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Octafish

(55,745 posts)
Tue Aug 4, 2015, 10:15 PM Aug 2015

Funny how that works.



KA-CHING: The Company Getting Rich Off the ISIS War

For the Middle East, the growth of the self-proclaimed Islamic State has been a catastrophe.
For one American firm, it’s been a gold mine.


by Kate Brannen
08.02.15

The war against ISIS isn’t going so great, with the self-appointed terror group standing up to a year of U.S. airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.

But that hasn’t kept defense contractors from doing rather well amidst the fighting. Lockheed Martin has received orders for thousands of more Hellfire missiles. AM General is busy supplying Iraq with 160 American-built Humvee vehicles, while General Dynamics is selling the country millions of dollars worth of tank ammunition.

SOS International, a family-owned business whose corporate headquarters are in New York City, is one of the biggest players on the ground in Iraq, employing the most Americans in the country after the U.S. Embassy. On the company’s board of advisors: former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz—considered to be one of the architects of the invasion of Iraq—and Paul Butler, a former special assistant to Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld.

The company, which goes by “SOSi,” says on its website that the contracts it’s been awarded for work in Iraq in 2015 have a total value of more than $400 million. They include a $40 million contract to provide everything from meals to perimeter security to emergency fire and medical services at Iraq’s Besmaya Compound, one of the sites where U.S. troops are training Iraqi soldiers. The Army awarded SOSi a separate $100 million contract in late June for similar services at Camp Taji. The Pentagon expects that contract to last through June 2018.

A year after U.S. airstrikes began targeting the so-called Islamic State in Iraq, there are 3,500 U.S. troops deployed there, training and advising Iraqi troops. But a number that is not discussed is the growing number of contractors required to support these operations. According to the U.S. military, there are 6,300 contractors working in Iraq today, supporting U.S. operations. Separately, the State Department is seeking janitorial services, drivers, linguists, and security contractors to work at its Iraqi facilities.

While these numbers pale in comparison to the more than 163,000 working in Iraq at the peak of the Iraq War, they are steadily growing. And with the fight against ISIS expected to take several years, it also represents a growing opportunity for defense, security, and logistics contractors, especially as work in Afghanistan begins to dry up.

“It allows us to maintain the façade of no boots on the ground while at the same time growing our footprint,” said Laura Dickinson, a law professor at George Washington University whose recent work has focused on regulating private military contractors.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/02/the-company-getting-rich-off-of-the-isis-war.html

Has Corporate Owned News broadcast this story: REGULATING Defense Contractors?

As one who's been interested in this guy's comblicking companions in and out of government, including the cough Pentagon and cough cough cough CIA Wall Street Swiss banks cough Wendy Gramm of a combover War Party cough cough cough AKA BFEE, I hope they do. The traitors and warmongers who lied America into war may yet be held to account and face Justice.
98 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Funny how that works. (Original Post) Octafish Aug 2015 OP
. annabanana Aug 2015 #1
Along with Dylan, Leslie West and Ozzy did that one, too. Octafish Aug 2015 #3
An odd bit of musical trivia: deutsey Aug 2015 #26
Father? Yes, son? Octafish Aug 2015 #54
Actually, no. Dr Hobbitstein Aug 2015 #57
What Adm. Morrison said. Octafish Aug 2015 #59
'Tis what he said Dr Hobbitstein Aug 2015 #64
Jim Morrison's dad breaks silence about estranged son Octafish Aug 2015 #65
The link I provided also has the quote. Dr Hobbitstein Aug 2015 #66
LOL. So now you say Adm. Morrison didn't hate on his son? Octafish Aug 2015 #69
Dearest 'fish, my upstanding compatriot. Dr Hobbitstein Aug 2015 #72
Cool story. I like it. DisgustipatedinCA Aug 2015 #71
Mountain's "Flowers of Evil" hifiguy Aug 2015 #63
Righteous band that was. Octafish Aug 2015 #70
Amen to that. dixiegrrrrl Aug 2015 #9
And we thought it would end with Obama. zeemike Aug 2015 #18
Ignore what? My friends are home from Bush's wars. tabasco Aug 2015 #51
Modern American blood baths don't need boots on the ground truedelphi Aug 2015 #58
I would hazard a guess that zeemike meant the dealers rather than the fighters erronis Aug 2015 #67
Exactly. Octafish Aug 2015 #81
It's the only jobs program we have... haikugal Aug 2015 #53
How far would some people go to become billionaires? Now, assume those people are GoneFishin Aug 2015 #2
That is a good question. Octafish Aug 2015 #5
RICO violations couldn't be any more glaring Doctor_J Aug 2015 #4
I like how the wall-to-wall domestic NSA spying has helped round them up. Octafish Aug 2015 #7
Kick! Juicy_Bellows Aug 2015 #6
Funny how things don't change...DU from 2002... Octafish Aug 2015 #10
It's a damn dirty history. Juicy_Bellows Aug 2015 #15
What a fascinating article, Octafish. hedda_foil Aug 2015 #23
Wish I'd written it, my Friend! Octafish Aug 2015 #34
Thanks. bvar22 Aug 2015 #45
Profiteering scum. Dark n Stormy Knight Aug 2015 #8
Rupert Murdoch's employee Roger Ailes and the turds outta Corporate McPravda. Octafish Aug 2015 #14
Thanks for the great links. Will need to bookmark and read most later. Dark n Stormy Knight Aug 2015 #21
I just finished the truthout piece above. WOW! Talk about a "must read." hedda_foil Aug 2015 #42
Television, the drug of the Nation OnyxCollie Aug 2015 #47
I LOVE that record. Octafish Aug 2015 #49
As I lay awake at night, OnyxCollie Aug 2015 #74
Most excellent links Octafish..thanks! haikugal Aug 2015 #55
News Corp, a rogues gallery. OnyxCollie Aug 2015 #76
K&R. nt OnyxCollie Aug 2015 #11
Carlyle Group pioneered the way forward. Others, like Trireme Partnerships followed... Octafish Aug 2015 #40
Hot & bothered, and itchin' for a new war. OnyxCollie Aug 2015 #44
Dan Quayle? The Potatoe? Octafish Aug 2015 #52
to read later Thanks for posting this. snagglepuss Aug 2015 #12
A warmonger's take on democracy Octafish Aug 2015 #61
Now now. Don't go getting sanctimonious. Scootaloo Aug 2015 #13
Who remembers John Kokal? Octafish Aug 2015 #77
K&R..... daleanime Aug 2015 #16
Who remembers Col. Westhusing? Octafish Aug 2015 #78
These are the folks who should be experiencing 2naSalit Aug 2015 #17
Yep, conspiracy theory is a powerful trump card zeemike Aug 2015 #19
It is too! 2naSalit Aug 2015 #20
The real victim is the truth. zeemike Aug 2015 #22
And so goes the 2naSalit Aug 2015 #29
Well Rome was considered civilized too. zeemike Aug 2015 #31
So true! nt 2naSalit Aug 2015 #32
Michael Parenti studied how the Republic descended into Empire... Octafish Aug 2015 #35
Fascinating lecture, thanks. zeemike Aug 2015 #41
Thanks for posting 2naSalit Aug 2015 #82
If conspiracies didn't exist, there wouldn't be laws against them. OnyxCollie Aug 2015 #48
War Pigs shadowmayor Aug 2015 #24
You have summed up the situation, shadowmayor. These are the par'lous times. Octafish Aug 2015 #68
Helter Skelter shadowmayor Aug 2015 #73
K&R Bookmarked. Scuba Aug 2015 #25
BFEE Line of Warmongers & Imperialists in service of War Inc. Octafish Aug 2015 #75
Morning Kick! (eom) CanSocDem Aug 2015 #27
Who remembers Paul Sanford? Octafish Aug 2015 #79
R & K! /nt RiverLover Aug 2015 #28
Who remembers Mark Lombardi? Octafish Aug 2015 #80
But but but...the BFEE...tee hee giggles! Rex Aug 2015 #30
It's to show them for what they are: supporters of warmongers, war criminals and traitors. Octafish Aug 2015 #36
True and they have done that, supporters of warmongers etc.. Rex Aug 2015 #39
k and r nashville_brook Aug 2015 #33
The Jeb Bush Adviser Who Should Scare You Octafish Aug 2015 #87
The pig in the photo looks so happy fadedrose Aug 2015 #37
2003 George W. Bush interview about 9/11: "...we got a laugh out of it." Octafish Aug 2015 #38
Three months after 911, the Dubya said: Oilwellian Aug 2015 #46
It all went swimmingly well! Juicy_Bellows Aug 2015 #50
K & R !!! WillyT Aug 2015 #43
Jeb Bush and His Brother’s Wars Octafish Aug 2015 #84
Kick and Rec! haikugal Aug 2015 #56
Bush Family War Profiteering Octafish Aug 2015 #85
This thread rocks Octafish...BOOKMARKED!!!!!! haikugal Aug 2015 #86
Kicked and recommended Uncle Joe Aug 2015 #60
Why the Mainstream Media Is Gung-Ho on War and Silencing Antiwar Voices Octafish Aug 2015 #88
Kicked and recommended! Enthusiast Aug 2015 #62
People who say: ''Bush lied America into war'' are like NAZIs, BFEE Judge Silberman said. Octafish Aug 2015 #89
Plus one to the absolute fucking Max! Enthusiast Aug 2015 #90
K&R blackspade Aug 2015 #83
Warmongering Today Octafish Aug 2015 #91
They got the police state to keep themselves in power too. nilesobek Aug 2015 #92
Police State of the Art Octafish Aug 2015 #93
Thanks for your reply. I've read where you mentioned Frank Church. nilesobek Aug 2015 #94
dupe NT Octafish Aug 2015 #95
Frank Church warned us. Octafish Aug 2015 #96
I was born in '63, the year of the coup. nilesobek Aug 2015 #98
Rummy & Cheney are conspirators from WAYYY back, to the Ford Administration IIRC... One was Ghost in the Machine Aug 2015 #97

annabanana

(52,791 posts)
1. .
Tue Aug 4, 2015, 10:21 PM
Aug 2015
Come, you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
While the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatenin' my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes it toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death will come soon
I'll follow your casket
On a pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your death bed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead


Octafish

(55,745 posts)
3. Along with Dylan, Leslie West and Ozzy did that one, too.
Tue Aug 4, 2015, 10:25 PM
Aug 2015

And it also is masterpiece.



This stuff has been going on since President Kennedy was killed. And if Jebthro gets to be pretzeldent BushIII, there'll be so many more wars to die in and hell to pay and money to be made and power to be gained.

Because when money is speech and money is politics and money trumps peace: money is pure power.

deutsey

(20,166 posts)
26. An odd bit of musical trivia:
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 07:42 AM
Aug 2015

51 years ago this month, Jim Morrison's father was part of the Gulf of Tonkin incident that escalated the Vietnam War.

In 1963, Morrison took command of the Essex-class aircraft carrier Bon Homme Richard (CVA-31), flagship of a 3rd Fleet Carrier Division in the Pacific, and based at Naval Air Station Alameda, California. Morrison was in command of the Carrier Division during the controversial Gulf of Tonkin Incident in August 1964, which resulted in a dramatic escalation of the Vietnam War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Stephen_Morrison

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
54. Father? Yes, son?
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 06:01 PM
Aug 2015

Some of the most compelling antiwar art ever created. Unforgettable.

I understand that Adm. Morrison and his family stood by their son and his art -- and political philosophy of peace and prosperity for all. They are people who believe in Democracy. Perhaps the senior Morrison came to see that he had been used by those who wanted war in Vietnam.


 

Dr Hobbitstein

(6,568 posts)
57. Actually, no.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 06:57 PM
Aug 2015

Morrison's father was NOT supportive of Jim's career at all, and he wrote this to Jim after hearing the first Doors record:

"...give up any idea of singing or any connection with a music group because of what I consider to be a complete lack of talent in this direction."

Jim told everyone his parents were dead.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
59. What Adm. Morrison said.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 07:50 PM
Aug 2015
George Morrison said it was "quite an honor ... for the family" to have his son buried near cultural giants like Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf and Frederic Chopin.


That's different from what you said he said, Dr Hobbitstein.
 

Dr Hobbitstein

(6,568 posts)
64. 'Tis what he said
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 09:01 PM
Aug 2015

my fishy friend. I wish I had a proper source (as it's in the book "Break On Through: The Life & Death Of Jim Morrison" by Jerry Prochnicky and James Riordan, which is on my shelf, not in digital format) to share, but there's this:
http://rockhall.com/blog/post/7034_today-in-rock-jim-morrison-birth-date/

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
65. Jim Morrison's dad breaks silence about estranged son
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 09:16 PM
Aug 2015

Reuters, November 9, 2006

EXCERPT...

"We look back on him with great delight ... The fact that he's dead is unfortunate but looking back on his life it's a very pleasant thought," George Morrison says in the book.

SNIP...

The Morrisons surmise that Jim's hostility was really designed to shield them from too much attention.

"I had the feeling that he felt we'd just as soon not be associated with his career," George Morrison says. "He knew I didn't think rock music was the best goal for him. Maybe he was trying to protect us."

SNIP...

George Morrison said it was "quite an honor ... for the family" to have his son buried near cultural giants like Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf and Frederic Chopin.

SOURCE: http://www.chron.com/entertainment/article/Jim-Morrison-s-dad-breaks-silence-about-estranged-1489213.php

Again, that's different from what you now "remember."

BTW: I am not your friend, Dr Hobbitstein. My friends want to see traitors, warmongers and banksters put in prison.

 

Dr Hobbitstein

(6,568 posts)
66. The link I provided also has the quote.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 09:22 PM
Aug 2015

It's not something "I remember", it's something that I read and posted today. The book has an actual copy of the letter, handwritten by his father, but that is not available online. What I gave you was the relevant quote, and the link to back it up. Written in 1967, when Jim Morrison was very much alive, not 2006... Old chum.

 

Dr Hobbitstein

(6,568 posts)
72. Dearest 'fish, my upstanding compatriot.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 09:41 PM
Aug 2015

I'm not sure what you're saying here. Here is the exact text that I was talking about, and a linked source. It's, of course, not the photo of the letter in the book I have, but it is a quote about said letter.

"On October 21, 1970, Morrison’s father replied, stating that he had not seen his son in five years and that he had written Morrison a letter “severely criticizing his behavior and strongly advising him to give up any idea of singing or any connection with a musical group because of what I considered to be a complete lack of talent in this direction.” - See more at: http://rockhall.com/blog/post/7034_today-in-rock-jim-morrison-birth-date/#sthash.kJhsMxUb.dpuf


Jim was estranged from his parents after high school. His Elektra Records biography stated his parents were deceased, as Jim did not speak with them. Why are you turning this into an argument? Do you have to double down on every fucking thing?

Your brother in arms,
Dr Hobbistein

 

hifiguy

(33,688 posts)
63. Mountain's "Flowers of Evil"
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 08:36 PM
Aug 2015

was a biting meditation on what war does to soldiers. Great tune, too.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
70. Righteous band that was.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 09:40 PM
Aug 2015

That particular song was most troubling. About the heroin...

Prof. Alfred W. McCoy kicked CIA in the nuts with his book on the Company's role in the international drug trade.





Drug Fallout

by Alfred McCoy
Progressive magazine, August 1997

Throughout the forty years of the Cold War, the CIA joined with urban gangsters and rural warlords, many of them major drug dealers, to mount covert operations against communists around the globe. In one of history's accidents, the Iron Curtain fell along the border of the Asian opium zone, which stretches across 5,000 miles of mountains from Turkey to Thailand. In Burma during the 1950s, in Laos during the 1970s, and in Afghanistan during the 1980s, the CIA allied with highland warlords to mobilize tribal armies against the Soviet Union and China.

In each of these covert wars, Agency assets-local informants-used their alliance with the CIA to become major drug lords, expanding local opium production and shipping heroin to international markets, the United States included. Instead of stopping this drug dealing, the Agency tolerated it and, when necessary, blocked investigations. Since ruthless drug lords made effective anti-communist allies and opium amplified their power, CIA agents mounting delicate operations on their own, half a world from home, had no reason to complain. For the drug lords, it was an ideal arrangement. The CIA's major covert operations-often lasting a decade-provided them with de facto immunity within enforcement-free zones.

In Laos in the 1960s, the CIA battled local communists with a secret army of 30,000 Hmong-a tough highland tribe whose only cash crop was opium. A handful of CIA agents relied on tribal leaders to provide troops and Lao generals to protect their cover. When Hmong officers loaded opium on the ClA's proprietary carrier Air America, the Agency did nothing. And when the Lao army's commander, General Ouane Rattikone, opened what was probably the world's largest heroin laboratory, the Agency again failed to act.

"The past involvement of many of these officers in drugs is well known," the ClA's Inspector General said in a still-classified 1972 report, "yet their goodwill . . . considerably facilitates the military activities of Agency-supported irregulars."

Indeed, the CIA had a detailed know ledge of drug trafficking in the Golden Triangle-that remote, rugged corner of Southeast Asia where Burma, Thailand, and Laos converge. In June 1971, The New York Times published extracts from an other CIA report identifying twenty-one opium refineries in the Golden Triangle and stating that the "most important are located in the areas around Tachilek, Burma; Ban Houei Sai and Nam Keung in Laos; and Mae Salong in Thailand." Three of these areas were controlled by CIA allies: Nam Keung by the chief of CIA mercenaries for northwestern Laos; Ban Houei Sai by the commander of the Royal Lao Army; and Mae Salong by the Nationalist Chinese forces who had fought for the Agency in Burma. The CIA stated that the Ban Houei Sai laboratory, which was owned by General Ouane, was ' believed capable of processing 100 kilos of raw opium per day," or 3.6 tons of heroin a year-a vast output considering the total yearly U.S. consumption of heroin was then less than ten tons.

