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Lorenzo's
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. . . about Chaos,
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BEYOND BUSH Part II
(Michael C. Ruppert, From the Wilderness, October 20, 2003)
Since Part I of this series was published, the credibility of the Bush administration has - as predicted - been assaulted on a variety of fronts. W's approval rating has dropped below 50%. The Republicans are worried about whether he is re-electable. The political, military and economic situation in Iraq has worsened. The US economy staggers on the brink of meltdown, in debt and an anemic dollar. The reality of Peak Oil and Gas has been acknowledged in a number of mainstream publications . . . And the military situation in Iraq and Afghanistan remains as dangerous, and uncertain, as Iraqi oil remains undeliverable. . . . The last development is perhaps the biggest of all the Neocon blunders, but it still accomplishes the primary objective laid out by Zbigniew Brzezinski in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard: The oil and many rebuilding contracts have been denied to any powers "that might seek to usurp the US on the world stage". Even as the US has gone hat-in-hand to the UN asking for help in Iraq (and been rebuffed), it has made it clear that it intends to retain absolute control of Iraqi resources. Europe and Russia will not play that game. Oil in the ground is oil in the bank and, at least for the moment, by tweaking supplies and conflicts around the world, the US can maintain enough supply from other sources to keep the house of cards from falling. Within three to five years, that may not be possible. . . . The race now is to stabilize Iraq in time to rebuild the infrastructure, and bring its 11% of proven world reserves online. The US majors won't invest there until it is safe. On October 11, The Arabic News reported on a recent World Bank report stating that the reconstruction of Iraqi infrastructure would require four years and more than $50 billion (US). This is another reason why the Bush junta is in jeopardy. There are few left anywhere who believe that they have the cachet to pull it off. The oil companies have lost confidence in the oil men. . . . Had the US not invaded Iraq, however, French, Russian and German companies would currently be working on billions of dollars of contracts to refurbish the oil infrastructure, thus increasing the amount of Iraqi oil (priced in Euros rather than dollars) . . . As a result, Europe and Russia would have been getting economically stronger and "marking territory" for the day when oil for food sanctions were inevitably lifted. Europe's economy is now sustained by the speed with which Russia can sell its diminishing oil reserves - estimated at just under 60 billion barrels (Gb) - something that it appears eager to do. This will inevitably force Britain into the EU at an accelerated pace, especially if BP can't get any supplies out of Iraq. . . . Frustrated that they cannot safely get to Iraqi oil, the American majors are frantic to secure supplies from an ever-diminishing global reservoir; hence the recent frantic expansion of drilling and investment in West Africa. . . . A simple way to look at this is to say that the CIA represents the interests of Wall Street and the global economic powers, while the Bush Neocons represent the interests of only one American faction of the global economy. It is inevitable that the Neocons will be replaced. Several US presidents have fought the CIA and they have always emerged on the short end of the stick. This time will be no different. . . . The CIA's call for a criminal investigation into the criminal leak identifying Valerie Plame -- the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson -- as a covert CIA operative is the perfect continuation of the operation to remove the Neocons. . . . Not only is the blowing of Plame's cover a clear-cut criminal case, it keeps in focus all of the intelligence frauds committed to justify the Iraqi invasion. Ultimately, the Bush administration will find it impossible to campaign on a platform of national security as people understand that the likely suspects, Karl Rove and Cheney Chief of Staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby have been tied to the leak, and that the target of the mean-spirited punishment was a counter-terror case officer investigating weapons of mass destruction. So much for Bush's "number-one priority". . . . In the meantime, Dick Cheney becomes ever more vulnerable, and he may well be replaced before the election rolls around. First, in spite of recent embarrassing admissions by George W. Bush and Condi Rice that there were no demonstrated connections between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein, Cheney - as reported by The Washington Post on September 29 -- continues to imply it in mainstream press interviews. Second, according to The Washington Post of September 26, and as revealed by CNN on September 25, Cheney still has strong financial ties to Halliburton whose no-bid contracts in Iraq have soared to over $1.2 billion out of the $2 billion in Iraqi contracts it now holds. . . . As Halliburton's contract awards continue to rise, Cheney's credibility sinks. . . . It is therefore likely that Dick Cheney will be removed from the 2004 Republican ticket. Before engaging in mass celebrations, those who are old enough to recall it should remember that another Vice President, Spiro Agnew, was successfully removed from the Nixon White House just before Nixon was replaced to allow for a "safe" Vice President (Gerald Ford) to be in place when the actual coup occurred. Who did Ford choose as his Vice President? Nelson Rockefeller. Although a clear-cut replacement for Cheney has not stuck his/her head up, one likely contender here would be former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. . . . Contrary