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The geo-strategic power plan goes way back
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"The Arabian oil fields are located in a notoriously unstable part of the world, and the Saudi government did not then -- as it does not now -- possess a capacity to protect these fields against foreign invasion and internal revolt.
Hence, Roosevelt and his advisers struggled over the question of how to provide security for the Arabian concessions.
In the end, it was decided that the United States government would have to assume at least some of this burden for itself.
To formalize this arrangement, President Roosevelt met with King Abdul Aziz on a U.S. warship in the Suez Canal following the February 1945 conference in Yalta.
Although the exact details of this meeting have never been made public, it is widely assumed that Roosevelt gave Abdul Aziz a promise of U.S. protection in return for privileged American access to Saudi oil."
RESOURCE WARS:
A POST-SEPTEMBER 11 ANALYSIS
- council on foreign relations!!!
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and back further that that...
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"British Petroleum (earlier Anglo-Persian and then Anglo-Iranian Oil Company) was started by William Knox D'Arcy in 1901 when he bought a concession from the Grand Vizier in Teheran for 480,000 square miles (nearly twice the size of Texas) in exchange for twenty thousand pounds in cash, twenty thousand one pound shares, and sixteen percent of the net profits.
After three years of drilling and finding no oil, D'Arcy convinced the Burmah Oil Company to put up the extra capital needed to keep D'Arcy's venture afloat.
After another two years of drilling they finally struck oil and Burmah Oil and D'Arcy formed the new Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
In 1914, three months before the start of World War I, the British government, through the insistence of Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, bought 51 percent of Anglo-Persian for two million pounds, stipulating that the company must always remain an independent British concern and that every director must be a British subject.
The British navy had converted to oil (from coal) in 1910 and during World War I, Britain needed more oil than the Anglo-Persian Company could supply. The remainder was purchased from Royal Dutch Shell."
from The New U.S.
-British Oil Imperialism by Norman D Livergood
see also The World Dominance Plot
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Trade routes: The eternal cause for conflict
the Opium wars
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The First Chinese Opium War
"The British took control of Hong Kong in 1841 following the Opium Wars. European trade with China had been taking place since the 16th century, but as European demand for tea and silk grew, the balance of trade became more and more unfavourable to Europeans, who were expected to pay in silver.
In 1773, the British unloaded 70,000 kg of Bengal opium, and the Chinese taste for the `foreign mud' grew exponentially. Alarmed at the drain of silver from the country and the increasing number of addicts, the emperor banned the drug trade.
The Europeans, with the help of corrupt Chinese officials, managed to keep the trade in opium going until 1839, when the emperor again issued orders to stamp it out. "
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The Panama canal
Building an interoceanic canal was suggested early in Spanish colonial times. The United States, interested since the late 18th cent. in trading voyages to the coast of the Pacific Northwest, became greatly concerned with plans for a canal after settlers had begun to pour into Oregon and California. Active negotiations led in 1846 to a treaty, by which the republic of New Granada (consisting of present-day Panama and Colombia) granted the United States transit rights across the Isthmus of Panama in return for a guarantee of the neutrality and sovereignty of New Granada.
The isthmus gained more importance after the United States acquired (1848) California and the gold rush began, and the trans-Panama RR was built (184855) with U.S. capital. At the same time, interest in an alternate route, the Nicaragua Canal, was strong in both Great Britain and the United States. Rivalry between the two countries was ended by the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty (1850), which guaranteed that neither power should have exclusive rights or threaten the neutrality of an interoceanic route. In the 1870s and 80s the United States tried unsuccessfully to induce Great Britain to abrogate or amend the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.