By 1971, 34 percent of all U.S. soldiers in South Vietnam were heroin addicts, according to a White House survey. There were more American heroin addicts in South Vietnam than in the entire United States-largely supplied from heroin laboratories operated by CIA allies, though the White House failed to acknowledge that unpleasant fact. Since there was no indigenous local market, Asian drug lords started shipping Golden Triangle heroin not consumed by the GIs to the United States, where it soon won a significant share of the illicit market.

CONTINUED...

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/CIAdrug_fallout.html



Odd how know the CIA, NSA and the rest of the secret government are gaining power to protect their secrets while simultaneously authorized to spy on American citizens, the famous We the People who are supposed to be their bosses.

"Don't look around..."

dixiegrrrrl

(60,010 posts)
9. Amen to that.
Tue Aug 4, 2015, 10:45 PM
Aug 2015

Some of us thought we had ended the wars, back in the hard fought days of the 70's...

Sigh.

zeemike

(18,998 posts)
18. And we thought it would end with Obama.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 12:02 AM
Aug 2015

But it did not end. it just kept going on just as if Bush was still president.
But we had to ignore it because he was a Democrat.

And the war criminals were not punished but rewarded with lucrative military contracts.
When will we ever wake up?

truedelphi

(32,324 posts)
58. Modern American blood baths don't need boots on the ground
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 07:12 PM
Aug 2015

Drones flying overhead work out just fine and dandy for the military industrial surveillance complex.

but that does not mean that the swords have been converted into plowshares, or tht the wars are ending.

They are just changing in the way they are handled.

erronis

(14,955 posts)
67. I would hazard a guess that zeemike meant the dealers rather than the fighters
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 09:28 PM
Aug 2015

I'm glad your friends (and mine) are back from the contrived wars that involved real deaths.

The criminals that caused these wars and thousands of deaths and injuries on all sides are still enjoying their preferred fox interviews, their lives of wealth, their insulation from unpleasant discussions about their terrible legacy.

CIA -> CACI -> Blackwater -> Xi -> whatever. Same perps making bucks off the taxpayers and destroying this country and others.

GoneFishin

(5,217 posts)
2. How far would some people go to become billionaires? Now, assume those people are
Tue Aug 4, 2015, 10:23 PM
Aug 2015

responsible for the deaths of thousands of American soldiers fighting a war based on deliberate lies. Now answer the question : How far would those people go to become billionaires?

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
5. That is a good question.
Tue Aug 4, 2015, 10:31 PM
Aug 2015

Some people would kill for a drink of water. US service men, POWs who survived the Bataan Death March, boiling alive in ships' holds shoulder to shoulder had to fight for a mere cup of water aboard prison ships heading for Japan. They were mad.

The people like Wolfowitz, though, know what they are doing. They continue a long tradition of dealing in death.

 

Doctor_J

(36,392 posts)
4. RICO violations couldn't be any more glaring
Tue Aug 4, 2015, 10:28 PM
Aug 2015

Now that all of the pot smokers are in prison, you'd think the justice department would look into this

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
7. I like how the wall-to-wall domestic NSA spying has helped round them up.
Tue Aug 4, 2015, 10:35 PM
Aug 2015

As for us regular folk who wear tennis shoes and the ocassional python boot might attest, they are making a killing off their connections in and out of government. A few brave people have noticed, but for some $trange rea$on, the news media won't report this. I'd ask National Geographic, but Rupert Murdoch controls that too.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
10. Funny how things don't change...DU from 2002...
Tue Aug 4, 2015, 10:49 PM
Aug 2015

But first a little I am not a crook and friend in December 1970.



Making a Killing

By Christian Dewar
Democratic Underground, April 5, 2002

Many Americans are probably not aware of the great extent to which U.S. corporations collaborated with the Nazi war machine during WWII. After the first world war, many wealthy American industrialists, bankers and financiers invested in Germany, in part, to avoid onerous U.S. regulations and also to reap the tremendous profits from the rebuilding of the nation.

Worried that there might be another war that would cause them to lose their investments, the directors of many of these companies plotted to protect their interests. Law firms like Sullivan and Cromwell specialized in helping to arrange these deals. When the second world war broke out, the Dulles brothers, Allen (who was a partner in that firm) and John, helped these companies hide their assets. As a result, many Nazi industrialist and their American collaborators maintained their wealth after the hostilites ceased.

Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg once stated that "The Dulles brothers were traitors." Some historians believe that Allen Dulles became head of the newly formed CIA in large part to cover up his treasonous behavior and that of his clients. Not confined to a few isolated companies, some of America's most prominent families and their financial empires worked with the Nazis well after the first bombs were dropped on Pearl Harbor.

On March 4th, 1998, a woman from Belgium brought a suit against the Ford Motor Company and it's German affiliate seeking compensation for the work she performed as a slave laborer for the company. Born in Russian, Elsa Iwanovwa claimed that she was abducted and forced to work at Ford's plant at Cologne. As many as 10,000 men, women and children may have labored there, many of them from the Buchenwald concentration camp.

The Ford plant in Germany played a major role in the Nazi war effort. While their American factories produced weapons for the allies, their German subsidiary manufactured troop transports, tracked vehicles, Panzer tanks, anti-tank guns and other crucial equipment for the Nazis. Providing weapons for both contestants in a world war was extraordinarily lucrative.

It is alleged that high ranking American officials including Edsel Ford oversaw the German plant's operations even during the war. Unlike most American businesses doing business in Germany during the war, Ford enjoyed significant independence and was never seized by the Nazi government.

The reason for this was in large part due to the close friendship that endured between Henry Ford and Adolf Hitler. Ford was known for his virulent anti-semitic views and he made substantial financial contributions to Hitler and the Nazi organization in its early years which may have sustained the party at a point where it might have otherwise collapsed.

Hitler's book, Mein Kampf borrowed heavily from Ford's anti-semitic book, The International Jew, a Worldwide Problem which was published in 1927. Hitler awarded Ford with Germany's highest civilian honor, the Great Cross of the German Order of the Eagle. Hitler's office had a large picture of Ford on the wall and stacks of Ford's books to give away to associates. Jim Mooney, GM's chief executive for overseas operations, was also awarded the Order of the German Eagle.

Ford was only one of many American corporations that eagerly helped the Germans. Some did so for ideological reasons and others for the immense profits which could be realized.

General Motors which was owned by the du Pont family during the 1930's manufactured thousands of bombers for the Luftwaffe and troop transports for the Wermacht at the same time that it's American plants were producing engines for the U.S. Air Force. Their German plant built propulsion systems for Germany's deadliest bomber, the Junker 88 and motors for their new, innovative jet fighters. They also repaired Geman trucks and converted them for alternative fuels at their facilites in Switzerland.

According to Charles Higham who wrote about the collaboration of American corporations with the Nazis in his book, Trading with the Enemy, GM may have even plotted with the Nazis against Roosevelt. Higham claims that high ranking officials in the company met with Baron Manfred von Killinger, head of a Nazi espionage rink and with Gestapo leader Baron von Tippleskirsh to sign an agreement "showing total commitment to the Nazi cause for the indefinite future" and that "in view of Roosevelt's attitude toward Germany, every effort must be made to remove him by defeat at the next election. Jewish influence in the political, cultural and public life in America must be stamped out. Press and radio must be subsidized to smear the administration" and an American fascist put in the White House.

Higham states that "Along with friends of the Morgan Bank and General Motors...certain du Pont backers financed a coup d'etat that would overthrow the president with the aid of a $3 million funded army of terrorists." The weapons were to be provided by Remington arms, a du Pont subsidiary.

Higham writes that Irenee du Pont was obsessed with Hitler and once made a speech to the American Chemical Society in 1926 "advocating a race of supermen to be achieved by injecting special drugs into them in boyhood to make their characters to order. He insisted his men reach physical standards equivalent to that of a marine and have blood as pure as that in the veins of the Vikings." The du Ponts financed anti-semitic, facist groups in the U.S. and along with some of America's most prominent families, promoted sterilization programs to assist in the effort to promote the white race over those deemed to be defective.

Higham also states that the du Ponts used their tremendous wealth "to finance the notorious Black Legions. This terrorist organization had as it's purpose the prevention of automobile workers from unionizing. The members wore hoods and black ropes, with skull and crossbones. They fire-bombed union meetings, murdered union organizers, often by beating them to death, and dedicated their lives to destroying Jews and communists. They were linked to the Ku Klux Klan."

The du Ponts formed an armed gang of men "modeled on the Gestapo to sweep though the plants and beat up anyone who proved rebellious. They hired the Pinkerton Agency to send its swarms of detectives through the whole chemicals, munitions and automobile empire to spy on left-wingers or other malcontents." The du Ponts also formed and financed the American Liberty League, "a Nazi organization whipping up hatred of blacks and Jews, love of Hitler, and loathing of Roosevelts." This group had chapters at 26 colleges and subsidiaries nationwide.

Standard Oil has also been implicated in providing crucial support for the Nazi war machine. The helped the Germans develop plants and gave them the necessary technology for the manufacture of synthetic fuels and leaded gas. Standard also assisited the Germans in stockpiling $20 million worth or petrolium products in anticipation of the war. This deal was concluded with the assistance of the Wall Street investment firm Brown Brothers Harriman where the senior managing partner was George H.W. Bush's father, Prescott Bush.

It also is alleged that Standard made a deal with the Germans to thwart the development of synthetic rubber in the United States and to withhold a method of producing synthetic ammonia. The U.S. government eventually seized some of Standard's patents. When the oil giant sued to retain the them, their case was denied. A judge who reviewed the appeal stated that "Standard Oil can be considered an enemy national in view of it's relationships with I.G. Farben after the United States and Germany became active enemies."

When threatened with sanctions, Standard essentially blackmailed the U.S. government, threatening to cut off supplies to the American military. Standard executives received a token fine of a few thousand dollars divided among several defendants. Roosevelt is said to have been reluctant to prosecute the heads of the company for fear of sparking another depression.

ITT also collaborated with the Nazis extensively. They owned significant shares of stock in several companies producing weapons for the Nazi including Focke-Wolfe which built fighter planes and bombers. Their subsidiaries, according to Higham, produced vital supplies such as "switchboards, telephones, alarm gongs, buoys, air raid warning devices, radar equipment and 30,000 fuses per month for artillery shells used to kill British and American troops" as well as "ingredients for the rocket bombs that fell on London."

The Curtis-Wright Aviation Corporation was another U.S. company doing business with the Nazis. Their planes were well suited for dive bombing. Although the Nazi pilots used this technique as an integral part of their blitzkrieg strategy of warfare, it was developed by the US. It was so effective that air plane manufacturers were forbidden to teach this to foreigners. Curtis-Wright managed to manuever around this inconvenient policy by not 'teaching' it, but rather demonstrating it at air shows in order to boost sales to Hitler.

Adding insult to injury, several of these American corporations who had collaborated had the audacity to sue the American government for damage that had been inflicted on their German plants by Allied bombers. GM managed to extract $33 million for the destruction of their Folke-Wulf plant. ITT received $27 million and Ford, a mere $1 million.

American banks have also been implicated in assistance to Nazi Germany including J.P. Morgan, Guaranty Trust of New York, Bank of the City of New York, Chase National Bank and American Express which turned over Jewish accounts to the Nazis. Higham reports that "the Nazi government through Chase National Bank offered Nazi in America the opportunity to buy German marks with dollars at a discount. The arrangement was open to those who wished to return to Germany and would use the marks in the interest of the Nazis."

The Chase Bank of Paris was involved in substantial financing of the Nazi embassy's activities throughout the war with the full knowledge of Chase's American headquarters. The Vichy branch of Chase "were strenuous in enforcing restrictions against Jewish property even going so far as to refuse to release funds belonging to Jews because they anticipated a Nazi decree with retroactive provisions prohibiting such a release."

Other Nazi collaborators include William Hearst, the media giant. After meeting with top Nazi officials and the payment of substantial sums of money, Hearst agreed to a policy whereby his newspaper would only report favorably on Nazi affairs.

Many Americans today might be surprised to discover that President Bush's family fortune was in large part compiled as a result of collaborating with the Nazis after the WWII had commenced. Author John Loftus has written about this recently and it is also covered extensively in the online book, The Elkhorn Manifesto.

According to the online book, George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, written by Webster G. Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin, accessible only on the internet, George Bush senior's family "played a central role in financing and arming Adolf Hitler for his takeover of Germany; in financing and managing the buildup of Nazi war industries for the conquest of Europe and war against the U.S.A.; and in the developent of Nazi genocidal theories and racial propaganda".

The authors claim that "The president's family fortune was largely a result of the Hitler project" and that Bush's banking activities were "not just politically neutral money-making ventures which happened to coincide with the aims of of German Nazi" but rather that all of the firm's European business during that time "was organized around anti-democratic political forces." The book states that "Certain actions taken directly by the Harriman-Bush shipping line in 1932 must be ranked among the gravest acts of treason in this century."

One of the most influential players in financing Hitler's war industries was Brown Brothers Harriman. Prescott Bush, the current president's grandfather, was the managing director. Bush was also director of the Union Banking Corporation. The stock shares were owned by Bush, E. R.Harriman and three Nazi Nazi executives including Fritz Thyssen, one of Hitler's primary financiers. The U.S. government eventually confiscated the Nazi banking operations of Union Banking Corporation in which Bush was a director under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

Another Bush business associate was Friedrick Flick who gave considerable financial support for the SS. Flicks's steel plants used about 48,000 slave laborers from Dachau, most of whom died.

Bush and his business associates were also involved in the operation of the Hamburg-Amerika Line. It was later shown to be a cover for Nazi espionage, spy infiltration and propaganda activities. The U.S. government also seized the Holland-American Trading Corporation, Seamless Steel and the Silesian-American Corporation in which Bush and his associates were involved.

Ultimately, the international corporations, the lawyers, bankers and financiers who collaborated with the Nazis prevailed. They exerted tremendous influence to thwart investigators delving into their seditious activities after the war. Many of the key players were elevated to senior postions in the U.S. government. Many of them were able to maintain their fortunes intact after the war. Officers from the Nazi intelligence and scientific communities became U.S. allies in the Cold War against the Soviets.

Americans at the highest levels of finance, industry and government willingly cooperated with the Nazis for political, ideological and financial reasons. They were heavily responsible for the rise of Hitler. They sustained his war effort and helped to shelter the perpetrators after the war. It would have been a bitter death for the brave American soldiers fighting in Europe if they had realized that comfortable American businessmen back in the States were making fortunes financing the same industrial cartels that manufactured the weapons that were being used to kill them.

Now Prescott's son, former George H.W. Bush, is making another fortune as a merchant of death, marketing weapons thorough the secretive Carlyle group. His power and influence is so pervasive that he can sell the Pentagon obsolete equipment such as the 70-ton Crusader cannon which is poorly suited to the realities of combatting terrorism and which the generals don't even want. George Bush Senior helped to arm both sides, Iran and Iraq, during their murderous war. This was a policy promulgated by his friend Ted Shackley, the legendary CIA spook, who advocated selling arms to both sides in a conflict as a way of enhancing the bottom line.

Historians know that Bush Senior arranged for the U.S. to sell millions of dollars of weapons to Hussein almost up to the time that he decided to invade Iraq country during the Gulf War. His administration sold weapons to the Iranians at a time when they were declared a terrorist nation and held American citizens hostage. As Yogi Berra once said, it's "Deja vu all over again."

Now his son, this administration and their corporate cronies who put them in office are poised to make obscene amounts of money from the weapons industries and oil. This war against a faceless foe and with no end game is costing our country over a billion dollars a month and George Bush wants even more money for defense. President Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex.

Like grandfather, like father, like son. Some things never change. The Bushes know that there is a killing to be made in killing.

SOURCE: http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/02/04/p/05_killing.html

PS: You are most welcome!

Juicy_Bellows

(2,427 posts)
15. It's a damn dirty history.
Tue Aug 4, 2015, 11:01 PM
Aug 2015

I had heard some of that before and a lot of that is new information to me. Built Ford tough has new meaning. Thank you for sharing and one day I hope to enlighten you. Cheers!

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
34. Wish I'd written it, my Friend!
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 11:05 AM
Aug 2015

The author is Christian Dewar, one of the great early DUers who made the place stand out from the rest of the Web -- like hedda_foil!

bvar22

(39,909 posts)
45. Thanks.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 04:25 PM
Aug 2015

That is definitely worth a copy & save.
I'll bookmark it too, but I've had some bookmarks evaporate.

If someone gets Banned, do their Journals get wiped?

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
14. Rupert Murdoch's employee Roger Ailes and the turds outta Corporate McPravda.
Tue Aug 4, 2015, 11:01 PM
Aug 2015
Corporate McPravda owns the airwaves.



And Corporate Tee Vee is still where most Americans get most of their information, including their ideas about these two statues. Wonder what people would think were they to learn from the tee vee what pater and fils have really done with their power?



The Propaganda System That Has Helped Create a Permanent Overclass Is Over a Century in the Making

Pulling back the curtain on how intent the wealthiest Americans have been on establishing a propaganda tool to subvert democracy.

Wednesday, 17 April 2013 00:00
By Andrew Gavin Marshall, AlterNet | News Analysis

Where there is the possibility of democracy, there is the inevitability of elite insecurity. All through its history, democracy has been under a sustained attack by elite interests, political, economic, and cultural. There is a simple reason for this: democracy – as in true democracy – places power with people. In such circumstances, the few who hold power become threatened. With technological changes in modern history, with literacy and education, mass communication, organization and activism, elites have had to react to the changing nature of society – locally and globally.

From the late 19th century on, the “threats” to elite interests from the possibility of true democracy mobilized institutions, ideologies, and individuals in support of power. What began was a massive social engineering project with one objective: control. Through educational institutions, the social sciences, philanthropic foundations, public relations and advertising agencies, corporations, banks, and states, powerful interests sought to reform and protect their power from the potential of popular democracy.

