Investigative Reporter Greg Palast Revealing Previously Classified Docs

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

Elections Past and Present and Disenfranchised Voters


http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/08/22/1529206&mode=thread&tid=29

Democracy Now! Posted Friday, Your choice of video, audio or transcript.

MUST SEE/HEAR/READ!

<snip>
Well let’s move on-heard any good wars lately? I thought I’d go back into ancient history tonight-March 17th of this year-and I know this because I was just on Fox News and I know this kind of professional amnesia that goes on in the American news industry-lets go back to ancient history. March 17th our President gave his ‘Get Out of town, High Noon, Saddam’ speech’ and he said’ I want to speak to the Iraqi people’-which is obviously very interesting because Dick Cheney did not tell him that they speak Arabic.

But OK Good Enough I thought he’d say something like please don’t shoot our boys-they are here to liberate you- but he didn’t. He said and I quote-he said, “Do not destroy oil wells’. I don’t make this up-he also said that we are going into Iraq after those who have aided, trained and harbored terrorists including operatives of Al-Qaeda.

And I thought (expletive) he is going to bust his Daddy.

And he also said ‘War has no certainty except the certainty of sacrifice-He would know because he was a war hero during Vietnam-I mean you saw him doing that Tom Cruise Top Gun thing landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier-you are laughing but you don’t have an action doll-but he really was a fighter pilot during the Vietnam War-not in the real Air Force like it says on the Box-but he was in something called the Texas Air National Guard-which is an army for warriors who are afraid of the sight of blood-especially their own right?
<snip>

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

1. Kicking because this is too important to let slip away without more people

hearing.

:kick:

[seemslikeadream]

2. Thanks so much

I'm listening to it now.

[donsu]

3. Kick

nt

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

25. & another kick for the morning crowd

[Judi Lynn]

4. Almost unbearable

(snip) Addressing issues related to the US invasion of Iraq, Palast quoted from a 101 page classified State Department document and said it was “a plan for the post-conflict economy of Iraq, written before we knew there was going to be a conflict in Iraq and it has some very interesting statements including this one at page 73 that the state department will approve plans to support private sector involvement in strategic sectors including privatization, asset sales, concessions, leases and management contracts – especially those in the oil and supporting industries, privatization of oil and supporting industries , the sell off of Iraq’s oil fields- do not destroy the wells." He added that, "I am not one of those cynical people who says that we went into Iraq for the oil, but we sure as hell are not leaving without it.” (snip/...)

Whatta reporter! Without him and one or two others, it would be DEAD SILENCE, wouldn't it? We sure need Greg Palast.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

6. Absolutely.

[madfloridian]

5. Why didn't we catch this in August?

I got his email on the power outage, and 800 laid off by the British company. I never saw this,though.

Thanks for finding and sharing. It is unbelievable to me that he is so unappreciated. Could it be because he tells it like it is?

:kick:

[seemslikeadream]

7. August 1996 they ran bulldozers across the property

smashed the workers houses, filled the mine pits and chased away 30,000 workers-all but 50 because according to our reports 50 miners were in the mining pits when they were sealed-yeah and I reported that too and they sued me and my paper.

my paper sent one of the top human rights investigators in the world Tundu Lissu is his name he is a member of the Tanzanian bar-a lawyer-speaks Swahili-he sent back photos off crushed corpses-being exhumed-and I showed this to the gold-fingers Bush's guys and they said OK sign here no one died -I said I cant do that-and I will tell you why

Barrick Gold Mining
George Senior changes the rules for gold mining companies right before he leaves office.
They grabbed the largest gold mine in the US-10 billion dollars worth of gold and they paid the US treasury for the claim- 10,000 dollars - Then they gave Bush a job.

[Nashyra]

9. Must see/hear/read

Kick

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

30. check

[starroute]

13. Barrick! That sure sets off alarm bells

There's a fairly decent set of articles on Bush and Barrick at http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/bushgold.htm#barricks

It's from a LaRouche source, so you have to take the parts about the British royal family trying to take over the world with a grain of salt. But most of it seems pretty straightforward and thoroughly damning.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

15. Unbelievable that no one in The American media paid it any mind.

[seemslikeadream]

16. Yes

It is funny how a Canadian gold mining company started by Adnan Khashoggi is so patriotic that its giving George sr. campaign money. That could have had no relation to George SR. changing rules for them and then getting to be on the board of that company. I see no story here, nothing unusual, let's just move on.

