Religions > Atheism > The Evidence Is There: It's Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Michelle Malkin" |
| Date: |
05 Apr 2007 07:59:47 PM |
| Object: |
The Evidence Is There: It's Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden |
It's finally coming out. I am so glad.
From AlterNet:
The Evidence Is There: It's Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties
Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden
By Lucy Komisar, IPS News. Posted April 5, 2007.
How the Bush family's private connection to a dirty offshore bank is the
only link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
Barry Lando
The following chapter, "The BCCI Game: Banking on America, Banking on
Jihad," appears in investigative journalist Lucy Komisar's new book "A Game
as Old as Empire," just published by Berrett-Koehler (San Francisco).
Now that the U.S. Congress is investigating the truth of President George W.
Bush's statements about the Iraq war, they might look into one of his most
startling assertions: that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama
bin Laden.
Critics dismissed that as an invention. They were wrong. There was a link,
but not the one Bush was selling. The link between Hussein and Bin Laden was
their banker, BCCI. But the link went beyond the dictator and the
jihadist -- it passed through Saudi Arabia and stretched all the way to
George W. Bush and his father.
BCCI was the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a dirty offshore
bank that then-President Ronald Reagan's Central Intelligence Agency used to
run guns to Hussein, finance Osama bin Laden, move money in the illegal
Iran-Contra operation and carry out other "agency" black ops. The Bushes
also benefited privately; one of the bank's largest Saudi investors helped
bail out George W. Bush's troubled oil investments.
BCCI was founded in 1972 by a Pakistani banker, Agha Hasan Abedi, with the
support of Sheik Zayed bin Sultan al Nahyan, ruler of Abu Dhabi and head of
the United Arab Emirates. Its corporate strategy was money laundering. It
became the banker for drug and arms traffickers, corrupt officials,
financial fraudsters, dictators and terrorists.
The CIA used BCCI Islamabad and other branches in Pakistan to funnel some of
the $2 billion that Washington sent to Osama bin Laden's Mujahadeen to help
fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. It moved the cash the Pakistani military
and government officials skimmed from U.S. aid to the Mujahadeen. It also
moved money as required by the Saudi intelligence services.
The BCCI operation gave Osama bin Laden an education in offshore black
finance, which he would put to use when he organized the jihad against the
United States. He would move money through the Al-Taqwa Bank, operating in
offshore Nassau and Switzerland with two Osama siblings as shareholders.
At the same time, BCCI helped Saddam Hussein, funneling millions of dollars
to the Atlanta branch of the Italian government-owned Banca Nazionale del
Lavoro (BNL), Baghdad's U.S. banker, so that from 1985 to 1989 it could make
$4 billion in secret loans to Iraq to help it buy arms.
U.S. congressman Henry Gonzalez held a hearing on BNL in 1992 during which
he quoted from a confidential CIA document that said the agency had long
been aware that the bank's headquarters was involved in the U.S. branch's
Iraqi loans.
Kickbacks from 15 percent commissions on BNL-sponsored loans were channeled
into bank accounts held for Iraqi leaders via BCCI offices in the Caymans as
well as in offshore Luxembourg and Switzerland. BNL was a client of
Kissinger Associates, and Henry Kissinger was on the bank's international
advisory board, along with Brent Scowcroft, who would become George Bush
Sr.'s national security advisor. That connection makes the Bush
administration's surprise and indignation at "oil for food" payoffs in Iraq
seem disingenuous.
Important Saudis were influential in the bank. Sheik Kamal Adham,
brother-in-law of the late Saudi King Faisal, head of Saudi intelligence
from 1963 to 1979, and the CIA's liaison in the area, became one of BCCI's
largest shareholders. George Bush Sr. knew Adham from his time running the
CIA in 1975.
Another investor was Prince Turki bin Faisal al-Saud, who succeeded Adham as
Saudi intelligence chief. The family of Khalid Salem bin Mahfouz, owner of
the National Commercial Bank, the largest bank in Saudi Arabia, banker to
King Fahd and other members of the ruling family, bought 20 percent to 30
percent of the stock for nearly $1 billion. Bin Mahfouz was put on the board
of directors.