SNIP...

The development of psychology, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines increasingly portrayed the “public” and the population as irrational beings incapable of making their own decisions. The premise was simple: if the population was driven by dangerous, irrational emotions, they needed to be kept out of power and ruled over by those who were driven by reason and rationality, naturally, those who were already in power.

The Princeton Radio Project, which began in the 1930s with Rockefeller Foundation funding, brought together many psychologists, social scientists, and “experts” armed with an interest in social control, mass communication, and propaganda. The Princeton Radio Project had a profound influence upon the development of a modern "democratic propaganda" in the United States and elsewhere in the industrialized world. It helped in establishing and nurturing the ideas, institutions, and individuals who would come to shape America’s “democratic propaganda” throughout the Cold War, a program fostered between the private corporations which own the media, advertising, marketing, and public relations industries, and the state itself.

CONTINUED...

http://truth-out.org/news/item/15784-the-propaganda-system-that-has-helped-create-a-permanent-overclass-is-over-a-century-in-the-making



Thankfully, to help spread light when the protectors of the First Amendment won't, Maria Galardin's TUC (Time of Useful Consciousness) Radio. The podcast helps explain how we got here and what we need to do to move forward, starting with putting the "Public" into Airwaves again:



Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda
The Attack on Democracy


The 20th century, said Carey, is marked by three historic developments: the growth of democracy via the expansion of the franchise, the growth of corporations, and the growth of propaganda to protect corporations from democracy. Carey wrote that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. And, in his manuscript, unpublished during his life time, he described that history, going back to World War I and ending with the Reagan era. Carey covers the little known role of the US Chamber of Commerce in the McCarthy witch hunts of post WWII and shows how the continued campaign against "Big Government" plays an important role in bringing Reagan to power.

John Pilger called Carey "a second Orwell", Noam Chomsky dedicated his book, Manufacturing Consent, to him. And even though TUC Radio runs our documentary based on Carey's manuscript at least every two years and draws a huge response each time, Alex Carey is still unknown.

Given today's spotlight on corporations that may change. It is not only the Occupy movement that inspired me to present this program again at this time. By an amazing historic coincidence Bill Moyers and Charlie Cray of Greenpeace have just added the missing chapter to Carey's analysis. Carey's manuscript ends in 1988 when he committed suicide. Moyers and Cray begin with 1971 and bring the corporate propaganda project up to date.

This is a fairly complex production with many voices, historic sound clips, and source material. The program has been used by writers and students of history and propaganda. Alex Carey: Taking the Risk out of Democracy, Corporate Propaganda VS Freedom and Liberty with a foreword by Noam Chomsky was published by the University of Illinois Press in 1995.

SOURCE: http://tucradio.org/new.html



If you find a moment, here's the first part (scroll down at the link for the second part) on Carey.

http://tucradio.org/AlexCarey_ONE.mp3

It's important for there to be more than a handful of companies providing "news." Democracy depends on it.

Dark n Stormy Knight

(9,760 posts)
21. Thanks for the great links. Will need to bookmark and read most later.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 12:28 AM
Aug 2015

But from my skimming a couple of the links, I can see that it's all reinforcing my suspicions regarding things about which I'd really hoped I was just being paranoid. I'm also reminded that most Americans would never begin to read anything as long as even one of those sources. Even as highly interested as I am in these topics, and as (relatively) highly educated as I am (master's degree), I find it a little daunting. No wonder the RW is trying to destroy public education.

I found this particularly ironic:

The development of psychology, psychoanalysis, and other disciplines increasingly portrayed the “public” and the population as irrational beings incapable of making their own decisions. The premise was simple: if the population was driven by dangerous, irrational emotions, they needed to be kept out of power and ruled over by those who were driven by reason and rationality, naturally, those who were already in power.

Isn't this exactly what FoxNoise, Slimebaugh, and the rest cultivate and rely upon for their popularity? Rather than providing the citizenry with facts and examples of how those facts can be interpreted with logic and reason, they provide rumors and lies, and any facts that happen to sneak in are presented in the most irrational and histrionic light possible.

hedda_foil

(16,368 posts)
42. I just finished the truthout piece above. WOW! Talk about a "must read."
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 02:49 PM
Aug 2015

Last edited Wed Aug 5, 2015, 03:26 PM - Edit history (1)

So. now we know that John D Rockefeller, along with other Robber Barons like Carnegie, established their "charitable" foundations, institutes, and universities (U of Chicago, Stanford, etc) for the express purpose of shaping the public's minds to manufacture consent around the ideology of American capitalism, through propaganda and the development of "experts" who were accepted as the voice of wisdom and authority in their areas of knowledge. Of course, those experts were trained,developed and promoted by the same foundations. The foundation benefactors gave a scientific gloss to it all by founding the social "sciences" of sociology and public relations (ie. propaganda), mass communications (print, radio and television.

Octafish, a few years ago, I found an article on the Rockefeller and other foundation's role in dumbing down education and critical thinking from the 60's and 70's, because they were very concerned to tamp down the protesting university students who wanted to shape a better world, and stop it from happening again. Do you remember or have a link to that piece?

 

OnyxCollie

(9,958 posts)
47. Television, the drug of the Nation
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 05:03 PM
Aug 2015

One Nation under God
Has turned into
One Nation under the influence
Of one drug

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

T. V., it satellite links
Our United States of unconciousness
Apathetic therapeutic and extremely addictive
The methadone metronome pumping out
A 150 channels 24 hours a day
You can flip through all of them
And still there's nothing worth watching

T. V. Is the reason why less than ten percent of our
Nation reads books daily
Why most people think Central America
Means Kansas
Socialism means unamerican
And Apartheid is a new headache remedy

Absorbed in it's world it's so hard to find us
It shapes our minds the most
Maybe the mother of our Nation
Should remind us
That we're sitting to close to. ..

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

T. V. Is
The stomping ground for political candidates
Where bears in the woods
Are chased by Grecian Formula'd
Bald eagles

T. V. Is mechanized politic's
Remote control over the masses
Co-sponsered by environmentally safe gases
Watch for the pbs special

It's the perpetuation of the two party system
Where image takes precedence over wisdom
Where sound bite politics are served to
The fastfood culture

Where straight teeth in your mouth
Are more important than the words
That come out of it
Race baiting is the way to get selected
Willie Horton or
Will he not get elected on. ..

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

T. V. Is it the reflector or the director?
Does it imitate us or do we imitate it
Because a child watches 1500 murders before he's
Twelve years old and we wonder how we've created
A Jason generation that learns to laugh
Rather than abhor the horror

T. V. Is the place where
Armchair generals and quarterbacks can
Experience first hand
The excitement of video warfare
As the theme song is sung in the background

Sugar sweet sitcoms
That leave us with a bad actor taste while
Pop stars metamorphosize into soda pop stars
You saw the video
You heard the soundtrack
Well now go buy the soft drink
Well, the only cola that I support
Would be a union C. O. L. A. (Cost of Living Allowance)
On Television.

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

Back again, "New and Improved",
We return to our irregularly programmed schedule
Hidden cleverly between heavy breasted
Beer and car commericals

Cnn espn abc tnt but mostly B. S.
Where oxymoronic language like
"virtually spotless" "fresh frozen"
"light yet filling" and "military intelligence"
Have become standard

T. V. Is the place where phrases are redefined
Like "recession" to "necessary downturn"
"crude oil" on a beach to "mousse"
"Civilian death" to "collateral damages"
And being killed by your own Army
Is now called "friendly fire"

T. V. Is the place where the pursuit
Of happiness has become the pursuit of trivia
Where toothpaste and cars have become s** objects
Where imagination is sucked out of children
By a cathode ray nipple
T. V. Is the only wet nurse
That would create a cripple

Television, the drug of the Nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation
On Television. ..



In the communal sphere, the preferences of the mass public are arbitrary and vague, shaped through the acquisition of information (Jost et al., 2003) from opinion leaders whose function is to attach idea-elements together (Converse, 1964).

As one progresses downward from elites to the mass public on a conceptual rationality scale, further examination reveals the majority of the population sampled are unable to express an understanding of the constraints affecting political parties and issues without being prompted by political elites, resulting in frequent instances of logical inconsistencies (Converse, 1964). Consequently, abstract concepts such as ideological principles give way to simple, concrete belief systems which revolve around family, work, etc. Furthermore, the majority of the population rely on group politics, i.e., their primary means of identifying parties is through the treatment they and other groups received from political parties.

This process of acquiring information from authoritative sources to satisfy preferences which include survival is described as laying the foundation for a belief system (Converse, 1964; Kruglanski & Thompson, 1999a, 1999b as cited in Jost et al., 2003; McGuire, 1985, as cited in Jost et al., 2003). Converse (1964) and Kunda (1990, as cited in Jost et al., 2003) suggest that this belief system is regulated by multiple constraints. The constraints offer a probability that a specific attitude held in a belief system will result in certain other attitudes being held (Converse, 1964). These constraints are identified as logical, psychological, and social (Converse, 1964). Jost et al. (2003) further expand on the concept by describing these constraints as existential (fear, curiosity), epistemic (authoritarian, liberal), and ideological (group dominance, egalitarianism). According to Jost et al. (2003), belief systems fulfill psychological needs.

Within the constraints, belief systems provide a principled doctrine by which new information obtained is compared to prior associations in order to choose a course which provides the greatest utility (Jost et al., 2003). However, these belief systems do not operate in a vacuum; uncertain conditions and numerous variables can influence personal motivations by invoking emotional responses, leading to a reformulation of logic that while not syllogistically sound, is principled nonetheless (Jost et al., 2003).

According to Converse (1964) and Wooddy (1935), a majority of people fail to truly comprehend the “whys” and are dependent upon opinion leaders who hold their confidence for explanation. Confidence in opinion leaders is essential, as Kesckemeti (1950) makes clear: If the source of information is viewed as someone who is known and can be trusted, the audience will accept the information. If the source is unfamiliar, the audience will question the motivation. If the motivation appears only to inform, the information will be accepted. If the motivation is to express an opinion, the audience may choose to agree or disagree. If the motivation appears to be a hidden agenda, the audience will refuse to accept the information.

Previous research has questioned the nature of influences on the relationship between elites and the mass public (Schildkraut, 2002). Some studies demonstrate a convergence of opinion between elites and the mass public, although it is uncertain which group initiated the process. Other studies have suggested elite cues are integrated into mass opinion (Baumgartner & Jones, 1993, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002; Zaller, 1992, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002). Other studies demonstrate that elite movement follows public opinion (Monroe, 1979, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002; Page & Shapiro, 1983, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002). Finally, some studies suggest a reciprocal relationship between elites and the mass public (Hill & Hinton-Andersson, 1995, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002; Jacobs & Shapiro, 1983, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002). While self-interest in the mass public is likely to shape opinions when costs and benefits are clear and political elites politicize self-interest (Sears & Funk, 1990, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002), costs and benefits are rarely clear, thus prohibiting the rational computation of alternative measures (Feldman, 1982, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002; Sniderman & Brody, 1977, as cited in Schildkraut, 2002).

Collective Identity Formation and the International State Author(s): Alexander Wendt Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 88, No. 2 (Jun., 1994), pp. 384-396

Perhaps the most fundamental explanation is that self-interest, even if not presocial, stems from the essential nature of states.

Second, states typically depend heavily on their societies for political survival, which may induce them to place societal interests before those of other states and treat the latter as instruments for realizing the former.

These two arguments come together in a third, which focuses on nationalism, that is, a sense of societal collective identity based on cultural, linguistic, or ethnic ties. Nationalism may be in part "primordial" and thus inherent to societies' self-conceptions as distinct groups. In addition, the dependence of states on their societies may be such that they cultivate nationalist sentiments in order to solidify their corporate identities vis-a-vis each other (Anderson 1983).


The SCOTUS decision in Bush v Gore ushered in the new autocracy.

Democratization and the Danger of War Author(s): Edward D. Mansfield and Jack Snyder Reviewed work(s):Source: International Security, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Summer, 1995), pp. 5-38

{W}e argue that threatened elites from the collapsing autocratic regime, many of whom have parochial interests in war and empire, use nationalist appeals to compete for mass allies with each other and with new elites. In these circumstances, the likelihood of war increases due to the interests of some of the elite groups, the effectiveness of their propaganda, and the incentive for weak leaders to resort to prestige strategies in foreign affairs in an attempt to enhance their authority over diverse constituencies. Further, we speculate that transitional regimes, including both democratizing and autocratizing states, share some common institutional weaknesses that make war more likely. At least in some cases, the link between autocratization and war reflects the success of a ruling elite in using nationalist formulas developed during the period of democratization to cloak itself in populist legitimacy, while dismantling the substance of democracy

~snip~

{P}ublic opinion often starts off highly averse to war. Rather, elites exploit their power in the imperfect institutions of partial democracies to create faits accomplish, control political agendas, and shape the content of information media in ways that promote belligerent pressure-group lobbies or upwellings of militancy in the populace as a whole.

Once this ideological connection between militant elites and their mass constituents is forged, the state may jettison electoral democracy while retaining nationalistic, populist rhetoric.

~snip~

As Samuel Huntington has put it, the typical problem of political development is the gap between high levels of political participation and weak integrative institutions to reconcile the multiplicity of contending claims.30 In newly democratizing states without strong parties, independent courts, a free press, and untainted electoral procedures, there is no reason to expect that mass politics will produce the same impact on foreign policy as it does in mature democracies. In all of the democratizing great powers, public inputs were shaped and aggregated in ways that differed from those of mature democracies.

Moreover, in all of these cases, the political press was to some degree bribed or censored by the government or had not yet institutionalized the objectivity, knowledge, and professionalism needed to create a full and fair public debate.35

As a result of these institutional deformations, ruling circles in these democratizing great powers were only haphazardly accountable to the electorate. Typically, elite groups reached out intermittently and selectively for mass support but were able to buffer themselves from systematic accountability through the ballot box.

As a consequence, public groups in all of these polities tended to organize as narrow pressure groups or single-issue lobbies,

These groups often worked outside the electoral system, making direct demands on public authorities, since the democratic path to power was rigged against them. This tendency toward direct action in the streets or in smoke-filled back rooms rather than through the ballot box is typical of what Huntington calls the "praetorian society," where pressures for participation are strong but institutions for effective participation are weak.3

{T}he military has suffered greatly in status and organizational cohesion from the opening of the political system.

it is striking that many of the groups with an interest in retarding democratization are also those with a parochial interest in war, military preparation, empire, and protectionism. This is not accidental. Most of the benefits of war, military preparations, imperial conquest, and protectionism-e.g., in career advancement or in protection from foreign economic competition-are disproportionately concentrated in specific groups.41 Any special interest group, including the military, that derives parochial benefits from a public policy has to feel wary about opening up its affairs to the scrutiny and veto of the average voter, who pays for subsidies to special interests. Whenever the costs of a program are distributed widely, but the benefits are concentrated in a few hands, democratization may put the program at risk.


Silverstein, B. (1987). Toward a science of propaganda. Political Psychology (8)1. 49-59.

Jacques Ellul (1973) calls the type of propaganda designed to incite revolution or to undermine existing regimes the "propaganda of agitation." Ellul also describes another type which he believes to be much more important than agitation propaganda for people living in developed nations. Every modern social system uses what Ellul calls the "propaganda of integration" to promote acceptance and support among its citizens for that system.

Integration propaganda is important because no modern society can function for long without at least the implicit support of most of its citizens. Integration propaganda is promulgated not in pamphlets put out by small groups of subversives or in broadcasts made by foreign powers, but in the main channels of communication - newspapers, television, movies, textbooks, political speeches etc.-produced by some of the most influential, powerful, and respected people in a society. It is therefore difficult to recognize despite (or perhaps because of) its omnipresence, particularly because it is based upon ideals and biases that are accepted by most members of the society.

It is important here to point out an assumption that may be disputed by some psychologists that underlies all propaganda analysis: That beliefs, attitudes, and cognitions play a crucial role in the determination of political opinions and behavior. Propaganda researchers should participate in determining the exact role played by ideas in politics, but few scholars would become actively involved in propaganda analysis if they did not believe that what people read, hear, see, and think is an important determinant of their political actions.

Do personality variables or styles of cognitive processing affect susceptibility to propaganda? Ellul (1973) claims that contrary to popular belief, as a result of their increased exposure to propaganda, highly educated, well-informed citizens of modern societies are more, not less, open to propaganda than are people who receive less information.


We Are All Confident Idiots
http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/confident-idiots-92793/

The American author and aphorist William Feather once wrote that being educated means “being able to differentiate between what you know and what you don’t.” As it turns out, this simple ideal is extremely hard to achieve. Although what we know is often perceptible to us, even the broad outlines of what we don’t know are all too often completely invisible. To a great degree, we fail to recognize the frequency and scope of our ignorance.

In 1999, in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, my then graduate student Justin Kruger and I published a paper that documented how, in many areas of life, incompetent people do not recognize—scratch that, cannot recognize—just how incompetent they are, a phenomenon that has come to be known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Logic itself almost demands this lack of self-insight: For poor performers to recognize their ineptitude would require them to possess the very expertise they lack. To know how skilled or unskilled you are at using the rules of grammar, for instance, you must have a good working knowledge of those rules, an impossibility among the incompetent. Poor performers—and we are all poor performers at some things—fail to see the flaws in their thinking or the answers they lack.

What’s curious is that, in many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.

This isn’t just an armchair theory. A whole battery of studies conducted by myself and others have confirmed that people who don’t know much about a given set of cognitive, technical, or social skills tend to grossly overestimate their prowess and performance, whether it’s grammar, emotional intelligence, logical reasoning, firearm care and safety, debating, or financial knowledge. College students who hand in exams that will earn them Ds and Fs tend to think their efforts will be worthy of far higher grades; low-performing chess players, bridge players, and medical students, and elderly people applying for a renewed driver’s license, similarly overestimate their competence by a long shot.


