Bush nominates hawk for World Bank

[slum_goddess]

Is Bush and the hawks trying to make the US hated by each and every citizen of this earth? Are they trying to lose their -very few- remaining friends? WTF are they thinking??

they might be thinking of reclaiming amerika for christ (that shit frightens me). on the other hand, yesterday i read an article explaining how they're trying to bankrupt the amerikan masses, to all be indebted to them, the elite (that shit frightens me more).

[KiwiCoromandel]

Greg Palast: Secret U.S. Plans For Iraq's Oil

Friday, 18 March 2005, 10:41 am

Article: Greg Palast

Secret U.S. Plans For Iraq's Oil

By Greg Palast

Reporting for BBC Newsnight

17 March 2005

The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.

Two years ago today - when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad - protestors claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered.

In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists."

"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants.

Insiders told Newsnight that planning began "within weeks" of Bush's first taking office in 2001, long before the September 11th attack on the US.

An Iraqi-born oil industry consultant Falah Aljibury says he took part in the secret meetings in California, Washington and the Middle East. He described a State Department plan for a forced coup d'etat.

Mr Aljibury himself told Newsnight that he interviewed potential successors to Saddam Hussein on behalf of the Bush administration.

Secret sell-off plan

The industry-favored plan was pushed aside by yet another secret plan, drafted just before the invasion in 2003, which called for the sell-off of all of Iraq's oil fields. The new plan, crafted by neo-conservatives intent on using Iraq's oil to destroy the Opec cartel through massive increases in production above Opec quotas.

The sell-off was given the green light in a secret meeting in London headed by Ahmed Chalabi shortly after the US entered Baghdad, according to Robert Ebel. Mr. Ebel, a former Energy and CIA oil analyst, now a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, flew to the London meeting, he told Newsnight, at the request of the State Department.

Mr Aljibury, once Ronald Reagan's "back-channel" to Saddam, claims that plans to sell off Iraq's oil, pushed by the US-installed Governing Council in 2003, helped instigate the insurgency and attacks on US and British occupying forces.

"Insurgents used this, saying, 'Look, you're losing your country, your losing your resources to a bunch of wealthy billionaires who want to take you over and make your life miserable," said Mr Aljibury from his home near San Francisco.

"We saw an increase in the bombing of oil facilities, pipelines, built on the premise that privatization is coming."

Privatization blocked by industry

Philip Carroll, the former CEO of Shell Oil USA who took control of Iraq's oil production for the US Government a month after the invasion, stalled the sell-off scheme.

Mr Carroll told us he made it clear to Paul Bremer, the US occupation chief who arrived in Iraq in May 2003, that: "There was to be no privatization of Iraqi oil resources or facilities while I was involved."

The chosen successor to Mr Carroll, a Conoco Oil executive, ordered up a new plan for a state oil company preferred by the industry.

Ari Cohen, of the neo-conservative Heritage Foundation, told Newsnight that an opportunity had been missed to privatize Iraq's oil fields. He advocated the plan as a means to help the US defeat Opec, and said America should have gone ahead with what he called a "no-brainer" decision.

Mr Carroll hit back, telling Newsnight, "I would agree with that statement. To privatize would be a no-brainer. It would only be thought about by someone with no brain."

New plans, obtained from the State Department by Newsnight and Harper's Magazine under the US Freedom of Information Act, called for creation of a state-owned oil company favored by the US oil industry. It was completed in January 2004, Harper's discovered, under the guidance of Amy Jaffe of the James Baker Institute in Texas. Former US Secretary of State Baker is now an attorney. His law firm, Baker Botts, is representing ExxonMobil and the Saudi Arabian government.

View segments of Iraq oil plans at

http://www.GregPalast.com/opeconthemarch.html

Questioned by Newsnight, Ms Jaffe said the oil industry prefers state control of Iraq's oil over a sell-off because it fears a repeat of Russia's energy privatization. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, US oil companies were barred from bidding for the reserves.

Jaffe said "There is no question that an American oil company ... would not be enthusiastic about a plan that would privatize all the assets with Iraq companies and they (US companies) might be left out of the transaction."

In addition, Ms. Jaffe says US oil companies are not warm to any plan that would undermine Opec, "They [oil companies] have to worry about the price of oil.”

"I'm not sure that if I'm the chair of an American company, and you put me on a lie detector test, I would say high oil prices are bad for me or my company."