After the United States acquired territory in the Caribbean and in the Pacific as a result of the Spanish-American War (1899), U.S. control over an isthmian canal seemed imperative. Following protracted negotiations, a U.S.-British agreement (see Hay-Pauncefote Treaties) was made in 1901, giving the United States the right to build, and by implication fortify, an isthmian canal. It was then necessary for Congress to choose between Nicaragua or Panama as the route for the canal.
infoplease
President Theodore Roosevelt of the United States was confident that the United States could complete the project, and recognized that US control of the passage from the Atlantic to Pacific oceans would be militarily and economically important. Panama was then part of Colombia so Roosevelt proceeded to negotiate with the Colombians to obtain the necessary permission. In early 1903 the Hay-Herran Treaty was signed by both nations, but the Colombian Senate failed to ratify the treaty. In what was then, and still is, a very controversial move, Roosevelt implied to Panamanian rebels that if they revolted the US Navy would assist their cause for independence. Panama proceeded to proclaim its independence on November 3, 1903, and the U.S.S. Nashville in local waters impeded any interference from Colombia (see gunboat diplomacy).
When fighting began Roosevelt ordered US battleships stationed off of Panama's coast for "training exercises". Many argue that fear of a war with the United States caused the Colombians to avoid any serious opposition to the revolution. The victorious Panamanians returned the favor to Roosevelt by allowing the United States control of the Panama Canal Zone on February 23, 1904 for $10 million (as provided in the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, signed on November 18, 1903).
Wikipedia
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The real Drug war - The control of resources
The plan : Make certain drugs illegal - all users become criminals
exporters/importers are named terrorists. Justifying a constant presence
in a strategically important region
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Much of politics of the first half of the 20th century centered around oil
and the great amount of wealth available to those who transformed decayed
plant material into gasoline for the burgeoning automobile industry, home
heating, lubrication and the new idea of synthetics...plastics.
Of the big
oil families, the Rockefellers were, and still are, at the top of the heap.
Those who supported the Rockefellers, specifically the Mellon banking
family, also profited greatly. Andrew Mellon, who had invested a great
amount of money in Rockefeller, wasn't going to lose the chance of becoming
fabulously wealthy.
Another client of Mellon's, the duPont family, in
addition to building companies like General Motors, was developing
synthetic fibers and plastics from petroleum.
Law firms like Brown Brothers
Harriman handled the legal work for these and others. Media giants like the
Hearsts were more than happy to join the ranks of the filthy rich by
putting out whatever their cronies said was news.
These people had
absolutely no concern for the health and well-being of society at large.
Indeed, the less the average man knew, the better for the rich man.
Strangely enough, it was many of these same people who were responsible for
the illegalization of Hemp/Marijuana.
Occupied America: A Chronology of Nazi Infiltration
and the War On Some Drugs
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The drugs connection - The Opium wars part 2
Illegal drugs are the subject of a 'phoney war', waged by governments for their own purposes that certainly have nothing to do with the 'dangers' of these substances. Governments who capitalize on public shock-horror have a splendid means of diverting public attention and anger from real issues and for interfering in the affairs of other nations, even to the extent of sending spies and troops. This situation is a major cause of crime all over the world and the criminal drug industry is second only to the arms trade in wealth, power, and influence. Whole economies now depend upon the production and sale of illegal drugs and the people who would least like to see the trade decriminalized or legalized are the criminal traders themselves. In no other way could they have so much power or make so much money. This raises a question. How far are governments who purport to make 'war on drugs' actually encouraging, profiting from, and involved in the illegal trade? The same question can be asked of the doctors who support those government policies.
Anomalies and Mysteries in the 'War on Drugs'
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Total control of the Earth via total control of it's populations addiction to the game
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CIA Hawking Heroin in Baghdad?
From: Brenda Stardom - Date: 15 May 2003
CIA CREATING JUNKIES IN IRAQ??
I was taken aback by this news. I spotted a headline, "Where the CIA is in control, narcotics flourish" and thought before I read any further that it had to do with Colombia or South America. When I read Baghdad, I was stunned. Oh hell yes, that's just the panacea for any unrest and wanting the US out. Drug 'em up, get them hooked, marlin for the wall. Then with control of their radio, tv and print outlets, mindnumb them with propaganda. They'll be ripe for religious conversion once they're addicted and can only get more if they give Allah up for Jesus. Praise the lowered!
