagan's credibility was bolstered by what the 5,000-strong American invading force found on the island: a cache of weapons that could arm 10,000 men -- automatic rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, antiaircraft guns, howitzers, cannon, armored vehicles and coastal patrol boats. In all, out of 800 Cubans, 59 were killed, 25 were wounded, and the rest were returned to Havana upon surrender. Forty-five Grenadians died, and 337 were wounded. America also suffered casualties: 19 dead and 119 wounded. The medical students came home unharmed.


more
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/reagan/peopleevents/pande07.html


Memories Of The Gipper



From The White House Archives
Written For President Reagan in 1986, during the Iran Contra Scandal.
-----------------------------------------------------

Oh pompadour - Oh pompadour,
How I envy you, old pompadour.
You set as hair a top his head
While I am here, longing for his bed.
You are close to him and I am far away
And your hairs touch him everyday.

Oh pompadour - oh pompadour
how I wished I was his whore.
Put his head upon the U.S. dime
For our dear Reagan, it is his time
For, other's heads are upon our coins
But not Reagan's, not even his damned old groin.
Oh pompadour - oh pompadour
It is he, Reagan, that I adore.

http://www.republicanpress.com/auspice2.htm

[oblivious]

44. Is that article satire or what?

Reagan's credibility was bolstered by what the 5,000-strong American invading force found on the island: a cache of weapons that could arm 10,000 men -- automatic rifles, machine guns, rocket launchers, antiaircraft guns, howitzers, cannon, armored vehicles and coastal patrol boats.

It's a bloody country, for heaven's sake. rifles? machine guns? What country on earth doesn't have such arms? Coastal patrol boats?? What would an island country need with coastal patrol boats? Gee, must have been planning to invade the US. And that bolstered Reagan's credibility? Surreal I tell ya. And PBS reports it all in complete seriousness? Fucking surreal.

[seemslikeadream]

45. That's really funny

At first I thought you were talking about the "real" satire link





EVERY DEATH CREATES NEW ENEMIES
MORE TERRORISTS
MORE DANGER
MORE DEATH
AND REMEMBER...
HE IS JUST GETTING STARTED...
BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE
IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE


http://www.bushflash.com/pax.html WATCH THIS VIDEO



Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

Let America be America Again...by Langston Hughes

[al bupp]

69. Right On!

[seemslikeadream]

72. al bupp - you are a person of few but meaningful words

I envy you. I wish I was that talented. I've been accused and rightly so of using way too many.


Thanks so much I really appreciate it

[al bupp]

75. Blush, grin

[CharlesGroce]

33. I suspect she'll

come out with it regardless of the ruling, she probably knows something we really ought to know.

I'll never forget 9-11-01, I awoke and put NPR on the radio. My wife came downstairs, I said "We're at war now!" in a very 1950's paranoid voice as a joke of course, and my wife said "And I hold Bush personally responsible...he let this happen!" Brilliant woman. It only took seconds.

[seemslikeadream]

34. THE REAL REASON TENET AND PAVITT RESIGNED FROM CIA

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060804_coup_detat.html
The Real Reason Tenet and Pavitt Resigned from the
CIA on June 3rd and 4th

Bush, Cheney Indictments in Plame Case Looming

by
Michael C. Ruppert

additional reporting by
Wayne Madsen from Washington
SNIP..."Both resignations, perhaps soon to be followed by resignations from Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage, are about the imminent and extremely messy demise of George W. Bush and his Neocon administration in a coup d'etat being executed by the Central Intelligence Agency. The coup, in the planning for at least two years, has apparently become an urgent priority as a number of deepening crises threaten a global meltdown.

Based upon recent developments, it appears that long-standing plans and preparations leading to indictments and impeachment of Bush, Cheney and even some senior cabinet members have been accelerated, possibly with the intent of removing or replacing the entire Bush regime prior to the Republican National Convention this August.

FTW has been documenting this Watergate-like coup for more than fifteen months and almost everything we will discuss about recent events was by us predicted in detail in these pages. Please see our stories "The Perfect Storm - Part I" (March 2003); "Blood in the Water" (July 2003); "Beyond Bush - Part I" (July 2003); "Waxman Ties Evidentiary Noose Around Rice and Cheney" (July 2003); and "Beyond Bush - Part II" (October 2003).END SNIP

[seemslikeadream]

35. The article explains the CIA's intent:

...snip...
The Bush administration has proved itself to be an insular group of inept, dishonest and dangerous CEO's of the corporation known as America. They have become very bad for business and the Board of Directors is now taking action. Make no mistake, the CIA works for "The Board" - Wall Street and big money. The long-term (very corrupt and unethical) agenda of the Board, in the face of multiple worsening global crises, was intended to proceed far beyond the initially destructive war in Iraq, toward an effective reconstruction and a strategic response to Peak Oil. But the neocons have stalled at the ugly stage: killing hundreds of thousands of people; destroying Iraq's industrial and cultural infrastructure as their own bombs and other people's RPGs blow everything up; getting caught running torture camps; and making the whole world intensely dislike America.

These jerks are doing real damage to their masters' interests."

[nolabels]

76. This could also be why they pulled JFK out of their hat

Fuzzy performing magic at the Glasgow Science Centre

FUZZY's photo album
&imgrefurl=http://members.madasafish.com/~foundry/juggling/photos/photos.htm&h=531&w=709&sz=57&tbnid=jQg2oF_rfQMJ:&tbnh=103&tbnw=137&start=1&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drabit%2Bout%2Bof%2Bhat%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26sa%3DG

Not no bitter sour grapes person here, only looking to see what forces are at play here. Understanding and knowledge about what is going here is what I am looking for. The lock hold the boob tube has on people is amazing to say the least. They say the spirit is much stronger than the flesh. 32 years ago I watch a hypnotist do unbelievable things to a few kids at my Jr High School in one of those monthly assembly shows. From that point it became quite easy to realize the sub-conscious mind controls the conscious and is very powerful. One always needs to question the reasons for as many motives as they can, especially their own.

'Media Killed Dean Campaign'
Dean's Cyber Campaign Manager Still Defiant
(snip)
The press who couldn't figure out what the Dean campaign was now feel qualified to judge whether it was a success or not -- it's a mistake to buy in to what is coming out of the broadcast media. I firmly believe we're at a pivotal point. Broadcast media failed us media -- no debate going into the war, or over the PATRIOT act. The Internet was where the only debate was happening.

The Dean campaign was about bringing real change to a system that is broken, corroded, rusted. In the 1960s, we had the Nixon-Kennedy debate. It took 5-10 years to understand that television would change American politics. We didn't realize that it would become a race for money, and that would remove the citizens from the process. That is what the Dean campaign ran smash into. We were trying to change that system. That system is locked in place.
(snip)
(snip)
Nobody is going to change America for you; you have to do it yourself. The American people, having held hostage by broadcast media for 40 years, not have the beginnings of the tools to do that. There WILL be debate in this country now.

We tried everything. Last January, I read in a blog that the Dean campaign ought to use Meetup.com. Within a week, Meetup called us. We had been looking at it. At that time, a couple hundred people started using it for the Dean campaign. I wasn't exactly sure how it would work out. The campaign embraced it, and now 200,000 have signed up in over 1000 cities and towns. This was the Internet allowing people to use something offline. One of the most important lessons -- it's not just the online tools, but the ability to take that energy offline into their neighborhoods. The water color at work, the kitchen table at home, over the neighbors' fence -- that's where the Dean campaign was happening.
(snip)
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?menu=c10400&no=154122&rel_no=1

[seemslikeadream]

79. You are getting sleepy, very sleepy

now take this gun Mr. Hinkely and go shoot the president

[al bupp]

85. I Agree

Although I intend to vote for Kerry, mostly because he's clearly the lesser of two evils (sigh, once again), he is also clearly (one of?) the way(s) that the powers which be have hedged thier bets on Bush&Co.

[Eurobabe]

43. Doesn't anybody see the value of truly 'independent 'research?

I have been thinking alot about this lately...in light of the cozy relationships between stock analysts and brokerage firms, Big Pharma and sponsored studies/clinical trials, CIA being pressured to tell NeoCons what they want to hear.

Nobody values unbiased research anymore.

[nolabels]

46. Which are groups or people are you refering to

I heard a very good report yesterday on how the wired up South Korean celled up and talked roomed and emailed out the B.S. right wing news oganizations info hold. Try this story on

http://www.springwise.com/newbusinessideas/2003/06/ohmynews.html

OhMyNews

Using 'citizen reporters', this online-only South Korean newspaper is a big hit

No one wants to read papers online. Or so many of the old school news publishers still want us to believe, even after years of non-stop growth in the number of potential online readers. Well, South Korea's internet newspaper OhMyNews is proving these 'dinosaurs in digital denial' wrong, with a vengeance.



In a country where close to 70% of all households subscribe to a broadband internet service (source: Morgan Stanley), and where next generation cell phones are as widespread as last-generation phones in the U.S., three-year old OhMyNews is getting 14 million pageviews a day, with 1-3 million active readers a day.

The big twist: OhMyNews uses 26,000 'citizen reporters', who send in stories and pictures, which make up 80% of all content. And it is all done online, 24/7. OhMyNews pays up to $20 per article, though for many citizen reporters, getting their name in the paper is the real reward. Facts are checked by a staff of 40.

Fiercely outspoken, OhMyNews has successfully challenged the traditionally conservative press in South Korea. In fact, the online newspaper has already been credited with having swung a presidential election, and influencing the government's stance on the North Korea issue. So much for paper! ;-)
(snip)

[oblivious]

56. Cool. Very cool. I love it. nt

[Minstrel Boy]

49. back to page one with ya n/t

[nolabels]

51. I still think there is a lot more to this story now

The thing is starts to make sense to me now about this

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/120103Kupferberg/120103kupferberg.html

Truth, lies, and the legend of 9/11
By Chaim Kupferberg

(snip)
It is, in fact, security firms like Kroll Associates, Burns Security, Teg, Wackenhut, and their ilk that should garner our interest at least as much as the web of conservative think tanks that have welded in place the parameters of "mainstream" debate—for it is through these very firms that the former stars of law enforcement have gone through the revolving door into the lucrative private sector. It is a world where former military types mix with various operatives of the CIA, FBI, DEA and any number of alphabet soup agencies charged with the security of our nation.

Moreover, the top people in the private security sector have the authority, prestige, and, most importantly, the skill to carry out—successfully and below the radar—the kinds of domestic operations that have been pegged as the province of shaggy al-Qaida operatives. Who, after all, could best ensure that 19 terrorists would be able to make it aboard four separate flights without any real danger of detection? And who, after all, would be best placed to ensure a complete and successful implosion of not just the two Twin Towers, but the neighboring building—7 World Trade Center—which housed a bio-warfare "command and control bunker" under the direction of Jerry Hauer?

With that in mind, we get a bit closer to the "how" of 9/11—an important consideration in analyzing the Legend of 9/11. A good part of the early work on that legend had been accomplished through the offices of Michael Cherkasky, the managing director of Kroll Associates—in his capacity as a prosecutor working in the New York office of Robert Morgenthau. Cherkasky had worked on the case arising out of the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, which had established Ramzi Yousef as the terrorist mastermind behind the attack. Cherkasky had also worked on the John Gotti and BCCI criminal cases, two cases that would not, at first glance, seem to be related, much less to the events of September 11.

Yet there is a curious continuity here—one that highlights the global infrastructure that has made 9/11 such a successful worldwide "op," with a legend whose global parameters defy the perceptions of even the most dogged investigators. As Peter Dale Scott has argued in great and persuasive detail, the "deep political structure" of American society—and I would argue that this now applies globally—is permeated by an interwoven nexus between political/corporate elites and an organized criminal subculture, whereby certain political or business arrangements are made in an extra-legal sphere, beyond the reach of sanction or salience. Although this dual-purpose netherworld has been with us for over a century—and roughly parallels the rise of an American industrial "Establishment" of which the Bushes and Rockefellers are most representative—for our purposes, we will date the true globalization of this "deep political structure" with the creation of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, better known as BCCI.
(snip)

[Minstrel Boy]

53. That's a very good point.

To ascribe 9/11 to PNAC is an over-simplification. Peter Dale Scott's concept of "deep politics" - a systemic, supra-legal nexus of crime, business, politics and intelligence - is more helpful.

[ursacorwin]

52. MB, what about the gorilla in the room?

that is- moon. i've read about most of what you posted, and if you've not seen it yet pick up a copy of mailer's "harlot's ghost" for a nice fictional (not) take on some of the deep background to this story...

but how does moon fit into all this? he's thick as theives with a lot of the major players, and seems to have little difficulty getting them to follow his plans. or is that just a totally different ball of wax?

it's so sad to me though, that it's literally just a few hours of google research to get the details of this horror story and the only people who take it seriously are labeled CT kooks. wake up america, your nation is run by a drug cartel! and probably has been for years....

and a word of caution to all of us: english language internet has its limits. a big part of this story is distinctly asian, african, and from places of the world where english language writing is not common. if you think you know the whole of what's going on, you probably don't.

have you seen the website headheeb? not a CT site at all, but GREAT for africa reporting.

[Minstrel Boy]

54. Moon's a real puzzle to me.

I don't know how he figures in it, if at all. But he's certainly thick with the Bush cartel. I know he's tied into South Korean intelligence, and I wonder whether that opens up a link to the drug trade, and that may be the real foundation of his wealth and influence. I read recently he was returning to Korea, after years in the US. It made me think, what does he know we don't?

You made an excellent observation about the limits of the English language. Wish I had more than high school French. There is so much we don't know, just because we can't read it.

[ursacorwin]

55. hee hee, who's we, kemosabe?

i happen to read quite a few ;-)

but translators are a big help, i encourage you to use them. (internet translators, that is)

thanks for all your efforts, you're a DU and national treasure for not letting this fade.

