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10-1 Newsletter Looks like The Family sure does some interesting business.
By DANIEL GOLDEN, JAMES BANDLER and STEVE LEVINE
Osama bin Laden's family has long disavowed him. He is the only bin Laden on the U.S. Treasury Department's list of foreign companies and individuals engaging in undesirable activities. And no evidence has surfaced linking any of his more than 50 siblings to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. 1See full coverage of the attack. But as President Bush denounces Mr. bin Laden in ever-stronger terms, the Saudi exile's notoriety is proving to be an embarrassment for his family's far-flung business empire and its trading partners in Europe and the U.S. Some of those partners are distancing themselves from or reviewing their relationships with the family business, the Saudi Binladin Group. Based in Jeddah and favored by Saudi Arabia's royal family, Saudi Binladin Group derives an estimated $5 billion in annual revenue from a wide range of enterprises, including mosque construction, telecommunications and selling Snapple soft drinks in Saudi Arabia. Although the family's U.S. spokesman says Saudi Binladin Group is wholly owned by the extended bin Laden family, not including Osama, he said he could provide no information on exactly which members have an equity interest in the company. British paging company Multitone Electronics PLC said it was shocked to learn that its reseller in Saudi Arabia, Baud Telecommunications Ltd., is owned by the Binladin Group. "You're joking," Chief Executive Michael Walker said. "Oh bloody! I didn't know. I thought it was just Baud Telecom." Shortly afterward, Multitone, of Basingstoke, England, said it was suspending its business relationship with Baud until it was certain there was no connection between the Saudi company and terrorist activity. "There are probably hundreds of Binladins that are great guys," Mr. Walker says, adding that Multitone's dealings with Baud were small. "But I think what we'll do is investigate." Dutch bank ABN Amro says it plans to discuss its links with the Binladin family, a longstanding client of Saudi Hollandi Bank, which is 40% owned by ABN Amro. "Simply having the name 'Binladin' is a reputation risk," bank spokesman Jochem van de Laarschot says, adding that the bank is confident that the client has no terrorist ties. The degree of the rift between Mr. bin Laden and his family is also coming under scrutiny. Last week, the FBI arrested an unidentified man at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport who was described in news reports as an associate of one of Mr. bin Laden's brothers. Federal agents have also visited the Boston residences of several relatives. In a statement issued Friday night, the head of the Binladin family, Abdullah Awad Obood bin Laden, Osama's uncle, reiterated that the family "has no connection with his works and activities" and expressed "the strongest denunciation and condemnation of this sad event, which resulted in the loss of many innocent men, women, and children, and which contradicts our Islamic faith." Nevertheless, U.S. specialists believe there are personal contacts between Mr. bin Laden and some family members. "Some of the brothers keep in touch" with Mr. bin Laden, says Yossef Bodansky, staff director of a congressional task force on terrorism. "After all, they're family." However, Mr. Bodansky says, siblings don't fund Mr. bin Laden, nor do they abet his alleged terrorist activities. The brothers "have no security- or loyalty-related problems" in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Bodansky says. "The vast bulk of the family hate him with quite a passion right now," says Adil Najam, an assistant professor of international relations at Boston University. "But it's a very big clan, and there may well be some who have maintained some contact with him, either familial or ideological." Mr. bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mohammed Jamaal Khalifa, funded the Islamic Army of Aden, which took credit for the bombing of the USS Cole, according to Vincent Cannistraro, former chief of counterterrorism for the Central Intelligence Agency. Khalid Al-Midhar, one of the hijackers on the airliner that crashed into the Pentagon, has ties to the Army of Aden, Mr. Cannistraro says. The connections between the Binladin Group and American corporations are raising the hackles of conservative groups. Any companies doing business with the Binladin Group "are disloyal to the interests of the United States and should be held accountable," says Larry Klayman, chairman of Washington-based Judicial Watch. A spokeswoman for Citigroup Inc. confirms the Saudi family is a client. "We provide typical banking services to the Saudi Binladin Group, which denounced and completely disowned Osama bin Laden," she says. General Electric Co. says it holds a minority stake in Jeddah Electrical Distribution Assemblies Co., a power-equipment maker in Saudia Arabia that GE says is majority-owned by the Binladin family. GE also has supplied equipment to several Saudi power plants built by the Binladin Group. A spokesman says, "We are satisfied the Saudi Binladin Group is fully separated from Osama bin Laden." The Binladin group also is a minority owner of the Saudi Arabian distributor of Snapple beverages. Cadbury Schweppes PLC, which owns Snapple, says