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1998 - 2003© Copyright From The Wilderness Publications
FROM THE WILDERNESS A Nonpartisan, Non-sectarian, MAP from the Here That Is, Into the Tomorrow of Our Own Making Vol. IV, No. 10 --------------- January 29, 2002 © Copyright 2001, Michael C. Ruppert and From The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com.· [All Rights Reserved. Please visit web site for Reprint Policy] Explaining the Unthinkable In coming issues FTW will be looking at bizarre but very well documented developments connected to biowarfare, DNA sequencing, draconian "health care" legislation and what appears to be a coming epidemic of manmade plagues. As always, our reporting will be based upon what are known, verifiable and unchallenged recent events. And, as always, we will assume responsibility for the unpleasant task of explaining them. Seemingly random yet connected events, when they appear in large numbers, cannot be coincidence. Mature thinking demands that they be explained. With the recent deaths of 12 of the world’s leading microbiologists -- soon to be the subject of a major FTW story -- along with the introduction of the Model State Emergency Health Powers Act in many state legislatures, a post-9/11 series of related events demands explanation. In this issue, geologist and author Dale Allen Pfeiffer provides a chilling, terrifying model that may explain these developments. As is so often the case with a new and apparently accurate construct, it also helps to explain other events, like an unending war against terror. As Sherlock Holmes said, "Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how unlikely, must be the answer." Let them that have eyes see and let them that have ears hear. Take this issue of FTW and read it like you have never read before. Save it. Keep it close. Do not throw it away. When you are over the shock, and as events unfold, remember that human survival, perhaps your own, depends upon accepting facts and not ignoring them. There is now a credible and factually supported model, which explains recent events better than anything I have yet seen. That model says that the murder of 3-4 billion people may occur within the next 10 years. I pray that someone else will present a better one that will stand the test of logical and fearless analysis. · From The Wilderness Michael C. Ruppert Publisher/Editor Contributing Editor ----------------- Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D. Contributing Editor - Energy -------------- Dale Allen Pfeiffer Copy Editor -------------------------------------Joe Taglieri Web Master---------------- Andrea Shepherd Unless otherwise indicated, all articles are written by Michael C. Ruppert. -- "Nobody moved for almost five hours." NEAR CAPACITY CROWDS TURN OUT TO HEAR MIKE RUPPERT LECTURE AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO - Q&A LASTS FOR 2 à· HOURS Near capacity crowds turned out in the 500 seat auditorium of the University of Toronto’s medical school for two lectures, Jan 17th and 19th by FTW publisher Michael Ruppert as he continues to use government documents, insider books and reports, congressional records, and mainstream press reports to expose US government complicity in and foreknowledge of the attacks of last September 11th. "We didn’t know how Canadians would react," said the co-organizer of the event, Susan Bulger-Bullen of Sumari seminars. "But their interest was high and Mike’s detailed and documented evidence was so compelling that I think he’s changed Toronto forever, maybe Canada too." The attendance the first day was only around 250-300 because of confusion about the advertised location. However, the second lecture was filled to near capacity in the double-decked auditorium. ·"Once the lecture began, the audience sucked up every bit of evidence Ruppert presented as though they had just discovered water," Bulger-Bullen added. "Nobody moved for five hours." Using the same basic format as his November 28th lecture at Portland State University, Ruppert presented newer material, including charts from a two-part FTW series by geologist Dale Allen Pfeiffer (December/January) on the coming end of the age of oil and the massive dislocations it is destined to produce. "It is imperative," Ruppert said, "that people know that world oil production will peak within the next five years, never to be exceeded again," said Ruppert.· "This, at a time when world population is rapidly increasing and demand, especially in China, the Far East and the developing world, is soaring. This is the reason for the wars that will not end in our lifetimes." In his two-plus-hour lecture Ruppert detailed the meshing necessities for the CIA, acting as an agent of globalization, to control both the drug cash and the oil of Central Asia. "People got it when I pointed out that even if we started on a crash program to convert to other energy sources, the civilization could not change away from oil quickly enough to avert the crisis. And when I described the economic dislocations involved, the millions of people who work in the plastics, power, auto and oil industries who would be thrown out of work in such an effort, people understood that this crisis is not going away with wishful thinking. That doesn’t even begin to consider all of the money that would be taken out of the economy if those people lost their jobs." "Mike did an absolutely amazing job and was superbly eloquent," said Dr. Terry Burrows, a Toronto psychiatrist who attended both lectures. "No one in their right mind can see the evidence that he has gathered and not understand that this is a war against all peoples of the world and that the official position is so absurd as to be laughable." Canada has seen a flurry of legislation stripping the civil rights of its citizens since September 11th. Bills C-36 and C-42 have stripped away many of the rights held sacred in Canada and Canadians are becoming increasingly alarmed since their combat troops have been sent to fight in Afghanistan. Canada is widely known as a quiet nation, more peacekeeper than war maker. "What helped tremendously here was getting Mike on local talk radio before the event. Canadians tend to be skeptical, but Mike’s performance was amazing and the buzz is still continuing. One guy who is writing his doctoral thesis called and said that he would be using Mike’s material for research," said co-organizer Loretta Stirbys. "If we had him back here today we could bring out a thousand people with no effort. I mean they gave him a standing ovation and kept him going for almost three hours with questions after the lecture. There were as many people there at the end as when he began. Emails are still flying all over Canada." Mike lectures next at Schreiner University in Kerrville, West Texas on January 30th. Additional lectures are pending or confirmed in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, Detroit, New York City, Great Britain and Australia. Please check here for information on upcoming events.
Photos of the Toronto event Click on image to enlarge.
Part II in FTW’s Series on the End of the Age of Oil - Population Reduction of 3 Billion A Global Necessity? What Will Be the Next Target of the Oil Coup? by Dale Allen Pfeiffer FTW, January 29, 2002 -- If it is true that an oil coup has taken control in this country and is seeking to consolidate its power throughout the world, based on the fact that world oil and natural gas production are set to go into decline, then what does this hold for the future? Using this as our hypothesis, we should be able to predict future military actions by comparing production profiles for various oil producing countries with the political climate within these same countries. For this purpose, we are using production profiles developed by Richard C. Duncan and Walter Youngquist through the use of their World Oil Forecasting Program in 1998.1 The data has changed very little since that time, except for a slight upgrade in projected Caspian Sea oil reserves and a slightly higher than projected oil demand. In addition to oil production there are also other factors which need to be taken into account, such as other resource deposits, demand, and population. Not all of these factors are as well documented as oil production, and so we will use this as our focal point, adding in other information where available. Finally, we have to wonder not only about the motives of this supposed oil coup, but we also need to speculate on whether the perpetrators fully understand the implications of