[RainDog]

18. Barrick was in the news last week

in the World or Biz section of the NYTimes...maybe Wed?

anyway, seems that they've bought part of a company, and I remember saying at the time that I wondered if Poppy was paying off Putin..so must have had something to do with Russia.

Wish I'd saved it...don't know if it's still available for free, but would surely be available other places.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

19. Must be nice to be on the king's "A" list.

[seemslikeadream]

20. Was it the deal to buy Highland Gold?

formerly Harmony Gold. Barrick bought 29%

[AP]

8. Remember when Bush was asked in 9/01 what Americans should look for

in terms of domestic terrorism? He said look for shady people near oil reserves and utility companies.

That's where his interests were. It wasn't, watch out for hospital emergency rooms being bombed at the same time that large crowds of people are injured, or something like that. It was the energy companies he worried about.

[Unknown Known]

10. They always do give us the exact clues to find the real perps

We're just not cynical enough to believe the perps are those giving the clues. But isn't this just like the MO of a serial killer?

[RainDog]

11. I remember that moment very well.

"He (Bush) said and I quote-he said, “Do not destroy oil wells’. "

I remember hearing him say that. I remember thinking to myself..surely I missed something..surely he didn't say that as his most important message to the Iraqi people just before an invasion of their country.

I was astonished. I asked other people if they had heard him say that, as well.

It was, probably, the lowest moment in presidential speech making, worse, even than his SOTU address lies.

[RainDog]

12. MUST READ!

Palast mentions this, and in the October Vanity Fair, there is an article about these two family members being flown out of the U.S. when all other private planes were downed (which we've known on this site for more than a year, but I digress...)

The article says that the FBI also said they didn't want to question these guys. makes you wonder if some in the FBI, like the CIA, are working for an agenda that has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with the extremist ultra right agenda in this country...oh, and just who sent that anthrax, and why did some members of the FBI refuse to help Don Foster in his examination of documents to solve this question?

from Palast-

"What is interesting about this document is that it talks about an investigation FBI agents wanted to do but were not released to do until September 13, 2001-to investigate what the FBI calls a suspected terrorist organization-why cant the FBI investigate a suspected terrorist organization? A lot of these guys do not want to go after guys throwing cream pies at anti globalization protests-these are not nice guys-this organization they were looking at backed by the Saudi royal family-I have obtained tapes of some of their discussions talking of the wonders of attacking civilian targets-and one of their staff members is the conduit for Osama Bin Laden’s Valentine Tapes to America on Al-Jazeera- so these are the kind of guys that FBI agents would like to go after but they couldn’t- Why-who are these guys and I turned to page 2 and what do you know-there it says Abdul and Omar Bin Laden-now that was kind of interesting to me-because we were told that there is the black sheep of the Bin Laden family and that is Osama and then there is the white sheep of the Bin Laden family-now we know that the rest of them are White Sheep because they have supported the Bush family enterprise-for example our President George W Bush became a very rich man in the oil industry-he never struck any oil-all he struck was into the pockets of Salim Bin Laden-older brother of Osama-so I was very interested in that

Apparently some of the FBI agents thought that a couple of members of the Bin Laden family were gray sheep-but by the time they released-there was a hole in the ground a block from here-where I used to work incidentally and these birds had flown. "

[Champion Jack]

14. KICKED

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

[in_cog_ni_to]

17. Holy Moly!

That is one of the most damning things I've ever read. I also noticed in reading that that there was another one of those "small aircraft accidents" with the Enron guy who was going to blow the whistle on the 2 sets of books. BFEE

THAT was incredible! Thank You for posting it!

MEDIA!!!!!! WAKE THE HELL UP!!!!!

[althecat]

21. Just watched it on Real Video.... WOW!!!

This is not to be missed. Makes you feel all warm inside... someone telling the truth. And so funnily... I can't beleive he hasn't got a TV show in the states!!!

[Octafish]

22. The BFEE at Work.

George Bush's $10 billion giveaway to Barrick Gold

by Mark Sonnenblick

In 1985-86, Barrick Gold Corp. paid two other mining companies $63 million for a small working Nevada mine, called Goldstrike. Within a few years, it was found to contain 24.6 million ounces of gold, worth about $10 billion. Goldstrike was on federal property. Under existing legislation, designed in 1872 to populate and bring development to the West, miners could operate on federal land for free, once they had filed a claim. They could obtain full legal title to the land at $5 an acre, upon completion of a long and expensive process called ``patenting.''