it plans to end its relationship with the Binladin group soon, due to declining sales rather than negative publicity. A spokeswoman calls the separation "amicable." The Binladin Group closed its U.S. business development office at the end of 1999. Philip Griffin, its former representative, says the decision wasn't related to image problems arising from the family surname. Founded in 1931 by Osama bin Laden's father, Mohammed, a Yemenite immigrant, the Saudi Binladin Group grew to become one of Saudi Arabia's largest construction firms, building and maintaining mosques, roads, hotels and airports. The company grew through the good graces of both the Saudi royal family, which bestowed lucrative government contracts, and also of foreign corporations, for whom it became the local partner of choice. The ties were cemented during the Gulf War and after, when the group built an airstrip and barracks for U.S. troops. Osama bin Laden, now in his mid-40s, worked in the family business as a college student. Later, his opposition to the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War alienated the royal family and threatened the family business. The family disowned Mr. bin Laden, and he moved to Sudan and then Afghanistan. A family spokesman says Mr. bin Laden inherited between $50 million and $60 million from his father, who died in 1968, but has never held an equity stake in the group. In recent years, Saudi Binladin Group has increasingly diversified its
businesses and geography. Its Baud unit resells sophisticated telecommunications
equipment purchased from Canada-based Nortel Networks Corp., PictureTel
Corp. of Andover, Mass., Tellabs Inc. of Lisle, Ill., and other companies.
One brother,
Motorola acknowledged that it sells equipment, including wireless networks and cellphones, to the Binladin family group. "The U.S. government has not limited" such sales, a spokeswoman notes. "Motorola has been carefully following all of the U.S. government prohibitions against dealing with known terrorists and takes this matter very seriously." The family also sells granite to closely held Canaren Inc. of Canada and buys construction material from it. From 1994 to 1997, it was in a joint venture with H.C. Price Co. of Dallas in bidding on Middle Eastern pipeline contracts. "I would be very surprised if the family had any support of Osama," says Robert Bell, an H.C. Price vice president who was general manager of the joint venture. "They were very professional. I never overheard any discussion about the U.S. except in very favorable terms." Nortel confirms Saudi Binladin Group was a reseller of Nortel equipment and says it understands there is no link between the group and the activities of Osama bin Laden. "If we had any reason to believe this company had or could have any link to terrorist activities, we would cease doing business with them immediately," a Nortel spokeswoman says. Picturetel's president, Lewis Jaffe, says it does less than $100,000 a year of business with Baud. A Tellabs spokeswoman says Baud Telecom is its Saudi distributor and it isn't aware of any ties to Osama bin Laden. A Canaren spokesman says the Binladin family is a "very huge family and very respected in the Middle East." Kevin Taecker, a former Treasury Department official and banker in Saudia Arabia, recalls a meeting in 1999 with Yahya bin Laden, the head of the family construction business and a half-brother of Osama. "As I was getting up to leave, he blocked the door and wouldn't let me out. He took me by the hand and said, 'Listen, you're an American. On behalf of my family, I really want to apologize,' " the businessman recalled. The family has donated to colleges, Islamic organizations and other nonprofit causes in both England and the U.S. Abdullah, one of Mr. bin Laden's brothers, received a master's degree in law from Harvard Law School in 1992. Two years later, on a fundraising trip to the Middle East, the law school's dean made a pitch to another brother, Sheik Bakr Mohammed bin Laden, chairman of the family group. Bakr and the group subsequently donated $1 million to the law school, half for a visiting scholars program and half for financial aid for law students from the Muslim world. The family also gave $1 million to Harvard's Graduate School of Design in 1993. Robert Clark, the law school dean, said the gift was intended "to promote mutual understanding between scholars trained in Islamic legal systems and those trained in Western legal systems. We need that more than ever." Still, outside the Arab world, the Binladin name has become an increasing liability. Until a year and a half ago, the group had a prominent storefront on the main street of Astana in the new Kazakhstan, with a contract to create the city's master plan. Then, although the Kazak government believed the company's assurances that it was not linked to Mr. bin Laden, President Nursultan Nazarbayev dropped the company just in case someone got the wrong idea, a government official said. In 1999, the group changed the name of its telecommunications division from Binladin to Baud. John Dickson, a Baud manager, says the switch reflects a desire to choose a more modern name. Baud means distance in Arabic, and in English it is a measurement of speed. In the Arab world, Mr. Dickson says, the Binladin name is looked upon with "absolute reverence—like IBM." He adds that every family "has its black sheep. Only he went a little bit too far." -- Matt Murray, John McKinnon and Maureen Tkacik
