Know Your BFEE: The Barreling Bushes - Democratic Underground

Octafish

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Sat Oct-09-04 11:52 PM
Original message

Know Your BFEE: The Barreling Bushes

Former top GOP strategist Kevin Phillips coined that phrase and in the process pegged how four generations of Bushes have been chin-deep in oily doo-doo. Behold how the BFEE goes where the money is...

The Barreling Bushes

By: Kevin Phillips
Los Angeles Times
January 11, 2004

WASHINGTON — Dynasties in American politics are dangerous. We saw it with the Kennedys, we may well see it with the Clintons and we're certainly seeing it with the Bushes. Between now and the November election, it's crucial that Americans come to understand how four generations of the current president's family have embroiled the United States in the Middle East through CIA connections, arms shipments, rogue banks, inherited war policies and personal financial links.

As early as 1964, George H.W. Bush, running for the U.S. Senate from Texas, was labeled by incumbent Democrat Ralph Yarborough as a hireling of the sheik of Kuwait, for whom Bush's company drilled offshore oil wells. Over the four decades since then, the ever- reaching Bushes have emerged as the first U.S. political clan to thoroughly entangle themselves with Middle Eastern royal families and oil money. The family even has links to the Bin Ladens — though not to family black sheep Osama bin Laden — going back to the 1970s.

How these unusual relationships helped bring about 9/11 and then distorted the U.S. response to Islamic terrorism requires thinking of the Bush family as a dynasty. The two Bush presidencies are inextricably linked by that dynasty.

The first family member lured by the Middle East's petroleum wealth was George W. Bush's great-grandfather, George H. Walker, a buccaneer who was president of Wall Street-based W.A. Harriman & Co. In the 1920s, Walker and his firm participated in rebuilding the Baku oil fields only a few hundred miles north of current-day Iraq. As senior director of Dresser Industries (now part of Halliburton), Walker's son-in-law Prescott Bush (George W. Bush's grandfather) became involved with the Middle East in the years after World War II. But it was George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, who forged the dynasty's strongest ties to the region.

CONTINUED...

http://www.independent-media.tv/item.cfm?fmedia_id=4969&fcategory_desc=The%20Bush%20Crime%20Family

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seemslikeadream

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Sun Oct-10-04 12:18 AM
Response to Original message

1. Just about to do some digging on Farish

Edited on Sun Oct-10-04 12:32 AM by seemslikeadream

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Octafish

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Sun Oct-10-04 12:44 AM
Response to Reply #1

3. Now THERE's a Treasure Trove! Thanks, seemslikeadream!

Wow, slad! Vielen dank. Your post and the hundreds, if not thousands, of links they contain are a veritable indictment of the Bush Family Evil Empire. I'll make certain this gets passed around to the usual collection of interested parties and their friends.

Here's a fellah who looks pretty "gassed."

On a much more modest note, here's a new resource that's under construction, but still carries one dynamite BCCI analysis, chock full o' resources, quotes, citations and pure information on the Bush Transnational Criminal Enterprise:

The BCCI Affair

Preliminary Report on
The Bank of Credit and Commerce International
by
the Citizen Intelligence Organization
September 13, 2004

EXCERPT...

George Bush Jr., Harken Energy Corp, and BCCI

Article from The Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1991:

Two years ago, Talat Othman didn't have the president's ear. But since August 1990, the Palestinian-born Chicago investor has attended three White House meetings with President Bush to discuss Middle East policy.

Mr. Othman's political access coincides with the remarkable ascendance of a little Texas oil company on whose board he serves alongside George W. Bush, the president's oldest son. That company, Harken Energy Corp. -- though it had never drilled a single well overseas or in water -- recently won the rights to drill potentially lucrative offshore wildcat wells in a contract bestowed by the government of Bahrain.

The White House says there is nothing questionable in this story of petroleum, politics and the presidential son. "There is no conflict of interest, or even the appearance of conflict, in these business arrangements," says spokesman Marlin Fitzwater. The matters had been reviewed and disclosed, he said, adding, "They are legitimate business undertakings." . . .
Yet what does emerge is a complex pattern of personal and financial relationships behind Harken's sudden good fortune in the Middle East, raising the question of whether Bahrainis or others in the Middle East may have hoped to ingratiate themselves with the White House.

The mosaic of BCCI connections surrounding Harken Energy may prove nothing more than how ubiquitous the rogue bank's ties were. But the number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken -- all since George W. Bush came on board -- likewise raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son.