energy depletion. In other words, will they be able to hold on to their power in the face of the breakdown of civilization? And what might they do if they thought they were losing control? First let us look at the situation in North America, as reported by Duncan and Youngquist. North American Oil Production The United States was the first country to peak in its oil production, back in 1970. The United States exploited its oil to provide the standard of living enjoyed today. However, after 1970 the continuation of this standard of living has depended upon increasing imports of oil. Notice the slight raising and leveling off of the production curve in the early 1980s as oil from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska was brought on line. The Prudhoe Bay fields peaked in 1985 and have been in decline since. At one time, the USA had abundant, easily exploited oil reserves -- production peaked at over 4 billions barrels per day -- but those days are behind us now. Even the Alaska National Wildlife Arctic Reserves (ANWAR) will make little difference to this picture. Not long after the United States peak, resources in Mexico and Canada came on line, providing some salvation in the regional picture. However, the resources of both countries taken at their peaks do not equal the peak production of the United States. Mexico peaked a year ago, while Canada is not expected to peak for another 10 years. In the overall regional picture, you can see the United States peak in 1970, followed by a short decline and then a recovery. As a region, North America peaked in 1985. After a slight secondary peak taking place right now, North American oil production is expected to plummet. The only untapped reserves left in this region are in ANWAR, and their affect would be negligible on this graph. Tar sands and shale deposits in Canada may contain the equivalent of more than 150 billion barrels of oil which could theoretically become economical to produce once conventional deposits are in decline. However, it is unlikely that production can be brought on line quickly enough to offset the shock of conventional oil depletion.2 Beyond this, there are grave environmental problems associated with the exploitation of these deposits. Namely, the tar sands and oil shales can only be harvested through massive strip mining. And, once the oil has been extracted, there will be literally thousands of tons of sand and shale slag to be dealt with, not to mention other more harmful wastes. Where are We to Turn? Contrary to what you might think, the United States does not receive the bulk of its oil imports from the Middle East. Thus far, our oil imports have come from South and Central America, chiefly Venezuela and Colombia. Venezuela alone accounts for more than 53% of the oil in this region.3 However, Venezuelan oil production already appears to be peaking a little sooner than Duncan and Youngquist’s program predicted. Venezuela also holds what is perhaps the world’s greatest deposit of unconventional oil: the Orinoco oil belt, which contains an estimated 1.2 trillion barrels of the sludge known as heavy oil. This is a great resource; however, it is known as heavy sludge because it is highly contaminated by sulfur and heavy metals. The removal and disposal of these elements would have to be attained without destroying the economic viability of the deposits. And, as with the Canadian oil sands, such a project is unlikely to be brought on line in time to offset the shock of declining oil production. Colombia’s oil deposits are predicted to peak around 2010. Unfortunately, they are unlikely to produce more than one third of a billion barrels per day at peak. There is currently a lot of speculation about a major oil strike in the southeastern foothills of Colombia's Andes. Geologists in the area have made some interesting discoveries, but nothing has been confirmed as of yet. It has long been suspected that a major field must exist somewhere between the Venezuelan oil fields and the oil shales of the Peruvian Andes. Yet, with all our modern probing, this field has failed to turn up. This author suspects that exploration in Colombia will turn up no new, major oil fields -- though it may turn up minor deposits. This author suspects that the mother lode of South American hydrocarbon deposits has already been found, in the form of the Orinoco heavy oil sludge. In any case, it is quite plain the United States needs the oil of this region. And production of these oil resources is threatened by political instabilities. Colombia is a divided country rocked by over 50 years of civil war. And Venezuela has also become increasingly unstable in just the past year. President Hugo Chavez has been bucking US imperialism and oil interests for some time now. A new Hydrocarbons Law, which took effect at the beginning of 2002, will require that state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela SA hold a minimum 51% stake in future joint ventures involving exploration and exploitation. And the law will impose the world’s highest royalty rates on companies operating in Venezuela's oil fields. President Chavez insists that such a move is necessary to rescue the Venezuelan economy and to help ease poverty in the country. Similar moves toward nationalization in the past led to US backed coups in Guatemala and Iran, to site just two examples.4 Early in November 2001, the National Security Agency, the Pentagon and the US State Department held a two-day meeting on US policy toward Venezuela. This meeting was supposedly held in response to a Chavez statement that the US was fighting "terrorism with terrorism." It is quite likely that among the options discussed at this meeting was a coup against Chavez.5 Elsewhere in South America, Ecuador almost fell a year ago to a grassroots coalition of peasants and Indians. Farther south, Bolivia has been destabilized by a peasants’ revolt sparked by privatization of their water supply. Even farther south, in Argentina, the economy has crashed and the government has dissolved. People are rioting and looting grocery stores. Brazil has been economically shaken by the fall of Argentina and by the growing strength of the MST -- the landless peasant movement. In fact, it would be difficult to find a truly stable government anywhere in South America at this time. Under Clinton and Bush II, the United States has poured billions worth of military aid into Colombia, ostensibly to fight the drug war, though our support has gone to military and paramilitary units rife with drug trafficking. The US is currently sponsoring a massive defoliation program in Colombia, and we are increasing the number of US military advisors in the country. FARC, the rebel force which controls half of the country, has pledged to target US personnel. And there is word from the state department, since September 11th, that we will consider rebel forces in Colombia to be international terrorists. This author looks for a terrorist/drug war in Colombia which will probably spill over into Venezuela and Ecuador, maybe even Peru. A war in this region will be long and bloody, and may make Vietnam look like a Sunday picnic. The Former Soviet Union All lumped together under the title Former Soviet Union, we have not only Russia proper, but also Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and the Caspian Sea region. This graph is probably the least accurate of Duncan and Youngquist’s predictions, due to lack of data at the time they modeled this graph and also due to exigencies of politics and economics. Duncan and Youngquist did under-assess the Caspian Sea resources, though the correct figures make little difference in their overall world predictions. Most importantly, they did not figure on Russia opening up oil production and exportation to the extent that it has at present, purely due to economic factors. The oil coup has already moved in this region -- the attack on Afghanistan only being the most visible evidence of this. Perhaps more importantly for their interests, the Central Asian states of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have opened their countries to the presence of NATO forces. Bases have already been established in all of these countries. It is certain that deals have also been hammered out with these countries for the exploitation of their oil and natural gas resources. It is also very likely that the oil coup has its eyes on Russia itself. In this case, Russia’s nuclear might precludes an overt attack. Through the 1990s, western financiers looted the Russian economy until there was hardly anything left. At present, Putin has no choice but to open up oil exports just to keep his government solvent. Russian President Vladimir Putin has placed himself as a vassal to the oil coup; however, he is not entirely happy with the actions of the western states. Bush’s rush for a missile defense system would negate Russia’s last claim to superpower. We can only hope that the oil coup is not foolish enough to provoke a nuclear war with Russia. The Middle East It is in the Middle East that the real grab for world power will be played out. According to Duncan and Youngquist’s model, by 2007 the Middle East will dominate the world in oil production. This will be the last region where oil production will peak, according to Duncan and Youngquist’s model, sometime around 2011. And the oil of the Middle East lies largely in the provinces of five countries: Iran, Iraq, The United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. All but two of these countries are closely tied to the United States and are likely to be players in the oil coup. The exceptions are Iraq and Iran. Iraq’s ability to export oil has been severely restricted since the first Gulf War. Likewise, Iran faced stiff embargoes following the fall of the Shah in the 1970’s. However, in neither of these countries does the oil coup have clear control over oil resources. Likewise, both countries are targeted as terrorist states. Right now, Israel and powers in the United States are lobbying strongly to make Iraq the next target in the "War Against Terrorism." Rumor has it that this war is slated to begin early in 2002. This author would suggest that, after finishing off Saddam Hussein, the oil coup will then set its sites on Iran. We can say with certainty that the oil coup will want to have both these countries firmly in control before the OPEC crossover event. But how stable are the governments of the other three major Arab states? The Saudi royals sit very uneasily on their throne. The hundreds of princes which make up the house of Fahd are extremely unpopular due to their own corruption—both economic and moral. National Security Agency electronic intercepts demonstrate that the Saudi princes routinely pay protection money to Islamic extremists, including Hamas and Al Qa’ida. NSA and CIA analysts have noted that it would not take much for an Islamic fundamentalist coup to overthrow the royals. Likewise, a secret CIA study put together in the mid-1980s concludes that terrorists with only a handful of explosives could take the Saudi oil fields off line for two years. ·The oil producing Arab states, led by Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, have all seen large population increases since they began pumping oil. In a couple of generations, they have gone from being simple nomadic peoples to sophisticated urbanites. All of these countries have highly developed welfare states financed by oil money. Unfortunately for them, the rate of population growth has exceeded their ability to financially support the population. It is for this reason that the Arab countries were exceeding their oil quotas throughout the late-1990s, in an effort to cover the expenses of their welfare systems. And let us not forget that these are all desert nations. By the year 2020, all of these countries will have passed peak oil production and be in decline. By that time, none of them will be able to support their populations.6 The result will be starvation, economic disaster and civil unrest. How will the oil coup hope to hold this ship together? Projections Based on the analysis presented above, we believe that the most likely targets in the "War on Terrorism" will be Iraq, Iran, Colombia, Venezuela, and possibly (though hopefully not) Russia. That there will be actions in other theatres is certain. It is very likely that Somalia will be targeted soon. And, as they hold the world’s richest deposit of uranium, Somalia is not without valuable resources. Other Middle Eastern or Central Asian nations not mentioned here could also be targeted for a number of reasons, energy resources among them. Likewise Indonesia, if that country became too unstable. Then there are actions which could be strictly political, or which could be viewed as vendettas. North Korea, the Philippines, and Cuba could fall into this category. Yet, it is FTW’s belief that the main targets for military action in the years to come will be those stated in the first sentence of this paragraph. Will the oil coup be successful? That is to be doubted. Just as the Middle Eastern countries can expect problems because their population will surpass their ability to care for them, so will the rest of the world. The entire civilization is apt to break down chaotically, in ways that no one can foresee. Possibly the greatest single problem resulting from all this will be the failure of modern agriculture. Without petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides, experts predict that world agriculture will only be able to comfortably support a population of two billion.7 The current world population is over six billion. What will the members of the oil coup do when they realize they are losing control? If faced with starving, angry masses throughout the world—in the first world as well as the third world -- what would be the response of the oil coup? Would they roll over and die, or would they strike back with everything available? It is truly to be hoped that they do not foresee this contingency, or they may decide to unleash biological warfare on the population of the entire world. ENDNOTES: 1. THE WORLD PETROLEUM LIFE-CYCLE, Richard C. Duncan and Walter Youngquist. Presented at the PTTC Workshop "OPEC Oil Pricing and Independent Oil Producers," Petroleum Technology Transfer Council Petroleum Engineering Program, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California; October 22, 1998. http://dieoff.com/page133.htm A PDF Version of this paper is available at http://www.dieoff.com/page133.pdf 2. THE END OF CHEAP OIL, by Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrère, Scientific American, March 1998. http://dieoff.com/page140.pdf 3. CONTENTIOUS NEW VENEZUELAN OIL LAW ENTERS INTO EFFECT. AP, 1 January 2002. 4. KILLING HOPE; US MILITARY AND CIA INTERVENTIONS SINCE WORLD WAR II, by William Blum. Common Courage Press, 1995. http://members.aol.com/bblum6/ American_holocaust.htm 5. US COOKING UP A COUP IN VENEZUELA? by Conn Hallinan. San Francisco Examiner, 12/28/2001. http://www.examiner.com/sfx/templates/printer.jsp? story=OPhallinan1228w 6. KING'S RANSOM: HOW VULNERABLE ARE THE SAUDI ROYALS? by Seymour M. Hersh. The New Yorker, October 22, 2001. http://www.ccmep.org/hotnews/kings102201.html 7. THE POST-PETROLEUM PARADIGM -- AND POPULATION, WALTER YOUNGQUIST. POPULATION AND ENVIRONMENT: A JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES Volume 20, Number 4, March 1999 © 1999 Human Sciences Press, Inc. http://www.dieoff.com/page171.htm Dale Allen Pfeiffer is a Michigan structural geologist, activist, and novelist. He can be reached at: energy_editor@copvcia.com A White Knight Talking Backwards SPY CASE IN CANADIAN COURTS SUGGESTS US NAVAL OFFICER HAD FOREKNOWLEDGE OF 9/11 EDITORIAL NOTE: In our original story we indicated that the note written by Delmart "Mike" Vreeland had been sealed in court records. We based this on a misreading of Canadian press stories. In fact, the warning of the World Trade Center attacks, written by Vreeland on either August 11th or 12th has been introduced into open evidence in Vreeland’s case in Toronto. Using court records in our possession, FTW has scanned the document and it is available for download at http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/1252_rev_12802.html.· We apologize for the error. Following is a revised story which we feel is the best way to present this important information in context.] ---------- FTW, TORONTO, January 25, 2002, [Revised January 28, 2002] - Delmart Edward "Mike" Vreeland, an American citizen whose claims to being a US Naval Lieutenant assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) are being increasingly corroborated in open court, has been in a Canadian jail since December 6, 2000. On August 11th or 12th of 2001, the date is uncertain, after trying to verbally alert his Canadian jailers to the coming World Trade Center attacks, he wrote down key information and sealed it in an envelope which he then had placed in jailers’ custody. This event is not disputed by Canadian authorities. The letter specifically listed a number of targets including The Sears Towers, The World Trade Center, The White House, The Pentagon, The World Bank, The Canadian parliament building and the Royal Bank in Toronto. A chilling sentence follows the list of targets, "Let one happen. Stop the rest!!!" When the envelope was opened on September 14th it set off alarms in the US and Canada. The US wants Vreeland back in the States on a Michigan warrant for credit card fraud -- using his own credit card. Vreeland, convinced that a return to the US means certain death, wants to stay in Canada in a witness protection program. His lawyers Rocco Galati and Paul Slansky, two former Canadian prosecutors, agree with Vreeland’s assessment. They should. Both have been the victims of harassment and threats, including dead cats hung on porches and car windows smashed out in car burglaries. The position of the United States government, as represented by Crown Solicitors in Toronto, is that all of this is nonsense. Vreeland, says the Navy, was discharged as a Seaman after a few months of service for unsatisfactory performance in 1986. He has never had anything to do with intelligence according to 1200 pages of Navy records filed in Toronto Superior Court. "How is it," says Galati, "that the Navy says that he was only in the service a few months, and then send us a 1200- page personnel file? Some of the entries are obvious forgeries or alterations, and the sanitizing of his records was done so hurriedly that some dates of medical exams in the 1990s were left intact." In a January 10, 2002 tactic worthy of Perry Mason, with the greatest possible risk to his client if it failed, attorney Slansky got the judge to agree to let him call the Pentagon from open court. Using a speaker phone, in front of at least six witnesses, Slansky first dialed directory information and got a number for the Pentagon switchboard. Then, calling that number he asked the Department of Defense operator to locate the office of Lieutenant Delmart Vreeland. Within moments the operator had confirmed Vreeland’s posting, his rank as a Lt. O-3, his room number and gave Slansky his direct-dial number. All of this is a part of the court record. On January 17, as this writer sat in the courtroom, another mind-numbing event occurred. As Vreeland sat shackled in a corner, closely flanked by two guards, the Crown Solicitor sought to debunk Vreeland’s assertions that he had been assigned to travel to Moscow to review and retrieve highly technical and classified documents pertaining to Russian and Chinese efforts to counter the proposed US "Star Wars" missile defense system. [Ed. note: FTW believes this to be a cover story.] "Why," said the Crown Solicitor, "would the US choose, in a case involving some of the most highly technical intelligence, a random seaman with training in the tool and die field." The point that someone discharged in 1986 with no special training and rank would be sent to review technical documents sounded reasonable - assuming that Vreeland’s background was as the Solicitor argued. But the reasonableness vanished a few moments later as the Crown Solicitor argued that Vreeland, who has been in jail and without access to a computer for 13 months, had somehow cracked the Pentagon’s personnel records and inserted his name, an office number, and telephone extension into the Pentagon database. No one except for Vreeland and attorney Galati seemed to notice the contradiction. The Crown Solicitor ventured further through the looking glass by then arguing that Vreeland, having certain papers in his possession at the time of his arrest, had memorized Russian and Albanian documents and then had translated them from memory. Vreeland doesn’t speak Russian or Albanian. The judge, noticing this stretch of credibility, asked the Solicitor to restate the point. The argument then became that Vreeland had an unnamed colleague go to an unspecified web site, print Russian and Albanian documents for him, and then used foreign language dictionaries to translate them. Vreeland’s extradition process could take years, and his time in jail has not been easy. There have been threats, illnesses and his every move is watched. Galati and Slansky wonder how long his psyche will hold up. The history of jailhouse deaths of key witnesses leans heavily in favor of Vreeland’s belief that he could be killed at any moment. His apparent strategy is to not reveal any accurate Top Secret material to either his lawyers or the press, hoping that his silence will provide him with some support from US clandestine services. This is a standard approach taken in dozens of similar cases researched by FTW in the past. They include the cases - well known in research circles - of William Tyree and Michael Riconosciuto. Tyree has been jailed on a questionable murder conviction since 1979, and Riconosciuto on a variety or drug-related charges since the early-1990s. Both men have been directly connected to CIA and other intelligence operations by official documents. "We don’t need to know, and we don’t want to know the secret details, "says Galati. "They’re not necessary for us to do the job of keeping our client alive and in Canada. He faces a special danger in the US because he has also been an informant against an organized crime family in Michigan where the criminal charges originate. The most he is facing there is two years, but we believe he might not live for two days in that system." Additional press reports indicate that Vreeland’s intelligence work was connected to drug smuggling - a much more likely reason for his trip to Moscow. And the history of the relations between Naval Intelligence and the mafia is documented as far back as the Second World War when ONI officers made deals with convicted mafia don Lucky Luciano and his lieutenant, Vito Genovese, to protect New York docks and assist with the subsequent Allied invasion and occupation of Italy. Mike Vreeland is one man who, in a rational world, could totally expose the complicity of the US government in the attacks of September 11th. No one has disputed what he wrote and stuffed into that envelope. In a rational world that would be the most pressing and public inquiry of all. The two questions remaining are whether Vreeland will live, and whether or not he will ever tell what he knows. That may be a mutually exclusive proposition. FTW has retained the services of freelance journalist Greta Knutsen in Toronto to report on developments in this critical case for our subscribers. Important updates will be posted and sent out via subscriber bulletin to our readers as they become available. Delusions of Sanity Arthur Andersen’s Contract to Audit FBI Unaffected by Mounting Evidence of Criminal Activity FTW, January 15, 2002 - In the exploding popcorn mix of new Enron investigations, increasingly focusing on possible criminal misconduct by accounting giant Arthur Andersen, a Justice Department spokesperson told FTW that a contract for Andersen to review sensitive FBI management and recordkeeping procedures has been unaffected. Recent statements by Senators Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) indicating that investigations of Andersen may turn criminal, and a January 14th commentary by CNN’s Lou Dobbs indicating that the scandal may put the company out of business, raise serious questions about the Department of Justice’s contract calling for Andersen to "review the FBI’s management practices, including recordkeeping, technology and human resources issues," as described in an August 29, 2001 story by reporter Kellie Lunney on the website www.GovExec.com. This is especially relevant since FBI agents will themselves be investigating Andersen in newly announced DoJ probes related to Enron. The Gov Exec story, relying on documents from the Federal Register, detailed that, "In July, Justice and FBI officials revealed that more than 400 weapons and 180 laptop computers -- including some holding sensitive and classified information - were missing from the agency. The FBI has faced harsh criticism over the last few months, most notably for its failure to turn over all documents to lawyers for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, a controversy that resulted in a temporary postponement of McVeigh’s execution." In August, Attorney General John Ashcroft authorized the creation of a special commission to evaluate years of serious and well-documented FBI lapses ranging from mishandling of key evidence in the crime lab, as exposed by FBI whistleblower Fred Whitehurst, to the loss of sensitive intelligence materials. Commission members include former CIA Director William Webster, former Secretary of Defense William Cohen, former House Speaker Tom Foley and former HUD Secretary and US Trade Rep Carla Hills. According to the GovExec story, "All of the commission’s meetings will be closed to the public to protect sensitive information…according to a July 16 memo from the Justice Department." The key question is, "Information sensitive to whom, that might damage whose interests?" DoJ spokesman Brian Sierra indicated on January 14th, that the issue of Andersen’s contract, which would give them access to many of the FBI’s most sensitive files, has not yet been raised in the wake of the rapidly evolving Enron debacle. "As of this moment the contract is still in effect," said Sierra. "I can’t speak to the issue and I don’t think the question has been brought up at Justice." Spokespersons for Andersen, headquartered in Chicago, did not return an FTW call asking for comment. The obvious conflict of interest could not come at a worse time for an Administration that is frantically attempting to get ahead of the Enron scandal. It also comes at a time when the impartiality of other government agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the General Accounting Office, is called into question because of the past relationships of the heads of those two agencies with the embattled accounting firm. Harvey Pitt at SEC once represented Andersen in his private law practice. GAO chief David Walker is a former board member at Andersen whose tenure there ended in late-1998, long after the time period in which Andersen has been implicated in the falsifications of Enron’s financial statements which began in 1997. Walker’s former partners may now become the subject of criminal probes by the FBI, the SEC and the GAO. Unlike the SEC and the FBI, the GAO is known as the investigative arm of Congress -- the same Congress which is now representing itself to be the champion of the public interest. Headed by Walker in the Comptroller General position, the GAO remains one of the last defensible positions that the government (both the White House and the Legislature) can offer as a statement of government credibility to an increasingly cynical population. The notion that Andersen could now be trusted to investigate the FBI and gain access to information that would damage the FBI’s credibility, and possibly be traded off for softer handling for its own actions, stretches the imagination to the breaking point and beyond. Congress and the administration need to understand that that by failing to walk the most perfect of lines with Enron and Andersen, they risk the credibility of the entire government -- and not just the Bush White House. A previous FTW story on unexplored conflicts of interest related to Enron is located at: http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/enron_money_laundering.html. THE PROFITS OF DEATH - Part III in a Special FTW Series on Insider Trading and September 11th ALL ROADS LEAD TO DEUTSCHEBANK AND HARKEN ENERGY, W’s OWN 1991 INSIDER TRADING SCAM - THE MOTHER OF ALL ENRONS by Tom Flocco and Michael C. Ruppert Edited by Michael C. Ruppert ---------- [Editor’s Notes - In Part I of this series FTW, thanks to the brilliant research of Tom Flocco, demonstrated that the CIA has, in fact, been involved in monitoring stock trades on world financial markets, and that current CIA executives have had recent business relationships with firms handling obvious insider trades connected to the attacks of September 11th. Those connections ran directly into the heart of German financial giant Deutschebank. In Part II we documented that a former Deutschebank executive, Kevin Ingram, had recently been convicted on drug and money laundering charges that were directly a result of attempts to arm Islamic terrorist groups. Now in Part III, we conclude this series by revealing a devastating conflict of interest in investigating these leads on the part of President George W. Bush by virtue of his own past insider trading through Harken Energy in Bahrain and Kuwait. The Administration’s apparently deliberate omission of key mid-Eastern banks in these two countries from post 9/11 investigations suggests clearly that the principal financial institutions of the countries where Harken did business have something to hide which the Bush Administration does not want to see the light of day - especially as potentially explosive Enron investigations gather steam. After our publication of Part II a number of careful FTW readers were careful to point out that our description of "put" options was oversimplified to the point of describing a short-sell, rather than the more highly leveraged "put option." We acknowledge this error but re-emphasize that the point of these stories - which could easily be sidetracked into lengthy and detailed discussions of the workings of financial instruments - is not the trades themselves, but who might have made the trades, why they made them and, most importantly, why the Bush Administration wants so desperately to conceal information about them from the world. - MCR] ---------- FTW, January 9, 2001 -- President George W. Bush may have personal reasons for hampering investigations into insider trading connected to the attacks of September 11th. There is substantial evidence suggesting that a detailed investigation into Deutschebank’s connection to Islamic terrorists and 9/11 might reopen a mysteriously closed 1991 investigation of criminal insider trading connected to Harken Energy, a Houston company where George W. Bush served on the board of directors as a major stockholder with his some of his father's key campaign contributors. On January 30, 1990 Harken, with a remarkably unsuccessful history of drilling projects, signed major oil drilling contracts with Bahrain. Five months later, Bush's company suffered an unexplained huge loss of stock value just prior to the Gulf War -- but not before the future president had already cashed out, making close to a million dollars selling his own stock. Because of 9/11 leads suggesting the possible involvement of certain Arab banks in financing the attacks, a conflict of interest exists, clearly limiting how far the President would be willing to pursue the most obvious leads. And US government investigations since 9/11 have avoided looking at key Middle Eastern banks in Bahrain and Kuwait already linked to terrorist activities. In fact, two banks located in Bahrain and Kuwait - The Faysal Islamic Bank and the Kuwait Finance House - which had been listed in European reports as having terrorist ties were glaringly omitted from George W Bush’s financial crackdown after September 11th. [Source: The Inner City Press, 9-11-99.] Both banks have correspondent relationships with Deutschebank. In spite of mounting evidence of a number of connections between German financial giant Deutschebank and the terrorist attacks of September 11 - including previously documented links to insider trading based upon events of 9/11 - no press agency or government entity is questioning why certain banking institutions in Kuwait and Bahrain with deep financial ties to the Bush family have been overlooked in the President’s supervision of a so-called "worldwide crackdown on terrorist financing." Reuters reported on November 7, 2001 that the Treasury Department added 61 additional people and organizations to the President’s original Executive Order of September 23rd ·-- including banks in Somalia and Nassau, The Bahamas. But mysteriously, no banks in Bahrain, Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia were named in either the original order or its expansion. Just 32 days before the attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, a Financial Times of Asia (FT) Wire-Business Line report linked Deutschebank to the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Pakistani and Afghani heroin smuggling, and money laundering of narcotics proceeds (8-10-2001). Retired Pakistani intelligence chief Brig Imtiaz was jailed for eight years on July 31, 2001 for laundering heroin profits -- for covert actions -- via a CIA-linked drug smuggling cell, using Deutschebank and other financial entities and properties. Former State Department official Jonathan Weiner confirmed that Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates have been of little help to federal officials regarding known terrorist funds moving back and forth between those countries. Weiner made these statements in a National Public Radio (NPR) interview on November 21, 2001. Weiner told host Linda Wertheimer, "Since September 11th, all those countries have frozen accounts or have looked in their banking systems for the money of people associated with terrorist finance, [and] have gone through the entire list provided by the United States." He added that "country after country has announced, ‘We’ve looked for funds. We’ve looked diligently. We’ve been ready to freeze some funds. We just haven’t found anything.’ No money in the UAE, no money in Kuwait." Weiner then revealed, "There is, I can tell, no money announced in Saudi Arabia, none announced in Bahrain. Well, given that we know [that terrorist] funds came out of there and we know [that terrorist] funds went back there, their inability to find funds is pretty astonishing," said the former State Department official. While 15 of 19 hijackers were Saudis, it is Bahrain and Kuwait’s strange lack of assistance in ferreting out terrorist financial support and insider trading evidence that raises questions, given their extremely close ties to both Bush presidents. The close financial relationships of both Bush 41 and Bush 43 (referring to their respective presidencies) with government officials of Bahrain as stockholders via Texas corporation Harken Energy, which had secured major drilling rights came during the period when the elder Bush and his advisor son were making US military decisions prior to the Gulf War. Many Harken investors were major campaign donors to Bush 41. Current President Bush made his first million dollars as a result of a classic insider stock trade -- directly related to the sale of his stock in Harken. Moreover, Bush’s oil stock sale was finalized immediately prior to Iraq‘s invasion of Kuwait -- at the height of its share price -- before plummeting days later on news of Iraq’s invasion. George W. avoided prosecution, thanks to some "well-connected" lawyers, and a soft investigation of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) violations -- supervised by a presidential parent who pulled the strings with SEC enforcement staff. George H. W. Bush, the elder is a hero, an icon, with his picture in Kuwaiti public buildings, and has been a regular visitor to Kuwait since US the Gulf War. However, considering that Kuwait Finance House and Faysal Islamic Bank of Bahrain are both correspondent banks with Deutschebank, questions remain as to why President Bush would not place them on his list of banks under scrutiny for terrorist ties, given the German bank’s many links to the 9/11 attacks . BANKING ON TERRORISM According to German news weekly Der Spiegel, Deutschebank handled accounts for the bin Laden family worth $103 million British pounds (The London Guardian, 10-1-2001). The New York Times (9-29-2001) added that FBI officials are "focusing more than ever on Germany," and in particular, an apartment used by Mohamed Atta -- considered the lead hijacker -- and Ramzi Muhammad Abdullah Bin Al Shibh, who also shared the apartment with other hijackers. Fox News and the Washington Post both reported on January 2, 2001 that Al Shibh wired $14,000 to Zacarias Moussaoui, now in US custody and referred to as the "20th hijacker." An American official said "It looks like it was organized in Germany...there is clear evidence of meetings between Mr. Atta, Mr. al-Shehhi, and Mr. Jarrah, three of the four suspected hijackers," according to the Times. Mamoun Darkanzanli, a Syrian businessman whose bank accounts were frozen after the attacks, has been implicated by American officials as an associate of Osama bin Laden who took part in a 1996 attack on US troops at the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. US officials say currently jailed terrorist and bin Laden’s highest ranking associate in US custody -- Mamdouh Mahmud Salim -- named Darkazanli as the co-signer of Salim’s bank account at Deutschebank in Hamburg, also according to the Times. The bin Laden family, with whom the Bushes have had long standing business deals through The Carlyle Group, was later awarded the contract to rebuild the facility. The New York paper reported that Deutschebank was also linked to Wadih el-Hage, a naturalized American citizen from Lebanon who served as bin Laden’s personal secretary at his Sudan office, and was named by prosecutors as also setting up terrorist front businesses for bin Laden in Kenya during 1994. El-Hage’s business card lists Mamoun Darkazanli’s current apartment as his Hamburg address, while his confiscated address book lists Darkazanli’s address, phone numbers and yet another Deutschebank account in Hamburg (but not the same account) as Salim’s. Investigators also suspect that Darkazanli was supporting bin Laden’s Al-Q’aeda network financially, using Deutschebank as his supporting entity for terrorism. According to the Asian Wall Street Journal (9-28-2000), insiders familiar with the family say the bin Ladens do most of their banking with the London branch of Deutschebank and the Saudi National Commercial Bank; however, they also use Citigroup, a bank long linked to drug money laundering and on whose board of directors sit former CIA Director John Deutch and former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. Rubin is also the former CEO of Goldman Sachs which was once the home of convicted Deutschebank drug money launderer Kevin Ingram (See Part II). DEUTSCHEBANK’S "CORRESPONDING" LACK OF INTELLIGENCE Michigan Senator Carl Levin’s Minority Banking Report of February 2001 calls correspondent banking the "gateway to money laundering," a financial technique wherein illicit money is moved from bank to bank with "no questions asked," thereby cleansing funds prior to being used for legitimate purposes. Via correspondent banking relationships, banks not licensed in the US may gain access to American financial markets by establishing a correspondent relationship with banks that are. Deutschebank is licensed in the US and maintained offices at the World Trade Center. All US Deutschebank records were destroyed in the September 11 attacks. An obvious question then is why none of these Middle Eastern financial institutions have felt the sting of US investigative wrath since the attacks. In another curious disclosure, the FBI also says al Shamal Islamic Bank (Osama bin Laden’s personal bank) -- headquartered in Khartoum, Sudan, which the terrorist leader helped capitalize with $50 million in private funds -- "is being investigated by US or overseas authorities." According to US News (10-8-2001), the Bureau won’t say which authority. President Bush, however, has failed to place Osama bin Laden's al Shamal Islamic Bank in his Executive Order -- freezing all of its correspondent transactions with other banks of the world. [See http://www.banking.state.ny.us/ il01102a.pdf ] This is especially strange, since the Washington Post (9-29-2001) reported that a an unnamed bin Laden associate testified (at the US trial on the 1998 African embassy bombings) that "$250,000 was wired from al Shamal Islamic Bank directly into the bin Laden cohort’s Texas bank account -- where he used it to buy a plane delivered to bin Laden... intended to transport Stinger missiles...." Two months later, FT (11-29-2001) offered more information, reporting that "The money was wired from the Wadi al Aqiq account at al Shamal bank via Bank of New York to a Bank of America account held in Dallas, Texas by Essam al Ridi. Al Ridi, an Egyptian flight instructor who met bin Laden in Pakistan in 1985, flew the plane to Khartoum." Congress has not sought to inquire as to whether bin Laden's Stinger missiles were flown directly out of Texas, or how his fellow terrorists were able to buy a plane in Dallas to illegally transport arms, or how a bin Laden associate was able to become a Texas flight instructor -- let alone whether he taught other terrorists how to fly airplanes in Dallas. A Financial Times of Asia Wire story (8-10-2001) revealed that dirty money profits for covert actions resulting from CIA-linked heroin smuggling (which is a primary means of financing terrorist operations) through Pakistan and Northern Afghanistan have been shown to find their way into the international banking system. This was the role played by Kevin Ingram, formerly of Deutschebank in New York as described in Part II of this series. And while US News (10-8-2001) reported that FBI officials say Deutschebank is "being investigated by US or overseas authorities," again the Bureau will not say which authorities, indicating that the US may not even be taking a lead role in investigating the matter. A spokesman for Deutschebank said it had provided investigators with information on accounts linked to members of the bin Laden family (The Guardian, 10-1-2001). No further information has been made public. Meanwhile, continued and current revelations indicate that negligence and the "prior-knowledge issue" -- insider trading or otherwise -- will not go away. An executive at a Pan Am flight school in Minnesota told Rep. James L. Oberstar (D-MN) and Rep. Martin O. Sabo (D-MN) that he had discussed and been questioned by an FBI agent on August 15th -- 27 days before the 9/11 attacks, "warning that a Boeing 747-400, which [alleged terrorist Zacarias] Moussaoui was seeking to learn how to fly, could be used as a bomb,’’ (Washington Post, 1-2-2002). But shockingly, the executive also told the lawmakers that "it took between four and six telephone calls to find an [FBI] agent who would help," according to a letter obtained by the Post. In a Fox News interview hosted by Rita Cosby on 1-3-2002, political analyst Dick Morris exposed more governmental negligence by reporting that President Bush "used information provided by FBI wiretaps dating back to 1993 to determine which terrorist-related bank accounts he would freeze in 2002," -- indicating lengthy US intelligence prior knowledge of terrorist financial transactions. Fox’s revelation of the additional careless handling of critical pre-9/11 intelligence data may yet face scrutiny in three states via courtrooms of victim families, despite congressional oversight silence, and a quickly legislated compensation statute making victim families promise not to sue the government. Given evidence of prior knowledge, insider trading, CIA ties, and other financial relationships leading directly into Deutschebank the question is begged as to why "President Bush’s original Executive Order [freezing assets] didn’t name any banks," (Washington Post, 9-29-2001). The President has the power to freeze American monetary operations connected to global banks with institutions in countries refusing to cooperate in his terrorist finance probe. On December 31, 2001, a US State Department Memo revealed that the president again avoided dealing with middle eastern countries -- with close ties to the Bush family -- by announcing that assets of one German and five Irish terrorist-linked organizations had been frozen--but still no banks linked to the epicenter of terrorist finances in Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, or the United Arab Emirates had been touched (http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/ pol/terror/02010202). THE CIA, TERRORISM AND DRUG MONEY Documented Russian organized crime connections to money laundering also lead back to Deutschebank, Pakistan, and terrorist financing. On September 5, 1999, the German newspaper Weld am Sonntag quoted Deutschebank CEO Rolf Breuer saying, "It could be that we were abused as an intermediate coordinating point" in the fast-developing Russian money laundering scandal. Deutschebank and its US affiliate, Bankers Trust (BT) filed "suspicious transaction" reports about Russian clients, as BT had "correspondent banking" relationships with Russia’s Inkombank, which "allegedly had ties to organized crime," according to USA Today (8-27-1999). Moreover, an Inner City Press story (9-11-1999) also revealed that German magazine Der Spiegel quoted Breuer as admitting that it was "possible" his bank was "misused" as an intermediary for money laundering. The FT Asia Wire report (8-10-2001) suggested that at least 30 Pakistan Army and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officials, serving and retired have accumulated wealth through heroin smuggling. In pervious stories, FTW and other news agencies have thoroughly documented that the Pakistani ISI is a creation and surrogate of the Central Intelligence Agency. The FT report also revealed that "Pakistani residents are allowed to maintain dollar accounts with no questions asked about the origin of the money and about its liability for income tax." FT added that "the total amount of dollars in private circulation since the military regime came to power was almost equal to that in the government coffers, if not more...[and] largely, if not totally, derived from the heroin trade." Additional direct CIA and Deutschebank ties to heroin smuggling and money laundering were also revealed by the FT story. "In the 1980s, at the instance [sic] of the Central Intelligence Agency, the Internal Political Division of the [Pakistani] Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), headed by Brig Imtiaz... started a cell for the use of heroin for covert actions. This cell promoted the cultivation of opium and the extraction of heroin in Pakistan as well as in those parts of Afghanistan under Mujahedeen control for being smuggled into the Soviet-controlled areas to get the Soviet troops addicted. "After the withdrawal of the Soviets, ISI’s [Pakistani] heroin cell started using its network of refineries and smugglers to send heroin to the West and use the money to supplement its legitimate economy...After capturing power on October 12, 1999, Gen. Pervez Musharraf had Brig Imtiaz, because of his proximity to Mr. Nawaz Sharif, arrested and prosecuted for having assets disproportionate to his known sources of income...He was convicted by a court on July 31, 2001 (52 days before the 9/11 attacks), and jailed for eight years. "According to evidence produced in the court by the National Accountability Bureau, Brig Imtiaz had foreign exchange bearer certificates worth $20 million, a Pakistani rupee account in the Union Bank with a balance of Rs 2.13 billion, a dollar account in Deutschebank with a balance of $19.1 million, five residential houses, five commercial units and three shops. This huge wealth was allegedly accumulated by him through heroin smuggling." BAHRAIN, KUWAIT AND DEUTSCHEBANK - THE DOOR TO HARKEN ENERGY According to attorney Matthew Lee of Inner City Press (ICP), after 9/11, regulators in Luxembourg, former headquarters of the notorious Pakistani Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), circulated a list of five banks, in addition to President Bush’s US Executive Order of September 23rd, freezing the accounts of suspected terrorist-connected individuals and organizations. In Part II of the Profits of Death series the US government’s ongoing scrutiny of terrorist banking was documented in an AP story by Catherine Wilson. The story provided clear indication that US intelligence agencies routinely monitor banking transactions in terrorist-related cases. Wilson wrote about the current prosecution of Egyptians in a case connected to former Goldman Sachs and Deutschebank securities trader Kevin Ingram’s attempt to launder heroin and cash for the illegal sale of weapons to Islamic terrorists. She added that "numerous promised wire transfers never arrived, but there were discussions of foreign bankers taking payoffs to move the money to purchase weapons into the United States..." Moreover, the AP story never questioned how the federal agents knew the names of particular banks and bankers, so as not to arouse suspicion on the part of Kevin Ingram and the other Middle Eastern accomplices, because the bankers had previously been "in-the-loop" of drug money laundering and illegal arms sales. The Bush Administration would necessarily have to be concerned if congressional investigations of Deutschebank ties to Faysal Islamic Bank of Bahrain and Kuwait Finance House started to dredge up and revive old financial investigations into the 1991 probe of Harken Energy. AN INSIDE TRADER DIRECTS PROBE OF INSIDE TRADERS - THE MOTHER OF ALL ENRONS One reason why the Administration has not frozen the assets of the two banks in Kuwait and Bahrain with correspondent relationships with Deutschebank leads directly to Harken. The probe in question is tied to Bahrain and Kuwait, and directly involves George W. Bush and SEC lawyers appointed by his father. According to SEC records, on four separate occasions President George W. Bush disregarded federal statutes by failing to file insider stock trade reports on a timely basis, back-dating one trade by some four months. (Harken Energy SEC Abstract Filing, transaction date: 6-22-1990; Oil stock sale made 41 days prior to Iraq's attack on Kuwait -- $848,560 profit, filing date: 3-4-1991- 8 1/2 months late and reported to the SEC two days after Gulf War was over on 3-2-1991; Harken Energy SEC Abstract Filing, transaction date: 6-16-89, filing date: 