Excerpts from different articles about Bush and His shady business connections.
Plus an article about Bush's very recent religious fervor;
On September 24, 2001 George W. Bush announced a crackdown on the financial networks of terrorists and those who support them.
"US banks that have assets of these groups or individuals must freeze their accounts," Bush declared. "And U.S. citizens or businesses are prohibited from doing business with them."
But he hasn't always practiced what he is now preaching:
Bush himself has had financial ties to Bin Laden.
In 1979, Bush's first business, Arbusto Energy, obtained financing from James Bath, a Houstonian and close family friend. Bath gave Bush $60,000 for a 5 percent stake in Arbusto. Bath was the sole U.S. business representative for Salem bin Laden, brother to Osama bin Laden. The Arbusto money came directly from Salem bin Laden. In a statement issued shortly after the September 11 attacks, the White House vehemently denied the connection, insisting that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Laden's, in Arbusto.
However Bath did not have any such amount at the time. Or if he did, he lied about it to both the IRS and to his many creditors.
In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Bin Laden.
Bath has extensive ties, both to the Bin Laden family and major players in the scandal-ridden Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) later accused to have funded Osama bin Laden.
BCCI also defrauded depositors of $10 billion in what has been called "the largest bank fraud in world financial history" by former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During the '80s, BCCI also acted as a main conduit for laundering money intended for clandestine CIA activities, ranging from financial support to the Afghan Mujahideen (Osama included) to paying intermediaries in the Iran-Contra affair (Raegan, Bush, North etc).
When Salem bin Laden died while visiting Bush's oilfields in Texas in 1988, powerful Saudi Arabian banker and BCCI principal Khalid bin Mahfouz inherited his interests in Houston.
Bath ran a business for Bin Mahfouz in Houston and joined a partnership with Bin Mahfouz and Gaith Pharaon, BCCI's front man in Houston's Main Bank.
The Arbusto deal wasn't the last time Bush looked to highly questionable sources to finance his oil dealings. After several incarnations, Arbusto emerged in 1986 as Harken Energy Corporation. When Harken ran into trouble a year later, Saudi Sheik Abdullah Taha Bakhsh purchased a 17.6 percent stake in the company. Bakhsh was a business partner with Pharaon in Saudi Arabia; his banker there just happened to be Bin Mahfouz.
Though Bush told the Wall Street Journal he had "no idea" BCCI was involved in Harken's financial dealings, the network of connections between Bush and BCCI is so extensive that the Journal concluded their investigation of the matter in 1991 by stating: "The number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken - all since George W. Bush came on board - raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son." Or even the President."
Bath finally came under investigation by the FBI in 1992 for his Saudi business relationships, accused of funneling Saudi money through Houston in order to influence the foreign policy under the Reagan and Bush administrations.
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EB
The pro-Israeli lobby AIPAC (funded largely from Israel) does this all the time and nobody says a word. But it's forbidden for a pro-Arab lobby to do it.
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Bin Mahfouz allegedly has been financing the Bin Laden network making Bush a "U.S. citizen who has done business with those who finance and support terrorists".
When Bush announced he is hot on the trail of the money used to finance terrorism, he must have realized that trail ultimately leads not only to Saudi Arabia, but to himself and some of the same financiers who originally helped propel him into the oil business and later the White House.
Plus there are other ties between Bush and Bin Laden
The Bin Laden family has a major stake in the scandal ridden Carlyle Group, a well-connected Washington merchant bank specializing in buyouts of defense and aerospace companies," The Wall Street Journal says "through this investment and its ties to Saudi royalty, the Bin Laden family has become acquainted with some of the biggest names in the Republican Party."
In recent years, George Bush (Sr), ex-Secretary of State James Baker and ex-Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci have all made the pilgrimage to the Bin Laden family's headquarters in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia). "Ex-President Bush makes speeches on behalf of Carlyle Group and is senior adviser to its Asian Partners Fund, while Baker is its senior counselor and Carlucci is the group's chairman," the journal said." (Hindustani Times, 9/28/01)
With former US Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci as its chairman, it's no surprise that The Carlyle Group is drawn to defense. Defense and aerospace firms such as United Defense Industries make up a significant share of the world's largest private equity firm's portfolio.
