General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums''There are only two things we should fight for.'' -- Maj. Gen. Smedley Darlington Butler
War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
-- Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.
SOURCE: http://fas.org/man/smedley.htm
Read the good general's book, "War is a Racket," courtesy of Ratical: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Thank you!
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by (the 2004 pretzeldent)
Ben Aris in Berlin and Duncan Campbell in Washington
The Guardian, Saturday 25 September 2004 18.59 EDT Last modified on Wednesday 1 October 2014 04.38 EDT
George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.
The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.
His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.
The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
SNIP...
While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.
Tantalising
Bush was also on the board of at least one of the companies that formed part of a multinational network of front companies to allow Thyssen to move assets around the world.
Thyssen owned the largest steel and coal company in Germany and grew rich from Hitler's efforts to re-arm between the two world wars. One of the pillars in Thyssen's international corporate web, UBC, worked exclusively for, and was owned by, a Thyssen-controlled bank in the Netherlands. More tantalising are Bush's links to the Consolidated Silesian Steel Company (CSSC), based in mineral rich Silesia on the German-Polish border. During the war, the company made use of Nazi slave labour from the concentration camps, including Auschwitz. The ownership of CSSC changed hands several times in the 1930s, but documents from the US National Archive declassified last year link Bush to CSSC, although it is not clear if he and UBC were still involved in the company when Thyssen's American assets were seized in 1942.
Three sets of archives spell out Prescott Bush's involvement. All three are readily available, thanks to the efficient US archive system and a helpful and dedicated staff at both the Library of Congress in Washington and the National Archives at the University of Maryland.
CONTINUED...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
roguevalley
(40,656 posts)who told Prescott Bush to fuck off when he wanted to overthrow the country in the 1930's?
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Note that the OP is by Octafish, not me.
roguevalley
(40,656 posts)Cooley Hurd
(26,877 posts)If only our leaders (past and present) would've heeded Gen Butler's warning; Arlington, and other National Cemeteries would be a lot less full of young men and women.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
CounterPunch, WEEKEND EDITION MAY 22-24, 2004
Across all fronts, Bushs war deteriorates with stunning rapidity. The death count of American soldiers killed in Iraq will soon top 800, with no end in sight. The members of the handpicked Iraqi Governor Council are being knocked off one after another. Once loyal Shia clerics, like Ayatollah Sistani, are now telling the administration to pull out or face a nationalist insurgency. The trail of culpability for the abuse, torture and murder of Iraqi detainees seems to lead inexorably into the office of Donald Rumsfeld. The war for Iraqi oil has ended up driving the price of crude oil through the roof. Even Kurdish leaders, brutalized by the Baathists for decades, are now saying Iraq was a safer place under their nemesis Saddam Hussein. Like Medea whacking her own kids, the US turned on its own creation, Ahmed Chalabi, raiding his Baghdad compound and fingering him as an agent of the ayatollahs of Iran. And on and on it goes.
Still not all of the presidents men are in a despairing mood. Amid the wreckage, there remain opportunities for profit and plunder. Halliburton and Bechtels triumphs in Iraq have been chewed over for months. Less well chronicled is the profiteering of the Carlyle Group, a company with ties that extend directly into the Oval Office itself.
Even Pappy Bush stands in line to profit handsomely from his sons war making. The former president is on retainer with the Carlyle Group, the largest privately held defense contractor in the nation. Carlyle is run by Frank Carlucci, who served as the National Security advisor and Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan. Carlucci has his own embeds in the current Bush administration. At Princeton, his college roommate was Donald Rumsfeld. Theyve remained close friends and business associates ever since. When you have friends like this, you dont need to hire lobbyists..
Bush Sr. serves as a kind of global emissary for Carlyle. The ex-president doesnt negotiate arms deals; he simply opens the door for them, a kind of high level meet-and-greet. His special area of influence is the Middle East, primarily Saudi Arabia, where the Bush family has extensive business and political ties. According to an account in the Washington Post, Bush Sr. earns around $500,000 for each speech he makes on Carlyles behalf.
One of the Saudi investors lured to Carlyle by Bush was the BinLaden Group, the construction conglomerate owned by the family of Osama bin Laden. According to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, Bush convinced Shafiq Bin Laden, Osamas half brother, to sink $2 million of BinLaden Group money into Carlyles accounts. In a pr move, the Carlyle group cut its ties to the BinLaden Group in October 2001.
SNIP...
In 2002, Carlyle sold off its biggest holding, United Defense. The sale may have been prompted by insider information leaked to Carlucci by his pal Rumsfeld. In early 2001, Carlyle was furiously lobbying the Pentagon to approve contracts for the production of United Defenses Crusader artillery system, an unwieldy and outrageously expensive super-cannon. Rumsfeld disliked the Crusader and had it high on his hit list of weapon systems to be killed off in order to save money for other big ticket schemes, particularly the Strategic Defense Initiative.
CONTINUED...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/05/22/bush-s-crusades-and-the-carlyle-group/
Thank you for knowing and caring, Cooley Hurd!
raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)Of being a freedom fighter. of being a peace keeper, of being my brothers keeper and not my brothers reaper.