Terrorists and Democrats: Individual Reactions to International Attacks

Alice F. Healy; Joshua M. Hoffman; Francis A. Beer; Lyle E. Bourne, Jr.
Political Psychology, Vol. 23, No. 3, Special Issue: 9/11 and Its Aftermath: Perspectives from Political Psychology. (Sep., 2002), pp. 439-467.

Many approaches in political psychology are based on the assumption of rational choice by decision-makers (McGraw, 2000). Indeed, in classical international relations theory, decision-making is conceived as rational behavior. Decisions are made on the basis of all available information with the aim to achieve optimal results for the decision-maker or his or her country. But, psychologically, it is unlikely that individuals can process or even access all of the information they need to make a fully rational decision in every circumstance (McGraw, 2000).

Rather, they make decisions that are heuristically good enough and lead to reasonable or acceptable outcomes. Simon (1956) labeled this kind of decision-making as bounded rationality and described the results as "satisficing." His argument was that decision-making, even by experts, is typically influenced by nonrational cognitive processes.

Rational choice models are not fully consistent with contemporary findings in cognitive psychology, in which nonrational choice processes are often observed (see, e.g., Kahneman & Tversky, 1973; McGraw, 2000). McGraw thinks that political psychologists need to be wary of claims of compatibility of rational choice with cognitive psychological models. Psychological factors might play a more important role in international relations than has generally been acknowledged. Thus, whenever a political situation involves choice, there may be nonrational as well as rational cognitive processes involved. When individuals are required to choose among various alternatives for international actions, nonrational factors
might play an influential role.

Image theory is an example of a psychological nonrational choice model that has been applied to international relations by Herrmann, Voss, Schooler, and Ciarrochi (1997; see also Sylvan & Voss, 1998, for related discussions). Image theory asserts that decision-makers rely on an accumulation of mental representations (or images) acquired from previous experience to interpret an immediate situation and to decide on a course of action. For example, politicians are likely to have images that apply to other countries, categorizing them as allies, enemies, colonies, or other types (Voss, Kennet, Wiley, & Schooler, 1992), and the image of a particular country functions as a schema to guide decisions about how to react to an immediate situation involving that country. Decisions will differ according to whether the image is that of an ally, enemy, or colony (Herrmann et al., 1997).


Changing Minds: Political Arguments and Political Persuasion
Michael D. Cobb; James H. Kuklinski
American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 41, No. 1. (Jan., 1997), pp. 88-121.

When politicians debate policy, their goal is to persuade the public that their position is the right one. Persuasion in turn requires effective argument, a reality that politicians do not take lightly. They choose arguments strategically, on the basis of assumptions about what will and will not work. Sometimes the arguments prove effective, other times they do not. In short, the choice of political argument often determines which side wins and which loses. And this is normally true whether the issue itself, in Carmines and Stimson's terms, is hard or easy.

For purposes here, hard arguments tend to be long and complex, and focus primarily on the antecedents of a proposal. Because X and Y conditions exist, Z will occur. Hard arguments, in other words, begin with a set of existing conditions and show logically that a proposal is or is not desirable. Comprehending hard arguments takes considerable mental work, cognitively requiring multiple processing steps. Finally, hard arguments elicit relatively little effect. Largely factual and argumentative in content, they contain little to which an individual can viscerally react.

Easy arguments represent the flip side of hard arguments. Short, simple, and symbolic, they conjure up readily accessible images. They also elicit more effect than hard arguments. Whereas hard arguments focus on antecedents, easy arguments focus primarily on the consequences of a proposal. If X is adopted, Y will be the consequence. Easy arguments eschew explanations of why something will happen. Rather than take the form, "You will lose your job if NAFTA passes because. . . ," they take the abbreviated and more simplistic form, "You will lose your job if NAFTA passes." It takes little mental effort to absorb an easy argument: hear it, take it at face value, and incorporate it into your prior beliefs.

Unable to attend to and comprehend all the stimuli that come their way, people routinely use heuristics (for an overview, see Fiske and Taylor 1991). Whether these heuristics play an especially dominant role in the evaluation of politics, a domain in which the lack of interest and knowledge looms large, is unclear. Nor is it certain that people's use of informational shortcuts always leads to the right judgment (Kuklinski and Hurley 1994). But there can be no doubt that people commonly employ heuristics to make sense of a complex and tumultuous political environment (Popkin 1991; Sniderman, Brody, and Tetlock 1991). Economist Anthony Downs argued 40 years ago (1957) that rational citizens should do nothing else.

Suppose Downs and an ever burgeoning literature in political psychology are right. Then what kind of heuristic might people use when evaluating a political argument, and what does its use imply for the relative effectiveness of hard and easy arguments? An increasingly influential body of literature points to emotion7 Especially relevant here, Schwarz and Clore (1983, 1988; Schwarz 1990; also see Lazarus 1966, 1982; Marcus et al. 1995) demonstrate that people routinely use their feelings as information. When confronted with a social event or situation, they ask themselves, "How do I feel?" If they answer "good," they will positively evaluate the event or situation. Conversely, feeling "bad-sad, angry, afraid-leads to a negative evaluation. In a dramatic demonstration of how emotion and feelings dominate decision making, neurologist Antonio Damasio (1994) reports that brain-damaged patients who cannot ascertain how they feel often fail to reason properly.


Iyengar, S. (1987). Television news and citizen’s explanations of national affairs.
The American Political Science Review, 81(3), 815-832.

Citizens are only fleetingly acquainted with current events and very few utilize ideological precepts to organize their political beliefs (for a review of research, see Kinder and Sears 1985). The low level of political knowledge and the absence of ideological reasoning has lent credence to charges that popular control of government is illusory (with respect to U.S. public opinion, for example, see Schumpeter 1950; Toqueville 1954).

~snip~

Explanation is an essential ingredient of human knowledge. To explain events or outcomes is to understand them: to transform the "blooming, buzzing confusion" of today's world into orderly and meaningful patterns. Psychological research has demonstrated that causal relationships feature prominently in individuals' perceptions of social phenomena (Nisbett and Ross 1980; Weiner 1985). In fact, causal thinking is so ingrained in the human psyche that we even invent causation where none exists, as in purely random or chance events. (see Langer 1975; Wortman 1976).

Explanatory knowledge is important to political thinking for two reasons. First, answers to causal questions abound in popular culture, making the task of explanation relatively inexpensive. One need not devour the pages of the Wall Street Journal or study macroeconomics to "know" why there is chronic unemployment. Second and more important, explanatory knowledge is connotative knowledge. To "know" that unemployment occurs because of motivational deficiencies on the part of the unemployed is relevant to our attitudes toward the unemployed and our policy preferences regarding unemployment. In other words, explanatory knowledge is usable knowledge. Simple factual knowledge, on the other hand (e.g., the current rate of unemployment), does not so readily imply political attitudes and preferences. It is not surprising, then, that opinions, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors in a multitude of domains are organized around beliefs about causation (for illustrative research, see Schneider, Hastorf, and Ellsworth 1979, chap. 2). In fact, causal attributions exert such a powerful hold on behavior that "misattribution" techniques have proven effective in treating behavior disorders (see Fiske and Taylor 1984, 36-39), in inducing "prosocial" behaviors (see Schneider, Hastorf, and Ellsworth 1979, 93-95), and even in strengthening the general sense of psychological well-being (see Langer and Rodin 1976).

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
49. I LOVE that record.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 05:36 PM
Aug 2015

And thank you for the education about modern messaging for the masses, OnyxCollie. Your post is absolutely a must-read, every word.

Dealing in ideas that manipulate individuals and masses of people for the basest of fascist purposes makes "journalism" today the most un-democratic of professions. Ask Steno Judy, the presstitute for War Inc.

Thank you for standing up to the "Money trumps peace" crowd. It takes a brave person to do that in a time of wall-to-wall FBINSACIAetc surveillance.

 

OnyxCollie

(9,958 posts)
74. As I lay awake at night,
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 10:28 PM
Aug 2015

thinking about the consequences of my actions, "brave" is not the word that comes to mind.

[IMG][/IMG]

 

OnyxCollie

(9,958 posts)
76. News Corp, a rogues gallery.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 10:53 PM
Aug 2015
Who controls Fox News? A peek at the higher-ups
SFBG
http://www.sfbg.com/PDFs/politics/newscorpchart1009

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

Viet Dinh is a News Corp. director and attorney who came to the United States as a boy from Vietnam. In a 2002 interview with the LA Times, Dinh, who then served as an assistant attorney general at the U.S. Department of Justice, recalled an exchange he’d had with then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. “He told me: ‘The art of leadership is the redefinition of the possible,’” Dinh recounted. “‘I want you to be the think tank to help me redefine the possible for the Department of Justice.’”

~snip~

A law professor at Georgetown, Dinh is also listed as the founder and chief of Bancroft Associates PLLC, a consulting firm that specializes in helping Fortune 500 companies “navigate the federal and state criminal or civil investigations, congressional investigations and complex litigation,” according to the firm’s Web site. It also specializes in public relations.

~snip~

Thomas Perkins, a News Corp. director, is a Silicon Valley venture capitalist. He is a founding partner of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield& Byers, an investment firm with stakes in Genentech, Google, Sun Microsystems, Netscape, Amazon, and others. He was previously an executive at Hewlett Packard. Perkins was the fifth husband of romance novelist Danielle Steel. He owned the 287-foot Maltese Falcon -- the largest and most expensive private sailboat ever built. A partner at Perkins’ firm, John Gage, also serves as a director of the Markle Foundation, a private nonprofit that provides recommendations for using technology to enhance the federal government’s intelligence-sharing abilities, according to a policy paper published by the foundation. Stanley Shuman, another News Corp. director, is listed as a managing director at the Markle Foundation.

~snip~

Stanley Shuman, a News Corp. director, is listed on Forbes as a managing director of New York investment firm Allen & Co., which employs former CIA Director George Tenet, according to BusinessWeek. Allen & Co. is also known for hosting a lavish annual retreat that attracts the ranks of the superrich. Shuman is also listed as a director of the Markle Foundation, a group of big business leaders and intelligence experts from past administrations, which advocates more efficient intelligence sharing at the highest levels of federal government to fight terrorism. The Markle Foundation’s past recommendations influenced some of the legislation passed in the wake of 9/11, according to one of its policy papers, which greatly expanded government powers for information gathering. Shuman’s online bio also names him as a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and notes that he served on the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board under Clinton. He is also listed as the chair of an intellectual property-rights outfit called SESAC.


Viet Dihn, the primary author of the USA PATRIOT Act, is representing a former HP director.

Viet D. Dinh
http://www.law.georgetown.edu/faculty/dinh-viet-d.cfm#

During his time at the Department of Justice, Dinh played a key role in developing legal policy initiatives to combat terrorism—namely, the USA PATRIOT Act.


News Corp. Independent Directors Hire Debevoise Law Firm
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-07-19/news-corp-independent-directors-hire-debevoise-firm-s-white-mukasey.html

Dinh, who runs a small law firm in Washington that specializes in damage control, and venture capital executive Tom Perkins are leading the efforts of independent directors, who hold nine of 16 board seats. Dinh, also a professor at Georgetown University and the chief architect of the USA Patriot Act, represented Perkins, a former Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) director, during a scandal at that company.


And former Attorney General Michael Mukasey's law firm is advising Dinh in News Corp's phone hacking scandal.

News Corp. (NWSA)’s independent directors hired the law firm Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, according to Mary Jo White, a partner at the firm and the former U.S. attorney in New York.

Michael Mukasey, who served as U.S. attorney general under George W. Bush, will join White in representing directors, Suzanne Elio, a spokeswoman for the firm, said today.

“Debevoise & Plimpton has been retained to advise Viet Dinh in his supervision of the Management and Standards Committee on behalf of the independent members of the board,” Elio said in an e-mail.
She declined to comment further.


How Bad Is News Corp.?
Michael Wolff on the state of the Murdoch empire and its Mob-like structure
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/how-bad-news-corp-133928

Among the areas that the FBI is said to be looking at in its investigation of News Corp. are charges that one of its subsidiaries, News America Marketing, illegally hacked the computer system of a competitor, Floorgraphics, and then, using the information it had gleaned, tried to extort it into selling out to News Corp.; allegations that relationships the New York Post has maintained with New York City police officers may have involved exchanges of favors and possibly money for information; and accusations that Fox chief Roger Ailes sought to have an executive in the company, the book publisher Judith Regan, lie to investigators about details of her relationship with New York police commissioner Bernie Kerik in order to protect the political interests of Rudy Giuliani, then a presidential prospect.

~snip~

While News Corp. does most of its business in the U.S., prosecutors here have no jurisdiction over the phone hacking crimes that were committed in the U.K. And itʼs quite possible, because of differences in news gathering operations in the U.S., and in cell phone protocols, that no hacking was committed here. And while hacking may have taken place by British reporters against targets in the U.S.—as alleged in Jude Lawʼs suit—that remains to be proven.

And yet, what has happened in the U.K. is far from mere rogue behavior in a remote foreign division. Rather, News International is a division that has long been one of the core components of the company, both in terms of revenue and brand, and one that has reported to the highest echelons of the company: Rupert Murdoch himself, his closest confidants, and, more recently, his son, James.

~snip~

Here is where the RICO logic comes in. The usual path of a criminal investigation follows the crimes back to the source—thatʼs what happened to News Corp. in the U.K. when the royal family discovered that its voice mail messages were appearing in the press. But in a RICO investigation, you are really following the ethos and methods of operation of a group or organization to the crime. In other words, criminal activity is not seen as an isolated or particular event—as News Corp. has desperately and unsuccessfully tried to portray the crimes that occurred in the U.K.—but as an established pattern of conduct.


News Corp. Hacked Computers in U.S. Ad Wars, Dial Soap Says
By JACK BOUBOUSHIAN
http://www.courthousenews.com/2012/12/26/53415.htm

The Dial Corp. sued News Corporation, and its subsidiaries News America, News America Marketing FSI, and News America Marketing In-Store Services.

"Its unlawful purposes could not be more transparent. For example, in a sales meeting Paul Carlucci, then News America Inc.'s Chief Operating Officer, Paul Carlucci, illustrated News' desire for the ultimate in competitive suppression with a video from 'The Untouchables,' in which Al Capone serves as a sales role model as he cudgels a competitive enemy to death with a baseball bat. Mr. Carlucci has been equally blunt with the press as to News' exclusionary purposes, vowing to 'destroy' his competitors as a 'man who has to have it all.' "Mr. Carlucci threatened to fire any News employee ('concerned about doing the right thing') who did not support exclusive control by News of shelves in retail accounts.

"The exclusionary effectiveness and durability of these News contracts designed to defeat competitors' distribution of competitive services have been reinforced by seven additional exclusionary News actions, including: "Hacking into Floorgraphics' computers to obtain customer lists and other marketing materials to solicit its accounts and lock them into News long-term and exclusive contracts”

~snip~

The complaint describes the alleged hacking campaign: "From 2000 to 2003 there was a concerted effort at News to develop its brand price messaging product (Price Pop) to compete with the Insignia product (POPSign), as well as to develop its Floortalk product competing with that of Floor graphics.

"In the early part of 2003, News implemented 'Operation Retailer Freedom' to take away all Floorgraphics contracts by soliciting accounts on its customer lists. This program went on for several years. Valassis Tr. (6/17/09) 176:2-177:14. "Floorgraphics has alleged that News hacked into its password protected accounts at least eleven times in 2003 and 2004 to obtain its customer lists (and other marketing materials), which, if true, would facilitate this attack."


Troubles That Money Can’t Dispel
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/business/media/for-news-corporation-troubles-that-money-cant-dispel.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

News America was led by Paul V. Carlucci, who, according to Forbes, used to show the sales staff the scene in “The Untouchables” in which Al Capone beats a man to death with a baseball bat. Mr. Emmel testified that Mr. Carlucci was clear about the guiding corporate philosophy.

According to Mr. Emmel’s testimony, Mr. Carlucci said that if there were employees uncomfortable with the company’s philosophy — “bed-wetting liberals in particular was the description he used” Mr. Emmel testified — then he could arrange to have those employees “outplaced from the company.”

Clearly, given the size of the payouts, along with the evidence and testimony in the lawsuits, the News Corporation must have known it had another rogue on its hands, one who needed to be dealt with. After all, Mr. Carlucci, who became chairman and chief executive of News America in 1997, had overseen a division that had drawn the scrutiny of government investigators and set off lawsuits that chipped away at the bottom line.

And while Mr. Murdoch might reasonably maintain that he did not have knowledge of the culture of permission created by Mr. Hinton and Ms. Brooks, by now he has 655 million reasons to know that Mr. Carlucci colored outside the lines.

So what became of him? Mr. Carlucci, as it happens, became the publisher of The New York Post in 2005 and continues to serve as head of News America, which doesn’t exactly square with Mr. Murdoch’s recently stated desire to “absolutely establish our integrity in the eyes of the public.”


Daboub, A. J., Rasheed, A. M., Priem, R. L., & Gray, D. A. (1995). Top management team characteristics and corporate illegal activity. Academy of Management Review, 20(1), 138-170.

Homogeneity in Top Management Team (TMT) Characteristics

Social psychology research shows that similarity among group members is a major determinant of interpersonal attraction (Heider, 1958; Newcomb, 1956). This is true, not only of attitude similarity (Byrne, 1961; Newcomb, 1961) but also of similarity of personality (Griffitt, 1966) and economic similarity (Byrne, Clore, & Worchel, 1966).