[starroute]

60. Moon is certainly tied in with money-laundering

There's a bunch of links at http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/moon.html that include stories about the Moon-owned Banco de Credito in Uruguay and questions about where Moon gets the money he pumps into the Washington Times:

"In the Shadow of the Moons raises anew the question of whether Moon's money-laundering -- from mysterious sources in both Asia and South America -- has made him a conduit for illicit foreign money influencing the U.S. government and American politics.

"Moon's spokesmen have denied that he launders drug money or moves money from other criminal enterprises. They attribute his wealth to donations and business profits, but have refused to open Moon's records for public inspection.

"For decades, Moon has lavished huge sums on right-wing media and friendly politicians. He spends an estimated $100 million a year to keep afloat the conservative Washington Times newspaper, a flagship of the American Right and a journalistic base for many conservative pundits who appear regularly on national TV political shows. . . . The key to Moon's power has always been his rivers of subterranean cash from sources that have never been clearly identified."


There's another story at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/relrpt/stories/s556019.htm which states:

"In recent years, the Moonies have been buying up huge tracts of land on the border of Brazil and Paraguay. They say they’re establishing a heaven-on-earth called the New Hope East Garden. But the Brazilian authorities are concerned about what they could be up to in an area notorious for smuggling, arms dealing, money-laundering and drug-running. Last week Brazil’s Federal Police carried out a series of raids, seizing documents and computers.

<snip>

"The BBC's South America correspondent Tom Gibb is speaking to David Rutledge from Sao Paolo.

"Tom Gibb: Well I think it’s a number of things. I mean one is the fact of a foreign private institution buying up huge amounts of land on both sides of the border. It’s quite a sensitive border with Paraguay; that area is the centre of the black market and smuggling in the whole of South America. It’s this multi-billion-dollar business between Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil. Most of it’s actually controlled by Middle Eastern traders. It’s everything from fake CDs to stolen cars, something like 60% of the cars in Paraguay are supposed to be stolen. In fact even the President’s car, it turned out, had been stolen in Brazil a little while back. So this is a huge smuggling area, and I think the Brazilians are very worried about having a private foreign group owning large amounts of land on both sides of the border."

[nolabels]

80. The media arm of Rev. Sun Myung Moon

The garbage in, garbage out principle is alive and well ( like you haven't noticed :D )
http://www.mediachannel.org/originals/revmoon.shtml

A New Weapon In An Ideology War

In May 2000, the media arm of Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church bought itself electronic fingers. News World Communications, Moon's media company, purchased United Press International (UPI), a once venerable news wire service. UPI, which provided news for media worldwide, could offer a legitimizing platform for Moon's dogma — if the new owners can revive the decrepit agency.

MediaChannel affiliates report on the sorry state of UPI (which once had 200 bureaus worldwide) and investigate Moon's growing empire. A virulently anticommunist, self-proclaimed messiah, Reverend Moon is also a prosperous businessman who can subsidize publications around the world. From The Washington Times to newspapers in Japan, Egypt and Latin America, Moon has made skillful media manipulation a key strategy in winning adherents to his vision of god and politics. As top Moon executive Bo Hi Pak declared in a 1991 documentary, "That is what the Third World War is all about — the war of ideology."
(snip
)
http://www.cjr.org/

WHO OWNS WHAT
http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/newsworld.asp

News World Communications, Inc.
News World Communications is the media arm of Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church.
News World Communications, Inc.
3600 New York Ave. NE
Washington, DC 20002
Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]
Publishing

* Washington Times
* United Press International (UPI)
* Insight Magazine
* The World and I
* Tiempos del Mundo (Latin America)
* Middle Eastern Times
* The Segye Ilbo (South Korea)
* The Sekai Nippo (Tokyo)
* Zambezi Times (South Africa)

Other

* Atlantic Video

[seemslikeadream]

81. YOU ARE GETTING SLEEPY VERY VERY SLEEPY

[nolabels]

86. Funny that's what they call me at work, SLEEPY

My old boss that hired me anyway, I outlasted him (nice guy really).

I still remember like it was yesterday, I was just in the audience and watching. At the end of the show the hypnotist even said that though even the people in the audience were not his subjects many people watching got tranced and so he also gave them in the audience a command and so many did it I was flabber gassed (I was not one of them tough)

The thing I remember most about it was this one girl he picked out (these folks really must know who is who with this stuff) He got her out of the fifteen he had on stage during a skit they were being directed on. He took her aside and starting going over that on his command she was to become stiff as a board, said it too her several times. Then he told her. He also set two kids to sit on these chairs a little ways apart. After he told her to become stiff as a board, he picked her up like a piece of wood and placed her on the kids on the two chairs with quite large space in the middle of her (I thought anyway). He then got a little seat pillow he had with him and sat on top of her lifting up his feet and everything. I could not believe it. She could talk and all but was oblivious to what she was doing with her body. It was not a hoax and no gimmicks or tricks were used. It kind of gets a little :scared: when you think about it.

He also gave her and everybody else in a trance instructions that they would do well in school this year then woke them up. The girl he did the chair stunt on grades went from B- to A+. that year. It does work but to what point I am not sure.

[seemslikeadream]

107. MOON CROWNED IN SENATE BUILDING - NO HOAX!!!!!!!

http://www.gorenfeld.net/blog/2004/05/im-and-i-approve-this-messiah.ht...





http://gadflyer.com/articles/?ArticleID=131

Should Americans be concerned that on March 23rd a bipartisan group of Congressmen attended a coronation at which a billionaire, pro-theocracy newspaper owner was declared to be the Messiah – with royal robes, a crown, the works? Or that this imperial ceremony took place not in a makeshift basement church or a backwoods campsite, but in a Senate office building?

Some of the guest list:

Cut to the ritual. Eyes downcast, a man identified as Congressman Danny K. Davis (D-Ill.) is bringing a crown, atop a velvety purple cushion, to a figure who stands waiting austerely with his wife. Now Moon is wearing robes that Louis XIV would have appreciated. All of this has quickly been spliced into a promo reel by Moon's movement, which implies to its followers that the U.S. Congress itself has crowned the Washington Times owner.

But Section 9 of the Constitution forbids giving out titles of nobility, setting a certain tone that might have made the Congressional hosts shy about celebrating the coronation on their websites. They included conservatives, the traditional fans of Moon's newspaper: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA.), Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah), Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) and Republican strategy god Charlie Black, whose PR firm represents Ahmed Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress. But there were also liberal House Democrats like Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) and Davis. Rep. Harold Ford (D-Tenn.) later told the Memphis Flyer that he'd been erroneously listed on the program, but had never heard of the event, which was sponsored by the Washington Times Foundation.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1767720

[seemslikeadream]

108. DARK SIDE OF REV. MOON: BUYING THE RIGHT

By Robert Parry

The Consortium News

Dark Side of Rev Moon: Hooking George Bush, by Robert Parry

One Mother's Tale: Rev Moon and a College Freshman, by Robert Parry

Dark Side of Rev Moon: Legend and Lies, by Robert Parry

Dark Side of Rev Moon: Generation Next, by Robert Parry

Dark Side of Rev Moon: Drug Allies, by Robert Parry

Dark Side of Rev Moon: Moon's Billions and Washington's Blind Eye, by Robert Parry

Rev Moon and His "Green Card", by Robert Parry

Rev Moon's Dark Shadow, by Robert Parry

On Jan. 28, 1995, a beaming Rev. Jerry Falwell told his Good Time Gospel Hour congregation news that seemed heaven sent. The televangelist hailed two Virginia businessmen as financial saviors of debt-ridden Liberty University, the fundamentalist Christian school that Falwell had made the crown jewel of his Religious Right empire.

"They had to borrow money, hock their houses, hock everything," enthused Falwell. "Thank God for friends like Dan Reber and Jimmy Thomas." Falwell's congregation rose as one to applaud. The star of the moment was Daniel Reber, who was standing behind Falwell. Thomas was not present.

Reber and Thomas earned Falwell's public gratitude by excusing the Lynchburg, Va., school of about one-half of its $73 million debt. In the late 1980s, that flood of red ink had forced Falwell to abandon his Moral Majority political organization and nearly drowned Liberty University in bankruptcy.

Reber and Thomas came to Falwell's rescue in the nick of time. Their non-profit Christian Heritage Foundation of Forest, Va., snapped up a big chunk of Liberty's debt for $2.5 million, a fraction of its face value. Thousands of small religious investors who had bought church construction bonds through a Texas company were the big losers. But Falwell shed no tears. He told local reporters that the moment was "the greatest single day of financial advantage" in the school's history.

Left unmentioned in the happy sermon was the identity of the bigger guardian angel who had been protecting Falwell's financial interests -- from a distance and without publicity. That secret benefactor was the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the self-proclaimed South Korean messiah who is controversial with many fundamentalist Christians because of his bizarre Biblical interpretations and his brainwashing tactics that have torn thousands of young people from their families. Moon also has grown harshly anti-American in recent years.

more lots lots more
http://www.freedomofmind.com/stevehassan/presskit/articles/parry1.htm

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1603870

[al bupp]

109. Truncated URL

The first URL you posted appears to have been truncated by the DU Forums software, and leads to a 404. Here it is corrected:

link

BTW, thanks this had completely gone under my radar. Unbelievable really, but there it is in living color...

Cheers, SLAD

[seemslikeadream]

110. Thanks so much al bupp

I really appreciate it. Great post #102. I see you've found the rest of the letters on the key board!

[al bupp]

111. De Nada

Thanks for the props on #102. I wish we could shout the contents of this entire thread from the mountain tops!

And nice jerry pic there... I'm guessing early 90's... classic over the specs peer. Here's a pic of a JG, before the heroin addiction kicked in:



Excuse me now while I have to be sad about his passing all over again ;(

[Merlin]

57. Be careful. This smells like major league DISinformation.

Check out the web links. They maintain Armitage is involved in a massive cocaine ring with the CIA. Why would the CIA need the Asst. Sec St to assist it in secret drug deals? Makes no sense.

Based on my background doing extensive investigations of conspiracy allegations (particularly on the JFK assassination), those seeking to sidetrack legitimate investigations go to elaborate lengths to plant material that is fabricated but outrageously appealing, deliberately to lead the gullible into a cul-de-sac of foolish claims, thereby weakening both their credibility and their resolve.

This one smells like a diversion from the real story, which is bad enough. The real story, of course, is that these Bush people completely dropped the ball and deliberately tried to shut down al Qaeda investigations in the Summer of 01 largely because of the Bush cozyness with the Saudis. The John O'Neal story is the real story they don't want told. It is certifiably true, and incontrovertibly nails Shrub to the wall. This one, on the other hand, is highly unlikely.

[Minstrel Boy]

63. I don't think so.

Armitage isn't a newbie when it comes to CIA and drugs. His story goes back to Vietnam, covert ops, the Golden Triangle and Ted Shackley. He was a player for decades before his appointment to the State Department.

You're right about the danger of disinfo, but this more than passes the smell test for me.

[nolabels]

64. We can debate anything we want here, we are not reporting nada

Reporters have it easy as far as that goes, mostly they do what ever they can paid for but there are them times,

http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id1038/pg1/
narco news: why it's best to always tell the truth
by Preston Peet ([e-mail]) - July 23, 2001

Roberto Hernandez Ramirez, owner and president of Banamex is suing two journalists, Albert M. Giordano, and Mario Menendez Rodriguez, in a New York City lawsuit, for reporting on his connections to narco-trafficking. Banamex is the third largest bank in Mexico.

Insisting the two journalists' claims that Hernandez is a narco-trafficker and corrupt political powerbroker of the highest order have wrought an untold amount of damage to both his business and reputation, Hernandez hired the Washington DC lobbyist law firm of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer and Feld.

Akin Gump filed suit (August 9, 2000), in the United States District Court for the Southern District, New York City, alleging the two journalist/publishers had committed libel against their client. The suit threatens to shut down legitimate journalists for reporting facts, trapping them into a time consuming harassment, charging them a high price for reporting the truth.

"They can grit their teeth and suffer Al's reporting, day after aggravating day, as he exposes the ugly underside of this endless war on drugs - and actually makes things happen, like real journalists are supposed to do," wrote Gary Webb, author of Dark Alliance: The CIA the Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion (Seven Stories Press, 1999), in a letter supporting the two journalists.
(snip)

Why I don't subscribe to the run like the plauge idea is even though most disinfo it there to discredit or lead people down the wrong path parts of it has to be true for it to work. This is where Merlin comes in.