The Arabs' interest in the bank was more than financial. A classified CIA
memo on BCCI in the mid-1980s said that "its principal shareholders are
among the power elite of the Middle East, including the rulers of Dubai and
the United Arab Emirates, and several influential Saudi Arabians. They are
less interested in profitability than in promoting the Muslim cause."
The Bushes' private links to the bank passed to Bin Mahfouz through Texas
businessman James R. Bath, who invested money in the United States on behalf
of the Saudi regime. In 1976, when Bush was the head of the CIA, the agency
sold some of the planes of Air America, a secret "proprietary" airline it
used during the Vietnam War, to Skyway, a company owned by Bath and Bin
Mahfouz. Bath then helped finance George W. Bush's oil company, Arbusto
Energy Inc., in 1979 and 1980.
When Harken Energy Corp., which had absorbed Arbusto (by then merged with
Spectrum 7 Energy), got into financial trouble in 1987, Jackson Stephens of
the powerful, politically connected Arkansas investment firm helped it
secure $25 million in financing from the Union Bank of Switzerland. As part
of that deal, a place on the board was given to Harken shareholder Sheik
Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, whose chief banker was BCCI shareholder Bin Mahfouz.
Then, in 1988, George Bush Sr. was elected president. Harken benefited by
getting some new investors, including Salem bin Laden, Osama bin Laden's
father, and Khalid bin Mahfouz. Osama bin Laden himself was busy elsewhere
at the time -- organizing al Qaeda.
The money BCCI stole before it was shut down in 1991 -- somewhere between
$9.5 billion and $15 billion -- made its 20-year heist the biggest bank
fraud in history. Most of it was never recovered. International banks'
complicity in the offshore secrecy system effectively covered up the money
trail.
But in the years after the collapse of BCCI, Khalid bin Mahfouz was still
flush with cash. In 1992, he established the Muwafaq ("blessed relief")
Foundation in the offshore Channel Islands. The U.S. Treasury Department
called it "an al Qaeda front that receives funding from wealthy Saudi
businessmen."
When the BCCI scandal began to break in the late 1980s, the Sr. Bush
administration did what it could to sit on it. The Justice Department went
after the culprits -- was virtually forced to -- only after New York
District Attorney Robert Morgenthau did. But evidence about BCCI's broader
links exist in numerous U.S. and international investigations. Now could be
a good time to take another look at the BCCI-Osama-Saddam-Saudi-Bush
connection.
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| User: "johac" |
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| Title: Re: The Evidence Is There: It's Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden |
06 Apr 2007 12:25:50 AM |
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In article <TtGdnZuoN_r1BojbnZ2dnUVZ_umlnZ2d@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:
It's finally coming out. I am so glad.
Busha Nostra. I hope Henry Waxman gets a hold of this.
From AlterNet:
The Evidence Is There: It's Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties
Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden
By Lucy Komisar, IPS News. Posted April 5, 2007.
How the Bush family's private connection to a dirty offshore bank is the
only link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
Barry Lando
--
John #1782
"We should always be disposed to believe that which appears to us to be
white is really black, if the hierarchy of the church so decides."
- Saint Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) Founder of the Jesuit Order.
.
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| User: "Michelle Malkin" |
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| Title: Re: The Evidence Is There: It's Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden |
06 Apr 2007 12:35:10 AM |
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"johac" <jhachmann@remove.sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:jhachmann-65ED6C.22255005042007@news.giganews.com...
In article <TtGdnZuoN_r1BojbnZ2dnUVZ_umlnZ2d@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:
It's finally coming out. I am so glad.
Busha Nostra. I hope Henry Waxman gets a hold of this.
They should be checking out the ties between the
Bushes and the entire bin Laden family.
From AlterNet:
The Evidence Is There: It's Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties
Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden
By Lucy Komisar, IPS News. Posted April 5, 2007.
How the Bush family's private connection to a dirty offshore bank is the
only link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
Barry Lando
--
John #1782
"We should always be disposed to believe that which appears to us to be
white is really black, if the hierarchy of the church so decides."
- Saint Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) Founder of the Jesuit Order.
.