~snip~

{Differential association theory} This sociological theory of crime was developed by Sutherland (1939, 1947) and later modified slightly by Sutherland and Cressey (1978). According to this theory, "crime" is defined as such by society. Some individuals live in accordance with these definitions; others do not. Those who do not are seen as "criminal" in that their definitions of acceptable behavior are deviant. An example of differential association would be a group of executives who have defined a regulatory agency, e.g., the EPA, as antibusiness and a hindrance to U.S. industrial competitiveness. Violation of EPA rules could then be viewed by them as patriotic and supportive of free enterprise.

~snip~

Members of age and/or tenure cohorts are likely to share experiences and have similar outlooks and values (Pfeffer, 1983; Wagner et al., 1984), facilitating groupthink and differential association. Useem and Karabel (1986) found that educational and social class backgrounds facilitate advancement to the top levels of management. They conjecture that this relationship results from the need for trust at the top levels of management: "one of the simplest ways for organizations to entrust decisions to the 'trustworthy' is for the already powerful to promote people most similar to themselves educationally and socially" (1986: 198).

If we assume that TMTs make decisions that have an impact on organizations, and that among those decisions is the decision to behave illegally, the processes through which decisions are made are important in understanding corporate illegal behaviors. For example, Kriesberg (1976) developed implications for effective corporate crime-reduction policies using Allison's (1971) models of decision making. Kriesberg argued that the rational actor model produces "corporate lawbreaking {that} results from purposeful, consistent acts of the corporate entity" (1976: 1106); the organizational process model produces criminal behavior "because existing SOPs mandate or allow illegal action" (1976: 1113); and the bureaucratic politics model produces illegality through "the interests and influences of individuals, not entities" (1976: 1121)

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
40. Carlyle Group pioneered the way forward. Others, like Trireme Partnerships followed...
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 01:06 PM
Aug 2015

The cronies use inside information gleaned from their future employees working in government to see where the wars are and are going to be.



Below, where he literally belongs, Richard "PNAC Pearl Harbor" Perle and his $10 million pitch to Adnan "Iran-Contra and Selection 2000 Fixer-Upper" Khashoggi, please:



Lunch With The Chairman

by Seymour Hersh
The New Yorker March 17, 2003

EXCERPT...

The Defense Policy Board is a Defense Department advisory group composed primarily of highly respected former government officials, retired military officers, and academics. Its members, who serve without pay, include former national-security advisers, Secretaries of Defense, and heads of the C.I.A. The board meets several times a year at the Pentagon to review and assess the country’s strategic defense policies.

Perle is also a managing partner in a venture-capital company called Trireme Partners L.P., which was registered in November, 2001, in Delaware. Trireme’s main business, according to a two-page letter that one of its representatives sent to Khashoggi last November, is to invest in companies dealing in technology, goods, and services that are of value to homeland security and defense. The letter argued that the fear of terrorism would increase the demand for such products in Europe and in countries like Saudi Arabia and Singapore.

The letter mentioned the firm’s government connections prominently: “Three of Trireme’s Management Group members currently advise the U.S. Secretary of Defense by serving on the U.S. Defense Policy Board, and one of Trireme’s principals, Richard Perle, is chairman of that Board.” The two other policy-board members associated with Trireme are Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State (who is, in fact, only a member of Trireme’s advisory group and is not involved in its management), and Gerald Hillman, an investor and a close business associate of Perle’s who handles matters in Trireme’s New York office. The letter said that forty-five million dollars had already been raised, including twenty million dollars from Boeing; the purpose, clearly, was to attract more investors, such as Khashoggi and Zuhair.

Perle served as a foreign-policy adviser in George W. Bush’s Presidential campaign—he had been an Assistant Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan—but he chose not to take a senior position in the Administration. In mid-2001, however, he accepted an offer from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to chair the Defense Policy Board, a then obscure group that had been created by the Defense Department in 1985. Its members (there are around thirty of them) may be outside the government, but they have access to classified information and to senior policymakers, and give advice not only on strategic policy but also on such matters as weapons procurement. Most of the board’s proceedings are confidential.

As chairman of the board, Perle is considered to be a special government employee and therefore subject to a federal Code of Conduct. Those rules bar a special employee from participating in an official capacity in any matter in which he has a financial interest. “One of the general rules is that you don’t take advantage of your federal position to help yourself financially in any way,” a former government attorney who helped formulate the Code of Conduct told me. The point, the attorney added, is to “protect government processes from actual or apparent conflicts.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2003/03/17/030317fa_fact?currentPage=all



Do you think they're getting hot under their spiked collars, OnyxCollie?
 

OnyxCollie

(9,958 posts)
44. Hot & bothered, and itchin' for a new war.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 04:16 PM
Aug 2015
Advisory board pushing Iraq attack
By Stephen J. Hedges
http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2002/020818-iraq1.htm

~snip~

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, they add, has purged all but four of the previous board members and replaced them with a group of unabashed Iraq hawks, changing an advisory panel into a virtual war council.

"It's never been anything like this," said Ivo Daalder, a former Clinton national security aide and now a Brookings Institution senior fellow. "The Defense Policy Board was always a very quiet sort of panel that served the secretary. It certainly was not a lobbying organization. This has become a lobby, with a particular point of view where the neo-conservatives of the world, the democratic imperialist point of view, holds sway."

Even some of the board's members - who range from Henry Kissinger to Newt Gingrich to Dan Quayle - acknowledge a similarity in their views.

At least by its charter, the Defense Policy Board was never intended to play a central role in setting defense strategy.

The board was formed during the Reagan presidency to "serve the public interest by providing the Secretary of Defense, Deputy Secretary and Under Secretary for Policy with independent, informed advice and opinion concerning major matters of defense policy," according to its charter. Its members are to be "primarily private sector individuals."

The board's roster is drawn from the heart of the conservative defense establishment: Five board members served under President Richard Nixon, six in the Reagan administration and four under Bush's father. Many are affiliated with conservative think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute and Heritage Foundation. Stanford University's Hoover Institution has seven fellows on the defense board.

Aside from Perle and Adelman, the board includes James Woolsey, who was CIA chief under President Bill Clinton and Richard Allen, Reagan's national security advisor. Elder statesmen include James Schlesinger, a former defense and energy secretary; former House Speaker Thomas Foley, a Democrat; and Harold Brown, defense secretary under President Jimmy Carter.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
52. Dan Quayle? The Potatoe?
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 05:46 PM
Aug 2015

That guy knows how to make a buck off war.



&quot AP Wirephoto) Dan Quayle, left, holds a pumpkin next to his head at a country fair..."

Actual cutline (going from memory).



Top-100 Defense Contractors 2014

U.S. Department of Defense Fiscal Year 2014 FY 2013 & FY 2012: Top-100 DoD in 2013 Top-100 DoD in 2012 The following is a list of the Top-100 U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) Prime Contractors in Fiscal Year (FY) 2014 ranked by total contract funds awarded. In FY 2014, the DoD awarded a total of $286.41 billion in defense contracts down 7.7% from $310.23 billion in FY 2013. The DoD's share of total government contracts was 63.9% in FY14 down from 66.9% in FY13.

In FY 2014, top awardee Lockheed Martin received $25.31 billion in prime contracts or 8.8% of total contract funds awarded by the DoD. Runner-up was Boeing with $18.22 billion (6.4%) followed by General Dynamics in third place with $13.62 billion (4.8%). Raytheon received $11.92 billion (4.2%) followed by Northrop Grumman, United Technologies, L-3 Communications, BAE Systems, Huntington Ingalls, and SAIC/Leidos. BAE Systems, #8 on the list, was the largest foreign defense contractor in FY 2014.

SNIP...(a few spots past IBM)...

73. Cerberus Capital Management L.P.

SOURCE: http://www.bga-aeroweb.com/Top-100-Defense-Contractors-2014.html



Vice President Spuds has done well for himself, post-government service.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
61. A warmonger's take on democracy
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 07:54 PM
Aug 2015
The constitutions of America and Britain are too complex for other countries to understand, says Paul Wolfowitz. Wow

Deborah Orr
The Guardian, May 26,2011

Paul Wolfowitz, one of the most prominent hawks in the recent George Bush government, and an enthusiastic cheerleader for the Iraq war, was on Newsnight on Tuesday, explaining the "essential" relationship between Britain and the US. Apparently that relationship is sacrosanct because our constitutions have such a great deal in common, a great deal that is, further, far too complex for other countries to understand. Wow.

And not so long ago, this man thought that liberal democracy could be rolled out like AstroTurf, after a chunk of land had been crudely flattened by a brief conflict. There's a contradiction there, somewhere, Paul.

SOURCE: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2011/may/26/paul-wolfowitz-idea-of-democracy

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
77. Who remembers John Kokal?
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 10:53 PM
Aug 2015

Everyone knows Amb. Joseph Wilson stood up at the State Department to oppose Baby Doc Bush's illegal, immoral and unnecessary war on Iraq. So, too, John Kokal, a State Department officer who knew something was wrong with war on Iraq. He ended up dead from a fall the top of the State Department, reportedly just after voicing his reasons to his superiors. Another "suicide" whose sudden, if convenient, passing made it easier for the warmongers and war profiteers to make another killing on yet another day. As it was never covered in the national press, Mr. Kokal's story is now largely forgotten.

All this history gives me a sad, more than anything. Weren't for Funes, I'd be out horseback riding all day.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
78. Who remembers Col. Westhusing?
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 10:55 PM
Aug 2015

Col. Westhusing was in charge of training the new Iraqi army and overseeing civilian contractors.
He is remembered as a good man, a brilliant man who followed the Cadet Code:
"I will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.”



Col. Westhusing was the Army's chief ethicist and someone who suspected something was wrong with David Petraeus, way back when. Then, just when he was about to come home to his loving wife and family, he became a suicide.



Is David Petraeus Dirty? Ted Westheusing Said So, and Then He Shot Himself

By Melina Hussein Ripcoco, Brilliant at Breakfast
Alternet.org
April 8, 2008

Ted Westhusing, was a champion basketball player at Jenks High School in Tulsa Oklahoma. A driven kid with a strong work ethic, he would show up at the gym at 7AM to throw 100 practice shots before school. He was driven academically too, becoming a National Merritt Scholarship finalist. His career through West Point and straight into overseas service was sterling, and by 2000 he had enrolled in Emory University to earn his doctorate in Philosophy. His dissertation was on honor and the ethics of war, with the opening containing the following passage: "Born to be a warrior, I desire these answers not just for philosophical reasons, but for self-knowledge." Would that all military commanders took such an interest in the study of ethics and morality and what our conduct in times of war says about our development as human beings. Would that any educational system in this country taught ethics, decision making, or even political science that's not part of an advanced degree anymore.

Ted Westhusing, the soldier, philosopher and ethicist, was given a guaranteed lifetime teaching position and West Point by the time he had finished with his service and his education. he felt like he could do more for his country by trying to shape the minds coming out of the academy that were the ones that would be military commanders. He had settled into that life with his wife and kids, when in 2004 he volunteered for active duty in Iraq, feeling like the experience would help his teaching. He had missed combat in his active duty and it seemed like an important piece for someone who not only philosophized about war, but who was also preparing the military's future leaders.

But more than that, he was sure that the Iraq mission was a just one; he supported the cause and he bought the information that was put in front of him. Considering that vials of powder were being tossed around hearings by the highest level of military commanders how could he not? This was a man who was so steeped in the patriotism of idealistic military fervor that he barely could fit in regular society. His whole being was dedicated to this path, and he was proud to serve his country.

Once in Iraq, he found himself straddling the fence between a questioning philosopher and an unquestioning soldier. Westhusing had thought he was freeing a country in bondage, keeping America safe from a horrible threat, and spreading democracy to a grateful people. But the reality of what was happening in this out of control war was too much for him. His mission was to oversee one of the most important tasks left from the war; retraining the Iraqi military by overseeing the private contractors that had been put in charge of it.

As the assignment went on he found that everywhere he looked he was seeing corrupt contractors doing shoddy work, abusing people, and stealing from the government. These contractors were being paid to do many of the jobs that would normally be done by a regulated military, and they bore out the worst fears of those who don't believe in outsourcing such vital work. He responded to the corruption that he saw by reporting the problems up the line, but the response from his commanding officers was disappointing. He had, for much of his career, idolized military commanders, and in that assignment he found himself with some of the military's most famous faces, doing the most important job, but he was terribly disappointed and alarmed to realize that they were greedy and corrupt themselves.

CONTINUED...

http://www.alternet.org/story/81678/is_david_petraeus_dirty_ted_westhusing_said_so,_and_then_he_shot_himself

COMPLETE ORIGINAL ARTICLE: http://www.ripcoco.com/2008/04/is-david-petraeus-dirty-ted-westheusing.html





Gee. What kind of person would make money off war?

2naSalit

(86,072 posts)
17. These are the folks who should be experiencing
Tue Aug 4, 2015, 11:30 PM
Aug 2015

instant karma.

Thanks for posting, though it is revealing just how screwn we are and have been all these decades... much of which I have either known or suspected all along. I stopped talking about it when I was being called stupid, a conspiracy theorist and other dismissive terms, even though I knew what I was talking about waaaaay back when.

Got yer back as much as I can.

2na.

zeemike

(18,998 posts)
19. Yep, conspiracy theory is a powerful trump card
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 12:17 AM
Aug 2015

And it trumps all cards in any suit...and works well to keep you from talking about it.

2naSalit

(86,072 posts)
29. And so goes the
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 09:29 AM
Aug 2015

demise of our species and all those we are taking down along with us. Oddly, the more "civilized" we consider ourselves, the more brutal we actually become.

zeemike

(18,998 posts)
31. Well Rome was considered civilized too.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 10:07 AM
Aug 2015

But as time went on it became more and more brutal and corrupt, and it seems we are following that path.

As long as evil and greedy people are allowed to ascend to power our fate is sealed.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
35. Michael Parenti studied how the Republic descended into Empire...
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 11:10 AM
Aug 2015

Last edited Wed Aug 5, 2015, 01:01 PM - Edit history (1)

...the parallels with us today are stunning. Julius Caesar, a popular leader, asked the wealthy Romans to share their property with the regular folk. The wealthy said, "No, thanks." And Caser became history.

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Caesar.html



Prof. Parenti is TOPS!

zeemike

(18,998 posts)
41. Fascinating lecture, thanks.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 01:35 PM
Aug 2015

Yep history is written by gentlemen class...and the parallels with modern day is defiantly striking.
We have not advanced as much as we think.

2naSalit

(86,072 posts)
82. Thanks for posting
Thu Aug 6, 2015, 12:52 AM
Aug 2015

this video, I'll have to watch it later but I will say that I like Dr. Parenti, he makes a lot of sense and pulls no punches because the ones he's throwing are deserved and righteous.

 

OnyxCollie

(9,958 posts)
48. If conspiracies didn't exist, there wouldn't be laws against them.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 05:10 PM
Aug 2015

Sunstein and Vermeule (2008) describe a conspiracy theory as “an effort to explain some event or practice by reference to the machinations of powerful people, who have managed to conceal their role” (p. 4).

Sunstein (2014) admits that while some conspiracy theories are true, he stresses that it is the false conspiracy which often permeates society.

Cass Sunstein On Conspiracy Theories
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/04/02/sunstein-conspiracy-theories

SUNSTEIN: Yes. I would use the word conspiracy theory, the term, just as a description and not build into it another word, false. So Watergate, as you say, that was a conspiracy theory that turned out to be true. And so we need to have a general category, aware that often false conspiracy theories go viral, and sometimes they can create tragedy or political polarization. But it's good in a free society for people to have their ears pricked and to be alert to the possibility that something that you can't quite see is behind it.


For many, conspiracy theory is a pejorative term which denotes a faulty epistemology, rumors, and speculation. Furthermore, it is asserted that such analysis overestimates the ability of government bureaucracies to carry out “sophisticated and secret” (Sunstein & Vermeule, 2008, p. 6) plans in an open society. According to Parenti (2010), the term conspiracy theory can be used to dismiss: “(1) the idea of a conscious design by policy makers; (2) a hidden, but knowing intent; (3) a secret plan; (4) a secret interest.”

Kindleberger, C.P. (1981). Dominance and leadership in the international economy: Exploitation, public goods, and free rides. International Studies Quarterly 25(2), 242-254.

I have a strong bias against conspiracy theories of history. I do not believe in the notion that the extreme left, the extreme right, the power elite, the establishment, oil companies, professoriat, military-industrial complex, and so on, can be regarded as single decision-making units with detailed programs for imposing their will on the unsuspecting world. (p. 249)


Parenti (2010) quoting Karp (1973) dismisses the need for a theory entirely:

When it can be established that when a number of political acts work in concert to produce a certain result, the presumption is strong that the actors were aiming at the result in question. When it can be shown that the actors have an interest in producing these results, the presumptions become a fair certainty- no conspiracy theory is needed.


Sunstein and Vermeule (2008) assume a well-intentioned government may decide to defuse conspiracy theories “if and only if social welfare is improved by doing so” (p. 15), yet they concede that governments themselves may be purveyors of conspiracy theories. Parenti (1993) suggested that the beneficiaries of said social welfare may be an entire class interest. Following this reasoning, conspiracy theories may be eliminated to prevent exposure of particular factions, or they may be furnished to enable a certain objective.

Book Excerpt: ‘Conspiracy Theories’
By Cass R. Sunstein
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/04/02/sunstein-conspiracy-theories

In many nations, rational people end up believing crazy things, including (false) conspiracy theories. Those crazy thoughts can lead to violence, including terrorism. Many terrorist acts have been fueled by false conspiracy theories, and there is a good argument that some such acts would not have occurred in the absence of such theories. The key point—and, in a way, the most puzzling and disturbing one—is that the crazy thoughts are often held by people who are not crazy at all.