If it where just a crock a couple people could ride on it, but we quite a few people writing books about it here
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1888363932/disinformation/002-8193897-4183253

There is lots of motive with several angles for what went on. The banking angle could have partly been here

http://www.narconews.com/Issue15/junglebungle.html

Aftermath: the
Jungle Bungle

Joint US/Peru Report Lays Blame for
Shootdown at Missionary Pilot's Feet
By Peter Gorman
(snip)
Additionally, the report suggests that once the interdiction was set in motion, the constant talking among the pilots and their interpreter aboard the CIA-contract plane, and similar chatter aboard the Peruvian fighter jet, made communication frantic and subsequently impossible.
As we go to press, Kevin Donaldson, while still not talking with the press, has returned to Iquitos, Peru, with plans to continue his evangelical mission. Jim Bowers, whose wife, Veronica, and newly adopted daughter, Charity, were killed in the shootdown, is in the US and plans to continue his missionary work with Spanish speaking people there. HT recently spoke-on the condition of anonymity-with a member of Donaldson's immediate family in Iquitos, and was told that both Donaldson and Bowers were instructed by US officials that it would not be in their interests to either go public with their personal stories or sue the US or Peru for damages. In return, the plane that was shot down will be quietly replaced, generous financial considerations will be doled out without fanfare, and the Association of Baptists for World
Evangelism will be permitted to continue working in the region.
Don Davis, the corporate counsel for the ABWE contests that statement. "I believe it was the personal choice of both Kevin Donaldson and Jim Bowers not to speak out to the press. I don't believe they were pressured, though you know how it is in Peru: the laws are applied when they're applied and Kevin, at least, wants to continue working there, so it's probably in his best interests not to be too public."
When asked to confirm whether the US government would be replacing the downed plane, Davis noted that a claim for it, "as well as other expenses we occurred because of this," had been made with the US government, though "I don't know when or if they will make good on that claim."
(snip)

http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/narcoDollars.html
Narco-Dollars for Beginners
"How the Money Works" in the Illicit Drug Trade
by Catherine Austin Fitts
Special to the Narco News Bulletin
2001

http://www.ratical.org/co-globalize/narcoDollars.html#part1
Part I: Narco Dollars for Dummies

A Simple Framework:
The Solari Index and the Dow Jones Index
(snip)
It's also going to be a multiple of Sam's margin, right? Maybe it will be 20 percent or 30 percent or more? Let's call it B for Big, or BIG PERCENTAGE. Dave the drug man has a much bigger "cash profit per boat" than Sam the sugar man. Part of that is, of course, once Dave has set up his money laundering schemes, even after a 4-10 percent take for the money laundering fees, it's fair to say his tax rate of 0 percent is lower than Sam's tax rate. While it is expensive to set up all the many schemes Dave might use to launder his money, once you do it you can save a lot avoiding some or all of the IRS's take.

Look at your estimate of Sam and Dave's sales and profits. Now answer for yourself the following questions.

* Who is going to get laid more, Sam or Dave?

* Who is going to be more popular with the local bankers, Sam or Dave?

* Who is going to have a bigger stock market portfolio with a large investment house, Sam or Dave?

* Who is going to donate more money to political campaigns, Sam or Dave?

* Whose wife is going to be bigger in the local charities, Sam or Dave's?

* Whose companies will have more prestigous law firms on retainer, Sam or Dave's?

* Who is going to buy the other's company first, Sam or Dave? Is Dave the drug man going to buy Sam the sugar man's company, or is Sam the sugar man going to buy Dave the drug man's company?

* When they want to buy the other's company, will the bankers, lawyers and investment houses and politicians back Sam the sugar man or Dave the drug man?

* Whose son or grandson has a better chance of getting into Harvard or getting a job offer at Goldman Sachs, Sam or Dave's?

Don't listen to me. And don't listen to Peter Jennings, Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw. Who do you think pays their salaries? Who owns the companies they work for? Sam or Dave?
(snip)

This also a big story for the amount of inmates in prison for drugs and drug related crimes. The bogus wars carried out in south America and other places and much more to be sure. We are only talking about movtives to silence this witness and the motive for it. My guess they do just that on the 14th of june. Lets see who gets proved wrong

[Rex]

58. If these are 'state secrets' then that means our govt is one huge

drug dealer. Otherwise the ties between drugs, money, terror, and information would be found in a different country and we would be calling it 'national security'.

[bobthedrummer]

61. Kick

:dem::kick:

[Minstrel Boy]

65. "Osama bin Laden a 'narco-terrorist'"

And yet Bush says hands-off Afghanistan's record opium crop. Geez, if I wasn't a tinfoiling paranoiac, this would make no sense at all!

Source: Washington Times
Date: 22 January 2004

The al Qaeda terror group has embraced heroin trafficking to such an extent that its leader, Osama bin Laden, is now a "narco-terrorist," says a U.S. congressman just back from a fact-finding mission in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"It seems clear to me heroin is the No. 1 financial asset of Osama bin Laden," Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, Illinois Republican, told The Washington Times. "There is a need to update our view of how terrorism is financed.

"And the view of Osama bin Laden relying on Wahhabi donations from abroad is outdated. And the view of him as one of the world's largest heroin dealers is the more accurate, up-to-date view."

...

"The most important thing here is to change the language to not describe Osama bin Laden anymore as a terrorist, but to more accurately describe him as a narco-terrorist," said Mr. Kirk, who sits on the Appropriations subcommittee on commerce, justice, state and judiciary.
http://opioids.com/afghanistan/osama.html

[seemslikeadream]

66. Back by popular demand, our 3 box specials:

Back by popular demand, our 3 box specials:

Buy 3 boxes of our Tasmanian Mediums and get1 free!
Buy 3 boxes of our Turkish special and get 1 box free.
Offer valid until June 30, 2004

[Minstrel Boy]

68. such an odd, beautiful plant

Reminds me of the one in the old Star Trek episode that makes Spock trip out:



Peter Dale Scott, one of the great minds unravelling the secret history of the National Security State:

Poppy Paradox: US War in Afghanistan Boosts Terror Funds

It is true, as President Bush has insisted, that global terrorism is financed by the flow of illicit drugs. Yet by installing and rewarding a coalition of drug-financed warlords in Kabul, the United States has itself helped restore the flow of Afghan heroin to terrorist groups, from the Balkans and Chechnya to Tajikistan, Pakistan and Kashmir.

Thanks to the U.S. intervention, Afghanistan will again supply up to 70 percent of the world's heroin this year, 90 percent of the heroin reaching Europe and even a part of the heroin reaching the United States.

...

U.S. actions probably reflect its complex relations with Pakistan, which regards both Gul Agha and Hazrat Ali as allies. For 20 years, the complex of heroin-terror networks in Central Asia has been fostered by Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI.

Since backing drug-trafficking mujahideen against the Soviet Union, the ISI has had a vision of using the drug traffic to project its influence beyond Afghanistan into Central Asia. Afghan opium and heroin from the mujahideen during the 1980s corrupted not just the ISI itself, but the whole of Pakistani society. Pakistan's opium-heroin economy reached at least half the size of its official one, and in terms of exports may have surpassed it.

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles/Scott_PoppyParadox.htm

[al bupp]

74. Everything We Were Taught About Poppies is Wrong

The seed of the "Opium Poppy" is the same as what's sold in garden stores nationwide for use as ornamental flowers. Read Jim Hogshire's "Opium for the Masses" to find out more. The history of opiate use from poppies, and various laws enacted to regulate this is also succinctly outlined in article he contributed to "You Are Being Lied To", entitled "Poppycock: Truth and Lies about Poppies, Opium, and Painkilling Drugs" (http://www.disinfo.com/site/displayarticle8.html).

This website also appears to have a lot information about poppies:

http://www.poppiesinternational.com/index.html

[seemslikeadream]

77. hey al

did ya see post 24?

:pals:

[al bupp]

84. Right On!

[starroute]

87. Follow the money -- which may mean follow the banks

Drug-smuggling may be secretive -- but money-laundering can't be completely concealed. If we follow the trail of money-laundering banks, we will have at least some idea of where the huge, destabilizing floods of money are coming from -- and where they're going.

I'm starting to compile a little list of banks' whose names show up in my files. Here's what I've got so far:

Castle Bank (Bahamas)
- not much info -- probably 1960's
- money-laundering in connection with Asian drug smuggling

Nugen Hand Bank (Australia)
- money-laundering and covert operations
- connected with Aramco and Bechtel in Saudi Arabia
- unravelling by late 1970's

Banco Ambrosiano (c.1980)
- Roberto Calvi, P2 lodge

Stephens, Inc.
- owned by Jackson Stephens in Arkansas
- - in the 70's, Jackson Stephens supported Jimmy Carter (his college roommate)
- - also bankrolled Clinton's early campaigns
- - after 1980, he turned his support to Reagan and Bush I
- connected with BCCI and many other scandals
- underwrote Harken Oil's 1987 stock offering

Bank of Credit and Commerce International (1976-1991)
- drugs, money-laundering, CIA, terrorism
- may have been set up by William Casey and British intelligence
- secretly acquired other banks in the US
- part of an international web of money-laundering banks
- connected to or protected by many US political figures

Union Bank of Switzerland (Union de Banques Suisses)
- connected with both Nugen Hand and BCCI

Palmer National Bank
- founded by Herman K. Beebe, Sr.
- connected with Iran-Contra

Texas S&L scandals
- many failed banks had been used for CIA money-laundering

National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia
- owned by family of BCCI figure Khaled bin Mahfouz
- thought to have been a principle source of al Qaeda funding

Capital Trust Bank
- owned by Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi, parter of bin Mahfouz
- investigated in 1999 for possible connections to terrorists

Banker's Trust-A.B. Brown
- Buzzy Krongard was chairman of A.B. Brown
- - became vice chairman after the two banks merged in 1997
- - left in 1998 to become CIA Executive Director
- one of 20 major US banks named as connected with money laundering
- used to place the mysterious put options just before 9/11

[Minstrel Boy]

89. And don't forget Riggs Bank

Fined $25 million for laundering money of Saudis who were financing Al Qaeda. Shows a money trail from the wife of Prince Bandar to some of the Sept 11 hijackers. And Jonathan Bush is CEO.

Thanks for all that, starroute. I think you're right: we can follow the money to some degree. And when we can document it, we've established a conspiracy.

An important book re: the "deep politics" of the S&L fraud: The Mafia, CIA & George Bush by Pete Brewton.

[seemslikeadream]

91. Now you would have to mention Riggs Jonathan J. Bush Equatorial Guinea

Riggs and Equatorial Guinea

British businessman accused of leading role in failed coup


Exclusive Investigation: Mercenaries held over Equatorial Guinea plot identify west London consultant as mastermind
By Paul Lashmar and Adrian Gatton
16 May 2004


A management consultant from west London has been accused of being one of the masterminds behind a plot to overthrow the government of the oil-rich African state of Equatorial Guinea.

The failed coup - strikingly reminiscent of Frederick Forsyth's mercenary tale The Dogs of War - came to light in March with the dramatic arrests of 67 soldiers of fortune at Harare airport in Zimbabwe. Now a witness statement seen by The Independent on Sunday names Greg Wales, 53, an accountant and management consultant, as a key organiser behind the plot.

He vehemently denies any involvement. But the government of Equatorial Guinea has confirmed to the IoS that it now wishes to interview Mr Wales, who has homes in Chiswick and Wiltshire and a history of business in Africa.

A statement on behalf of the state and President of Equatorial Guinea said yesterday: "The appropriate authorities are anxious to interview Mr Wales in view of his apparent involvement in the attempted coup d'état." British lawyers acting for the government have asked Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Branch to investigate Mr Wales's role. "We believe attempting a coup against an elected government by the use of force is an act of international terrorism and should be investigated as such," one lawyer said

more
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=521746


Mr du Toit claims that Mr Wales arranged much of the finance for the coup.


Mr Wales denies involvement in the coup. While he says he knows most of the key figures said to be involved in the failed plot, he stressed: "I was not involved in a coup. I do not even believe that there was a coup plot. This is all a deal between Mugabe and Obiang. If the government of Equatorial Guinea is saying I was involved then it is a joke."

But Mr du Toit identifies Mr Wales as a key organiser, in a statement seen by the IoS. It was signed in the presence of a British lawyer working for the government. In the statement he says: "The first person who I spoke to about the coup was Greg. I had not met him before. I do not know how he got my telephone number but this was probably through Simon Mann. I do not know his family name."

The IoS has confirmed that Mr du Toit had Greg Wales's personal mobile number in his notebook. Mr Wales is an old Africa hand and has been involved with Mr Mann over many years; Mr du Toit claims that Mr Wales arranged much of the finance for the coup.

At the time, Mr du Toit was based in Equatorial Guinea starting up businesses, including a deep-sea fishing project and an airfreight operation in partnership with ministers. In his statement he says: "He called me and asked me to meet him on 4 January 2004 in Sandton, South Africa. He said he had a business proposition for me ... I decided to see what he proposed."

more
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/story.jsp?story=521746

The weapons supplied to Nick Du Toit's customers


The alleged mercenaries, arrested in March, are to be extradited to Equatorial Guinea to stand trial for plotting the overthrow of the government there. The Harare authorities announced the extradition last week, not long after receiving legal documents from lawyers representing the arrested men outlining their defence to various minor charges laid against them in Zimbabwe.

A court case would have revealed that the parastatal Zimbabwe Defence Industries (ZDI) has been working for the past few years with a number of white South Africans in joint ventures to ship arms around the continent.

'There was no way he would have got involved in a coup'
The South African arms brokers, operating with offshore companies, registered in places like the Bahamas, were able to guarantee delivery of weapons "within 24 hours of payment being received, to anywhere in Africa," according to a source in Pretoria.

Once payment had been received, an aircraft would be dispatched from South Africa to Harare. It would load the weapons from military facilities at Harare airport and would then fly on to its final African destination, said the source
The weapons supplied to Nick Du Toit's customers could have come from three sources: The Zimbabwe National Army armouries; from weaponry captured by Zimbabwean troops in their involvement in the DRC or could be have been bought new.

more
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=vn20040508105453653C ...

Equatorial Guinea also involved in the Riggs bank scandal


but laundering money for the government (Obiang) and likely paying out the bribes from the oil companies.

LA Times story (somewhere odd) has good details: http://www.ocnus.net/cgi-bin/exec/view.cgi?archive=43&num=11319&printe ...

That's the Jonathan Bush linked company that there were other stories about today and recently--funneling money from Saudi's to the West Coast 9/11 terrorist cell.

I don't yet get if or how the coup money would be related. Greg Wales doesn't google very well, for one. But naturally we have a Bush linked company doing something hokey with oil rich EG, so there's got to be more to it. From some reading today, I think the International arm of Riggs is based in Miami--maybe throw in some Jeb, Cubans, drugs or other crazy Florida stuff that always makes up a nice BFEE crime conspiracy. I'm catching a strong wiff of BCCI.

Mugabe to barter mercenaries for fuel


Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has struck a deal with Equatorial Guinea to extradite the 70 suspected mercenaries held in Harare to the oil-rich country in exchange for fuel worth US1.2-billion.