to popular belief, it was not a group of die-hard conservative militarists who pushed the US into an unwinnable conflict in Vietnam. It was a coterie of liberal "Eastern Establishment" members of the Council on Foreign Relations and lifelong Democrats. Included here are the likes of Dean Acheson, McGeorge and William Bundy, John J. McCloy, Dean Rusk and Robert McNamara. These were the advisors who continued to prod Johnson into escalation after escalation until, suddenly in March of 1968 right after the Tet Offensive, they all became doves overnight and said the war was a mistake. Johnson was set up and betrayed and he never recovered. He immediately announced that he would not run for re-election. That gave us Nixon, more escalations, and four more years of conflict as the American people were suckered into believing that Nixon would end the war quickly. Will people believe the same of a President Wesley Clark or John Kerry? . . . Major power brokers like international financier George Soros are backing moves to remove Bush, and Soros is opening his sizeable checkbook to do it. I was dismayed recently to see that a board member of the ostensibly independent Pacifica radio network advocated direct solicitation of funds from both Soros and the CIA-connected Ford Foundation. Soros, who has or had business ties with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, the Carlyle Group, the CIA's Radio Free Europe, Wesley Clark, Richard Allen and George W. Bush (through Harken Energy), is not a friendly, tree-hugging, progressive out to save the world. He is the fist in a velvet glove to the Neocons' baseball bat across the nose. . . . Another commonality that cannot be overlooked is the close interrelationships between senior Bush policy makers and Israel. These include the former Chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle, who has worked for Israeli weapons firms, and has been previously connected to leaks of sensitive material to Israeli intelligence; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, who has relatives living in Israel; Under Secretary of Defense Douglas Feith whose law firm maintains an Israeli office; Edward Luttwak of the National Security Study Group who has taught in Israel; Dov Zakheim, the Pentagon's Chief Financial Officer who is also a member of the CFR; Elliot Abrams at the National Security Council, "Scooter" Libby, and former Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. Some have even worked on joint planning projects with Israeli ministries. . . . The point is not to jump to conclusions about where the power actually resides, but to understand that Presidents can be, and have been, sabotaged by power that does not present itself for a vote. The key question is Qui bono? - Who benefits? As far as Israel is concerned, perhaps one of the great unresolved questions is whether Israel controls the US, the US controls Israel, or whether there is something that controls both. It is a virtual certainty however, that Israel will continue to benefit - as it has consistently since 9/11 - when a new administration takes office. In the last year, both John Kerry and Wesley Clark have "discovered" and made public their Jewish ancestry. . . . It still remains unclear whether or not Bush will lose the 2004 election, steal it again, or be replaced via an impeachment effort after a win. There is a great deal to be learned from the Democratic Party side of the equation, and voters who eagerly participate in the election process are almost pathologically in denial about the compromise of the process that has occurred with proprietary electronic software that remains easily manipulated and immune from public scrutiny. As the 2000 election was stolen, the 2004 election may already be locked up (or encoded). No activist in their right mind should participate in the Democratic Party nomination process without addressing this key issue. If they do, they should have their head examined. . . . It is also imperative to see what connections exist between the major candidates and entities like the CFR, the Trilateral Commission and the Bilderberg Group. From that point, a look at the histories of the serious contenders will provide stark clues as to what can be expected. . . . Wesley Clark is a reincarnation of the most corrupt and violent aspects of William Jefferson Clinton. I have great respect for author and filmmaker Michael Moore, but when I saw him endorse Wesley Clark, I nearly choked. Let's refresh everyone's memory by looking at the retired NATO Commander's history. It shows us is that he has the perfect r�sum� to continue the job that the Bush gang began, and then botched. . . . Clark's real notoriety came in 1999 when, as NATO Commander under Bill Clinton, he led another US military invasion, which the UN also refused to sanction, into Bosnia and Kosovo. Clark's aggressive command nearly resulted in a military confrontation with a Russian armored column. As it turns out, the reasons for that invasion were as fabricated as were the reasons for Bush's invasion of Iraq. . . . There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and there were no mass graves holding tens of thousands of bodies ever found in Kosovo. Yet, as we documented in 1999 using reports from Jane's Intelligence Weekly and The Christian Science Monitor, in the process of conducting that war Clark made safe the KLA's control over 70% of the heroin reaching Western Europe. . . . Another parallel to the post-9/11 world is that, under US rule, Afghanistan has again become the number-one producer of opium in the world, estimated at 75% of world supply, all under CIA control. Afghanistan is the source of the heroin that is being smuggled through the Balkans into Western Europe (and all over the world) to this day. . . . That Bill Clinton would turn up all over the Clark campaign is no surprise. The day before announcing