"BAGHDAD: The city, which had never seen heroin, a deadly addictive drug, until March 2003, is now flooded with narcotics including heroin.
According to a report published by London's The Independent newspaper, the citizens of Baghdad complained that the drugs like heroin and cocaine were being peddled on the streets of the Iraqi metropolis. Some reports suggest that the drug and arms trafficking is patronized by the CIA to finance its covert operations worldwide."
From the Independent:
. "In al-Bataween'“ the worst of Baghdad's badlands which is blighted by carjackings and crime'“ residents say heroin is being traded in the alleys. "In Iraq there were no drugs until March 2003," said Salah Sha'amikh, a pharmacist. "You would be hanged for trafficking. But now you can get heroin, cocaine, anything." He pulled out a Russian-made 8.5mm pistol which he says he keeps to protect his wares."
This should throw a clue your way, written in 1991. It's almost guideline or solution for what to do to keep them under the big Thumb in Iraq.
"The theory is that the white establishment pushed heroin into the black community to divert young people from political action," explains Andrew Cooper, publisher of Brooklyn weekly newspaper The City Sun, "so they'd be zonked out and wouldn't be a threat."
Why am I not surprised. The CIA is known as the biggest drug supplier in existance. I can remember when I used to stay up late at night listening to KPPC, a Pacifica station that was no-holds-barred then and I was fascinated about the tales of the CIA's drug running during the Iran-Contra times by Daniel Sheehan of the Christic Institute. It's still going on. Afterall, Afghanistan had a bumper crop this year and Opium is flowing semem-like from the pods.
It seems that heroin floods right after a war -- World War II, Viet Nam, Afghanistan and now Iraq. This is so stupidly bizarre. Targeting the Iraqi's is a crime against humanity for Clark Kent's sake! Mygod, shove occupation on them, let chaos and anarchy reign and then give 'em the drugs. Oh yeah and TV. They'll be nodding out through Bush's weekly address and all the American propaganda instead of rising up and protesting to the point of civil war. Not one but two opiates for the masses. Now it should be clear why Bush didn't order the poppy fields of Afghanistan destroyed.
This should help prove what I've claimed about the CIA and drugs. It's disappointing to find so little information on what's happening today, right now. I could only find the two cited articles on heroin being made available for the first time in Iraq, hence all the references to another time, other wars. I did find this from an article on depleted uranium and it backs up the Afghanistan heroin production and US involvement.
"Afghanistan's new president, Hamid Karzai, is a puppet installed by Washington. Under the protection of American soldiers, Karzai's regime is setting a new record for opium production. Both UN and U.S. reports confirm that the huge Afghani opium harvest of 2002 makes Afghanistan the world's leading opium producer.(34) Thanks to nuclear weapons, Afghanistan is now safe for the Bush-Cheney narcotics industry.(35) ABC News asserts that keeping the "peace" in Afghanistan will require decades of allied occupation.(36) For years to come, "peacekeepers" will be eating, drinking and breathing the "hot" carcinogenic pollution they have helped the Pentagon inflict upon that nation for organized crime."
Giving credence to the bit about wars, heroin availability and usage.
"Luciano Organizes the Postwar Heroin Trade
In 1946 American military intelligence made one final gift to the Mafia -they released Luciano from prison and deported him to Italy, thereby freeing the greatest criminal talent of his generation to rebuild the heroin trade. Appealing to the New York State Parole Board in 1945 for his immediate release, Luciano's lawyers based their case on his wartime services to the navy and army. Although naval intelligence officers called to give evidence at the hearings were extremely vague about what they had promised Luciano in exchange for his services."