For most, money is the ultimate disinfectant. For others, it is adulation. In today's military, they get both.
All because so many are afraid to say how they really feel. To live how they really wish to wish. To truly be all that one can be. And so we watch them sent to slaughter.
Lambs eventually cornered in the coral. Fit to be sheared and bleating for mommy. Clipped, tagged and ready to serve.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)Is that the banksters of the day thought they could recruit him into a plan to neutralize FDR.
Hey Mr tally man tally me banana
Daylight come and me wanna go home
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Awful, awful kids. And they are the ones* screwing America now.
What's different today, is we have no Smedley Butler or FDR to stop them.
Baron de Rothschild and Prescott Bush, share a moment and some information, back in the day.
* Of course, it's not just a few rich families's offspring who screw the majority today. They've hired help and built up the giant noise machine to continue their work overthrowing the progress FDR and the New Deal brought America for 80 years.
Why would the nation and world's richest people do that? Progress costs money. And they don't want to pay for it, even when they've gained seven times more wealth than all of history until 1981 put together.
Instead, whey continue to work -- legally, through government and lobbyists -- to amass even more, transferring the hard work and little wealth of the many onto themselves.
And instead of an armed mob led by a war hero, their weapon of enslavement is "Neo-Liberal Economics." To most Americans, that means Trickle-Down. To the planet, it means doom.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)hootinholler
(26,449 posts)I'm hopeful for Bernie.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)My worry is the same crowd who managed to scrape up a 5-4 majority for Smirko McCokespoon also will find a way to prevent another good man from assuming office.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)They will go the route they did with Bobby, Jack and Martin.
1norcal
(55 posts)Thank you Octafish for all of your effort and research over the years. I'm especially interested in your JFK knowledge and I find that I'm in total agreement with you. If we can't solve that crime, we can't address our contemporary issues. In my opinion...
Octafish
(55,745 posts)As a Democrat, a DUer and as a citizen of the United States, I was proud to attend "Passing the Torch: An International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" at Duquesne University in October. The presenters provided the latest. Some of the information, such as Dan Hardway's presentation on the CIA obstruction of justice would have been front-page news, if the media and academia did their jobs. But, no. Instead it's what George Orwell wrote:
The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.
For those interested in learning the latest, with links to details from the "Passing the Torch: An International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy" at Duquesne University:
Octafish to attend JFK assassination conference. Do you think JFK still matters?
JFK Conference: Amazing Day of Information and Connecting with Good People
After JFK Conference, when I got home, I felt like RFK.
JFK Conference: Bill Kelly introduced new evidence - adding Air Force One tape recordings
JFK Conference: Rex Bradford detailed the historic importance of the Church Committee
JFK Conference: Lisa Pease Discussed the Real Harm of Corrupt Soft Power
JFK Conference: James DiEugenio made clear how Foreign Policy changed after November 22, 1963
JFK Conference: Mark Lane Addressed the Secret Governments Role in the Assassination
JFK Conference: David Talbot named Allen Dulles as 'the Chairman of the Board of the Assassination'
JFK Conference: Dan Hardway Detailed how CIA Obstructed HSCA Investigation
Noah's Ark - Nov. 22, 1963
JFK Remembered: Dan Rather and James Swanson talk at The Henry Ford
Seven Days in May -- tonight on TCM
Machine Gun Mouth
Thank you for the kind words, 1norcal! A hearty welcome to DU! Wish more people understood the value of history and culture.
malthaussen
(17,193 posts)We fought in Vietnam to protect San Francisco, didn't you get the memo? We fight to "bring freedom," doncha know -- which is truer than most things we're told, because freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Recent rhetoric suggests that if we don't fight the bad guys in the Mideast, they'll attack us here. General Butler's credo has always been observed -- nominally. Only when one reflects on the reality does one see the lies.
-- Mal
Octafish
(55,745 posts)EXCERPT...
The president's first meeting with MacArthur, a courtesy call on the general in New York after the Bay of Pigs disaster, turned out to be an agreeable surprise to Kennedy. Like a lot of Navy veterans of the Pacific war, Kennedy had assumed that MacArthur was a stuffy and pompous egocentric. Instead, the President old us later, MacArthur was was one of the most fascinating conversationalists he had ever met, politically shrewd and intellectually sharp. Later the President invited the general to the White House for lunch. They talked for almost three hours, ruining the whole appointments schedule for that day. I could not drag them apart. The President later gave us a complete rerun of MacArthur's remarks, expressing a warm admiration for this supposedly reactionary old soldier that astonished all of us. MacArthur was extremely critical of the military advice that the President had been getting from the Pentagon, blaming the military leaders of the previous 10 years, who, he said, had advanced the wrong younger officers. "You were lucky to have that mistake happen in Cuba, where the strategic cost was not too great," he said about the Bay of Pigs. MacArthur implored the President to avoid a U.S. military build-up in Vietnam, or any other part of the Asian mainland, because he felt that the domino theory was ridiculous in a nuclear age. MacArthur went on to point out that there were domestic problems -- the urban crisis, the ghettos, the economy -- that should have far more priority than Vietnam. Kennedy came out of the meeting somewhat stunned. That a man like MacArthur should give him such unmilitary advice impressed him enormously.