Write to Daniel Golden at [email protected]
,
10-1 Newsletter http://www.rense.com/general14/BLolderbrother.htm
Bin Laden's Older Brother Was
LONDON - A 30-year-old photograph of Osama bin Laden, wearing purple flared trousers, a skinny-rib jumper and leaning against a pink Cadillac, that enduring symbol of America, is being hawked around by a Swedish picture agency at 1,000 pounds a copy. Meanwhile, Western security agencies are reported to believe that one of the hijackers who flew into the World Trade Centre (WTC) was part of the team that seized Indian Airlines flight IC 814 from Kathmandu, and took it to Kandahar in 1999. According to The Times, London, the Indian Airlines hijacking and the WTC attacks are thought to bear the fingerprints of senior Hizbollah leader Imad Mughniyeh, who is now believed to be somewhere in Iran. The paper said Mughniyeh's whereabouts are likely to be raised with the Iranian government by British foreign secretary Jack Straw during his ongoing visit to Teheran. Mughniyeh, who has proven expertise in hijackings, is especially prone to using pocket knives and scissors in hijacks, rather than guns. The paper recalled that the Indian Airlines hijack was accomplished by a similarly-armed gang, who stabbed 25-year-old Rupin Katiyal, while other passengers were ordered to watch him bleed to death. It said that intelligence officers discerned the same pattern in the American hijackings, with a stewardess and a business-class passenger being stabbed on the flight that crashed in rural Pennsylvania. The other passengers were told to keep watching. Investigators say Mughniyeh is linked to Bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network, through the leader of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is known to be close to Bin Laden. But even as intelligence agencies investigate the extent of Bin Laden's links with terrorist outfits around the world, the West is digesting quite a different image of the young boy through a family photograph, taken in the Swedish town of Falun in the summer of 1971. The photograph, which appeared in several British tabloids on Monday, accompanies media revelations that not only was the young Bin Laden fairly Westernised before he embraced Islamist radicalism, he also had a close family link with American President George W. Bush. According to The Daily Mail newspaper, Salem, the eldest of Bin Laden's 55 brothers and sisters, invested heavily in Bush's first business venture, Arbusto Energy. The paper said that Salem, who died in a plane crash in 1983, became Bush's business partner through James Bath, a close friend of the future American president. Salem, says the paper, appointed Bath as his representative in Houston, Texas. It was Bath who invested 50,000 dollars in Bush's company and also bought Houston Gulf Airport on behalf of Osama's elder brother. The paper said a White House spokesman was unavailable for comment on
the subject on Sunday night. The Swedish owner of the hotel
Osama Bin Laden stayed at all those years ago, is quoted to say "they (Osama
and Salem) were such nice boys, beautiful boys, so elegantly dressed. Everybody
loved them". She added that the innocent young Osama often played with
her two sons.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Attack_on_America/Binion092201/binion092201.html
By Carla Binion September 22, 2001—Who are the people leading us into war? Can we trust them, and should we ask questions of them? In the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks, Fox Network's Bill O'Reilly and other TV talking heads say it's un-American to question George W. Bush's policies. However, corrupt politicians, CIA dirty tricks and wrongheaded foreign policy do not equate to "America."When people question misguided policy, it's not the same as criticizing America. The working people of this country are America. The people who helped in the rescue efforts following the nation's recent tragedy are America. Our government leaders and their policies are not America, if and when they undermine our health and safety.In a September 19, 2001 letter to the Washington Post, Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) says, "Historically, it has been at times of inflamed passion and national anger that our civil liberties proved to be at greatest risk . . . Unfortunately, our response in 1996 to the Oklahoma City bombing and now to the bombing of the World Trade Center and Pentagon does not portend well for today's discussions. Legislation that began in good faith as an effort to fine-tune our anti-terrorism laws turned into a legislative race to the bottom."Conyers adds, "[The legislation] contained sweeping new limitations on habeas corpus for death-row and other inmates. The legislation also severely narrowed the ability of persons fleeing for their lives from dangerous regimes to seek asylum. I sat through the hearings on this legislation and did not hear a single shred of evidence that proved that a single terrorist act could be prevented by limiting the ability of persons convicted in state court to obtain relief from unconstitutional convictions or by denying immigrants their due process rights." Please go to the website to read the rest... Fascinating article about how anti-terrorist laws may infringe upon civil liberties.