The US attacked Iraq through a false conspiracy theory.

shadowmayor

(1,325 posts)
24. War Pigs
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 01:51 AM
Aug 2015

The fact that these buttholes walk freely among us is truly remarkable. All that is required is compliance, a population smothered in propaganda and raised in a culture of deference to the rich and powerful. Acquiescence and knee bending is the hallmark of modern America. So few of us care to even examine what is really going on here. Too many are lost in working, spending, surviving, or entertaining to think about how the system is run. And a vast number are ignorant, not even capable of considering the idea that those running the show are playing all sides, always making money, especially off the misery of their fellow man. Every time I see or hear Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, or that smarmy oily worm Rove I want to throw a rock through the screen and open my front door, run into the streets and scream Help me please, for I so want to murder and maim these people.

I know that as a warrior for peace, these thoughts are a break from the better path, but these war pigs just get to keep on keeping on.

What the hell did the people of Iraq (fill in your chosen place) ever do to the people of the US?

Why aren't these people locked up and facing the gallows at the Hague?

And why aren't we busy teaching our children the truth?

The Shadow Mayor



Octafish

(55,745 posts)
68. You have summed up the situation, shadowmayor. These are the par'lous times.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 09:35 PM
Aug 2015

What bothers me are those who know and do nothing. They are as awful as those who work to enslave humanity. Worst of all are those who know and work to keep others in darkness.

Would a Grand Jury were convened, even one led by one of those former state Attorneys General who signed the letter in support of Gov. Don Siegelman, it could go a long way toward setting things right.



EXCERPT...

Career Prosecutors Opposed Siegelman Case

DEPARTMENT No Comment
BY Scott Horton
PUBLISHED October 29, 2007

EXCERPT...

Rove Called the Shots

The new posture taken by the increasingly implausible defense of the Siegelman prosecution is simple. Louis Franklin called all the shots. And Franklin insists that Karl Rove had no dealings with him and thus no influence on the case.

But these claims simply cannot be squared with the record, and with repeated statements that Franklin himself made to the court. But maybe we should start just with the accounts published previously by the Birmingham News itself, such as its March 26, 2006 report on the Siegelman case in which it offers its signature Franklin exclusive:
Louis Franklin, the acting U.S. attorney in the case, said career employees from the Middle District of Alabama and the Public Integrity Division in Washington have made the major decisions in the case.11. Kim Chandler, Siegelman Ties Riley to Indictment, Birmingham News, Mar. 26, 2006, p. 21A.

On February 29, 2006, Franklin filed a sworn affidavit, in which he discussed the decision making process:
We informed defense counsel that the investigation was a joint effort involving the USAO-MDAL , DOJ Public Integrity Section and theAlabama Attorney General’s Office and each entity would participate in all decision-making processes.

Franklin goes on to describe a negotiation session with Scrushy’s counsel in which, even by his account, Noel Hillman played the leading role. In para. 18 of the same affidavit, Franklin states that he is uncertain about a new indictment because whether charges can be brought requires the approval of the Criminal Division in Washington, and they have not yet informed him of their decision.

On April 14, 2006, Louis Franklin filed a motion to block Governor Siegelman from arguing or presenting evidence that the prosecution was politically motivated—and won. Here’s what Franklin told Judge Fuller:
In this case, the only person associated with the prosecutors who is accused of discriminatory motive is U.S. Attorney Leura Canary…

Former Attorney General, and now United States Circuit Judge Bill Pryor publicly announced the joint state and federal investigation of Defendant Siegelman’s administration in June 2001—months before Ms. Canary was appointed U.S. Attorney. The federal grand jury did not convene in connection with this investigation until June 2004 — well after Ms. Canary’s recusal from the case. . .

Louis Franklin, the acting U.S. Attorney in the case, and career employee from the Middle District of Alabama’s U.S. Attorney’s Office, the Public Integrity Division of the United States Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and the Alabama Attorney General’s Office have jointly made all of the substantive decisions in the case since Ms. Canary’s recusal, including the decisions to convene a special grand jury in 2004 and to present charges to that grand jury. None of these individuals have been accused of political motivations by the defendants, either in the case or in the press. Moreover, any claims regarding Ms. Canary’s political motivations cannot be imputed to them.

CONTINUED...

http://harpers.org/archive/2007/10/hbc-90001540



But, for some reason, those who help continue the War Party's reign by keeping Siegelman in the pen get appointed to nice jobs, like the Supreme Court.

shadowmayor

(1,325 posts)
73. Helter Skelter
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 09:43 PM
Aug 2015

Even the hardly liberal Vincent Bugliosi called for much of the same in prosecuting Bush for murder. But it's so much easier to bend the knee. Your post and the replies to it are what makes DU an important read for me. Yeah I know there's an endless primary going on right now, but honestly the election is over a year away. How about asking the candidates how they plan to pay for these wars we just fought? Or why weren't any generals fired for incompetence during those wars? It's still baseball, apple pie, chevrolet and the third reich - the all american way!!!

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
79. Who remembers Paul Sanford?
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 11:01 PM
Aug 2015

An attorney who also served as a journalist, Paul Sanford was first to ask then-White House press secretary Scott McClellan whether the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name might be considered an act of treason.

A year later he was dead in a fall at a California hotel. The death was ruled a suicide.

We talked about him on DU, back then.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
80. Who remembers Mark Lombardi?
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 11:20 PM
Aug 2015

Among other organizations, NYC artist Mark Lombardi studied the Bush Organized Crime Family and drew connections between the players, events and times, forming social network diagrams.


"George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens."

He made dozens of these "Social Network Diagrams," connecting the dots between Bushes and bin Ladens and BCCI and the Mafia and CIA and so on.



Above is a detail from "George W. Bush, Harken Energy and Jackson Stephens." Note the Bin Laden -- James R. Bath -- George W. Bush linkage. It was made in 1999. Lombardi was found hanged in his loft in 2000. After 9-11, one NYC gallery reported FBI types came in and inspected his works.

Obsessive—Generous: Toward a Diagram of Mark Lombardi

http://www.whale.to/c/mark_lombard3.html

Guy knew how to connect the dots from Poppy Doc Bush and Baby Doc Bush to James R Bath and to Osama bin Laden in 2000.

 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
30. But but but...the BFEE...tee hee giggles!
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 09:36 AM
Aug 2015

Don't you want to laugh and otherwise NOT talk about the warmongers like our special crew here Octa? Come on now, the BFEE...tee hee giggles - it is funny!

Seriously, why you still even reply to those concern trolls that like to defend the BFEE, I will never understand.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
36. It's to show them for what they are: supporters of warmongers, war criminals and traitors.
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 11:24 AM
Aug 2015

True, though: I also ask myself why I bother? The answer is democracy. WE don't put profits and power over people and progress.

 

Rex

(65,616 posts)
39. True and they have done that, supporters of warmongers etc..
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 12:11 PM
Aug 2015

Keep it up, they seem to be breaking since they cannot break you. I've never seen such a pathetic group of people post here, as the ones that support the BFEE and Wall Street.

Probably one and the same.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
87. The Jeb Bush Adviser Who Should Scare You
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 10:05 PM
Aug 2015
Paul Wolfowitz not only championed the Iraq War—he obsessively promoted a bizarre conspiracy theory.

—By David Corn
Mother Jones | Wed May 13, 2015

Last week, Jeb Bush, the all-but-announced GOP presidential candidate, stirred up a fuss when he privately told a group of Manhattan financiers that his top adviser on US-Israeli policy is George W. Bush. Given that Jeb has tried mightily to distance himself from his brother, whose administration used false assertions to launch the still highly unpopular Iraq War, this touting of W.—even at a behind-closed-doors session of Republican donors—seemed odd. But perhaps more noteworthy is that Jeb Bush has embraced much of his brother's White House foreign policy team. In February, his campaign released a list of 21 foreign policy advisers; 17 of them served in the George W. Bush administration. And one name stood out: Paul Wolfowitz, a top policy architect of the Iraq War—for the prospect of Wolfowitz whispering into Jeb's ear ought to scare the bejeezus out of anyone who yearns for a rational national security policy.

Wolfowitz, who was deputy defense secretary under George W. Bush, was a prominent neocon cheerleader for the invasion of Iraq. He was also the top conspiracy theorist in the Bush-Cheney crowd. As Michael Isikoff and I reported in our our 2006 book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, Wolfowitz, prior to the Iraq War, was a champion of a bizarre theory promoted by an eccentric academic named Laurie Mylroie: Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, not Islamic extremists such as Al Qaeda, was responsible for most of the world's anti-United States terrorism.

For years, Mylroie, who had been an assistant professor of political science at Harvard University, had promoted the notion that Saddam was the real terrorist threat to the United States, and law enforcement and intelligence officials had dismissed her thesis, which was based on assorted elaborate conspiracies that apparently only she could divine. After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, she developed a complicated hypothesis that the mastermind of that attack, an Islamic radical who went by the name of Ramzi Yousef and who had spent time in Afghan training camps affiliated with Al Qaeda, was actually an Iraqi intelligence agent who had somehow stolen Yousef's identity. Actually, according to Mylroie the Iraqi agent had stolen the identity of a deceased Pakistani and then taken on the name Ramzi Yousef. In any event, this would mean that Saddam, not Islamic extremists, was behind this act of war.

Mylroie made the rounds of the then-small world of counterterrorism studies. FBI investigators, federal prosecutors, and the CIA considered her theory and tossed it aside. She had no compelling evidence. (One CIA analyst noted, "Not only was it not true, we proved the opposite"—that Saddam was not connected to the 1993 bombing.) But Mylroie pressed on, and neocons, who had long been diehard supporters of Israel who yearned to drum up support for US military action against Iraq, flocked to her ideas.

Wolfowitz was one of her fiercest advocates. At one point during the Clinton years, when Wolfowitz was serving as the dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, he met with Martin Indyk, who was overseeing Iraq policy for the National Security Council, and asked why the Clinton administration had not accepted Mylroie's view. Indyk told him that the CIA and FBI had settled this issue. But Wolfowitz was not persuaded. "He was convinced that we were purposely refusing to see the link for policy reasons," Indyk told Isikoff and me for our book.

CONTINUED...

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/05/jeb-bush-adviser-paul-wolfowitz

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
38. 2003 George W. Bush interview about 9/11: "...we got a laugh out of it."
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 11:48 AM
Aug 2015
From the great DUer elehhhhna:

Noonan: You were separated on September 11th. What was it like when you saw each other again?

Mrs. Bush: Well, we just hugged. I think there was a certain amount of security in being with each other than being apart.

President Bush: But the day ended on a relatively humorous note. The agents said, "You'll be sleeping downstairs. Washington's still a dangerous place." And I said no, I can't sleep down there, the bed didn't look comfortable. I was really tired, Laura was tired, we like our own bed. We like our own routine. You know, kind of a nester. Like the way things are. I knew I had to deal with the issue the next day and provide strength and comfort to the country, and so I needed rest in order to be mentally prepared. So I told the agent we're going upstairs, and he reluctantly said okay. Laura wears contacts, and she was sound asleep. Barney was there. And the agent comes running up and says, "We're under attack. We need you downstairs," and so there we go. I'm in my running shorts and my T-shirt, and I'm barefooted. Got the dog in one hand, Laura had a cat, I'm holding Laura --

Mrs. Bush: I don't have my contacts in, and I'm in my fuzzy house slippers --

President Bush: And this guy's out of breath, and we're heading straight down to the basement because there's an incoming unidentified airplane, which is coming toward the White House. Then the guy says it's a friendly airplane. And we hustle all the way back upstairs and go to bed.

Mrs. Bush: And we just lay there thinking about the way we must have looked.

Noonan: So the day starts in tragedy and ends in Marx Brothers.

President Bush: That's right -- we got a laugh out of it.

From Ladies Home Journal

INTERNET ARCHIVE: https://web.archive.org/web/20101119195558/http://www.lhj.com/style/covers/george-w-bush-and-laura-bush/?page=6

Monstrous people, wot.

Oilwellian

(12,647 posts)
46. Three months after 911, the Dubya said:
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 04:26 PM
Aug 2015
But all in all, it's been a fabulous year for Laura and me.

A fabulous year despite deadliest terrorist attacks in American history; makes one wonder what would constitute a bad year, White House, Dec. 21, 2001

http://www.dubyaspeak.com/fabulous

Juicy_Bellows

(2,427 posts)
50. It all went swimmingly well!
Wed Aug 5, 2015, 05:42 PM
Aug 2015

Everything Uncle Dick said would happen did - great year for Pickles and me!

So disgusting.........

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
84. Jeb Bush and His Brother’s Wars
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 09:47 PM
Aug 2015
It was not “faulty intelligence,” as Jeb Bush claims, that led to the war in Iraq. He knows better. His brother’s Administration meant to invade Iraq from its first days in office, and Jeb Bush was prominent among those demanding it.

by RICHARD W. BEHAN
CounterPunch, July 10, 2015

EXCERPT...

These commitments, to invade two sovereign nations, were in place long before the horrific events of September 11, 2001. When that day arrived, the White House seized immediately the public relations opportunity it provided. 9/11 became in a heartbeat the spectacular cause celebre to provoke the scheduled wars, and far more importantly to cloak their intent and premeditation.

The “global war on terror” was born—in fraudulence. And for years to come the people of the Project for the New American Century—including Jeb Bush, governing in Florida—dissembled, calling it a righteous, just, even glorious enterprise.

An offer for “the unconditional surrender of (Osama) bin Laden” was waiting on the presidential desk when George Bush was inaugurated on January 20, 2001. The Clinton Administration extracted the offer from the Taliban in November of 2000, after the al Qaeda attack on the USS Cole. To avoid a retaliatory bombing of Afghanistan the Taliban offered up bin Laden’s head.

The new Bush Administration, however, sent a letter to the Taliban asking to delay the handover of bin Laden until February. This bizarre, seemingly derelict decision would be explained by events still to take place as the Administration plunged ahead, driven by the strategic blueprint of the Project for the New American Century.

The Bush Administration soon undertook its own negotiations with the Taliban, on a separate issue: an exclusive right-of-way for a geostrategic pipeline across Afghanistan, to access and control the epic hydrocarbon resources of the Caspian Basin. The Taliban had granted such a right-of-way to the Bridas Corporation of Argentina, but the Bush Administration wanted it reassigned to America’s Unocal Corporation instead. In exchange, the Administration would provide a package of foreign aid. The negotiators met three times, in Washington, Berlin, and Islamabad, but the Taliban would not agree. Reports in the British press surfaced later of a covert statement by the Bush Administration in mid-July: “…military action against Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of October.” And at the final meeting, on August 2, 2001, State Department negotiator Christine Rocca issued the Administration’s ultimatum: “Accept our offer of a carpet of gold or we bury you under a carpet of bombs.”

In the course of the pipeline talks, the Taliban’s surrender of Osama bin Laden was twice more postponed by the Bush Administration, and then on September 11 bin Laden struck again: the trade towers fell and the Pentagon smoldered.

Both President Bush and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld were frantic to launch the planned attack on Iraq, and ordered subordinates to find a reason for doing so: some—any–connection between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein would do.

But none could be found, so soon, on October 7 and right on schedule, the carpet of bombs was delivered as promised to the sovereign nation of Afghanistan.

The Project for the New American Century was no doubt disappointed, but registered no complaint. Indeed its architects, William Kristol and Robert Kagan three weeks later on October 29 wrote, “Nor do we doubt the vital importance of victory in Afghanistan—a victory defined by the unequivocal destruction of the Taliban, al Qaeda, and Osama bin Laden.”

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/07/10/jeb-bush-and-his-brothers-wars/

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
85. Bush Family War Profiteering
Fri Aug 7, 2015, 09:53 PM
Aug 2015

by EVELYN PRINGLE
CounterPunch, APRIL 12, 2007

EXCERPT...

This study found that since 9/11, the 34 defense CEOs have pocketed a combined total of $984 million, or enough, the report says, to cover the wages for more than a million Iraqis for a year. In 2005, the average total compensation for the CEOs of large US corporations was only 6% above 2001 figures, while defense CEOs pay was 108% higher.

But the last name of one family, which is literally amassing a fortune over the backs of our dead heroes, matches that of the man holding the purse strings in the White House. On December 11, 2003, the Financial Times reported that three people had told the Times that they had seen letters written by Neil Bush that recommended business ventures in the Middle East, promoted by New Bridges Strategies, a firm set up by President Bush’s former campaign manager, who quit his Bush appointed government job as the head of FEMA, three weeks before the war in Iraq began.

Neil Bush was paid an annual fee to "help companies secure contracts in Iraq," the Times said.

But Neil Bush is by no means the only Bush profiting from the war on terror. The first President Bush is so entangled with entities that have profited greatly that it’s difficult to even know where to begin. Bush joined the Carlyle Group in 1993, and became a member of the firm’s Asian Advisory Board.

The Carlyle Group was best known for buying defense companies and doubling or tripling their value and was already heavily supported by defense contracts. But in 2002, the firm received $677 million in government contracts, and by 2003, its contracts were worth $2.1 billion.

Prior to 9/11, some Carlyle companies were not doing so well. For instance, the future of Vought Aircraft looked dismal when the company laid off 20% of its employees. But business was booming shortly after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, and the company received over $1 billion in defense contracts.

The Bush family’s connections to the Osama bin Laden’s family seem almost surreal. On September 28, 2001, two weeks after 9/11, the Wall Street Journal reported that, "George H.W. Bush, the father of President Bush, works for the bin Laden family business in Saudi Arabia through the Carlyle Group, an international consulting firm."

As a representative of Carlyle, one of the investors that Bush brought to Carlyle was the Bin Laden Group, a construction company owned by Osama’s family. The bin Ladens have been called the Rockefellers of the Middle East, and the father, Mohammed, has reportedly amassed a $5 billion empire. According the Journal, Bush convinced Shafiq bin Laden to invest $2 million with Carlyle.