The former Shell oil boss agrees. In Houston, he told Newsnight, "Many neo-conservatives are people who have certain ideological beliefs about markets, about democracy, about this that and the other. International oil companies without exception are very pragmatic commercial organizations. They don't have a theology."

[slum_goddess]

the coming economic meltdown (sorry, but we're toast).

'....What seemed like a crazy conspiracy theory just two years ago is now a documented fact; the Bush Administration (with the help of Greenspan) is trying to bankrupt the nation and put the American people under the control of the country's creditors. (Greenspan's friends in the banking industry and foreign countries holding US bonds) So far, they've done a bang-up job by racking up another $3 trillion in debt in just 4 years by looting the US Treasury and jeopardizing the dollar's status as the world's reserve currency. If the world moves en masse away from the dollar (as it may, if Bush goes ahead with his twisted plan for attacking Iran) the US will rapidly devolve into a third world nation....

'...it looks like wily Greenspan is intentionally keeping interest rates low so Bush can keep his (war) date with Iran. (probably just months away) When the Fed-chief finally pulls the rug out from under us and raises rates to save the dollar, housing will grind to a halt and America will stumble into recession, or worse.

This is no joke. Smart people should be bailing-out right now, and looking for Euro bond funds, energy funds or gold. We're in deep trouble and we shouldn't expect the Wall Street wise guys who picked us clean during the stock market crash to be straight with us now....'

fuck, do i hope this dude is wrong. :(

edit: kiwibank, i hope you know that greg palast had to come to the UK in order to write what he does.

[DudeAsInCool]

The conspiracy theory sounds crazy - but its just a theory. What the Bush administration IS doing to us is no theory... They literally are robbing from the poor and giving to the rich and the corporations...

[KiwiCoromandel]

So...to recap:

Neocon warlord Paul Wolfowitz will head the World Bank;

The White House illegally puts out fake news reports, and the Justice Department does nothing;

Another $81 billion of your money and mine is to be poured onto the Iraqi sand;

The GOP majority in Congress is preparing to trash 200 years of Senate tradition in order to post a number of certifiably insane people to the bench;

Kevin Martin, a conservative Christian activist for the GOP, will now chair the FCC;

The Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve, one of the most ecologically pristine areas remaining to us, will be paved and drilled for its tiny amount of petroleum.

And that was just yesterday......

This is what happens when the ‘opposition party’ sells its people down the river.

Let us be clear: The Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve is about to be ravaged for one reason. Three Democratic Senators jumped the fence and voted with the drill bits, undoing a twenty-year-long fight to preserve the land. Senators Landrieu, Akaka and Inouye were the reason this went 51-49 the wrong way.

Advocates for drilling in ANWR have said the issue is nobody’s business but the Alaskan people’s, so there is some irony in the fact that one Senator from Louisiana and two from Hawaii – the three of whom are a combined 20,000 miles away from Alaska - made the difference here. Mary Landrieu’s constituents include a bustling petrochemical industry out there in the Gulf, and I guess Akaka and Inouye somehow think drilling in Alaska will make Hawaii’s expensive gas a little cheaper. Seems worth it, don’t you think?

This isn’t the first time Ms. Landrieu has gone sideways on an important vote. She voted in favor of cloture on the ruinous bankruptcy bill, and then voted for the bill itself. In a statement about her ANWR vote, Landrieu said, "My colleagues and I have been encouraged in recent days that a revenue-sharing measure is forthcoming that will benefit our coastal oil- and gas-producing states. Hopefully, we'll be able to get this done this year, just as we have helped Alaska today."

Edited March 18, 2005 by kiwibank

[Kooperman]

This isn’t the first time Ms. Landrieu has gone sideways on an important vote. She voted in favor of cloture on the ruinous bankruptcy bill, and then voted for the bill itself.

She's not as sharp as Joe Lieberman, who voted for cloture of the bankruptcy bill too....he voted against it when it came up for the floor vote. He knew it would safely pass and he could then claim he voted against it.

[KiwiCoromandel]

edit: kiwibank, i hope you know that greg palast had to come to the UK in order to write what he does.

i certainly do sg..i follow him very closely on one of my favourite news sites down here........ :)

while you`re there sg...heres a little pic for you..a new addition to my collection..... :bigsmile:

[Redneck4sure]

And that was just yesterday......

Maybe we can be even more successful next week.

Eliminate Welfare

Eliminate Food Stamps

Reduce the EPA budget to $200 a yr.