This will help you with your letter writing to legislators protesting the anti-terrorist bills on State and Federal levels. Stay alert, your life and liberty depends on it....
10-17 Newsletter
This article was submitted by Brenda and certainly contains point worth
Here is an interesting article written by Sherman Skolnick about all
the ramifications between the "Anthrax paranoia", the Bush family, Bin
Laden, BioPort. These people are taking us on a ride big
http://www.skolnicksreport.com/ootar3.html
THE OVERTHROW OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC, Part Three
THE ANTHRAX COMMISSARS Invoking War Power-like authority, the Younger Bush White House ordered the suppression of certain news under the disguise of plugging up leaks of so-called "military secrets". The details. For a number of years the State of Michigan, through Michigan State University, owned and operated the Michigan Biologic Products Institute. They had the exclusive contract with the Department of Defense to, among other things, develop and produce an anthrax vaccine. A strange and mysterious group, in 1998, bought out the state-owned Institute, calling themselves BIOPORT CORPORATION, and the Department of Defense became its only customer. "The takeover itself is considered suspicious by some. 'The company
acquired the Michigan Biologic Products Institute for the express purpose
of taking over and acquiring a lucrative military contract', said a bio-warfare
expert who asked not to be named and accused company officials of 'WAR
PROFITEERING'". (Emphasis added.)
"Why Anthrax Vaccine is Scarce" Kristen Philipkoski, WIREDNEWS, on-line 010/10/2001. The story went on to state "The FDA [Food and Drug Administration] repeatedly flunked BioPort in inspections in 1999 and 2000 because of contamination and suspicious changes made to expiration dates. The agency has barred the company from releasing any of the vaccine as a result." The story went on to assert that as to the company that an audit by the Pentagon's inspector general in April 2000 that BioPort had spent several million dollars inappropriately, and paid out unsubstantiated consulting costs. WIREDNEWS further stated, "The anthrax vaccine was the subject of controversy even before it was in such high demand. Approximately 400 soldiers faced reprimands rather than take the vaccine because of side effects that some said were severe." The Board of Directors of BioPort included Admiral William J. Crowe, Jr., former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former chairman of the President's FOREIGN INTELLIGENCE ADVISORY BOARD. Crowe is a member of the conspiratorial COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS, CFR, and chairman of the New World Order group, Senior Advisory Board for GLOBAL OPTIONS. That group included five other CFR members such as the former Director of Central Intelligence, R. James Woolsey. The administrations of Jimmy Carter, the Elder Bush, Bill Clinton, and the Younger Bush were and are absolutely riddled with CFR overlords. The stockholders of BioPort Corporation reportedly include the following ===The CARLYLE GROUP that includes former cabinet members of the Elder
Bush White House and other oil monopolists, such as James A. Baker 3rd,
once Secretary of State. Some contend that Baker in part handled the 40
million dollars of secret dope loot that was used to corrupt and influence
DEMOCRATS in Florida to stop the ballot recount even before the U.S. Supreme
Court "Gang of Five" got into the picture and installed George W. Bush
as the "occupant" and "resident" of the White House. The 40 million dollars
was reportedly dope trafficking funds from U.S./Colombia Medellin Dope
Cartel Co-Founder Carlos Lehder. According to outspoken drug enforcement
current and former officials, Lehder is the private business partner of
the Bush Family. Although extradited to the U.S., prosecuted and