The Journal found that Bush had met with the bin Ladens at least twice between 1998 and 2000. On September 27, 2001, the Journal reported that it had confirmed that a meeting took place between Bush Senior and the bin Laden family through Senior’s Chief of Staff, Jean Becker, but only after the reporter showed her a thank you note that was written and sent by Bush to the bin Ladens after the meeting.

The current President’s little publicized affiliation with the bin Laden family goes back to his days with Arbusto oil when Salem bin Laden funneled money through James Bath to bail out that particular failed company.

Probably the most eerie report about this strange group of bedfellows is that on 9/11, the day that served as a kick-off for the highly profitable war on terror, Shafiq bin Laden attended a meeting in the office of the Carlyle Group, and stood watching TV with other members of the firm as the WTC collapsed.

The fact that so many Saudis, including many bin Ladens, were allowed to fly out of the country right after 9/11, while Americans were still grounded, has always seemed a bit strange to most people also, especially when nobody in the Bush administration was able to explain who gave permission for the flights.

About a month after 9/11, in October 2001, the Carlyle Group severed its ties with the Bin Laden Group, but the Bush family did not. In January 2002, Neil Bush took a trip to Saudi Arabia that was sponsored by the Bin Laden Construction Company and Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, the same Prince who offered New York Mayor, Rudy Giuliani $10 million to help the 9/11 victims, a gesture that Rudy refused.

In the fall of 2003, Bush Senior finally resigned from the Carlyle Group as the accusations of family war profiteering grew louder. However, according to the Washington Post, he still retained stock in the firm and gave speeches on its behalf for a fee of $500,000.

Carlyle companies have also scored big in the Homeland Security bonanza. Federal Data Systems and US Investigations Services hold multi-billion- dollar contracts to provide background checks for airlines, the Pentagon, the CIA and the Department of Homeland Security. US Investigations used to be a federal agency, until it was privatized in 1996 and taken over by Carlyle.

Marvin and Jeb Bush are also highly successful members of the family war profiteering team. Marvin is a co-founder and partner in Winston Partners, a private investment firm, and Jeb is an investor in the Winston Capital Fund, which is managed by Marvin.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/04/12/bush-family-war-profiteering/

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
88. Why the Mainstream Media Is Gung-Ho on War and Silencing Antiwar Voices
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 07:03 PM
Aug 2015

By The Daily Take Team,
The Thom Hartmann Program, Monday, 17 November 2014

EXCERPT...

Meanwhile, of the pro-war guests that appeared on the shows, it should come as no surprise that a majority of them were military insiders and shills for the US military industrial complex.

Recently, Lee Fang over at The Nation published a piece revealing the truth behind many of the so-called "policy experts" that have been pushing for war on our airwaves.

For example, retired General Jack Keane has been all over the place making the case for war with ISIS.

As Fang points out, Keane is the head of the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), which is backed by some of the US' most powerful and profitable defense contractors.

Keane is also a special adviser to the defense contractor Academi (formerly Blackwater), and serves on the board of defense contractor General Dynamics.

It's pretty clear which side he's going to take in a debate on military involvement in Iraq and Syria.

So, why is it that the mainstream media is so gung-ho about promoting war and military intervention, and so quick to silence antiwar voices?

It's because we no longer have news in this country. We have infotainment.

Infotainment lacks patriotism or humanism - it cares neither about the good of our nation or its people. It's instead exclusively about getting the most eyeballs, and bringing in the most dollars. Wars are really good for both of those things.

CONTINUED with LINKS...

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/27500-why-the-mainstream-media-is-gung-ho-on-war-and-silencing-antiwar-voices

You are most welcome, Uncle Joe! Old news to you, but seeing how Corporate Owned News avoids the truth like the plague, the role of the mass media in perpetuating the wars without end for profits without cease is an important thing for We the People to know.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
89. People who say: ''Bush lied America into war'' are like NAZIs, BFEE Judge Silberman said.
Sat Aug 8, 2015, 07:30 PM
Aug 2015


The history shows the guy got a nice career as reward for service to the rightwing, rather than a trial he so richly deserved for treason.



Federal Appeals Judge Compares People Who Say Bush Lied To Rise Of Nazis

A federal appeals judge wrote in a column published on Sunday that people who accuse former President George W. Bush of lying about the Iraq War are peddling myths like those that led to the rise of Hitler.

Laurence H. Silberman, a federal appellate judge appointed by President Ronald Reagan, wrote in the Wall Street Journal that the idea the Bush administration "lied us into Iraq" has gone from "antiwar slogan to journalistic fact."

"It is one thing to assert, then or now, that the Iraq war was ill-advised," he wrote. "It is quite another to make the horrendous charge that President Bush lied to or deceived the American people about the threat from Saddam."

After re-litigating the case for invading Iraq, Silberman wrote that the charge could have "potentially dire consequences."

"I am reminded of a similarly baseless accusation that helped the Nazis come to power in Germany: that the German army had not really lost World War I, that the soldiers instead had been 'stabbed in the back' by politicians," he wrote.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/laurence-silberman-bush-lied-nazis

via kpete: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=6201723



Robert Parry in 2009:



Neocon Judge's History of Cover-ups

Laurence Silberman, a U.S. Appeals Court judge and a longtime neoconservative operative – part of what the Iran-Contra special prosecutor called “the strategic reserves” for convicted Reagan administration operatives in the 1980s – is back playing a similar role for the Bush-43 administration.

by Robert Parry
ConsortiumNews.com, September 23, 2009

On Sept. 11, the eighth anniversary of the terror attacks on New York and Washington, Silberman issued a 2-to-1 opinion dismissing a lawsuit against the private security firm, CACI International, brought by Iraqi victims of torture and other abuse at Abu Ghraib prison.

Silberman declared that CACI was immune from prosecution because its employees were responding to U.S. military commands. The immunity ruling blocked legal efforts by 212 Iraqis, who suffered directly at Abu Ghraib or were the widows of men who died, to exact some accountability from CACI employees who allegedly assisted in the torture of prisoners.

"During wartime, where a private service contractor is integrated into combatant activities over which the military retains command authority, a tort claim arising out of the contractor's engagement in such activities shall be preempted," Silberman wrote.

But Silberman is not a dispassionate judge when it comes to the crimes of Republicans committed to advance the neocon cause.

In the 1980s, Silberman played behind-the-scenes roles in helping Ronald Reagan gain the White House; he helped formulate hard-line intelligence policies; he encouraged right-wing media attacks on liberals; and he protected the flanks of Reagan’s operatives who were caught breaking the law.

Iran-Contra special prosecutor Lawrence Walsh, a Republican himself, counted Silberman as one of "a powerful band of Republican [judicial] appointees [who] waited like the strategic reserves of an embattled army," determined to prevent any judgments against Reagan’s operatives who broke the law in the arms-for-hostage scandal.

In his 1997 memoir, Firewall, Walsh depicted Silberman as a leader of that partisan band, even recalling how Silberman had berated Judge George MacKinnon, also a Republican, who led the panel which had picked Walsh to be the special prosecutor.

"At a D.C. circuit conference, he [Silberman] had gotten into a shouting match about independent counsel with Judge George MacKinnon," Walsh wrote. "Silberman not only had hostile views but seemed to hold them in anger."

In 1990, after Walsh had secured a difficult conviction of former White House aide Oliver North for offenses stemming from the Iran-Contra scandal, Silberman teamed up with another right-wing judge, David Sentelle, to overturn North’s conviction in a sudden outburst of sympathy for defendant rights.

Trashing Anita Hill

Less publicly, in 1991, Silberman also went to bat for the U.S. Supreme Court nomination of Clarence Thomas, working with right-wing operatives to destroy the reputation of Anita Hill, a former Thomas employee who testified about his crude sexual harassment.

Author David Brock, then a well-paid right-wing hatchet man who published what he later admitted were scurrilous attacks on Hill, described the support and encouragement he received from Silberman and Silberman’s wife, Ricky. Even after Thomas had won Senate confirmation, Silberman still was pushing attack lines against Hill, Brock wrote in his book, Blinded by the Right.

While George H.W. Bush’s White House slipped Brock a psychiatric opinion that Hill suffered from “erotomania,” Silberman met with Brock to suggest even more colorful criticism of Hill.

“Silberman speculated that Hill was a lesbian ‘acting out’,” Brock wrote. “Besides, Silberman confided, Thomas would never have asked Hill for dates: She had bad breath.”

After Brock published a book-length assault on Hill, called The Real Anita Hill, the Silbermans and other prominent conservatives joined a celebration at the Embassy Row Ritz-Carlton, Brock wrote, noting that also in attendance was Judge Sentelle.

But Silberman’s anything-goes approach to promoting – and protecting – right-wing control of the government dated back even further, to his key role as a foreign-policy and intelligence adviser to Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign.

During Campaign 1980, Silberman was a senior figure in what was then a fast-rising neoconservative faction that saw Reagan’s victory – and the defeat of President Jimmy Carter – as vital to expand U.S. military power, to confront the Soviet Union aggressively and to relieve pressure on Israel for a peace deal with the Palestinians.

More than a decade later, congressional investigators discovered that Silberman was assigned to secretive Reagan campaign operations collecting intelligence on what President Carter was doing to secure the release of 52 American hostages then held in Iran.

On April 20, 1980, the Reagan campaign created a group of foreign policy experts known as the Iran Working Group. The operation was run by Richard Allen, Fred Ikle and Silberman, the congressional investigators discovered.

After Reagan’s nomination in July, his campaign merged with that of his vice presidential running mate, George H.W. Bush, who had enlisted many ex-CIA officers who were loyal to Bush as a former CIA director.

October Surprise Obsession

The general election campaign assembled a strategy team, known as the “October Surprise Group,” which was ordered to prepare for “any last-minute foreign policy or defense-related event, including the release of the hostages, that might favorably impact President Carter in the November election,” according to a House Task Force that in 1992 investigated allegations of Republican interference in Carter’s hostage negotiations.

“Originally referred to as the ‘Gang of Ten,’” the Task Force report said the “October Surprise Group” consisted of Allen, Ikle, Charles M. Kupperman, Thomas H. Moorer, Eugene V. Rostow, William R. Van Cleave, John R. Lehman Jr., Robert G. Neumann, Seymour Weiss – and Silberman.

While that reference made it into the Task Force’s final report in January 1993, another part was deleted, which said: “According to members of the ‘October Surprise’ group, the following individuals also participated in meetings although they were not considered ‘members’ of the group: Michael Ledeen, Richard Stillwell, William Middendorf, Richard Perle, General Louis Walt and Admiral James Holloway.”

Deleted from the final report also was a section of the draft describing how the ex-CIA personnel who had worked for Bush’s campaign became the nucleus of the Republican intelligence operation that monitored Carter’s Iran-hostage negotiations for the Reagan-Bush team.

“The Reagan-Bush campaign maintained a 24-hour Operations Center, which monitored press wires and reports, gave daily press briefings and maintained telephone and telefax contact with the candidate’s plane,” the draft report read. “Many of the staff members were former CIA employees who had previously worked on the Bush campaign or were otherwise loyal to George Bush.” (I discovered the unpublished portions of Task Force’s report when I gain access to its files in late 1994.)

Another deletion involved a Sept. 16, 1980, meeting ordered by Reagan’s campaign director William Casey, who had become obsessed over the possibility of Carter pulling off an October Surprise release of the hostages.

On that date, Casey met with senior campaign officials Edwin Meese, Bill Timmons and Richard Allen about the “Persian Gulf Project,” according to an unpublished section of the House Task Force report and Allen’s notes. Two other participants at the meeting, according to Allen’s notes, were Michael Ledeen and Noel Koch.

That same day, Iran’s acting foreign minister Sadegh Ghotbzadeh was quoted as citing Republican interference on the hostages. “Reagan, supported by [former Secretary of State Henry] Kissinger and others, has no intention of resolving the problem,” Ghotbzadeh said. “They will do everything in their power to block it.”

Exactly what the Reagan-Bush “October Surprise” team did remains something of a historical mystery.

About two dozen witnesses – including former Iranian officials and international intelligence figures – have claimed the Republican contacts undercut Carter’s hostage negotiations, though others insist that the initiatives were simply ways to gather information about Carter’s desperate bid to free the hostages before the election. [For the most thorough account of the “October Surprise” case, see Robert Parry’s Secrecy & Privilege.]

The L’Enfant Plaza Mystery

One of the many unanswered questions about the October Surprise mystery revolved around a meeting involving Laurence Silberman and an Iranian emissary at the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel in Washington in September or early October 1980.

Years later, an Iranian arms dealer named Houshang Lavi claimed to be the emissary who met with Silberman, Allen and Robert McFarlane, who was then an aide to Sen. John Tower, R-Texas. Lavi said the meeting on Oct. 2 dealt with the possibility of trading arms to Iran for release of the hostages – and was arranged by Silberman.

Silberman, Allen and McFarlane acknowledged that a meeting happened, but they insisted they had no recollection of the emissary’s name nor who he was.

In 1990, I interviewed a testy Richard Allen about the meeting for a PBS Frontline documentary. Allen said he reluctantly went to the meeting, which he said was proposed by McFarlane. Allen said he took along Silberman as a witness.

“So Larry Silberman and I got on the subway and we went down to the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel where I met McFarlane and there were many people milling about. We sat at a table in the lobby. It was around the lunch hour. I was introduced to this very obscure character whose name I cannot recall. …

“The individual who was either an Egyptian or an Iranian or could have been an Iranian living in Egypt – and his idea was that he had the capacity to intervene, to deliver the hostages to the Reagan forces. Now, I took that at first to mean that he was able to deliver the hostages to Ronald Reagan, candidate for the presidency of the United States, which was absolutely lunatic. And I said so. I believe I said, or Larry did, ‘we have one President at a time. That’s the way it is.’

“So this fellow continued with his conversation. I was incredulous that McFarlane would have ever brought a guy like this or placed any credibility in a guy like this. Just absolutely incredulous, and so was Larry Silberman. This meeting lasted maybe 20 minutes, 25 minutes. So that’s it. There’s no need to continue this meeting. …

“Larry and I walked out. And I remember Larry saying, ‘Boy, you better write a memorandum about this. This is really spaceship stuff.’ And it, of course, set my opinion very firmly about Bud McFarlane for having brought this person to me in the first place.”

‘Swarthy’ Emissary

Allen described the emissary as “stocky and swarthy, dark-complected,” but otherwise “non-descript.” Allen added that the man looked like a “person from somewhere on the Mediterranean littoral. How about that?”

Allen said this Egyptian or Iranian “must have given a name at the time, must have.” But Allen couldn’t recall it. He also said he made no effort to check out the man’s position or background before agreeing to the meeting.

“Did you ask McFarlane, who is this guy?” I asked Allen.

“I don’t recall having asked him, no,” Allen responded.

“I guess I don’t understand why you wouldn’t say, ‘Is this guy an Iranian, is he someone you’ve known for a while?’” I pressed.

“Well, gee, I’m sorry that you don’t understand,” Allen lashed back. “I really feel badly for you. It’s really too bad you don’t understand. But that’s your problem, not mine.”

“But wouldn’t you normally ask that kind of background question?”

“Not necessarily,” Allen said. “McFarlane wanted me to meet a guy and this guy was going to talk about the hostages. I met plenty of people during that period of time who wanted to talk to me about the hostages. … This was no different from anybody else I would meet on this subject.”

“It obviously turned out to be different from most people you’ve met on the subject,” I interjected.

“”Oh, it turned out to be because this guy is the centerpiece of some sort of great conspiracy web that has been spun,” Allen snapped.

“Well, were there many people who offered to deliver the hostages to Ronald Reagan?” I asked.

“No, this one was particularly different, but I didn’t know that before I went to the meeting, you understand.”

“Did you ask McFarlane what on earth this guy was going to propose?”

“I don’t think I did in advance, no.”

What also was unusual about this meeting was what Allen and Silberman did not do afterwards. Though Allen said that he and Silberman recognized the sensitivity of the approach, neither of Reagan’s foreign policy advisers contacted the Carter administration or reported the offer to law enforcement.

Defying Logic

It also defied logic that seasoned operatives like Allen and Silberman would have agreed to a meeting with an emissary from a hostile power without having done some due-diligence about who the person was and what his bona fides were.

Iranian arms dealer Lavi later claimed to be the mysterious emissary. And government documents revealed that Lavi made a similar approach to the independent presidential campaign of John Anderson, although Anderson’s campaign – unlike Allen and Silberman – promptly informed the CIA and State Department.

For his part, Silberman denied any substantive discussion with the mysterious emissary but refused to discuss the meeting in any detail. He did insist that he was out of town on Oct. 2, the date cited by Lavi, but Silberman wouldn’t provide a list of dates when he was in Washington during the fall of 1980.

Though purportedly having arranged the meeting, McFarlare also insisted that he couldn’t recall the identity of the emissary.

Later, when a Senate panel conducted a brief inquiry into whether the Republicans interfered with Carter’s hostage negotiations, a truculent Allen testified – and brought along a memo that he claimed represented his contemporaneous recollections of the L’Enfant Plaza meeting.

However, the memo, dated Sept. 10, 1980, flatly contradicted the previous accounts from Allen, Silberman and McFarlane. It described a meeting arranged by Mike Butler, another Tower aide, with McFarlane only joining in later as the pair told Allen about a meeting they had had with a Mr. A.A. Mohammed, a Malaysian who operated out of Singapore.

“This afternoon, by mutual agreement, I met with Messrs. Mohammed, Butler and McFarlane. I also took Larry Silberman along to the meeting,” Allen wrote in the memo.

