Why is it that the Evil Old Men all seem to die in bed, unlike their many victims?
The biggest pass that GHW got was the Cold War. That seemed to excuse a great many bad things for Bush as CIA Director, including the Operation Condor death squads and his role in the Pinochet regime's assassinations in America (the bombing in Washington that killed Orlando Letelier and Ronnie Moffett), and afterwards.
Then there was the Safari Club arrangement with Prince Turki al Faisal that set up BCCI, armed Saudi Arabia's proxy, Pakistan, with nuclear weapons and allowed the Saudis to set up a global covert paramilitary capability that became al-Qaeda.
Poppy's professional career -- in all its glory -- including Bush family's role in financial piracy, working with the bin Laden and bin Mahfooz in multiple bank lootings and land grabs across the oil patch states which became known as the S&L Crisis . . . it's all here, with citations and sources, waiting for anyone who wants to know how America was looted and colonized by the oilogarchs.
Thank G.H.W. for the original "Safari Club" deal by which the Saudis paid for CIA covert ops that the Democratic Congress and the Carter Administration had banned after the Church and Pike Committee revelations of assassinations, coups, and domestic dirty tricks by the CIA. So, in 1975-76, CIA Director Bush made a deal with Saudi intel chief Prince Turki al-Faisal to outsource and privatize these sorts of things with Saudi money paying for it. In exchange, the Saudis got the Bush CIA's permission to develop the "Islamic atomic bomb" through their proxy, Pakistan, along with the go-ahead to build and field their own covert operations capabilities with Osama bin Laden eventually given command over global logistics and organization. See, http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/280
That arrangement morphed into CIA Operation Cyclone that brought hundreds of Jihadists into the U.S. for training and safekeeping in the secret war against the Russians and the Serbs that continued right up to 9/11 - despite repeated Jihadist killings of Americans during the 1990s, that sort of entry was so routine that the State Department and INS looked the other way when a bunch of Saudis with known terrorist ties were given visas and allowed entry into the U.S. in the two year period leading up to the attacks. Every time the FBI came close to busting up these cells, the Agency pushed the Bureau away, as was SOP. In 2001, things got so hot that even the CIA Director was alarmed enough to make personal visits to the President, but as always, the Bushes refused to do anything that might antagonize or embarrass their patrons, the Saudis, who by that point owned a large chunk of corporate America and were the primary funders of the Republican Party. See, http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/308
The Saudis still have a huge slush fund, "al Yamamah" (The Dove) used for intelligence and influence buying operations in the US and UK - basically, the Saudis have bought protection from any accountability or interference using petrodollars and kickbacks from arms purchases, corrupting and blackmailing vast swaths of top officials in both both governments. See, http://journals.democraticunderground.com/leveymg/303
UBL was "our man" (really the Saudi GID intel service and their primary US liaisons, the Bush family) in Khartoum and Kandahar long after the Soviet Union collapsed. The Saudis never really abandoned him or the fight against the Russians over oil. It was obviously in both our and the Saudis mutual interest that UBL never testify about what his actual role was in that war. See, also, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/12/04/810764/-Erik-P...
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