Net of Corruption Binds Bushes, Pope, bin Laden and Saddam

[dutchdemocrat]

Web Masters: Net of Corruption Binds Bushes, Pope, bin Laden and Saddam

Chris Floyd is an American journalist. He writes the weekly Global Eye political column for The Moscow Times and St. Petersburg Times. His work also appears in The Ecologist, The Nation, CounterPunch, Christian Science Monitor, Bergen Record, Columbia Journalism Review and elsewhere around the world. He is the author of the book, Empire Burlesque: The Secret History of the Bush Regime. His columns are featured each week on Bush Watch.

It seemed, at first, nothing more than a novelty item in the news briefs, the kind of odd, meaningless side fact thrown off by most major stories: "New Pope, President's Brother Had Link in Swiss Group." But a look beneath the surface of this innocuous connection reveals a vast web of sinister alliances – and moral corruption on a world-shaking scale. The net links a bewildering line-up of players – the Bushes, the Vatican, bin Laden, Saddam, and China's Communist overlords, among others – in a staggering array of crime and turpitude: prostitution, pedophilia, mass death, war profiteering. Yet this is not some grand "conspiracy theory," a serpent's egg hatched in Bilderberg or Bohemian Grove. It's simply the way the Bush boys do business, trawling the globe for sweetheart deals and gushers of blood money from the war and terror they foment.At the center of this particular nexus is the unlikely figure of Neil Bush, the feckless, fraudulent brother of the current president. Neilsy – as he's known in the family – is most famous for costing American taxpayers $1 billion to bail out a savings-and-loan he had ruined with secret insider loans to his own business partners. For this massive fraud, he was fined – by his father's administration – the princely sum of $50,000: actually paid by one of Pop's political bagmen, naturally.

For you see, the Bushes are robber barons, not capitalists: they never risk any of their own money in the competition of the marketplace – nor do they ever pay the price when their deals go belly-up. Just ask George W., whose first business was kickstarted with secret cash from the bin Ladens, laundered through their American frontman, James Bath – who was also hired by W.'s dad, then-CIA director George Bush I, to set up offshore companies for shifting CIA money and aircraft between Texas and Saudi Arabia, the Texas Observer reports. Neilsy's latest business ventures include a partnership with one of China's own influence-peddling oligarchs: Jiang Mianheng, son of former President Jiang Zemin. He's paying Bush $2 million for "advice" in a field – the semi-conductor industry – which Neilsy cheerfully confesses he knows nothing about. Bush also trousered $1 million for "introductions and advice" from the CP Group, a Bangkok conglomerate spreading bipartisan gravy around Washington. In return for supplying his paymasters with a golden conduit to the White House, Neilsy received a special perk: free prostitutes, served up fresh to his hotel room during business trips in the Far East.

But between his sessions of bouncy-bouncy with trafficked women, Neilsy was also sitting down with hardline cleric Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the former Nazi soldier now translated to glory as Pope Benedict XVI. The two men were board members of an obscure Swiss institute ostensibly devoted to "interfaith dialogue." Although the organization did have some prominent ecumenical figures on the board, none of them could say exactly why pimp daddy Neilsy was invited to join, Newsday reports. Perhaps there's a clue in the group's incorporation. Dunn & Bradstreet lists the supposedly non-profit foundation as a "management trust," specifically designed for "purposes other than education, religion, charity or research." The group's spokesman says this designation was a "mistake," and anyway, the institute is hastily being "re-launched" with a "new focus" on its religious mission, etc. But a cynic – i.e., anyone with the slightest acquaintance of Bush business practices – might think that a "management trust" masquerading as a religious charity would be an excellent place to launder money or park assets away from the taxman's prying eyes.

Meanwhile, Ratzinger spent his time on the Swiss board trying to bury the Vatican's massive pedophile scandal, the London Observer reports this week. In a secret 2001 letter, he ordered Church officials to prevent police from learning about abuse allegations – a theological innovation more commonly known in America as "obstructing justice." Given this criminal high-wire act, perhaps the good cardinal thought it prudent to cultivate some personal ties with a presidential sibling. Whatever Neilsy and Das Panzerkardinal were up to in Switzerland, Ratzinger repaid their camaraderie with a decisive intervention in brother George's 2004 election, issuing a fatwa that essentially condemned any Catholic voting for John Kerry to eternal hellfire. With the Vatican's iron hand on the scales, Bush reaped an extra six percent of the Catholic vote – a huge boost in a tight race. But it's Neilsy's long-time partnership with Syrian-born businessman Jamal Daniel that has provided the true motherlode: war profiteering. Daniel, also a boardmate in the Swiss adventure with Ratzinger, is a principal in New Bridge Strategies, a firm set up by top Bush insiders to steer corporate clients to the fountains of blood money flowing from George W.'s conquest of Iraq. The company makes frequent use of Neilsy's "introductions" and Middle East connections, the Financial Times reports – and also operates a profitable sideline in mercenaries.