According to the memo, Mohammed presented a scheme for returning the Shah of Iran’s son to the country as “a figurehead monarch” which would be accompanied by a release of the U.S. hostages. Though skeptical of the plan, “both Larry and I indicated that we would be pleased to hear whatever additional news Mr. Mohammed might be able to turn up, and I suggested that that information be communicated via a secure channel,” the memo read.

Nearly every important detail was different both in how the meeting was arranged and its contents. Gone was the proposal to release the hostages to candidate Reagan, gone was the abrupt cutoff, gone was the Iranian or Egyptian – some guy from the “Mediterranean littoral” – replaced by a Malaysian businessman whose comments were welcomed along with future contacts “via a secure channel.” The memo didn’t even mention the L’Enfant Plaza Hotel, nor was McFarlane the organizer.

A reasonable conclusion might be that Allen’s memo was about an entirely different meeting, which would suggest that Republican contacts with Iranian emissaries were more numerous than previously admitted and that Silberman was more of a regular player.

Also, Silberman, McFarlane and Butler – when questioned by the House Task Force investigating the issue in 1992 – disputed Allen’s new version of the L’Enfant Plaza tale. They claimed no recollection of the A.A. Mohammed discussion.

Nevertheless, the House Task Force, in its determination to turn the page on the complex October Surprise issue, accepted Allen’s memo as the final answer to the L’Enfant Plaza question and pressed ahead with a broader rejection of any wrongdoing by Republicans – even though that required concealing a host of incriminating documents. [See Secrecy & Privilege.]

Tantalizing Clue

The House Task Force also turned a blind eye to another tantalizing clue related to the L’Enfant Plaza mystery. Lavi’s lawyer, former CIA counsel Mitchell Rogovin, provided me a page of his notes from that time period.

Rogovin, who was an adviser to the John Anderson campaign, wrote on his calendar entry for Sept. 29, 1980, a summary of Lavi’s plan to trade weapons for the hostages. After that, Rogovin recorded a telephone contact with senior CIA official John McMahon to discuss Lavi’s plan and to schedule a face-to-face meeting with a CIA representative on Oct. 2.

The next entry, however, was stunning. It read, “Larry Silberman – still very nervous/will recommend … against us this P.M. I said $250,000 – he said why even bother.”

When I called Rogovin about this notation, he said it related to a loan that the Anderson campaign was seeking from Crocker National Bank where Silberman served as legal counsel. The note meant that Silberman was planning to advise the bank officers against the loan, Rogovin said.

I asked Rogovin if he might have mentioned Lavi’s hostage plan to Silberman, who was in the curious position of being a senior Reagan adviser and weighing in on a loan to an independent campaign that was viewed as siphoning off votes from Carter. (Crocker did extend a line of credit to Anderson.)

“There was no discussion of the Lavi proposal,” Rogovin insisted. But Rogovin acknowledged that Silberman was a friend from the Ford administration where both men had worked on intelligence issues, Rogovin from the CIA and Silberman at the Justice Department. Later, Rogovin and Silberman became next-door neighbors and bought a boat together.

In a normal investigation, such coincidences would strain credulity, especially given Lavi’s claim that he took part in a meeting with Republicans at the L’Enfant Plaza on Oct. 2, the same day that he talked with a CIA representative. Lavi also claimed that Silberman had arranged the meeting, which would make sense given Rogovin’s personal ties to Silberman.

However, as on a host of other compelling leads, the House Task Force chose to look the other way.

Reagan’s Victory

On Nov. 4, 1980, with Carter unable to free the hostages and Americans humiliated by the year-long ordeal with Iran, Ronald Reagan won the presidency in a landslide.

For his loyal service in the campaign, the neoconservative Silberman was put in charge of the transition team’s intelligence section. The team prepared a report attacking the CIA’s analytical division for noting growing weaknesses in the Soviet Union, a position despised by the neocons because it undercut their case for a costly expansion of the Pentagon’s budget.

Silberman’s transition team accused the CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence of “an abject failure” to foresee a supposedly massive Soviet buildup of strategic weapons and “the wholesale failure” to comprehend the sophistication of Soviet propaganda.

“These failures are of such enormity,” the transition report said, “that they cannot help but suggest to any objective observer that the agency itself is compromised to an unprecedented extent and that its paralysis is attributable to causes more sinister than incompetence.”

In other words, Silberman’s transition team was implying that CIA analysts who didn’t toe the neoconservative line must be Soviet agents. Even anti-Soviet hardliners like the CIA’s Robert Gates recognized the impact that the incoming administration’s hostility had on the CIA analysts.

“That the Reaganites saw their arrival as a hostile takeover was apparent in the most extraordinary transition period of my career,” Gates wrote in his memoir, From the Shadows. “The reaction inside the Agency to this litany of failure and incompetence” from the transition team “was a mix of resentment and anger, dread and personal insecurity.”

Amid rumors that the transition team wanted to purge several hundred top analysts, career officials feared for their jobs, especially those considered responsible for assessing the Soviet Union as a declining power rapidly falling behind the West in technology and economics.

According to some intelligence sources, Silberman expected to get the job of CIA director and flew into a rage when Reagan gave the job to his campaign director William Casey, who also was tied to the October Surprise operations. (The U.S. hostages in Iran were released immediately upon Ronald Reagan taking the oath of office on Jan. 20, 1981.)

Silberman’s consolation prize was to be named a judge on the powerful U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, where he helped frustrate the Iran-Contra investigation by overturning Oliver North’s conviction in 1990 and to this day is a defender of the neocons’ foreign policy -- as witnessed by his Sept. 11, 2009, ruling blocking civil lawsuits against U.S. government contractors implicated in torturing Iraqis.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth' are also available there. Or go to Amazon.com.

To comment at Consortiumblog, click here. (To make a blog comment about this or other stories, you can use your normal e-mail address and password. Ignore the prompt for a Google account.) To comment to us by e-mail, click here. To donate so we can continue reporting and publishing stories like the one you just read, click here.


SOURCE w.links: https://consortiumnews.com/2009/092209.html



Old news to you, Enthusiast. For those new to the subject of war profiteering 21st Century style: Put things into a whole new light, the money trumps peace people.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
91. Warmongering Today
Sun Aug 9, 2015, 10:20 AM
Aug 2015

Wolfowitz's neocon acolytes in PNAC continue to course through the corridors of power. For instance, the group pushing for war in Ukraine and Russia, coincidentally I'm told, just happen to be interested in the resulting economic opportunities.



Neocons and Liberals Together, Again

The neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has signaled its intention to continue shaping the government's national security...

Tom Barry, last updated: February 02, 2005

The neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has signaled its intention to continue shaping the government's national security strategy with a new public letter stating that the "U.S. military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume." Rather than reining in the imperial scope of U.S. national security strategy as set forth by the first Bush administration, PNAC and the letter's signatories call for increasing the size of America's global fighting machine.

SNIP...

Liberal Hawks Fly with the Neocons

The recent PNAC letter to Congress was not the first time that PNAC or its associated front groups, such as the Coalition for the Liberation of Iraq, have included hawkish Democrats.

Two PNAC letters in March 2003 played to those Democrats who believed that the invasion was justified at least as much by humanitarian concerns as it was by the purported presence of weapons of mass destruction. PNAC and the neocon camp had managed to translate their military agenda of preemptive and preventive strikes into national security policy. With the invasion underway, they sought to preempt those hardliners and military officials who opted for a quick exit strategy in Iraq. In their March 19th letter, PNAC stated that Washington should plan to stay in Iraq for the long haul: "Everyone-those who have joined the coalition, those who have stood aside, those who opposed military action, and, most of all, the Iraqi people and their neighbors-must understand that we are committed to the rebuilding of Iraq and will provide the necessary resources and will remain for as long as it takes."

Along with such neocon stalwarts as Robert Kagan, Bruce Jackson, Joshua Muravchik, James Woolsey, and Eliot Cohen, a half-dozen Democrats were among the 23 individuals who signed PNAC's first letter on post-war Iraq. Among the Democrats were Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution and a member of Clinton's National Security Council staff; Martin Indyk, Clinton's ambassador to Israel; Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute and Democratic Leadership Council; Dennis Ross, Clinton's top adviser on the Israel-Palestinian negotiations; and James Steinberg, Clinton's deputy national security adviser and head of foreign policy studies at Brookings. A second post-Iraq war letter by PNAC on March 28 called for broader international support for reconstruction, including the involvement of NATO, and brought together the same Democrats with the prominent addition of another Brookings' foreign policy scholar, Michael O'Hanlon.

CONTINUED...

http://rightweb.irc-online.org/articles/display/Neocons_and_Liberals_Together_Again



That's from Rightweb. They're full of facts, for those who take the time to read and learn. One name to pay attention to is Victoria Nuland, our woman in Ukraine, who is married to PNAC co-founder Robert Kagan. Robert Kagan's brother is Frederick Kagan. Frederick Kagan's spouse is Kimberly Kagan.

Brilliant people, big ideas, etc. The thing is, that's a lot of PNAC and the PNAC approach to international relations means more wars without end for profits without cease, among other things detrimental to democracy, peace and justice.

nilesobek

(1,423 posts)
92. They got the police state to keep themselves in power too.
Sun Aug 9, 2015, 11:54 AM
Aug 2015

There's a cop under every rock. The spying and snitch network is firmly entrenched. The STASI would be proud.

I talked with an officer while I was working and he told me that they get hundreds of bogus calls per day via cellphone, crime reports, from bored citizens, citizens with grudges against others, and other right field stuff.

"If you see something, say something." Has become an excuse to drive around with your cellphone trying to get your fellow citizens in trouble with false reports.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
93. Police State of the Art
Sun Aug 9, 2015, 12:13 PM
Aug 2015

They do pick up everything and I mean everything. And they use algorithms to reduce the noise-to-signal ratio.



The goal of wholesale surveillance, as Arendt wrote in “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” is not, in the end, to discover crimes, “but to be on hand when the government decides to arrest a certain category of the population.” And because Americans’ emails, phone conversations, Web searches and geographical movements are recorded and stored in perpetuity in government databases, there will be more than enough “evidence” to seize us should the state deem it necessary. This information waits like a deadly virus inside government vaults to be turned against us. It does not matter how trivial or innocent that information is. In totalitarian states, justice, like truth, is irrelevant. -- Chris Hedges


As you know, nilesobek, the ones who know this stuff are the threat to their gangster arses. Ironic, as that's how democracy is supposed to work.

nilesobek

(1,423 posts)
94. Thanks for your reply. I've read where you mentioned Frank Church.
Mon Aug 10, 2015, 11:44 PM
Aug 2015

I've seen some of the threads where you posted about Frank Church of Idaho. He was beloved and his memory still is in Idaho.

The River of No Return Wilderness is named after him...the largest totally off limits wilderness areas in the lower 48. Its larger than some Eastern States, totally pristine. POTUS Obama just added on to it.

Back in the 70s my old man loved Frank Church as a man of integrity, someone who couldn't be bought. He could be defeated by money as he ultimately was but he couldn't be owned by establishment money.

At the time the Wilderness Laws were passed, the Republicans were in a feeding frenzy about how to exploit Idaho's wilderness mining wealth. They wanted to slam the Sawtooth Mountains to the ground and get all the gold out of there the Yankee Fork Dredge could not.

In the 30s and 40s, the Republicans wanted to open a copper mine in Hell's Canyon, this was before the two dams, (lined up on the rivers like tombstones around here, thanks to Cort Conley I stole that phrase). The profitable parts of this copper mine were very attractive. For one thing. it was downhill all the way to the proposed smelter which was proposed in Lewiston, Idaho. So the ore could be shipped almost cost free once the railroad was built to Hell's Canyon. This act alone would have destroyed 10,000 years or more of Native American burials, petroglyphs and other artifacts. Thankfully, Roosevelt closed the mine and other mines because it was in the allies interest to keep gold scarce during this time.

Frank Church fought against revivals of this exploitation of public lands along with his tireless crusade for for public privacy and freedom. He warned us about these days...these days of the surveillance state.

Octafish

(55,745 posts)
96. Frank Church warned us.
Tue Aug 11, 2015, 01:15 AM
Aug 2015

Thank you for the history and sharing some of your father's thoughts. Integrity is the precise word to describe the character of Frank Church -- a patriot, a hero and a statesman, truly a great American.

Frank Church also led the last real investigation of CIA, NSA and FBI. When it came to NSA Tech circa 1975, he definitely knew what he was talking about:

“That capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter. There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

I don’t want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capability that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision, so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.”

-- Sen. Frank Church (D-Idaho) FDR New Deal, Liberal, Progressive, World War II combat veteran. A brave man, the NSA was turned on him. Coincidentally, of course, he narrowly lost re-election a few years later.



And what happened to Church, for his trouble to preserve Democracy:

In 1980, Church will lose re-election to the Senate in part because of accusations of his committee’s responsibility for Welch’s death by his Republican opponent, Jim McClure.

SOURCE: http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=frank_church_1


From GWU's National Security Archives:



"Disreputable if Not Outright Illegal": The National Security Agency versus Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, Art Buchwald, Frank Church, et al.

Newly Declassified History Divulges Names of Prominent Americans Targeted by NSA during Vietnam Era

Declassification Decision by Interagency Panel Releases New Information on the Berlin Crisis, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the Panama Canal Negotiations


National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 441
Posted – September 25, 2013
Originally Posted - November 14, 2008
Edited by Matthew M. Aid and William Burr

Washington, D.C., September 25, 2013 – During the height of the Vietnam War protest movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the National Security Agency tapped the overseas communications of selected prominent Americans, most of whom were critics of the war, according to a recently declassified NSA history. For years those names on the NSA's watch list were secret, but thanks to the decision of an interagency panel, in response to an appeal by the National Security Archive, the NSA has released them for the first time. The names of the NSA's targets are eye-popping. Civil rights leaders Dr. Martin Luther King and Whitney Young were on the watch list, as were the boxer Muhammad Ali, New York Times journalist Tom Wicker, and veteran Washington Post humor columnist Art Buchwald. Also startling is that the NSA was tasked with monitoring the overseas telephone calls and cable traffic of two prominent members of Congress, Senators Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Howard Baker (R-Tennessee).

SNIP...

Another NSA target was Senator Frank Church, who started out as a moderate Vietnam War critic. A member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee even before the Tonkin Gulf incident, Church worried about U.S. intervention in a "political war" that was militarily unwinnable. While Church voted for the Tonkin Gulf resolution, he later saw his vote as a grave error. In 1965, as Lyndon Johnson made decisions to escalate the war, Church argued that the United States was doing "too much," criticisms that one White House official said were "irresponsible." Church had been one of Johnson's Senate allies but the President was angry with Church and other Senate critics and later suggested that they were under Moscow's influence because of their meetings with Soviet diplomats. In the fall of 1967, Johnson declared that "the major threat we have is from the doves" and ordered FBI security checks on "individuals who wrote letters and telegrams critical of a speech he had recently delivered." In that political climate, it is not surprising that some government officials eventually nominated Church for the watch list.[10]

SOURCE: http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB441/



I wonder if Sen. Richard Schweiker (R-CT) also got the treatment from NSA?

“I think that the report, to those who have studied it closely, has collapsed like a house of cards, and I think the people who read it in the long run future will see that. I frankly believe that we have shown that the [investigation of the] John F. Kennedy assassination was snuffed out before it even began, and that the fatal mistake the Warren Commission made was not to use its own investigators, but instead to rely on the CIA and FBI personnel, which played directly into the hands of senior intelligence officials who directed the cover-up.” — Senator Richard Schweiker on “Face the Nation” in 1976.

Lost to History NOT

nilesobek

(1,423 posts)
98. I was born in '63, the year of the coup.
Tue Aug 11, 2015, 06:28 PM
Aug 2015

I remember growing up and going to school in '69 shortly before the moon landings and in the heat of the Vietnam War. My brother was in the lottery or whatever they called it. He graduated in '74 right before the war ended with our choppers being shot at as they left Saigon. So myself and my brothers escaped the Vietnam draft due to Nixon's carelessness and all the stuff LBJ did.

When the Reagan Revolution happened those were heady days in Idaho. Much like those heady 2 years following 9/11. Steve Symms, an apple orchard farmer from South Idaho was the new golden boy. They tried to give me a job parking their Mercedes Benz's and BMW's, Porches and other fancy cars at their convention down the street from my house. They were trusting me with cars I didn't know how to drive and giving me money. 15 yrs old 1979.

Everyone knew Reagan was going to win as Carter was perceived to have too many weaknesses. To me, it was just a party, got real drunk, flirted with upper class girls and exchange students and parked fancy cars.

I think things have changed for the better nowadays. The young people are alert, they are activated they want to change things. I think I was part of a lost generation. For me, it was like that Leonard Cohen song, there is a crack in the world and somehow I went down all the way.



Ghost in the Machine

(14,912 posts)
97. Rummy & Cheney are conspirators from WAYYY back, to the Ford Administration IIRC... One was
Tue Aug 11, 2015, 01:41 AM
Aug 2015

SEC_DEF and the other a White House Appointee, and they were conspiring to leak classified documents to smear someone ( I think it was Woodward & Bernstein, but not sure ). Ican't find the link on it now, though. Maybe you have something in your files??

I also remember that after Cheney, the first man in history tasked with finding Gee-DUH-bya a running mate, and chose himself, tried to get Rummy and Wolfie installed in the Pentagon... before the recounts were even over, and offered to pay their salaries out of his own pocket! Something sure was stinking in D.C. then! I can't find the link for it, either. I had them saved on another computer, but it died a few years ago. I still have the hard drives, hoping to be able to recover the files one of these days. With all of your history on the BFEE, you just might have something on that, too. I'm NOT asking you to do my homework/research for me, just wondering if you know about it.

As I told someone else probably 30 minutes or more ago, it is time for me to try to get some sleep for a little while.

K&R, and thanks for giving a damn, Octafish!

Peace,

Ghost

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