Uncovering these details was Chandra Levy. (Visit our website story, "The Chandra Levy Affair", Part Two. Also see my various stories on the Year 2000 Presidential election.) The Carlos Lehder matter could put members of the Bush Family in long federal prison terms. The Carlyle Group, headquartered in the nation's capital, specializes in seizing control of shaky aerospace and defense contractors and then strong-arming, some say blackmailing, contracts out of the Department of Defense. An investor in the Carlyle Group has been George Herbert Walker Bush. The Elder Bush has been a paid consultant to the Bin Laden Group, helping them with his CIA links. Bush helped create Osama bin Laden as an American CIA bought and paid for alleged "terrorist", originally dubbed a "freedom fighter" to wear out the Soviets in their prolonged war, 1979-1989, in Afghanistan. The monopoly press falsely states that Osama is on the outs with his family, yet his family reportedly funnels tens of millions of dollars to Osama through banks such as Algemene Bank Nederland, now called ABN-AMRO, in part through their American flagship, Chicago-based La Salle National Bank.[We have identified La Salle as also having secret ccounts for bribing state and federal judges.] To evade having their own secrets coming out linked to Osama, the Younger Bush White House flatly refuses to freeze Osama's numerous accounts, wire-transfers, and such through ABN-AMRO. The Carlyle Group, in turn, is owned and supervised by a worldwide reputed money laundry for World Government, the BLACKSTONE GROUP. Another stockholder of BioPort Corp., is the Bin Laden Group, some 24 family members of which were whisked out of the U.S., on "safety" reasons by the secret political police, the FBI, following the September 11, 2001 events. Through the National Commerce Bank of Saudi, the Bin Laden Group reportedly also funnels large sums to Osama directly and as go-betweens of Saudi moneybags who are anti-American and support Osama bin Laden. BioPort Corporation Board Chairman and CEO and a sizeable stockholder, directly and as nominee for Saudi and other Mid-East interests, many reportedly supportive of Osama bin Laden, is FUAD EL-HIBRI. Under the disguise of invoking national emergency provisions, George
W. Bush has ordered National Guard sentries to guard the BioPort facility
in Lansing, Michigan. Bush has ordered, under pretext of "national security",
that employees and officials of BioPort are forbidden to discuss with reporters,
commentators, and researchers, the nature of the ownership of BioPort Corporation.
This was done to preclude details of this private corporation from being
publicly disclosed. This presidential edict was
As part of an apparent blackmail effort against the Younger Bush White House, the Washington Post began inquiring into some of the ownership and other details mentioned herein about BioPort. Targeted to shut up by George W. Bush, has been, in particular, Post official Bob Woodward. Having no background in journalism, his stories about Watergate and such were handed to him on a silver platter by the espionage community to depose Nixon, for treason, without resorting to political assassination. Woodward's espionage background is mentioned in the book "Silent Coup"---see my website story, "The Late Grand Dragon of the Washington Post". To unsuccessfully try to block the mass media from heckling him about Watergate, Nixon threatened to prosecute some of the major news outlets for Anti-Trust violations. Similarly, the Younger Bush White House, to deter the press whores from asking real questions about anthrax vaccine and BioPort, is also raising behind the scenes threats to prosecute the six major communications empires for monopoly violations. Being basically blackmailers, the monopoly press is really not ready
to scandalize the Bush Family on matters mentioned here and in related
stories. The British press, however, has expressed an interest into inquiring
into BioPort. After all, the Brits relish the idea of wrecking the war-mongering,
often criminal American presidency as a way to destroy the American Republic.
Since the War of 1812, theBrits have
One of the private details the Younger Bush White House is prepared to use to shut up Bob Woodward on the BioPort and the Anthrax Commissars matter is a subject most usually not to be made into a scandal subject. To some it is either a forbidden topic or laughable. Woodward's first wife, once a secretary to a long-time White House press correspondent, was reportedly divorcd from Woodward because Woodward had a vicious private disposition. Snickering commentators from grocery tabloid magazines might call such
a husband a "wife-beater". Whether or not Bob Woodward is privately brutal,he
is most certainly a fraudulent "reporter" easy for George W. Bush to pull
on Bob Woodward's chain.]
Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., reportedly participates in BioPort's affairs. Cynics wonder about the firm's convenient address, 3500 N. Martin Luther King, Jr., Blvd., Lansing, Michigan 48906; Phone [(517) 327-1500, FAX (517) 327-1501. In any case, accidental or not, convenient. An accomplished
reputed blackmailer and shake-down artist, the Reverend strong-armed hisway
apparently into the strange anthrax deal. Since private citizens
are forbidden by federal statute from negotiating U.S. FOREIGN POLICY,
someone in the White House perhaps reminded Jesse to stay out of the Afghanistan
matter where he tried to stick in his nose. Getting a piece of the action
is part of Jesse's expertise.
Poking into the Anthrax Commissars, such as Carlyle Group, the BlackstoneGroup, the Bush Family, Admiral Crowe and others, might open up many prior tragedies. Before the forming of BioPort, a supposed anthrax vaccine or substance was forced upon the U.S. Military (not the brass) in the Persian Gulf War. Some claim that such a purported "vaccine" did not have FDA approval when given and is, at least in part, responsible for the Gulf War Syndrome. In a full-scale battlefield war, the Military expects twenty per cent casualties. Some 15 thousand GI's died prematurely after the Gulf War ended, and some 85 thousand more are very sick, some terminally so, together with their wives, their childen, even their dogs and cats. Of the 500 thousand that served in that war, that means the U.S. has been afflicted with 100 thousand casualties, which the Defense Department covers up or denies, just as if the Gulf War had been a set-piece, typical war of yesteryear. At the time of this story, we common Americans are beset with statements
by the Washington dictators that an anthrax "terror" attack is coming.
Are the matters as simple as using uncontrollable fear to just promoting
the business of the Anthrax Commissars, including the Bush Family?
Friday, October 12, 2001 http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2001/10/12/107-print.html Global Eye -- Mind Games By Chris Floyd "Every nation has a choice to make. In this conflict, there is no neutral
ground." -- George W. Bush, Sunday, Oct. 7, 2001.
They say that great minds think alike -- and not-so-great ones do, too, apparently. Thus here we are: two spoiled rich boys made by their fathers' money and connections have now divided the world up between them, and are basically proposing to kill everyone who doesn't agree with them. Ah yes, welcome to the 21st century!
The Mirror Crack'd "Tweedleedum and Tweedledee/They're throwing knives into the tree/Living in the Land of Nod/Trusting their fate to the hands of God." -- Bob Dylan, from "Love and Theft," released Sept. 11. Both Bush and bin Laden spent sybarite youths, indulging idly and amply in the pleasures of the flesh -- on someone else's dime -- before embracing a fundamentalist religious faith that provides divine sanction for a narrow set of self-selected cultural norms while consigning all unbelievers to eternal damnation. Bush, for example, is on record as saying that all Jews are going to hell; a belief no doubt shared by his semblable, bin Laden. True, Bush later weasel-worded the issue, but his literalist faith, which he publicly affirms at every possible opportunity, is crystal-clear on this point. Now both of these zealous believers have shimmied up the greasy pole of power -- without the nuisance of actually being elected by popular vote -- from whence they can rain death on their enemies, secure in the knowledge that they are fulfilling the will of God. Or rather, the will of an Iron Age deity cobbled together out of the noblest aspirations, deepest fears and foulest hatreds of myriads of different tribes; a will derived from ancient grab-bags of diverse texts and fragments -- accretions of mangled history, confused traditions, inspired poetry, mystical ecstasy, mass murder, chaos and longing. Their own limited understanding of these makeshift compendiums is the ultimate authority by which the two unchosen ones send out men to kill and die. Plainly, this is madness. But this is the world we all must live in now. "There is no neutral ground." If we oppose or question the policies of the U.S. government, then we are supporting terrorism and "must pay the price." If we oppose the cold-blooded slaughter of innocent people by stateless renegades, then we are "infidels," marked for death. That "choice" is the limit of our freedom in this glorious new age:
trapped between two Tweedles.