Since Carlucci joined in 1989, a host of staffers from the Reagan and first Bush administrations have stinted at the company, including ex-Secretary of State James Baker and ex-budget chief Richard Darman. Former President Bush and former UK Prime Minister John Major have also made appearances.
Traveling with the fanfare of dignitaries, Mr. Bush and Mr. Baker [use] their extensive government contacts to further their business interests as representatives of the Carlyle Group, a $12 billion private equity firm based in Washington that has parlayed a roster of former top-level government officials, largely from the Bush and Reagan administrations, into a moneymaking machine. In a new spin on Washington's revolving door between business and government, where lobbying by former officials is restricted but soliciting investments is not, Carlyle has upped the ante and taken the practice global.
Carlyle has gone from an unknown in the world of private equity to one of its biggest players. Private equity, which involves buying up companies in private deals and reselling them, is a high-end business open only to the very rich.
Over the last decade, (since the 1st Bush administration) the Carlyle empire has grown to span three continents and include investments in most corners of the world. It owns so many companies that it is now in effect one of the nation's biggest defense contractors and a force in global telecommunications. Its blue-chip investors include major banks and insurance companies, billion-dollar pension funds and wealthy investors from Abu Dhabi to Singapore.
In getting business for Carlyle, Mr. Bush has been impressive. His meeting with the crown prince was followed by a yacht cruise and private dinners with Saudi businessmen. And Mr. Bush led Carlyle's successful entry into South Korea, the fastest-growing economy in Asia. After his meetings with the Prime Minister and other government and business leaders, Carlyle won a tough competition for control of KorAm, one of Korea's few healthy banks.
The steady flow of politicians to lucrative private-sector jobs based on their government contacts is a familiar Washington tale. But in this case, it is being played out for more dollars, on a global stage, and in the world of private finance, where the minimal government rules prohibiting lobbying by former officials for a given period are not a factor.
Frank Carlucci met in February with his old college classmate Donald H. Rumsfeld, currently Secretary of Defense, and Vice President Dick Cheney, himself a defense secretary under former President Bush, to talk about military matters - at a time when Carlyle has several billion-dollar defense projects under consideration.... "Carlyle is as deeply wired into the current administration as they can possibly be," said Charles Lewis, Executive Director of the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit public interest group based in Washington.
"George Bush (Sr) is getting money from private interests that have business before the government, while his son is President. And, in a really peculiar way, George W. Bush could, some day, benefit financially from his own administration's decisions, through his father's investments. The average American doesn't know that and, to me, that's a jaw-dropper."
It is difficult to determine exactly how much money the senior Mr. Bush and Mr. Baker have made. Mr. Baker is a Carlyle partner, and Mr. Bush has the title Senior Adviser to its Asian activities. With a current market value of about $3.5 billion on Carlyle's equity and with the firm owned by 18 partners and one outside investor, Mr. Baker's Carlyle stake would be worth about $180 million if each partner held an equal stake. It is not known whether he has more or less than the other partners.
Unlike Mr. Baker, Mr. Bush has no ownership stake in Carlyle; he is an adviser and an investor and is compensated by obtaining stakes in Carlyle investments. Carlyle executives cited, for example, Mr. Bush's being allowed to put money he earns giving speeches for Carlyle into its investment funds. Mr. Bush generally receives $80,000 to $100,000 for a speech. He sits on no corporate boards other than Carlyle's. Carlyle also gave the Bush family a hand in 1990 by putting George W. Bush, who was then struggling to find a career, on the board of a Carlyle subsidiary, Caterair, an airline-catering company.
Why Did President Bush Withdraw From Treaty Talks On Cleaning Up Money Laundering?