In 1992, however, pressure was building for a new mining law to require that those given federal properties pay a royalty, a certain percentage of what they mine each year. As expected, when the Clinton administration took office in 1993, it sought a 12.5% royalty. At that rate, the 25 major mine claims then in the process of being privatized, would eventually yield an estimated $10.75 billion to the U.S. Treasury.

Mining companies caused a major jam-up at the Bureau of Land Management, as they rushed to obtain patents before Congress applied royalties. By 1992, the long waiting line at the BLM Nevada office made it doubtful that many mines would get over the critical hurdle in the patent process in time. It would normally take several years for a mine of Goldstrike's size and complexity to complete the process, a BLM source commented, and the average during the previous four-year period was 10.3 months. But, Barrick made it in only 4.8 months.

Barrick filed its applications for 1,144 acres of land in March and April 1992. That summer, a pilot program for ``expedited processing'' of Nevada patents was instituted by BLM chief Delos Cy Jamison, a Republican who had been appointed to that post by President George Bush in 1989. Jamison concocted this speed-up procedure with the BLM Nevada state director, without informing his own staff. ``Bells went off in my head when I heard about it,'' a former BLM staffer told {EIR.}

CONTINUED...

http://www.afrocentricnews.com/html/georgebushgiveaway.html

The BFEE — In Business Since November 22, 1963.

[seemslikeadream]

23. Another big player in the eastern Congo is Barrick Gold Corp.

headquartered in Canada. It is the world's second-largest gold producer after Anglo-American of South Africa.

The industrial enterprises that set up American Mineral Fields are interested in the contract for the construction of the orbital platform around the world that is destined to replace the Russian station MIR.

This project is part of the $60 billion so-called National Missile Defense system that George W. Bush, Sec. Of Defense Rumsfeld, Sec. of State Colin Powell, and Vice President Cheney are pushing so vigorously. Building the spacer station will require many of the rare metals found in eastern Congo.

Barrick was able in 1996 to get the Mobutu regime's Gold Office of Kilomoto, a government monopoly, to transfer mining rights over almost all its 82,000 square kilometers of land to Barrick. The land is estimated to have 100 tons of gold in reserve.

George Bush Sr. sat on the board if directors of Barrick.

http://www.minesandcommunities.org/Company/kabilal.htm


Cynthia McKinney made the mistake of pissing off the Bushes after the 1992 election:
After George Bush Senior left the White House, he became an advisor and lobbist for Canadian gold-mining company, Barrick Gold. But there were a couple of questions about Barrick, to say the least. For example, was Barrick's Congo gold mine funding both sides of a civil war and perpetuating that bloody conflict? Only one Congressperson demanded hearings on the matter.

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

24. Thanks for the link!

[seemslikeadream]

27. "They are tearing up the very fabric of the sacred heartland.

That is our sacred heartland. It is the heartland of the Wiradjuri people. We are not going to give up," said Alan Oshlak speaking on behalf of Neville Williams, a representative of the Mooka Traditional Owners Council which is within the Wiradjuri Nation.

Oshlack said the drilling rigs on the site were breaking up the ground and destroying a number of rare stone artifacts - including stone hammers and axes - scattered across the site. According to Oshlack, these artifacts lay in a registered site about 500 meters by 100 metrers where three proposed drilling sites had been pegged out by Homestake.

ABORIGINAL LANDOWNERS FIGHT OFF BARRICKHOMESTAKE AND GOLD MINING

Aboriginal landowners and enviromentalists in New South Wales, Australia are battling Canadian mining giant BarrickHomestake to prevent exploratory drilling for gold near Lake Cowal. The Mooka Traditional Owners Council filed a lawsuit this month after an Australian court dismissed an injuction that would restrain the subsidiary company, Homestake Australia Limited, from drilling.

Barrick Gold acquired Homestake, the former parent company of HAL, in June 2001. The company plans to mine 2.7 million ounces of gold from 76 million tons of ore, creating a 1 kilometer-long by 8255 meters wide and 325 meters deep open pit on Lake Cowal.

http://www.moles.org/ProjectUnderground/drillbits/7_01/2.html

[papau]

26. great article - kick!

:-)

[Spazito]

28. Kick

:kick:

[Tom Yossarian Joad]

29. And another kick just in case someone missed it.

:kick: