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Tommorow is Capt_nemo BD????? Big 50!!!!!! LOLLOLooooooo it's 49
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Tommorow is Capt_nemo BD????? Big 50!!!!!! LOLLOLooooooo it's 49
Tommorow is Capt_nemo BD????? Big 50!!!!!! LOLooooooo it's 49
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This article comes from
Tom Flocco.com
http://www.tomflocco.com/
Who killed John-John?
Date: Wednesday, August 31
Topic: News Media Control
Who killed John-John?
“If a man or woman living among you in one of the towns the Lord gives you is found doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God in violation of his covenant....and this has been brought to your attention, then you must investigate it thoroughly. If it is true and it has been proved that this detestable thing has been done in Israel, take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death. On the testimony of two or three witnesses a man shall be put to death, but no one shall be put to death on the testimony of only one witness. The hands of the witnesses must be the first in putting him to death, and then the hands of all the people. You must purge the evil from among you.” Deuteronomy 17: 2-7
Division 4 team names Clintons, Bush 41, 43 in JFK Jr. assassination
by Tom Flocco
“One of my family members was related to JFK Jr.‘s grandmother, and although it was not a blood relationship, I had at least a half dozen lengthy conversations with John during the years before he died. We liked each other and hit it off; so this was why John opened up to me and seemed to trust me regarding his future plans to run against either Hillary Clinton for the Senate or George W. Bush for the Presidency in 2000. John had many conversations with my relative; and he gave her permission to discuss his political aspirations with friends so this was not a closely held secret. But what was interesting was that John told me he was pretty sure he could win either of those races.” ("Delbert," former Interpol operative and CIA Division 4 team member)
Caldwell, New Jersey -- August 31, 2005 -- TomFlocco.com -- “I know I’m risking my life in allowing you to interview me; but I’m aware there is an operational grand jury and indictments regarding the White House, so now is the time. I‘m tired
of knowing all the details and perpetrators of the murder of an innocent and good man without seeing justice. John’s death has caused tremendous trauma throughout the Kennedy family,“ said a 40ish ex-operative who consented to discuss the investigation and his part in writing the JFK Jr. plane crash preliminary and final reports authorized by the FBI.
“Just refer to me as ‘Delbert.’ That’s good enough,” he said, adding, “If they will kill ‘John-John,’ they’ll kill anybody.”
The long-time Special Forces and Division 4 operative’s explosive evidence, witness testimony and his team’s suppressed and classified final report naming former Presidents Bill Clinton and George H. W. Bush, President George W. Bush and Senator Hillary Clinton among others as being involved in orchestrating the assassination of John F. Kennedy Jr. will require U.S. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to hear testimony to investigate John Jr.’s death as part of his ongoing grand jury probe involving White House crime families.
1999 piper saratoga II TC
....similar to JFK jr. plane
During three exclusive interviews with TomFlocco.com, the ex-operative told us the final classified report specifically said “JFK Jr.’s plane broke in half just aft of the cabin. The damage was caused by a plastique (C-4) shape charge which was formed along the bottom of the fuselage and up along both sides of the walls. The charge was caused to be set off or exploded with a large spark generated by a barometric switch device triggered by the altitude of the plane. In other words, the assassins chose the altitude for the explosion of the plane--a standard procedure to make the target’s murder look like an accident.”
Delbert said his team and their witnesses and families have been in physical jeopardy since 1999 “because the media did not report the truth about what happened;” and that all involved are now placing their lives in the hands of Fitzgerald and his deputies to prosecute the evidence--charges that will serve to mitigate compromised media outlets now protecting the White House with spin and insinuations that Fitzgerald is using the “perjury trap” to manufacture crimes instead of genuinely seeking evidence.
Sources close to one grand jury indicate the spin will not work this time. The U.S. intelligence community is monitoring the work of all the prosecutors and grand juries. Serious crimes with supporting evidence involving three branches of government and the media have already threatened the long term survival of the Republic.
We learned that scores of witnesses were interviewed by Division 4: a) at the scene of the explosion off Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, b) when the plane and bodies were recovered, c) in the White House regarding the assassination plot prior to the crash, and d) at the airport concerning what witnesses saw three days before Kennedy’s plane took off. Collectively, they tell a different story than the media--one that might ultimately rival the political intrigue surrounding ancient Rome’s ruling Caesars.
The decision to come forward
Click Here
After observing that the Division 4 JFK Jr. preliminary report (filed three days after the crash, but later leaked within the intelligence community for a number of years) had remained online for the last six months, contact was made with stewwebb.com where we first saw the document. Webb had already faxed the document to more than 300 top electronic and print media outlets which collectively ignored it.
We inquired whether it would be possible to interview one of the active or retired Division 4 members who conducted the actual investigation and wrote the reports, given the rapidly gathering swirl of secret grand juries.
A former member of the Division 4 International Murder Investigative team named Delbert, who helped write the reports and interview witnesses, was asked to come forward by Stewart Webb and was subsequently contacted by TomFlocco.com, consenting to several interviews to discuss his findings in the leaked preliminary report and reveal specific names and evidence details contained in the final classified report which has been withheld from the American people.
Delbert told us today that he cringes when he reads the report and thinks about it being in ‘general’ circulation: “It was NEVER meant for general dissemination and consumption; and frankly, I’m somewhat appalled when I think of it being ‘out there.’ The final report was cleaned up grammatically and the actual facts presented in a much clearer, concise manner leaving out any speculation. But I regret this report ever getting out.”
Grand jury activity notwithstanding, what piqued our initial interest was a feeling that the Division 4 team, with experience tracking murderers across the globe and placed on loan to assist an overwhelmed FBI for the JFK Jr. probe--had apparently conducted an investigation far more complete than what the mainstream media was telling its trusting viewers and readers.
Not unexpectedly, the team was told to “back off,“ since its leaked preliminary report written by Delbert and another team member revealed specific contradictory evidence, calling JFK Jr.‘s death to be a “political assassination of the highest order.”
Division 4 investigative team’s past exploits can currently be seen on the Discovery Channel in “The Hunt for the Serpent,” about a serial killer they chased through Nepal, India, Pakistan and China; but the team also became well-known for a chase through the Hudson Valley into Canada before capturing the Green Valley killer who had murdered 43 young prostitutes. As part of this international version of the FBI, the team specializes in tracking serial killers and pedophiles across foreign boundaries.
The ‘Phoenix Project’ and assassinations
Years prior to serving on this team for three years, Delbert said he was a member of the U.S. Army Special Forces, attached to the Phoenix Project / Operation, on orders to “destabilize targeted governments by murdering government officials, elites, professionals, bankers, military leaders, teachers, professors and medical professionals."
“This started in Vietnam and then moved to Central America,” said Delbert, adding “I was part of what we called the Bush-Clinton New World Order takeover to place in power selected individuals who received their marching orders directly from the U.S. government. Plain and simple, Project Phoenix required Americans to kill off innocent people to place in power those selected by the U.S. ruling elite; but I left, finding it very objectionable.”
“These activities are still going on today,” said the intelligence insider. “America now uses FBI Division 5, CIA Division 4, and elements from within the Department of Defense (DOD) and Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for its dirty work. Five-man Delta teams made up of nationals from Mexico and Ecuador are being trained for house-to-house extraction and murder of American citizens--when the day comes that Martial Law is declared and what little is left of our Constitution is scrapped.“
"These (elements) are counter-intelligence goon squads of trained assassins which engage in covert operations both inside and outside the United States--with or without the knowledge of Congress which is supposed to be restraining them from actions against our own citizens. They’re out of control--just a marvelous group of human beings,” said the former intelligence veteran.
With a measure of insight into Delbert’s background and credibility, we asked him to talk about Division 4’s JFK Jr. findings, the specific content of the team’s written accounts and the details of the assassination plot.
The preliminary and final reports
The preliminary report and our three interviews with Delbert provide an open window template through which to view previous evidence that could point to prosecutable obstruction of justice by a grand jury regarding past FBI probes of major political figures who also died in plane crashes or in another manner. Ample evidence indicates that Congress has permitted the Bureau to serve as a private taxpayer-funded political cover-up arm for each White House.
A grand jury itself presents what amounts to a citizen-controlled fourth branch of government, set aside by founding fathers as a necessary precaution against corruption, obstruction of justice and/or treason on the part of the Supreme Court, White House and Congress -acting separately or in concert. Individuals talking to sources close to the grand jury told us that citizen panelists are currently reviewing powerful evidence with explosive documents and are dead-serious about cleansing the government.
A case in point for a grand jury to become operational would occur if, for example, Fitzgerald had witnesses who could corroborate that members of the Supreme Court received financial bribes in 2000 to install George W. Bush in the White House [ Part 1 / Part 2 ], or if Florida’s elected officials destroyed voter ballots to prevent Al Gore from becoming the duly elected president for the same reason. In short, evidence would be collected and the grand jury would hear testimony.
While John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. was reported to have died in an accidental plane crash on July 16, 1999, Division 4’s preliminary report reveals careful details dissimilar to those reported by news outlets, indicating what the team described in its report as “classic media disinformation, if not outright lies” pertaining to suspect circumstances surrounding the death of the only son of President John F. Kennedy who was himself assassinated on November 22, 1963 under a similar investigative cloud.
Most families of well-known politicians killed in “accidental” plane crashes were not afforded the opportunity of having a separate outside agency like Division 4 to investigate the evidence of their loved one‘s death as in the case of the son of an assassinated president. The prelim report summary is revealing:
“Subject was a qualified pilot, in control of his flight, flying a reasonably new aircraft, in excellent condition. Visibility was 8 miles. Wind, calm. All indication from Forensics and Physical evidence investigations lend themselves to a violent explosion, either from an altitude or barometric pressure device, or from a Particle Beam laser. [Delbert said Particle Beam laser was left out of final classified report] Aircraft ‘broke up’ in mid-air, as evidenced by wide spread debris gathered from the ocean and several different beaches. This can only be caused by an onboard explosion, or an attack by a missile or Laser. [Delbert said missile and Laser were left out of final report] Considering the nature of current political leanings of subject and today’s political atmosphere in America, and the before-mentioned facts, there is little doubt that subject was assassinated. In fact, team [Interpol Serial Killer Alpha Team] considers this a Political Assassination of the highest order. It was meant to alleviate a potential threat to the ruling elite. And it succeeded.” [From the JFK Jr. preliminary report, filed on July 19, 1999. This document has been authenticated by several intelligence agents; and we were told copies have been passed around the intelligence community for several years.]
Four team members and two from another U.S. law enforcement agency who jointly participated in producing the final classified report, filed on August 5, 1999, revealed startling evidence which will prevent a continued cover-up.
The six members of the Division 4 team and others will have to be protected and then subpoenaed for sealed testimony; and the grand jury will also need to hear the testimony of scores of the team’s interviewed citizen witnesses who have thus far remained understandably silent about what they saw and heard regarding JFK Jr.’s tragic death.
Delbert said the team's probe was rigorous. We found it staggering:
“a) 30-40 witnesses were thoroughly interviewed
b) Ten individuals said they actually saw JFK Jr.‘s plane explode in mid-air
Essex County Airport in Caldwell, New Jersey
c) Two witnesses told the team they saw George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush at the Essex County, New Jersey airport with Israeli Mossad agent Michael Harari and another Mossad agent who were both seen standing next to JFK Jr.’s Cessna--all four were at the airport just two days before the doomed plane took off with JFK, Jr., his pregnant wife and her sister
d) Several witnesses testified they overheard the murder plot being discussed in the White House oval office
e) One ‘company’ (CIA) witness at the scene saw the bodies and the damaged plane and told the team a mid-air explosion caused the crash
f) Approximately 150 witnesses gave individual depositions and signed statements for the final report
g) Three flight instructors who worked with JFK Jr. testified he was an excellent pilot and had logged a huge number of flying hours since being licensed--he loved to fly and was that good.”
Delbert told us “At the end of July, 1999, during the final phase of our investigation, we talked to several individual sources in the White House who consented to be interviewed as witnesses.”
“We included their testimony in the final draft of the report which was classified until 2025--not currently available to any living individual,“ said the former operative.
“Since concrete evidence of a plot involving three presidents and a current senator in the assassination of John F. Kennedy’s son--who the report said they perceived as a political threat and future rival--would not exactly inspire public confidence in the government, it’s probable that the American people will never see our final un-redacted report,” said Delbert, “unless there are grand jury murder indictments and a public trial.”
The Players
“The White House sources we interviewed overheard conversations involving individuals who made the decision to murder JFK, Jr.,” said Delbert, who joined three Division 4 fellow operatives and two other federal agency officials in alleging the following names in the final classified report as having participated in planning the murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. after the team had interviewed all the witnesses involved in the case:
The Division 4 team member told us “The meeting to discuss the murder occurred in the White House oval office. The subjects named in the report who participated in ordering the murder of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. were President Clinton and his wife Hillary--both in the room, former Attorney General Janet Reno--also in the room and who JFK Jr. had publicly called to task for her role in Waco and Ruby Ridge operations, FBI Director Louis Freeh--in the room, and former President George H. W. Bush, Lawrence Rockefeller (now deceased), and three Inner Circle Council of Thirteen members who were all teleconferenced into the oval office discussion via secure White House phone lines.“
Quietly taken aback by the revelations, we asked Delbert to summarize the content of the alleged oval office murder plot overheard by the team's interviewed witness sources, including witnesses assigned to White House domestic security:
“a) Conversation about JFK Jr.’s magazine GEORGE becoming a political vehicle which could threaten ruling elite families and expose past White House crimes
b) Discussions about blowing up his Cessna, John Jr.’s vulnerability and even carelessness about his plane’s security when warned that suspicious individuals had previously been seen lurking around his plane at the airport
c) Attorney General Reno’s problems with JFK Jr. criticizing Waco and Ruby Ridge
d) Speculation about who John Jr. would pick to run against in 2000--Hillary Clinton or George W. Bush
e) Discussion about political family factions and relationships between federal law enforcement, national security and intelligence agencies
f) Discussion about how the assassination would take place, starting at the airport--with specific Mossad agents named by the subject conspirators without mentioning the actual Israeli agency
g) General agreement that John, Jr. had become over-zealous in planning to employ GEORGE to circuitously expose those who were behind the assassination of his father.”
White House-controlled foreign assassination teams in America
As we listened without comment, the Division 4 operative continued: “We were told by the same White House sources we interviewed that FBI Director Freeh left the oval office after the murder plot was discussed and met with Israeli Mossad agent Michael Harari who then met with his supervisor, General Rafael Eitan, considered to be one of the most dangerous Israeli agents who ever lived,” stated Delbert.
Delbert explained that testimony by White House and airport witnesses and others will provide outrageous but credible grand jury evidence that three United States presidents have their own private Israeli Mossad assassins--as well as assassins from several American federal government agencies--and will use them to commit treason and murder against other Americans perceived to pose a political threat to their power, a fact surely to horrify Jewish-Americans and all U.S. citizens.
“I had heard that even our own FBI agents literally trembled at the fear of being assigned to watch General Eitan’s movements, since collaborating congressional oversight allowed him to freely enter the United States at any time, using passports under a different name,” the Division 4 special investigative team member said.
[One of the most outrageous documents this writer has ever seen, confirming the existence of Michael Harari and his nefarious Bush-connected activities, was the Colonel Cutolo / Colonel Corone Court Deposition, which we found on www. stewwebb.com.]
Delbert continued his shocking narrative, “About three days before John’s plane took off and exploded in mid-air, Michael Harari, and another Mossad agent were seen with former President George H. W. Bush and his son Texas Governor George W. Bush at the Essex County, New Jersey airport where John Jr. kept his plane.” This fact was also confirmed by separate U.S. intelligence sources who are also willing to testify before a grand jury.
[click here to read more about Harari’s U.S. activities in the Cutolo Affadavit.htm also found at stewwebb.com]
“All four were positively identified by an aircraft mechanic and a maintenance worker we interviewed for the final classified report; but we didn’t include their names or the names of some other key witnesses so that there would be citizens left to testify in case the Clintons or Bushes started having people murdered,” said the former Special Forces member.
Delbert’s chilling words provided concrete and credible proof that congressional oversight over counterfeit immigration documents acquired by assassins and terrorists, wide-open U.S. borders and homeland “security“ is so seriously flawed, broken down and corrupted that Senate and House members are permitting known foreign murderers to move around America at will.
Given the state-side depletion of National Guard and Reserve troops which renders the U.S. more vulnerable to foreign enemies while pre-emptive war based on lies is being fought, the physical and economic security of the nation is problematic enough to assert that Senate and House members may literally be conspiring against their own constituents in favor of a clandestine world-wide agenda supported by assassination of “troublemakers,” political or otherwise.
The American-French Alliance (AFA), a tightly-knit and hushed organization of active intelligence community patriots from both countries, is said to be waging an under-the-radar-screen war to stop rogue elements and assassins in the FBI, CIA, DOD and DIA--supervised by the White House and directly linked to Al Qaeda and former CIA operative Tim Osman (also known as Osama bin Laden) but also British MI-6 agents from engaging in black operations throughout the United States.
According to intelligence sources who spoke with federal whistleblower Stewart Webb, the AFA reportedly killed General Eitan in October, 2004 for his role in stealing the U.S. atomic nuclear codes from the National Security Archives.
TomFlocco.com and other websites have previously reported circumstances surrounding an attempt by eight rogue British MI-6 agents to blow up the Chicago subway underneath the Everett Dirksen Federal Building where federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and a grand jury are investigating multiple crimes and treason linked to the White House.
The physical evidence
“The preliminary Division 4 team report was written with my partner who has retired and returned to his own country. We were joined by two others from our team and two more from another federal agency in putting together the final report,” said Delbert.
“Our boss ordered us to re-write the final draft but we refused. We wanted to tell the truth; so they classified the (final report) until the year 2025 despite the fact that we had interviewed scores of witnesses who can corroborate all of our findings. This was August 5, 1999.”
“The obstruction of justice by our ‘upper management’ and the FBI caused so much chaos that they dissolved our team; then they, quite possibly along with the Clinton White House, tried to have me murdered within ten weeks at the end of October, 1999 while working in Belfast, Ireland. I was supposed to be in a car with a friend who was blown apart in the explosion,“ said Delbert.
“That explosion was meant either as a warning or an assassination attempt, and cost the life of not only my associate, but a friend of his as well; so I closed all my accounts, resigned from Division 4 and went underground by November, 1999, for six months,” he said--but not before devastating reports had been filed by a team of investigators experienced in tracking evidence and criminals all over the world:
Satellite Photo of the Essex Co. Airport.
[From the preliminary report]
“Subject, John F. Kennedy, Jr. left Essex County Airport, Caldwell, New Jersey at 8:38 P.M. Friday, July 16, 1999 in a Piper Saratoga II TC. Aircraft was built in 1995, purchased last year by subject. It has been reported to have been in excellent condition--simple and comfortable to fly...Visibility was eight (8) miles--I say again visibility was eight (8) miles. Media reports of ‘hazy’ or ‘foggy’ conditions are untrue,” said the report.
“At 9:39 P.M. JFK radioed the Martha’s Vineyard Airport giving his location. Subject was completely calm, giving no indication of any difficulties, stating that he was making his final approach, no more than 10 miles from shore and 13 miles from the airport...When he radioed at 9:39 P.M., 17-18 miles West of Martha’s Vineyard, he was at 2,500 feet. When detected on radar 29 seconds later he was at 1,800 feet, 16 miles West of Martha’s Vineyard. He was then lost off radar. No MAYDAY was ever heard. Tower personnel at Martha’s Vineyard Airport verified previous data,” indicating an immediate catastrophic problem.
“Within app. 10 seconds of this final radio contact at 9:39 P.M., an aircraft fitting the description of the subject’s (aircraft) and in that same general location was identified on Radar by both Military personnel and Martha’s Vineyard Airport tower personnel as descending 1,200 feet in 12 seconds--a full, head-long dive, in other words. A reporter for the Vineyard Gazette newspaper told WCVB-TV in Boston that he was out walking Friday night about the time of the crash and say a “big white flash in the sky,” just off Philbin Beach. Luggage, a tire, plexiglass pieces of cowling have all washed up on Philbin Beach. Said reporter has now partially recanted his story by stating that ‘perhaps it was a bright light from an explosion, but he just cannot be sure.’ Reporter has been ‘gotten to, compromised. Unknown as to who, at this time.”
“Several local news reports initially (reported) that several people SAW and Heard an explosion in the air over the ocean South of Martha’s Vineyard towards Eastern Long Island, at the same time that subject’s plane ‘went missing.’ We have confirmed these reports by speaking with 4 of the witnesses who have asked to remain anonymous. Detected definite fear on their part.”
“All evidence at this time indicates that aircraft was in a fiery, head-long crash dive within seconds after the 9:39 radio transmission. Aircraft was equipped with a radar transponder that transmits a 4-digit ID code and the altitude. Aircraft contained a 406 MHz satellite Distress beacon which would have notified the FAA of exact lat. & long. Device was NOT Activated. Believe reason as aircraft disintegrated instantly.”
“Subject has been reported by all interviewed, including 3 flight instructors, to be an Excellent pilot who did not take chances. Subject had logged many hours and had acquired an abnormal amount of expertise for an individual holding a pilots license for only 15 months. In fact, it has been reported that JFK, Jr. had logged enough hours, and acquired enough expertise to qualify as a commercial pilot! He had passed instrument checks with no reported difficulties. Although subject did not like flying at night, all information indicated he did so efficiently. Media’s reports of ‘pilot error,’ ‘failed instrument test and checks’ and ‘scared to fly at night’ are patently untrue. Standard American Media disinformation.”
“When SK Alpha team began investigating weather anomalies and any possible phenomenon, (weather), Radar images/data that have proven useful in such investigations, to include the observations of Electromagnetic/radio frequency phenomena, were discovered to be missing from the archives for the Eastern Long Island/Martha’s Vineyard area during the two (2) critical hours in which JFK Jr.’s plane apparently crashed/disappeared. This is/was more than suspect. After demanding said data from air control personnel, and receiving stammering red-faced explanations as to it’s whereabouts, team notes data has been intentionally ‘misplaced,’ or in fact lost.”
“The head-rest, steering yoke, pieces of the cowling, plexiglass and carpeting were literally torn apart from/off the plane, floating up on Gay Head Beach. This indicates a mid-air explosion, not a stall and crash. Debris from the crash has also been washing up on the West end of Martha’s Vineyard, creating a very wide-spread area of destruction (in other words, the remains of the aircraft are spread out over a very large area of space on the Ocean, indicating a mid-air explosion, not a stall and crash).
“Recorded conversation with air traffic control all indicate a calm, relaxed pilot in full command of the flight, with no difficulties in the final approach. Seconds after the last transmission, the explosion was observed and contact was lost with subject’s plane.”
“Previously mentioned weather and electro-magnetic/radio frequency data has been lost or misplaced. Since this typically NEVER happens, a cover-up of some sort is strongly indicated....The wings of the aircraft were NOT torn off, which they would have been had subject’s plane gone into uncontrollable dive, as being reported by the American press....If aircraft had had engine trouble, as reported, it should /could have simply gone into a slow glide and made a soft-water landing....NO MAYDAY was ever heard, indicating catastrophic occurrence.”
“...Every indicator points towards JFK Jr. having ’had enough’ of this humiliation [report said threats and blackmailing of Kennedy family] and planned on turning his magazine ’George’ into a true political vehicle for change. For the American public, not the New World Order. In fact, he had already begun this process by publishing factual exposes on George Wallace and the Rabin assassination. This alone is enough to have gotten him killed.”....Subject had begun looking into his father’s murder, and had developed plans to slowly expose those involved (in his magazine).”
“The American press/mass media are now releasing news reports that are far from factual. In fact, they can be considered, at best, to be (classic) disinformation, if not outright lies. In the initial reports that were released, the essential truth of the situation, the facts were being released. However, what is now being reported is (essentially) leaving out the essence of truth and simply glossing over what actually occurred. Again, what we regard as standard American Press procedures, disinformation at best. This strongly indicates a cover-up, or else the truth would still be reported.”
“Although requested onsite by Federal agencies, team has been coerced to ‘back off,’ albeit subtly and quietly. This particular tactic speaks well for itself. We have not ‘backed off,’ nor will we.”
Al Gore’s close call
Astute political observers are aware that electoral assassinations are very difficult to prove; however, such “accidental” deaths often result in “clearing the field” of a contending threat, rival--or witness of wrongdoing which would discredit or expose a candidate. Thus the way would be paved for an assured (or at least easier) election victory to retain or gain power by removing a political rival from the scene--forever.
Given the Division 4 reports and witness testimony relating to the White House assassination plot, the Fitzgerald grand jury will also want to initiate a probe of the close, coincidental time-line nexus between John Jr.’s plane “accident” and Vice President Al Gore’s “close call” the week before on Air Force Two.
Most Americans are unaware that the Chicago Sun-Times reported that about one week before JFK, Jr’s death on July 16, 1999, Vice-President Al Gore’s Air Force Two jet lost power and had to make an emergency landing while flying through heavily congested air space near Chicago. Gore’s plane going down would have resulted in another pre-2000, election-related “accidental” death almost overlapping John F. Kennedy, Jr.
The Division 4 team's White House crime family evidence alleging JFK, Jr.’s assassination plot is reminiscent of a scene in the legendary mafia movie The Godfather, when Michael Corleone orchestrated the simultaneous murders of his five crime family rivals during the exact hour he attended the baptism service for his Godchild.
Intelligence sources have alleged to us that Gore’s plane was vectored, possibly resulting in loss of cabin pressure related to some sort of software technology, in a failed attempt to “clear the field” for George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential race.
JFK
There is evidence to prove that George H. W. Bush was a member of the CIA on November 22, 1963, the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated--a fact Bush 41 has repeatedly denied, according to Federal whistleblower Stewart Webb.
In his book The Immaculate Deception--The Bush Crime Family Exposed [1991, America West Publishers, pp. 31-39], retired U.S. Army Brigadier General Russell Bowen refers to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) memo unearthed in 1977-78, dated seven days after the assassination on November 29, 1963, describing the full briefing given to “George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency” on the day after the [JFK] assassination. [When Bush 41 was just 39 years old]
[General Bowen was an original member of Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during the 1940s with George H. W. Bush, Henry Kissinger, Allan Dulles and others who became known as the secretive “brown-shoe boys,” which later became the CIA. Webb revealed that General Bowen personally told him that Kissinger served as a duel spy for Germany and Russia during WWII before later becoming U.S. Secretary of State under President Nixon; and as of today, Bowen and Webb are still alive to testify and allege that such a spy can hold high U.S. office, the public none the wiser.]
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote the memo [see link above] mentioning Bush; and curiously, Hoover met with others at the ranch of Texas oil baron Colin J. “Clint” Murchison, Jr. in Dallas, on the night before Kennedy was assassinated, according to retired Army Brigadier General William Penn Jones.
A FOIA lawsuit publicized an FBI report regarding a man identifying himself as “George H. W. Bush” who telephoned the FBI’s Houston office within hours of Kennedy’s death with information about a threat allegedly made against Kennedy by a young right-wing Republican, according to General Bowen.
The FBI report stated “On November 22, 1963, Mr. George H. W. Bush, 5535 Briar, Houston, Texas telephonically advised...that one James Parrott had been talking of killing the president when he comes to Houston.”
Since witnesses have connected George H. W. Bush to JFK Jr.’s airport and the White House assassination plot prior to his murder, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald would be negligent if the grand jury did not also probe the Hoover FOIA lawsuit evidence linking the ex-president to events surrounding the assassination of John Jr.‘s father, JFK.
All this gives rise to serious grand jury questions: Why has Bush 41 denied being in the CIA on November 22, 1963? Why was Bush [at the age of 39] fully briefed on JFK’s assassination on the day after the event? What does he know about Hoover’s meeting in Dallas on the night before? Who else was at the meeting? What did they discuss? Why did Hoover specifically name Bush in the memo?
George H. W. also denied being involved in Iran contra. But according to General Bowen, “investigators obtained copies of Colonel Oliver North’s diaries which documented Bush’s role as a CIA supervisor of the contra supply network. In 1988 Bush issued false statements to Congress, testifying he knew nothing about the illegal supply flights until late November, 1986; yet North’s diary shows Bush at the first planning meeting on August 6, 1985.”
Securing Justice
After considering the team's gathered physical evidence, written testimony and our talks with Delbert, who had interviewed most of the investigation witnesses involved, rhetorical questions could be posed regarding how the mainstream media could be so controlled and manipulated that it would be able to cover up the obvious:
How come the media saw things differently than the Division 4 team? Were key editors, reporters and global media executives co-participants in obstructing justice by glossing over a political assassination? Will the media receive the same severe scrutiny by Phi Beta Kappa and Harvard Law grad Patrick Fitzgerald and his grand juries as the alleged perpetrators themselves?
While more than nine families in particular are literally hanging out there in physical jeopardy, knowing that witnesses, credible evidence and a classified report point to three U.S. Presidents and at least one Senator as having their own private teams of foreign assassins available to do their political bidding, the ball is now in Special Counsel Fitzgerald’s "court." This, while Congress looks the other way, knowing it needs to be held accountable for gross corruption.
The pressure will be enormous on prosecutors and jurors alike. Witnesses and team members referred to herein will need to be afforded protection. That said, Fitzgerald and his staff of about 150 Assistant U.S. Attorneys possess the quintessential job description for probing White House felony families: regularly handling public corruption, narcotics trafficking, violent crime, jury tampering and white-collar fraud. But they must do their job.
Fitzgerald himself has played a personal role in many significant investigations involving financing terrorism, violent crime, narcotics, and gang prosecutions, particularly including U.S. v. John Gambino et. al., prosecuting crime family “capos and crews,” an ideal candidate to lead White House crime probes.
Given the mood of multiple intelligence sources understandably furious about what historians will say happened on their recent watch (the transfer of nuclear codes to China, the September 11 attacks and Oklahoma City bombing, an attempt to blow up the Chicago subway underneath Fitzgerald’s grand jury in the Dirksen building on July 18 and war under false pretenses), thousands of government agents are reportedly prepared to block obstruction and obfuscation if “deals are cut” or “private payoffs” are attempted in order to prevent the wheels of justice from turning.
There is a strange, unsettled feeling sweeping across the land. America seems to be aware that something big will happen this fall. Most can’t put their finger on it. But the markets know what’s coming.
Massive insider stock sales versus purchases were running $74 sold to each $1 of stock bought, right after TomFlocco.com alone reported that President Bush and Vice President Cheney had been indicted. Unknowing investors with automatically deducted pension fund and 401K contributions are still buying into the stock market while the turmoil of coming political upheaval is slowing festering like an inexorable cancer ready to claim its victim.
In February, 2005, corporate business executives, officers and directors sold $5 billion in personal stock, establishing a new market record for unloading insider securities in a single month. What do they know that the public doesn’t?
The stock market may be poised to reprise its 2000 collapse even as inside traders and government funds are now grabbing more of America’s wealth and financial security by quietly selling. Americans should heed Dubya-speak: “Fool me once, shame on you or me, fool me twice, uh... fool me twice... uh.... I won't get fooled again.”
Gold has moved from $385 to about $450 an ounce over the last 6-8 months; and the metal’s rise in value indicates that some investors are buying gold so they won’t be left holding the old maid (inflated fiat paper currency) in the event of a protracted political crisis.
The interest rate yield curve on long bonds is virtually flat in the face of ten straight rate increases by Allan Greenspan and the Federal Reserve. Future trust in the financial stability of U.S. currency is exposed when a 10-year note draws about the same interest rate as a 30-year note, hence the flat yield curve. (We used to be nicely rewarded for letting the government hold our money for a longer period. But not now.)
The gold websites are reporting that China and Japan have not purchased U.S. Treasury securities since last January; and that 80-90% of our Treasuries are now purchased “off-shore,” indicating private sources, secretive countries, laundered drug money, or “printing press finance” to quietly prop up the economy.
During recent House Armed Services Committee hearings, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted to Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-4-GA) that China has been financing the entire Iraq War by purchasing U.S. Treasury notes. How is this possible if China is not buying our Treasuries? Is Rumsfeld telling the truth? Why isn’t the American media holding his feet to the fire?
Prescient warnings notwithstanding, witnesses with evidence in the matter of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Jr. are available to testify and be evaluated in front of Patrick Fitzgerald, his staff of deputy career prosecutors, but most importantly, grand jury panels of American citizens who will listen and decide whether murder indictments are in fact warranted in light of Division 4's evidence.
Fitzgerald and his grand juries are still operational in spite of the House, Senate and U.S. mainstream media, all of which will ignore this story, the evidence, the witnesses, and the preliminary and "classified" JFK, Jr. reports.
If approximately 150 witnesses and credible evidence is not enough to render proper justice in the assassination of the son of an assassinated U.S. President, then the American justice system is not worth the paper that the Constitution and the United States Code are written on; and it will be quite obvious that Patrick Fitzgerald was “gotten to,” and likely deserving of separate consequences.
However, all indications from intelligence sources confirm that Fitzgerald is a rather remarkable and heroic patriot who will not back down from his sworn duty. Given coming indictments against high officials in all three branches of government, the fourth branch (citizen grand juries) will be crucial this fall.
But then America was always supposed to be about the citizens--not powerful ruling elite families whose progeny have come to expect receipt of power, perks and privilege via noblesse oblige.
There is nothing noble about what some U.S. government leaders have done to America since November 22, 1963.
Purge the evil from among you.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Postscript: In a June, 1992 exclusive and published interview granted by President George H. W. Bush to Sarah McClendon, the grand dame of the White House press corps at the time:
“George Bush, what will the people do if they ever find out the truth about Iraq-gate and Iran contra? ‘Sarah, if the American people ever find out what we have done, they will chase us down the streets and lynch us.’ ”
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In memory of Timothy Shane Flocco (1978-2000)
to end State Dept. vacation-death evidence destruction and travel corporation lying under oath
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.tomflocco.com/fs/PurgeTheEvil.htm
OVERTHROW OF THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC Part 79
BUSH INDICTMENT FIXING/BRIBERY GANG
by Sherman H. Skolnick 8/18/05
Impeaching a U.S. President and putting him on Impeachment Trial is a rare occurrence.
It happened once in the 19th Century. Following the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln just a few days after the Civil War ended, taking his position was Andrew Johnson who angered key members of both houses of Congress b y threatening to finger them for their end-of-the-War-Between-The-States conspiratorial commodity speculations in opposition to Lincoln's proposed post-war policy to go easy on the South to get them back in the Union. Some in Congress, jointly with the French Rothschilds, bet on harsh treatment of the South, which would have made Southern farm products, particularly cotton, to zoom up in price to their immense profit. Johnson was Impeached and escaped by one vote from being removed from offi ce at an Impeachment Trial.
In 1998, President William Rockefeller Clinton was subject to Impeachment Resolutions and was put on Impeachment Trial in 1999. Under the U.S. Constitution's provisions, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist conducted the Senate Impeachment Trial of Clinton. [As to why we properly use Rockefeller as Clinton's middle name, see our series "Wal-Mart and the Red Chinese Secret Police", www.skolnicksreport.com ]
At the trial, like a Commissar, Rehnquist sat in his black robes with gold stripes. Key members of the U.S. Senate were subject to blackmail; such as Orrin Hatch for his bribery in the Salt Lake City Olympics Affair as w ell as his role in the crooked matter of Bank of Credit and Commerce International, BCCI. Also, the Senate, made up mostly of war mongers, secretly got Clinton to agree, that right after he escaped removal, Clinton would authorize the U.S. to& nbsp;bomb Yugoslavia. Why? Yugoslavia demanded heavy payment from the Oil Cartel (which owns both houses of Congress) to permit the Caspian pipeline to go through the southern Balkans.
Under the U.S. Constitution, the President is subject to removal from office by Impeachment Trial and is still subject to federal criminal prosecution for criminal offenses.
"Judgment in Cases of Impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States: but the Party convicted shall neverthele ss be liable and subject to INDICTMENT, TRIAL, JUDGMENT AND PUNISHMENT, ACCORDING TO LAW." (Emphasis added.) U.S. Constitution, Article One, Section 3.
In the Valerie Plame CIA leak matter, there is reason to believe that of the several Chicago Federal Grand Juries considering the matter, that one has concluded their work and has handed up through the Foreman, a True Bill, a federal c riminal indictment, to a federal judge.
Subject to Federal prosecution thereby are, as federal criminal defendants, among others:
GEORGE W. BUSH; RICHARD CHENEY and his Chief of Staff. "SCOOTER" LIBBY; THEODORE B. OLSON, Bush's attorney in Bush versus Gore in December, 2000, a private law partner of Eugene Scalia, son of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, and later Olson as Bush Administration, Solicitor General, favored High Court corrupter Mickey Mouse, Disney, which joined with Coca-Cola to corrupt five judges of the High Court in Bush versus Gore including Scalia and Rehnquist; and also indicted, several media hotshots not previously mentioned in the mass media. Scalia and Rehnquist are listed as unindicted co-conspirators.
Ostensibly handling, in secret, some aspect of the handed up indictment has been Chicago Federal District Judge Mark R. Filip (312) 435-5667. Some related and pertinent details.
In 1993-94, Filip was Law Clerk to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. His role at the mergers and acquisitions fixers and manipulators that represent one-half of the Fortune 250 industrial and service corporations, SKADDEN ARPS SLATE MEAGHER and FLOM:
From 1999-2000, Filip was Associate lawyer with the firm. He was Counsel 2000-2001. From 2001 up to about a year ago when Filip became Chicago U.S. District Judge, Filip was a Partner in the Skadden Arps firm.
In November and December, 2000, during the Electoral College vote controversy in Florida, key members of the DEMOCRAT PARTY in southern Florida were bribed to stop the Gore vote recount. This paved the way for the matter of Bush versus Gore to end up in the U.S. Supreme Court.
This Obstruction of Justice by bribery pay-offs to members of the DEMOCRAT PARTY, was arranged by former Secretary of State in the Daddy Bush White House, James Baker 3rd, reputedly jointly with fixers/manipulators, called b y some "Mergers & Acquisitions Pirates", certain members of the Skadden Arps law firm.
Skadden Arps attorney Mark R. Filip was in a position to know about this Obstruction of Justice and with Theodore B. Olson, Filip reportedly participated in the same.
Used for the bribery pay-offs were illicit funds amounting to forty million dollars of the co-founder of the Colombia Medelin dope cartel, Carlos Lehder. a business partner of Daddy Bush.
[Chandra Levy had knowledge of this. As to why she was murdered, visit my series on her, www.skolnicksreport.com ] Judge Mark R. Filip is apparently part of a Chicago Federal Courthouse scheme to deal with the Bush indictment, in secret, quashing the same on false contentions that it involves defects of law and fact.
In the same courthouse is the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit. In the appeals court sit three judges who along with Justice Scalia were professors together, one being the Dean, of Rockefeller's University of Chicago Law Schoo l. These four judges, while on the bench, represent the Billion dollar stock portfolio of Rockefeller's University of Chicago. The investment matters are of large firms represented by Skadden Arps. The four judges violate the federal criminal perjury la ws by filing as supposedly true and correct, their mandatory annual financial disclosure forms, intentionally omitting that on the bench they represent the selfsame portfolio of stocks and do not disqualify themselves.
Dealt with in earlier parts of this series is the corruption of Theodore B. Olson, including that he is the reputed "bagman", among other places, as to judges "for sale" in the Chicago Federal Courthouse.
Many federal judgeships are bought with criminal funds. Most of the judgeships in the Chicago Federal Courthouse were bought/arranged by the GOP, by Reagan/Daddy Bush, with Daddy Bush arranging matters for Hollywood-script-memoriz er Ronald Reagan, as well as by or for George W. Bush. So, in the Chicago Federal Courthouse, Judge Mark R. Filip has plenty of corrupt helpers acting as supposed Judges having taken an oath to supposedly support the U.S. Constitution.
[For related details, visit my extensive series "Coca-Cola, CIA, and the Courts".]
On orders of George W. Bush, the FBI covered up some of the foregoing details of which they became well aware when investigating Mark R. Filip as a presidential nominee to the Chicago federal court bench.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has a difficult task. He has openly tangled with some of the Chicago federal judges regarding Edgewater Hospital against which there have been claims of healthcare fraud done by the doctors/h ospital staff. Some of the federal judges in Chicago have for years a secret financial interest in the hospital which has had plaques on the walls praising crooked Chicago federal Judges.
One of those who might have assisted Fitzgerald in secretly dealing with grand jury problems was intimidated to keep hands-off as a result of her husband and mother being murdered. That is the matter of Judge Joan Humphrey Lefkow, the murders having occurred in February, 2005 and falsely blamed by the FBI on a lone assassin instead of the Russian mafiya which is tight with the Chicago FBI. [See earler parts of this series.]
More coming. Stay tuned.
=====================================
Mr. Skolnick's Reports are posted and archived at www.skolnicksreport.com Together with his co-authored The Middle-Finger News, they are posted and archived through www.rense.com/Datapages/skolnickdatapage.html also posted and archived through www.cloakanddagger.de
Skolnick is co-host with Lenny Bloom on a growing, popular maximum power Internet radio program, FM-quality worldwide, ON-LINE LIVE and ARCHIVED at www.cloakanddagger.de CHECK SCHEDULE for time it is on.
Recently published, the book, "Ahead of the Parade" by Sherman H. Skolnick, A Who's Who of Treason & High Crimes---Exclusive Details of Fraud & Corruption of the Monopoly Press, the Banks, the Bench and the Bar, & the Secret Political Police.
Can be ordered U.S./Canada 1-800-861-7899.
Can also supposedly be ordered through amazon.com HOWEVER recently they blockaded their own marketing and sales of this controversial book by demanding twice the listed price.
About once a year is published a heavy packet of printed stories by Skolnick. To get a copy, send $5.00 (U.S. FUNDS ONLY) plus a stamped, self-addressed BUSINESS size envelope [ # 10 envelope, 4-1/8 x 9-1/2 ] WITH THREE U.S. FIRST CLASS STAMPS ON IT, to Citizen's Committee To Clean Up The Courts, Sherman H. Skolnick, Chairman, 9800 So. Oglesby Ave., Chicago IL 60617-4870.
Want to get on Skolnick's e-mail list to get, soon as issued, Skolnick'S Reports, and The Middle-Finger News, or to stay on the e-mail list if you are already there? To find out how, contact skolnick@ameritech.net BE SURE TO PUT IN SUBJECT LINE OF E-MAIL, "I want to get on e-mail list". [NOTE: Getting on my e-mail list is NOT the same as being a "member" of www.cloakanddagger.de ]
ALSO NOTE: we no longer have a recorded phone message. Our reports are on www.skolnicksreport.com and two other websites--see LINKS on our HOME PAGE.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Skolnick's Reports are posted and archived at www.skolnicksreport.com Together with his co-authored The Middle-Finger News, they are posted and archived through www.rense.com/Datapages/skolnickdatapage.html also posted and archived through www.cloakanddagger.ca
Skolnick is co-host with Lenny Bloom on a growing, popular maximum power Internet radio program, FM-quality worldwide, ON-LINE LIVE and ARCHIVED at www.cloakanddagger.ca CHECK SCHEDULE for ti me it is on.
Recently published, the book, "Ahead of the Parade" by Sherman H. Skolnick, A Who's Who of Treason & High Crimes---Exclusive Details of Fraud & Corruption of the Monopoly Press, the Banks, the Bench and the Bar, & the Secre t Political Police.
Can be ordered U.S./Canada 1-800-861-7899. Can also supposedly be ordered through amazon.com HOWEVER recently they blockaded their own marketing and sales of this controversial book by demanding twice the listed price.
About once a year is published a heavy packet of printed stories by Skolnick. To get a copy, send $5.00 (U.S. FUNDS ONLY) plus a stamped, self-addressed BUSINESS size envelope [ # 10 envelope, 4-1/8 x 9-1/2 ] WITH THREE U.S. FIRST CLAS S STAMPS ON IT, to Citizen's Committee To Clean Up The Courts, Sherman H. Skolnick, Chairman, 9800 So. Oglesby Ave., Chicago IL 60617-4870.
Want to get on Skolnick's e-mail list to get, soon as issued, Skolnick'S Reports, and The Middle-Finger News, or to stay on the e-mail list if you are already there? To find out how, contact sko lnick@ameritech.net BE SURE TO PUT IN SUBJECT LINE OF E-MAIL, "I want to get on e-mail list".
[NOTE: Getting on my e-mail list is NOT the same as being a "member" of www.cloakanddagger.ca ]
http://www.skolnicksreport.com/ootar79.html
Cloak News Flash:Aug.7/05:1:30AM
Chicago Special Prosecutor's criminal indictment's drives Bush crazy. Bush prepares to replace Special Prosecutor with Bonesman schoolmate. Some in Military itching to act. Bush going down road like Nixon in "Saturday Night Massacre."
==============================================
Chicago -- August 7, 2005 --- Sunday morning online editions of Newsweek and Time are reporting that U.S. President George W. Bush is planning to get rid of Chicago's U.S. Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and replace him with a Bush classmate/Skull and Bonesman from Yale. Cloakanddagger.ca reported last week that Bush had attempted to assassinate Fitzgerald but that he was saved by Free French Forces.
Following on the heels of these reports, The Cloak has learned from U.S. intelligence sources that federal agents are prepared to immediately arrest Mr. Bush if he removes Fitzgerald and seeks to obstruct justice and commit additional treasonous acts regarding ongoing grand jury proceedings against this Administration and himself.
Cloakanddagger.ca Co-Host Sherman Skolnick reported last week that Fitzgerald's grand jury voted out perjury and obstruction of justice "True Bills" or federal criminal indictments against President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, former CIA Director George Tenet, Presidential Senior Advisor Karl Rove, Presidential Chief of Staff Andrew Card, Vice-Presidential Chief of Staff I. "Scooter" Libby, imprisoned New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Vice-Presidential Senior Advisor Mary Matalin.
On Friday, Tom Heneghen reported on Cloak's Shop Talk From Plot H.Q. that the true bills also listed Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Antonin Scalia as unindicted co-conspirators.
According to sources close to the grand jury, Fitzgerald's citizen panel is now able to prove that George W. Bush was not legitimately elected president in the 2000 election; but more importantly, it has fingered the United States Supreme Court for fraud, obstruction of justice and treason, making the Bush terms totally illegal.
The scope of the indictments and investigations indicates that the grand jury's indicted criminal acts reaching back to 2000 will lead to further legitimate assumptions that Bush-Cheney involvement in the 9.11 attacks and sending American young people to war based upon lies orchestrated by Mr. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair are both squarely in the sights of the grand jury.
http://www.cloakanddagger.de/info.asp
"Reality Media"
Michael Jackson, Bush and Iraq
By SAUL LANDAU
He said "getting the job done," my friend complained, referring to George W. Bush's "determination" to keep a US presence in Iraq. "That pisses me off," he said. "He's never had a real job in his life and he hasn't defined this job. He swore he wouldn't undertake nation building. If he's combating terrorism, he won't finish that job. Or did some speech writers figure out that cliches like that set the stage for this piece of flotsam's re-election bid?"
What do you really think of him, I asked?
"Bush is an insert," he replied, "a reappearing figure in photo ops. He's standing beside Queen Elizabeth, playing dress up in a jump suit on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and hugging a woman whose home has burned down in the California fires. His handlers have spun him as the positive equivalent of Michael Jackson in handcuffs or OJ Simpson driving his Bronco on the LA freeways. The White House manipulators have integrated his media persona--does he have a political one? --into the hideous world of gossip. This has nothing to do with politics. It's meant to distract people from thinking about the world and get them focused on who poked who."
As if to illustrate my friend's thesis, on November 20, ABC Radio News announced it had to interrupt its programming for an "important breaking story." The "live on the scene" reporter spoke with urgency about the intimate details of "Michael Jackson's Gulf Stream Lear jet" landing at the Santa Barbara airport. "Excitement fills the air as the plane taxis toward a hangar where sheriff's department personnel await the arrival of the famous pop singer. They will arrest him on charges of child molestation..."
Meanwhile, in London, another media celebrity, Bush, acknowledged--or dismissed -- the 150,000 plus people who had gathered to protest against him and his policies. Using his childish, elf-like expression, he made short shrift of massive disapproval as he had done previously in February 2003, likening the worldwide protests of millions against the Iraq war to "a focus group."
"The tradition of free speech exercised with enthusiasm is alive and well here in London," he cavalierly announced. "We have that at home too. They now have that right in Baghdad as well."
Evidently, he had not read a November 11, 2003, Reuters story from Iraq. "American soldiers handcuffed and firmly wrapped masking tape around an Iraqi man's mouth after they arrested him for speaking out against occupation troops." The story quotes the US commanding officer on Tahrir Square, the arrest scene that "`this man has been detained for making anti-coalition statements."
Reporters had more immediate tasks than to reveal the dramatic contradiction between what Bush said and the facts. After all, a twelve year old boy had accused Michael Jackson. The enigmatic African American singer with snow white skin had no intention of distracting the public from its citizen duties, or turning upside down reasonable notions of priorities.
"Mind your own business," my father told me a thousand times, meaning that when people had intimate relations in the privacy of their bedrooms--or even the Oval Office--it did not relate to the great decisions of our time. If Jackson broke the law, let him stand trial, but the media acts as if compelled to inject the public vicariously into the sordid sex life of celebrities. By doing so it substitutes the virtual excitement of a TV news event like Jackson or music mogul Phil Specter getting handcuffed, for the world of war and peace where political morons like Bush direct our lives and futures.