SOURCE: LIFE, Aug. 7, 1970
CONTINUED... https://books.google.com/books?id=tlUEAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA51&lpg=PA51&dq=Kennedy+MacArthur+land+war+asia&source=bl&ots=w1RrRc1MN4&sig=uYz4hG2bkeL1pBa2JQjLqQrkmWQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=hUtjVcGECoWxsAXcsIDYBg&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=Kennedy%20MacArthur%20land%20war%20asia&f=false
malthaussen
(17,193 posts)My respect for him just went up incrementally, I wasn't aware of that position. But his view was not accepted by the next Administration, who accepted the validity of the Domino Theory and Containment, or anyway professed that they did.
-- Mal
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Then in NSAM 273...
Vietnam Withdrawal Plans
The 1990s saw the gaps in the declassified record on Vietnam filled inwith spring 1963 plans for the complete withdrawal of U.S. forces. An initial 1000 man pullout (of the approximately 17,000 stationed in Vietnam at that time) was initiated in October 1963, though it was diluted and rendered meaningless in the aftermath of Kennedy's death. The longer-range plans called for complete withdrawal of U. S. forces and a "Vietnamization" of the war, scheduled to happen largely after the 1964 elections.
The debate over whether withdrawal plans were underway in 1963 is now settled. What remains contentious is the "what if" scenario. What would Kennedy have done if he lived, given the worsening situation in Vietnam after the coup which resulted in the assassination of Vietnamese President Diem?
At the core of the debate is this question: Did President Kennedy really believe the rosy picture of the war effort being conveyed by his military advisors. Or was he onto the game, and instead couching his withdrawal plans in the language of optimism being fed to the White House?
The landmark book JFK and Vietnam asserted the latter, that Kennedy knew he was being deceived and played a deception game of his own, using the military's own rosy analysis as a justification for withdrawal. Newman's analysis, with its dark implications regarding JFK's murder, has been attacked from both mainstream sources and even those on the left. No less than Noam Chomsky devoted an entire book to disputing the thesis.
But declassifications since Newman's 1992 book have only served to buttress the thesis that the Vietnam withdrawal, kept under wraps to avoid a pre-election attack from the right, was Kennedy's plan regardless of the war's success. New releases have also brought into focus the chilling visions of the militarists of that erafour Presidents were advised to use nuclear weapons in Indochina. A recent book by David Kaiser, American Tragedy, shows a military hell bent on war in Asia.
CONTINUED with very important IMFO links:
http://www.history-matters.com/vietnam1963.htm
malthaussen
(17,193 posts)One of those might-have-beens that color the era. It is of some note, IMO, that Mr Kennedy was unwilling to make his decision to withdraw general knowledge until after the election. Obviously, that was sound politically, but it is sobering to realize that a question so important was subordinate to political concerns. As the event turned out, he didn't live to be re-elected, and the result was a decade of war.
-- Mal
pocoloco
(3,180 posts)He had no choice, and certainly cannot be faulted. The alternative
was certain loss and escalated war!
malthaussen
(17,193 posts)But we got the escalation anyway.
-- Mal
red dog 1
(27,797 posts)I was aware of both JFK's NSAM 263 and LBK's NSAM 273.
However, I never got a chance to see them before....Thanks.
I first learned about them back in the 1980s, listening to a radio show called "One Stop Beyond"
which was broadcast from KFJC-FM in Los Altos Hills, with Dave Emory & Nip Tuck
I still have boxes of old "One Step Beyond" audio tapes that I made while listening to the show every Sunday night, when I lived in San Jose.
The show used to have archived tapes available from a tape duplicating service called
"Archives On Audio"; but I think they went out of business.
Dave Emory was a close friend of Mae Brussell, who was the first person to cross-index the entire 26 volumes of the Warren Commission.
Mae Brussel died of Cancer in October of 1988.
She was only 66.
http://www.maebrussell.com/
DustyJoe
(849 posts)And of course when the Generals gave the orders, notwithstanding the lowly enlisted men and lower officers were ordered into battle on pain of punishment and training to obey the orders or be jailed, shot etc.
gregcrawford
(2,382 posts)... I know it was more than one. He was also approached by a gang of Banksters who wanted him to help overthrow FDR in '33, but he dropped a dime on their evil asses. I believe Bush was involved in that plot, too, but then, as now, I don't think any of the malignant skidmarks behind the scheme did any time.
Jackpine Radical
(45,274 posts)And, as usual Octa fills in the gaps, including some memory lapses on my part.
malthaussen
(17,193 posts)That is a common colloquialism that should be discouraged.
General Butler was awarded the Medal twice, for actions at Vera Cruz in 1914, and in Haiti in 1915 (awarded 1917). General Butler attempted to return the first medal, saying he had done nothing to deserve it, but was instructed to keep it and wear it.
