http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_1904.shtmlIn late February, only a few days after Saudi Arabia beheaded four Sri Lankan robbers and then left their headless bodies on public display in the capital of Riyadh, Neil Bush, for the fourth time in the past six years, showed up for the country’s Jeddah Economic Forum. The Guardian reported that Human Rights Watch “said the four men had no lawyers during their trial and sentencing, and were denied other basic legal rights.” In an interview with Arab News, the Saudi English language paper, Bush described the country as “a kind of tribal democracy.”
Neil Mallon Bush, the son of President George H. W. Bush and the brother of President George W. Bush, attended the forum to renew old family friendships and to drum up a little business for his educational software company. “The Jeddah Economic Forum has been very productive,” Bush told Arab News. “I have been to this conference four times since 2002. I have seen it develop from the very beginning. There was less participation in the past, now there is more international participation.”
These days, Neil Bush is the chairman and CEO of Ignite Learning, a company devoted to developing technology-assisted curriculum. Ignite calls it COW: “Curriculum on Wheels.” In an interview with Arab News’ Siraj Wahab, Bush talked enthusiastically about his company’s mission: “We are building a model in the United States for developing curriculum that is engaging to grade-school kids, and our model is to deploy this engaging content through a device. So it is easy for any teacher to use our device through projectors and speakers. The curriculum is loaded on the device. We use animation and video and those kinds of things to light up learning in classrooms for kids. It helps teachers connect with their kids. We are planning to develop an Arabic version of that model.”
According to Wikipedia, Ignite was founded in 1999 and has “raised $23 million from U.S. investors, including his parents . . . as well as businessmen from Taiwan, Japan, Kuwait, the British Virgin Islands and the United Arab Emirates, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Russian billionaire expatriate Boris Berezovsky (and Berezovsky’s partner Badri Patarkatsishvili), Kuwaiti company head Mohammed Al Saddah, and Chinese computer executive Winston Wong are documented investors.”
The blog Media Mindfulness recently looked into a COW lesson relating to habeas corpus and found that “the lesson
in dire need of some media literacy. It’s curious how it repeatedly justifies the suspension of the law”:
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The Saudi connection
Neil Bush, like others in the Bush Family, has cultivated a very close relationship with the Saudi Royal Family. As Kevin Phillips wrote in his book, “American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush” (2004): “Also shaping Middle Eastern relations was the fact that the family had cemented unique business and personal ties to the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and the emirates. After he left the White House in 1993, George H. W. Bush made a number of visits. His relationships with the Saudis, in particular, remained so close that the Saudi ambassador in Washington, Prince Bandar, and his wife considered the Bushes ‘almost family.’”
As a member of the Carlyle Group’s Asian Advisory Board, the senior Bush “made highly compensated speeches and trips on its behalf -- most frequently to Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf -- and helped the group procure well-heeled investors.” According to Phillips, “Twelve rich Saudi individuals and families signed up (including the bin Laden family prior to 9/11), as well as the investment offices of Kuwait and Abu Dhabi.”
About the time of Neil Bush’s first visit to the Jeddah Economic Forum in February 2002, the Washington Post reported that “Saudis close to Prince Sultan, the Saudi defense minister, were encouraged to put money into Carlyle as a favor to the elder Bush.” According to Phillips, “By some accounts, Carlyle acted as a gatekeeper for would-be U.S. investors in Saudi Arabia.”
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Finally, Bush pointed out that Saudi Arabia is “a kind of tribal democracy that people don’t talk about very much,” he said. “So it hurts me quite a bit and causes me anguish over the ignorance outside about Saudi Arabia.”
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horse crap
what's up with the neo con family friends Saudis saying we are in Iraq illegally? something is going on there
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