Official sources say Mugabe has agreed with Equatorial Guinea's President Teodora Obiang Nguema Mbasogo to hand over the mercenaries, accused of plotting a coup in the West African nation, on condition that he received a two-year supply of fuel.


The deal was first discussed at a meeting between Mugabe and Obiang in Pretoria on April 27.


Mugabe and Obiang were in South Africa to attend President Thabo Mbeki's inauguration.


"Initially, Mugabe did not want to send the suspects to Equatorial Guinea because he wanted to use them to gain cheap publicity and later to bargain for fuel," a source said. "Obiang had to send at least three teams to Zimbabwe to negotiate the extradition but Mugabe refused. It was only after Obiang accepted the fuel deal that he agreed."

more
http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/2004/05/16/news/africa/africa04.asp


Zim strikes detainees-for-fuel deal

author/source:Zimbabwe Independent
published:Fri 14-May-2004
posted on this site:Sat 15-May-2004


Deal entails US$50 million worth of fuel monthly for two years

Gift Phiri/Dumisani Muleya

In an unusual diplomatic arrangement, Zimbabwe has entered a US$1,2 billion deal to extradite the 70 suspected mercenaries currently held in Harare to Equatorial Guinea in exchange for fuel. Intelligence sources say President Robert Mugabe discussed the deal with his Equatorial Guinea counterpart, Teodora Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, at their initial meeting in Pretoria with South African president Thabo Mbeki on April 27. Mugabe and Obiang were in South Africa to attend Mbeki's inauguration. The three leaders are said to have met over the mercenaries' saga after Zimbabwe had earlier refused to send the suspects for trial in the oil-rich Equatorial Guinea. Sources said the meeting agreed in principle that Zimbabwe would extradite the suspected mercenaries on agreed terms and conditions. Mugabe and Obiang finalised the mercenaries-for-fuel arrangement at a meeting in Bulawayo the following day. The two leaders met at State House in the second city on April 28. After the meeting Obiang told journalists that they had been discussing the issue of the suspects' extradition. High-level sources said Mugabe agreed to extradite the suspected soldiers of fortune on condition Equatorial Guinea - the third largest oil producer after Nigeria and Angola in sub-Saharan Africa -would supply Zimbabwe with fuel.


more
http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=9292



Business
Bank and African Oil State Ties Probed
By Ken Silverstein, LA Times 9/4/04
Apr 11, 2004, 07:50



A federal grand jury and a Senate subcommittee are investigating the relationship between a prominent Washington bank and a tiny, oil-rich West African state.

Investigators are scrutinizing hundreds of millions of dollars in accounts held at Riggs Bank by the government of Equatorial Guinea and its ruler, Brig. Gen. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. Sources familiar with the probes said investigators were trying to determine whether any deposits into Obiang's personal accounts were the fruits of corruption and whether funds from a state account were diverted to the president or his family members.

The Times first reported on Riggs' relationship with Equatorial Guinea last year, which prompted the bank to conduct an internal investigation. Riggs subsequently dismissed Simon Kareri, a senior executive overseeing the Equatorial Guinea accounts.

In February, Riggs ordered Equatorial Guinea's government to withdraw all of its assets from the bank. U.S. government and banking sources said Equatorial Guinea has had difficulty finding another U.S. bank to take its money, and most, if not all, of its deposits are still held at Riggs.

"Riggs' security procedures detected questionable activities on the part of Simon Kareri," said Mark Hendrix, a bank spokesman. "Riggs turned the matter over to U.S. criminal authorities. Riggs is cooperating with authorities and, in light of the investigations, views it as inappropriate to comment further on these matters."


Interesting but not surprising that whatever congressional inquiry is flying under the radar. The $25 million is nothing but a slap (Riggs has $6.4 billion in assets), as someone here pointed out. But the fact that Allbritton stepped down, and they are shutting down Miami and some of the other money laundering capabilities, suggests the shit has hit the fan.

Here's the guy who runs the London Riggs: Steve Pfeiffer (who googles better).

Bio: http://www.fulbright.com/site_map/FindAttorney/371.htm

I'd guess his operation would the point for paying out the British mercs. He's some sort of Africa specialist, former assistant to Sec of the Navy (and assistant CINC Europe and NATO muckty-muck) sometime around Regan. (Yale Law too).

Here's the Riggs 2002 annual report:
http://www.riggsbank.com/Discover_Riggs/annualreport2002.pdf

Lots of names worth checking out--I'm going to see what comes up with Juan Luis Toro, who ran the Miami international operation. I'll bet there's some connection to Haiti, Columbia/Venezuela and/or something more with 9/11.

Cool that we get a Walker involved and they have offices in the Watergate. "It's all the same fucking day, man" (--Janis J).



6.5 billion Riggs. Is that right or am I way off. I've got stuff to get done, be back later. PM me if you want. Thanks for everything you've brought.

Saudi-ization of African oil


Same plan, different country. Take oil rich nation, find dictator who can be educated on siphoning off oil profits for his own personal wealth (to the further impoverishment of his people) and in exchange for preferential treatment of us companies.

Were they about to double-cross Obiang? His money was initially frozen in DC--it has now left. Was he just exiting to his Maryland mansion? Dunno, but this Riggs bank connection sure seems to be the follow-the-money thread to pull on Bushco for several different plots. Enough material here for a book.

For one, I'd like to ask someone who knows WTF, say an economist (can we get Krugman?), how an "Edge Act" bank functions, and what's up in Miami with international banking in general. How does that tie in with the export/import bank in DC and Riggs? The Edge Act is something about a bank that can only lend to foreign banks--that Jonathan Bush and Riggs in general could control such an entity while also engaging in other business like investments and domestic lending apparently violates the "Edge Act" (and a bunch of other regulations) and is partly why Riggs is dumping that portion of the business. I wonder whether there have been changes under Jeb that had led to Miami expanding the definitions of what's allowable into money laundering for oil and terror. The answer is: of course he did, just need to find that.

A complicated thread to pull--18 browser windows open so far! Like I found this great Newsweek Isikoff piece from April that I missed:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4661093


Among the payments that have drawn scrutiny, documents show, were $19,200 in checks between December 2000 and January 2003 from the Saudi Embassy to an Islamic cleric, Gulshair Muhammad al-Shukrijumah. The Florida-based imam has been on the FBI's radar screen for some time: he once testified on behalf of convicted terrorist Clement Hampton-El.

Hampton-El was convicted in trying to blow up the WTC the first time in '93. al-Shukrijumah is apparently still missing, also served as the blink sheik's interpreter and may have had a serious role in 9/11. So, it's not just the princess sending money to the West Coast cell.

(Another browser window has the odd factoid that the former head of Riggs international lending (Paul Cushman III) died with Ron Brown in '96. Wild. Kareri succeeded him.)

Plenty to run down here, although a tangent (or the opposite side of the coin) to the original news story in this post. Haven't come across anything that links Riggs to funding of the coup. Maybe it's more like switch dictators and get to keep the Riggs money.

Pinochet


Revealed: Pinochet drug smuggling link
Special report: Pinochet on trial

Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Sunday December 10, 2000
The Observer

The Chilean army and secret police have spent almost two decades secretly flooding Europe and the US with massive shipments of cocaine. The trafficking began during the 17-year dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet and continues to this day, a year-long investigation for The Observer has established.

Twelve tons of the drug, with a street value of several billion pounds, left Chile in 1986 and 1987 alone. The drugs, destined for Europe, have often been flown to Spanish territory by aircraft carrying Chilean-made arms to Iraq and Iran. Distribution to Britain and other European countries has been controlled by secret police stationed in Chilean embassies in Stockholm and Madrid.

...

Pinochet, who is now fighting arrest on kidnapping and murder charges in Santiago, has not clarified how he and his wife, Lucia, bhad $1,169,308 (around £730,000) in their account in the Riggs Bank in Washington on 1 March 1997. As commander-in-chief of the Chilean army, his annual salary in March 1997 was $16,000 (£10,000).

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Pinochet_on_trial/Story/0,2763,409367,00.htm ...

Pinochet's account was also mentioned in the recent WSJ article on Riggs.

Interesting that the possible new mercs, according to today's African newspaper story, are Chilean.


Bush, the Saudi billionaire and the Islamists: the story a British firm is


MUST SEE: stories on Riggs National Bank -- note links to 2 of 19 hijackers in San Diego through wire transfer from Saudi Arabia. Jonathon Bush, George W. Bush's uncle, is a top official within the bank and the Motley suit brought by the 9/11 families has issued a subpoena of the bank's records. -KFH


Articles / Current News about 9-11
Date: Apr 02, 2004 - 04:25 PM
Publication of book cancelled as libel laws blamed for stifling free speech
David Leigh -- Wednesday March 31, 2004 -- The Guardian

A book investigating links between rich Saudis and US politicians has been suppressed by the giant publishing firm Random House because, it says, of growing "libel tourism" by wealthy foreigners, and exorbitant legal "success fees".

Libel lawyers are stifling free speech, the deputy chairman of Random House, Simon Master, said yesterday.

The UK publication of House of Bush, House of Saud, by the American writer Craig Unger, has been cancelled because Secker and Warburg, a Random House subsidiary, says it can no longer afford such risks.

The book focuses in part on the activities of a Jeddah-based Saudi billionaire, Khalid bin Mahfouz, who has been engaged in a war of words in the US, where there have been public accusations by officials linking him and others to funding received by Osama bin Laden.

more
http://www.911citizenswatch.org/print.php?sid=176


Hijacked bank

Questions also remain regarding the web of money transfers from Princess Haifa, Prince Bandar and the daughter of late King Faisal, some of which reached Nawaf Alhazmi and fellow terrorist Khalid Almihdar.Princess Haifa's bank account--the source of the funds which ultimately supported the alleged hijackers--was with Riggs Bank where Jonathan J. Bush, the brother of former President George H. W. Bush and uncle of President George W. Bush, is CEO, President and Director of Riggs' investment management subsidiary.

snip

After Al Bayoumi fled the U.S. to England in July, 2001--two months before the attacks, Princess Haifa's Riggs Bank checks were then sent to Osama Basnan, who with his wife Majeda Dweikat, were both later to be found in the U.S. illegally as a result of poor or suspicious State Department visa supervision.

Former FBI linguist Sibel Edmonds said she found evidence of espionage in both the State Department and the FBI in pre-9/11 translations of intelligence intercepts--which also warned about planes used as weapons well before the attacks.A federal law enforcement source said Basnan was a known "al-Qaeda sympathizer" who "celebrated the heroes of September 11" at a party after the attacks and openly talked about "what a wonderful, glorious day it had been," according to Newsweek.

Al Bayoumi and Basnan both befriended Alhazmi and fellow Saudi hijacker Khalid Almihdar after they arrived in San Diego, according to the sources; and the Riggs checks from Prince Bandar's wife helped the terroists pay rent and living expences in the months just prior to the attacks, according to reports. Newsweek said Al Bayoumi helped them obtain social security cards and helped them arrange for flying lessons in Florida--indicating dramatic evidence of the state of congressional internal security oversight.

Basnan was convicted of visa fraud and deported to Saudi Arabia on November 17, 2002. His wife Majida Ibrahim--who had also laundered checks from Riggs Bank--was deported the same day to her native Jordan for visa violations. (Washington Post, 9-24, 2002) Reasons were not given why the White House allowed the high profile suspects to leave the country on charges much less important than being implicated as an accessory to mass murder.

more
http://www.tomflocco.com/modules.php?name=News&file=print&sid=53

Exclusive: New Questions About Saudi Money—and Bandar

Eric Draper / The White House


The White House is monitoring a joint FBI-Treasury Department probe into wire transfers overseas by Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan, pictured with the president in August 2002
By Michael Isikoff
Investigative Correspondent
NewsweekApril 12 issue - A federal investigation into the bank accounts of the Saudi Embassy in Washington has identified more than $27 million in "suspicious" transactions—including hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to Muslim charities, and to clerics and Saudi students who are being scrutinized for possible links to terrorist activity, according to government documents obtained by NEWSWEEK. The probe also has uncovered large wire transfers overseas by the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The transactions recently prompted the Saudi Embassy's longtime bank, the Riggs Bank of Washington, D.C., to drop the Saudis as a client after embassy officials were "unable to provide an explanation that was satisfying," says a source familiar with the discussions.



A Saudi spokesman strongly denied that any embassy funds were used to support terrorism and said Bandar chose to pull the embassy's accounts out of Riggs. The Saudis point out that an earlier FBI probe into embassy funds that were moved to alleged associates of the 9/11 hijackers has not led to any charges. The current probe, by the FBI and Treasury Department, is one of the most sensitive financial inquiries now being conducted by the government and is being closely monitored by the White House. The federal commission investigating 9/11 was also recently briefed on developments, sources say. U.S. officials stress that they have identified no evidence of any knowing Saudi aid to terrorist groups. But they express frustration at their inability to penetrate a number of large and seemingly irregular transactions. "There's a lot of money moving in a lot of directions—maybe not all that carefully," said one senior law-enforcement official. "Everyone wants to get to the bottom of it."
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4661093 /


but only found this
Teodorin Nguema Obiang, son, wanted to live in a building where the arms superdealer Adnan Khashoggi once lived -

so far!