Lower CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) standards 50%

[slum_goddess]

kiwibank, i guess i was lucky--i had to drive for ten miles. of course, gas was cheap then (but i would've crawled if i had to).

edit: wait a minute...is that another cool stashbox?

[slum_goddess]

The conspiracy theory sounds crazy - but its just a theory. What the Bush administration IS doing to us is no theory... They literally are robbing from the poor and giving to the rich and the corporations...

and this is different from that particular conspiracy theory, how?

[KiwiCoromandel]

kiwibank, i guess i was lucky--i had to drive for ten miles. of course, gas was cheap then (but i would've crawled if i had to).

edit: wait a minute...is that another cool stashbox?

yep... :bigsmile:

[DudeAsInCool]

Thursday, March 17, 2005

The Height of Ridiculousness

Posted Wednesday, March 16, 2005 @ 10:41 PT

Bush appoints Wolfowitz to head the World Bank.

Bush told a news conference that Wolfowitz, now Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s top deputy, was “a compassionate, decent man who will do a fine job at the World Bank. That’s why I put him up.”

If compassion was the only qualification, they should have tapped Bono.Wolfowitz will not do a good job. He has no background in international development. His only background is in screwing things up royally. (Cost of the Iraq War to date - $157 billion and counting)

The rest of the world should veto Wolfowitz's appointment. The United States only gets to appoint the World Bank president by tradition, and there is precedent in the fact that the U.S. held up a former IMF head (whom Europe usually gets to appoint).

Update: the Washington Post has a primer on how the World bank president is chosen. Wolfensohn, the current World Bank president, was quoted describing Wolfowitz "someone of high intellect, broad experience in and out of government and he has many of the qualifications needed to lead the bank." "Many" of the qualifications.

Shouldn't the World Bank president have all thequalifications for the position?

http://www.ryanwalters.net/

[slum_goddess]

Bush told a news conference that Wolfowitz, now Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s top deputy, was “a compassionate, decent man who will do a fine job at the World Bank

meaning in bush-world, he's a mean motherfucker who will totally fuck things up more. to me, this is yet another 'fuck you' to the world, from our preznit.

[DudeAsInCool]

Slum, do you have any links to the old story that suggested George Sr was involved in drug trafficking?

[slum_goddess]

do you mean like 'CHRONOLOGY OF GEORGE BUSH'S COCAINE CONTACTS: 3/85 STEVEN CARR LEFT 9 letters to release if he was murdered. "THEY WOULD TOPPLE THE GOVERNMENT AND IMPLICATE NSC, REAGAN ADMINISTRATION...' from here?

if you have any pertinent phrases to google w/, i'll look again. (found the above on this page)

[KiwiCoromandel]

you don`t mean this one do you dude?.... :bigsmile:

" Allegations that George Bush was aware of illicit drug trafficking began during the Vietnam war. Bush was director of the CIA when agency operatives were involved in trafficking heroin in Southeast Asia. Bush was the agency’s chief when the CIA funneled cash to drug traffickers such as Noriega in Panama, and he was vice-president when CIA operants returned from Central America with plane loads of cocaine and marijuana. Nazi Klaus Barbie’s “cocaine coup” in Bolivia was financed in part by drug money After the coup a large flux of Moonies, followers of Rev. Moon’s Unification Church, settled in Bolivia. Moon had invested $4 million in the coup, and the cult leader funded Bush’s campaign for the presidency eight years later. "

http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/jphuck/Book4Ch.1.html

[KiwiCoromandel]

or this one......oh no wait.....that`s " trading with the the enemy ", " concentration camps " and let`s see..where was i?..oh yes..my personal favourite " hitlers angel "......oh dear sorry dude...my mistake.....wrong fucking PILE!! :bigsmile:

In 1934, the Polish government was attempting to take over Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation and Upper Silesian Coal and Steel Company from “German and American interests” because of “mismanagement, excessive borrowing, fictitious bookkeeping and gambling in securities.” (Toby Rogers, Clamor Magazine)

Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation was located in one of Poland’s richest mineral regions. It was located near the Auschwitz concentration camp so its prisoners -- Jews, communists, gypsies, and other minorities -- could be used for labor. The company’s coal deposits were processed into either coal or additives for aviation gasoline. (Toby Rogers, Clamor Magazine)

The Polish government required the owners of the company, which accounted for over 45 percent of Poland’s steel production, to pay at least its full share of back taxes. A portion of the slave labor force in Poland was “managed by Prescott Bush,” according to a Dutch intelligence agent. Bush and Harriman hired attorney John Foster Dulles to help cover up any improprieties that might arise under investigative scrutiny. (Toby Rogers, Clamor Magazine)

