Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Hookers, spies, cases full of dollars...how BP spent £45m to win 'Wild East' oil rights
GLEN OWEN
UK Daily Mail
Sunday May 13, 2007
Comment: This story appeared early today on the Daily Mail website. It has since been pulled without explanation. If correct, this story could bring down the entire British government which is probably why it was immediately subject to a D notice - a British government order to censor a story. Look out for a big story on this tomorrow.
BP executives working for Lord Browne spent millions of pounds on champagne-fuelled sex parties to help secure lucrative international oil contracts.
The company also worked with MI6 to help bring about changes in foreign governments, according to an astonishing account of life inside the oil giant.
Les Abrahams, who led BP's successful bid for a multi-million-pound deal with one of the former Soviet republics, today claims that Browne - who was forced to resign as chief executive last month after the collapse of legal proceedings against The Mail on Sunday - presided over an "anything goes" regime of sexual licence, spying and financial sweeteners.
High life: Mr Abrahams, left, and another BP executive not linked to any impropriety with local girls in Azerbaijan
He also claims that Home Secretary John Reid was arrested at gunpoint on a BP-funded foreign trip for being out on the streets after a military curfew had been imposed.
Mr Abrahams tells how he spent £45 million in expenses over just four months of negotiations with Azerbaijan's state oil company.
Armed with a no-limit company credit card, he ordered supplies of champagne and caviar to be flown on company jets into the boomtown capital, Baku, to be consumed at the "sex parties".
Ex-BP boss Lord Browne
The hospitality continued in London, where prostitutes were hired on the BP credit card to entertain visiting Azerbaijanis.
Mr Abrahams, an engineer by training, joined BP in 1991, just as the disintegration of the Soviet Union had triggered a "new gold rush" by oil multi-nationals seeking a share of the 200 billion barrels of oil reserves beneath the Caspian Sea.
While employed by BP, Mr Abrahams says he was persuaded to work for MI6 by John Scarlett, now head of the service but then its head of station in Moscow.
He says he was passing information to Scarlett in faxes and at one-to-one meetings in the Russian capital.
He also claims that BP was working closely with MI6 at the highest levels to help it to win business in the region and influence the political complexion of governments.
Mr Abrahams worked for BP's XFI unit - Exploring Frontiers International - which specialises in opening new markets in often unstable parts of the world.
He said Lord Browne, then BP's head of exploration, allocated a budget of £45 million to cover the first year's costs of the Baku operation.
"The order came from Browne's aides to 'get them anything they want'.
"By 'them', they meant local officials in Azerbaijan," Mr Abrahams said.
"There were 20 or 30 people working on it at BP head office, and we soon had a steady stream of executives coming over as negotiators. We got through the money in just four months - after which it was simply increased without question."
He described a Wild West world in which oil executives with briefcases full of dollars rubbed shoulders with mafia members, prostitutes and fixers and cut their deals in smoke-filled back rooms.
"The BP officials would come out to Baku in groups of five or six, every week," he said.
"Sometimes I would charter an entire Boeing 757 to carry as few as seven staff. Their main base was the hard currency bar of the old Intourist hotel - so named because it accepted only dollars and was only open to foreigners.
"It was full of prostitutes and many of us, including me, used them on a regular basis, although we quickly established they all worked for the KGB.
"If we went back to the rooms, not only were they bugged, but the girls would quiz us closely about what we were doing and where we were going, and reported straight back to their handlers.
"Everywhere was bugged, and all the phones were tapped. One of our executives was recorded saying unflattering things about the president, and his comments were played back to us in a meeting with local state oil company officials.
"We were then told clearly that he was no longer welcome in the country."
Mr Abrahams helped to forge links with the local officials by throwing lavish parties. He said the Azerbaijani girls who worked in the BP office, which occupied a floor of the Sovietskaya hotel, would attend the parties and routinely provide "sexual favours".
They were also presumed to work for the local intelligence services.
"There was one girl, called Natasha, assigned to teach us Russian, but it usually ended up as more that that. She would use the intimate opportunity to ask us questions about what we were up to.
"Caviar and champagne were consumed at the parties, which would start in the bars but inevitably end with the girls in the rooms.
"We had a company American Express card with no name on it which we could use to draw out $10,000 a time to pay for entertaining without ever having to account for it.
"Our local fixer was called 'Zulfie', who would help find girls, drink and occasionally hashish. We always suspected he worked for the KGB, because he was so well connected.
"A lot of the BP men's marriages went wrong. Either they ended up with the local girls, or the wives would find out - often because the girls would ring their home numbers "by accident".
"I don't believe that Browne didn't know everything that was going on. He came out to Baku on five or six occasions."
Mr Abrahams, who left BP in 1994, said his first marriage buckled because of his work in Baku. He has since remarried and lives in West London with his new wife Lana and six-year-old daughter Anastasia. He now works as an adviser to the EU.
He said BP applied the same laissez-faire attitude to hospitality when Azerbaijani officials came to the UK during the negotiations.
"I was given a hotline number which connected to a desk in the Foreign Office. It meant visas could be granted instantly for the Azerbaijanis and collected on arrival at the airport, rather than taking the usual several weeks.
"We had bundles of cash to spend on them when they got here, and could again use the corporate card without restraint.
"We would typically have a dinner at which Lord Browne would be present, then he would go home and we would head off to somewhere like the Gaslight Club in Piccadilly - where girls would dance topless and you would get charged £250 for your drink.
"Our guests would usually want girls to go back with afterwards. Sometimes we could persuade the girls in the clubs, but more often we would just phone up an escort agency.
"We could charge them straight to the BP Amex card. But it sometimes became problematic. One group of Khazak Oil officials stripped their hotel rooms in Aberdeen bare, including the sheets and pillowcases, and they would usually clear out the minibars wherever they were staying."
All the entertaining paid off in September 1992 when BP signed a £300 million deal to exploit the Shah Deniz oilfields.
Mr Abrahams says that a key factor in securing the deal was an £8 million payment BP made that year to SOCAR, the state-owned oil company in Azerbaijan, for the right to use a construction yard on the edge of the Caspian Sea.
"It was effectively a sweetener to help to secure the deal - and it worked," he said.
Among the guests at a dinner and ceremony at Baku's Gulistan Palace to celebrate the Shah Deniz deal were Lord Browne and Baroness Thatcher.
Mr Abrahams says he was told to ensure that everything ran smoothly for the event, including meeting Browne's fastidious requirements.
"I had his favourite brand of water, Hildon, and his preferred foods flown out in advance, and I made sure money was paid for police escorts and to circumvent immigration procedures at the airport for Browne and his entourage.
"That evening, he personally handed me a briefcase containing a cheque for $30 million (£15million), to close the deal.
"He was so keen to wear a particular shirt, which he had left at the airport, that I persuaded the chief of police to close off the roads so his cavalcade could go via the airport to collect it."
In 1993, Mr Abrahams played host to a group of MPs who visited Baku as guests of BP, including Harold Elletson - then a Tory MP but now an adviser to the Liberal Democrats - and Home Secretary John Reid, a Shadow Defence Minister at the time.
"John flew out in the BP Gulfstream jet," he recalls.
"After dinner, we went drinking in the hard currency bar. He was drinking a lot - this was a year before he gave up for good - and I grew worried as it got closer to the time of the curfew imposed because of the tense political situation at the time.
"I said, 'Come on John, we have to get back to the hotel.' But as we left, he was swaying around and being very noisy.
"I urged him not to draw attention to us because we weren't meant to be still on the streets. But then a van load of police armed with Kalashnikovs pulled up and asked us what we were doing.
"He said, 'I am a British politician...' I urged him to be quiet, but then he said to one of the policemen, 'If you don't take that f***ing Kalashnikov out of my face I'm going to stick it up your f***ing a***.'
"With that, we were arrested and shoved at gunpoint into the back of the van.
"It was only after I persuaded the driver to go to the hotel to speak to the intelligence officer there that they released us. John had only about two hours' sleep, then was up at 5.30am to fly to the nearby war zone of Nagorno Karabakh. He was completely hung over."
Some of Mr Abrahams' most intriguing claims surround the alleged co-operation between BP and the British intelligence services to secure a more pro-Western, pro-business regime in the country.
He says the operation, masterminded by Scarlett in Moscow, contributed to the coup in May 1992 which saw President Ayaz Mutalibov toppled by Abulfaz Elchibey, and then to a second change a year later which saw Haydar Aliyev take power.
Just months after Aliyev was installed, BP signed the so-called 'contract of the century', a £5 billion deal which placed BP at the head of an oil exporting consortium.
John Scarlett, says Mr Abrahams, "approached me very subtly and asked me to help to gather information for him.
"Because my daily route to the construction yard passed the supply routes for Nagorno Karabakh, he asked me to report on troop and weapons movements. And BP's deputy representative in Russia seemed very close to the embassy, too.
"BP supported both coups, both through discreet moves and open political support. Our progress on the oil contracts improved considerably after the coups."
Subsequently released Turkish secret service documents claimed BP had discussed an 'arms for oil' deal with the assistance of MI6, under which the company would use intermediaries to supply weapons to Aliyev's supporters in return for the contract.
When the documents emerged in 2000, BP denied supplying arms - although sources admitted its representatives had "discussed the possibility".
A BP spokesman said last night of Mr Abrahams' claims: "There are some facts in his account that are accurate, but we don't recognise most of it. We regard it as fantasy."
A spokeswoman for John Reid said she had no comment and the Foreign Office said of Mr Abrahams' claims: "We neither confirm nor deny anyone's allegations in relation to intelligence matters."
GLEN OWEN
UK Daily Mail
Sunday May 13, 2007
Comment: This story appeared early today on the Daily Mail website. It has since been pulled without explanation. If correct, this story could bring down the entire British government which is probably why it was immediately subject to a D notice - a British government order to censor a story. Look out for a big story on this tomorrow.
BP executives working for Lord Browne spent millions of pounds on champagne-fuelled sex parties to help secure lucrative international oil contracts.
The company also worked with MI6 to help bring about changes in foreign governments, according to an astonishing account of life inside the oil giant.
Les Abrahams, who led BP's successful bid for a multi-million-pound deal with one of the former Soviet republics, today claims that Browne - who was forced to resign as chief executive last month after the collapse of legal proceedings against The Mail on Sunday - presided over an "anything goes" regime of sexual licence, spying and financial sweeteners.
High life: Mr Abrahams, left, and another BP executive not linked to any impropriety with local girls in Azerbaijan
He also claims that Home Secretary John Reid was arrested at gunpoint on a BP-funded foreign trip for being out on the streets after a military curfew had been imposed.
Mr Abrahams tells how he spent £45 million in expenses over just four months of negotiations with Azerbaijan's state oil company.
Armed with a no-limit company credit card, he ordered supplies of champagne and caviar to be flown on company jets into the boomtown capital, Baku, to be consumed at the "sex parties".
Ex-BP boss Lord Browne
The hospitality continued in London, where prostitutes were hired on the BP credit card to entertain visiting Azerbaijanis.
Mr Abrahams, an engineer by training, joined BP in 1991, just as the disintegration of the Soviet Union had triggered a "new gold rush" by oil multi-nationals seeking a share of the 200 billion barrels of oil reserves beneath the Caspian Sea.
While employed by BP, Mr Abrahams says he was persuaded to work for MI6 by John Scarlett, now head of the service but then its head of station in Moscow.
He says he was passing information to Scarlett in faxes and at one-to-one meetings in the Russian capital.
He also claims that BP was working closely with MI6 at the highest levels to help it to win business in the region and influence the political complexion of governments.
Mr Abrahams worked for BP's XFI unit - Exploring Frontiers International - which specialises in opening new markets in often unstable parts of the world.
He said Lord Browne, then BP's head of exploration, allocated a budget of £45 million to cover the first year's costs of the Baku operation.
"The order came from Browne's aides to 'get them anything they want'.
"By 'them', they meant local officials in Azerbaijan," Mr Abrahams said.
"There were 20 or 30 people working on it at BP head office, and we soon had a steady stream of executives coming over as negotiators. We got through the money in just four months - after which it was simply increased without question."
He described a Wild West world in which oil executives with briefcases full of dollars rubbed shoulders with mafia members, prostitutes and fixers and cut their deals in smoke-filled back rooms.
"The BP officials would come out to Baku in groups of five or six, every week," he said.
"Sometimes I would charter an entire Boeing 757 to carry as few as seven staff. Their main base was the hard currency bar of the old Intourist hotel - so named because it accepted only dollars and was only open to foreigners.
"It was full of prostitutes and many of us, including me, used them on a regular basis, although we quickly established they all worked for the KGB.
"If we went back to the rooms, not only were they bugged, but the girls would quiz us closely about what we were doing and where we were going, and reported straight back to their handlers.
"Everywhere was bugged, and all the phones were tapped. One of our executives was recorded saying unflattering things about the president, and his comments were played back to us in a meeting with local state oil company officials.
"We were then told clearly that he was no longer welcome in the country."
Mr Abrahams helped to forge links with the local officials by throwing lavish parties. He said the Azerbaijani girls who worked in the BP office, which occupied a floor of the Sovietskaya hotel, would attend the parties and routinely provide "sexual favours".
They were also presumed to work for the local intelligence services.
"There was one girl, called Natasha, assigned to teach us Russian, but it usually ended up as more that that. She would use the intimate opportunity to ask us questions about what we were up to.
"Caviar and champagne were consumed at the parties, which would start in the bars but inevitably end with the girls in the rooms.
"We had a company American Express card with no name on it which we could use to draw out $10,000 a time to pay for entertaining without ever having to account for it.
"Our local fixer was called 'Zulfie', who would help find girls, drink and occasionally hashish. We always suspected he worked for the KGB, because he was so well connected.
"A lot of the BP men's marriages went wrong. Either they ended up with the local girls, or the wives would find out - often because the girls would ring their home numbers "by accident".
"I don't believe that Browne didn't know everything that was going on. He came out to Baku on five or six occasions."
Mr Abrahams, who left BP in 1994, said his first marriage buckled because of his work in Baku. He has since remarried and lives in West London with his new wife Lana and six-year-old daughter Anastasia. He now works as an adviser to the EU.
He said BP applied the same laissez-faire attitude to hospitality when Azerbaijani officials came to the UK during the negotiations.
"I was given a hotline number which connected to a desk in the Foreign Office. It meant visas could be granted instantly for the Azerbaijanis and collected on arrival at the airport, rather than taking the usual several weeks.
"We had bundles of cash to spend on them when they got here, and could again use the corporate card without restraint.
"We would typically have a dinner at which Lord Browne would be present, then he would go home and we would head off to somewhere like the Gaslight Club in Piccadilly - where girls would dance topless and you would get charged £250 for your drink.
"Our guests would usually want girls to go back with afterwards. Sometimes we could persuade the girls in the clubs, but more often we would just phone up an escort agency.
"We could charge them straight to the BP Amex card. But it sometimes became problematic. One group of Khazak Oil officials stripped their hotel rooms in Aberdeen bare, including the sheets and pillowcases, and they would usually clear out the minibars wherever they were staying."
All the entertaining paid off in September 1992 when BP signed a £300 million deal to exploit the Shah Deniz oilfields.
Mr Abrahams says that a key factor in securing the deal was an £8 million payment BP made that year to SOCAR, the state-owned oil company in Azerbaijan, for the right to use a construction yard on the edge of the Caspian Sea.
"It was effectively a sweetener to help to secure the deal - and it worked," he said.
Among the guests at a dinner and ceremony at Baku's Gulistan Palace to celebrate the Shah Deniz deal were Lord Browne and Baroness Thatcher.
Mr Abrahams says he was told to ensure that everything ran smoothly for the event, including meeting Browne's fastidious requirements.
"I had his favourite brand of water, Hildon, and his preferred foods flown out in advance, and I made sure money was paid for police escorts and to circumvent immigration procedures at the airport for Browne and his entourage.
"That evening, he personally handed me a briefcase containing a cheque for $30 million (£15million), to close the deal.
"He was so keen to wear a particular shirt, which he had left at the airport, that I persuaded the chief of police to close off the roads so his cavalcade could go via the airport to collect it."
In 1993, Mr Abrahams played host to a group of MPs who visited Baku as guests of BP, including Harold Elletson - then a Tory MP but now an adviser to the Liberal Democrats - and Home Secretary John Reid, a Shadow Defence Minister at the time.
"John flew out in the BP Gulfstream jet," he recalls.
"After dinner, we went drinking in the hard currency bar. He was drinking a lot - this was a year before he gave up for good - and I grew worried as it got closer to the time of the curfew imposed because of the tense political situation at the time.
"I said, 'Come on John, we have to get back to the hotel.' But as we left, he was swaying around and being very noisy.
"I urged him not to draw attention to us because we weren't meant to be still on the streets. But then a van load of police armed with Kalashnikovs pulled up and asked us what we were doing.
"He said, 'I am a British politician...' I urged him to be quiet, but then he said to one of the policemen, 'If you don't take that f***ing Kalashnikov out of my face I'm going to stick it up your f***ing a***.'
"With that, we were arrested and shoved at gunpoint into the back of the van.
"It was only after I persuaded the driver to go to the hotel to speak to the intelligence officer there that they released us. John had only about two hours' sleep, then was up at 5.30am to fly to the nearby war zone of Nagorno Karabakh. He was completely hung over."
Some of Mr Abrahams' most intriguing claims surround the alleged co-operation between BP and the British intelligence services to secure a more pro-Western, pro-business regime in the country.
He says the operation, masterminded by Scarlett in Moscow, contributed to the coup in May 1992 which saw President Ayaz Mutalibov toppled by Abulfaz Elchibey, and then to a second change a year later which saw Haydar Aliyev take power.
Just months after Aliyev was installed, BP signed the so-called 'contract of the century', a £5 billion deal which placed BP at the head of an oil exporting consortium.
John Scarlett, says Mr Abrahams, "approached me very subtly and asked me to help to gather information for him.
"Because my daily route to the construction yard passed the supply routes for Nagorno Karabakh, he asked me to report on troop and weapons movements. And BP's deputy representative in Russia seemed very close to the embassy, too.
"BP supported both coups, both through discreet moves and open political support. Our progress on the oil contracts improved considerably after the coups."
Subsequently released Turkish secret service documents claimed BP had discussed an 'arms for oil' deal with the assistance of MI6, under which the company would use intermediaries to supply weapons to Aliyev's supporters in return for the contract.
When the documents emerged in 2000, BP denied supplying arms - although sources admitted its representatives had "discussed the possibility".
A BP spokesman said last night of Mr Abrahams' claims: "There are some facts in his account that are accurate, but we don't recognise most of it. We regard it as fantasy."
A spokeswoman for John Reid said she had no comment and the Foreign Office said of Mr Abrahams' claims: "We neither confirm nor deny anyone's allegations in relation to intelligence matters."
Sunday, May 13, 2007
| http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CON20070503&articleId=5560 The Fate of America's Middle Class by Si Contino | |
Global Research, May 3, 2007 | |
Because so many notable business pundits appear to be bemused by America’s most recent economic vexation, specifically the collapse of the mortgage markets; I thought I’d take a crack at edifying your readers, to the extent I’m capable, as to its true nature and causes. To begin with one must remember that all the statistics kept on our economy are bogus. They are contrived in such a manner, compiled explicitly for casual regurgitation, so as to never display anything less than full employment, wage growth and a serendipitous lack of inflation. With that as a foundation, what’s actually occurring in this economy is the globalization of assets and wealth. That is to say, because the value of American labor is falling so precipitously, (due to the utilization of cheap foreign labor around the world), the value of the assets held by them is falling in direct correlation with their declining wages. It must. Here’s why: A worker formerly employed in a lost economic sector, (manufacturing for example), earned between $50 - 60,000 annually. That job gets outsourced. Now that worker takes a job paying $20 – $25,000 annually. All the tax cuts, cheap foreign goods, and low paying jobs being created by President Bush and globalization aren’t going to restore this worker’s former standard of living. Presently, someone trying to pay down a debt service based on their former “un-globalized” salary, and prior level of affluence, just can’t do it. The fact is, now that America’s been globalized, that worker – along with all others of the same economic rank – can’t afford the assets they’ve purchased and are trying to hold on to. Just as wages within their economic sector are being deflated; so must the value of their assets be deflated. This has to occur so that new members of their socioeconomic group, those just entering America’s global workforce, can afford to participate; including those living and working here illegally. What we’re seeing now is just the beginning of a global revaluation; a downward harmonization of American worker’s livelihoods with the livelihoods of the world’s other working people. Furthermore, this state of affairs isn’t going to end any time soon; not until the descending worth (wages and assets) of America’s working classes, meets the ascending worth (wages and assets) of the labor they compete with globally. Therein lays the rub. Most of the rest of the world’s labor works for nothing, or almost nothing, and holds no assets. Truth be told, the only country whose entire economy has prospered due to Globalization is communist China; where free market capitalism doesn’t exist [officially] and where every societal need is [supposedly] provided for by the government. As Ross Perot so aptly phrased it during his debate with Vice President Gore in 1993, we’re in: “a race to the bottom”. Exacerbating this crisis is the fact that, while the wages and assets of those forced to compete globally are deflating; the costs of goods and services they must purchase to subsist are inflating. The primary sources of this inflation being deregulation and President Bush’s lust for printing money; principally to pay for the globalization of Iraq. As for the true health of America’s overall economy international spending is out of control; Iraq alone is costing American taxpayers over $412 billion! Yet the Washington oligarchs have no compunction. Across the board Americans have experienced the steepest decline in their standard of living since the Great Depression, as America become a debtor nation. Bankruptcies, home foreclosures, and personal debt are at an all time high, as is our trade deficit; while concurrently, real wages and property values plummet. Still Globalist fanatics boldly proclaim their manifesto: “Free Trade will promote a global ecumenism and provide us economic prosperity” All the while America’s two greatest exports remain her jobs and wealth. With the mendacious predictions which brought about Globalism in the first place, (being implemented without the true consent of the governed), and with America’s economic power declining; here’s the real question. What type of country is America destined to become in the twenty-first century? Perhaps the answer can only be found in the past. Perhaps in Charles Dickens in his novel, A Tale of Two Cities. About the author: I’ve been a lifelong resident of Bucks County, PA and am a married father of two adult children. After pursuing undergraduate studies in the 1970’s, I’ve acted in various capacities within the corporate setting. | |
Global Research Articles by Si Contino | |
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Sunday, April 01, 2007
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/healthcare/2002-05-22-insurance-deaths.htm
18,000 deaths blamed on lack of insurance
By Steve Sternberg, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — More than 18,000 adults in the USA die each year because they are uninsured and can't get proper health care, researchers report in a landmark study released Tuesday.
The 193-page report, "Care Without Coverage: Too Little, Too Late," examines the plight of 30 million — one in seven — working-age Americans whose employers don't provide insurance and who don't qualify for government medical care.
About 10 million children lack insurance; elderly Americans are covered by Medicare.
It is the second in a planned series of six reports by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) examining the impact of the nation's fragmented health system. The IOM is a non-profit organization of experts that advises Congress on health issues.
Overall, the researchers say, 18,314 people die in the USA each year because they lack preventive services, a timely diagnosis or appropriate care.
The estimated death toll includes about 1,400 people with high blood pressure, 400 to 600 with breast cancer and 1,500 diagnosed with HIV.
"Our purpose is simply to deliver the facts, and the facts are unequivocal," says Reed Tuckson, an author of the report and vice president for consumer health at UnitedHealth Group in Minnetonka, Minn.
Among the study's findings is a comparison of the uninsured with the insured:
- Uninsured people with colon or breast cancer face a 50% higher risk of death.
- Uninsured trauma victims are less likely to be admitted to the hospital, receive the full range of needed services, and are 37% more likely to die of their injuries.
- About 25% of adult diabetics without insurance for a year or more went without a checkup for two years. That boosts their risk of death, blindness and amputations resulting from poor circulation.
Being uninsured also magnifies the risk of death and disability for chronically sick and mentally ill patients, poor people and minorities, who disproportionately lack access to medical care, the landmark study states.
"The report documents the immense consequence of having 40 million uninsured people out there," says Ray Werntz, a consumer health expert with the Employee Benefit Research Institute. "We need to elevate the problem in the national conscience."
Calculating the cost in human suffering, he says, "is one way to get there."
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Interview with Muqtada al-Sadr:
http://justworldnews.org/archives/002346.html
"A Secret Army Against Us, But the Shiites Will Know How to Fight Back"
by Renato Caprile [correspondent of La Reppublica of Rome]
He feels stalked and goes into hiding. He sleeps no more than one night in the same bed. Some of his most faithful allies have already turned their backs. He has even moved his family to an undisclosed location. Muqtada al-Sadr feels that the end is near. Enemy forces, forces infiltrated amongst his own people! Yet for him it is not about al-Málikí, whom he considers little more than a puppet, so much as about ’Iyád al-‘Alláwí, the former prime minister, whom the Americans have never stopped aiming [to empower]. He [‘A.] is the true director of the operation which proposes to wipe him [S.] off the face of Iraq, him and his Mahdi Army.
[Q1] How is it that al-Málikí, who up until a short time ago even saw to it that there were six ministers of your movement in his cabinet, is suddenly so aware that the religious militias, and especially yours, are the true problem that must be solved?
[A1] Between me and Abú Asárá [al-Malikí] there has never been much good will. I have always suspected he was up to something and I never confided in him. We only met a couple of times. The last time he said to me, "You are the backbone of the country," and then went on to admit to me that he was "obliged" to fight. Obliged, you see?
=
[Q2] The fact remains that he is on the brink of [?] unleashing an iron fist against his own people.
[A2] It is effectively unleashed already. Yesterday evening they arrested four hundred and some of my people. It is not we that they wish to destroy, it is Islam. We are only one obstacle. For the moment we shall offer no resistance.
=
[Q3] Do you mean you are going to disarm?
[A3] The Qur’án forbids killing in the month of Muharram [21 January through 18 February 2007]. So they'll do all the killing then. There is no better time for a true believer to die, Paradise is guaranteed. But God is merciful, we are not all going to die. After Muharram, we'll see.
=
[Q4] Some claim that the army and police have been extensively infiltrated by your men and that the Marines by themselves will never manage to disarm you.
[A4] It's really exactly the other way around: it is our militia which is swarming with spies. It doesn't take much doing to infiltrate an army of the people. It is precisely those people who by soiling themselves with unworthy actions have discredited the Mahdi. There are at least four armies ready to unleash themselves against us. A "shadow" about which nobody ever talks, trained in great secrecy in the deserts of Jordan by the American armed forces. On top of that, there is the private army of Allawi, the unbeliever who will soon succeed Maliki, which stands ready at the al-Muthanná military airport. On top of that, there is the Kurdish _peshmerga_ and finally the regular American troops.
=
[Q5] If what you say is true, you have no hope of resisting.
[A5] For all that, we are still who we are. [Commenter Christiane renders the foregoing as ""We are many, too."] We represent the majority of the country that does not want Iraq turned into a secular state and a slave of the Western powers, as Allawi dreams to the contrary.
=
[Q6] For a week now you have been officially targeted. The regime claims that without their leaders the religious militias are much weaker militarily.
[A6] I am well aware of it. That is why I have moved my family to a safe place. I have even made a will and I continually move around so they have trouble knowing exactly where I am. But even should I have to die, the Mahdi would continue to exist. Men can be killed, but not faith and ideas.
=
[Q7] It is said that you were present in the crowd at Saddam's execution. Is that true?
[A7] It's utter nonsense. If I had been there, they would have killed me also. As for Saddam, I'm certainly not going to cry for the man who massacred my family and my people by tens of thousands. The only thing is, I would have executed him in a public square so that all the world saw it.
=
[Q8] If you were not there yourself, do you deny that there were a lot of your men in that room?
[A8] No, they were not my men. They were people paid to discredit me. To make me look like the person really responsible for that hanging. Listen to the audio again, the proof is that in reciting my prayer they left out some basic passages. Stuff that not even a child in Sadr City would ever have done. The object was to make Muqtadá look like the real enemy of the Sunnis. And they're getting away with it. At a time when I have been received with full honours in Saudi Arabia! But suddenly after that show under the scaffold, my spokesman al-Zarqání, who was on the pilgrimage to Mecca, has been arrested. A subtle way to let me know that I am no longer on their list of friends.
=
[Q9] In any case, the war between you and the Sunnis goes on.
[A9] It is true that we are all Muslims and all sons of the same country, but they must first distance themselves from the Saddamites, from the radical groups, from men like Bin Ladin, over and above just repeating their "No" to the Americans. The only thing that will be enough is for their ulema to accept our conditions [and issue a fatwa against killing Shiites]. So far they have not done so.
=
[Q10] Perhaps there will be nothing but bloodshed in Iraq's future?
[A10] If the future is a country split three ways, I see no alternatives. And that is what Bush wants, so as to have better control. It is certainly not what the Iraqis want. In my opinion, there is only one possible way to arrive at a solution: immediate American withdrawal.
http://justworldnews.org/archives/002346.html
"A Secret Army Against Us, But the Shiites Will Know How to Fight Back"
by Renato Caprile [correspondent of La Reppublica of Rome]
He feels stalked and goes into hiding. He sleeps no more than one night in the same bed. Some of his most faithful allies have already turned their backs. He has even moved his family to an undisclosed location. Muqtada al-Sadr feels that the end is near. Enemy forces, forces infiltrated amongst his own people! Yet for him it is not about al-Málikí, whom he considers little more than a puppet, so much as about ’Iyád al-‘Alláwí, the former prime minister, whom the Americans have never stopped aiming [to empower]. He [‘A.] is the true director of the operation which proposes to wipe him [S.] off the face of Iraq, him and his Mahdi Army.
[Q1] How is it that al-Málikí, who up until a short time ago even saw to it that there were six ministers of your movement in his cabinet, is suddenly so aware that the religious militias, and especially yours, are the true problem that must be solved?
[A1] Between me and Abú Asárá [al-Malikí] there has never been much good will. I have always suspected he was up to something and I never confided in him. We only met a couple of times. The last time he said to me, "You are the backbone of the country," and then went on to admit to me that he was "obliged" to fight. Obliged, you see?
=
[Q2] The fact remains that he is on the brink of [?] unleashing an iron fist against his own people.
[A2] It is effectively unleashed already. Yesterday evening they arrested four hundred and some of my people. It is not we that they wish to destroy, it is Islam. We are only one obstacle. For the moment we shall offer no resistance.
=
[Q3] Do you mean you are going to disarm?
[A3] The Qur’án forbids killing in the month of Muharram [21 January through 18 February 2007]. So they'll do all the killing then. There is no better time for a true believer to die, Paradise is guaranteed. But God is merciful, we are not all going to die. After Muharram, we'll see.
=
[Q4] Some claim that the army and police have been extensively infiltrated by your men and that the Marines by themselves will never manage to disarm you.
[A4] It's really exactly the other way around: it is our militia which is swarming with spies. It doesn't take much doing to infiltrate an army of the people. It is precisely those people who by soiling themselves with unworthy actions have discredited the Mahdi. There are at least four armies ready to unleash themselves against us. A "shadow" about which nobody ever talks, trained in great secrecy in the deserts of Jordan by the American armed forces. On top of that, there is the private army of Allawi, the unbeliever who will soon succeed Maliki, which stands ready at the al-Muthanná military airport. On top of that, there is the Kurdish _peshmerga_ and finally the regular American troops.
=
[Q5] If what you say is true, you have no hope of resisting.
[A5] For all that, we are still who we are. [Commenter Christiane renders the foregoing as ""We are many, too."] We represent the majority of the country that does not want Iraq turned into a secular state and a slave of the Western powers, as Allawi dreams to the contrary.
=
[Q6] For a week now you have been officially targeted. The regime claims that without their leaders the religious militias are much weaker militarily.
[A6] I am well aware of it. That is why I have moved my family to a safe place. I have even made a will and I continually move around so they have trouble knowing exactly where I am. But even should I have to die, the Mahdi would continue to exist. Men can be killed, but not faith and ideas.
=
[Q7] It is said that you were present in the crowd at Saddam's execution. Is that true?
[A7] It's utter nonsense. If I had been there, they would have killed me also. As for Saddam, I'm certainly not going to cry for the man who massacred my family and my people by tens of thousands. The only thing is, I would have executed him in a public square so that all the world saw it.
=
[Q8] If you were not there yourself, do you deny that there were a lot of your men in that room?
[A8] No, they were not my men. They were people paid to discredit me. To make me look like the person really responsible for that hanging. Listen to the audio again, the proof is that in reciting my prayer they left out some basic passages. Stuff that not even a child in Sadr City would ever have done. The object was to make Muqtadá look like the real enemy of the Sunnis. And they're getting away with it. At a time when I have been received with full honours in Saudi Arabia! But suddenly after that show under the scaffold, my spokesman al-Zarqání, who was on the pilgrimage to Mecca, has been arrested. A subtle way to let me know that I am no longer on their list of friends.
=
[Q9] In any case, the war between you and the Sunnis goes on.
[A9] It is true that we are all Muslims and all sons of the same country, but they must first distance themselves from the Saddamites, from the radical groups, from men like Bin Ladin, over and above just repeating their "No" to the Americans. The only thing that will be enough is for their ulema to accept our conditions [and issue a fatwa against killing Shiites]. So far they have not done so.
=
[Q10] Perhaps there will be nothing but bloodshed in Iraq's future?
[A10] If the future is a country split three ways, I see no alternatives. And that is what Bush wants, so as to have better control. It is certainly not what the Iraqis want. In my opinion, there is only one possible way to arrive at a solution: immediate American withdrawal.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/485561p-408789c.html
W pushes envelope on U.S. spying
New postal law lets Bush peek through your mail
Daily News Exclusive
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
President Bush added a "signing statement" in recently passed postal reform bill that may give him new powers to pry into your mail - without a warrant.
WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.
The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.
That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.
Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.
"Despite the President's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.
Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail.
"The [Bush] signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington.
"The danger is they're reading Americans' mail," she said.
"You have to be concerned," agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush's claim. "It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we've ever known."
A top Senate Intelligence Committee aide promised, "It's something we're going to look into."
Most of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act deals with mundane reform measures. But it also explicitly reinforced protections of first-class mail from searches without a court's approval.
Yet in his statement Bush said he will "construe" an exception, "which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection in a manner consistent ... with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances."
Bush cited as examples the need to "protect human life and safety against hazardous materials and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection."
White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore denied Bush was claiming any new authority.
"In certain circumstances - such as with the proverbial 'ticking bomb' - the Constitution does not require warrants for reasonable searches," she said.
Bush, however, cited "exigent circumstances" which could refer to an imminent danger or a longstanding state of emergency.
Critics point out the administration could quickly get a warrant from a criminal court or a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge to search targeted mail, and the Postal Service could block delivery in the meantime.
But the Bush White House appears to be taking no chances on a judge saying no while a terror attack is looming, national security experts agreed.
Martin said that Bush is "using the same legal reasoning to justify warrantless opening of domestic mail" as he did with warrantless eavesdropping.
W pushes envelope on U.S. spying
New postal law lets Bush peek through your mail
Daily News Exclusive
BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU
President Bush added a "signing statement" in recently passed postal reform bill that may give him new powers to pry into your mail - without a warrant.
WASHINGTON - President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.
The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.
That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.
Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.
"Despite the President's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.
Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail.
"The [Bush] signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington.
"The danger is they're reading Americans' mail," she said.
"You have to be concerned," agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush's claim. "It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we've ever known."
A top Senate Intelligence Committee aide promised, "It's something we're going to look into."
Most of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act deals with mundane reform measures. But it also explicitly reinforced protections of first-class mail from searches without a court's approval.
Yet in his statement Bush said he will "construe" an exception, "which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection in a manner consistent ... with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances."
Bush cited as examples the need to "protect human life and safety against hazardous materials and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection."
White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore denied Bush was claiming any new authority.
"In certain circumstances - such as with the proverbial 'ticking bomb' - the Constitution does not require warrants for reasonable searches," she said.
Bush, however, cited "exigent circumstances" which could refer to an imminent danger or a longstanding state of emergency.
Critics point out the administration could quickly get a warrant from a criminal court or a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge to search targeted mail, and the Postal Service could block delivery in the meantime.
But the Bush White House appears to be taking no chances on a judge saying no while a terror attack is looming, national security experts agreed.
Martin said that Bush is "using the same legal reasoning to justify warrantless opening of domestic mail" as he did with warrantless eavesdropping.
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/dec2006/ineq-d12.shtml
US income figures show staggering rise in social inequality
60 million Americans living on less than $7 a day
By Jerry White
12 December 2006
A recent analysis of Internal Revenue Service tax data sheds further light on the enormous gap that has grown between America’s wealthy elite and the masses of working people over the last quarter of a century. The examination of IRS figures was conducted by the New York Times and reported in its November 27 article, “’04 Income in U.S. Was Below 2000 Level” by David Cay Johnston.
The article begins by noting that total US income in 2004—the latest year for which tax information is available—was $7.044 trillion, down from more than $7.143 trillion in 2000. The decline was attributed to two factors: the stagnation of median household income—which fell by 3 percent, or about $1,600, between 2000 and 2004—and the fact that the earnings of the richest Americans have not yet caught up with the peak reached before the Internet bubble on Wall Street burst in 2000.
Incomes in 2004 rose by an average 6.8 percent but the vast bulk of the increase went to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent of all Americans—living in some 130,500 households with an average income of $4.9 million—who saw their incomes rise by 27.5 percent over the course of one year. During the same period the income of the poorest one-fifth of the population—some 60 million people—rose by only 1.8 percent.
The sharp rise in income for the wealthiest Americans—due in large measure to the Bush administration’s cuts in capital gains taxes, corporate profit rates not seen in nearly 40 years and the recovery of the stock market—has led to a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the super-rich. According to a separate study by University of California-Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, the richest one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans took in 9.5 percent of all pretax income, or about $679 billion in 2004, excluding unreported income.
Referring to this elite group, the New York Times article notes, “those very top households, which include about 300,000 Americans, reported significantly more pretax income combined than the poorest 120 million Americans earned in 2004, the data show. This is a sharp change from 1979, the oldest year examined by the I.R.S, when the thin slice at the top received about one-third of the total income of the big group at the bottom.”
This staggering fact reveals a great deal about the economic and political processes that have unfolded over the last quarter century. While the portion of national income controlled by America’s corporate and financial elite declined in the aftermath of the Great Depression and stabilized during the postwar period, over the last 25 years a massive social transformation has occurred and the share of the national income now controlled by America’s social oligarchy is at the highest levels since 1929.
The Times article goes on to note, “Over all, average incomes rose 27 percent in real terms over the quarter-century from 1979 through 2004. But the gains were narrowly concentrated at the top and offset by losses for the bottom 60 percent of Americans, those making less than $38,761 in 2004.” It continues, “The bottom 60 percent of Americans, on average, made less than 95 cents in 2004 for each dollar they reported in 1979, the analysis of IRS data showed. The next best-off group, the fifth of Americans on the 60th to 80th rungs of the income ladder, averaged 2 cents more income in 2004 for each dollar they earned in 1979.
“Only those in the top 5 percent had significant gains,” the newspaper notes. The average income of those on the 95th to 99th rungs of the income ladder rose by 53 percent, almost twice the average rate. The largest gains, however, went to those at the very heights of American society. “A third of the entire national increase in reported income went to the top 1 percent—and more than half of that went to the top tenth of 1 percent, whose average incomes soared so much that for each dollar, adjusted for inflation, that they had in 1979 they had $3.48 in 2004,” the Times article says.
The last 25 years has seen an enormous transfer of wealth from working people into the hands of America’s economic elite. With the full backing of both the Democrats and Republicans, corporate America responded to the decline of its competitive position in the 1970s by launching an unrelenting attack on the jobs and living standards of the working class that continues to this day. The enrichment of those at the top has come at the direct expense of the vast majority of the working population in America, whose share of national wealth has plummeted.
At the other pole of society is an increasingly impoverished working class, including some 25 percent of all workers who labor for poverty wages. The Times article notes that the bottom fifth of all taxpayers earned below $11,166 and their average reported income was only $5,743 each. Because the IRS includes a single individual or a married couple in its definition of a “taxpayer” the poorest 26 million taxpayers account for the equivalent nearly 48 million adults and about 12 million dependent children. According to the Times analysis, this means the poorest 60 million Americans have reported incomes of less than $7 a day!
The official poverty line in 2004 was $27 a day for a single adult below retirement age and $42 a day for a household with one child—although the real cost of attaining basic necessities is far higher. The Times article notes that the IRS income data does not include the value of government benefits like food stamps, earned-income tax credits and subsidized medical care. But the social programs for the poor—including federal welfare assistance—have largely been wiped out or curtailed and what programs do remain are not sufficient to lift families out of poverty.
It is often noted that 3 billion of the world’s poorest people live on less than $2 a day. In the US, where the cost of living is far higher, $7 a day is only enough to guarantee a life of destitution. The fact that 60 million people live in such dire poverty—and tens of millions more could face the same fate if they lost their jobs or confronted some other financial catastrophe—is a damning indictment of American capitalism and the free market model it touts around the world.
The levels of social stratification and inequality in the US are incompatible with genuine democracy. Political life in America is completely subordinated to the needs of a financial aristocracy whose pursuit of ever greater levels of personal wealth constantly collides with the social needs and democratic rights of the broad masses of people in the US and internationally. The needs of this elite—for further wars of conquest, tax cuts, the elimination of social programs and a drastic reduction of living standards—cannot be imposed, in the final analysis, without recourse to authoritarian means.
The social transformation that has occurred over the last 25 years has coincided with a shift to the right by both big business parties and in particular the abandonment of any program of social reforms by the Democratic Party, whose leading personal, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and leading presidential contender Senator Hillary Clinton, are themselves multimillionaires. Insulated from the majority of the people and unwilling and unable to respond to their needs and concerns, the leading members of the incoming Democratic majority in Congress have already made it clear that they will not roll back the Bush-era tax cuts that have helped bring unimaginable wealth to their real constituents.
US income figures show staggering rise in social inequality
60 million Americans living on less than $7 a day
By Jerry White
12 December 2006
A recent analysis of Internal Revenue Service tax data sheds further light on the enormous gap that has grown between America’s wealthy elite and the masses of working people over the last quarter of a century. The examination of IRS figures was conducted by the New York Times and reported in its November 27 article, “’04 Income in U.S. Was Below 2000 Level” by David Cay Johnston.
The article begins by noting that total US income in 2004—the latest year for which tax information is available—was $7.044 trillion, down from more than $7.143 trillion in 2000. The decline was attributed to two factors: the stagnation of median household income—which fell by 3 percent, or about $1,600, between 2000 and 2004—and the fact that the earnings of the richest Americans have not yet caught up with the peak reached before the Internet bubble on Wall Street burst in 2000.
Incomes in 2004 rose by an average 6.8 percent but the vast bulk of the increase went to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent of all Americans—living in some 130,500 households with an average income of $4.9 million—who saw their incomes rise by 27.5 percent over the course of one year. During the same period the income of the poorest one-fifth of the population—some 60 million people—rose by only 1.8 percent.
The sharp rise in income for the wealthiest Americans—due in large measure to the Bush administration’s cuts in capital gains taxes, corporate profit rates not seen in nearly 40 years and the recovery of the stock market—has led to a further concentration of wealth in the hands of the super-rich. According to a separate study by University of California-Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez, the richest one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans took in 9.5 percent of all pretax income, or about $679 billion in 2004, excluding unreported income.
Referring to this elite group, the New York Times article notes, “those very top households, which include about 300,000 Americans, reported significantly more pretax income combined than the poorest 120 million Americans earned in 2004, the data show. This is a sharp change from 1979, the oldest year examined by the I.R.S, when the thin slice at the top received about one-third of the total income of the big group at the bottom.”
This staggering fact reveals a great deal about the economic and political processes that have unfolded over the last quarter century. While the portion of national income controlled by America’s corporate and financial elite declined in the aftermath of the Great Depression and stabilized during the postwar period, over the last 25 years a massive social transformation has occurred and the share of the national income now controlled by America’s social oligarchy is at the highest levels since 1929.
The Times article goes on to note, “Over all, average incomes rose 27 percent in real terms over the quarter-century from 1979 through 2004. But the gains were narrowly concentrated at the top and offset by losses for the bottom 60 percent of Americans, those making less than $38,761 in 2004.” It continues, “The bottom 60 percent of Americans, on average, made less than 95 cents in 2004 for each dollar they reported in 1979, the analysis of IRS data showed. The next best-off group, the fifth of Americans on the 60th to 80th rungs of the income ladder, averaged 2 cents more income in 2004 for each dollar they earned in 1979.
“Only those in the top 5 percent had significant gains,” the newspaper notes. The average income of those on the 95th to 99th rungs of the income ladder rose by 53 percent, almost twice the average rate. The largest gains, however, went to those at the very heights of American society. “A third of the entire national increase in reported income went to the top 1 percent—and more than half of that went to the top tenth of 1 percent, whose average incomes soared so much that for each dollar, adjusted for inflation, that they had in 1979 they had $3.48 in 2004,” the Times article says.
The last 25 years has seen an enormous transfer of wealth from working people into the hands of America’s economic elite. With the full backing of both the Democrats and Republicans, corporate America responded to the decline of its competitive position in the 1970s by launching an unrelenting attack on the jobs and living standards of the working class that continues to this day. The enrichment of those at the top has come at the direct expense of the vast majority of the working population in America, whose share of national wealth has plummeted.
At the other pole of society is an increasingly impoverished working class, including some 25 percent of all workers who labor for poverty wages. The Times article notes that the bottom fifth of all taxpayers earned below $11,166 and their average reported income was only $5,743 each. Because the IRS includes a single individual or a married couple in its definition of a “taxpayer” the poorest 26 million taxpayers account for the equivalent nearly 48 million adults and about 12 million dependent children. According to the Times analysis, this means the poorest 60 million Americans have reported incomes of less than $7 a day!
The official poverty line in 2004 was $27 a day for a single adult below retirement age and $42 a day for a household with one child—although the real cost of attaining basic necessities is far higher. The Times article notes that the IRS income data does not include the value of government benefits like food stamps, earned-income tax credits and subsidized medical care. But the social programs for the poor—including federal welfare assistance—have largely been wiped out or curtailed and what programs do remain are not sufficient to lift families out of poverty.
It is often noted that 3 billion of the world’s poorest people live on less than $2 a day. In the US, where the cost of living is far higher, $7 a day is only enough to guarantee a life of destitution. The fact that 60 million people live in such dire poverty—and tens of millions more could face the same fate if they lost their jobs or confronted some other financial catastrophe—is a damning indictment of American capitalism and the free market model it touts around the world.
The levels of social stratification and inequality in the US are incompatible with genuine democracy. Political life in America is completely subordinated to the needs of a financial aristocracy whose pursuit of ever greater levels of personal wealth constantly collides with the social needs and democratic rights of the broad masses of people in the US and internationally. The needs of this elite—for further wars of conquest, tax cuts, the elimination of social programs and a drastic reduction of living standards—cannot be imposed, in the final analysis, without recourse to authoritarian means.
The social transformation that has occurred over the last 25 years has coincided with a shift to the right by both big business parties and in particular the abandonment of any program of social reforms by the Democratic Party, whose leading personal, such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and leading presidential contender Senator Hillary Clinton, are themselves multimillionaires. Insulated from the majority of the people and unwilling and unable to respond to their needs and concerns, the leading members of the incoming Democratic majority in Congress have already made it clear that they will not roll back the Bush-era tax cuts that have helped bring unimaginable wealth to their real constituents.
Friday, November 10, 2006
Who is Mr. Gates? Part II
Rumsfeld Dumped, Bush Suggests a Spook
Wednesday November 08th 2006, 3:37 pm
It is all smoke and mirrors, as usual.
"Robert Gates, the 63-year-old career intelligence officer chosen to replace Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, takes over with the clearest of missions: get American troops out of Iraq as quickly and cleanly as possible," reports the Times Online.
In fact, this is not the "clearest of missions," as Congress, increasingly under the control of the Democrat side of the Property Party equation, has not explicitly declared it plans to leave Iraq in the near future, fearing the connotation it has "cut and run" once again, this time allowing "al-Qaeda," as Bush said during his press conference earlier today, to inundate Iraq and use it as a base of operations, never mind the Iraqi resistance is likely to resist "al-Qaeda" jihadists as a foreign contagion, and also never mind "al-Qaeda" is essentially a creation of American, Pakistani, and British intelligence.
Appointing Robert Gates to run the Pentagon is a natural, as Gates spent 26 years in the CIA and the National Security Council and was the director of the agency under Bush Senior, who is, of course, a former duke of the spooks in the Ford administration.
Gates' curriculum vitae is a near perfect match, as he was neck deep in Iran-Contra and is nothing short of a Bush crime family sycophant. Gates was, according to Israeli intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe, involved in the "October Surprise," the secret agreement between Iran and conniving Republicans, led by Bush Senior, to release the hostages after the November, 4, 1980 elections, thus providing Reagan with election time boasting points.
Ari Ben-Menashe revealed that pressure "on [Menachem] Begin led the Likud leader to throw in his lot with the Reagan-Bush campaign in 1980 by helping to arrange meetings between Iranian leaders and senior Republicans. Ben-Menashe has asserted that George H.W. Bush personally participated in a key meeting in October 1980 in Paris, a claim that Bush denied at two press conferences in 1992 but was never questioned about in a formal government investigation," according to Robert Parry.
Although Gates denied firsthand knowledge of Iran arms sales profits illegally diverted to the Contras, evidence demonstrates that he received a report on the diversion during the summer of 1986 from DDI Richard Kerr. "The issue was whether Independent Counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gates was deliberately not telling the truth when he later claimed not to have remembered any reference to the diversion before meeting with [national intelligence officer Charles E. Allen, neck deep in the muck of the Iran-Contra crimes]" on October 1, 1986, notes Wikipedia.
In 1991, even the CIA's favorite newspaper, the Washington Post, ran an op-ed cautioning against appointing Gates as DCI. "My objections to Gates center on his performance during the Iran-contra affair.... Throughout it, Gates acted as if he was in a complete fog or was interested primarily in keeping the truth from being aired in public or from reaching Congress," wrote Tom Polgar, a onetime colleague at the CIA and a veteran of the OSS (Gates: The Wrong Choice to Head the CIA, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 1-7 Jul. 1991, 24). But then, as George Lardner, Jr. and Walter Pincus wrote a couple weeks later in the same publication, Gates is "A Company Man" (or maybe that should be he is a Bush crime family intimate), so his appointment was a shoo-in.
Naturally, all of this about merging CIA and DIA operations at the expense of the former. "It's no mistake Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden was breezily selected [as director of the CIA, former Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence], as predicted, by a large number of senators (78-15 in his favor) earlier today," I wrote on May 26th. "Hayden will merge CIA and Pentagon covert and snoop operations and scant little of the work will concentrate on Osama's cartoonish cave dwellers and the spurious boogieman known as 'al-Qaeda,'" as we know the lion's share of snoop work is directed against the American people, as the NSA's massive surveillance program reveals. It should be fairly obvious that appointing a former CIA director and career spook as the Secretary of Defense rounds out the overall plan.
Finally, although Rumsfeld will go into the good night, the corporate relationships he nurtured will stay in place.
"As for Mr. Rumsfeld's top civilian aides, officials said it was likely that Mr. Gates would seek to retain Gordon England as the deputy defense secretary; Mr. England previously was Navy secretary, and has received high marks managing the day-to-day business of the Pentagon," notes the New York Times.
England is a proponent of "military transformation," that is to say transforming, or rather transferring, military duties to the private sector. He is a former top executive of the death merchant General Dynamics (another Pentagon appointee, James Roche, a Center for Security Policy neocon, worked for Northrop Grumman, and former Secretary of the Army, Thomas E. White, a JINSA walking tour convert, worked as a vice chairman and senior executive for Enron).
So impressed are the Likudites with England, JINSA presented him with a distinguished service award.
In other words, as much as things change, or appear to change, the more they ultimately stay the same, especially with the neocon gang running the show.
Who is Mr. Gates? Part 1
Bush administration's Trojan Horse gift to America and the Democrats: Former CIA Director and Iran-Contra insider Robert Gates
By Larry Chin
Online Journal Associate Editor
Nov 10, 2006, 00:52
With the Democrats and Democratic Party voters euphoric over a purported election victory, and a possible "change of course" in Iraq, the Bush administration quietly added poison to the Democrats' celebration champagne by dredging up former CIA Director and Iran-Contra participant Robert Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld as defense secretary.
The "war on terrorism" will not only continue, it will expand and deepen with Gates heading the Pentagon.
Who is Robert Gates?
Robert M. Gates was the CIA's Deputy Director for Intelligence (DDI) from 1982 to 1986. He became CIA Deputy Director of Central Intelligence (DDCI) in 1986, and moved up to Acting Director of Central Intelligence (ADCI) that same year. In 1991, George H.W. Bush nominated Gates to head the CIA (as Langley's DCI).
As a protégé of the infamous William Casey, and as both deputy director and director of the CIA, it goes without saying that Robert Gates was involved in every geopolitical crime and cover-up of the Reagan-Bush and George H.W. Bush era.
The encyclopedic list includes Iran-Contra, CIA narcotics trafficking, criminal covert operations, the infamous October Surprise, and the Bank of Credit and Commerce (BCCI) scandal.