Western business has followed on the heels of the Texan oil men with gusto.
Only 15 years ago Malabo had just one hotel with no electricity, food or
running water. Two cars in the street was a traffic jam, and the phone
directory had just two pages, listing subscribers by their first name. The
airport terminal was a tin-roofed shack that received just one international
flight. Today, however, the French have built a mobile phone network, sports
utility vehicles whizz through the streets, and several international
carriers service the smart new airport terminal. Prostitutes clamour around
the gates of several new hotels. The US re-opened its embassy in October
last year, following an eight-year closure in protest at torture and other
human rights abuses. At around the same time the Dutch carrier KLM renamed
one of its planes after Mr Obiang, to mark the opening of the new airport
terminal. "It was like calling a plane Pol Pot," said one analyst. A
campaign against US involvement in Equatorial Guinea is building. The
influential US news programme 60 Minutes criticised the pact between Mr
Obiang and the oil companies last autumn. The latest State Department human
rights report, released last month, cataolgued an array of police torture,
arbitrary arrest and detention and the failure of the courts to administer
justice. In Washington, the FBI has started investigating a $700m bank
account at the Riggs Bank, of which Mr Obiang is apparently the main
signatory. One bank employee has already lost his job over the scandal.

But the greatest threat to Mr Obiang's dictatorial dominance comes from his
own family. The president has been sick, reportedly from prostate cancer,
and tensions have arisen among the ruling clan over his succession plans.
Some are worried over apparent plans to hand power to his son Teodorin - a
government minister, rap music entrepreneur and international playboy. The
30-something Teodorin parties in Rio de Janeiro, does business in Hollywood
and lives at five-star hotels in Paris, where he drives in Bentley and
Lamborghini cars. Some years ago he invested several hundred thousand
dollars to start his own rap label, TNO Entertainment, standing for Teodorin
Nguema Obiang. It apparently failed to release any records, but according to
Hollywood gossip he has had a relationship with the American rap star Eve.
Teodorin is also fond of female company from other countries - according to
one associate, he once turned up for a meeting in Paris accompanied by
several Russian women. He is a keen property investor, owning a $6m mansion
in Bel Air. But when he tried to buy a multi-million dollar apartment in New
York - in a building where the arms superdealer Adnan Khashoggi once lived -
the board of management rejected his application.

http://www.zimbabwesituation.com/mar18_2004.html



At Riggs, problems passed on with legacy
Joe L. Allbritton won control of Riggs Bank in 1981 and used it as a launching pad into Washington`s top business and political circles. He assiduously cultivated "The Riggs" cachet as the bank for foreign governments and diplomats and steadfastly refused to sell the institution even as most of his competitors sold out, The Washington Post reported. Riggs has cultivated the diplomatic community and one quarter of its $4 billion in deposits come from that source. "My pride in Riggs has been paramount in my activities," he said in an interview when he retired in February 2001. "And you know, if you have just enough money, you`ll do more for pride than you`ll do for money…. My object was to put Riggs in a position where it could be the survivor. It is that." But when he bequeathed Riggs to his son Robert after retiring, he also passed on Riggs`s long-simmering problems complying with banking secrecy laws. Most controversial has been the use of hundreds of millions of dollars in funds controlled by the Saudi embassy in Washington, as well as suspicious transactions involving officials of Equatorial Guinea.

http://www.diplomatictraffic.com/embassy_briefs.asp?ID=Americas


This has probably been posted before but lets read it again


The action followed the $25 million civil fine against the midsize Washington bank, which has a near-exclusive franchise on business with the capital’s diplomatic community. The fine, which had been expected, is the largest ever imposed on a financial institution for such violations, experts said.


The FBI and regulators have investigated, for possible connections to terrorism financing, large cash transactions in Riggs accounts controlled by Saudi diplomats.

The Senate Finance Committee chairman, Republican Charles Grassley of Iowa, recently asked the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks to examine Saudi transactions at Riggs and FleetBoston Financial Corp.

“Riggs Bank deserves every penny of this huge fine,” Grassley said Thursday. “Banks have a patriotic duty, not to mention legal requirement, to report suspicious activity. When banks look the other way, they put our national security at risk.”

Grassley said members of the bank’s board of directors should be held to account.

The Treasury regulators had earlier accused Riggs of failing to comply with a law requiring banks to notify the government of suspicious transactions. The bank also had been classified by the comptroller’s office as a “troubled institution” for not complying fully with a July 2003 consent order under which it agreed to strengthen its anti-money laundering controls.

more
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4973033 /

FleetBoston Financial?????



http://www.archives.gov/research_room/independent_counsel_records/wate ...

Foundation of the Friends of Equatorial Guinea and the United States

Kareri could not be reached for comment. His attorney, Jonathan Shapiro, did not return phone calls. Shapiro, a high-profile attorney based in Virginia, previously represented convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad.
Sources also confirmed that Riggs held accounts for Teodoro Biyogo Nsue, Equatorial Guinea's ambassador to the U.S. and Obiang's brother-in-law, and for Obiang's son, Teodorin Nguema Obiang.

The latter is a government minister but spends little time in the country. Housing and business records show that the son owns a $6-million home in Los Angeles as well as a music company in L.A. called TNO.

Armengol Ondo Nguema, Obiang's brother and the country's feared security chieftain, also held a personal account at Riggs. In correspondence obtained by The Times, Kareri referred to Nguema -- who is accused in U.S. State Department reports of employing torture -- as a "valued customer."
Kareri is close to Obiang and his family. Records show that he is also a board member of the U.S.-based Foundation of the Friends of Equatorial Guinea and the United States, whose aim is to promote stronger ties between the two countries. Other board members of the group include Equatorial Guinea's representative to the International Monetary Fund and the country's minister of justice.

Sources told The Times that Riggs' demand that Equatorial Guinea withdraw its funds reportedly occurred after a tense meeting in Washington among bank officials, Obiang, the FBI and several government representatives. An FBI official said the agency could not comment on an ongoing investigation.


http://www.ocnus.net/cgi-bin/exec/view.cgi?archive=43&num=11319&printe ...


"warbusiness"

Child soldiers wait in Bule for orders to move. When this photo was taken, they were the only defense forces in a 25-mile radius. Two days later they too pulled out, and Bule was attacked.


http://www.zwnews.com/warbusiness.doc

one tiny snip:

In April 2001, an MPRI representative met with the Pentagon’s regional director for Central Africa to discuss the company’s hopes of winning the contract to train Equatorial Guinea’s forces. “They may need our help or moral support,” Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski wrote in a memo on the meeting, obtained by ICIJ under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. She quoted the MPRI representative as saying that Equatorial Guinea was “the Kuwait of the Gulf of Guinea” and, in a briefing paper three months later, advanced that characterization to “a possible ‘Kuwait of Africa’ with huge oil reserves” that was “US-friendly for both investment and security reasons.” Kwiatkowski also noted in her April memo that the highest-ranking U.S. official to meet with Obiang when he visited Washington early in 2001 was an assistant secretary of agriculture – that after French President Jacques Chirac had spared time to meet with him.

Despite concerns about Equatorial Guinea’s human rights record, Obiang’s currency rose dramatically after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. When he visited the United States as it marked the first anniversary of the attacks, Obiang was among 10 African leaders to meet with President George Bush for talks on the prospect of war with Iraq and peace and development on the African continent.


ended up here because of this:

If you've been reading the news the last few days you may have noticed this odd and somewhat mysterious story of a US-registered cargo plane loaded with 64 "mercernaries" and various military equipment which was impounded

Sunday night at Harare International Airport in Zimbabwe "after its owners had made a false declaration of its cargo and crew."

When asked about it on Monday, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said "We have no indication this aircraft is connected to the U.S. government."

That seemed like a rather less than unequivocal response. And behind the scenes US government officials said they didn't believe the US government had any connection with this operation. But they wanted to make sure before saying anything definitive.

Now, if you look at the press accounts, what's caught people's attention is the US registry of the plane. Specifically, it's registered to a company called Dodson Aviation, which is based in Kansas.

Now, Dodson says they sold the plane to a "reputable" firm in South Africa about a week ago. "I think they were going to use it for charter flights," company director Robert Dodson told the Associated Press.

Now here's a little more detail.

Dodson Aviation of Kansas has a South African subsidiary, Dodson International Parts SA Ltd (According to their website, "Dodson International Parts SA (Pty) Ltd is the African division of United States based companies Dodson International Parts Inc. and Dodson Aviation. The company was established in 1998 and is based at Wonderboom Airport, Pretoria.") And it was from this subsidiary's hangar at an airport just north of Pretoria that the aforementioned mercenaries boarded the plane.

Now, here's where this gets a little murky.

I wanted to find out more about Dodson International Parts SA Ltd. What I found something out about was a company that sounded very similar: a South African company called Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts.

They're also in the airplane business.

Not exactly the same name. But remember, the South African company is the subsidiary of two American companies, Dodson Aviation and Dodson International. If these aren't the same company, or closely related companies, I'd figure they often get confused for one another.

In any case, here's what I found about Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts.

They come up in the December 2000 Report of the Panel of Experts to the United Nations on Sierra Leone, in the section of the report dealing with the arms trade.

Here's the section that caught my eye (italics added) ...

187. Fred Rindel a retired officer of the South African Defence Force and former Defence Attaché to the United States, has played a key role in the training of a Liberian anti-terrorist unit, consisting of Liberian soldiers and groups of foreigners, including citizens of Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Niger and The Gambia.
188. The panel interviewed Mr Rindel extensively. Rindel was contracted as a security consultant by President Charles Taylor in September 1998, and training started in November 1998. The contract included consultancy services and strategic advice to convert Charles Taylor's former rebel militia into a professional unit. The Anti-Terrorist Unit is used in Liberia to protect government buildings, the Executive Mansion and the international airport, and to provide VIP Security and the protection of foreign embassies. The numbers trained were approximately 1200. Because of negative media attention, Rindel cancelled his contract in Liberia in August 2000.

189. In 1998, ECOMOG identified a plane, registration number N71RD, owned by a South African company, Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts, as having carried weapons to Robertsfield in September of that year. The plane is a Gulfstream 14-seater business jet that cannot be used for arms transport, but there are other relevant connections. Fred Rindel was the owner of Dodson. The company was closed on 31 December 1998, but during the period under investigation, the plane was leased to, and operated by, Greater Holdings (Liberia) Ltd., a company with gold and diamond concessions in Liberia. The plane was used for the transport of the Greater Holdings' staff to and from Liberia.



Mr. Rindel's name came up earlier in 2000 in testimony at the UN Security Council by then-UN Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke in a discussion of Sierra Leone (italics added) ...

In regard to arms trafficking to Sierra Leone, Mr. Chairman, we remain concerned and I would like to add a few more items to the record. The principal Africa countries involved in arms trafficking to the RUF - though they deny it - include Burkina Faso, Liberia and Libya.
In 1999, planes landed in Ouagadougou, allegedly coming from the Ukraine, with several tons of small arms and ammunition. This incident, which the Ukrainians say has stopped, is one that we believe should be brought to the attention of your committee.

In regard to trafficking, arms brokers have played a vital role in keeping the RUF supplied with weapons and other military materiel. A well-known arms and diamond dealer in Sierra Leone, Zief Morganstein, in July 1999 arranged for a Continental Aviation-based charter out of Dakar to fly a shipment of small arms from Bulgaria to Sierra Leone. Last year the RUF received 68 tons of weapons from Bulgaria, which Morganstein may have helped arrange. There have been other connections between former government officials from South Africa during its Apartheid regime who now operate as private individuals, including Fred Rindel, the South African Defense Attache in Washington, who now works as a security consultant in Liberia and trains Liberian troops and RUF insurgents. There are other charges about other businessmen who are reportedly helping the Sierra Leone government coming from various countries around the world.



Now, I've scanned the news coverage of this and I haven't seen any mention of this seeming connection. So perhaps these are two utterly unrelated companies?

As of Tuesday the situation in Zimbabwe seems to be calming down, though now there are apparently fears in Equatorial Guinea that these mercenaries were somehow intended to assist a coup in that country. (No, I can't keep up either.) "Some 15 mercenaries have been arrested here," the country's Information Minister Agustin Nse Nfumu told Reuters. "It was connected with that plane in Zimbabwe. They were the advance party of that group."

Equatorial Guinea is next door to Gabon. And Joe Wilson used to be the US Ambassador there back in the day. So maybe he can make some sense of this. I can't. But I'd be very interested to talk to the investigators who put together that UN report and see if there's any connection between Dodson International Parts SA Ltd and Dodson Aviation Maintenance and Spare Parts.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com /

I just can not forget that Poppy's gold mining buddies Barrick



War is Golden for the Bush Administration
And the commodities connection? President Pretzel's relentless hissy-fit for war on Iraq has of course goosed the price of gold enormously--and that's set Bush Family coffers a-clinking. How so? In the waning days of his failed presidency, Bush I invoked an obscure 1872 statute to give a Canadian firm, Barrick Corporation, the right to mine $10 billion in gold from U.S. public lands. (U.S. taxpayers got a whopping $10,000 fee in return.) Bush then joined Barrick as a highly-paid "international consultant," brokering deals with various dictators of his close acquaintance. Barrick reciprocated with big bucks for Junior's presidential run. And in another quid for the old pro quo, last year Junior dutifully approved Barrick's controversial acquisition of a major rival. (Barrick is also one of the biggest polluters in America, by the way.)

http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd02152003.html

The money behind Barrick is from Saudi arms dealer and Bush family friend Adnan Khashoggi, who was identified as conduit in the Iran-Contra conspiracy. In 1986 he was arrested and charged with fraud but failed to be convicted. In one of his last acts as president Bush pardoned Khashoggi's alleged co-conspirators, who were key members of Bush's own cabinet. As a result, no case could be made against Khashoggi – or against Bush himself.

http://www.penfield-gill.com/presentations/bush_the_elder.htm

Where was flight N4610 heading?

March 10 2004 at 08:11AM



They were 64 "heavily built men", mostly white. No, they were all black. No, only 40 of them were black.

The plane left South Africa illegally from Wonderboom airport, strayed into Zimbabwe airspace and was ordered down. No, the plane left the country legally, having filed a flight plan to Harare and then on to Burundi. No, the plane was headed for the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

The men on board were suspected of being mercenaries hired to overthrow Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. No, they were on their way to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea. No, they were going to the eastern DRC to carry out security duties.