-- Mal
DustyJoe
(849 posts)Ask any Purple Heart recipient or parent/spouse of a KIA that accepted any medal(s) posthumously for their Son or Daughter if they feel they 'won' anything.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)Neocons and Liberals Together, Again
The neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has signaled its intention to continue shaping the government's national security...
Tom Barry, last updated: February 02, 2005
The neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC) has signaled its intention to continue shaping the government's national security strategy with a new public letter stating that the "U.S. military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume." Rather than reining in the imperial scope of U.S. national security strategy as set forth by the first Bush administration, PNAC and the letter's signatories call for increasing the size of America's global fighting machine.
SNIP...
Liberal Hawks Fly with the Neocons
The recent PNAC letter to Congress was not the first time that PNAC or its associated front groups, such as the Coalition for the Liberation of Iraq, have included hawkish Democrats.
Two PNAC letters in March 2003 played to those Democrats who believed that the invasion was justified at least as much by humanitarian concerns as it was by the purported presence of weapons of mass destruction. PNAC and the neocon camp had managed to translate their military agenda of preemptive and preventive strikes into national security policy. With the invasion underway, they sought to preempt those hardliners and military officials who opted for a quick exit strategy in Iraq. In their March 19th letter, PNAC stated that Washington should plan to stay in Iraq for the long haul: "Everyone-those who have joined the coalition, those who have stood aside, those who opposed military action, and, most of all, the Iraqi people and their neighbors-must understand that we are committed to the rebuilding of Iraq and will provide the necessary resources and will remain for as long as it takes."
Along with such neocon stalwarts as Robert Kagan, Bruce Jackson, Joshua Muravchik, James Woolsey, and Eliot Cohen, a half-dozen Democrats were among the 23 individuals who signed PNAC's first letter on post-war Iraq. Among the Democrats were Ivo Daalder of the Brookings Institution and a member of Clinton's National Security Council staff; Martin Indyk, Clinton's ambassador to Israel; Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute and Democratic Leadership Council; Dennis Ross, Clinton's top adviser on the Israel-Palestinian negotiations; and James Steinberg, Clinton's deputy national security adviser and head of foreign policy studies at Brookings. A second post-Iraq war letter by PNAC on March 28 called for broader international support for reconstruction, including the involvement of NATO, and brought together the same Democrats with the prominent addition of another Brookings' foreign policy scholar, Michael O'Hanlon.
CONTINUED...
http://rightweb.irc-online.org/articles/display/Neocons_and_Liberals_Together_Again
One name to remember is Victoria Nuland, our woman in Ukraine, who is married to PNAC co-founder Robert Kagan, whose brother is Frederick Kagan. Frederick Kagan's spouse is Kimberly Kagan. Brilliant people, big ideas, and a lot of PNAC, which spells out the neocon/neolib approach to international relations means more wars without end for profits without cease, among other things detrimental to peace, justice, and democracy.
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
daleanime
(17,796 posts)seems to have disappeared from library. May have to donate replacement.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)SOURCE: http://www.globalresearch.ca/gangsters-for-capitalism/4595
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)CIA moonlights in corporate world
In the midst of two wars and the fight against Al Qaeda, the CIA is offering operatives a chance to peddle their expertise to private companies on the side a policy that gives financial firms and hedge funds access to the nations top-level intelligence talent, POLITICO has learned.
In one case, these active-duty officers moonlighted at a hedge-fund consulting firm that wanted to tap their expertise in deception detection, the highly specialized art of telling when executives may be lying based on clues in a conversation.
The never-before-revealed policy comes to light as the CIA and other intelligence agencies are once again under fire for failing to connect the dots, this time in the Christmas Day bombing plot on Northwest Flight 253.
SNIP...
But the close ties between active-duty and retired CIA officers at one consulting company show the degree to which CIA-style intelligence gathering techniques have been employed by hedge funds and financial institutions in the global economy.
The firm is called Business Intelligence Advisors, and it is based in Boston. BIA was founded and is staffed by a number of retired CIA officers, and it specializes in the arcane field of deception detection. BIAs clients have included Goldman Sachs and the enormous hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, according to spokesmen for both firms.
CONTINUED...
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32290.html#ixzz0eIFPhHBh
Sometimes a fortune rests on a mere scrap of information, jawohl.
Stratfor: executive boasted of 'trusted former CIA cronies'
By Alex Spillius, Diplomatic Correspondent
9:08PM GMT 28 Feb 2012
The Telegraph
A senior executive with the private intelligence firm Stratfor boasted to colleagues about his "trusted former CIA cronies" and promised to "see what I can uncover" about a classified FBI investigation, according to emails released by the WikiLeaks.
Fred Burton, vice president of intelligence at the Texas firm, also informed members of staff that he had a copy of the confidential indictment on Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.
The second batch of five million internal Stratfor emails obtained by the Anonymous computer hacking group revealed that the company has high level sources within the United States and other governments, runs a network of paid informants that includes embassy staff and journalists and planned a hedge fund, Stratcap, based on its secret intelligence.
SNIP...
Mr Assange labelled the company as a "private intelligence Enron", in reference to the energy giant that collapsed after a false accounting scandal.
CONTINUED...
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9111784/Stratfor-executive-boasted-of-trusted-former-CIA-cronies.html
Then, there's Booz Allen, NSA's go-to private spyhaus, vacuums and filters the right stuff for Carlyle Group, a buy-partisan business which always seems to know where and what to bomb and make a buck.
The Knights of the Revolving Door
When War is Swell: the Carlyle Group and the Middle East at War
by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
CounterPunch, Weekend Edition September 6-8, 2013
Paris.
A couple of weeks ago, in a dress rehearsal for her next presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton, the doyenne of humanitarian interventionism, made a pit-stop at the Carlyle Group to brief former luminaries of the imperial war rooms about her shoot-first-dont-ask-questions foreign policy.
For those of you who have put the playbill of the Bush administration into a time capsule and buried it beneath the compost bin, the Carlyle Group is essentially a hedge fund for war-making and high tech espionage. They are the people who brought you the Iraq war and all those intrusive niceties of Homeland Security. Call them the Knights of the Revolving Door, many of Carlyles executives and investors having spent decades in the Pentagon, the CIA or the State Department, before cashing in for more lucrative careers as war profiteers. They are now licking their chops at the prospect for an all-out war against Syria, no doubt hoping that the conflagration will soon spread to Lebanon, Jordan and, the big prize, Iran.
For a refresher course on the sprawling tentacles of the Carlyle Group, heres an essay that first appeared in CounterPunchs print edition in 2004. Sadly, not much has changed in the intervening years, except these feted souls have gotten much, much richer. JSC
Across all fronts, Bushs war deteriorates with stunning rapidity. The death count of American soldiers killed in Iraq will soon top 1000, with no end in sight. The members of the handpicked Iraqi Governor Council are being knocked off one after another. Once loyal Shia clerics, like Ayatollah Sistani, are now telling the administration to pull out or face a nationalist insurgency. The trail of culpability for the abuse, torture and murder of Iraqi detainees seems to lead inexorably into the office of Donald Rumsfeld. The war for Iraqi oil has ended up driving the price of crude oil through the roof. Even Kurdish leaders, brutalized by the Baathists for decades, are now saying Iraq was a safer place under their nemesis Saddam Hussein. Like Medea whacking her own kids, the US turned on its own creation, Ahmed Chalabi, raiding his Baghdad compound and fingering him as an agent of the ayatollahs of Iran. And on and on it goes.
Still not all of the presidents men are in a despairing mood. Amid the wreckage, there remain opportunities for profit and plunder. Halliburton and Bechtels triumphs in Iraq have been chewed over for months. Less well chronicled is the profiteering of the Carlyle Group, a company with ties that extend directly into the Oval Office itself.
Even Pappy Bush stands in line to profit handsomely from his sons war making. The former president is on retainer with the Carlyle Group, the largest privately held defense contractor in the nation. Carlyle is run by Frank Carlucci, who served as the National Security advisor and Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan. Carlucci has his own embeds in the current Bush administration. At Princeton, his college roommate was Donald Rumsfeld. Theyve remained close friends and business associates ever since. When you have friends like this, you dont need to hire lobbyists..
Bush Sr. serves as a kind of global emissary for Carlyle. The ex-president doesnt negotiate arms deals; he simply opens the door for them, a kind of high level meet-and-greet. His special area of influence is the Middle East, primarily Saudi Arabia, where the Bush family has extensive business and political ties. According to an account in the Washington Post, Bush Sr. earns around $500,000 for each speech he makes on Carlyles behalf.
One of the Saudi investors lured to Carlyle by Bush was the BinLaden Group, the construction conglomerate owned by the family of Osama bin Laden. According to an investigation by the Wall Street Journal, Bush convinced Shafiq Bin Laden, Osamas half brother, to sink $2 million of BinLaden Group money into Carlyles accounts. In a pr move, the Carlyle group cut its ties to the BinLaden Group in October 2001.
CONTINUED...
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/06/when-war-is-swell-the-carlyle-group-and-the-middle-east-at-war/
This barely scratches the surface. The reality is that underneath what shows for public navigators is one enormous iceberg made from blood-red ice, invisible to the proles and serfs who are doing their best to keep afloat in a frozen sea of austerity, endless war and debt servitude. But, hey! It's like a democracy.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)again!
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)those two reason pretty much encompass all reasons for war. Nothing like profound ambiguous statements!
A HERETIC I AM
(24,367 posts)The vast majority of wars have been, when boiled down to their essence, fought for either ego or greed.
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)byproducts of anything that involves lots of money and power..... but you can not name one war that we have fought that did not fit those in power's definition of "defense of country" and "bill of rights"......
A HERETIC I AM
(24,367 posts)Korea, WW I & II, for that matter. The likelihood of this continent being invaded so that you or I or the military ACTUALLY HAVE to defend "our homes", much less the Bill of Rights, is miniscule.
How "those in power" define it is irrelevant. Once you understand, as General Butler did all those years ago, that those in power are selling you a bill of goods, then it doesn't matter what the hell they tell us the reason is.
And yes, I realize WW I & II were necessary, as the Brits couldn't do it on their own, no matter how much material we sent them. The rest however......
When people tell me that soldiers, Marines, Navy and Airmen "fight for my freedom" I call bullshit. The last one to do that did so in 1945, 14 years before I was born
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)Thats the problem and the funny part ,,,,, those terms can not be defined .... While you and I may not agree with their interpretations of their syntax , all our wars where started by people who thought they were defending our country and Bill of rights.
A HERETIC I AM
(24,367 posts)You actually think that was the motivation behind Korea? Viet Nam? Gulf War 1? 2? Seriously?
The reasoning they gave us for Korea and Viet Nam was the dreaded "Domino theory" which was quite frankly, bullshit.
All our wars are/were started by moneyed interests who did it for either ego or greed.
Which is pretty much General Butlers point.
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)"who thought". Critical reading is critically fundamental !!!!!!!!
A HERETIC I AM
(24,367 posts)English is my native tongue.
Do you now profess to have knowledge of these individuals private motivations?
I still disagree.
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)know their motivation , only what they have said they motivations are. I am not trying to talk about their motivation, only the ambiguous terms in the OP that could be use to justify any of the many motivations that they may have had, and still claim to be defending our country and bill of rights.
A HERETIC I AM
(24,367 posts)"One is the defense of our homes, and the other is the Bill of Rights."
How are those in any way, ambiguous? They seem, in the context with which they were spoken, as unambiguous as they can possibly be.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)wars you listed. We can figure out the motivations behind those promoting the wars because it is obvious. Now one might argue that George Bush thought our home was in danger because "Little Dick" Cheney told him, but there is no way I can be convinced that Poppy Bush and Cheney were worried about the "Home". And the Bill of Rights? The war mongers don't even believe in that document.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)say, "Critical reading is critically fundamental !!!!!!!!"
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)such twaddle!
They just PEDDLED IT to REAL patriots who fought and died for the %.
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)you know what they were thinking was not what they said they were thinking,,,,, ????
That's my point ,,, everybody has their own definition of defending our country.... the terms in OP are ambiguous.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)I don't guess u understand the difference?
historylovr
(1,557 posts)The excuse was that Mexico had invaded US territory, when in fact it was the other way round. I wish I could remember all the details, but it's been so long since I took diplomatic history.
Or how about the Spanish-American War? The Maine was just another excuse to get into something we were itching to. We wanted to be an empire, and for that you need secure shipping lanes and places you can refuel and take on water and food. At least they tried to dress this one and the previous one in defense of country.
Hawaii? The goal there was to overthrow the queen and the monarchy and have the US annex the islands.
You may count me in the camp who agree with you. We go to wars for our national self interest, which actually can be an ambiguous term, unlike defense of the country and to protect the Bill of Rights. What is in our national self interest? Natural resources, territory, alliances. It's no coincidence that some of those meshed nicely with the goals of our financial elite.
yurbud
(39,405 posts)not pretending to spread it to other parts of the world.
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)yurbud
(39,405 posts)As an excuse to kill more people.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)"Money trumps peace." The very words of George W Bush, uttered at a press conference in which not a single of the callow, cowed press corpse saw fit to ask a follow-up. And then he laughs.
Gold Star mom Cindy Sheehan tried to bring it to our nation's attention. Few others, if anyone, saw fit to comment.
As for where American's entrepreneurial spirit of war came from: Poppy: Bush Sr told the FBI he was in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963.
So, for what reasons do you think the nation should go to war, Cryptoad?
Cryptoad
(8,254 posts)The funny are the profound ambiguous statements.....What reason do I thinik we should go to war?,,,, welll of course,,,,, defense of our country and the Bill of Rights.
valerief
(53,235 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)Sunday, 24 May 2015 00:00
By Mark Karlin, Truthout | Interview
EXCERPT...
The suppression of the Puerto Rican independence movement by the US, orchestrated in large part by Herbert Hoover, was massive, bloody and something akin to the actions of a police state. You quote World War I hero General Smedley Butler about his fighting in Latin America as writing, "I was a gangster for capitalism." To what extent was Puerto Rico dominated by US corporations from its conquest by the US in 1898?
(For specific facts and figures about this, please refer to the bottom of page 254, top of page 255 in the book. Also pp. 29-31 and pp. 56-58.)
As early as 1931, historian and Yale professor Bailey W. Diffie wrote that "The sugar industry, tobacco manufacturing, fruit growing, banks, railroads, public utilities, steamship lines, and many lesser businesses are completely dominated by outside capital. The men who own the sugar corporations own both the US Bureau of Insular Affairs and the Legislature of Puerto Rico ... practically every mile of public carrier railroad belongs to two companies - the American Railroad Company and the Ponce & Guayama Railroad Company ... which are largely absentee owned ... about half the towns depend on absentee companies for their lights and power, and more than half the telephone calls go over wires owned by outsiders ... it is the absentee capitalist who makes the profit." (See: Bailey W. Diffie and Justine Whitfield Diffie, Porto Rico: A Broken Pledge, New York: Vanguard Press, 1931, pp. 199-200.)
CONTINUED...
http://www.truth-out.org/progressivepicks/item/30925-how-the-united-states-economically-and-politically-strangled-puerto-rico
A HERETIC I AM
(24,367 posts)catchnrelease
(1,945 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)yurbud
(39,405 posts)to respond to his testimony.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)Never mentioned in history books, but stopped fascism from coming to America in the 30s.
Buenaventura
(364 posts)zeemike
(18,998 posts)So they changed it to free market capitalism
blackspade
(10,056 posts)Bookmarked.
FlatBaroque
(3,160 posts)on their required reading list.
A HERETIC I AM
(24,367 posts)Initech
(100,068 posts)ensemble
(164 posts)Last edited Mon May 25, 2015, 02:49 PM - Edit history (2)
"During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
I think one of the reasons that people find books and movies about the mafia so interesting is that it parallels how our foreign policy is really run.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)Usually, not going to war is the right decision. Sometimes, it is shameful.
ncjustice80
(948 posts)The only just war is a purely defensive one. We are not the world police.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)Letting genocide happen when you could stop it is shameful.
There *are* no world police, which is why sometimes stepping in as, essentially, a vigilante, just because you can and no-one else is going to is the right thing to do. Rwanda being an obvious example.
ncjustice80
(948 posts)But it is not our responsibilty to be the world police. I am against spending a single American dollar or American life for ANY military action that doesnt involve a direct invasion of US soil.
Donald Ian Rankin
(13,598 posts)preventably.
ncjustice80
(948 posts)Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)Octafish
(55,745 posts)Among other things, it stands for Capitalism's Invisible Army.
Economic Genocide in Rwanda
excerpted from the book
The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order
by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, 2003, paperback [first edition 1997]
EXCERPT...
Part B
Installing a US Protectorate in Central Africa
From the outset of the Rwandan civil war in 1990, Washington's hidden agenda consisted in establishing an American sphere of influence in a region historically dominated by France and Belgium. America's design was to displace France by supporting the Rwandan Patriotic Front and by arming and equipping its military arm, the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA).
From the mid-1980s, the Kampala government, under President Yoweri Musaveni, had become Washington's African showpiece of "democracy". Uganda had also become a launchpad for US-sponsored guerilla movements into the Sudan, Rwanda and the Congo. Major General Paul Kagame had been head of military intelligence in the Ugandan Armed Forces; he had been trained at the US Army Command and Staff College (CGSC) in Leavenworth, Kansas which focuses on warfighting and military strategy. Kagame returned from Leavenworth to lead the RPA, shortly after the 1990 invasion.
Prior to the outbreak of the Rwandan civil war, the RPA was part of the Ugandan Armed Forces. Shortly prior to the October 1990 invasion of Rwanda, military labels were switched. From one day to the next, large numbers of Ugandan soldiers joined the ranks of the Rwandan Patriotic Army (RPA). Throughout the civil war, the RPA was supplied from United People's Defense Forces (UPDF) military bases inside Uganda. The Tutsi commissioned officers in the Ugandan army took over positions in the RPA The October 1990 invasion by Ugandan forces was presented to public as a war of liberation by a Tutsi-led guerilla army.
Financing both Sides in the Civil War
A process of financing military expenditure from the external debt had occurred in Rwanda under the Habyarimana government. In a cruel irony, both sides in the civil war were financed by the same donor institutions with the World Bank acting as watchdog.
The Habyarimana regime had at its disposal an arsenal of military equipment, including 83mm missile launchers, French made Blindicide, Belgian and German made light weaponry, and automatic weapons such as kalachnikovs made in Egypt, China and South Africa [as well as] (... armored AML-60 and M3 armored vehicles." While part of these purchases had been financed by direct military aid from France, the influx of development loans from the World Bank's soft lending affiliate the International Development Association (IDA), the African Development Fund (AFD), the European Development Fund (EDF) as well as from Germany, the United States, Belgium and Canada had been diverted into funding the military and Interhamwe militia.
A detailed investigation of government files, accounts and correspondence conducted in Rwanda in 1996-97 by the author - together with Belgian economist Pierre Galand - confirmed that many of the arms purchases had been negotiated outside the framework of government to government military aid agreements through various intermediaries and private arms dealers. These transactions - recorded as bona fide government expenditures - had, nonetheless, been included in the state budget which was under the supervision of the World Bank. Large quantities of machetes and other items used in the 1994 ethnic massacres - routinely classified as "civilian commodities" - had been imported through regular trading channels .14
CONTINUED...
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/East_Africa/Rwanda_EconGenocide_GPNWO.html
CIA also stands for Conspiracies In Action. In Rwanda and the other nations of central Africa in the early 1990s, things were going to plan.
Kablooie
(18,631 posts)Of course this doesn't include the Iraq war which had nothing to do with 9/11.
But there is one more reason to engage in war: to defend allies that we have treaties with.
The reasons for the treaties can be disputed but if we have an agreement with another country to help defend if they are attacked, we have an obligation to uphold that agreement.
WWII was clearly justified
WWI was justified in that our citizens were being attacked on ships and Germany attempted to support Mexico in attacking us.
None of the other wars had a moral justification that I can see.
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)there were no more attacks to defend from, militarily anyway.
This is even if you believe the official lies about 9/11.
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)Ah, Florida, Home of the Hanging Chads and flight schools for Saudis.
Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)move along.... move along....
WinkyDink
(51,311 posts)'Cuz I'm a "Cui bono?" kind o'gal.
Kablooie
(18,631 posts)the only people that know for sure are Bush and his cronies.
They certainly didn't use that information in a moral or productive way.
And to declare war on the Taliban was idiotic as well.
If someone deliberately protects an active enemy of ours we have a right to protest but declaring all out war on them was an imbecile move.
My point is that the government had a duty and a right to find out who was behind 9/11 and stop them from any future attacks using force if necessary.
The fact is that the government used the emotional mood of the time to further their own selfish goals instead of trying to protect America.
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Taliban demand evidence of Bin Laden's guilt
Staff and agencies
guardian.co.uk,
Sunday 14 October 2001 22.19 BST
President George Bush rejected as "non-negotiable" an offer by the Taliban to discuss turning over Osama bin Laden if the United States ended the bombing in Afghanistan.
Returning to the White House after a weekend at Camp David, the president said the bombing would not stop, unless the ruling Taliban "turn over, turn his cohorts over, turn any hostages they hold over." He added, "There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty". In Jalalabad, deputy prime minister Haji Abdul Kabir - the third most powerful figure in the ruling Taliban regime - told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, but added: "we would be ready to hand him over to a third country".
SNIP...
Taliban 'ready to discuss' Bin Laden handover if bombing halts
The Taliban would be ready to discuss handing over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country if the US halted the bombing of Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official said today.
Afghanistan's deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul Kabir, told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.
"If the Taliban is given evidence that Osama bin Laden is involved" and the bombing campaign stopped, "we would be ready to hand him over to a third country", Mr Kabir added.
CONTINUED...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5
Just like Poppy n Kuwait in 1991: Peace was rejected in favor of war.
1norcal
(55 posts)This may be the most important post and thread appearing anywhere today because it addresses America's real problem of why we are fighting these truly stupid and counter productive wars, of our time. We simply must get control of this and begin again, possibly via a truth and reconciliation commission.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)but only after justice is served to those that committed crimes against humanity including the banksters that help make it happen.
Rex
(65,616 posts)only increased capitals wins over time. Now it is all capital, labor has no chance at all.
avaistheone1
(14,626 posts)Fast Walker 52
(7,723 posts)War is a racket, war is a lie, war is a crime, war is terrorism.
We need to stop the war machine.
Peace.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Mind you,...THEY don't sign up though.
WillyT
(72,631 posts)7wo7rees
(5,128 posts)Required reading for all.
historylovr
(1,557 posts)red dog 1
(27,797 posts)a plot conserved by rich industrialists and bankers concerned that Roosevelt was about to conduct a massive redistribution of wealth.
"It's a sordid tale of fascist intrigue by some of America's most famous corporate and political families (including members of FDR's own party) which was deliberately covered up by both the only Congressional committee to investigate the plot, and also by the leading media outlets of the day including the New York Times.
And the truly scary part is that the plot might very well have succeeded if not for the bravery of a single, progressive leader, Marine General Smedley Butler."
Read more:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/02/27/95580/-The-Real-Plot-to-Overthrow-FDR-s-America#
red dog 1
(27,797 posts)100,000 recs!
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Paka
(2,760 posts)Thanks for posting.
Flatpicker
(894 posts)The ISIS civilian murders have to be stopped.
Whatever cause for the rise if ISIS,(I get it was US under GWB) at some point we have to stop the killing of innocents that is going on.
We (the USA) has to go back in and stop this. We made the mess, now we have to fix it.
Thespian2
(2,741 posts)Great Post!! Excellent discussion...
colsohlibgal
(5,275 posts)Vietnam was a waste of time, lives, and money. Iraq was too plus it destabilized the whole region.
The Cheney cabal should be rotting in World Prison. Dubya was just a half bright hand puppet who was never presidential material.
All of them were chicken hawks willing to sacrifice others. If there is a Hell I hope they make it even hotter for these war criminals.
Smedley Butler was one smart tough guy who may have thwarted a plot to over throw FDR - and surely figured out the basis for almost all wars, follow the money.
treestar
(82,383 posts)of our home. We seem to now be proactive and go abroad to fight a perceived threat that has not arrived here yet.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)Robbins
(5,066 posts)many have never heard of him or know there was a plot by wall street to overthrow FDR and use a veterans army to do it.
They wanted a hitler or mussonli but one they could control and they thought Butler could be used to do it even though he publicly critced mussolini long before WWII