Six days after Pearl Harbor, the Trading With the Enemy Act banned any business interests with United States enemies of war. Bush continued with business as usual, aiding the Nazi invasion of Europe and supplying resources for weaponry that would eventually be turned on American solders in combat against Germany. (Toby Rogers, Clamor Magazine)

In the summer of 1942, the New York Tribune exposed Bush, calling him “Hitler’s Angel.” In 1943, while still owning his stock, Bush resigned from Union Banking Corporation. Bush hired Allen Dulles, who later headed the CIA, to hide the millions that they were generating from investments in Nazi Germany. When the government seized their Union Banking Company under the Trading with the Enemy Act in 1942, the Bushes terminated their financial transactions with Nazi companies. (Toby Rogers, Clamor Magazine)

[DudeAsInCool]

You learn something new every day.

Zapata was a key supplier of oil to Cuba’s right-wing Batista regime. After the Castro revolution in 1959, Bush began coordinating an effort to invade Cuba. Members of his team included Frank Sturgis, E. Howard Hunt, Bernard Barker, and Rafael “Chi Chi” Quintero, all of whom were involved in the Watergate break-in a decade later. 

A lot of those guys were mentioned as possible connections to the Kennedy Assassination--note the Cuban connection. Hmmm... I never heard Bush Sr's name connected to that before.. Thanx for the info on the drug thing--given the Iran Contra scenario, it would be easy to connect the dots...if one was conspiratorial minded

[slum_goddess]

Zel Miller... ranted and raved, then challenged a TV commentator to a duel live on the air.

i loved when he began foaming at the mouth (literally) and his spittle was flying out

[slum_goddess]

wait a minute...is that another cool stashbox?

yep... :bigsmile:

i hate you. ;)

[DudeAsInCool]

Ive studied the JFK assassination for years and never came across the Bush name--but Im familar with everything else in the article. Im going to have to ask Jim Marrs about it now

http://www.sumeria.net/politics/kennedy.html

Have you read the Phillips book? Does he suggest anything similar?

[KiwiCoromandel]

yep... :bigsmile:

i hate you. ;)

sigh.....i know...i have that effect on people..... :wha': :bigsmile:

[slum_goddess]

Have you read the Phillips book?  Does he suggest anything similar?

kevin phillips you mean? if so, i never read it. but about JFK...where to begin? Chris is fed up w/hearing me go off every time we see something reminding me about the defining chapter in amerika's history, the defining incident that made me what i am today. then again, he agrees that if he were alive when JFK was killed, he would've been very affected as well (but not obsessed like i am). i try not to think about, really, unless i'm somehow reminded.

Dude, have you seen bush family machinations 1918-2000? or events in the life of vannevar bush? or bush family connections to the nazis? fucking great bedtime reading if one's the kind of person who doesn't believe the official story.

sigh.....i know...i have that effect on people..... :wha':  :bigsmile:

amazingly enough, so do i. :)

fuck 'em all...let's get high.

[DudeAsInCool]

I've perusing the web re: the Bush connections the JFK assassination & there are some amazing coincidences? A GWBush called the FBI to report a possible threat on JFK's life on the day of... He apparently was involved in the CIA much earlier than reported--Hoover said as such and reported a conversation he had probing some Cuban operatives-- who just so happened to have worked with the some of the same people involved in Iran-Contra and Watergate...some of which have been mentioned in connection with the JFK Assassination! Sr also was very close with de Morenschildt, a close friend of Oswalds. All news and interesting to me as a student of the assassination.

Here's another interesting tidbit. Lots of people have coincidentally died with connections to Bush

http://www.lizmichael.com/bushykno.htm

i dont buy his involvement in their deaths, but... I do find it interesting that Teresa's husband, Sen Heinz (who I met), who died ina plance crash, was head of the committee that was investigating Iran-Contra at the time, which George Sr seemed to be absolved of without much investigation! Strange, huh?

[slum_goddess]

A GWBush called the FBI to report a possible threat on JFK's life on the day of...  He apparently was involved in the CIA much earlier than reported

i blame that shit on the father, vannevar, the corrupt nazi-loving fuckwit.

ps, and i don't belive in coincidence especially when such a powerfully entrenched family's involved. but then again, i don't have a beautiful mind and don't want one.