"Just a few weeks ago, the Bush administration announced its withdrawal from international treaty talks on cleaning up the money-laundering swamp.
Why on earth did they oppose this strike against terrorism and organized crime?
Let's ask Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist of the World Bank -- no "left-wing fifth columnist" he:
"The answer is, it's in the interests of some of the monied interests to allow this to occur," he said. "It's not an accident; it could have been shut down at any time."
BUSH, "OUR FRIEND AND BROTHER IN CHRIST,"
SAYS BOMBING BAGHDAD WOULD BE "IN THE HIGHEST MORAL TRADITIONS OF OUR COUNTRY"
"With war in Iraq looming, and much of the world opposed to his position, the president in recent weeks has adopted a strongly devotional tone.
In a series of speeches Bush has far more openly embraced Christian theology. Today's speech brought the most thorough linkage yet between Bush's worldly policies and Christian faith -- including a pronouncement that an American attack on Iraq would be "in the highest moral traditions of our country. "
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EB
After hardly ever mentioning Christ at all since his election, now, when Bush needs support for his war mania, suddenly he gets religious.
Are you buying it???
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President Bush arrived in Nashville on Monday to preach faith-based compassion for the downtrodden - and to rally his audience to the cause for war.
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EB
Do you notice the schizoid irrationality of the last sentence. And yet it was not meant to be ironic. They're serious.
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STEPHANIE BRUCE/The Tennessean - President George W. Bush addresses the audience at the National Religious Broadcasters convention on Monday morning at the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center in Nashville.
Speaking to the National Religious Broadcasters convention, the president warned that Saddam Hussein is positioning his armed forces among the Iraqi civilian population in an effort to draw American firepower on non-combatants, should the looming conflict in the Middle East come.
"Saddam Hussein regards the Iraqi people as human shields, entirely expendable when their suffering serves his purposes," the president said. "America views the Iraqi people as human beings who have suffered long enough under this tyrant."
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EB
Read between the lines
In other words, despite all of Bush's blah blah blah about sympathy for the Iraqi people, the coming massacre is going to kill lots and lots of those beloved Iraqi civilians.
We are told that its all Sadam's fault because he "positioned his troops among the civilians".
But, for those who don't know it, troops scattered among civilians are not in a position to make war. They are no threat to anyone.
But now they serve as an excuse for killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. And even the troops are innocent. What have they done??
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W
"If war comes, it won't be because America chose it". "I take my responsibilities incredibly seriously about the commitment of troops,"
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EB
Poor Dubya, He wants peace soooooo bad, but that mean old Saddam just insists on forcing this massacre on him.
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W
"Saddam has defied the United Nations for 12 years, Bush said. In that time, the world has attempted economic sanctions and limited military strikes, Bush said, yet the Iraqi leader has yet to disarm. He charged that Saddam continues to defy U.N. weapons inspectors.
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EB
What about Israel which has defied the UN on many resolutions for the last 55 years. Bush doesn't say a word about that.
Colin Powell presented aerial photos of alleged sites containing those famous "weapons of mass destruction" to the UN security council. Sadam Hussein immediately opened those very sites to reporters, inviting them to explore them freely at their own will. They found nothing at all.
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W
"It's his choice to make as to how he will be disarmed. He can either do so - which it doesn't look like he's going to - (or) for the sake of peace, we will lead a coalition of willing countries and disarm Saddam Hussein."
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EB
In other words
'For the sake of peace we're gonna blow Iraq into little pieces'
'We're gonna disarm Iraq' (not to mention "disleg" "dishead" etc etc etc
(using nukes, by the way).
Notice W's insistence on a "coalition" when in fact 90% of the world is against the massacre.
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"War is Peace" - Big Brother
'We're gonna make nuclear war for the sake of peace' - W
I'm beginning to think W may play an important role in endtime events.
It's still too early to know for sure, but he's got all the makings of a classic AC. (nobody ever said it took brains)