CONTINUED...

http://www.mediawar.info/CIObcci.htm

This one's nice, too, for those interested in a link to an interactive Big Timeline o' Treason:

http://www.modernhistoryproject.org/mhp/EntityDisplay.php?Entity=BathJR

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RaleighNCDUer

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Sun Oct-10-04 12:30 AM
Response to Original message

2. For further info, see Phillip's book 'American Dynasty: Aristocracy,

Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush'

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Octafish

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Sun Oct-10-04 12:58 AM
Response to Reply #2

4. Conason and Phillips: Notes on a Native Son

Thanks for the review, NCevilDUer! I'm in the process of reading Phillip's "American Dynasty" right now. A great chronicle. Here's where the germ of the idea may've come, a great set of articles co-written by Phillips and Joe Conason that ran in Harper's in 2000. Wish that the whole damn country had read these. We wouldn't have had the Supreme Court deciding the election, we probably wouldn't have had 9-11, and we certainly wouldn't have invaded Iraq illegally.

Anyway...Creedence Clearwater must've written "Fortunate Son" for the little turd from Crawford:

NOTES ON A NATIVE SON

Harper's Magazine, Feb, 2000, by Joe Concson, Kevin P. Phillips

I. THE GEORGE W. BUSH SUCCESS STORY

A heartwarming tale about baseball, $1.7 billion, and a lot of swell friends

By Joe Conason

FORTUNE'S CHILD

As George W. Bush's wealthy admirers continue to pack cash into the largest presidential war chest in American history (at last count a staggering $58 million). perhaps the time is ripe to examine how the would-be president became rich himself--quite rich, in fact, if not by the standards of H. Ross Perot or Steve Forbes, at least by the measure of most Americans. Bush, who received $15 million for his share of the Texas Rangers franchise, would be the richest Democratic or Republican nominee since Lyndon Johnson. On the June 1998 day that the baseball team was sold, Bush told reporters, "When it is all said and done, I will have made more money than I ever dreamed ..."

Indeed. The sum represented an enviable 2,400 percent increase on the $606,000 investment Bush had made in the team nine years earlier, with borrowed money, and a considerable improvement on his own record of losing millions invested by others. Together with his elation about the windfall there may also have been a feeling of vindication for the eldest scion of the Bush family. Although twice elected governor of Texas (in 1994 and again in 1998), the son known as "Dubya" had lived through nearly two decades of business failures, embarrassing bailouts, and eyebrow-raising favors that had besmirched his family's reputation.

The money, coming late in Bush's life, at age fifty-one, is understood not to have corrupted him, and his handlers depict him as a man of religious faith and moral character who will cleanse a White House soiled by scandal; Bush, in their audience-tested Calvinistic fable, is a once-upon-a-time hard-drinking ne'er-do-well transformed into a well-to-do teetotaler. The fact that his political rise has been crowned with material rewards might, in the metaphysics of American capitalism, very well be deemed a sign of righteousness and divine favor.

But viewed in less sentimental terms, the history of George W. and his millions is a success story about a privileged young man who grew up in proximity to money and political power, appreciated the relationship between them, and so learned to live happily ever after with his wealth and his conscience. Not only does the story explain why Bush is so attractive to the corporate leaders and Washington lobbyists now staging his nomination for the presidency; it is also a textbook lesson in modern American civics. We who might soon elect Bush should hear this story, to know how he might act should he achieve the Oval Office. Although the immediate mechanics of the Rangers deal were well-documented by the media, the sale of the team was but a moment in the governor's long and still-unfolding political and financial relationships with certain fortunate personages--some of whom, it can reasonably be expected, might be appointed to positions of authority in a new Bush administration. The numbers are complicated, and many of the sums imponderably huge, but the power is real and the outcome as observable as, well, a brand-new baseball stadium.

A YOUNG MAN WITH A FUTURE

CONTINUED...

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1111/is_1797_300/ai_59086099

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Octafish

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Sun Oct-10-04 01:01 AM
Response to Reply #4

6. And if you liked that, here's what Conason says today...

Bush’s Tangled Past Is Relevant Today

George W. Bush cannot raise his hand against the ‘malefactors of great wealth,’ because they’re his backers, his friends.

by Joe Conason

People who never wondered about the "relevance" of the Whitewater story now claim to be puzzled by journalistic interest in Arbusto Oil, Spectrum 7, Harken Energy, the Texas Rangers and other curious artifacts of George W. Bush’s business career. These same people, who once obsessed over the details of an obscure Arkansas land development from the 1970’s, ask why anyone should care today how the President made money 10 or 15 years ago. (Actually, the sale of the Rangers to a powerful Texas investor—which made Mr. Bush a multimillionaire—occurred just four years ago.)

Let’s assume, perhaps naïvely, that these peevish questions are sincere. And let’s try to answer them by starting with a few general observations.