10-23-1989 -- 17 weeks late.) [Sources: Wall Street Journal, 4-4-1991 and 9-28-99; Time, 10-28-1991; US News, 3-16-1992; Associated Press, 10-28-94; Houston Post, 10-18-1994.] The younger Bush denied the charge of insider trading in spite of his positions on the Harken Energy board of directors, audit committee, and stock restructuring panel. He added that he had no idea Harken was going to get an audit report full of red ink until weeks after he had made his stock sale. During December 1999 into January 2000, journalist Tom Flocco’s former research associate, Mario Calabrese, repeatedly called the SEC requesting copies of George W. Bush’s original Harken Energy stock filings. After some 3 1/2 weeks of calls made during the critical Florida Supreme Court and US Supreme Court arguments deciding the Bush-Gore election, SEC representative Linda Thompson called Mr. Calabrese on January 14, 2001 to confirm that all original Bush SEC documents had been destroyed. Thompson said that "the dates you requested have all met their (six-year) retention time." It is possible that copies are still available via major search engines. The future president completed his key insider trade eight days before Harken announced a $23 million second quarter corporate loss and about six weeks before the invasion. Having just profited by nearly $1 million -- representing a 200% insider windfall -- George Jr. watched Harken stock take a nosedive on the bad news. Thus, Harken Energy, a Houston oil company doing business in Bahrain, wherein some of his father’s largest contributors also maintained substantial stock positions, made George W. his first million which served as seed money for his upcoming Texas Rangers deal. The April 4, 1991 Wall Street Journal added, "Mr. Bush did not return their phone calls seeking comment, and the Bush White House tersely said ‘It doesn’t comment on the activities of the president’s children.’" Moreover, the SEC also declined to comment, according to The New York Times [3-9-1992]. The chairman of the SEC at the time was Richard Breedon, former lawyer with Houston firm of Baker and Botts. Breedon had served as deputy counsel to Bush 41 when he was Vice President under Ronald Reagan. Moreover, the SEC investigation of George W. was led by general counsel James R. Doty who, according to a UPI report, mysteriously neglected to interview any of the Harken directors -- including the younger Bush -- regarding "enforcement" oversight. Doty had previously served as George W. Bush’s personal lawyer during Bush 43’s purchase of the Texas Rangers baseball franchise. BUSH IN BAHRAIN - PUBLIC AND PRIVATE In October 1991, Time Magazine questioned why the tiny country of Bahrain would stake so much of its financial future on Harken Energy, which it labeled an "obscure, money-losing company with no refineries and no experience in offshore oil exploration." The magazine also noted that oil insiders speculated that Bahrain’s rulers saw the arrangement as a way to gain influence with the Bush Administration. In January 1991, The Village Voice reported a potential nexus regarding foreign policy and personal financial interests as, in 1990, the Bush Administration signed an agreement with Bahrain that chose the small country as the permanent principal allied base in the Middle East, although it was some 200 miles away from the hostilities in Iraq and Kuwait. The military base deal came right after Harken announced its January 30, 1990 joint oil-drilling venture with Bahrain, suggesting that the elder Bush’s contributors and his son, the future President of the United States, were involved in personal financial business involving Harken, while also making decisions -- including dispatching Ambassador April Glaspie to tell Saddam Hussein that it’s actions vis a vis Kuwait were none of the US’s business -- that led directly to the Gulf War. And neither Bush let the press know that they had permitted Kuwait and Bahrain to infuse $19.6 million in foreign cash to hire US public relations firm Hill & Knowlton to lobby Congress and the American people into a war frenzy against Iraq. A former US ambassador to Bahrain, Sam Zakhem, funneled $7.7 million in advertising and lobbying dollars through two front groups: Coalition for Americans at Risk (a former front group for the contras in Nicaragua) and Freedom Task Force. The Iran-Contra front group prepared and placed TV and newspaper ads and had 50 speakers available for pro-war rallies and publicity events. However, neither disclosed Bahrain as the source of the money. [Source: O'Dwyer's Foreign Agent Registration Act Report, October 1991 and "Flacking for the Emir," by Arthur E. Rowse, The Progressive, October 1991] AN ILLEGAL PRIVILEGE TO "NOT" RELEASE DOCUMENTS On March 16, 1992, US News & World Report reported, "according to documents on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Bush 43’s position on the Harken (restructuring) committee gave him detailed knowledge of the company’s deteriorating financial condition." Spokesmen from Texas Gov. Ann Richards’ campaign asked, "Was this a real investigation, or was it a whitewash of an insider stock sale by the son of the sitting president?" UPI noted that "while Bush claims the [conflicted] SEC investigation absolved him of illegal insider trading, he has refused to release the investigation files." Now President Bush has continued his practice of hiding information from Congress and the American people. On September 18th he asserted "Executive Privilege" in a proclamation refusing to release his father’s vice-presidential and presidential papers as required by law. This is a violation of the Presidential Records Act of 1978. What those documents might have revealed remains a mystery. Even though Bush has since yielded on a portion of the Reagan-Bush papers, it seems unlikely that Congress will push for records that may reopen Harken energy in the past or shed light on Enron in the present. In the meantime all the profits of death remain hidden behind a wall of government secrecy. -- Tom Flocco is a freelance writer and researcher. Email: TomFlocco@cs.com From: Tariq Mehmood [mailto:tariq200@pes.comsats.net.pk] [Reprinted with permission.] Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2001 10:38 AM Hello Michael C. Ruppert, I have been reading From Wilderness but never knew you know so much. I am astonished to note that we in the east are so ignorant about the ways the US administration and their minions are going. To add my two 'kowry' worth of input. While working with the USAID on a poppy-elimination project in Pakistan, I accompanied one AID official on an agriculture field day in the mountain regions of the country. I was also doing as interpreter between the American and the farming community to whom he was to tell them the worth of growing traditional crops instead of poppy. One farmer when got fed up with the long talk, said "OK we will grow wheat and maize if you give us such good seeds as you previously gave of poppy. The AID man expressed his surprise at this remark. He was soon made quiet by another expert a Pakistani saying, he as a young boy was member of 4-H Club run by Village Aid, the forerunner of USAID was taught how to prick a poppy pod and collect the dried sap from it. Yet another person said he recollects that the Village Aid people use to distribute poppy seeds among the farmers and would buy back the opium crop... Another important news. Mr. Ayub Afridi a big drug baron from Pakistan who spent three terms in the US for drug trafficking, when returned to Pakistan was picked up tried and sentenced to under go another term of seven years for the same offence. But when the US administration saw the end war on Taliban, Pakistan administration on the very quiet released Mr. Afridi when he had only been in jail for a few weeks' time. Again most of the powerful persons that are holding control at many places in Afghanistan after the fall of Taliban are the same drug barons who fueled their civil war from the drug money. Taliban had ordered no poppy to be grown in areas under control. Afghanistan supplied 80 percent of world output of opium, from which heroin is extracted…. We in Peshawar a place of attraction for drug addicts, did not fail to notice the almost starking absence of addicts lying about along streets any more. Previously one could count over two dozen addicts lying about at one spot. I fear those scenes will again appear when the ban on poppy has gone. Tariq Peshawar, Pakistan
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