Dark Valley But if we must choose, then of course we will go with Bush. After all, of the two, he is the greatest hypocrite, and therefore there's a little more room for maneuver under his dread edict. For he doesn't really mean it when he says he will attack and punish all those who "harbor and succor terrorism." He's certainly not going to bomb, say, Saudi Arabia, which has bankrolled the deadly Hamas terrorist network for years, and spent billions during the 1980s on Saddam Hussein's efforts to build a nuclear bomb -- an attempt at terror on a global scale, which the U.S. knew about and tacitly approved as part of its years-long succor of the bloodthirsty autocrat. And certainly, Bush is not going to bomb the U.S. government, which has provided major succor to state and private terrorism over the years, in Indonesia, Guatemala, Iraq, Iran, the Congo (remember George Senior's good buddy, Mobutu?), Angola, Chile, Lebanon, Cambodia (remember U.S. support for the genocidal Pol Pot when he was fighting the Vietnamese infidels?), El Salvador, Colombia, and that first bold step toward empire, the Philippines, where more than 200,000 natives died as U.S. forces set out to, in President McKinley's words, "Christianize" the country. The Filipinos were already Catholics, but McKinley obviously shared Bush's self-selected fundamentalist Protestant cultural norms. And Bush is surely not going to send cruise missiles into the George Bush Center for Intelligence, headquarters of the CIA, which trained, harbored, and succored the living daylights out of the same rabid Islamic extremists who've lately been practicing the agency's "covert ops" techniques to such deadly effect in New York and Washington. Nor will he direct the forces of "Operation Enduring Freedom" to overthrow the enduring despotisms of his good friends and allies in Saudi Arabia (whose draconian brand of Islam was the Taliban's model) or Pakistan (the military dictatorship that succored the Taliban and now harbors terrorists rampaging in Kashmir) or the Afghan Northern Alliance (that collection of warlords whose depredations, which include tying miscreants to two separate tanks and tearing them in half, are scarcely less heinous than those of the Taliban). No, George is true-blue for God, but he also has a soft spot for Mammon; and an even softer spot for Dick Cheney, who spent much of the last decade scheming with his fellow oil barons to get a pipeline from the virgin fields of the Caspian Sea -- where $4 trillion in profits are waiting for them -- through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. Cheney's business interests in oil and arms, temporarily divested while he helps direct American policy in energy and defense, rival those of the Bushes and bin Ladens. Or as the Chicago Tribune noted last year: "War is big business, and Dick Cheney is right in the middle of it." And now we're all "right in the middle of it." But the all-too-human
greed of Pious George and Deadeye Dick will no doubt trump the apocalyptic
implications of Bush's political theology -- a welcome hypocrisy in the
face of bin Laden's homicidal sincerity. The hypocrites will triumph, as
they usually do, thank God, and their depredations will be lighter, more
bearable (unless you happen to live in Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Congo, etc.).
But the price will be high: a "free world" less free, less tolerant, more
brutalized; a world passed into the shadows.
The Mirror Crack'd
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1018-10.htm Headlines Published on Thursday, October 18, 2001 on Workingfor Change.com Oil Omissions
by Laura Flanders
The New York Times ran an interesting article Sunday, as interesting
for what it did not say as for what it did. Headlined, "Fears, Again, of
Oil Supplies at Risk," the piece by Neela Banerjee addressed the nightmares
that George W's war has raised among those concerned about oil. Politicians
and oil executives imagine, says Banerjee, a potential domino effect that
could end up with angry Persian Gulf states cutting off the flow of oil
to the west, terrorism blocking its transport through the Strait of Hormuz
and even Osama bin Laden taking control of Saudi Arabia from a toppled
Saud family. "If bin Laden takes over and becomes king of Saudi Arabia,
he'd turn off the tap," Roger Diwan, a managing director of the Petroleum
Finance Company, a consulting firm in Washington, told Banerjee. "He said
at one point that he wants oil to be $144 a barrel - about six times what
it sells for now." And Saudi Arabia, the Times reminds us, is Osama bin
Laden's Enemy No. 1: "Mr. bin Laden has long made clear that his ultimate
goal, more than wreaking havoc in the West, is toppling the Saud family.