This country has not one but two economic systems: free enterprise for the many, and crony capitalism for the few. This is hardly a new discovery; crooked and connected insiders have always fattened their wallets at public expense, as Kevin Phillips illustrates in great detail in Wealth and Democracy.

But the decay of the crony system is suddenly strangling free enterprise and endangering the nation’s future. The sanctions that were expected to discourage excessive indebtedness, management self-dealing and fraudulent accounting have failed; the insiders sidestepped the risks and assigned them to the rest of us. That’s what ordinary investors are learning every day when they glance up from their horrifying mutual-fund statements to read how much the white-collar looters took when they absconded.

CONTINUED...

http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=6128

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Karenina

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Sun Oct-10-04 10:08 AM
Response to Reply #6

8. Coffee is brewing.

;-)

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Octafish

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Sun Oct-10-04 08:57 PM
Response to Reply #8

9. Condi on A.Q. Khan's 'punishment': humiliation is enough.

Aww. The father of the Pakistani atomic bomb, built with monies from the BCCI -- the bank used by Poppy to send money from Iran to the contras and launder billions from ill-gotten gains -- is embarassed. I'm so sorry, not. Thanks to the BFEE, half the nutcases in the world have WMDs.

Humiliation was punishment for Abdul Qadeer Khan: US

Agence France-Presse
Washington, October 4

Disgraced Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan has been punished by being nationally humiliated, US National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday.

Rice was asked on CNN to clarify President George W Bush's statement during his debate late Thursday with Senator John Kerry that "the AQ Khan network has been brought to justice."

Khan, the father of his country's nuclear bomb, publicly confessed in February to leaking nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

But Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who insisted the proliferation was carried out by a handful of scientists without government involvement, has given Khan a conditional pardon.

SOURCE:

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1040133,0005.htm

PS: Don't you just LOVE south Asia journalism? Here's an article from Agence France-Presse that isn't on GOOGLE. Where are the presstitutes of America's Corporate McPravda? On vacation in Crawford?

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Octafish

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Sun Oct-10-04 09:03 PM
Response to Reply #8

10. How CNN Covered Condi Khan Con

Rice defends Bush's debate comments

National security adviser raps Kerry's 'global test'

EXCERPT...

Rice said Bush did not misspeak when he said that the network of Pakistan's A.Q. Khan -- the founder of Pakistan's nuclear program who was caught selling secrets on the global black market -- had been "brought to justice."

Khan is living in a villa and was pardoned this year by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. None of Khan's co-conspirators have been brought to trial.

Asked how that could be interpreted to mean Khan has been brought to justice, Rice said, "He has been brought to justice because he's out of business."

SOURCE:

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/10/03/rice.bush.kerry/

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Eloriel

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Sun Oct-10-04 12:58 AM
Response to Original message

5. Vampires of Empire

Edited on Sun Oct-10-04 01:21 AM by Eloriel

A poem I ran across earlier today, just seems to fit here. I found it enormously moving and provocative:

The Vampires of Empire
by Judy Grahn
http://www.awakenedwoman.com/grahn_vampires.htm

snip

if we can't have more than our

more-than-our-share

we call it a crisis

and go to war

we pay the price

an addict pays

if oil costs the blood

of a thousand soldiers

we don't care

if it costs the blood

of ten thousand civilians

we don't care

if it costs the blood

of 30,000 traffic deaths

we don't care

we are the vampires of empire

we can eat cherries in winter

we can fly anywhere

everything we do begins

with petroleum

yum yum yum

snip

--Judy Grahn

September 21, 2004

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Octafish

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Sun Oct-10-04 09:01 AM
Response to Reply #5

7. Wow - What a poem! Thanks, Eloriel!

Words can bring truth more profound than any reality.

Really appreciate Ms. Grahn's work and I will look for, and recommend, her work.

BTW, have you seen this all-BFEE, all-the-time web site? Knowing you, you probably are the author. Anyway, it's great to see the Truth in print...

BUSH CRIME FAMILY LINKS

Bush Family Connection Research Sites

The following are links to information about the Bush family, the
Bush cabinet appointees and the corporations, think tanks and
foundations that are behind the GW Bush administration. My
including these links to materials other than the articles I wrote
is not to be considered an endorsement of any statement they
contain.

These links connect to sites run by the left, the religious right,
conservative think tanks, political independents and the
mainstream media. Some are pro-Bush and are included for
cross reference value. All links were good as of this writing so if
you get a message to the contrary keep trying -they are busy
sites. When you cut and paste the web adresses or type them in
there must be no added spaces or characters or else you will
not be able to access the sites. Within each of these sites you
can do a word search on Bush or any other word or name that
interests you.