Tens of millions of viewers watched and then "discussed" the Jackson episode, as CNN inter cut to Bush in London. In his November 19, Whitehall Palace speech he acknowledged "sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East," and proposed a "forward strategy of freedom."
Before anyone could digest his empty words and figure out they had not ingested one serious sound bite to do with real change in the Middle East politics, the TV image returned to Jackson on his way to custody. Then legal experts offered meaningless one liners while underneath, in writing, the CNN screen affirmed that Bush had again made threats against Syria, Iran, and Arafat. The Rupert Murdoch owned Fox News had even longer Jackson-scandal sequences. Alexander Cockburn well-characterized Murdoch as the tycoon who "offers his target governments a privatized version of a state propaganda service, manipulated without scruple and with no regard for truth. His price takes the form of vast government favors such as tax breaks, regulatory relief, monopoly markets and so forth" (<counterpunch.org>, November 24, 2003).
Thanks to both Fox and CNN, with the other networks following, the public has become habituated to strange juxtapositions, like TV moralists condemning Jackson for his fetish for kids, while words pop on the screen that say Bush has praised the Moroccan king and some oil Sheiks for making minute and mostly superficial steps towards democracy. What relationship does Jackson's Neverland estate have with Bush extolling the virtues of US "allies" like Saudi Arabia and Egypt? What connection does a vindictive Santa Barbara District Attorney's vow to get Jackson have with Bush's platitudes like "working democracies always need time to develop?"
If you can find connections in these discrete morsels of "news," you will have gained eligibility to join the international Sherlock Holmes club of international affairs. This elite association of brainy people can explain linguistic gobbledygook such as: when Bush says has waged a pre-emptive war on terrorism and that this is also "a war for liberty" he really means that he had no reason to wage war (like Iraq possessing weapons of mass destruction which it planned to use aggressively or links to the terrorist gang that did the dirty 9/11 deeds).
Jackson distracts the public from focusing on Bush's obvious May 1 gaff when he announced "mission accomplished" and to the President's current dilemma about what to do in Iraq as casualties mount.
In mid November, on the bottom of millions of TV screens on the ever flashing network news shows emerged words about a Gallup poll that discovered that the majority of Iraqi resident opposed the US occupation.
Indeed, Gallup reported that only 5% of Iraqis believe the U.S. invaded their country "to assist the Iraqi people." 43% opined that the purpose of the US-British invasion concerned stealing Iraq's oil. A November 10 CIA memo concluded similar results: most Iraqis see us as occupiers, not liberators. The vast majority think of the Iraqi Governing Council's decisions as "mostly determined by the coalition [US-British]."
As we multi task to obtain the TV news, listening and watching a woman who looks like a movie star but calls herself an "anchor" offer breathy accounts of Michael's alleged love life with minors of his own sex, while speed writing news of the world, we can also sip from our highball, or, if you're Rush (pre-hab) Limbaugh, pop an Oxycontin--just to obtain proper perspective on the world TV news presents.
At the lunch room, chatter revolves around Jackson. Someone relates his case to perhaps actor Robert Blake's murder charges and new details on the Scott Peterson wife killing. Two secretaries talk about the love lives of Nicole Kidman, Tom Cruise, Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin.
I foolishly asked about my colleagues' reaction to the $400 billion bill to change Medicare and prescription drugs. I got blank stares. I dared not raise the issue of how Bush has privatized Iraqi property and allowed US and other companies from "coalition" states to scoop up Iraqi property. International law supposedly limits the benefits occupying powers can suck from occupied territories. We'll see!
Instead, the people in the lunchroom exchanged intimate details about Jackson's 1993 arrest and subsequent payoff to a 12 year old. "What kind of parent lets his kid hang out with Jackson?" asked one woman. Heads shook in disapproval. "Imagine parents letting their kids do this to collect big bucks," another said.
I didn't dare ask any of the assembled if they understood that US Proconsul in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, had encountered problems finding international insurers to cover the Iraqi properties the United States has decided to privatize. Indeed, the occupation big shots can't figure out how to create a government out of the stooges they appointed to the interim governing counsel, which doesn't govern. Hey, compare the interest in such an issue with the sex lives--vicarious of course--of celebs!
Next month guerrilla fighters in Iraq may vie for headlines with LA Laker guard Kobe Bryant who may stand trial for rape. The President will attend fundraisers for his own re-election and avoid funerals of dead US soldiers who have borne the brunt of Never-Get-Into-A-Fight-Yourself Bush's "bring `em on" taunt to the Iraqi resistance fighters.
Saul Landau is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. He teaches at Cal Poly Pomona University. For Landau's writing in Spanish visit: www.rprogreso.com. His new book, PRE-EMPTIVE EMPIRE: A GUIDE TO BUSH S KINGDOM, has just been published by Pluto Press. He can be reached at: landau@counterpunch.org
Weekend Edition Features for Nov. 29 / 30, 2003
Peter Linebaugh
On the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone
Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos
Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math
Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative
Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam
Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream
Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia
Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser
Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali
Standard Schaefer
Unions are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay Bridge
Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again
Adam Engel
The System Really Works
Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool
Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans
Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
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http://www.counterpunch.org/landau12062003.html
Michael Ignatieff
Apostle of He-manitarianism
By MICHAEL NEUMANN
Michael Ignatieff shares a few things with Thomas Friedman, Fareed Zakaria, Tony Blair, George Bush, and many others. One is an extraordinary ability to reconcile warm concern with insufferable smugness. Another is a plan. America is going to kick some terrorist butt and assure its security by teaching freedom and democracy to the inhabitants of 'failed states'. This will be in everyone's interest.
Ignatieff's plan and its justification are pretty much those of the US government's. What separates Ignatieff from the others is largely his aura of masculine realism. In substance, he distinguishes himself, not by what he defends, but by what he concedes. He tries for engaging frankness, admitting that
a) The US will act in humanitarian causes only when and where those causes coincide with its interests, strategic or material;
b) US policy is often hypocritical;
c) US occupations will usually be more concerned to maintain control over an nation than to build democracy and freedom there;
d) US efforts can get nowhere unless it addresses fundamental regional problems, for example, in the Middle East, the Israel/Palestine conflict.
e) US power is not unlimited and will come to grief if employed with arrogant ignorance. Like other colonial powers, the US frequently doesn't deliver on its promise of spreading freedom, and this is politically dangerous.
But, says Ignatieff, the US is still our best bet, and its mixed motives don't discredit its humanitarian ideals (Empire Lite p.23, henceforth EL): "...imperialism doesn't stop being necessary just because it becomes politically incorrect."(EL 106) The new imperialism is not a pure power grab; it is not designed to control territory. Despite America's impure intentions and its mistakes, the fact remains that there are "many peoples who owe their freedom to an exercise of American military power." The very title of one his pieces tells us to cut the moralistic crap: "The American Empire (Get Used to It.)", New York Times Magazine, January 5, 2003.
Ignatieff's message hits a nerve. He is right to reject the labored horror with which leftists discover that American sometimes has more or less legitimate policy objectives which call for force. He is also right to reject the endless harping on bad American intentions. If the actions have good outcomes, why is it so important that the intentions behind them are bad?
Yet Ignatieff's position is built on sand, or maybe slime. When he argues that America's imperial designs are not immoral, he misses the point. The problem is not that those designs might or might not be immoral. The problem is that they are silly. They presuppose a strength and competence America quite obviously doesn't have, as well as intentions it couldn't have.
Ignatieff's position is a web of foolishness, error and confusion. His confidence in American power is so ludicrously exaggerated, so unsustained by evidence, that it validates what seems to be the wildest of left-wing accusations: his enthusiasms are racist. And it is not the virulence of his racism that makes it so dangerous, but its air of even-handedness, sophistication and intelligence. It functions like a sprig of cilantro on the nouveau-imperialist bucket of KFC, transforming Bush's blunderings into a treat for liberal white folks the world over. Ignatieff seeks to provide a last line of defense for American unilateralism, and by now that last line is about all there is. It is high time to test its strength. What perspective is Ignatieff offering us? What is nation-building? Can America do it? Can anyone? Would anyone want to?
Ignatieff's outlook: Bringing a man's world to our doorstep
Ignatieff visits 'trouble spots' and tells it like it is. His authority is the authority of the 'bulky American in combat camouflage, multi-pocket waistcoat, wraparound sunglasses and floppy fishing hat'(EL 77). Though this action hero 'is not going to talk to me', Ignatieff mimics his sharp-eyed, ready-for-anything stance, just like a lonely teenager coming out of a Bruce Willis movie. This is no merely annoying quirk; it is the key to his prejudices.
Ignatieff is one of those tough-guy intellectuals who's always trying to prove he doesn't have anything to prove. His boots-on-the-ground descriptions of Bosnia and Afghanistan sound like a Car and Driver puff piece: "Big D and Teacher Atta emerge... and jump into their black Audi and black Lexus.... the warriors in their Pajero flatbeds falling in behind." (EL 87) We've already met the Audi and the Lexus in a 'warrior's compound', 'purring in the driveway'. (EL 77) Likewise the Pajeros: "....eyeing one another from the backs of their dusty Pajero pickups, equipped with roll bars, fog lights and plastic flowers on the dashboards, are about fifty fighters from each side..." .(EL 78) And in Kosovo: "The Jaguars, Audis, and BMWs parked outside the Serbian government building... would do a New York night club proud." (EL 37) "Pristina's streets are clogged with the tell-tale white Land Cruisers of the international administrators... ". (EL 73) These vehicles reappear in Afghanistan, where car-repair shops now cater to 'the passing white Toyota Land Cruisers' (EL 95; you get more white Land Cruisers at EL 98) Who are you gonna trust? Iggy, or some pussy who can't even tell a Pajero from a Bronco? These images generously extend Ignatieff's own authority to his readers. We, who are so used to these fine automotive products, are the genuine article; the Afghans are wannabees. It is our responsibility to see they grow out of it.
Ignatieff wants Washington to be as manly as he is, as we are. "Empires don't come lite," he says, "They come heavy."(EL 79) Like some creep who thinks his honesty about being a creep is disarming, Ignatieff cooks up a testosterone-laced stew in which morsels of freedom and human rights are seasoned with crushing violence, enlightened greed, and calculated hypocrisy. His world contains three races: the ballsy Anglo-Saxons; the Western European surrender monkeys; and those hysterically dim-witted, childlike underachievers, the natives. He avoids explicit racism only through studied obtuseness. In "The Burden" (see also EL 106), he informs us that "America's empire is not like empires of times past, built on colonies, conquest and the white man's burden." Isn't America run by white men? Aren't their burdens therefore white men's burdens? The only difference seems to be that now the burden falls, not on just any old white folks, but on the Anglophone whites, the freedom-crème de la freedom-crème.
Now Ignatieff would probably reply that the burden is no less real for falling on white men. But this burden is, as he often reminds us, onerous; it's not a quick in-and-out operation to rescue some refugees. Why then does Ignatieff think that America, at present better known for its fine doughnuts than for its decency, competence or wisdom, is up to the job? And, while we're at it, what exactly is the job?
The project of nation-building
Ignatieff's notion of nation-building is a constantly moving target.
For a start, one must beware of his bait-and-switch tactics. Ignatieff likes to pretend that peacekeeping and nation-building are indistinguishable; he hopes to advertise the former but sell us the latter.(EL 79) Yes, humanitarian intervention--peacekeeping--would have been a good idea in Rwanda. And yes, some governments are thoroughly illegitimate, some societies are cancerously vile. It would be prissy foolishness to treat such 'failed states' as 'real countries' with real rights to sovereignty or independence. But peacekeeping in such nations is still a matter of preventing mass deaths. These justifiable, genuinely humanitarian interventions cannot be the nation-building to which Ignatieff refers. They don't require American empire, heavy or even lite; one of those rinky-dink UN forces will do. So this can't be what Ignatieff is talking about when he refers to nation-building. This is clear from his not-so-faintly contemptuous treatment of the cheese-eater Bernard Kouchner in Kosovo: "...the claim is not that Kouchner is too autocratic; it's that he's not autocratic enough and that the UN is too politically correct, too consultative... when it should simply lay down the law... ."(EL 72f.) Worst of all, Kouchner "does that Gallic shrug". (EL 74)
Another of Ignatieff's attempts to confuse the issue of American empire is his sleazy conflation of nation-building with nationalism. "Vietnam", he says, "was a titanic clash between two nation-building strategies, the Americans in support of the South Vietnamese versus the Communists in the north." (E 117) For a start this is obscure. Does he mean that the South Vietnamese were trying to build a nation with American support? But America supported the South Vietnamese government, not the South Vietnamese, who were in large measure anti-government. As for "the Communists in the North", weren't they Vietnamese as well? One thing, at least, is clear: Ignatieff can't distinguish between the project of building your own nation versus the project of building someone else's. It is no coincidence that the first is generally regarded as unobjectionable and the second as highly dubious.
Ignatieff also has trouble seeing when a nation is already built. He says:
"Whenever it has exerted power overseas, America has never been sure whether it values stability -- which means not only political stability but also the steady, profitable flow of goods and raw materials -- more than it values its own rhetoric about democracy. Where the two values have collided, American power has come down heavily on the side of stability, for example, toppling democratically elected leaders from Mossadegh in Iran to Allende in Chile. Iraq is yet another test of this choice. Next door in Iran, from the 1950's to the 1970's, America backed stability over democracy, propping up the autocratic rule of the shah, only to reap the whirlwind of an Islamic fundamentalist revolution in 1979 that delivered neither stability nor real democracy." ("The Burden," New York Times Magazine, January 5, 2003)
This is another clumsy evasion. To 'come down heavily on the side of stability', one of the alternatives must be instability, and one must then choose stability. But in the examples Ignatieff cites, what happened was very different. In Chile, there was no serious instability before the US fomented it in order to back one of the worst torturers of modern times. Something similar happened when the US got rid of Mossadegh in Iran. These aren't even the worst cases: in Indonesia, for example, the US made a clear choice, not between profitable stability and unstable democracy, but between profitable mass murder and stable nationalism. The US has never chosen stability over democracy--this would oddly imply that the democratic choice was unstable. It has quite often chosen the stability of the grave over independent-minded régimes, some of them democratic. That Ignatieff has made a really Herculean effort to deceive himself on this matter is evident from his claim that the Islamist revolution in Iran "delivered neither stability nor real democracy". The Iranian revolution may not have delivered civil rights, but it is quite clearly democratic in the core sense of resting on overwhelming popular support. And despite wide-ranging US sanctions, Iran is stable enough to attract precisely the sort of massive investment that goes with economic advantage. (http://www.brookingsinstitution.org/)
If Ignatieff wants to advocate imperial humanitarianism, he should at least present a consistently unvarnished picture of what he proposes. His nation-building proposal, stripped of self-deceiving claptrap, amounts to this: the US should, having first consulted its own interests, occupy 'failed states' and suppress disorder. Then, over what Ignatieff repeatedly emphasizes is a long period of time, Americans are to teach these little folks about judicial procedure, democracy, and human rights. Then America will help their apt pupils to create sustainably democratic institutions. (Don't worry, the little guys yearn for a substantial American presence: see EL 90.) And one gets the distinct impression that America needs to do this in regions, not countries: the project is so ambitious that it will need the Europeans and Canadians to do housekeeping chores. (El 10-18)
Humanitarian incoherence
Iggy's project--morality aside--has two problems. The first is that no one would ever want to undertake it. The second is that nothing remotely like it has ever worked.
The first problem involves a simple dilemma that arises from the ambiguities of Ignatieff's project. Either 'humanitarian imperialism' eventually frees the people it subjugates, or it doesn't. If it doesn't, it's simply oppression built on false promises. If it does, no sane imperialist would undertake it.
This may be too difficult for Ignatieff and many others, but not for those subjugated peoples to whom he presumes to teach political realities. Ignatieff thinks the imperialists can't be blamed as long as they sincerely try to build nations: their motives may be impure, but their objectives are on balance desirable. To what extent they fail to secure those desirable objectives--that is, what actually happens--doesn't appear to matter. Oh, he understands well enough that the subjugation part of the project must actually succeed: "The key question is whether empire lite is heavy enough to get the job done."(EL 3) But when it comes to bringing freedom and democracy, Ignatieff's realism suddenly becomes the understanding that, well, we may not get the job done after all: "Even with American help, the best Karzai and his Kabul government can hope for is to appoint the least-bad warlords as civilian governors to keep a rough-and-ready peace and collect some taxes. This sort of ordered anarchy, among loosely controlled regional fiefs, would provide ordinary Afghans with basic security. This may be all that is possible, and it may be all that American interests require." (EL 92)
Gee, what happened to "delivering real democracy"? Was that an obligation only for the Iranians? Is open-ended warlordism what Ignatieff meant when he said: "In the new imperialism, this promise of self-rule cannot be kept so distant, for local elites are all creations of modern nationalism, and modern nationalism's primary ethical content is self-determination"? (EL 22) What happened to: "In the end there cannot be order in the world, and certainly no justice, without democratic self-rule"?(EL 126) What 'end'? The 'end' Ignatieff contemplates for Afghanistan involves, by his own admission, none of these things. What it does seem to involve--and this seems to be what he really means by 'staying the course'--is permanent occupation in support of undemocratic rule by pro-American warlords. When he speaks of Karzai's "American help", he explains: "the only help that counts in Afghanistan is troops." (EL 92) In fact Ignatieff jumps from tantrums of impatience to sentimental gushing like a spoilt child. After all his tough talk he has the gall to tell us that "The nation-builders to bet on are those refugee families, piled on the brightly painted Pakistani trucks, moving up the dusty roads, the children perched on the mattresses, like Mowgli astride the head of an elephant, gazing towards home."(EL 107) He is like no one so much as Phil Ochs' American soldier, who offers you bubble-gum after killing your sons.
Ignatieff can indulge in these inconsistencies because, for him, the actual result isn't important. It's enough that the new imperialism embraces the *values* of democracy and freedom. The nation-builders needn't even *intend* to implement these values; that might not be 'realistic'. Instead they should conduct an experiment to see if the natives can measure up: "...the local people... should be the ones who decide what kinds of democracy, rule of law and stability of property can be successfully absorbed in their culture and context."(EL 24) This isn't even coherent: if there's no democracy already in place, how can 'the local people' decide anything? But the meaning is pretty clear: if they can benefit from our tutelage and establish democracy, fine. If not, fuck 'em. They can look forward to open-ended occupation and a puppet government.
But suppose, just suppose, that somewhere, somehow, the occupiers *could* establish a free and democratic state. They are now on the second horn of the dilemma: would they actually want to do so? Ignatieff generates yet another confusion to make the project seem plausible. He conflates the individual freedom of citizens within a state with the freedom of a people, that is, the freedom of a state which represents them. Without the second, the first is simply a freedom to play musical chairs in a colonial kindergarten. But this second freedom is a little more threatening than having the natives vote for their leaders.
Let's remember just what any free nation can do, provided its resources and international law permit. It can, for instance, develop weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. They can opt out of non-proliferation agreements, especially if an imperial occupation authority forced them to sign. And a free country can develop any other sort of weapon you can think of: for example, advanced anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles. It can buy and sell such weapons, to our enemies, just as we buy and sell them to the enemies of other countries. It can raise large armed forces. It can develop electronic warfare capabilities. It can form alliances. Maybe a free Democratic Iraq would ally itself with Iran, Pakistan, North Korea, a newly radicalized Turkey, perhaps China as well. The rights of these free nations would certainly include launching spy satellites which orbited over the US, and acquiring long-range nuclear missiles. So a free country, a really free country, can not only cease to service our lust for raw materials. It can also get together with other countries, with the express objective of challenging our supremacy.
In other words, what is so unutterably silly about Ignatieff's proposal is the idea that genuine self-determination or 'freedom' could ever be the objective of an imperial power. Building a free nation, if possible, is dangerous: why not take on the much easier task of building an enslaved client state? Ignatieff claims that imperialism's opposition to 'modern nationalism' is a mistake.(EL 119) It is not. Imperial powers fight modern nationalism because it threatens them, and because it can and quite often is defeated. Vietnam was an exceptional case because it had strong Russian and important Chinese support. When that kind of support is lacking, the interest of all imperialisms--and even Ignatieff admits that imperial powers pursue their own interests--is to prevent rather than to foster nation-building. This is why, for better or more often for worse, imperialism has always attacked the real nation-builders, men like Abd-el-Krim in Morocco, Joshua Nkomo, Castro, Lumumba, Gandhi, Bose, Ben Bella and other Algerian revolutionaries, Janio Quadros of Brazil, Nasser, Sukarno in Indonesia, Arbenz of Guatemala, Mossadegh and Khomeini of Iran, Mao and Chou-en Lai. All imperialisms must oppose the building of free nations as opposed to tame, subject 'democracies' like our staunch allies, the Marshall Islands. So real nation-building, even where it is possible, is nothing America would ever want to sponsor.
Can America build nations?
Ignatieff is so juiced on American power that the competence issue eludes him. Of course America can build nations; the only issue is whether it has the will to do so. Ignatieff encourages American 'hubris' even as he counsels against it: America can do anything anywhere, just not everything everywhere (EL 4f., 119) Is massive force required? Hey, no problem: "Terrorists everywhere have been cured of the illusion, created by the American retreat from Somalia in 1993, that the empire lacks the stomach for a fight."
This is a firm assumption that is found throughout the American political spectrum. It is doubly presumptuous. There's no sign that 'terrorists everywhere' are under some illusion, much less that they been 'cured' of one. For all I know, America does indeed have stomach for a fight, but Ignatieff's invocation of the Afghan campaign does nothing to establish this. It is not the case that "the Americans do most of the fighting, while the Europeans, who... don't like fighting, are only too happy to take on the soft sides of nation-building...", while "...the locals do the translating, cleaning and driving...".(EL 94f.) Ignatieff knows full well that Afghans do almost all the fighting. His slip of the pen is no pure accident. Ignatieff consistently forgets the real courage and intelligence of the natives who must be cured of their illusions, and always overestimates the courage and intelligence of the white folks. This certainly clouded his crystal ball when it came to Iraq.
For generations, America has never fought a war without crushing air superiority. Even then, it showed little stomach for a fight in Vietnam, and lost. Since Vietnam, America has dared to fight only basket cases; we have no idea how it would fare against a non-microscopic country not crippled by years of sanctions. Why is it therefore holy writ that America has 'overwhelming military superiority'? Can Iran, for example, be counted on (a) to concentrate its armor for the convenience of the US air forces, (b) to renounce the next generation of anti-tank, anti-aircraft missiles, and anti-ship missiles, (c) to avoid developing useful air power, (d) to lose a guerilla war? If not, what then? And is there anything at all in America's military record--as opposed to the specifications of its weapons systems--that suggests it could defeat countries like Pakistan or North Korea at a cost--in lives, in dollars--that it would be willing to pay?
What if America must rely on its ground forces? Will there be an endless stream of heroes sprouting up to take the place of those who fall in battle? Though Ignatieff tells us that "The Roman parallels are evident..", Americans are no Romans. Roman soldiers signed up for terms of twenty to twenty-five years, and Roman armies sustained casualties at a rate never imagined by American troops today. If 'terrorists' think America has no stomach for a fight, this is no illusion but at most a mildly optimistic conclusion drawing on considerable though inconclusive evidence.
If America has not in fact shown the stomach for a real fight, then there is no evidence at all that it can win one. There is no good reason to believe that the US has 'the stomach' even to maintain the bare military control for the extended period Iggy thinks necessary to teach the natives who's boss. Had he waited a bit before writing on Afghanistan, he would have noticed this. The natives noticed it earlier, but then they're less impressed with the white folks than the white folks are with themselves.
Ignatieff thinks he has taken care of this objection. He says that imperial power is no match for 'the aroused power of modern nationalism'. (EL 117) The suggestion here is that the natives can somehow rise above themselves if they are swept into some religious or secular crusade. But the Vietnamese communists, for instance, did not win, as Americans love to believe, because they charged exultantly into the jaws of death for the motherland. They won because they had good generals, tight organization, brilliant logistics, and some pretty good technology of their own: excellent artillery and an automatic rifle that many American special forces still prefer to much newer American models. Neither in Iraq nor in Afghanistan is there evidence of some unitary nationalist fervor. There are a bunch of people, some of them bitter enemies, who for a wide variety of reasons want to kick American ass, and do a good job of it. It doesn't take collective fervor for tough, brave, intelligent, rational calculators make whatever alliances suit them, and to fight an ignorant, blundering army. But the idea that imperialism might be dealing with individual human beings rather than delirious masses never crosses Ignatieff's lordly mind.
Most telling of all, Ignatieff cannot even assess military power except according to a double standard. A country's military capabilities are normally judged by its capacity to accomplish military tasks. To judge Israel more powerful than its neighbors, for instance, is not simply to count up tanks, planes, and missiles. It is to look at the actual functioning of the military machine given training, intelligence, generalship, morale, and every other factor that goes into military defeat or victory. But for Ignatieff and many Western political commentators, this standard applies only to the natives. For white folks, the excuses are unending. So it is with contempt that commentators tell us how the Iraqi army didn't make good use of its fancy military equipment, didn't show fighting spirit, didn't have comptent generalship, and so on. In short, if the Iraqis don't use what they have effectively, that's weakness. However, if white folks like the Americans don't use what they have effectively--if their war plans are bad, if the troops' morale is low, if their leaders want to do things on the cheap, if their intelligence is, well, unintelligent, if their responses are clumsy, crude and ineffective--*that's* not military weakness at all! On no, it's as if the fearsome lion, still asleep, has not yet girded its loins to display its awesome power. But you can't have it both ways. Either the non-whites are also sleeping lions, or the white folks are also weaklings. And no matter which way you decide to go, the conclusion cannot be that America, despite its consistently bad strategy, bad leadership, overhyped technology and unwillingness to endure heavy losses, can play nation-builder wherever it likes. American military power must be measured, not by the theoretical capabilities of its forces, but by its track record. That record suggests America is not powerful enough to establish its empire and fulfill Ignatieff's dreams.
Real outcomes: the imperial record
Perhaps American can change, and become more competent. But change into what? Is there in fact some plausible imperial model for nation-building? Does the historical record suggest that such projects can succeed?
Once you dispose of Ignatieff's numbskulled conflation of building your own nation with building someone else's, you quickly realize that the latter has literally never happened. Ignatieff's examples--the reconstruction of Germany and Japan after World War II--prove only that he confuses nation-building with nation rebuilding. Before the war, Germany already possessed a full-fledged federal democracy which met or surpassed Iggy's not-very-demanding standards. Even Japan emerged from the occupation much as it had emerged from feudalism in the early 20th century--as a country run by oligarchs on a feebly democratic parliamentary system. The occupation did not build a nation in either case; it tinkered with the political structures of two already existing nations--very tight-knit, deeply ordered, highly advanced industrial ones.
Beyond this, what do we have? The British did successfully build two overgrown trade emporiums, Hong Kong and Singapore. Even Britain's non-disasters certainly don't qualify as anything Ignatieff could call a success. In Ghana, for instance, which became independent in 1957, John Kufuor became the first elected president to succeed another elected president...in 2001. Colonial ventures have almost always produced catastrophes, from the huge massacres that marked Indian independence to the Lebanese civil war to the Indonesian genocide. Egypt, where colonial powers were preceded and followed by strong indigenous 'nation-builders' like Mohammed Ali and Nasser, is practically the only place the British did not make a mess of things. And if the French did not do quite as badly in North Africa, they too did not leave behind them a single democracy, and wasted over a million lives in a futile effort to hang on to Algeria. In fact it is quite striking that the much-reviled Gulf states, dominated but never colonized, have on the whole escaped the mass murder and crushing poverty that followed in the wake of colonial attempts to build nations.
It's not just that imperialism has virtually never built successful nations. It's also that it failed to do so in much easier conditions. Imperialists usually didn't construct their empires in real 'trouble spots'--quite the contrary. Most of these areas became trouble spots only *after* the imperialists took over.
So Ignatieff's vision of nation-building, in its idealistic version, is not something any imperial power would ever undertake, nor is it something any imperial power has actually accomplished. Its 'realistic' version does not in fact even promise freedom and democracy. But non-imperial, non-white powers have indeed built nations. For him, this somehow doesn't count.
Alternatives to White Imperialism
Ignatieff and others have recently discovered that, before you can have freedom and democracy, you must have something they call 'the rule of law'. This can't mean that you have a nice state which guarantees human and civil rights, because those rights are supposed to come when, or if, democracy gets established. So the pundits' 'rule of law' simply means something like 'law and order', and they have labored to produce breath-taking triviality. Yeah, if you have people running around completely unrestrained--if you have no state--you can't have a democratic state. Who ever didn't know this?
But all this is part of Ignatieff's double-dealing. When it comes to nation-building, even a weak version of the rule of law is all he demands of the imperialists. When it comes to anyone else's nation-building, the standards change. Anything short of full-fledged democracy is a 'failure', or at best a sort of unsuccessful success like Vietnam, "one country, ruthlessly consolidated under an authoritarian leadership".(EL 117) Odd: wasn't Ignatieff worried that America's interventions might not be ruthless *enough*?
Suppose, unlike Ignatieff, we apply one standard for all races. That shouldn't be the standard of democracy, because Ignatieff all but admits that no one is going to meet it. (Remember how that Gallic shrugger Kouchner was 'too consultative'?) So say that building a nation requires, first and foremost, civil order and the sort of basic economic progress without which--as even liberal thinkers like John Rawls agree--civil rights have no value. It then becomes clear that the most successful nation-builders don't need anyone's tutelage. They build their economies in the face of great adversity, they keep public order, they educate and feed the poor, they establish a working infrastructure and public health system, and they have strong popular support. But they are not Iggy's sort of people. They are communist, like Cuba or Vietnam.
These countries, though undemocratic, do not merely offer their people real independence from the imperial powers, and from the deep misery and violence that besets 'democracies' like Brazil or Mexico. They also far surpass the imperial powers in their ability to perform humanitarian intervention and even contribute to nation-building. Thus Cuba, when it defeated the South African army in Angola, laid the groundwork for Angolan nationhood and contributed substantially to the end of white domination in South Africa. And there is no doubt that Vietnam's intervention in Cambodia was one of the great humanitarian success stories of our era, as fine a case of nation-building (lite) as we've ever seen. These countries may have intervened largely out of self-interest--Vietnam, at least, said it was acting in its own defense--but of course this is something Ignatieff applauds in white nations. Perhaps non-white nations might be permitted the same mixed motives.
This is not to recommend communism, or to deny that Stalin killed a lot of people. It is to state facts. Though Ignatieff pretends to gritty realism, he is laughably obtuse about the role of communists and imperialists even in his stomping grounds, Afghanistan and 'the former Yugoslavia'. In the former case, imperial powers quite correctly feared the nation-building efforts of the Soviet client Najibullah, and thought it clever to back Bin Laden and the Taliban. In the latter case, imperial powers had fun breaking up the multiethnic nation almost miraculously constructed by the communist Marshall Tito, and then congratulated themselves on constraining the catastrophic civil war they fomented. (Ignatieff with typically slimy ambiguity, speaks only of 'the ruins of the Yugoslavia Tito had left behind.' EL 118)) A Martian would have some trouble with the notion that Karzai and Dostum are greater gifts to mankind than Castro. Shouldn't we have some trouble with the notion that imperialism 'heavy' is more beneficent than post-Stalinist communism? How then can Ignatieff pretend that America offers the best available humanitarian alternatives?
The last resort
When pressed, Ignatieff and his ilk make a simple appeal to consequences. Look, he says, we have a terrible régime like Saddam Hussein's. Are we going to do something about it, or not? This question deserves three others: About what? What do you mean by 'something'? and the classic "who's we, white man?"
If there was a humanitarian emergency in post-9-11 Iraq, it had to do with shortages of food and medical supplies. It required doing less, not more: ending the sanctions, not invading. Perhaps there was no such crisis, but then there was also no humanitarian case for invasion. This is not leftist cant but what emerges from the Human Rights Watch reports for 2000 and 2001 (issued 2001 and 2002). The reports describe what are rightly called gross human rights violations committed by the Iraqi government. But these violations affect dozens or hundreds, not thousands or hundred of thousands. They cannot be compared to what was and is happening in the Congo and probably in other parts of the world such as Liberia, nor to what did happen in Rwanda. Nor was worse to be expected: Saddam Hussein had consolidated his power in those areas he still controlled; he was not about to be suppressing any revolts. Intervention will do nothing for those he had already killed, and no amount of killing ten or twenty years ago makes for a humanitarian crisis in the present.
But suppose there actually was a case for humanitarian intervention, for the relatively small-scale military actions which are designed to stop a slaughter. This is no case for war itself. Ignatieff, who clearly thinks the American war machine is kinda cool, ignores what could not be more obvious: war destroys the very things that humanitarian interventions are supposed to protect. It destroys people, rights and all. Often it destroys societies. World War II, the 'good' war, cost about 50 million lives. It was forced on the Allies; it was not their little stab at nation-building. It cannot be invoked to justify an imperialism which, faced with tasks far less demanding than what faced the Allies in 1945, decides that open-ended occupation and warlordism is good enough for the natives. But that's just what Ignatieff, in the end, recommends.
No doubt the ever-supple Ignatieff will soon tell us that America messed up in Iraq. But Ignatieff's own recommendations for 'empire heavy' suggest something like a commitment of 500,000 troops for ten years, plus hundreds of billions of dollars in Iraq alone, plus at least that much again for dealing with ancillary problems elsewhere in the Middle East, plus whatever the US might need for other adventures during those ten years. Such an effort would produce rivers and lakes of blood. It would require a wisdom and competence we have absolutely no reason to expect. And what's the good news? For Ignatieff, it's some humanitarian paradise which his 'realism' consigns to some ever-receding future.
If Ignatieff were simply informing us of harsh realities--if it really were up to strong, brave America to build nations, if the Europeans really were wimps, if the natives really were contemptible except when transfixed by the hysterics of 'modern nationalism aroused'--then the charge of racism would be as idiotic as he no doubt imagines it to be. But his supposed realities are fantasies. His version of tempered optimism amounts to the suspicion that, despite Anglo-American moral and military supremacy, the natives may be too benighted to taste the glories of white democracy. His smarmy overconfidence and his obliviousness to non-Western, non-imperial alternatives are all too familiar. There is nothing humanitarian about them. They can be understood only as liberalized white supremacism, no less vulgar for being confined to the Anglo-Saxon race. It will lead to more misjudgments and more deaths.
Michael Neumann is a professor of philosophy at Trent University in Ontario, Canada. Professor Neumann's views are not to be taken as those of his university. His book What's Left: Radical Politics and the Radical Psyche has just been republished by Broadview Press. He can be reached at: mneumann@trentu.ca.
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HEY CANADA
THERE IS A NEW BOOGY-MAN THAT
THE PAPACY IS TRYING TO FOIST UPON YOU!
HIS NAME IS MICHAEL IGNATIEFF
RUSSIAN ARISTOCRAT
HE HATES HUMANITARIANISM
THE POWER ELITE IS ATTEMPTING TO FORCE
"JESUIT-DUPE IGNATIEF" ON CANADIANS“
SINCE WHEN DO CANADIANS WANT A BUSH SUPPORTER FOR THEIR PRIME MINISTER??
IS THIS REALLY THE PHILOSOPHY
THAT CANADIANS WANT TO SUPPORT?
http://www.cloakanddagger.de/info.asp
Leave it to Texas????
O' So true!!!!
Thank You!
You Can't Carpool in a Combine;
Hyperinflation Hits Food Supply
by Marcia Merry Baker
[The Figures referenced in this article are available to subscribers to EIR Online.]
Apart from the vast hurricane damage to agriculture in the Gulf Coast states, the shock effects from speculation, financial bubbles, and out-of-control energy prices are slamming the U.S. farm-belt at large. Taken together with the economic breakdown effects internationally from the same causes, the demand by commodity cartels for continued domination, and the lack of Federal action, a food supply crisis is in the making.
What's involved are the immediate effects of hyperinflated fuel and energy costs of all kinds, on the inherent cycles in agriculture—sowing, reaping, drying, shipping, processing, animal-raising, etc.—hitting on top of decades of marginalized infrastructure and family farm circumstances. Therefore, non-linear effects are everywhere. For example, farmers in the corn-belt are making triage decisions about which crop fields to leave unharvested, because it's too expensive to combine. What happens next crop season? Many are saying, "I quit."
It's just these kinds of shock-effects which are not in the models of today's generation of so-called economists, nor the thinking of the average man on the street. The current blather heard daily on TV business talk shows is ridiculous for what it says, but worse for the fact that it's tolerated. You hear, for example, "Well, true, the fuel component of agriculture expenditures will rise this year, but ... supply and demand ... farming will adjust next year."
A Kansas farm leader got at the truth of the crisis when he warned, even before Hurricane Rita, "You can't carpool in a combine." The U.S. farm sector, and therefore its food chain, is on the line.
The situation in Kansas is indicative of the crisis across-the-board. It's a world center of wheat output, and a leading U.S. cattle state as well. Details are given below on the "Kansas Syndrome" in the energy price-inflation crisis, and key characteristics of American agriculture vulnerability generally. First, the political focus is on what can and must be done.
LaRouche: Act on Oil and Food Prices
Lyndon LaRouche raised the matter of food supply, in connection with the necessity of dealing with the out-of-control oil prices, at his Sept. 16 Washington, D.C. webcast, "The Great Change of 2005." It was held in the midst of Congressional first-reactions to the Hurricane Katrina devastation and Executive Branch negligence. In response to a Senate Democratic office asking, "What exactly is going on? Who or what is actually controlling the price of oil, and how specifically should the Senate respond to it?" LaRouche started off by saying, "Supply and demand is something for sick children to believe in."
He stressed the responsibility of government to act in the national interest, and what it must do now. "Internationally, the oil price—we could control it. I guarantee you, we have the access to governments abroad, who as a concert of governments, would agree in a flash, to join the United States in regulation of oil in terms of supply, as if on a war-time basis, to make sure that everybody gets it at a fair price. And the speculators will just have to take a bath. We may find some water for them.
"Now, another thing we've got, which is a similar situation, which is not as obvious yet, but we're on the verge of it—it's happening right now—is food! Its supply and its price. Food! Now some people around the Congress have said this, and asked about this.
"The United States government has to guarantee, use its power, to ensure that the food supplies of the American people are maintained at a fair price. Adequate supply and fair price. That is in jeopardy now. It's already in jeopardy on price. Look at the changes in food prices. Look at the incomes of people. Our problem is not poverty. Our problem is that people are being ruined, starved to death, crushed. This is where the problem lies.
"Don't get taken in by the so-called financial advisors, by these spin sessions that they go through. It's all garbage! There is no such thing as supply and demand. We know this doesn't work.... We don't have a supply-and-demand problem. We have a stealing problem, and we have to protect the vital interests of the United States and other nations from that. And if I were President, I guarantee you, in about three days, I could get this thing through."
Responding to another Senate office's question about restoring price regulation on both energy and food, LaRouche elaborated, "We organize the flow, of what we need in so-called energy supplies, and we regulate the price, put a cap on it, and we work with other nations to keep that price, a lid on it!
"Now, we also have a problem of food supplies. Most people don't realize it, but our food chain is quite vulnerable now. Therefore, we have to mobilize, and ensure that everybody gets a chance to eat. Those two things—at this time. There are a minimal number of things we should try to do, in terms of management, from the Federal government, but these are two things that must be done! Because, if these things are not done, the whole system can blow, the whole effort can fail, as a result of not doing it. That's the basic thing."
During September, the Lyndon LaRouche Political Action Committee submitted testimony for the record on the urgency of re-regulating energy supplies and prices, to hearings of two Senate committees (Sept. 6, Energy and Natural Resources Committee, on "Global Oil Demand/Gasoline Prices"; and Sept. 21, Commerce, Science and Transportation, on "Energy Pricing") and the House Energy Committee. (See www.larouchepac.com.)
In line with this thinking, the Russian government on Sept. 19 announced a cap on gasoline prices for the coming months, on the principle of the national interest. On Sept. 9, the Duma had unanimously passed a resolution calling for a price freeze for gasoline and fuel prices for agriculture. (See article).
Fuel Critical in Agriculture
Figure 1 shows the relative shares of types of energy used in U.S. agriculture as a whole during 2004, and what was spent on those fuels. Over half is diesel fuel for tractors, field machinery, generators, etc. Gasoline is the next-largest type, almost one-quarter. Liquid propane is a significant 14% of fuel used. And among the 8.6% percent of farm expenditures going to other fuels, the largest component is natural gas—used for drying crops, among other purposes. Not included here is electricity, also an important farm expenditure, especially for dairy, and many livestock confinement operations, and in many locations generated by utilities using natural gas generators.
Prices for all of types of fuels used in agriculture are now soaring. Moreover, this fuel inflation comes on top of last year's record $8 billion spent on fuels in agriculture, a big jump over the year before. Figure 2 shows the total expenditures on fuels in U.S. agriculture by year, and the average per farm, for the past nine years.
Years 2000 and 2001—the heyday of the Enron rip-off era—stand out. But now, a new post-Enron, even bigger wave of stealing is under way. Under the current hyperinflationary take-off, farm fuel expenditures are on the way to topping $10 billions or more—except that non-linear effects occur first, namely farm failures, inability to pay, farm closures, and thus food supply breakdown.
(The reason that per-farm fuel expenditures rise more sharply than the national total, is that farm numbers are also decreasing, except for "lifestyle" or hobby farms. This loss of family farms is also a threat to the food supply.)
Prices are rising for other key farm inputs, along with fuel prices. Figures 3a and b show indices for the rise in fuels and fertilizer, and for supplies and repairs, and machinery, by month over the past 10 years through August 2005. These four items together (including construction with supplies and repairs, and seeds and chemicals along with fertilizer) added up to nearly one-third of the national expenditure on farming inputs in 2004. Other inputs, not shown here, include livestock, feed, farm services of various kinds, labor, taxes, interest, and rent.
In Figure 3a, what stands out is the rise and volatility of prices of fuels—given the onset of energy deregulation as of the late 1990s—along with the simultaneous upsweep in speculation of all kinds, not just commodity-related. Fertilizer prices likewise display wide swings in prices. Anhydrous ammonia, a leading fertilizer, uses natural gas as a feedstock.
In Figure 3b, prices of machinery and supplies and repairs likewise rise over the past 10 years, but without the gyrations of the fuels and fertilizer prices.
Putting these trends of rising farm input costs in context, Figure 4 shows how the prices paid out by farmers for their inputs to production have exceeded the prices they are receiving for what they produce, for the past 15 years!. The graph covers 30 years, indexing prices to the levels of 1990-92. Until that time, the prices farmers received for their output were more than what they paid to produce it. But since about 1991, this has never been the case again.
How are farmers managing to remain on the land? Two main factors—up until now: First, the principal farm operator, his or her spouse, children, and relatives work off-farm jobs, providing non-farm income to subsidize money-losing farming. Income from farming averaged just 16% of total farm household income in 2004.
Figure 5 shows the geographical patterns, by county, as of 2002, of what percent of principal farm operators work off the farm at least 100 days a year. Nationally, some 46% of farmers were doing this in 2002. The darkest tone shows counties with 55% or more working off the farm at least 100 days. Even the lightest tinted counties are over 40%.
The second, lesser factor in supporting farmers to stay in operation, is that there has been a flow of Federal government payments to farmers. But in reality, these payments amount to pass-through subsidies to the few cartel companies dominating agriculture and underpaying farmers for their crops and livestock in the first place.
For example, in flour milling, only four companies control over 60% of the market (ADM, ConAgra, Cargill, Cereal Food Processors). In beef, only four companies control over 80% of U.S. slaughtering (Tyson/IBP, Cargill/Excel, Swift/ConAgra, Farmland National). So when the farmer-producer is underpaid by these cartels for bushels of wheat, or heads of cattle, any Federal monies going to that farmer are, in effect, a subsidy to allow Cargill et al. to continue to underpay the farmer, and still keep a source of commodity supply to sell into the food chain at anything-goes rates of profit.
This system parallels the Federally protected profiteer role of the oil cartels. Likewise, just as there are huge gains made of "paper oil" trades, the speculative trading on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and other venues allows for pure, non-production-related rake-off from betting, up or down, on farm commodities.
Almost none of this was taking place over 50 years ago, when parity pricing was still the principle governing Federal agriculture policy. The idea was—in order to guarantee meeting the public interest in a secure food supply at stable prices, plus land management—family farms were to be guaranteed a parity, or percent of parity price. That is, the prices they received were on a par with what their costs of production were, plus a reasonable profit. This was entirely phased out under the swindle of free trade, and global sourcing for food. Now the United States is food-import dependent in most items of diet, except for basic grains, beef, chicken, pork, oils, and grains-related sweeteners.
The Kansas 'Quadruple Whammy'
This brief picture shows how vulnerable the U.S. farm situation, and food supply chain have already become in recent years.
Hence, Jere White, Executive Director of the Kansas Corn Growers Association, was quoted Sept. 11 by AP, "If consumers buying fuel are feeling the pinch, you can imagine what farmers are feeling when they purchase the amount of fuel they need for harvest and those types of things. It's a huge cost increase, but there really is no way they can offset it—they can't carpool a combine."
Kansas is indicative of the shock effects spreading throughout the U.S. farm-belt. In this state, the number-one wheat producer, fertilization is customarily done at the same time as Winter wheat is seeded (for harvesting in June 2006). This process started around mid-September. At the same time, corn, sorghum and other livestock feed crops are ready for harvest. So there is a double whammy at the moment in the wheat-belt, from soaring prices for both fertilizer (made from natural gas) and diesel for planting machinery.
There is even a triple whammy, because corn is also ready for harvesting, so fuel is needed for combines. And a quadruple whammy, because fuel is needed to dry the crop. Kansas, as the number-three U.S. cattle state, needs its corn crop for cattle feed (it even has to "import" corn for feed from out of state). The best cropping practice is to harvest whenever the weather and crop are both good, and then ideally, dry the corn in storage by natural gas or propane—both now through the roof in price. To avoid the drying costs, farmers may leave the corn in the field to dry, and take a hit on damage and losses.
For all of these functions, costs are soaring. Fertilizer has more than doubled in price in a short time period. The price for anhydrous ammonia fertilizer has risen to $450-475 a ton, up from $200 a ton in 2003. Grain transport costs are now at record highs. Bids for guaranteed placement of rail cars for transport in Kansas, for October delivery, are running at a record $544 on the BNSF Railway, and $508 on the Union Pacific, which compares to the previous all-time high of $350 in October 1997.
Barge shipping is the same. David Marshall, spokesman for AgriPride FS, Inc. in Nashville, Illinois—a farmer-owned co-op—reported in mid-September, "Barge shipping costs have exploded. Right now, barge freight has traded at a record high from the Ohio [River] to New Orleans."
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2005/3239farmers_fuel.html
Yep!!!!
Cheneygate!
by Jeffrey Steinberg
A political hurricane, as devastating as Katrina, has struck the Bush-Cheney Administration. A string of long-simmering criminal probes, targetting top White House officials and key Congressional allies, has hit all at once, and the right-wing Republican juggernaut of dirty money and political corruption is now on the chopping block.
Asked on Sept. 30 to comment on the series of devastating blows delivered to the Bush-Cheney-Tom DeLay apparatus during the last week of September, Lyndon LaRouche said that "beyond the specifics of the individual instances of crime and sleaze that are now apparently being brought to account, we are seeing an overall reaction to the breakdown of the functioning of our government. The reaction is coming from various places within and around the U.S. governing institutions. In each separate instance, the instinct is the same: We cannot go on any longer with this corrupt, incompetent Bush-Cheney regime. This Administration is no damned good. The House of Representatives is not functioning, because the Republican leadership around Tom DeLay is too busy stealing everything that is not nailed down. Crooks were robbing us blind, and people just said, 'We've had enough,' and took action."
LaRouche went on to emphasize, "This is not a conspiracy against Bush and Cheney. This is a lawful reaction to the chaos and breakdown of governmental functioning that we've seen from the Cheney and DeLay crowd. And now, Mama is standing in the middle of the kitchen, smashing all the dishes. It is not orderly, but it is a long-simmering reaction that has just exploded. And none too soon. With the global financial system in a state of terminal collapse, neither the United States nor the rest of the world can survive much more of this Bush-Cheney fiasco. Plenty of people realize that, in times of crisis, we need leadership from the Executive Branch, from the White House. And Cheney and Bush were leading us straight to Hell."
Cheney's Week From Hell
While the Vice President was recovering from surgery for his heart condition, and contemplating his next moves towards war and dictatorship, he was confronted with a series of shocks:
On Sept. 28, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) was indicted by a Travis County, Texas grand jury on charges that he conspired to illegally launder $190,000 in corporate money, through the Republican National Committee, to Texas GOP legislative candidates, in violation of state election laws. Under the rules of the Republican House Caucus, he was forced to resign from the Republican House leadership. Immediately upon his resignation, a closed-door brawl erupted among House Republicans over who would be DeLay's interim successor. This reflected long-developing fault lines within the House Republican Caucus, which the DeLay indictment finally cracked.
DeLay's own legal difficulties are complicated by criminal indictments and ongoing criminal probes against right-wing lobbyist and key DeLay financier, Jack Abramoff (see accompanying article). The same week that DeLay was indicted, murder conspiracy charges were filed against three Gambino organized crime family hitmen, for the assassination of Gus Boulis, the former owner of SunCruz, a casino cruise ship line that Abramoff and partners took over without ever paying Boulis for the sale. It is that SunCruz scam that led to the Abramoff indictment in Florida several months ago. Abramoff faces a string of other criminal probes into tens of millions of dollars that he siphoned off from Indian tribes, to bankroll DeLay and his other political cronies. As EIR has revealed, Abramoff and DeLay were at the center of a right-wing fundraising and lobbying apparatus that implicates other leading GOP operatives, including former Christian Coalition head Ralph Reed and anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist.
Next, former Pentagon analyst Lawrence Franklin announced, through his lawyer Plato Cacheris, that he had reached a plea agreement with Federal prosecutors, meaning he will testify as a cooperating witness against the neo-conservative Pentagon apparatus and "Mr. AIPAC," Steven Rosen. Franklin was indicted earlier this year by a Federal grand jury in Alexandria, Va. for passing classified Pentagon material to American Israel Political Affairs Committee officials Rosen and Keith Weissman, and to officials of the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
The Franklin case goes to the heart of the neo-con apparatus embedded in the office of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld—centered around Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith. While both Wolfowitz and Feith have left their Defense Department posts, the legacy of their neo-con "permanent war/permanent regime-change" dogmas lives on in the form of ongoing plans, currently being pushed from Dick Cheney's White House offices, for military actions against Syria and Iran. Sources close to the FBI say that Feith, who was Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy and Franklin's boss, is a prime suspect in the ongoing probe of an Israeli espionage triangle, implicating Israeli think-tanks, AIPAC, and American national security officials.
The most devastating personal blow to Cheney, however, came on Sept. 29, when New York Times reporter Judith Miller reached an agreement with independent counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, to appear before a Federal grand jury probing the Valerie Plame leak. Miller had been jailed this Summer for contempt of court, after she refused to testify about her ties to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the chief of staff and chief national security aide to Cheney.
EIR was the first publication to report that the leaking of the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to syndicated columnist Robert Novak and others had been run out of Cheney's office, by Libby and other staffers, including John Hannah. Valerie Plame is the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose February 2002 mission, on behalf of the CIA, to Niger, discredited reports that Saddam Hussein was attempting to buy uranium from that African state. EIR revealed that in mid-March 2003, Cheney aides met to launch a "Get Joe Wilson" campaign, to silence opposition to the Iraq War.
In striking the deal that got her out of jail, Judith Miller named Libby as the person who revealed Valerie Plame's identity to her.
A Triple Header
Upon learning about Miller's comments and her scheduled testimony before Fitzgerald's Federal grand jury, LaRouche said: "This is devastating for Cheney and company for three reasons. First, the issue of the leak per se. Libby is now implicated in the original media leak of the identity of Valerie Plame. That is a crime all by itself. Second, is the issue of the coverup. Here, Libby and others are implicated in perjury, obstruction of justice, and a whole second category of crimes—all related to the coverup. And is anyone going to believe that Libby did this on his own, without consulting with his boss, Dick Cheney? I don't think so."
"And then," LaRouche continued, "there is the third issue, and that is the role of our current acting United Nations Ambassador John Bolton in all of this. We know that Judith Miller and Bolton were close confidants, both involved as key assets of the White House Iraq Group. And the WHIG has been at the dead center of the Fitzgerald probe from the outset. Are we about to see our UN Ambassador sent packing? Let's hope so."
"I suspect," LaRouche concluded, "that some people within the institutions see the Valerie Plame case as a perfect opportunity to get Bolton out of that UN post."
The Washington Post's Threat
Not everyone views the looming demise of the Cheney-Bush White House as good news. Even as the walls were closing in on Dick Cheney, the Washington Post, the unofficial voice of the Synarchist financier establishment in the nation's capital, ran a warning op-ed by chief political commentator Jim Hoagland on Sept. 29, demanding that someone step forward to read Bush the riot act, to avoid the collapse of his Presidency.
Hoagland wrote: "Bush's floundering since he was caught off base and off guard by Hurricane Katrina strips the veil from a broad pattern of recurrent inattention to the duties of governance, of misplaced loyalty to incompetent subordinates, and a crippling refusal to look back at and learn from mistakes." In a not-so-veiled reference to Bush and Cheney's leading critics, including LaRouche, Hoagland continued, "I take no pleasure from that harsh assessment. I have never shared the unreasoning conviction of many of his more partisan opponents that Bush as a national leader is illegitimate, moronic, or both. He isn't."
Nice try, Mr. Hoagland, but the Bush-Cheney ship is sinking like the Titanic, and a re-shuffling of the deck chairs is a little too late.
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2005/3239cheneygate.html
This article appears in the October 7, 2005 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
Russia Freezes Gasoline Prices
by Rachel Douglas
Russian Industry and Energy Ministry spokesman Stanislav Naumov announced Sept. 19 that LUKoil, Sibneft, Rosneft, TNK-BP, Tatneft, and Surgutneftegaz, the country's largest oil companies, have agreed to freeze prices on gasoline at least until the end of this year. Heads of the companies met on the matter that day with Minister of Industry and Energy Victor Khristenko, after a Sept. 9 resolution in favor of a price freeze for agricultural enterprises passed the State Duma unanimously, and Presidential Representative for the Far East Federal District Konstantin Pulikovsky warned that gasoline and fuel-oil prices were making it impossible to prepare for Winter in that area.
For one of the few times in the past decade and a half of submission to rapacious "market forces," Russia's government pushed through the price freeze to head off new emergencies in in the physical economy.
Duma First Deputy Speaker Lyubov Sliska of the majority Unified Russia bloc, had warned that the current harvest and upcoming Winter crop planting were endangered by the recent gasoline price surge. Vagit Alekperov, head of LUKoil, told the press the move would stabilize prices and "make them independent of world prices," but Sliska and others worried aloud that the freeze is at too high a level to solve the economic problems involved.
In parallel with attempts to shield domestic oil users from inflated world oil prices, the Russian government is considering tax changes to try to bring more of Russia's own oil production onto the domestic market. Under consideration at the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, Kommersant-daily reported Sept. 12, are a reduction in the tax on fossil-fuels extraction or institution of a lower tax rate for lower-quality oil extraction (to boost output), and lowering the excise tax on high-quality oil (supposedly to encourage more investment in refineries in Russia).
Boost Oil Output
On Sept. 20, Industry and Energy Minister Khristenko sought President Vladimir Putin's approval for "tax exemptions" for oil companies that explore new fields. In a televised cabinet meeting, Khristenko said that Russian crude output is growing at twice the rate at which new reserves are being confirmed. After several years of double-digit growth in output from West Siberian fields, accomplished by using advanced technologies to extract oil from previously only partly exploited deposits, Russian oil production is expected to grow only 2-3% this year. Yuganskneftegaz, the main Yukos Oil production unit that was taken over by the state-owned Rosneft company, is experiencing zero growth.
Putin Meets Oil Execs in U.S.A.
During his visit to the United States, where he addressed the United Nations General Assembly and, on Sept. 16, met with President George Bush, Putin also met in New York with top executives from multinational oil companies. Conoco/Phillips, ExxonMobil, and Chevron were represented at a group meeting with Putin, followed by one-on-one discussions, behind closed doors, between the Russian President and some of the executives. Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller was in Putin's delegation.
Russian press pointed to development of the Shtokmanovskoye offshore natural-gas deposit in the Barents Sea, as one agenda item. Conoco/Phillips is reportedly seeking to buy a 20% stake in LUKoil. Putin spoke publicly about the "huge potential" for Russian oil and natural-gas sales to the United States, which currently buys only 2% of Russian output.
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2005/3239russia_gasfreeze.html
DeLay Indictment Major Step
Toward Bringing Down Corrupt Cartel
by Anton Chaitkin
The control of Congress by the far right, and by the Bush-Cheney Administration, has been shaken by the Sept. 28 felony indictment of House Majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
DeLay's fall came on the heels of the Aug. 11 arrest and fraud indictment against lobbyist Jack Abramoff, an architect of DeLay's political machine, and the sensational Sept. 27 arrest of suspects in the gangland-style murder of the Florida man Abramoff is charged with defrauding.
A Texas grand jury charged that DeLay had conspired to hide the illegal funding of Texas legislative candidates by "laundering" corporate contributions through payments to and from the Republican National Committee. The grand jury had earlier indicted as co-conspirators John Colyandro, manager of DeLay's funding agency, Texans for a Republican Majority, and a second DeLay underling, James Ellis.
Lyndon LaRouche commented: "This is extremely important. There is a phase shift under way in Congress, which is timely. Many things are coming together with this. If this country is going to survive, it's going to have to change its ways, without DeLay. This gives the Congress an opportunity to make the necessary policy shifts—without DeLay."
There is great glee on Capitol Hill. The Texas and Florida prosecutors, along with Senate investigators and Justice Department probers, are all pulling on threads of the political control apparatus, the gang known and feared—until now—as "DeLay, Inc."
Jack Abramoff began in the mid-1990s putting together channels of corporate funding for DeLay, who rose in the Republican leadership after the 1994 takeover of the House of Representatives by Republican rightists. Along with lobbying strategist Grover Norquist, DeLay and Abramoff coerced corporations and trade associations to cut ties with Democrats, and to seed their lobbying offices with DeLay's close allies and former staff members. Now it seems clear that their power days are numbered.
The DeLay Cartel
A decades-long partnership of Abramoff, Norquist, and Christian Coalition founder Ralph Reed, lay at the heart of this Washington power cartel, providing House dictator DeLay, and Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove, with the money of Enron and other corporate players, and the enforcement muscle of a formidable herd of religious voters.
These arrangements (which gave Anglo-American financiers a set of stone-cold pirates to run the regime) led to the actions for which both DeLay and his financial godfather Abramoff have now been indicted.
DeLay is charged with conspiring to send $190,000 contributed by Sears Roebuck, Bacardi, and other companies, to an account of the Republican National Committee. The RNC immediately wrote a check for the identical amount for use in DeLay's operations behind Texas legislative candidates, covering up the corporate donations which are illegal under Texas law.
Abramoff and his partner Adam Kidan are charged with fraud in pretending to make a $23 million payment towards the purchase of SunCruz, a Florida-based gambling casino cruise ship line, from its former owner, Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis. After Boulis protested that Abramoff had not paid him, and reportedly tried to take back control of SunCruz, Boulis was gunned down.
As the public has subsequently learned, through Senate probes and newspaper exposés, the entire DeLay, Inc. gang took part in the takeover of SunCruz.
The Senate Indian Affairs Committee was investigating Abramoff and his partner, former DeLay aide Michael Scanlon, for squeezing more than $60 million in fees, and political contributions to DeLay-related politicians, from Abramoff's clients, Indian tribes which own gambling casinos. Grover Norquist, Ralph Reed, and Reed's religious networks all shared in the loot. The Washington law office of Greenberg, Traurig, was Abramoff's headquarters for both the Indian scams and the SunCruz caper.
These highlights have emerged from several probes.
May 2000: Abramoff flew himself and Tom DeLay and DeLay aide Tony Rudy to Scotland for a golf holiday, paid for by Abramoff's casino tribes and Norquist's internet gambling clients. In July, DeLay broke with other Republicans and killed a bill that would have banned Internet gambling.
Sept. 18, 2000: Abramoff treated financial executive Greg C. Walker to a seat in Abramoff's personal box at the Washington Redskins' football stadium, where Walker was introduced to Tom DeLay, who was then the House Majority Whip. This show of power was used to help close the deal to borrow millions from Walker's company, Foothill Capital, to buy SunCruz. Abramoff has now been indicted for allegedly lying to Foothill and forging documents, to get the money. Abramoff used DeLay aide Tony Rudy as a personal reference on his loan papers.
January 2001: Abramoff flew Tom DeLay's aide, Tim Berry, to Florida on a SunCruz jet, to go gambling on a SunCruz floating casino. Abramoff was paying himself a $500,000 SunCruz "salary"; the DeLay team was certainly due a reward. To help Abramoff gain control of SunCruz, former DeLay spokesman Michael Scanlon had arranged with Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio), a DeLay and Rove man, to speak in Congress about Boulis's unfitness to run the company.
Then, after the takeover, Representative Ney spoke again, in praise of the honor and integrity of Abramoff's partner, Adam Kidan, though Kidan was a bankrupt and disbarred attorney.
The Boulis Hit
At that time, Abramoff and Kidan were paying installments amounting to $145,000 in SunCruz funds to Anthony Moscatiello, a man identified by law enforcement as an associate in the Gambino crime family and the bookkeeper of the gang's boss, John Gotti. Although listed as a consultant and caterer, Moscatiello reportedly performed no known corporate services for SunCruz.
Feb. 6, 2001: In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., a car stopped in front of Gus Boulis's BMW and blocked it, while a man in a black Ford Mustang pulled alongside Boulis and shot him three times.
SunCruz spokesman Michael Scanlon told a news conference that Abramoff would be cooperating with the police. But police sources recently told EIR that Abramoff had never showed up for an interview in the four years before his fraud indictment.
Adam Kidan had spoken publicly about moving the casino cruise ships to the Northern Marianas, the Pacific island territory officially represented by lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose laws ensuring ultra-cheap garment labor had been put through Congress by Abramoff and DeLay.
But after the murder, the heat was on, and the Abramoff team had to relinquish its ownership of SunCruz.
On Sept. 26 and 27, 2005, police finally arrested Abramoff's Mafia-linked "consultant" Anthony Moscatiello, and two of Moscatiello's associates, Anthony Ferrari and James Fiorillo, for the 2001 Boulis murder. The grand jury indictments initially remained sealed; and other arrests are possible.
Meanwhile, U.S. District Judge Paul Huck has set Jan. 9, 2006, as the earliest date jury selection would begin in the Abramoff-Kidan fraud trial.
Tim Berry, whom Abramoff flew to a SunCruz gambling jaunt just prior to the Boulis murder, went on to become chief of staff to Tom DeLay when Delay was House Majority Leader. Berry left his post on Sept. 29, 2005, the day after DeLay was indicted. (Berry will be a lobbyist for Time-Warner.)
Tony Rudy, who flew on the DeLay/Abramoff Scotland golf junket, and was Abramoff's loan reference for the SunCruz scam, left DeLay to work for Abramoff, and then joined DeLay, Inc.'s Alexander Strategy Group—the lobbying outfit that had worked with DeLay, Ralph Reed, Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove to push Enron's deregulation schemes.
As Majority Leader DeLay brought in Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) as his House Whip, Blunt was given responsibility to manage the so-called "K Street Project," the DeLay team's coercive relations with lobbyists. The better to do this assignment, Blunt was married to the head of lobbying for Philip Morris. Blunt got regular free meals at Abramoff's expensive Washington restaurant.
Blunt also came to co-manage the religious-voter menagerie with Ralph Reed, in tandem with Blunt's K Street Project co-leader, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), and with John Colyandro, the Texas political operative indicted as a co-conspirator with Delay.
Blunt has now been named interim House Majority Leader to replace the fallen DeLay. But the betting is that Blunt will not last long, as the pace of indictments and arrests picks up.
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2005/3239delay_indicted.html
This interview appears in the Sept. 30, 2005 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
INTERVIEW: MICHAEL PARKER
`We've Had 40 Years of Total Disregard
For the Future—And We're Paying For It'
Michael Parker has been a five-term U.S. Representative from Mississippi, 1989-99; and served as Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works (chief of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) from October 2001 until March 2002. President George W. Bush asked Parker to resign as Army Corps chief because of Parker's public criticism of significant cuts Bush was making to the Army Corps budget for economic infrastructure. Parker was interviewed on Sept. 21 by Richard Freeman, about the disastrous impact of Hurricane Katrina on infrastructure, and the principles for reconstruction.
EIR: You've just returned from Mississippi. What does the post-Katrina situation look like?
Parker: It's very much worse than [other areas].... The fact of the matter is, Mississippi's got much more devastation, even though they had less loss of life. And to give you an example: In Hurricane Andrew, which was one of the largest hurricanes—largest as far as debris—in our recorded history, there were 17 million cubic yards of debris. This time, it's going to be over 80 million yards. So, it's going to be four or five times larger than any other hurricane we've ever had in terms of debris. And Mississippi is just devastated, because it just took away so much of the business on the coast, especially from the gaming industry, which makes up 15-20% of the income of the state, now. So, that is a devastating blow to any state, especially one with one of the lowest per capita incomes of any state in the country. It's devastating....
But one of the things it did show, I think more than anything else, was the lack of preparedness we have as a nation.... And especially after four years, after 9/11, you would have thought we would be more prepared. But, it just goes to show that the Department of Homeland Security does not have its act together. And that's got to be reviewed, now.
What is interesting, though, is that, in actuality, this is the type of thing where the government has a direct interest. And I think, for the first time, people are learning some things. I mean, our parents and grandparents knew it. But all of a sudden, this generation is learning some things that it has never known before, and that is, that there's a direct correlation between standard of living and infrastructure. And one of the things that the government is charged with—we've become such a short-term, instant gratification society— that is our elected officials are supposed to be charged with the responsibility of looking to the future, and providing for the security of the nation.
And one of the ways you do that, is, to put in place things, that are not for your generation, but for future generations. The infrastructure that we have in place today, is a gift that we've been given from our parents and grandparents. The infrastructure that we build and maintain—it's not for us; it's for our children and grandchildren.
But politicians would rather pass a prescription drug bill, which does no one any good, and nobody likes it, and it is extremely expensive; rather than taking that same money, and putting it in infrastructure that would pay dividends for years to come. A lot of people have said, "Well, what could President Bush have done?" President Bush could not have done anything to prevent this. He's going to be judged, as far as what he does for infrastructure in another five to ten years from now. Because you're not judged for what you do—you can't be judged now, because he's only been in office for four and a half years. The infrastructure that you put into place, these are projects that are not short-term. You don't just go and build them in a year, two years. These are long-term projects. And they take 5, 10, 15, 20 years to put into place. So, he's going to be judged later.
What we're receiving, is 40 years of total disregard for the future—and we're paying the price. All debt is going to be repaid. It's kind of like going to buy a car, and you borrow the money. Either you're going to pay the notes, or they're going to come and repossess it. But either way, the debt's going to be satisfied. And we're in the same situation in this: We didn't pay the notes.
EIR: We have written in our magazine, that, actually starting in the mid-'60s, America started to have a paradigm shift from a producer society to a consumer society. And what got lost, is the infrastructure; because people say, "It's not on the balance sheet, therefore, we don't suffer a loss."
Parker: It is on the balance sheet. The problem is, we've decided that we liked the idea of utilizing—you've got current assets and long-term assets—things for the short term, and you forget about those long-term assets that you have to put in place, and the investment that you have to make. The balance sheet stays the same.
And, if you looked at the bottom line, you'd say, "Well, we've invested all this money!" But, what kind of assets did we use? And, if you looked at a P&L [profit and loss statement], that's what's interesting, because all of these things that we've invested in are really not assets, they're actually just expenses.
EIR: Rather than making investments for capital account, for investment account.
Parker: That's right.
EIR: On the Mississippi River, the Army Corps of Engineers was building a vital flood protection system during the '30s, '40s, and '50s. And aside from what's happened now in New Orleans—which is extremely important, critical—the lower Mississippi River system itself did not suffer overflooding. The Tenn-Tom [Tennessee Tombigbee waterway] was another river system that was built. The states of Mississippi and Alabama were asking for it to be built in the '50s. It was put off, and finally built later. It's quite valuable. What's the history that you look at? What's the outlook that you look at, some of the projects you think were worthwhile?
Parker: Well, I'll give you an example: If you turn around and you look in Brownsville, Texas—and everybody's talking about all the poor in New Orleans, and it's true, the poor in New Orleans suffered, greatly—but let's look at Brownsville, Texas: You have got the Rio Grande river coming down; you have a thing called resacas, which is the Spanish term for ox-bow lakes, they're a natural phenomenon. Through the years, that's been built up over there, and silted in. It hasn't been maintained, because you had more and more people live there. And the water used to come in and flush it out, but now you got all these buildings. And if you look down there, you've got 200,000 people in Brownsville and a million right across the river in Matamoros [Mexico], so you got a very large group of people, the vast majority very poor.
Those resacas are utilized for flood control, for water storage, that type of thing. If you had a hurricane—and right now, I'm worried about it [Hurricane Rita] going over to Brownsville: Because, if you had a direct hit going into Brownsville, or if it went to the south of Brownsville so that the hard right-edge would hit them, you could have the same type of flooding that you've got in New Orleans.
And you say, "Well, what could solve that?" You need to go in, and re-create those resacas. Go in, and dig them out, have the water storage, be able to have the flood control. We're not talking about something that's going to cost tremendous amounts of money. Over a period of 10 years, they could be done; the total cost would probably be $20-25 million. But you would do it slowly; each year you would do a little.
EIR: Have the resacas deteriorated?
Parker: They deteriorated; but we haven't been able to get the government to put money in it. I'm just telling you of another area, where there's a problem.
If we don't do this type of project—and there are projects like this all over the country—if we don't do that, and then we have a disaster hit Brownsville, we're going to have to come and spend, just untold amounts of money to get it resolved! It makes no common sense. Evidently, people have gotten so smart, they've gotten stupid—I don't know.
EIR: You're familiar with NAFTA. One of the things about NAFTA, is simply to move goods. You have cities on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border, and the only thing that the supporters of NAFTA have been concerned about is to build bridges, so that the goods can get from one side to the other. But there are all sorts of fundamental infrastructure not built, as you just mentioned with Brownsville. These questions are not being addressed.
Parker: If the Corps of Engineers were funded at a full capability level—which right now would be about $6.5 billion a year—you say, "Well, that's a lot of money". It is a lot of money. But when you look at what we spent, $2 billion a day—say the burn rate is $2 billion a day? Well, I've got news for you. You could fund the Corps a long time, on that. And especially since they've been funded $2 billion a year (every year) less than they should have. You could make a tremendous difference in infrastructure.
And it's the same way on the highway program: We've got all these entitlement programs, which have not been successful, have not served the purpose that had been envisioned for them, and then we fuss about the money we're going to put in the highway bill, in infrastructure. Now, granted, there's pork in there to some degree—there are "projects" out there. But, on the whole, the highway bill is necessary for this country.
And people forget, when you say, "at what point did it change?": In the '50s, we had the national interstate highway program—
EIR: Under Eisenhower, right.
Parker: It was put together, and Eisenhower sold it as a defense concept. You know, it was the interstate defense system [National Defense Highway System], to be used in time of war—I have to tell you, and even with that, we had an interstate in Alaska, and also in Hawaii. But that doesn't matter. That helped this country, as far as being able to move the standard of living, to keep it moving forward. It is necessary that we understand that there is a direct correlation between standard of living and infrastructure, and what you invest. And if you do not invest, your standard of living can not be maintained.
And what happens when a society can not maintain its standard of living? All you have to do, is look at New Orleans: Within 72 hours, you can move from modern city, to a Third World country, because infrastructure failed. That's all you have to do: Just look at New Orleans. That's what happens when infrastructure can't be maintained. You will have chaos in society.
EIR: You used the $6.5 billion figure: How did you determine that? Is that just full capability?
Parker: That's full capability. When I was ASACW, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works—which is head of the Corps—that's what I went to OMB [Office of Management and Budget], and that's what I asked for: "I want $6.4 billion."
EIR: In 2002, at a Congressional hearing, they asked you about the Army Corps budget, and you said, "Well, this may be utopian, I think, but this is what I think we should do." You asked for 150% of the budget proposed. Well, you got hung from a tree. And your forced resignation was done, I think, very publicly, both against you, but also as a warning: "If anyone else tries it, this is what's going to happen."
Parker: I think it sent a message to everybody. Look, I don't fault the President for doing it. And the reason I don't, is because he's Commander-in-Chief; he's the President of the United States. I was serving at his pleasure. If he didn't like what I was doing, he should let me go. I have no problem with that.
EIR: But, you had projects in mind. If I remember, one of them was for Mississippi. What were some of the projects you had in mind?
Parker: From the standpoint of getting involved in individual projects, to me it makes more sense to look at it nationally. We have had cities in the "Upper Miss" that have flooded.
EIR: Right, The '93 flood, north of Cairo, Illionis.
Parker: They have done everything that everybody's asked them to do. They've done everything EPA asked them to do. They've done everything that the Corps has asked them to do: And now, it comes time to do what's necessary to protect them, and we can't get the money for that! I was talking to Collin Peterson from Minnesota, who's a member of Congress, and said, "Collin, have you been able to do anything?" And he said, "No! Can't get it—" and they need $15 million—$15 million, and can't get it!
People do not understand. I had a news thing on CNN the other day with a commentator, and I was trying to talk about the budget, and its effects. And he just cut me off, saying, "Thereare not ten people in the country, who understand the budget. They don't care." And I'm thinking—and I wanted to say to him, "Well, that's why we're in the mess we're in." Because, it doesn't matter what you have as policy. If you don't fund the policy, it doesn't exist. And the fact of the matter is, is that, if you don't put money in the right areas—I don't care what your intentions are—nothing positive is going to happen. It's hard to get people to understand that.
EIR: We looked at about 40-50 projects which are authorized for the Corps and not appropriated....
Parker: We actually have about $40 billion worth of projects that have been authorized and not funded.... There are some projects that should not be funded, I understand there are some that should.
EIR: Like which ones?
Parker: If we had put in place a surge-protection barrier, where the Lake Pontchartrain goes out into open water. If we'd have put that in—it was deemed at the time too expensive and the environmentalists hated it—if we'd have put that in place, you wouldn't have had the surge. Remember, what I have been told—and they're going to do a forensic study of this whole thing—but what I've been told, is that when the surge came in, that's not when the levees were breached. It's when it came back. So, the surge came in. When it came back is when it went over and killed the levee.
EIR: Okay, so it goes from Lake Borgne, into Ponchartrain—
Parker: Then it goes into Maurepas, and it goes up that way. And then it comes back. And that's when it was breached. I have now talked to some guys who have seen some of the levees and some of the structures that were in place. You look at the structure, and it looks like water kept coming over, beating down, weakening the other side, and then when it came back, it blew it over.
EIR: Now, one of the proposals that's been on the table is to build this sea-gate at the eastern end of Lake Pontchartrain, and then have it close when you know there's a storm coming.
Parker: As surge protection. You would close it when you had a surge.
EIR: Okay. When did people start talking about that?
Parker: It was done in the early '70s; they did a study. It was recommended by the Corps; the local sponsors felt it was a realyl good thing to do. I wasn't around then, but I understand that the environmentalists threw a fit. And the sponsors couldn't afford to fight all this.
The environmentalists, you know, their hands are not clean in this thing. They have created all kinds of problems, any time you wanted to do anything. And now, they're sheepishly saying, "Oh, no! That's not what we meant to do." Well, they can say that all day long: They've been a hindrance on everything. Because the Corps knows it's going to get sued every time it turns around. I mean, they're used to it. It doesn't matter what they do; the environmentalists won't come around.
But, the fact of the matter is, is that what seemed so expensive at the time, now pales in comparison to where we are—pales in comparison.
EIR: Are you saying that the sea-gate was actually part of a plan, back—?
Parker: Well, there were several different plans. You had SELA, the Southeast Louisiana plan. It was really after Hurricane Betsy in '65, that's when a lot of the work started being done. When Betsy came in, then members of Congress starting going to the Corps, and saying, "Give us some ideas of things that can be done for protection." Because Betsy was devastating to New Orleans. They didn't have the type of flooding that you had this time, but it was still devastating. And they said, "we need something." And the Corps engineers started looking at different models, and different things, and they came up with different concepts of what could be done.
EIR: Do you know who I could talk to, who might know about this? The other day Bennett Johnston, the former Senator from Louisiana, said that he wants to try and revive a policy for flood protection for New Orleans, but I haven't been able to locate people who might know the old plans.
Parker: Well, Bennett came after that period of time; Bennett was in the late '70s. We're talking 40 years ago! Bud Schuster came after that. I' talking about these old bulls that were around here. And they fought for it: I'm telling you, they understood. But the longer we've gone, the fewer people thought long term. It's all short-term stuff, now. Nobody thinks long term.
EIR: Let me ask you about this: I went back and I got two editorials. On the one hand, you had tremendous defense from people when you were fired, or asked to resign. On the other side, you seem to have forced, I guess you would call it a "left-right coalition." Because the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal both went after you. The Wall Street Journal, wrote an editorial March 11, 2002, titled "Martyr for Pork." And they cited—on your situation—Mississippi Republican Rep. Trent Lott speaking favorably; they cited [Alabama Republican Rep.] Sonny Callahan, and they cited Jim Oberstar, Minnesota Democrat, who at the time said, "It's one of the darkest hours in the 226 years of the Corps." Then they say—this is the Wall Street Journal—"forgive us if we interrupt this patriotic funeral music with a few facts. The Army Corps is not fighting and dying in Afghanistan." And it said, that the key thing, is to take the money from these projects and use it for the fight on terrorism.
Parker: Would they say that now?
Now, let me ask you a question. Three weeks ago—three weeks ago, my son proposed to his fiancée in New Orleans. You could have walked up to anybody in New Orleans and talked about the Corps of Engineers, and pork, and they would agree with the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. "Pork. That's all it is. Building all this stuff, just a waste of taxpayers' money."
Move forward one week: Walk up to anybody in New Orleans—I don't care who it is. I don't care if it's the most uneducated person you ever met, or an engineer, or a law professor at Tulane—and look at them and say, "Do you believe flood protection and levee protection is pork?" And this city is full of water. I guarantee you, that you wouldn't find one person that would say, "It's pork."
What I find interesting: All of a sudden, everything else is pork, but now this is not pork. So, if they want to be honest with themselves, they need to say, "Maybe we've been looking at this wrong way."
EIR: Let me just take it from the other side, because this is the New York Times, in a 2002 article called, "Touching the Untouchable Corps." which talks about that you were fired for asking for "too much money." And then, they quoted leading "advocacy organizations," American Rivers, Environmental Defense Fund, and Earth Justice!
Parker: Oh, amen! And as long as I've got Trent Lott and Jim Oberstar and Sonny Callahan that say I'm right, and I've got these environmentalist groups saying I'm wrong, then I must be correct. I'm not worried.
EIR: A transportation expert in Washington, DC told us that when he was studying back in the '60s, with cost-benefit analysis, first you looked at the benefit of what you were going to produce, and then you figured out what the cost was for making it. He said, this has been stood on its head, where now you won't build anything, unless you can get the cost down.
Parker: Well, first of all, you don't do any cost-benefit analysis on environmental projects. They're not allowed, when it comes down to building these projects, whether it be highways, bridges. One of the reasons they're so expensive, is not because the Federal agencies want to do it that way. They've been told by Congress to do it that way: "You will follow these guidelines. You will put all these rules and regulations in place." And it costs a lot of money to do that.
I'll give you an example: We had a situation on the Coast, after Katrina, in New Orleans, where a regulator comes up, from the Corps, to a contractor, saying, "You're using the wrong tickets." This is for debris removal. Every time that you have a load, they have to keep tabs of that load. And there's certain information that's required to be put on. And the guy said, "You have to have Corps tickets." And the guy said, "I tried to get Corps tickets. Y'all don't have any. Give me your tickets!"
The Corps guy said, "We don't have any—they're in St. Louis."
The contractor said, "Well, my ticket is exactly the same as yours. My company's name's at the top of it. Yours has got the Corps at the top of it, but it has the same information."
The Corps guy said, "If you don't have Corps tickets, we're shutting your job down." This was down in Louisiana. What's interesting is, this guy had to send an airplane to St. Louis, from Florida, to pick up the tickets to bring it to him, so he wouldn't shut down hundreds of subcontractors who were removing debris! All because of the ticket.
Now look: Those regulations were not put in place by the Corps. Awh! We had a situation in New York, after 9/11, where—and I won't get into any names—we were trying to remove debris, and the Corps was instrumental in putting together everything to remove the debris. We needed another pier, to bring the barges in, and put the stuff in to take it to Fresh Kill [the landfill designated for 9/11 debris]. And we needed to do a dredging, to dredge it so the barge could get in there and they could put the material in. And there was a guy from the EPA, who said, "We may need to have an environmental impact study" which would take six months. And the question was then posed to him, "Do you want to have a news conference, so that you can tell everybody you want to have a six-month stay?" He said, "Well, maybe we don't."
EIR: If you had the funding, what would be some of the projects you would build? We think the Corps budget should be increased ten times.
Parker: No. They can't. They couldn't handle it. They don't have the capability.... The Corps doesn't build anything. It contracts. It's one of the largest contracting units of the Federal government. What happens is, and I mean, there is always the case that you can go too far, and create just as much harm, as not doing it the correct way.
Just as when you build a bridge, you build in a systematic way, you build projects the same way, taking into consideration everything: They consider all the benefits, all the environmental, the sociological, the cultural side. You have to look at it from a holistic standpoint, and you have to be very methodical when you do it.
What needs to be done, is, you fund the Corps at their capability level, which right now is about $6.5 billion—and these projects are not short term, they're long-term. And you have it just the way you do the highways. One reason the interstate highway system has been so effective is: They've got 5-year plans, 10-year plans, 15-year plans, 20-year plans; 25-year plans and 50-year plans! I mean, they've got all these plans out in the future. The difference is, they've got a funding source, because of the taxes on gasoline and everything, the excise taxes. They have a fund.
We don't have that. The water system in this country, with the Corps, is at the whim of Congress, "what we're going to let you have." And if anything good comes out of this, I'm hoping that people will say, "We need to have a plan in place. We fund the Corps at their capability level, and they have 5-, 10-, 15-, 20-year plans in place. They have an operations and maintenance budget that is large enough to make sure we take care of the locks and dams."
We have got a tremendous problem with dams in this country, and it's going to come back to bite us. The Washington Post had an article saying, New Orleans was not the most dangerous situation we've got in the country. Sacramento is. Well, that's interesting, because, Sacramento has got tremendous problems there, that need to be addressed.
And, you have to understand, the Corps does nothing by itself. Normally, the Corps has sponsors out there, which have a vested interest, and they pay part of the money! Local participation.
EIR: We looked at some of the projects on the waterways in the recent spending bills, and they were able to get work on a few locks and dams, I think four on the Upper Mississippi, two on the Illinois, into the Water Resources Development Act for this year—
Parker: Which is an authorization, not an appropriation. Now, there's a long way between saying, "yeah, we're going to do that," and getting it funded.
EIR: But there are a series of projects, on the Ohio River, for example—
Parker: And the majority of the water that comes down the Mississippi comes from the Ohio.
EIR: These projects are still sitting there. And they got moved back. The OMB says, "Well, the way we're going to do it is this: We give every project this cost-benefit ratio. Those that have the highest ratio, get the money, because we want to make sure projects are completed. We don't want to do them partially." I called and asked the OMB, "Okay, well, what happens with projects that show a positive cost-benefit ratio, but are not the highest, and are essential?" The person said to me, "We've got projects that are 3.5 benefit to cost, but they are not going to get funded, because they weren't the highest."
Parker: Yeah, but why? Why is that the case? It's because OMB has been instrumental in keeping the Corps underfunded. I mean, the one person down there who is the problem is a guy named Gary Waxman. And Bob Woodward asked me, he said, "Give me names." I said, "Gary Waxman, OMB."
If you want to know the person who had more to do with the problems we've got in this country in water, talk to Gary Waxman. Get him to tell, why he has done so many things to thwart projects that are needed in this country.
EIR: If you had the money for these projects, and you had the all resources to let out the contracts—
Parker: You would not see the difference in another one or two years, but starting in five, eight, ten years, you'd start seeing a difference. And if you were consistent at it, in 20 years, you would see a massive change.
I'm going to give you something from the standpoint of my feeling about trade: To maintain the standard of living of the people of the United States—and I understand, any time a culture falls, a society falls, it falls because the standard of living of the people can't be maintained. Go through history, and look at every society.
In this country, when we were formed, we basically told England, "You're taking all of our assets. You're not leaving us what we need, to have a standard of living for a lot of people the way it needs to be done. We don't have the freedom we should have. Therefore, we are going to change." And we did. To maintain the standard of living, you must be able to have the infrastructure in place to have that standard of living.
And let's talk about trade.... There was a time, when, on the average, we had to double trade every 20 years to maintain our standard of living. Well, to be on track to double trade, you have to be able to move that trade. And since we are a society where most of our trade on the import side comes over water, and also since we're a society where a lot of trade has to go into the interior of the country, we utilize water. It's the cheapest way to move large amounts of goods.
Basically, 35% of all our trade comes through Long Beach and Los Angeles Harbors. And it's put on trucks and rail and it goes from there out through the country. So, if you walk into a Wal-Mart, you can pretty much rest assured, that 35% of the stuff in there came through L.A. and Long Beach.
Well, to do that, you've got to invest in infrastructure to move that trade. And if you have to do it on water, you have to have the ports, and you have to have the facilities, and you have to have the terminals, and you have to have the equipment to make that work; and you have to have a tie-in to the road system and the rail system in this country to make it work: Look how we have underfunded our harbors and ports. Just look at it!
What does that do? That creates a situation where there's going to come a time, when we need the trade, but we don't have the facilities in order to move it, either in or out. When that occurs, then the standard of living of the people will decrease. And when that happens, you have political chaos.
EIR: It was very clear in 2002 that [then-OMB Director] Mitch Daniels just blew up when you said, "Fund the Corps at $6.4 billion." And he was going to make sure, because his whole system would "come apart," if he allowed this to go through.
Parker: Internally, I did everything that I could, trying to explain to people: There's no difference in the way OMB is looking at things—there's no difference, now, between what the Democrats did, and what the Republicans did—I see no difference. Neither one is making the right decisions.
And I was going to say, this transcends party, it's non-political. OMB is the only constant thing we've got in our government.... They've become more and more powerful over a period of time, and they've made the decision that they know best what this country needs. And elected officials be damned....
See, I'm one of these people that believe this: I believe that you can not make a decision unless you have the right information. I believe there's a place for OMB! A lot of people don't think I think that—but I do!...
EIR: Did you talk with any of these fellows? I saw one example where you walked into Daniels' office with two different—
Parker: Pieces of steel. What I did was, I was trying—I wasn't doing well verbally [laughs]. So, I said, "Maybe if he saw what this is." So, I instructed the Corps, "I need a piece of steel that has been in the water, on a lock that we're replacing. I want a piece of that steel. And I want a brand new piece of steel." And I had these two pieces of steel. One of them was an inch and a quarter thick, or an inch thick; and the other was falling apart!
And I laid them on Mitch's desk, and I said, "These two pieces of steel are the same type steel, exactly. This one's been in the water 35 years, should have been replaced 10 years ago. And this one is brand new." I said: "Mitch, it doesn't matter whether a terrorist blows up this lock, or if it falls down because it won't work, we haven't maintained it. Either way, it doesn't work! At least with a terrorist, we got somebody to blame! If we don't maintain it, the only people we can blame is ourselves. Do you understand?"
He got furious.
EIR: Do you think that there was an emphasis that shifted, for example in FEMA, away from the type of preparedness that we used to have for natural events, to focus on terrorism.
Parker: I'm going to tell you something that I believe: The career people at FEMA, and people that I've worked with there, are sharp. And if you'll notice, a lot of the career people have left FEMA. And you have to ask, Why?... And if you talk to the career people, who are very talented—and say, "Why did you leave?" Almost universally, I think they'll tell you: "I couldn't stand it any more. I couldn't stand, and take it in an agency which had so much potential, and just being inept."
EIR: But, do you think some of this emphasis on terrorism excluded infrastructure?
Parker: I think you have to have both of them, now. I think they're both vital. They both have to be done. Both of them.
EIR: Do you think FEMA acted quickly enough?
Parker: No.
I don't think our Federal government did. I don't the think state and local governments did.
EIR: Do you think an approach like Roosevelt's did would be workable? Do you think a Marshall Plan would be workable? In other words, something that didn't just give out vouchers to people, and said, "find housing."
Parker: If you turn around and you expect the government to do all of this, you're going to be sorely disappointed. The government has got to bring in the private sector, and create the entities to make this thing happen. The private sector is the only force we have in the country, that is strong enough, vital enough, robust enough, and can cut through the red tape enough to make things happen. But, you have to allow the private sector to do, what it has to do.
EIR: Would you move to do a more accelerated pace of the infrastructure which should have been done for the last 40 years?
Parker: Of course. The first thing I would do, is take the model that was used after the earthquake in San Francisco, where a tremendous amount of damage was done to the infrastructure. Instead of creating a housing czar, like they're talking about doing in FEMA, I would create the same type of situation on infrastructure that we had in San Francisco, and just transport it over to the Gulf Coast.... They built everything back much faster than everybody anticipated: The Corps of Engineers handled all the contracts.
Basically, they turned around and put incentives in place for the private sector to build these things faster. To move things, they cut through a lot of the red tape, put waivers on a lot of different regulations, and just did it.
EIR: Because they had to rebuild portions of the highway.
Parker: Oh, they had massive portions! Bridges and everything else.... Then they turned around and did all the contracting. Put all the contracts in place to make it happen. The same thing needs to be done on the Gulf Coast—exactly.
EIR: Railroads: We've looked at the question of electrifying our railroads—having electric locomotives, instead of electric-petroleum hybrids. They're much faster and cut down on petroleum use. What do you think about the rail situation in the country?
Parker: I think it has deteriorated over a period of time, also. The only area of the country where it's truly robust, is on the Eastern Seaboard, because you move so many people up and down the Eastern Seaboard.
EIR: Would you take some of those projects, and start to try to move them forward?
Parker: Yes. And I like [Indiana Republican Rep. Mike] Pence's idea of getting rid of the prescription drug bill. I like him. He said, just roll it back, get rid of it.
EIR: And then use these funds, for these things?
Parker: For infrastructure. He was talking about using it for New Orleans.
EIR: Who else is talking about infrastructure, in a way that you think is useful?
Parker: Right now, nobody is—yet. They really haven't focussed on it. And one of the reasons I'm focussed on it, is because, I paid a heckuva price to talk about it. I haven't talked about it in three years! I have a consulting business, where I work with clients around the country, to talk about infrastructure. And I work with them on trying to get infrastructure put in place. But I haven't said anything in three years, and the reason I haven't said anything, because, it would have all been sour grapes. Now, all of a sudden, people want to talk.
EIR: How did you get interested in this?
Parker: Number one, I've been in business all my life.... I have to maintain my infrastructure to provide for my employees. And through the years, I've had businesses, and I've had to invest money in things that I really didn't want to spend the money on! I mean, because, I could just put a new water system into my business—nobody could see it. They still had water. They didn't know I'd spent all that money, but I did! And there's no difference in maintaining your business, than in maintaining this country: It's still assets, your long-term assets, that you have to take care of.
And so, when I got into Congress, the first committee I was on, was Transportation and Infrastructure. At that time, it was called the Public Works Committee. And then, I was moved to the Corporations Committee, and I sat on the Energy and Water Subcommittee for Corporations. Since that was where I was put, that's where I started putting my emphasis—and I started learning about it.
The sad thing is, very few people in Congress understand water, and how vital it is. And what I always felt was, in the last 100 years, we have fought a lot of wars over oil and energy. I think in the next 100 years, we're going to wind up fighting wars over water. And, internally in this country, water is going to be a real problem. We had a water problem out West. We always have. Mark Twain said, "Whisky's for drinking, water's for fighting." Well, that same problem that we had out West, which is historical in nature, we now have on the Eastern Seaboard. And Atlanta's a perfect example.
And we're going to have internal dissension, in this country, because of water. And we're going to international dissension, because of water....
EIR: If you had the ability to do something now, what would you recommend be done, for example?
Parker: I would fully fund the Corps at its capability. I would publicly make a point of having the whole water question be totally nonpartisan. And I don't know how you make people understand that it needs to be nonpartisan. It used to be nonpartisan. The Public Works Committee used to be the most nonpartisan committee—
EIR: Really? Even into early '90s?
Parker. Oh, yes—even into the early '90s. Over a period of time. It was still nonpartisan in the late '80s and early '90s, and then just began to change.
But infrastructure is not a partisan issue. These are investments that we make. And it should be looked at the same way, that you sit down and have a professional look at your accounting, or your legal situation. You have professionals that sit down and say: "Okay, these are things that need to be done. These are the negatives if we don't do them. These are the benefits that are there." And we need to restructure how we determine what is needed.
If you look at the Tenn-Tom [Tennessee-Tombigbee River Waterway, from the Ohio River to the Port of Mobile]: They don't give anything to Tenn-Tom, but a lot of the stuff that comes down Tenn-Tom is very high-tech in nature. It's not heavy, but it's high-tech. And so, the value is very great—the weight is not great. But you can't move it on the roads, it's too large.
I'll give you an example: They don't give anything to NASA, because they go by tonnage. This is NASA stuff and different types of technology things, which go down the Tenn-Tom. So you can have a very expensive, high-tech thing being boated down, and it gets nothing, even though it probably employed more people, and is more expensive. And you can take a lot of rocks, and OMB gives them more value than they do the high-tech stuff.
EIR: Why hasn't Tenn-Tom been used more? It looks like the tonnage didn't increase as much as—
Parker: It hasn't increased as much as it should have. And one of the reasons is, we haven't done what we needed to do, as far as making it increase. It's not something, you just build it and it's going to occur. You have to work at this stuff to make it happen. And then, a lot of the stuff is being done now, because we're getting more automobile plants in Alabama and Mississippi; and a lot of the stuff that is being utilized for those plants is coming up, and they'll dock, turn around, and take stuff, take it over to the plant, and they do it in this "real-time" inventory stuff. So, they're putting cars together over in Alabama. They'll come up on the Tenn-Tom, to get the stuff over there.
EIR: So, if there were more manufacturing for example, you might have—
Parker: That's the whole purpose of it. I mean, you don't build because you want to go out there and look at it. You build it so the thing can be used.
But it's not done overnight.
EIR: Exactly. What about Sacramento?
Parker: They need to do the funding for Sacramento. Look: There are problems all over this country! We can talk about different areas—there are problems everywhere.
EIR: Because they have to have a levee system that works.
Parker: They've got to have a lot of things that work, out there. But you've got to look at it from a holistic standpoint. You've got to address every problem. You've got to do it in conjunction, none of this is separate. None of it stays separate.
I argued that the '27 flood, in 1927, is what helped deepen the Depression. Everybody wants to talk about Wall Street. I think Wall Street occurred, partially because of the '27 flood.
But all of this, this is national in scope. It is not—I can take you to any area, and show you a specific problem. That's not how we need to look at it. This is a national problem, it has national implications, and when we have a catastrophe occur, like in New Orleans, it really becomes national at that point. And, people that are in the Midwest, who think they're removed from this situation in New Orleans, they haven't seen what's going to happen to soybean prices, and corn, and everything else: Because, the largest granary elevator in the world, is in New Orleans....
EIR: So, do you think it's possible to direct the Congress and the White House to start to think on these terms?
Parker: It will continue to change. It is my hope that Congress will start paying attention to infrastructure, the way it should.
EIR: And the Bush Administration? Bush-Cheney?
Parker: I've always thought they should.
EIR: Are you disappointed that they haven't?
Parker: I'm disappointed that every Administration since the '60s, has not paid attention to what's going on.
See, I don't consider it difficult—I don't understand why people have a hard time understanding it. I think it's just asinine that people wouldn't, just basically understand it. But, that may come from my life-experience. I just can not understand why they don't understand that this is one of our primary responsibilities.
EIR: Did you ever read Alexander Hamilton?
Parker: I've read some things about Alexander Hamilton.
EIR: His Report on Manufactures is terrific. He wrote this in 1791, and it's sort of like a survey of manufactures, but he uses the term "internal improvements," which is the term they used for infrastructure then. And his argument was—and this is something LaRouche is saying— you make this infrastructure investment, this will increase the level of industry and commerce, so that it increases your tax base. But, if you look at the increased economic activity, that activity will bring revenues that more than pays for—
Parker: They're all interconnected. All of this is interconnected: If you go to L.A. and you look at the port system and Alameda corridor, and the road system, and how it all ties in: How do you get goods to the port and from the port? This system that goes up is all interconnected!
Railroads: The port can't exist without the railroad! Trucking can't exist without the port! The railroads can't exist without the port—I mean, they're all interconnected. You can't say, "Well, this is not paying its way." The fact of the matter is, if it's not there, the others pay its way. There's a difference here....
One of the things that I pushed for, was waterproofing all the pumps, and even if I'd have started on it the day I went in, or the day the President got elected, you wouldn't have them "dunk."
EIR: What do you do when you waterproof them?
Parker: You build it so that the water can't get into the pumping system itself. You have a separate power supply, with generators, with a separate fuel supply so that you can run the dad-gum things. So, even though water's rising up around it, it's still pumping water out.
EIR: How much would it have cost to have done that?
Parker: Millions and millions and millions of dollars.
EIR: Did you try to push for it?
Parker: That was part of the whole thing. I mean, they've been trying to do that for years—long before me!...This is part of the total package. I don't know—"you can't do this." So, then you've got pumps under water, with no power, and you can't run them. They're not doing anybody any good. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to—
EIR: So, it's a certain sense, it's an indictment of the country for the last 40 years, of not thinking with forethought.
Parker: I blame everybody: I blame government officials. I blame Democrats and Republicans. I blame the people of this country for allowing it to happen and for electing people that are so shortsighted. I blame myself for not being better at trying to convince people. I blame the environmentalists, for putting limitations in place, knowing full well that we can protect the environment and have an infrastructure that works.
Everybody is at fault in this thing. Everybody.
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/interviews/2005/3238michael_parker.html
CONGRESS FACES NEW TURN
On the Subject of Strategic Bankruptcy
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
May 14, 2005
A rising series of political earthquakes is now shaking the world.