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[IChing]

1. I agree the

coincidence of a rational mind's historic evidence, of repeating coincidences, leads to an empirical historical evidence of something that is stranger than fiction.

As Sherlock Holmes. said: or as the famous science fiction author said:

"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"

"Improbable as it is, all other explanations are more improbable still. "


"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

You can take those in any order ....... of your logic.

but yes, I feel the breeze, and it is refreshing, and the draft of logic is expanding, hopefully to the un-knowning and un-caring.

[dutchdemocrat]

2. Related Article by Floyd

Blood Kin: More Bang for Your Buck the Bush Family Way

Imagine these banner headlines, circa, say, 1998: President's Brother in Biz With Red Chinese! President's Brother Beds Hookers as Corporate Perk! President's Brother Hip Deep in War Profiteering: White House Policies Fill Family Pockets! There would've been a hot time in the old media town with all that, eh? Wall-to-wall coverage, 24/7, Fox News frothing, Washington Post pounding, tabloids screaming – "Oval Evil: Reds, Beds and Milking the Dead!" Earnest clucking in the halls of Congress: "We must get to the bottom of these unsavoury connections." Late-night comics cracking wise: "Hey, when the president's brother orders Chinese, he ain't just talking chow mein: 'Yeah, I'll have the rice, the won-ton, two blondes and a bag of unmarked bills, please.'"

But of course, that was another millennium. In our new, more enlightened, more chastened age, we humbly accept – even celebrate – the special privileges accorded to the great ones among us. And so, with a couple of honorable exceptions, the bigtime American media lay a nice soft comfy quilt of silence over last month's revelations about presidential brother Neil Bush – details which emerged from the nasty divorce suit Neil brought upon himself by his flagrant adultery with a close family friend. While others quilted, the Los Angeles Times and Houston Chronicle detailed Brother Neil's fat "consulting" contract with Jiang Mianheng, son of recently retired Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Young Jiang and his well-connected Communist capitalists are paying Neil $2 million in stock for his "advice" on manufacturing hi-tech computer circuits – despite Neil's sworn oath that he had "absolutely no background" in the field. "But I've been working in Asia for a long time," he added.

He certainly has. Neil also admitted that he'd experienced carnal canoodling with several women during his many business jaunts to Asia over the years. He told the divorce court that these brazen hussies had simply knocked on his hotel door, came in and had sex with him. These encounters were not emollients offered by the businessmen courting his favor and royal name, Neil insisted. Why, he's not even sure these anonymous women offering themselves to him unbidden actually were prostitutes, because "they never asked for money and I didn't pay them." If it's true – as he swears under oath – that he didn't know why those women came to see him, then the best you can say about Brother Neil is that he is an idiot of the highest order. (A possibility not to be discounted, given his illustrious pedigree.) But of course Neil is no idiot. He first entered the public eye for a sweet scam he pulled during the Reagan-Bush years. As a director of a Colorado savings-and-loan bank, he steered $100 million of homeowners' savings to his own business partners – without telling his fellow directors of the personal connection. The partners defaulted, and Bush, using his family links to Argentine strongman Carlos Menem, tried to hide the losses in some bait-and-switch deals south of the border, as the Austin Chronicle reports.

When the feds finally caught up with him in 1990, Bush had cost American taxpayers $1.3 billion in bailouts to cover his mismanagement. But as the son of the sitting president, Neil could not possibly go to jail for stealing $100 million; the high-born don't do hard time. No, he was merely fined $50,000 and banned from all banking activities. Naturally, Neil didn't pay his own fine; fatcat Republican fundraisers covered it for him. We told you he was no idiot. Now comes the sweetest deal of all – enriched by the blood sugar seeping out from the bodies of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians. Yes, Neil has dipped his silver spoon into the reconstruction gravy being ladled out by his brother George, the White House warlord. Neil is now being paid a fat annual fee to "help companies secure contracts in Iraq," the Financial Times reports.

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http://empireburlesquenow.blogspot.com/2005/03/blood-kin-more-bang-for-your-buck-bush.html