These are just some of the stories surrounding the flight of N4610, a Boeing 727-100 cargo plane that has been impounded in Harare.

And 64 - though some reports say there are 67 - of those who were aboard, whether they were white, black or a mixture, and whether they were mercenaries or honest men, are in Harare cells facing intense interrogation.

On Tuesday, a company named in connection with the flight disputed all the speculation, saying the "mercenaries" were in fact security people "going to eastern DRC".

They were stopping in Zimbabwe to pick up mining equipment, "Zimbabwe being a vastly cheaper place for such".

Charles Burrow, a senior executive of Logo Logistics which had chartered the Boeing 727 freighter, said via telephone from London that most of the people on board were South African and had military experience, but were on contract to four mining companies in the DRC. He declined to name the companies.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=84&art_id=vn20040310081125342C ...

Plane Did Stop At Grantley Adams - Thursday 11, March-2004

A UNITED STATES registered plane at the centre of controversy after being detained on Monday with 64 suspected mercenaries aboard by the Zimbabwean government did stop at Grantley Adams International Airport last Saturday morning.
Informed sources told the DAILY NATION yesterday that the aircraft, a Boeing 727 (100 series), with registration number N4610, landed in Barbados shortly after midnight for refuelling before leaving around 6:30 a.m.

Sources also indicated that the aircraft, which Zimbabwean officials alleged also carried military equipment, had arrived from the Hope Air Force Base in North Carolina, United States, before its stop-over in Barbados.

Further reports stated that the plane, originally a commercial PanAm Airways aircraft up until a week ago, was being operated by the American Air Force, but international Press reports stated it had been sold to a South African company.

http://www.nationnews.com/StoryView.cfm?Record=48033&Section=Local&Cur ..


_____________________________________________________________

Corporate Mercenaries - Executive Outcomes Leads to Bush


Executive Outcomes is the most infamous mercenary company in operation today. Unlike traditional mercenary companies, it operates as the heavy partner in a web of related companies. Sandline international is such a sister company: 170 elite South African dogs of war were hired to crush the Bougainville freedom Fighters for $22m. Just another job for the likes of Sandline international? Paul Vernon investigates...

Set up in 1993 by Tony Buckingham and Simon Mannl <1>, Executive outcomes (EO) has worked in Asia, Africa and South America. Most of it's personnel are hired from South Africa.

Buckingham is the chief executive of Heritage Oil and Gas, which is now registered in the (tax-free) Bahamas. When EO was hired by the Sierra Leone government to crush people's revolt, Heritage received much of the payment in the form of mining rights. Sir David Steel MP happens to be a director of Heritage as well as a close friend of Buckingham. Recently Sierra Leone was thrown back into chaos with another military coup.

Eeben Barlow, the present CEO of Executive Outcomes, is a veteran of the Civil Co-operation Bureau, which allegedly assassinated antiapartheid activists. Barlow is the frontman for the group he told Newsweek (2) in February: "I'm a professional soldier. It's not about politics. I have a job to do. I do it." EO is thought to have a annual turnover of more that £20 million.

The South African government, with help from officials from the United Nations, has begun to draft proposals of legislation aimed to counter what officials called "the increasing frequency with which our soldiers-of-fortune are operating overseas".(7)

http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/magazine/issue4/cw4f8.html

Executive Outcomes ties lead to London and Bush
Executive Intelligence Review January 31, 1997, pp. 42-43
by Roger Moore and Linda de Hoyos

Exposes appearing on both sides of the Atlantic on the mercenary group Executive Outcomes, threaten to blow the lid off the British intelligence nexus already identified as responsible for the February 1986 murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme, and for the current cataclysmic destabilization of Africa on behalf of circles associated with the Queen of England's Privy Council and Sir George Bush.
The exposes appeared in the French daily {Le Figaro} on Jan. 16, the {London Observer} on Jan. 17, and the February issue of the American magazine {Harper's.}
Executive Outcomes is the mercenary arm of a vast
network of British-South African corporations dealing in gold, diamonds, and oil, primarily, but not exclusively, in Africa, that come under the umbrella of Strategic Resources Corporation, headquartered in Pretoria, South Africa. Described universally as an ``advance guard of a corporate network that includes mining, oil, and construction companies,'' Executive Outcomes is active in 13 African countries, including Uganda. For its services, it demands a lien or franchise on the exportable raw resources, particularly mineral wealth, of the client country--in the same fashion as the British East India Company of the 18th and 19th centuries, which in turn functioned as the ``advance guard'' of the British monarchy.
Executive Outcomes was incorporated offshore, on the Isle of Man, in 1993, by Anthony Buckingham, a British businessman, and Simon Mann, a former British officer, the {Observer} reported, based on a leak to it from British intelligence. Buckingham is also chief executive of Heritage Oil and Gas, which in turn is linked to the Canadian firm Ranger Oil. Other firms operating out of the same headquarters in Chelsea Plaza 107, London, include Branch International Ltd. and Branch Mining Ltd.
Preliminary investigation by {EIR} has further determined that Executive Outcomes lies at the heart of the British monarch's raw materials cartels and secret intelligence operations, in conjunction with Bush's rogue apparat:
Through Sir David Steel, a former leader of the Liberal Party, Executive Outcomes and, presumably, its deployment, is a subsumed operation of the Queen's Privy Council. Steel is a close friend of EO's Buckingham, and is on the board of directors of EO's sister firm, Heritage Oil and Gas, according to {Le Figaro.} In 1977, Steel was inducted into the Privy Council, making him the youngest member of Britain's highest-level policy-making body.
The links between Executive Outcomes and Ranger Oil point to operational ties with the Bronfman family of Canada, whose scion, Edgar Bronfman of Toronto Broncorp, sits on the board of directors of Ranger. Recently, the Bronfman family merged its mammoth real estate firm, Trizec, with Barrick Gold, whose senior advisory board includes Sir George Bush. Barrick Gold is deeply involved in northeastern Zaire, where it has purchased 83,000 square kilometers of land. Zairean sources report that the so-called Zairean rebel Laurent Kabila is no more than a mercenary for Barrick and Anglo American Corp., sponsored by the British Crown-backed Ugandan and Rwandan militaries. Executive Outcomes, {Le Figaro} and other sources further verify, is deeply entrenched in Uganda, the key British marcher-lord state in the region.

http://www.aboutsudan.com/action/geopolitical/executive_outcomes.htm

Mercenaries aimed to topple oil-rich despot

The inside story of the ties that bind President Obiang and powerful American interests

By Paul Lashmar
14 March 2004

The tale of the 67 men of assorted nationalities now in a Zimbabwe jail accused of being mercenaries continued to unfurl yesterday like the plot of a lurid airport novel.

A bit too much like fiction, in fact, involving as it does a cast that includes the despotic leader of a little-known West African state, the Eton-educated son of an English cricket captain, fake passports, and a shadowy company registered in the Channel Islands that is linked to SAS old boys. All this, plus talk of CIA, MI6 and Spanish secret service activity, and a plane now impounded at Harare airport that contained equipment more suited to burglary than seizures of power.

SNIP...

But if who paid whom for what services has not yet been revealed, the intended target is not in doubt: President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, leader of a country whose lack of renown belies its strategic significance. And for "strategic" read oil. Not for nothing is this land known in US government circles as the "Kuwait of the Gulf of Guinea". Not without reason has President Bush welcomed President Obiang, a confirmed if not convicted corrupt despot, to the White House. He may be a despot, but as presider over an oil-rich state, he is their despot.

The sight and smell of oil is everywhere palpable in the port of Malabo. From here you can see the flames shooting into the night sky from the offshore oilrigs. Every day tens of thousands of barrels are extracted from huge crude oil reserves underneath the seabed off Equatorial Guinea.It is one of the oil-rich sub-Saharan countries that now supplies 15 per cent of American oil. Experts predict that the amount of oil the US receives from the prolific fields of Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea and Angola will double in the next five years. Hence the succour that American companies - and, since 9/11, the American government - have given to Obiang. Vice President Dick Cheney has said: "Along with Latin America, West Africa is expected to be one of the fastest-growing sources of oil and gas for the American market."

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=501017&host=3&di ...

Jonathan J. Bush uncle to President George Walker Bush


Jonathan J. Bush (Jonathan James Bush) (1931- ) is an uncle to President George Walker Bush.

A Wall Street financier, Jonathan Bush pulled together two dozen investors to raise $3 million to help launch Arbusto. Among the investors was Dorothy Bush, George W.’s grandmother. At the same time, Jonathan Bush was lining up investors for Arbusto, he also was raising money for George H.W. Bush’s presidential explorations. Many of the funders were the same. <1>

Bush is a Trustee of the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation<2>


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Speaking of the Watergate, Riggs National Bank, where Saudi Princess Al-Faisal had her 'Saudi money trail' bank account, has as one of its executives Jonathan Bush, an uncle of the president. The public has not learned whether Riggs - which services 95 percent of Washington's foreign embassies - will be turning over records relating to Saudi finance.
"Meanwhile, Bush has nominated William H. Donaldson to head the Securities and Exchange Commission. Donaldson, a longtime Bush family friend, was a Yale classmate of Jonathan Bush."

Source.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 31, 2000: Riggs Bank N.A. today announced that the Board of Directors of RIMCO, a wholly owned investment management subsidiary, has elected Jonathan J. Bush President & Chief Executive Officer and a Director, replacing Philip Tasho who resigned. In addition, Henry A. Dudley, Jr. was elected Chairman.
"Mr. Bush will continue as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of J. Bush & Co., an investment management company he founded in 1970, which Riggs acquired in 1997. Mr. Dudley, a 24-year veteran of Riggs, will continue to be responsible for all of Riggs Bank's investment management, trust and private banking business.

"Located in the nation's capital, Riggs Bank has 53 branches in the Washington, DC metropolitan area, as well as banking offices in Miami, London and Berlin."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
July 26, 1991: "State Fines Bush's Brother in Stock Case" by Frank Phillips, Globe Staff.
"Massachusetts securities regulators have fined the stockbrokerage firm owned by President Bush's brother Jonathan $30,000 and barred it from trading with the general public for one year because the company and Bush violated state registration laws.

"As part of a consent order worked out with Secretary of State Michael J. Connolly's securities division, the New York firm of J. Bush & Co., whose only principal is Jonathan J. Bush, also agreed that it would offer to reimburse its clients in Massachusetts for stocks it had sold them since January 1988. . . .

"Connolly's securities chief, Neal Sullivan, said yesterday that Bush's problems began in February when Bush informed his agency that he had never registered as a broker-dealer in Massachusetts. But Sullivan said Bush compounded his legal problem by taking a cavalier attitude toward the violation of the Uniform Securities Act when he continued to carry out transactions even as state regulators were negotiating a consent decree with him.

"'That created great concern for us. We were dismayed,' Sullivan said. 'Anyone who has been notified that he is violating state law and continues to do so certainly exemplifies a cavalier attitude toward the registration laws.'" . . .


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Federal bank regulators are preparing to impose fines on Riggs Bank as soon as this week for not reporting millions of dollars in suspicious transactions at its embassy banking division and have notified bank officers and directors that they may be sanctioned individually, according to people familiar with the investigation. "
"Investigators are looking at the Saudi accounts for evidence of money laundering, which is the use of complex transactions to hide the origin or destination of funds related to illegal activities such as drug smuggling or terrorist acts. The Saudis ended their ties to the bank last month."

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2514119

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Jonathan_J._Bush

The checks from Princess Haifa were drawn on Riggs Bank in Washington D.C. One of the chief officers of Riggs Bank is Jonathan Bush, an uncle of President George W. Bush.

According to Margie Burns in her article titled Bush-connected firm provided security at World Trade Center, "Given that Jonathan Bush, the president's uncle, is a Riggs executive, it is difficult to understand any obstacle for US authorities pursuing the recently reported "Saudi money trail." The princess's charitable activities were processed through Riggs, but attention focused on the Saudis seems not to extend to the US bank they used."

http://www.opednews.com/duncan_bush_should_cry_uncle_and_releas.htm

"Riggs Bank’s failure to alert investigators to a large number of unusual cash transactions by the Saudi Embassy and other foreign bank customers has led to a wide-ranging investigation by Treasury Department regulators....

"'Anytime, you have suspicious money movements, and it’s not reported as needed, it hurts our overall efforts,' a senior U.S. counterterrorism official said ..."


http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4687305 /

The president and CEO of Riggs Bank is Jonathan Bush, whose father was Prescott Bush, money-launderer to the Nazi party, and whose nephew is the court-appointed CEO of the United States of America.

So where has the money gone?


Oil Boom Enriches African Ruler.


That has been declared a "state secret" by Equatorial Guinea's ruler, Brig. Gen. Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo. But the Guinean ambassador to the U.S. and other sources close to Obiang say the country's oil funds are held in an account at Riggs Bank in Washington.

Multiple sources, including another Guinean government official, have since told the Los Angeles Times about the Riggs account. Several sources familiar with the account said it was controlled exclusively by Obiang and its balance has ranged from $300 million to $500 million during the last two years. An ExxonMobil spokeswoman declined to comment on payments it makes to Equatorial Guinea, citing a confidentiality agreement with the country. Amerada Hess and Riggs did not return phone calls.

The bank has provided mortgages on one of Obiang's two luxury homes in Maryland and on an official residence for Nsue in Virginia. A Riggs banker assisted Obiang's brother -- accused in State Department reports of ordering the torture of political prisoners -- in the purchase of a home in Virginia. The banker vouched for Obiang's brother as a "valued customer" in correspondence with the seller's agent.