Gates, Iran-Contra, and CIA drug trafficking
During the George H.W. Bush administration, with the Iran-Contra crimes still fresh, Gates survived the confirmation hearings (from a much fiercer Washington Congress) that elevated him to director of Central Intelligence. He was tarnished, but survived, the hobbled and corrupted Lawrence Walsh probe of Iran-Contra, which left the vast majority of Iran-Contra crimes unaddressed.
Despite its limitations, the Walsh probe managed to expose and tarnish many of the operation's players, and resulted in convictions for several participants (and, soon afterwards, pardoned by George H.W. Bush), one of them being Gates.
Robert Gates, like many Reagan-Bush era players, has a lot to answer for.
Subsequent research documents the fact that the CIA, National Security Council (NSC), and branches of the US military engaged in a host of massive narcotics trafficking operations, the most noteworthy of which were named Amadeus, Watch Tower, and Pegasus.
These operations, combined with related operations and geopolitical programs, comprise what is popularly known as "Iran-Contra."
Robert Gates was there for it all.
Gates is one of many officials implicated in detailed histories of the Iran-Contra period, and in CIA documents and reports, including the 1998 CIA Inspector General's Report into Contra Drug Trafficking. Gates' name surfaces in the Cutolo Affadavit (attributed to Army Colonel and CIA operative Ed Cutolo, the supervisor of Operation Watch Tower, but likely penned by Cutolo's associates, but thoroughly corroborated by whistleblowers and researchers).
According to Rodney Stich, author of Defrauding America, each operation "had basically the same characters involved . . . with Edwin Wilson . . . Robert Gates and William J. Casey . . ."
Despite being "in the loop," Gates has routinely denied his guilt over the years, but proof of his active role cannot be hidden. As acting DCI, Gates issued a memo that was tantamount to ordering a cover-up.
According to Mike Ruppert of From The Wilderness, a long-time whistleblower and chronicler of the CIA's narcotics crimes: "On April 9, 1987, Acting DCI Robert Gates sent a memorandum to the Deputy Director of Operations (DDO) Clair George stating it was imperative that CIA avoid involvement with individuals tied to the Contra program who were 'even suspected of involvement in narcotics trafficking.' The Gates memorandum instructed the DDO to vet contract air crews, air service companies and subcontractors with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), US Customs and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to ensure that the Agency would not be involved in any way with individuals suspected of being involved with drug trafficking."
In other words, cover up the extensive network in place, cut off relationships with assets, eliminate troublesome operatives, and create plausible denial.
How in-the-loop was Gates?
Retired US Navy Lt. Commander and ONI officer Al Martin, a participant in the Iran-Contra operations, authored The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider. In this book, Martin hangs the entire Bush apparatus out to dry, and details the many Iran-Contra-related criminal operations.
According to Martin, Gates was high-level.
"In terms of policy management, (William) Casey formed a series of inter-governmental agency Restricted Access Groups (RAGs). Ultimately three such groups were formed. The top Restricted Access Group 1 was Vice President George Bush -- as it was decided that all narcotics, weapons and money operations vis-à-vis Iran-Contra, would be consolidated under the office of the Vice President.
"Also included in these Restricted Access Groups were then Vice Presidential National Security Advisor, Colonel Donald Gregg, then Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger and Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, who was in charge of the Inter-American Affairs Office (an office which served in no other capacity except being a propaganda tool for the Nicaraguan Contras), Richard Armitage, and Assistant Secretary of State, Bernie Aronson.
"In the Department of Defense, the RAG group included Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Stillwell, and Caspar Weinberger himself.
"In the CIA, besides Casey, there was the infamous Deputy Director of Operations, Clair George, and Assistant Deputy Director of Operations, Alan Fiers.
"The names involved in the Restricted Access Group would change as these men changed positions in government from 1983 through 1986.
"When Frank Carlucci left the Defense Department to become Presidential National Security Advisor and Bobby Gates became Deputy Director of the CIA, Gates supplanted Carlucci within Restricted Access Group 2."
Gates, according to Martin, was elevated to Group 1 status upon being confirmed as Director of Central Intelligence.
Gates and assassinations
According to Stich, Robert Hunt, former Navy SEAL commander and deep-cover CIA/ONI operative, described to him a CIA assassination squad called Operation Ringwind.
This operation, according to Hunt, was under the control of then-Deputy Director of the CIA Robert Gates.
"They call it Operation Ringwind, formed in early 1981. It was strictly to take care of all participants in October Surprise until they decide to shut the operation down. And that could be tomorrow morning, or ten years from now. Whoever they think is involved."
Iran and the Bushes
According to Robert Parry, "the American people today should know the real history of US-Iran relations before the Bush administration launches another preemptive war in the Middle East."
This history, which covers Gates' long tenure at the CIA, "includes the facts regarding Republican contacts with Iran's Islamic regime more than a quarter of a century ago -- relevant today because an underlying theme in Bush's rationale for war is that direct negotiations with Iran are pointless. But Bush's own father may know otherwise."
The Bushes and the Truth about Iran (Robert Parry)
It is no coincidence that Iran veteran Gates comes to the Bush administration as the US prepares for operations against Iran.
Gates and BCCI cover-up
The Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) was the CIA's legendary drug bank and money laundering nexus.
In Defrauding America, Stich writes, "CIA Deputy Director Robert Gates stated in 1988 to the head of Customs, William von Raab, that BCCI stood for the 'Bank of Crooks and Criminals International.' But the CIA continued to deposit and launder funds in BCCI, covering up the criminal activities that would defraud people all over the world who had put their money into the bank.
"In the 1980s, US Customs Commissioner William von Raab unsuccessfully tried to get the Justice Department to act on the serious federal violations committed by BCCI.
"Raab testified to Senate investigators that in 1988 he told CIA Deputy Director Robert Gates of the drug money laundering at BCCI, and that Gates refused to proceed with the information."
A tactical move
The Rumsfeld resignation is not a sign of desperation or surrender in response to Democratic Party heat. It was a long-planned tactical move that strengthens the Bush administration's inner circle, while slapping the political opposition in the face.
By replacing the criminally insane Rumsfeld with the Bush-Reagan era insider Gates, the Bush administration (and Karl Rove) seeks to accomplish three objectives.
It puts another Iran-Contra criminal and military-intelligence criminal veteran into the cabinet, atop the Pentagon and America's war machine -- ensuring the expansion, penetration and successful execution of the "war on terrorism" into the rest of the Middle East and Iran (which William Casey protégé Gates got to know intimately, as CIA official during the administrations of Reagan-Bush, and George H.W. Bush ).
Gates joins other Iran-Contra criminals, such as Elliott Abrams and John Negroponte, at the controls of power. The military brass had serious problems with the peevish Rumsfeld. It may not have these issues with the savvier (and, for the world, more dangerous) Gates.
It removes any chance, any relevance, to any hopes that leading Democrats had about dragging Rumsfeld, already a political liability for Bush, into hearings regarding the management of the Iraq war. The entire Iraq debate, which the Democrats had hoped would swirl around a sitting Rumsfeld, flies away with a new Gates Pentagon.
Gates, who had relatively few problems with Democrats in the past, is likely to meet little resistance from weak Democrats engaged in "bipartisanship." There is little chance that the Democrats are likely to bring up past history.
Other Iran-Contra participants have received similar red carpet treatments from Congress since 2000.
The Bush administration has done what it has always done: replace a political liability with something even more dangerous, a loyal insider to the very highest positions of authority. The move adds insult to six years of injury, an openly provocative act that dares the perplexed Democrats to do anything to stop it, knowing that they will not.
If Robert Gates does with his new Pentagon power what he did at the CIA during his previous tenure, the world is in for tremendous suffering and death, and more covert and overt warfare -- all well-"managed," packaged and sold to Congress. Gates, unlike the divisive Rumsfeld, is a criminal who is capable of uniting the elite consensus.