And Saudi Arabia would be a crucial target for anyone seeking to cut deeply
into the world oil flow." Banerjee restates other points that need emphasizing,
such as the fact that while U.S.-dependence on Gulf oil is down to 13 percent
of overall use, Saudi Arabia is still the country's biggest single supplier
of crude. Moreover, "The Saudis are the only ones with enough spare oil-field
capacity to call on if there is a severe disruption elsewhere," he writes.
There are some major omissions, however, in Banerjee's piece. The first
of these is that in an article focusing on Saudi Arabia, oil and the United
States, there is no acknowledgement of the Bush family's ties to the corrupt
Kingdom of Saud, and its explicit investment in maintaining the status
quo in that fundamentalist country. Most obviously, ex-President and ex-CIA
Director George Bush has been working his assets for the Washington-based
Carlyle Group, a $12 billion private equity firm, since he left office.
He specializes in Saudi Arabia and certainly has in interest in the Kingdom's
enduring profitability. The public-interest law firm Judicial Watch earlier
this year strongly criticized this situation, pointing out in a March 5
statement that it is a "conflict of interest [which] could cause problems
for America's foreign policy in the Middle East and Asia." In a Sept. 29
statement, Judicial Watch added that, "This conflict of interest has now
turned into a scandal. The idea of the president's father, an ex-president
himself, doing business with a company under investigation by the FBI in
the terror attacks of September 11 is horrible." They demanded President
Bush make his father pull out of the Carlyle Group. Additionally, an article
about oil supplies that doesn't mention the Caspian Sea is quite something
to see. Banerjee entirely ignores the story that is burning up progressive
talk radio waves this month, and buzzing around thoughtful alternative
Web sites. Hidden behind President Bush's war to avenge the victims of
September 11, could there be an Oil Agenda? Michael Klare, author of "Resource
Wars," has suggested that the long-term Bush/Cheney plan is to establish
a Pax Americana in Central Asia and secure the vast oil resources of the
Caspian Basin. U.S. oil companies have been negotiating with the post-Soviet
republics of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan for access to the oil for years,
but have been stymied by political instability in the region. Oil conglomerates
were torn between two possible pipeline routes to Western markets: west
through the war-torn Caucasus Mountains to Turkey, or south through war-torn
Afghanistan to Pakistan and the Arabian Sea. Until it was put on hold in
1998, Unocal, which spearheaded the Afghan project was to have built a
1,005-mile oil pipeline and a companion 918-mile natural gas pipeline,
in addition to a tanker loading terminal in Pakistan's Arabian Sea port
of Gwadan. The company projected annual revenues of $2 billion, or enough
to recover the cost of the project in five years. As reported by journalist
Jan Goodwin, Unocal opened offices in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan
and Turkmenistan and got every faction of the Afghan Northern Alliance
to sign on. Even former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger got on board
to help sell the project in the region. [See: New York Times, 12/5/98]
Backing the Caspian plan is none other than Vice President Dick Cheney,
who, as CEO of Halliburton was successful in winning contracts from Caspian
Sea states to be part of any future development. In 1994, Cheney helped
to broker a deal between the oil company Chevron and the state of Kazakhstan
when he sat on the Oil Advisory Board of that former soviet state. The
Amarillo Globe-News reported on a 1998 talk to oil executives in which
Cheney said that "the current hot spots for major oil companies are the
oil reserves in the Caspian Sea region. Former Soviet states Azerbaijan,
Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan all are seeking to quickly develop their oil
reserves, which languished during the years of Russian domination." The
stakes in that region could be as much as 200 billion barrels of oil and
natural gas, he told the crowd. "The potential for this region turning
as volatile as the Persian Gulf, though, does not concern Cheney," the
article continued. "You've got to go where the oil is," he said. "I don't
worry about it a lot." In a story about oil fears and worries, the New
York Times failed to ask the obvious question: Is Cheney worried now? And
if not, why not? Laura Flanders is a journalist and broadcaster, host of
the Laura Flanders Show (formerly on KWAB/RadioForChange) and author of
"Real Majority, Media Minority: The Cost of Sidelining Women in Reporting."
Her Spin Doctor Laura columns appear daily on WorkingForChange. You can
contact her at [email protected]
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