Concerns about Equatorial Guinea are rooted in a history of petroleum-fueled corruption in its neighboring nations. Angola ranks 161st out of 173 countries on the United Nations' Human Development Index, which ranks nations according to their citizens' quality of life, and its president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, is believed to have accumulated a vast personal fortune. The London-based group Global Witness, which investigates the oil business in Africa, estimates that at least $1.4 billion of Angola's energy revenue disappeared last year.

The situation in Nigeria is equally grim. In April, the family of former strongman Gen. Sani Abacha agreed to return $1 billion that he stole between 1993 and 1998. That was only about one-quarter of the money that the current Nigerian government accuses Abacha of embezzling during his reign. African countries provide the United States with about 15% of its oil, nearly as much as Saudi Arabia. That figure could grow to 25% by 2015, according to a study by a U.S. intelligence panel. Urged on by the oil industry, the administration hopes to use African oil to reduce the United States' dependence on Middle Eastern oil.

more
http://www.derechos.org/nizkor/econ/oil1.html

..According to two articles in the Progressive Populist written by Margie Burns, from 1993 to 2000, Bush served on the board of Securacom (since renamed Stratesec). The chairman of the board of Stratesec is Wirt D. Walker III, a cousin of Marvin and George W. Bush. Securacom had contracts to provide security for Dulles International Airport (the airport from which American Airlines Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, originated) and the World Trade Center in New York.

Securacom's backers include a number of Kuwaitis through a company called KuwAm Corp (Kuwaiti-American Corp.). Stratesec also has Saudi investors.

Walker also serves as a managing director of KuwAm, which maintains offices within the Watergate complex along with Riggs Bank, on whose board Bush's uncle, Jonathan Bush, sits. Saudi Princess Haifa al Faisal, the wife of Saudi Ambassador to the US Prince Bandar, used a Riggs account to funnel money to Omar al Bayoumi and Osama Basnan, two Saudi students in California associated with two of the 911 hijackers.

http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/10-16-03/discussion.cgi.16.html



Oo-oo that smell,
can't you smell that smell?
Oo-oo that smell,
the smell of death's around you.

Angel of darkness is upon you,
stuck a needle in your arm.
So take another toke, have a blow for your nose.
One more drink, fool, will drown you.




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

more
http://www.davidsirota.com /

Riggs fails to detect, report suspicious cash transactions


The Federal Reserve ordered Riggs International Banking Corp. to hire an outside consultant to conduct a thorough review of the bank's transactions.

BY CHRISTINA HOAG

[e-mail]


BANKING

Riggs Bank has been fined $25 million by the Treasury Department for failing to detect and report tens of millions of dollars in suspicious transactions by foreign governments, particularly Saudi Arabia and Equatorial Guinea.

On Friday, the Federal Reserve ordered Riggs' Miami operation, Riggs International Banking Corp., to hire an outside consultant to conduct a thorough review of the bank's transactions and money-laundering controls.

The McLean, Va.-based bank said last month that it planned to shutter the 24-year-old Miami subsidiary, located at 800 Brickell Ave., ``to significantly reduce its risk exposure.''

Treasury's Office of the Comptroller of the Currency also ordered the bank on Thursday to adopt new anti-money-laundering controls including implementing internal audits and ensuring competent management.

In a statement, the bank said: ``Riggs is 100 percent committed to fulfilling all of our regulatory responsibilities and to doing our part to protect the financial system, and we will hasten our efforts toward these goals.''

The Treasury agency found that Riggs had violated the Bank Secrecy Act on numerous occasions


more
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/business/8670766.htm


"Pioneers" and "Rangers" raised almost $300 M for Chimperror.


Tha's a lot of knockin' around money. What do you suppose they expect in return? Will they survive Chimpageddon?

Pioneers Fill Campaign War Chest, Then Capitalize

By Thomas B. Edsall, Sarah Cohen and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 16, 2004; Page A01

First of two articles

GREENSBORO, Ga. -- Joined by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and a host of celebrities, hundreds of wealthy Republicans gathered at the Ritz-Carlton Lodge here in the first weekend in April, not for a fundraiser but for a celebration of fundraisers. It was billed as an "appreciation weekend," and there was much to appreciate.

As Bush "Pioneers" who had raised at least $100,000 each for the president's reelection campaign, or "Rangers" who had raised $200,000 each, the men and women who shot skeet with Cheney, played golf with pros Ben Crenshaw and Fuzzy Zoeller and laughed at the jokes of comedian Dennis Miller are the heart of the most successful political money operation in the nation's history. Since 1998, Bush has raised a record $296.3 million in campaign funds, giving him an overwhelming advantage in running against Vice President Al Gore and now Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). At least a third of the total -- many sources believe more than half -- was raised by 631 people.

BIG SNIP...

"This is the most impressive, organized, focused and disciplined fundraising operation I have ever been involved in," declared Dirk Van Dongen, president of the National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, who has been raising money for GOP candidates since 1980. "They have done just about everything right."

For achieving their fundraising goals, Pioneers receive a relatively modest token, the right to buy a set of silver cuff links with an engraved Lone Star of Texas (Rangers can buy a more expensive belt buckle set). Their real reward is entree to the White House and the upper levels of the administration.

CONTINUED...


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29142-2004May15.html


Jonathan Bush's campaign cash...in detail 1993-2004


From Connecticut:
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=CT&last=Bush&first=J ...

From New York:
http://www.newsmeat.com/fec/bystate_detail.php?st=NY&last=Bush&first=J ...

CNN: Bank fined $25 million in terrorism probe


<SNIP>
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal regulators fined Riggs Bank a record $25 million on Thursday for allegedly violating anti-money laundering laws in its handling of tens of millions in cash transactions in Saudi-controlled accounts under investigation for possible links to terrorism financing.

The civil fine against the midsize Washington bank with a near-exclusive franchise on business with the capital's diplomatic community is the largest ever imposed on a financial institution for such violations, experts said. It had been expected.
</SNIP>

Wouldn't it be interesting to see if any of the Saudis secretly flown out of the US on 9/12-9/13 were on the list?

If I had the money, I would place a large bet on it. I imagine I would be quite rich as well...

JM

[Minstrel Boy]

92. Equatorial Guinea: government tainted by allegations of drug trafficking

The government is also tainted by allegations of drug trafficking. In 1997, a former information minister, Santos Pasqual Bikomo, was arrested in Madrid with 14kg of heroin. Currently serving a nine-year sentence, he alleges that other government figures were involved in the drugs trade.

According to research by Global Witness, at least 10 Equatorial Guineans travelling on diplomatic passports have been arrested on drugs trafficking charges since the late 1980s.

The independent press has been beaten into silence and even the foreign press is not safe. And the state media bring greasy sycophancy to new depths. Obiang has "all power over men and things", state radio said last year, adding: "He can decide to kill ... because it is God himself, with whom he is in permanent contact, who gives him this strength".

US interest in censoring Obiang's abuses has waned in tandem with the flood of investment. For example, after the sham 2002 elections, the European Union issued a stern condemnation. In contrast, the US State Department's reaction was notably muted.

http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=132&fArticleId=375423

From "Another nice friend for President Bush" Dec 8, New Statsman:

However, Obiang Nguema and his family are well aware of their new importance. He has met George Bush in Washington, and regularly receives respectful delegations from oil companies. His son Gabriel, the secretary of state for mines and hydrocarbons, was educated in America. Smart and sober in a dark suit, he talks of international investment and improving the welfare of Equatoguinean citizens. Gabriel represents a potential modern future, but the president favours another son, Teodorino, captured on video in Paris at the beginning of the oil boom driving a Bentley, a Lamborghini and a Rolls, and buying 30 haute couture suits on one shopping spree. Teodorino is popular because he hands out money to the poor; he is tipped to succeed his father.

...

I raised the issue of the account at the Dupont Circle branch of the Riggs Bank in Washington, into which, it is estimated, the oil companies pay $30m-50m per month and to which he is the sole signatory. "I am the one who arranges things in this country because in Africa there are a lot of problems of corruption," he explained. "If there is corruption, diversion of funds, then I'm responsible. I'm 100 per cent sure of all the oil revenue because the one who signs is me." He made the motion of signing with his right hand, adding that all transactions were approved by the treasury, but omitting to say that the head of the treasury is his nephew.
http://www.newstatesman.com/site.php3?newTemplate=NSArticle_World&newDisplayURN=200312080018

[nolabels]

90. This story also goes WAY back if you start digging for the roots

This is more than just a can of worms, it's many truck loads filled with barrels of them ( think decades in digits past five :hi: )



http://www.allhatnocattle.net

On edit: the banking part of it anyway, Rockefeller drug laws changed that I guess



Enacted in 1973 when Nelson Rockefeller was governor, the Rockefeller Drug Laws require harsh prison terms for the possession or sale of relatively small amounts of drugs.

There are over 18,300 drug ofenders in NY's prisons, most of them minor offenders with no history of violent behavior.

It costs NY nearly $590 million a year to imprison drug offenders.

93% of the people locked up in NY for drug offenses are African American or Latino, despite research showing that the majority of people who use and sell drugs are white.
(snip)
http://www.droptherock.org/

[starroute]

93. Here's a site with some of the history

http://www.cyphernet.org/cyphernomicon/chapter16/16.14.html

The page is a little hard to follow, because it's in outline form, but it suggests that what are essentially criminal activities on the part of these banks can be traced back to the World War II alliance between the OSS and the Mafia.

Here, by the way, is what it has on Castle Bank, which looks like it may be more important than I realized:

+ Castle Bank, Bahamas, Paul E. Helliwell

+ OSS (China). CIA
- Mitch WerBell, White Russian specialist in assassination, silencers, worked for him in China
- Howard Hunt worked for him
- after WW2, set up Sea Supply Inc., CIA front in Miami

+ linked to Resorts International
- law firm of Helliwell, Melrose and DeWolf
- lent money to Bahamian P.M. Lynden Pindling in exchange for extension of gambling license

+ Robert Vesco, Bebe Rebozo, and Howard Hughes
- in contrast to the "Eastern Establishment," these were Nixon's insiders
- links with ex-CIA agent Robert Maheu (who worked for Hughes); involved with Trafficante, CIA plot to kill Castro, and possible links to JFK assassination
- Vesco active in drug trade

+ also involved in purchase of land for Walt Disney World
- 27,000 acres near Orlando
- Castle Bank was a CIA conduit

[seemslikeadream]

95. I know the family that started Castle Bank

OMG They are from a small town in Illinois. I wonder though if it's the same bank?

[nolabels]

96. The links to people who fund the wars = Banks

These concepts some times seem inseparable to me(almost) Money-War-Money-War

Getting bankers in your back pocket is key to starting your next war(just like * is doing and has done). A few of them latched onto Hitler which got him started. Money is the thing they try to keep track of so it also makes it easy to follow

I found this story along with a lot links to them scandals here
Classic Financial and Corporate Scandals
http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/scandals/classic.html

http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/llyfr.html
http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/war.html
Warfare and Financial History

Warfare, with its appalling humanitarian consequences and vast economic costs, has stimulated financial innovations from the spread of coinage to the creation of the national debt. Conversely, economic weakness and the inability to properly utilize financial resources have been causes of military defeats.

The relationship between economics and warfare is one of the themes treated in some detail in a 700 page book on the history of money. For the historical context of the conflicts listed below see also the annotated chronology which includes references to the page numbers of the book.
(snip)(nice and informative story)
(snip)
After the war Germany has difficulty in making its agreed reparations and experiences hyperinflation from 1922-1923. Later, in the 1930s the social turmoil resulting from mass unemployment results in Hitler's installation as Chancellor.
2nd World War

"By the beginning of the Second World War Keynes's ideas had already so permeated Whitehall and Westminster that high interest rates were rejected as unnecessary, costly and perverse" (page 391). Glyn Davies describes the various ingenious methods adopted by the government to raise money at low rates of interest. "With just a few unimportant exceptions, 3 percent became in fact the maximum rate at which the government borrowed within the United Kingdom" (page 391). "The most grievously costly war in history, in real, human terms was thus financed by incredibly cheap money. The financial lessons of all previous wars had been `the more you borrow the higher the rate'. The revolution in economic thought led by Keynes had helped the government to borrow far more money than ever before at rates of interest far lower than ever before in such circumstances." (page 393)

The US government also succeeded in keeping interest rates low with the Fed strongly supporting the seven War Loans and the Victory Loan. During the 1930s the New Deal had required a new banking system to restore business confidence in order to revive industry and agriculture and reduce America's appalling total of 13 million unemployed. The first relief agency (which had already been set up by President Hoover in 1932) was the Reconstruction Finance Corporation which played an important role not only in the recovery from the Depression but also supplied vitally needed investment for military purposes during the War. From $16 million in 1930 the national debt rose to $269 million in 1946. This immense increase in borrowing was accomplished at very low interest rates (2.5% or less). Direct controls on credit were introduced, and physical controls and rationing, though nothing like as severe as in Britain, suppressed most of the inflation until after the war ended.

After its defeat, For the second time in a generation Germany experienced hyperinflation. In Hungary hyperinflation was the worst in world history. Many European countries introduced new reformed currencies in the years after the war.
(snip)

It also follows along why the symbosis between the politcian and banker are so intertwined

Not really trying to pump this, but looking for links on this thread below made this so obvious that finding this helps make it seem so normal (bad kind of normal) for this to be happening

It's time for another Bush/Nazis thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=199853

[al bupp]

104. Great Links

The one at http://www.ex.ac.uk/~RDavies/arian/war.html sums up 2 thousand years of the history of war & money quite impressively.

My favorite quote so far is:

One linguistic legacy of the Viking era is the phrase "to pay through the nose". This expression comes from the unfortunate habit of the Danes in Ireland in the 9th century who slit the noses of those unwilling or unable to pay the Danish poll tax.

In fact, the whole Roy Davies website's amazing. Everything you ever wanted to know about money.

Thanks for the pointer.