These materials, which are only a tiny fraction of what's out there,
will help you to see through the blitzkrieg of false information we
are all being subject to about GW Bush and his cabinet. Please
forward these links to your friends, the media, elected officials
and anyone else with an interest in knowing the real story behind
the 43rd President of the United States.

SNIP...

An exceptional article on the relationship between American
conservatives, GW Bush, so-called compassionate
conservatism, eugenics and the Nazis: Nazis In America by
Myrna Estep Ph. D

http://www.feminista.com/v3n10/estep.html

Bush financial misconduct
http://www.campaignwatch.org

Bush family background
http://www.geocities.com/alanjpakula/triplecrown.html
http://www.shorejournal.com/elkhorn/
http://www.prorev.com/bush.htm
http://www.copvcia.com/witness_list.htm
http://members.tripod.com/~Evademic/naznwo/naznwo10.txt
http://www.motherjones.com/news_wire/bushboys.html
http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm
http://www.tylwythteg.com/enemies/Bush/bush17.html
http://www.gwbush.com/
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Commentary/commentary.html
http://www.bushfiles.com/bushfiles/midland.html
http://afrocubaweb.com/bushes.htm
http://www.davidicke.com/icke/articles/bush.html
http://www.infomanage.com/secrets/bios/bushes.html
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/3750/bush.htm
http://www.kmf.org/williams/bushbook.html
http://www.hli.org/issues/pp/bcreview/index.html
http://www.joinhugs.org/mainpage/bushrecord.html
http://www.monitor.net/monitor/morgue.html

CIA, Nazis & the Republican Party
http://www.bartcop.com/nazigop.htm
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/OldNazis_NewRight.html
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/ratline.html
http://www.newsmakingnews.com/mblinks.htm
http://www.watch.pair.com/jbs-cnp.html

Philadelphia Enquirer 9/10/98 David Lee Preston, "Fired Bush
backer one of several with possible Nazi links," September 10, 1988.

Project Paperclip: the CIA Nazi recruitment program - many of the
think tanks and organizations behind Bush got their ideas directly
from these former Nazi officials.

http://www.dc.peachnet.edu/~shale/humanities/composition/assignments/experiment/paperclip.html

CONTINUED LINK CITY...

http://www.serendipity.li/jsmill/bushcrimefamily.htm

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Octafish

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Mon Oct-11-04 12:09 PM
Response to Original message

11. A kick to the pants of the BFEE! -- Ever hear of the OIL War?

An article posted in the spirit of defeating neo-fascism:

Oil Wars: U.S. military is being remolded into an oil-protection force

By Michael T. Klare
Oct 11, 2004, 09:34

Under the pressure of Bush administration energy geopolitics (and under the guise of anti-terrorism), the U.S. military is being remolded into an oil-protection force.

In the first U.S. combat operation of the war in Iraq, Navy commandos stormed an offshore oil-loading platform. "Swooping silently out of the Persian Gulf night," an overexcited reporter for the New York Times wrote on March 22, "Navy Seals seized two Iraqi oil terminals in bold raids that ended early this morning, overwhelming lightly-armed Iraqi guards and claiming a bloodless victory in the battle for Iraq's vast oil empire."

A year and a half later, American soldiers are still struggling to maintain control over these vital petroleum facilities – and the fighting is no longer bloodless. On April 24, two American sailors and a Coast Guardsman were killed when a boat they sought to intercept, presumably carrying suicide bombers, exploded near the Khor al-Amaya loading platform. Other Americans have come under fire while protecting some of the many installations in Iraq's "oil empire."

Indeed, Iraq has developed into a two-front war: the battles for control over Iraq's cities and the constant struggle to protect its far-flung petroleum infrastructure against sabotage and attack. The first contest has been widely reported in the American press; the second has received far less attention. Yet the fate of Iraq's oil infrastructure could prove no less significant than that of its embattled cities. A failure to prevail in this contest would eliminate the economic basis upon which a stable Iraqi government could someday emerge. "In the grand scheme of things," a senior officer told the New York Times, "there may be no other place where our armed forces are deployed that has a greater strategic importance." In recognition of this, significant numbers of U.S. soldiers have been assigned to oil-security functions.

Top officials insist that these duties will eventually be taken over by Iraqi forces, but day by day this glorious moment seems to recede ever further into the distance. So long as American forces remain in Iraq, a significant number of them will undoubtedly spend their time guarding highly vulnerable pipelines, refineries, loading facilities, and other petroleum installations. With thousands of miles of pipeline and hundreds of major facilities at risk, this task will prove endlessly demanding - and unrelievedly hazardous. At the moment, the guerrillas seem capable of striking the country's oil lines at times and places of their choosing, their attacks often sparking massive explosions and fires.

CONTINUED...

http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_12518.shtml

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