Now, the financial collapse of the air-passenger-transport industry, hitting the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation from United Airlines today, and perhaps Delta and American Airlines next, intersects the efforts of GM/GMAC to dump the auto-workers' pensions, and the threatened collapse of GM, Ford, and others, threatening to set off a global hedge-funds panic. At the same time, the planet as a whole has already been seized during past days, by a panic-ridden hedge-fund crisis which is orders of magnitude worse than that of August-October 1998.
Now, what will happen, very soon, will stagger your imagination.
The world as you thought you knew it, the day before yesterday, is no longer the same world today. Things you had thought would work, no longer work.
That is already the way you must see how the world is changing. Now, already, you witness the converging impact of, on the one side, pensions hit by spreading bankruptcies of major airlines, with, on the other side, the onrushing threats from the financial collapse in the auto industry. These, and related developments, create a specter of already global, epidemic bankruptcy with which existing U.S. government practices are essentially incompetent to deal. This situation requires the immediate institution of new governmental mechanisms for managing what must be fairly described as a condition of strategic bankruptcies, bankruptcies with which presently existing mechanisms of government are essentially incompetent to deal.
In the financial world, it is as if someone had suddenly turned on the light in the kitchen, and floods of hedge-fund cockroaches are swarming in all directions. The existing world financial system can do nothing to stop this panic! It can only rage, scream, and smash things, all of which would only make everything worse than the moment before.
The world needs the calming voice which says, "It's only money!" It would be a very good thing if that voice were to be the voice of the U.S. Senate.
1. What Is 'Strategic Bankruptcy'?
A series of bankruptcies which virtually wiped out several categories of the republic's essential industry, would have to be classified by a term of no less impact than "a state of strategic bankruptcy." The threatened collapse of most of the U.S. domestic production capacity of principal manufacturers Ford and General Motors, would mean not only the loss of the production of automobiles, but the loss of a crucial, major portion of the essential machine-tool capacity on which the viability of the U.S. economy as a whole, not only automobile manufacturing, depends. That would be implicitly a more severe long-term defeat for the U.S. economy than Germany's industrial potential actually suffered after the close of World War II.
The present plight of the passenger airlines is also a strategic issue. The case of the airlines has two strategic implications which require emphasis here. The first such implication is the effects of airline deregulation, which was one of the key items on the agenda of practice of the 1977-1981 Carter Administration's submission to the Trilateral Commission's ruinous, multi-faceted program of deregulation. The second, is the blow-back effect of this deregulation program on the section of the machine-tool capacity associated with the aircraft and related sectors of industry.
The combined effect of the chain-reaction financial collapse of the national automobile manufacturing and air-transport sectors, is the presently accelerating threat of dumping of pension obligations of both the airlines and automobile industries, suddenly, on the Federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. Without novel measures of government intervention, this presently threatened development would mean a wrecking of the present, non-private system of private pensions, leaving the completely Federal Social Security System as virtually the only pension system for the lower eighty percentile, or more, of the population as a whole. The implication of such a set of combined and related developments would also have to be classed as a case of "strategic bankruptcy."
Bankruptcies, or comparable collapses of the general class typified by these cases, can not be absorbed safely within the private sector as presently constituted. The Federal government must create the institution, the mechanism of re-regulation, and applicable formulas through which strategic problems of this general magnitude and importance are addressed.
2. 'It's Only Money!'
The following kind of discussion is essential for defining the action appropriate for this class of cases.
The essential distinction of, and superiority of the original U.S. Federal constitutional system over the monetary-financial systems of Europe, is typified by the constitutional monopoly of the Federal government in the matter of the utterance of currency and related forms of credit. In contrast, the economic systems of Europe have been, generally, based upon the subordination of the authority of government to what are called "independent central banking systems." To the extent that the U.S. has been subjected to overreaching and intruding influence of the financial-monetary systems of Europe into the internal business and political affairs of the U.S.A., U.S. national economic policy-shaping has been a battlefield of contention between our national-constitutional and foreign financier-monetary systems.
The only construction on this issue which could be derived from our Federal Constitution, is the notion of national banking famously associated with Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and the leading Nineteenth-Century national economists of our republic Henry C. Carey and the German-American Friedrich List. Typical opponents of this national-banking policy have been the Bank of Manhattan's Aaron Burr, land-bank scammer and Andrew Jackson sponsor, President Martin van Buren, August Belmont, and so on. During much of this period, U.S. policies were subjected to the overreaching imperial influence of the Bank of England's position as the dominant figure in the world's system of international loans. This British imperial influence dominated world markets, and penetrated deeply into the internal affairs of our nation and its government.
Against this historical background, President Franklin Roosevelt's program of economic recovery from the deep depression bequeathed by the combined effect of the Bank of England's and the Coolidge and Hoover Administrations' economic policies, was the product of President Roosevelt's philosophical orientation toward the legacy of national banking which is implicit in the original design and composition of our Federal Constitution. The design of the original, 1944-1945 design of the Bretton Woods fixed-exchange-rate system, employed the uniqueness of the U.S. dollar's value for the successful, 1945-1964 growth of both the U.S.A. and many other nations of the world, including those of war-torn Europe.
The general background which must be taken into account to understand this crucial, axiomatic difference in economic policy between the constitutional tradition of the U.S.A. and the prevalent parliamentary systems of Europe, is the fact that the deadly conflict between the English-speaking states of North America and the British monarch and parliament, dated from the February 1763 Treaty of Paris which, in effect, established the British East India Company's emergence as the principal imperial power of this planet. It was the attempted subjugation of the American colonies to the rapacious policies of a parliament controlled by the agents of Lord Shelburne's British East India Company, which prompted the 1776 Declaration of Independence, and defined the circumstances under which our unique design of Federal Constitution was composed and adopted.
During 1782-1783, the assumption among many of our leading patriots had been that the vast support for the American cause in Europe would mean reforms in Europe reflecting the same principles which the struggle for American Independence had signified in the opinions of those European sympathizers and supporters of our cause. The effects of the French revolution and Bonapartist regime of 1789-1815 spoiled that prospect. From 1815 through 1848, the leading forces of the world, the rival British and Habsburg interests, were equally committed to our destruction. With the developments of 1848, the British Empire and its far-flung monetary-financial power was the dominant world system within which our republic was enveloped.
It was only through the U.S. events of 1863-1876, when the U.S. emerged as a leading world economic power, that many rivals of the British Empire, such as Bismarck's Germany and Alexander II's Russia, like Meiji Restoration Japan, adopted the American System of political-economy, as defined by Henry C. Carey, for the industrial self-development of the continent of Eurasia.
The relevance of this history to the U.S. economy's present strategic situation is, briefly, as follows.
The Eighteenth-Century British system was known within Europe under the alternate names of "The Enlightenment," and "The Venetian Party." This name was premised on the fact that systems of the Dutch and English India companies were based on the earlier Venetian model of financier-oligarchy. Under that system, as under the influence of the British monarchy from 1763 to the present time, financier power has usually reigned over the governments of nations. The Twentieth-Century and present world systems of financier-oligarchical rule through "independent central banking systems," is the modern expression of that Venetian-style financier-oligarchical system of financial tyranny.
It is not accidental for us in examining this subject here today, that President Franklin Roosevelt was a descendant of New York banker Isaac Roosevelt, who was an ally of Alexander Hamilton, and, like Hamilton, an opponent of British Foreign Office official Jeremy Bentham's asset Aaron Burr and Burr's Bank of Manhattan. Moreover, this character of Franklin Roosevelt's outlook was shown in writings as a Harvard University student, and in his direction in crafting those policies which enabled the U.S. to rise to immense economic and other power in making possible the defeat of the Adolf Hitler who would have otherwise triumphed as a new Caesar for the world at large.[1]
The relevance of these bare historical considerations to the present strategic-economic threat to our republic, is the following.
Currency Has No Intrinsic Value
No truly sane and civilized adult would object to the statement that paper money, obviously, has no intrinsic value. This was clear to the Massachusetts Bay Colony which made the first use of a paper currency, quite successfully, up to the point the British monarchy and parliament, in 1688-1689, suppressed what had been the highly successful Massachusetts currency used to promote high rates of net physical growth in that commonwealth. The defense of the revival of such a paper-currency policy by Benjamin Franklin, is one of the leading influences on which the U.S. Constitution's provisions respecting national currency were premised. Money in a civilized modern republic has no greater nor lesser value than might be attributed to it as an instrument of credit, just as it was so used by the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and as our Federal Constitution defines its proper creation.
Under our Federal constitutional system, it is the Federal government which holds a monopoly over this use and regulation of the national currency. This constitutional intention was built into the original design for the Bretton Woods monetary system. Several factors, which I have addressed in other published locations, but which need not be discussed in this location, weakened the effectiveness of use of the original design. The crucial change for the worse, which must be emphasized here, was the effects of the first Prime Ministry of the United Kingdom's Harold Wilson, which, in 1967-1968, undermined the position of the U.S. dollar, and pushed President Lyndon Johnson into a concession which was the first step toward the formal break-up of the Bretton Woods system by the U.S. Administration of Richard Nixon.
The succession of the Nixon Administration's August 1971 repudiation of the defense of the U.S. Bretton Woods dollar, the Azores Conference, and the later Rambouillet conference, thoroughly destroyed the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates. The Trilateral Commission's destruction of the essential protectionist and related regulatory features of the U.S. recovery from the 1930s Depression, had already created, by 1981-1982, under Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, the mess of physical economic and monetary-financial wreckage which grips the U.S.A. and the world at large today.
The seismic economic rumblings within the U.S. economy and world today, are the outcome of, chiefly, those changes from the Bretton Woods system which have occurred during the 1971-2005 interval. The crises so created can be overcome only through attacking the cause of our present, global catastrophe at its original source. We must act to establish the new system of long-term credit under which a stable dollar, within a fixed-exchange-rate system, reigns once again.
Any efforts to attack the problem by lesser methods will assuredly produce nothing other than a disaster of incalculable dimensions.
3. The Role of U.S. Credit
The immediate danger is, that postponing certain urgently needed U.S. reforms would ensure a chaotic collapse of the present world monetary system. Since that system, all other considerations properly put aside, is the basis for the present world system, only immediate action to stabilize the dollar-denominated world monetary system could prevent a rather immediate, extremely deep, chain-reaction collapse of the economies of all nations of the planet. The degree of wild-eyed financial inflation built into the financial-derivatives aspect of the present world system would, if honored, assure such a deep, deep collapse were that not prevented by appropriate remedial action.
To the extent that presently outstanding financial obligations are stated in terms of currently scheduled obligations, no escape from the worst imaginable disaster were possible. To avoid the worst, two preconditions must be satisfied. First, financial derivatives must be treated for what they are, "gamblers' side-bets," and erased from the calculations. It is traditional forms of sovereign obligations of nations which must command our attention, above all else.
The available remedy is to be found along the following lines.
On the condition that we commit ourselves to high rates of gain in investments in basic economic infrastructure, agriculture, and industry, and that we use a long-term, fixed-exchange-rate system for this mission, our option lies in commitments to converting the largest portion of the principal debt of governments into long-range, low-interest credit of between a quarter-century and a half-century maturities.
To illustrate the point, consider the spectacle of the U.S. auto industry today. The industry has attempted to flood the retail market with product whose residual value after depreciation would become quickly less than the amount of the debt outstanding as implied security against that depreciated product. This is what occurred, leading into the deep 1957 U.S. recession; a similar pattern, of far worse implications, prevails today.
The industry must be reorganized, so as to reduce the quantity of vehicles sold, by shifting the composition of the industry's product to the markets for other classes of products, products which utilize the crucial machine-tool capability currently associated with the auto industry. Much of the needed diversification of product-line falls into relatively high-technology categories of product required for basic economic infrastructure.
Similarly, the general fault in the composition of U.S. national product today, is a result of a generally accelerating shift toward a so-called "post-industrial" economy since approximately the 1967-1968 interval. The result has been a collapse of the ratio of productive employment to labor-force, combined with a decline in physical productivity of the labor force per capita and per square kilometer of relevant area of habitation and production.
Any recovery of the U.S. economy (in particular) will depend upon a reversal of the post-industrial trends since the mid-1960s, or else no recovery would be possible. This means a shift back toward what used to be called "blue collar" employment, with an initial heavy emphasis on repairing our nation's present dilapidated and rotting basic economic infrastructure, while using this reorientation to upgrade the productive skills and conditions of life of a relatively enormous ration of unskilled and marginalized strata of the population.
A large ration of the total employment, financed by long-term government-organized credit for infrastructure and related investments, will be associated with long-term investments in basic economic infrastructure. Thus, the credit created by government for the purpose of such projects will be secured against long-term investments in building up essential basic economic infrastructure.
In addition to domestic investment, there will be a vast, growing investment in international development, as typified by the growing trade between western and central Europe and China.
The greater portion of this combined public and international investment will be associated with long-term credit at low simple-interest rates, reaching into the quarter-century and longer maturities. This emphasis on long-term credit generated for use in such modes means that the net composition of debt carried from the present, into the future, will shift the balance of debt-obligations, to bring financially teetering governments and private banking systems into stable long-term configurations at basically low interest rates.
In such a setting, on condition that high rates of technological progress are the prevalent condition, long-term pension and heath-care systems can be secured by a more than suitable rate of growth of assets in the economy.
Thus, under such conditions, we are able to make pledges to the future which have the effect of being well-secured savings built into the accounts of today.
There have been many foolish errors in the shifts in patterns of behavior by government and the population during the recent half-century or so. The most significant error, from the standpoint of physical economy, has been the shift to what is called the "post-industrial" policy of a "deregulated economy." Of all the mistakes we have made, this has been the greatest single contribution to the cataclysm descending upon our economy today. Unless we are willing to change that, to return to the proven policies of the infrastructure-based agro-industrial development of the U.S. economy during earlier times, there is no hope for this nation, no matter what we choose to do otherwise. If we do learn the lesson from the error of our "post-industrial" ways, the powers of government under our Constitution could once again rescue us, as such a policy succeeded under President Franklin Roosevelt's leadership.
4. If, Then, We Wish To Survive
If we decide on the re-industrialization, re-regulation route to national survival, the task of the Congress is to create the authorization for special agencies dedicated to managing the transition for otherwise doomed entities fallen into bankruptcy. In general, this creation of such agencies should be limited to cases which, firstly, have the character of vital strategic institutions, and, secondly, for which a clear option for a successful, medium- to long-term recovery is foreseeable.
The essential authority for this kind of remedy lies in a central provision of the Preamble of our Federal Constitution, the promotion of the general welfare.
This provision, known to students of Classical Greek and Christians otherwise as that principle of agape which is central to I Corinthians 13, is the foundation of the creation of the modern sovereign nation-state, which has been otherwise described as a commonwealth. It is also the central principle which brought approximately to an end the reign of religious warfare which polluted modern Europe from the 1492 expulsion of the persecuted Jews from Spain until the signing of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, a treaty based precisely upon this principle of natural and constitutional law.
This is also the principle which the founders of the 1776 U.S. Declaration of Independence adopted, from Leibniz's refutation of John Locke, "the pursuit of happiness."
A promise to deliver depends upon the efficient motive to perform as promised. The Congress, the Senate, as the responsible, continuously reflective body of the Congress, must limit itself to adopted means which accomplish necessary ends by means whose feasibility is foreseeable. Such are the solutions for the strategic challenges to which I have given attention here.
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[1] The defeat of the Axis alliance at Midway and at Stalingrad, were the crucial turning-points of 1942-1943 in that war. Without the economic might generated by President Roosevelt's national economic-recovery program, those victories would not have been possible. Otherwise, Hitler would surely have become the new Caesar of the world.
http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/2005/3221strateg_bankruptcy.html
Mother of All Lies About 9/11
Barbara Olson's "Phone Call" From Flight 77
This is a story about a little white lie that bred dozens of other little white lies, then hundreds of bigger white lies and so on, to the point where the first little white lie must be credited as the “Mother of All Lies” about events on 11 September 2001. For this was the little white lie that first activated the American psyche, generated mass loathing, and enabled media manipulation of the global population.
Without this little white lie there would have been no Arab Hijackers, no Osama Bin Laden directing operations from afar, and no “War on Terror” in Afghanistan and occupied Palestine. Clearly the lie was so clever and diabolical in nature, it must have been generated by the “Power Elite” in one of its more earthly manifestations. Perhaps it was the work of the Council on Foreign Relations, or the Trilateral Commission?
No, it was not. Though at the time the little white lie was flagged with a powerful political name, there was and remains no evidence to support the connection. Just like the corrupt and premature Lee Harvey Oswald story in 1963, there are verifiable fatal errors which ultimately prove the little white lie was solely the work of members of the media. Only they had access, and only they had the methods and means.
The little white lie was about Barbara Olson, a conservative commentator for CNN and wife of US Solicitor General Ted Olson. Now deceased, Mrs Olson is alleged to have twice called her husband from an American Airlines Flight 77 seat-telephone, before the aircraft slammed into the Pentagon. This unsubstantiated claim, reported by CNN remarkably quickly at 2.06 am EDT [0606 GMT] on September 12, was the solitary foundation on which the spurious “Hijacker” story was built.
Without the “eminent” Barbara Olson and her alleged emotional telephone calls, there would never be any proof that humans played a role in the hijack and destruction of the four aircraft that day. Lookalike claims surfaced several days later on September 16 about passenger Todd Beamer and others, but it is critically important to remember here that the Barbara Olson story was the only one on September 11 and. 12. It was beyond question the artificial “seed” that started the media snowball rolling down the hill.
And once the snowball started rolling down the hill, it artfully picked up Osama Bin Laden and a host of other “terrorists” on the way. By noon on September 12, every paid glassy-eyed media commentator in America was either spilling his guts about those “Terrible Muslim hijackers”, or liberating hitherto classified information about Osama Bin Laden. “Oh sure, it was Bin Laden,” they said blithely, oblivious to anything apart from their television appearance fees.
The deliberate little white lie was essential. Ask yourself: What would most Americans have been thinking about on September 12, if CNN had not provided this timely fiction? Would anyone anywhere have really believed the insane government story about failed Cessna pilots with box cutters taking over heavy jets, then hurling them expertly around the sky like polished Top Guns from the film of the same name? Of course not! As previously stated there would have been no Osama Bin Laden, and no “War on Terror” in Afghanistan and occupied Palestine.
This report is designed to examine the sequence of the Olson events and lay them bare for public examination. Dates and times are of crucial importance here, so if this report seems tedious try to bear with me. Before moving on to discuss the impossibility of the alleged calls, we first need to examine how CNN managed to “find out” about them, reported here in the September 12 CNN story at 2.06 am EDT:
“Barbara Olson, a conservative commentator and attorney, alerted her husband, Solicitor General Ted Olson, that the plane she was on was being hijacked Tuesday morning, Ted Olson told CNN. Shortly afterwards Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon” … “Ted Olson told CNN that his wife said all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by armed hijackers. The only weapons she mentioned were knives and cardboard cutters. She felt nobody was in charge and asked her husband to tell the pilot what to do.”
At no point in the above report does CNN quote Ted Olson directly. If the report was authentic and 100% attributable, it would have been phrased quite differently. Instead of “Ted Olson told CNN that his wife said all passengers and flight personnel…”, the passage would read approximately:- Mr Olson told CNN, “My wife said all passengers and flight personnel…” Whoever wrote this story was certainly not in direct contact with US Solicitor General Ted Olson.
Think about it, people! If you knew or suspected your spouse’s aircraft had just fireballed inside the Pentagon building, how would you spend the rest of the day? Initially you would certainly be in deep shock and unwilling to believe the reports. Then you would start to gather your wits together, a slow process in itself. After that and depending on individual personality, you might drive over to the Pentagon on the off chance your spouse survived the horrific crash, or you might go home and wait for emergency services to bring you the inevitable bad news. As a matter of record, Ted Olson did not return to work until six days later.
About the last thing on your mind [especially if you happened to be the US Solicitor General], would be to pick up a telephone and call the CNN Atlanta news desk in order to give them a “scoop”. As a seasoned politician you would already know that all matters involving national security must first be vetted by the National Security Council. Under the extraordinary circumstances and security overkill existing on September 11, this vetting process would have taken a minimum of two days, and more likely three.
The timing of the CNN news release about Barbara Olson, is therefore as impossible as the New Zealand press release back in 1963 about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As reported independently by Colonel Fletcher Prouty USAF (Retired), whoever set Kennedy up, accidentally launched a full international newswire biography on obscure “killer” Lee Harvey Oswald, without first taking the trouble to check his world clock.
It was still “yesterday” in New Zealand on the other side of the International Date Line when the biography was wired from New York, enabling the Christchurch Star newspaper was able to print a story about Oswald as the prime suspect in its morning edition, several hours before he was first accused of the crime by Dallas police.
If the CNN story about Ted Olson had been correct, and he really had called them about Barbara on September 11, then he would most surely have followed the telephone call up a few days later with a tasteful “one-on-one” television interview, telling the hushed and respectful interviewer about how badly he missed his wife, and about the sheer horror of it all.
There is no record of any such interview in the CNN or other archives. Indeed, if you key “Barbara Olson” into the CNN search engine, it returns only two related articles. The first is the creative invention on September 12 at 2.06 am EDT [0606 GMT], and the second is on December 12, about President Bush, who led a White House memorial that began at 8:46 a.m. EST, the moment the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center three months before. CNN includes this comment about Ted Olson:
“In a poignant remembrance at the Justice Department, U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson referred to "the sufferings we have all experienced." He made no direct reference to the death of his wife, Barbara Olson, who was a passenger aboard the American Airlines flight that crashed into the Pentagon…”
Regarding the same event, Fox News reports that, extraordinarily, Deputy Attorney General Larry Thompson then said Barbara Olson's call, made "in the midst of terrible danger and turmoil swirling around her," was a "clarion call that awakened our nation's leaders to the true nature of the events of Sept. 11."
So Ted Olson avoided making any direct personal reference to the death of his wife. Clearly this was not good enough for someone somewhere. By the sixth month anniversary of the attack, Ted Olson was allegedly interviewed by London Telegraph reporter Toby Harnden, with his exclusive story “She Asked Me How To Stop The Plane” appearing in that London newspaper on March 5, thereafter renamed and syndicated around dozens of western countries as “Revenge Of The Spitfire”, finally appearing in the West Australian newspaper on Saturday March 23, 2002.
I have diligently tried to find a copy of this story in an American newspaper but have so far failed. The reasons for this rather perverse “external” publication of Ted Olson’s story are not yet clear, but it seems fair to observe that if he is ever challenged by a Senate Select Committee about the veracity of his claims, the story could not be used against him because it was published outside American sovereign territory.
Regardless of the real reason or reasons for its publication, the story seems to have matured a lot since the first decoy news release by CNN early on September 12, 2001. Here we have considerably more detail, some of which is frankly impossible. In the alleged words of US Solicitor General Theodore Olson:
“She [Barbara] had trouble getting through, because she wasn’t using her cell phone – she was using the phone in the passengers’ seats,” said Mr Olson. “I guess she didn’t have her purse, because she was calling collect, and she was trying to get through to the Department of Justice, which is never very easy.” … “She wanted to know ‘What can I tell the pilot? What can I do? How can I stop this?’ ”
"What Can I tell the pilot?" Yes indeed! The forged Barbara Olson telephone call claims that the flight deck crew were with her at the back of the aircraft, presumably politely ushered down there by the box cutter-wielding Muslim maniacs, who for some bizarre reason decided not to cut their throats on the flight deck. Have you ever heard anything quite so ridiculous?
But it is at this juncture that we finally have the terminal error. Though the American Airlines Boeing 757 is fitted with individual telephones at each seat position, they are not of the variety where you can simply pick up the handset and ask for an operator. On many aircraft you can talk from one seat to another in the aircraft free of charge, but if you wish to access the outside world you must first swipe your credit card through the telephone. By Ted Olson’s own admission, Barbara did not have a credit card with her.
It gets worse. On American Airlines there is a telephone "setup" charge of US$2.50 which can only be paid by credit card, then a US$2.50 (sometimes US$5.00) charge per minute of speech thereafter. The setup charge is the crucial element. Without paying it in advance by swiping your credit card you cannot access the external telephone network. Under these circumstances the passengers’ seat phone on a Boeing 757 is a much use as a plastic toy.
Perhaps Ted Olson made a mistake and Barbara managed to borrow a credit card from a fellow passenger? Not a chance. If Barbara had done so, once swiped through the phone, the credit card would have enabled her to call whoever she wanted to for as long as she liked, negating any requirement to call collect.
Sadly perhaps, the Olson telephone call claim is proved untrue. Any American official wishing to challenge this has only to subpoena the telephone company and Justice Department records. There will be no charge originating from American Airlines 77 to the US Solicitor General.
Even without this hard proof, the chances of meaningfully using a seat-telephone on Flight 77 were nil. We know from the intermittent glimpses of the aircraft the air traffic controllers had on the radar scopes, that Flight 77 was travelling at extreme speed at very low level, pulling high “G’ turns in the process.