[starroute]

97. More on Helliwell at "From the Wilderness"

http://independence.net/ftw/free/ciadrugs/part_2.html

"The War Conspiracy (Bobbs-Merrill, 1972) by Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D. of UC Berkeley is a book few Americans have seen. The compelling and meticulously documented history of the creation of the Vietnam War was rushed from bookstores and shelves almost as soon as it was published. Scott, author of Deep Politics and the Assassination of JFK, The Iran-Contra Connection and Cocaine Politics is an expert on the interface between covert operations and the international drug trade. In Chapter Six of The War Conspiracy, entitled 'Opium, the China Lobby, and the CIA,' Scott traces the connections between drug trafficking in Southeast Asia and American intelligence operations. There are detailed references to C.V. Starr and connections with some figures, like CIA veteran Paul Helliwell, who have been irrevocably and blatantly tied to the drug trade.

<snip>

"A key figure in the post-war operations was lawyer Tommy Corcoran, a legendary 'fixer' in the Roosevelt Administration, who went on to represent Nationalist Chinese financial interests after the Communists took power in 1949. Corcoran and Helliwell worked closely together in Asia. One of the critical and well-documented U.S. responses to the Communist takeover was to fund remnants of the Chinese Nationalist army -- who had fled into Burma, Thailand and Laos -- with opium. Much of that money, along with the drugs, found its way into the U.S. As noted by writers like the late Jonathan Kwitny of The Wall Street Journal in The Crimes of Patriots (Penguin, 1987) and by Professor Alfred McCoy of the University of Wisconsin in The Politics of Heroin (1972, 1991, Lawrence Hill Books), Helliwell paid the troops using five-pound 'sticky' bars of heroin. Helliwell later went on to head Castle Bank and Trust in Florida and the Bahamas and then was heavily involved with The Nugan Hand Bank in Australia and the U.S. Both banks have been heavily linked in official investigations to both drug trafficking and money laundering while also moving money for the CIA."

[nolabels]

98. and nary anyone even running for Dog Catcher will you ever give it a peep

It's almost insane how so many people would be so afraid of their own shadow. Is it that point in time the kid points to the king with no clothes?

[starroute]

99. More lowdown on how all this got started

Googling Helliwell's name is proving to be really productive as far as finding out where the whole drug-running/money-laundering thing came from. Here are a couple more links:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/heroin/mccoy1.htm

"I went to Paris and interviewed retired general Maurice Belleux, the former head of the French equivalent of the CIA, an organization called SDECE . In an amazing interview he told me that French military intelligence had financed all their covert operations from the control of the Indochina drug trade.

"The French paratroopers fighting with hill tribes collected the opium and French aircraft would fly the opium down to Saigon and the Sino-Vietnamese mafia that was the instrument of French intelligence would then distribute the opium. The central bank accounts, the sharing of the profits, was all controlled by French military intelligence.

"He concluded the interview by telling me that it was his information that the CIA had taken over the French assets and were pursuing something of the same policy.

"So I went to Southeast Asia to follow up on that lead and that's what took me into doing this whole book. It was basically pulling a thread and keep tugging at it and a veil masking the reality began to unravel."


http://www.wakeupmag.co.uk/articles/ciadrugsseasia.htm

"The outbreak of the Korean War in 1950 established the CIA's jurisdiction in the Far East and for the next quarter century covert paramilitary operations were the major Agency activity in the area. Since these demanded alliances with powerful warlords or tribal leaders who traditionally dealt in drugs, the Agency enmeshed its covert operations with the region's opium traffic.

"When Mao Tse-tung's peasant armies captured Shanghai after World War II, they drove China's heroin traffickers out of the country. . . . In contrast to such anti-drug activities by the Communists, the CIA and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) supplied the region's opium and heroin dealers with arms, ammunition, transportation of food supplies, buildings and 'humanitarian aid', in exchange for mercenary forces or political leverage. These dealers included the Kuomintang (KMT or Nationalist Chinese) on the Chinese border, Hmong tribesmen in Laos led by narcotics trafficker Vang Pao, and various political factions in South Vietnam and Burma."

There's also much, much more about opium operations in Thailand and Burma in the 1950's. I haven't read it through myself, yet, but it seems as though the U.S. heroin epidemic that was so mysteriously devastating in the 1950's and early 1960's may have grown entirely out of this activity.

A later part of the same article at http://www.wakeupmag.co.uk/articles/ciadrugslaunder.htm goes into detail about money-laundering, with a focus on Castle Bank, Nugen Hand, and BCCI.

[Minstrel Boy]

101. Read about Helliwell recently in "The Crimes of Patriots."

The unexpected failure of Castle Bank coincides with the rise of Nugan Hand. From the book: "Considering the gaggle of brass from the US intelligence community who helped push Nugan Hand into orbit in the late 1970s, there has been understandable speculation that Nugan Hand was Castle Bank's successor."

I suspect that joining the global drug trade was probably regarded, at first, as the cost of fighting Communism. But it became, fairly quickly, a self-justifying business pursuit.

[al bupp]

102. The Logic's Hard To Deny

I suspect you're right Minstrel Boy. Moreover though, I think the "self-justifying business pursuit" aspect became inexorable once it was realized that illegal drugs, particularly the ones active in smaller, more easily packaged volumes make for the perfect way to finance an operation which for whatever reason it'd be inconvenient to have to involve "above board" channels.

I'd be willing to bet the seeder parts of government have long worked this way, though not necessarily via contraband, but through any part of the underground economy, eg prostitution or simple graft. Certainly, as has been mentioned in this thread, drug financing was a big but mostly overlooked part of the Iran-Contra affair which if spoken of at all in the "conventional media", quickly went down the memory hole.

If you think about it, something like cocaine fills an almost irresistible need. Say you've got a plane full of ammunition you want to secretly get to your boys in the jungle. Well besides having to pay for the plane, fuel, pilots, and the arms themselves, you're gonna have an empty cargo hold on the return flight. Unless, that is, you fill it w/ some handy illicit material which is happily worth as much per unit volume as say a comparable amount of diamonds. Of course, the fact that simple supply & demand dictates that substances become much more valuable once made illegal (and therefore scarcer) rarely gets discussed.

As the Dead tune says:

shipping powders back and forth
black goes south and white comes north

[al bupp]

106. Execellent Research

Thanks for the links.

It never fails to amaze me how easy the connections between illegal drugs and covert operations are to document, and how little it's mentioned in the popular press.

[JohnyCanuck]

100. Time for another Kick. n/t

[nolabels]

112. A couple little threads that might give a little background on why....

The state dept is really just PLAYING the good cop in the good cop/ bad cop game
State Dept. Worker Found Dead Outside Agency
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=207591

Not that she is involved, but it does lead one to question the what todays state dept really is all about
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=225427
And this below person has links to above (from this thread)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=225427
(snip)
Vice President's Daughter to Leave State Dept.

Elizabeth Cheney, leader of the administration's Middle East democracy initiative, will leave her State Department job next month to join the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign.

Cheney, daughter of Vice President Cheney, said yesterday that she expects to join a Washington think tank and continue to work on Middle East issues in the private sector while devoting most of her time to politics.

"I will be having conversations with folks in the campaign once I've left," said Cheney, who also worked in the 2000 campaign. "The most important factor for our continued success is the reelection of the president, and I want to do everything I can to help out in that effort."

As a deputy assistant secretary in the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Cheney was given control of the Middle East Partnership Initiative, an evolving project designed to foster increased democracy and economic progress in a troubled region.

more…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54071-2003Nov17.html
(snip)

Curiouser and Curiouser
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=56370

in the thread this link
http://www.opednews.com/toenjessummary.htm
(a link to this 25 page of who's who)
U.S. Policy Towards Iraq: Unraveling the Web
Laurence A. Toenjes


Executive Summary

When the United States began transporting troops to the Persian Gulf in the fall of 2002 it was evident that the war against Iraq was underway. This paper was begun in an attempt to answer the question: How did the war against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda become the war to depose Saddam Hussein?

The effort to understand this change in U.S. policy led to a picture of a relatively small group of persons associated with certain think tanks and other organizations achieving disproportionate influence over the policy formulation process. The activities of fourteen organizations were coordinated by individuals who comprised a web of interlocking memberships. Many of these individuals were on record calling for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as far back as 1998, in a letter to President Clinton. This was well before the September 11, 2001 attack on the World Trade Center and before George W. Bush became President.

The main contribution of this paper is the attempt to quantify the inter-linked nature of the 14 organizations by cross-tabulating individuals with memberships in two or more of them. Examples: Richard Perle was associated with 10 of the 14, Jeane Kirkpatrick with 7, James Woolsey with 6, John Bolton with 4. Altogether 223 links were found between the 14 groups, where a link is defined as the association of a single individual with two organizations. Although over 650 individuals associated with the 14 organizations included in the study were analyzed, just 9 individuals formed 121 of the inter-group links, accounting for over half of the total. This concentration of the inter-group linkages suggests that a small number of individuals could effectively influence and coordinate the foreign policy impact of these organizations.

Using a threshold of at least 3 members in common, a subgroup of 5 organizations was identified as forming a “clique”. A “clique” is defined as the largest subgroup wherein each is directly related to each of the others. In this case, this meant that each of the 10 pairs among the five shared at least three members. This clique consisted of The Project for the New American Century (PNAC), The Committee for the Liberation of Iraq (CLI), The Center for Security Policy (CSP), The Defense Policy Board Advisory Committee (DPB), and The Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA).
(snip)

Some more on the banking of BFEE

Facing The Corporate Roots Of American Fascism (Prescott Bush included)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1583494

Kissinger & BCCI spells BUSH & 9-11
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=377323

Or even some things like this little article

(snip)
Arming his "Hitler"

Dick Cheney was Bush's Defense Secretary while Bush Sr. covertly armed and funded Hussein's military right up to the Kuwaiti invasion in August 1990, eventually leaving the American taxpayers holding $2 Billion in defaulted Iraqi debt. Was Cheney simply "out of the loop" or asleep at the wheel? Or something worse?

Secretary of State James Baker was Bush's right hand man in the Iraqgate scheme. "And it emphasized the striking fact -- buried deep in a 1991 Washington Press piece -- that Secretary of State James Baker, after meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz in October 1989, intervened personally to support U.S. government loan guarantees to Iraq."

Prior to the invasion, Kuwait had been slant drilling at the Iraq-Kuwait border into Iraq's oil, with equipment from National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft's former company. Bush's ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, told Hussein that the US "took no position" on Iraq's dispute with Kuwait. Five Days later, Iraq invaded. Then Bush ramped up Operation Desert Shield. During this phase Bush refused any offers from Hussein to withdraw and save face. The result was full-scale war -- Desert Storm.

Although Bush's propaganda apparatus told the Iraqi people to rise up against Hussein -- and our troops would support them -- Bush reneged and pulled back our troops. Ultimately, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens were injured or killed, with an environmental holocaust as a result of oil spills in the Gulf, and Hussein's troops setting fire to Kuwaiti oil wells. Tragically, Hussein remained in power, and continued to oppress his citizens and slaughter the Kurdish people (see Mark Zepezauer's "The CIA's Greatest Hits" and Alan Friedman's "Spider's Web").

http://www.cjr.org/archives.asp?url=/93/2/iraqgate.asp

(snip)
from this thread
A Short History of Saddam-Bush-Noriega Business
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1213525


lest we need not forget one the favorite players the state dept
Is Henry Kissinger a war criminal, fascist or just misunderstood
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=345935

[al bupp]

113. Mike Levine Ex-DEA Agent

Here's the testimony of an ex-DEA agent regarding the War on (Some) Drugs:

Everything you need to know about mainstream media’s vital role in perpetuating our nation’s three—decade, trillion dollar War on Drugs despite overwhelming evidence that it is a fraud you can learn by watching a Three Card Monty Operation.

http://www.expertwitnessradio.org/essays/e6.htm

[nolabels]

114. Keeping it on the board till Monday

Here is a link to a nice Mp3 to something that might also make you think

http://www.strike-the-root.com/
(snip)
FBI Whistleblower Discusses OK City Bombing Investigation

Philip Dru interviews Frederic Whitehurst for an insider’s view into major problems with some very serious FBI investigations. (MP3 format. Click here for streaming audio.)
(snip)

A kick for mondays hearing for Sibel Deniz Edmonds (she is brave)

[seemslikeadream]

115. nolabels I think it's been postponed

I'm going to look for the link


here ya go :cry:

WilliamPitt (1000+ posts) Fri Jun-11-04 02:01 PM
Original message
Want to help me interview Sibel Edmonds?


I just had the privilege of speaking to her on the phone. She's in DC with Daniel Ellsberg. Some good news: The hearing scheduled for Monday to decide if she should be 'gagged' in the interest of national security has been indefinitely postponed.

Anyway, I am going to arrange with her on Monday a date to do an interview. I want to turn over every stone on this one, and she can really help us all get to the heart of things.

So, if you have any questions, post them here and I will do my best to work them in.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1770915

[nolabels]

117. This sounds like very good NEWS, thanks seemslikeadream

At least on the surface it would seem. They wimped out, yes they did
I love it when they keep the heat up or turn it higher, makes them barbecues taste so much better :D.

With Daniel Ellsberg helping her there must be some pretty big fish on the line and a lot people in the background on both sides. With the puppet masters backing off like they did with her it proves there is quite a bit to lose.

The action of inaction leaves almost as much residue as anything else. In being just one of the most obvious clues, cowards and frauds are known for leaving people hanging when their fear is too great for them to do otherwise.

These people in Bushco have no compunction about doing things that might endanger others if it enhances their positions. I would also guess she has doled out enough information to others to make it more important for them that she is alive than otherwise. Never fear, the truth will set you free (said the blind man running down the ally in the middle of the night)

[seemslikeadream]

118. I wasn't sure how to take it

Thanks, it seems to be good news then.