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| User: "johac" |
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| Title: Re: The Evidence Is There: It's Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden |
06 Apr 2007 05:33:20 PM |
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In article <F9Cdnd1I46NuRojbnZ2dnUVZ_t2tnZ2d@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:
"johac" <jhachmann@remove.sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:jhachmann-65ED6C.22255005042007@news.giganews.com...
In article <TtGdnZuoN_r1BojbnZ2dnUVZ_umlnZ2d@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:
It's finally coming out. I am so glad.
Busha Nostra. I hope Henry Waxman gets a hold of this.
They should be checking out the ties between the
Bushes and the entire bin Laden family.
Oh yes. They go way back. The whole Saudi connection should be
reexamined too. I'm sure that there are many other skeletons waiting to
tumble out of that closet.
From AlterNet:
The Evidence Is There: It's Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties
Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden
By Lucy Komisar, IPS News. Posted April 5, 2007.
How the Bush family's private connection to a dirty offshore bank is the
only link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
Barry Lando
--
John #1782
"We should always be disposed to believe that which appears to us to be
white is really black, if the hierarchy of the church so decides."
- Saint Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) Founder of the Jesuit Order.
.
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| User: "Michelle Malkin" |
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| Title: Re: The Evidence Is There: It's Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden |
06 Apr 2007 09:27:05 PM |
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"johac" <jhachmann@remove.sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:jhachmann-10BF98.15332006042007@news.giganews.com...
In article <F9Cdnd1I46NuRojbnZ2dnUVZ_t2tnZ2d@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:
"johac" <jhachmann@remove.sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:jhachmann-65ED6C.22255005042007@news.giganews.com...
In article <TtGdnZuoN_r1BojbnZ2dnUVZ_umlnZ2d@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:
It's finally coming out. I am so glad.
Busha Nostra. I hope Henry Waxman gets a hold of this.
They should be checking out the ties between the
Bushes and the entire bin Laden family.
Oh yes. They go way back. The whole Saudi connection should be
reexamined too. I'm sure that there are many other skeletons waiting to
tumble out of that closet.
All that nattering by the bin Ladens about how they
disapprove of what Osama's been up to. Does anyone
believe that? Has anyone ever been stupid enough to
believe it?
From AlterNet:
The Evidence Is There: It's Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties
Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden
By Lucy Komisar, IPS News. Posted April 5, 2007.
How the Bush family's private connection to a dirty offshore bank is
the
only link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
Barry Lando
--
John #1782
"We should always be disposed to believe that which appears to us to be
white is really black, if the hierarchy of the church so decides."
- Saint Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) Founder of the Jesuit Order.
.
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| User: "johac" |
|
| Title: Re: The Evidence Is There: It's Time for Congress to Investigate the Ties Between the Bush Family and Osama bin Laden |
07 Apr 2007 12:51:24 AM |
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In article <3M6dnfCDQqXBnIrbnZ2dnUVZ_tyinZ2d@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:
"johac" <jhachmann@remove.sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:jhachmann-10BF98.15332006042007@news.giganews.com...
In article <F9Cdnd1I46NuRojbnZ2dnUVZ_t2tnZ2d@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:
"johac" <jhachmann@remove.sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:jhachmann-65ED6C.22255005042007@news.giganews.com...
In article <TtGdnZuoN_r1BojbnZ2dnUVZ_umlnZ2d@comcast.com>,
"Michelle Malkin" <hypatiab7@comcast.net> wrote:
It's finally coming out. I am so glad.
Busha Nostra. I hope Henry Waxman gets a hold of this.
They should be checking out the ties between the
Bushes and the entire bin Laden family.
Oh yes. They go way back. The whole Saudi connection should be
reexamined too. I'm sure that there are many other skeletons waiting to
tumble out of that closet.
All that nattering by the bin Ladens about how they
disapprove of what Osama's been up to. Does anyone
believe that? Has anyone ever been stupid enough to
believe it?
I hope not. anyone who believes for a second that the Saudis are our
friends and loyal supporters ought to have their heads examined. I
wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw one of their oil wells.
--
John #1782
"We should always be disposed to believe that which appears to us to be
white is really black, if the hierarchy of the church so decides."
- Saint Ignatius Loyola (1491-1556) Founder of the Jesuit Order.
.
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