Under these circumstances it would be difficult even reaching a phone, much less using it. Finally, the phones on the Boeing 757 rely on either ground cell phone towers or satellite bounce in order to maintain a stable connection. At very low altitude and extreme speed, the violent changes in aircraft attitude would render the normal telephone links completely unusable.
Exactly the same applies with United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed before reaching any targets. The aircraft was all over the place at extreme speed on radar, but as with Flight 77 we are asked to believe that the “hijackers” allowed a passenger called Todd Beamer to place a thirteen minute telephone call. Very considerate of them. The Pittsburg Channel put it this way in a story first posted at 1.38 pm EDT on September 16, 2001:
“Todd Beamer placed a call on one of the Boeing 757's on-board telephones and spoke for 13 minutes with GTE operator Lisa D. Jefferson, Beamer's wife said. He provided detailed information about the hijacking and -- after the operator told him about the morning's World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks - said he and others on the plane were planning to act against the terrorists aboard.” Note here that Mrs Lisa Beamer did not receive a telephone call from Todd personally, but was later “told” by an operator that her husband had allegedly called. Just another unfortunate media con job for the trash can.
As previously stated it is the Barbara Olson story that really counts, a view reinforced by the recent antics of the London print media. The photo at the top of this page is a copy of that printed in the West Australian newspaper. You only have to study it closely for a second to realize its full subliminal potential.
Here is a studious and obviously very honest man. The US Solicitor General sits in front of a wall lined with leather-bound volumes of Supreme Court Arguments, with a photo of his dead wife displayed prominently in front of him. Does anyone out there seriously believe that this man, a bastion of US law, would tell even a minor lie on a matter as grave as national security?
Theodore Olson’s own words indicate that he would be prepared to do rather more than that On March 21, 2002 on its page A35, the Washington Post newspaper printed an article titled “The Limits of Lying” by Jim Hoagland, who writes that a statement by Solicitor General Theodore Olson in the Supreme Court has the ring of perverse honesty.
Addressing the Supreme Court of the United States of America, US Solicitor General Theodore Olson said it is "easy to imagine an infinite number of situations . . . where government officials might quite legitimately have reasons to give false information out."
http://www.vialls.com/lies911/lies.htm
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Global Development & Environmental Resources (GDVE.pk) ….YOU HAVE TO READ TO BELIEVE
This month is the 4 year anniversary of Stocklemon. Nothing is more fitting than an “old school” stock promotion. With a combination of: convicted felons, mail order degrees, unscrupulous newsletter writers, sheer absence of financial disclosure, and misleading press releases, Global Development is the ideal anniversary lemon.
The CEO of Global Development is “Dr” Phil Pritchard. It appears to Stocklemon as if Dr. Pritchard just took public his own personal environmental consulting business.
http://www.philippritchard.com/
http://www.gderinc.com/
So therefore, the integrity and financial credibility of Global Development rests on the shoulders of Dr. Pritchard. So lets see what we know about him.
Phil Pritchard “earned” his Doctorate in Philosophy in Environmental Management from Southern Trinity University, as we see from the digital image of his diploma on his website.
Southern Trinity University is a diploma mill that got sued by the Pennsylvania Attorney General for giving an MBA to a cat. Yes, this is true.
http://www.philippritchard.com/domestic_gal.htm
(8th image down, on the left, is “Dr.” Pritchard’s PhD.)
http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/103-12062004-412330.html
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/pa_trinity_southern.html
http://news.com.com/Men+sued+for+spam+pushing+fake+diplomas/2100-1030_3-5479646.html
OK, so Mr. Pritchard is not a scholar. But maybe he just has a HUGE environmental cleanup business. After all, in earlier press release he did state that he has an $80 million work backlog. Clearly, that wasn’t business won in the last month since the reverse-split and reverse merger shell game just 5 weeks ago.
Maybe all of this business belonged to Mr. Pritchard before he took his company
public. He must be one wealthy man … NOT.
According to the courts of the State of Illinois Bankruptcy Courts, as of last year Mr. Pritchard had 0 Assets … nada … nothing … broke.
http://www.stocklemon.com/files/818200562305AMpritchard.pdf
IT GETS WORSE
Look who is the CFO/Business Advisor…A TWO TIME FELON.
In the press release dated August 19, 2005, we learn that the CFO of GDVE is a man named Anthony Anish. http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/050819/093461.html
Talk about the wolf guarding the sheep. Mr. Amish is the principal of AM Capital in Costa Mesa, California…not much experience in being a CFO. But look what he does have experience in:
Mr. Anish is currently on probation and just got off his ankle bracelet for embezzlement.
http://www.nbpd.org/press_release/press_release_2003/man_arrested_ayso.asp
http://soccer.loop48.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=753
IT GETS WORSE
That is not the first time Anthony Anish has plead guilty to a felony. In 1998, Mr. Anish plead guilty to mail fraud in his part in a "bust-out" scam. The below 2 links detail the nature of the crime.
http://www.stocklemon.com/files/822200560608PManish3.rtf
http://www.stocklemon.com/files/822200590421AManish2.rtf
Here is Mr. Anish's record with the Bureau of Prisons
http://www.bop.gov/iloc2/InmateFinderServlet?Transaction=NameSearch&needingMoreList=false&La...
A CAUTION TO INVESTORS
We have read the report put out by Agora Publications authored by Carl Waynberg. http://www.pennysleuth.com/issues/08.18.05.html
This reporting is irresponsible and dangerous – it is exactly this type of reporting that has gotten Agora Publications in trouble with the SEC in the past.
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/comp18090.htm
Global Development has NEVER filed even a disclosure statement with the SEC. Therefore, the company is not on record for any statements of fact for which it can be held accountable, or upon which anyone can reliably publish opinions. For anyone to say this is the “next great stock” without ever seeing the financials of the company is dangerous. Either Mr. Waynberg is lying or has inside information … either one is bad.
IT GETS WORSE
Stocklemon believes that newsletter writer Carl Waynberg is in cahoots with 2 time felon Anthony Anish and the investor relations firm of First Capital Investors Inc. Just when Carl Waynberg makes you think he is independent, we see that he has worked with Anish and First Capital as he recommended another stock of theirs …Gateway International, on the Pink Sheets.
Anish is the “business Advisor”
http://www.marketwire.com/mw/release_html_b1?release_id=87142
First Capital is the IR Firm
http://www.gwyi.com/contactus.php
And Good Ole’ Carl Waynberg is the “analyst”
http://www.gwyi.com/analysts.php
Global makes its headquarters in a small executive suite in Las Vegas, NV. But that’s all it takes to send out PR’s. Global Development has put out these past 3 PR’s discussing contracts and revenue opportunities:
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/050811/092872.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/050808/092493.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/050802/092176.html
Stocklemon has not been able to independently confirm even one of these to be true. More importantly, Stocklemon spoke to Robert Sullivan – Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Capital Markets from Land America and he is not aware of any contract with Global Environmental and never authorized the release above.
Conclusion
It is the opinion of Stocklemon that the trading days of Global Development & Environmental are numbered. As for management integrity – calling themselves a PhD with a mail order diploma, and the multiple frauds of the CFO/business advisor – speaks volumes. In future installments, Stocklemon will uncover the promoters behind Global Development and reveal how this stock promotion is being orchestrated.
Cautious investing to all.
Disclaimer:
Stocklemon.com does not guarantee in any way that it is providing all of the information that may be available. We recommend that you do your own due diligence before buying or selling any security. At any times the principals of Stocklemon.com might hold a position in any of the securities profiled on the site. Stocklemon.com will not report when a position is initiated or covered. Each investor must make that decision based on his/her judgment of the market.
http://www.stocklemon.com/report_view.asp?ReportID=42
Stocklemon Reports on Eden Energy (EDNE)
Stocklemon Reports on Eden Energy (OTC:EDNE)
CAN YOU SMELL A MINI-ENRON HERE ??????
Outstanding Shares- 34,943,886
Market Cap- $200 million +
Revenues- 0
Mailboxes around the country have been stuffed with glossy mailers promoting Eden Energy Corp. (OTCBB:EDNE) These cheery promo pieces paint a rosy picture of huge oil and gas finds … but they will never disclose the self-dealings of its insiders, their track record with a similarly-promoted company they hyped less than two years ago, and the deceptions of which stock promotions are made.
The breathless prose describing the next great oil find in the US reminds us of a stock 2 years ago that portended the next great Natural Gas find in the US : that stock was Heartland Oil and Gas -- Wait, wait, don’t tell me -- these two companies share the same office !
Eden Energy and Heartland Oil and Gas
Eden Energy shares offices with another Vancouver stock promotion called Heartland Oil and Gas (HOGC) at 200 Burrard Street, Suite 1925 Vancouver, B.C. But these companies have a lot more in common than their address. HOGC had a similar trading pattern to Eden Energy back in late 2003. Much like Eden Energy, Heartland put out a slew of announcements that discussed the potential of great finds of natural gas in America’s heartland, and follow-on PR boasted of huge financial backing. A sampling of the releases can be found here:
http://www.heartlandoilandgas.com/news.html
Heartland stock currently trades at 45 cents on the OTC – down over 90% from where it was when its glossy mailers were bulk-mailed out -- and its revenues for last quarter were 0.
Meet “The Smartest Guys in the Room” -- The Sequel
The President and CEO of Heartland is Richard Coglon:
http://www.heartlandoilandgas.com/manage.html
Mr. Coglon has a “colorful” past -- he has been reprimanded for conflict of interest breaches in shady offshore dealings with public companies:
http://www.lawsociety.bc.ca/media/news/body_news_01-10-09(coglan).html
Mr. Coglon is also on the board of dormant OTCBB stock BNVLF:
http://www.otcbb.com/profiles/BNVLF.htm
The CEO of Eden Energy is Donald Sharpe. Mr. Sharpe was also the president of Nation Energy (OTCBB:NEGY), currently trading at .20 cents. (It was once $2.00.) He is also a director of Heartland.
But these two men are connected in more than just offices and penny stock oil companies as you will read below.
Eden Energy is supposed to be a company that is drilling for oil in the “fertile” oil fields on Nevada. They own the rights to drill on over 200,000 acres. How did they get these rights? They bought a company called Frontier Exploration that was owned by Fort Scott Energy. As stated in the last 10Q:
“The Company entered into an Assignment Agreement with Fort Scott Energy Corp. (“Fort Scott”) dated August 5, 2004 in which the Company acquired Fort Scott’s interest in a Participation Agreement dated April 26, 2004 with Cedar Strat Corporation (“Cedar Strat”). The Participation Agreement provides for the acquisition of certain oil and gas leases and rights located in eastern Nevada, USA, held by Frontier Exploration Ltd. ("Frontier”), which at the time was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fort Scott.”
Here is a copy of the news release
http://www.edenenergycorp.com/news083104.htm
How much did the company pay for this assignment agreement?
The Company issued a Promissory Note and Convertible Debenture (“Debenture”) to Fort Scott in the principal amount of $500,000. The Debenture bears interest at a rate of 7% per annum, matures on August 31, 2006, and will entitle Fort Scott to convert the principal and accrued interest into units at $0.25 per unit. Each unit will consist of one share of common stock and one-half of one warrant. Each whole warrant will be exercisable into one additional common share at $0.50 per share on or before the later of August 31.
The company also issued 500,000 shares of EDNE stock to Fort Scott.
Wow, seems like quite a deal … In fact, at today’s prices it amounts to over $25 million worth of EDNE stock, which can be sold into the market at any time whether any oil is ever found on the property or not! We wonder who they gave such a good deal to??????? Answer:
THEMSELVES !
A simple search on Nevada Corporate Records show the sole officer of Fort Scott as none other than Richard Coglon, the CEO of Heartland Oil and Gas.
https://esos.state.nv.us/SOSServices/AnonymousAccess/CorpSearch/CorpDetails.aspx?CorpID=503912
The same search show the sole officer of Frontier Exploration as Donald Sharpe, the CEO of Eden Energy:
https://esos.state.nv.us/SOSServices/AnonymousAccess/CorpSearch/CorpDetails.aspx?CorpID=517445
So, it looks to Stocklemon as if the company bought the drilling rights from themselves in a sweetheart deal, issued a convertible debenture to themselves and NEVER DISCLOSED THAT INFORMATION TO SHAREHOLDERS. To convert that paper (EDNE shares) to greenbacks.
To add insult to injury, if they do happen to find any oil, it says on the Eden Website:
“For each 10 million barrels of proved reserves found, the company is obligated to issue 1 million shares to Fort Scott Energy, to a maximum of 10 million shares”
http://www.edenenergycorp.com/investor.html
…All this without disclosing that true beneficial sellers of the drilling rights are a the CEO of the company and a related party.
This is Fraud. This is an SEC Enforcement issue that must be addressed. Failure to disclose self-dealing violates every principle of corporate governance. It also intentionally misleads the public about the true value of this drilling prospect, which is essentially Eden’s only asset, because there is no process by which the fair value of the asset in this transaction was established.
Is there anything to show there might be oil in Nevada?
The company bases much of their credibility on the words of Dr. Alan Chamberlain. Chamberlain believes there is oil in them thar hills and he has become Eden’s “independent” expert – essentially their credibility. But he isn’t independent either. Eden is partners with Chamberlain through his Cedar Strat operation.
ARE WE SUPPOSED TO BE IMPRESSED ??
On June 14, 2005, the Company, through a newly formed Nevada subsidiary Southern Frontier Explorations Ltd., acquired 50,000 acres of ten-year federal BLM oil and gas leases located in the Great Basin of Nevada, at an average cost of $2.25 per acre. A prospect fee of $750,000 was paid to Cedar Strat in connection with the acquisition of the leases.
So lets get this straight, the company paid $125,000 to acquire the lease and then they paid Cedar Strat (Chamberlain) $750,000 in prospecting fees. And Chamberlain is supposed to be an “independent” expert. It does not take a genius to figure this one out.
Chamberlain also has experience with penny stocks. He is associated with pink sheet issue CLWXF that is trading at .09 cents. http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/050823/235304.html?.v=1
The Promotion
Eden Energy is currently the subject of many newsletter writers. The (in)famous Scott Fraser of the “Natural Contrarian” has sent out a glossy piece recommending Eden Energy. For those of you who do no know, here is Scott Fraser’s experience with SEC Enforcement:
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/admin/34-48544.htm
Meanwhile, the rest of the cast of characters running Eden’s stock promotion was best described in the August 20th article by David Baines of the Vancouver Sun, in which he identifies the other nefarious characters involved in this “scheme”:
http://www.stocklemon.com/files/824200531728PMedne.rtf
Conclusion
Stocklemon has covered numerous Vancouver-based natural resource stock promotions over the years. They all seem to have the same destiny. Stocklemon believes the best predictor of EDNE’s future is the performance of its roommate HOGC. Undisclosed self-dealings, newsletter writers, stock promoters, and 4-color “too-good-to-be-true” brochures of oil and gas finds are the bread and butter, rather than the heart, of Vancouver’s Burrard Street. If the pattern holds true, Stocklemon believes EDNE will separate unwary investors from 90% of their investment dollars.
Cautious investing to all.
Disclaimer:
Stocklemon.com does not guarantee in any way that it is providing all of the information that may be available. We recommend that you do your own due diligence before buying or selling any security. At any times the principals of Stocklemon.com might hold a position in any of the securities profiled on the site. Stocklemon.com will not report when a position is initiated or covered. Each investor must make that decision based on his/her judgment of the market.
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http://www.stocklemon.com/report_view.asp?ReportID=43
Energy Finders (EGYF)…..It didn’t take a lot of energy to find this is bogus.
Let us start with this ... When you go to pinksheets.com and type in the symbols EGYF for a stock quote, you were served with a warning from pink sheets:
“Pink Sheets has received complaints regarding faxes and/or emails sent in promotion of this stock that may violate federal law. Pink Sheets does not send out or authorize any kind of soliciting e-mail or faxes to the public.”
So then you try and call the company at (972) 991 9303 … It seems to be a voicemail. The message on the recording does not even state the name of the company, but rather is just a man’s voice.
So then you visit the website … http://www.energyfindersinc.com/
On the website and in the press releases we learn that they are supposed to be an oil exploration company (like who isn’t these days?). They only have 1 corporate doing and that is joint project between themselves and another pink sheet company named International TME Resources (ITME).
http://biz.yahoo.com/pz/050816/84024.html
http://www.energyfindersinc.com/projects.html
Ironically enough, EGYF and ITME also share office space in Texas. Well there goes the company’s one deal…kind of like taking your sister to the prom.
http://www.pinksheets.com/quote/company_profile.jsp?symbol=ITME
http://www.pinksheets.com/quote/company_profile.jsp?symbol=egyf
UPDATE
Energy Finders has filed some documents and this is what we have found out about the company.
1. The company has no current operations
2. The company has no cash position
3. EGYF issued 5 million shares at a penny (1/5 of a penny now) in June of 2005 to an unknown investor.
4. The largest shareholder is a man named Marvin Ngan out of Toronto. Stocklemon spoke to Mr. Ngan and believes that he is a front for someone else
The CEO of Energy Finders is a man named Randolph Hasting(s). We put an S at the end because in some press releases he is referred to as Randolph Hasting and in others as Randolph Hastings. On the corporate website they spell his name both ways.
http://www.energyfindersinc.com/management.html
Stocklemon has not been able to verify anything about MR. Hasting(s). There should be a new rule that if you are going to do a stock promotion, you spell the CEO’s name just one way.
Aside, from Hastings, the only other corporate officer we see is Wilford Lee Stapp. Not much is known about Wilford Stapp except his involvement in a previous OTC oil “deal” PLR Inc. PLR has subsequently filed for bankruptcy and has no current activities or trading price.
http://www.stocklemon.com/files/97200585835PMwilford lee stapp.rtf
The only other name we saw on the website belongs to J Allen White, who is in charge of project acquisitions. Mr. White is also the current president of TME Resources. Mr. White has a colorful past as he was involved with “boiler room” sales of oil and gas securities and named in a suit brought by the Oklahoma Department of Securities.
http://www.stocklemon.com/files/98200553619AMj allen white.rtf
The voice for the company seems to be their investor relations person Wilson Lew. Mr. Lew seems to be an investor relations person/stock promoter. With no regard for truth, or consequences, Mr. Lew tells the story of the “stock promotion”.
What we know about Mr. Lew is laughable. He also was the IR person for another Stocklemon, Internet Studios (ISTO). When we wrote about ISTO it was trading over $2 a share…today it is .06 cents.
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:gGkG9UztnCQJ:investingeye.com/16201
Mr. Lew also promotes EGYF through another website that is registered to him. http://www.investingfn.com/profiles.htm
Yet, in the disclaimer, he states that he has not been compensated by Energy Finders.
http://www.investingfn.com/disclaimer.htm
Stocklemon believes this is a lie and it goes to the character of the only mouthpiece for the company, Mr. Lew.
Update
Among the flury of meaningless press releases, we now see learn of Energy Finder’s new investor relations person Stephen A. Taylor. Mr. Taylor seems to have a dubious record with pink sheet stocks. It is the opinion of Stocklemon that Mr. Taylor is a failed stock promoter that will bring the same level of failure to Energy Finders that he has brought to his other failed endeavors.
CCCI- .07 cents
http://www.rednova.com/news/technology/144188/ccci_provides_audio_interview_on_ceocastcom/
CYAD- .05 cents
http://www.cyberadsinc.com/capr_042905.cfm
TFTG- .05 cents
http://www.stockhideout.com/showthread.php?t=480
TRAE- 18 cents
http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_pwwi/is_200409/ai_n8557852
CSJJ- .0003 cents
http://press.arrivenet.com/bus/article.php/381264.html
Conclusion
Here at Stocklemon we yearn for the good ole days when someone needed more than a desk and a phone to bring a company public. It is nothing more than a pink sheet shell with a slew of junk emails, faxes, and fabrications behind it. It should not take long before the SEC takes the energy out of Energy Finders Inc.
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Whooooooooooooooooooo !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL
hhahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!
OK Butt Less ahahahahahahahahahahaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mrs. Pepper Head might have a word to say about her dough boy???hahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!
NOW NOW PEPPER HEAD,,,, DON'T MAKE ME CALL YOUR WIFE TO FIND THE TRUTH ABOUT YOU ??????
I got some seeds for you Mr. Phil Billy ???????
Soooooo did anyone try the recipes so i can let the dough boy know what was the greatest???????
Yes the dough boy is a personal friend of mine, I test his recipes for him and get big compensation for it????????
Yes I'm personal friends with the dough boy, hahahahahhaa!!!!
OK lets start cooking this is easy stuff!!!!!! hahahahaahahaaa!!!!
This meal is ready in less than 30 minutes!
Tomato Basil Soup in Seeded Bread Bowls
Prep Time: 40 min
Makes: 5 servings Nutrition Information
Enjoy the soup right down to the last bite of the bread bowl!
3 tablespoons sesame seed
1 can (10.8 ounces) Pillsbury® Grands!® refrigerated flaky biscuits
2 cans (19 ounces each) Progresso® tomato basil soup
1. Heat oven to 400°F. Lightly crush five 36x12-inch sheets of aluminum foil into five 4-inch balls. Flatten tops of balls slightly; place flat sides up on ungreased cookie sheet. Or, place five 10-ounce custard cups upside down on cookie sheet; spray outsides of cups with cooking spray.
2. Spread sesame seed in pie pan. Separate dough into 5 biscuits. Press or roll each biscuit into 6-inch round. Place each round in sesame seed in pan; press firmly to coat one side with seed. Place each round, seed on outside, over foil ball on cookie sheet, shaping dough gently to fit around foil and form bowl shape. Dough should not touch cookie sheet.
3. Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown. Place foil balls with bread bowls on wire rack; cool 5 minutes. Remove bread bowls from foil balls; discard foil balls.
4. Meanwhile, heat soup in 3- or 4-quart saucepan. Place bread bowls in shallow soup bowls or pasta plates. Ladle soup into bread bowls. If desired, top with shredded Parmesan or Cheddar cheese.
This meal is ready in less than 30 minutes!
Cheesy Ham and Lasagna Noodles
Prep Time: 20 min
Makes: 5 (1 1/4-cup) servings Nutrition Information
This winning combo gives new meaning to fast food -- plus it's made in just one pan.
6 oz. (3 cups) uncooked mini lasagna noodles (mafalda)
3 cups Green Giant Select® Frozen Broccoli Florets
1 1/2 cups (8 oz.) cooked ham strips
1 (10-oz.) container refrigerated three-cheese sauce or four-cheese Alfredo sauce
1/2 teaspoon dried basil leaves
1. In Dutch oven or large saucepan, cook noodles to desired doneness as directed on package, adding broccoli during last 4 minutes of cooking time. Drain; return to saucepan.
2. Add ham, sauce and basil; toss gently to mix. Cook over medium heat until thoroughly heated, stirring occasionally.
This meal is ready in less than 30 minutes!
Barbecue Chicken Foldover
Prep Time: 45 min
Makes: 8 servings Nutrition Information
Just three ingredients are all it takes to make a warm and zesty sandwich.
1 (1 lb. 1.3-oz.) can Pillsbury® Grands!® Refrigerated Golden Corn Biscuits
1 1/2 cups refrigerated shredded fully cooked chicken in barbecue sauce
4 oz. (1 cup) shredded Cheddar cheese
1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease large cookie sheet. Separate dough into 8 biscuits. Place biscuits on greased cookie sheet. Press biscuits together, overlapping edges and flattening to form 14x9-inch rectangle.
2. Spoon chicken mixture lengthwise on half of dough. Fold dough over filling; seal edges. Cut 4 shallow slits across top of dough to allow steam to escape. Sprinkle evenly with cheese.
3. Bake at 350°F. for 20 to 30 minutes or until golden brown. Cut into slices to serve.
This meal is ready in less than 30 minutes!
Pizza in a Crescent
Prep Time: 30 min
Makes: 4 sandwiches Nutrition Information
Spicy pepperoni and melted mozzarella peek through the top of these easy-to-eat pizza sandwiches.
1 (8-oz.) can Pillsbury® Refrigerated Crescent Dinner Rolls
1 (3 1/2-oz.) pkg. pepperoni slices
4 tablespoons spaghetti or pizza sauce
1 (6-oz.) pkg. mozzarella cheese slices
1. Heat oven to 375°F. Separate dough into 4 rectangles; firmly press perforations to seal. Press or roll into four 7x5-inch rectangles. Arrange 9 pepperoni slices in center third of each rectangle. Spread 1 tablespoon spaghetti sauce over pepperoni.
2. Fold each slice of cheese in half; place over pepperoni. Fold short sides of dough to almost meet in center; securely pinch edges together, leaving middle open. Tuck 4 or 5 pepperoni slices into middle opening. Place on ungreased cookie sheet.
3. Bake at 375°F. for 13 to 16 minutes or until golden brown.