his candidacy, Clark received an endorsement from Harlem Congressman Charlie Rangel. Rangel, a black Democrat, is closely tied to the Clinton machine. Clinton maintains an office in Harlem. That being said, what has Wesley Clark ever done to endear himself to black voters? What was Rangel thinking? . . . Bill Clinton is a member of the Bilderberg Group, The Trilateral Commission and the Council on Foreign Relations. Clark is a member of the CFR. . . . And, last but not least, Wesley Clark has a business relationship with George Soros. According to Heather Cottin's excellent deconstruction of Soros (above) Clark sits on the board of Soros' International Crisis Group (ICG) with the likes of Zbigniew Brzezinski and Richard Allen, former Reagan National Security Advisor. . . . Howard Dean won't take a stand on civil liberties except to say that there are some "glitches" in post-9/11 laws. He has no position on Peak Oil and has said nothing about 9/11. . . . He poses a threat to the establishment because he is an outsider who hasn't been sufficiently harnessed to know what directions he would or would not take if elected. But what's most important about Howard Dean is that he is already fading some in the polls, thanks to Wesley Clark, and even candidates like Dennis Kucinich. Dean appears to be the target of a "spike" effort from many different directions. . . . John Kerry remains the big dog in the race. A decorated Vietnam War hero, the four-term Massachusetts Senator is a member of both the CFR and the secret Skull and Bones fraternity at Yale that also claims Bush I and Bush II as members. . . . Kerry, in charge of the potentially explosive Iran-Contra drug hearings succeeded in producing a 1,200-page record that was a treasure trove of information for researchers, but absolutely useless in unraveling a corruption that controls the US government to this day. What lies buried in those pages was enough to have turned the American political system inside out. In the end, its greatest usefulness was as a benchmark against which to compare the CIA's investigation of itself after the 1996 Dark Alliance stories and hard revelations of CIA connections to cocaine smuggling that Kerry knew all about anyway. . . . John Kerry had successfully contained what was, up to that time, the biggest scandal in American history. . . . Kerry's energy stance is that the US needs to become energy independent, a physical impossibility, and he has paid lip service to biomass, solar and ethanol. Ethanol is a scientific joke that takes more energy to produce than it yields and would require most of the arable land mass of the United States to replace even a part of our oil consumption. Ethanol is a government subsidized handout to major corporations like Archer, Daniels, Midland. . . . Like all of the Democratic challengers, Kerry has been quick to jump on the bandwagon of cooked Iraqi intelligence and the Plame leaks. But he won't go near 9/11, stating instead, that if he were president he would "really" prosecute the war on terror, (i.e. go after Saudi Arabia, etc.). . . . Joe Lieberman is a staunch advocate of the war on terror, supporter of the Patriot Act and Homeland Security, an advocate of the Iraqi invasion since shortly after 9/11, Joe Lieberman is a joke. . . . Dennis Kucinich has not spoken of Peak Oil and Gas, nor has he made any effort to pursue the glaring unanswered questions of 9/11. . . . Kucinich is not a member of the CFR, the Trilateral Commission or the Bilderberg Group. He has a record of paying a price to stand up for the people in his battle with Cleveland power companies when he was mayor. He speaks with a spiritual - as opposed to religious - awareness and he has a record that says he won't do what it is certain the other candidates will do, namely pursue the war for oil and prolong the Iraqi and Afghan occupations. However, that does not say that he will do what needs to be done proactively. . . . SO NOW WHAT? . . . As for the remainder of the democratic challengers: Dick Gephardt (CFR), Al Sharpton, John Edwards, Carol Mosely Braun and the rest, they are not likely to rise from the pack and have no broad-based appeal. . . . With all of that being said, we still come back to the question of whether the 2004 election will even be a trustworthy process at all. . . . TERMINATING DEMOCRACY . . . The California recall was a trial run for the rigged use of electronic software in the 2004 election, and further exploitation of coming energy shortages. The race was called just one minute after the polls closed even though electronic software was not used in six counties including Los Angeles County. And no one in the major press has raised a peep about it. Yet, within days, a few intrepid researchers were able to find indications of vote tampering on the proprietary Diebold machines used in many California counties. In an outrageous conflict with the public interest, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell told Ohio Republicans this August that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year." Even the BBC on October 8th, noted that Diebold and other systems used in California and elsewhere left the door wide open for tampering: . . . One major point here is that when and if a Democrat "wins" the presidency, some Americans will breathe a collective sigh of relief, and think that they beat the corruption. But who's to say the votes weren't rigged in that direction, just to keep the people asleep for a few more years. There is no cause for optimism based upon what we know about potential replacements. . . . Perhaps the best way to understand what is beyond George W, Bush is to fully appreciate that what came before him was part of the same agenda as what will follow him. Nothing has been done to change that. On the critical issues, a Democrat from the current slate won't make the slightest bit of difference.

posted by Lorenzo 5:12 PM