Onward! "Between 1946, when Luciano set up his heroin shop, and 1952, the addict total in the U.S. tripled, then jumped to 150,000 by 1965, due primarily to the efforts of Luciano's new operation. Six years later, that number had doubled and nearly doubled again, the addict population topping half a million. The epidemic is often attributed to the Woodstock generation and the proliferation of hedonistic hippies, but the CIA's partnership with opium-growing Laotian warlords probably has as much to do with it. The CIA's covert operation in Laos during the Vietnam War remains the largest it has ever staged. The "Golden Triangle," Laos, northern Thailand, and Burma, is where seventy percent of the world's opium comes from. Much of the raw opium goes to Marseilles and Sicily, where Corsican and Mafia gangs have laboratories to turn it into heroin for sale by the Luciano-founded crime syndicate. The CIA's own thinly disguised cover airline, Air America, flew raw opium in and out of Laos, as a way of financing the illegal Laotian war without going to Congress. Much of the heroin manufactured from the CIA-couriered base was sold to American servicemen in Southeast Asia, who developed a widespread heroin problem."
There's a lot of really good stuff written in the past.
Searching "CIA heroin" gave this from a side note on something called Dark Alliance.
"The story that is revealed, follows the simple but expedient formula that drugs (and other long term problems like Islamic terrorism) took a back seat when the priority was winning a war against the evil Soviet Empire. At its more complex level, the story of heroin in the Golden Crescent involves connections between the CIA, the ISI, Mujahideen, the collapsed BCCI bank and Pakistan's nuclear weapons program." Wow, there're a lot of current buzzwords in there.
"Celerino Castillo III, one of the Drug Enforcement Agency's most prolific agents, who netted record busts in New York, Peru, Guatemala, El Salvador and San Francisco, was ordered not to investigate US-sponsored drug trafficking operations supervised by Oliver North. After twelve years of service, Castillo has retired from the agency, "amazed that the US government could get away with drug trafficking for so long." In his book Powderburns: Cocaine, Contras, and the Drug War [Mosaic Press, 1994], Castillo details the US role in drug and weapons smuggling, money laundering, torture, and murder, and includes Oliver North's drug use and dealing, and the training of death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala by the DEA."
Under, 'CIA drug running and Clinton'. "Cocaine-funded covert operations have a pedigree: the C.I.A. support for opium-growing Chinese nationalists in the Golden Triangle set the scene for the 60s heroin plague in the U.S. As far back as the 50s the C.I.A. had found it expedient to ally with the Corsican syndicates smuggling drugs through Marseilles who were able to break the power of the communist dockworkers there. Further examples would include the Mujaheedin guerrillas, for instance, and Manuel Noriega, who himself helped organise the routing of drugs to the U.S. and guns to the contras". Don't let the look of the page and the annoying hyphens between regular words put you off.
I don't get it and then again I do. It's true, drugs make the world go 'round. I'd put them neck-in-neck with oil, though deeming drugs the more potent force as they're an escape -- a temporary time-out of reality -- while oil is a necessity for survival. Pleasure always tops the list. The introduction of heroin to Iraq should scare the bejeesus out of you. It's begun with the gangsters whom I'm sure are setting up shop, ready to flood the streets and targeting the youth. Did they forget about the addiction factor? The NEED for more? Is it being passed out like Forrest's box of chocolates? I would think that would be the case in the beginning. Give them enough to make them beg for more and then, hey, baby they're yours. They'll beg, they'll steal, they'll sell out their own mother. Only the rich can afford to be 'nice' junkies and the Iraqi's sure as shinola aren't rich and crime will soar. But yeah, it will keep them away from political action, that's a given. Some 'liberation'.
"Because when the smack begins to flow I really don't care anymore About all the Jim-Jim's in this town And all the politicians makin' crazy sounds And everybody puttin' everybody else down And all the dead bodies piled up in mounds" --Lou Reed
Brenda Stardom - Portugal
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Affidafit shows CIA knew of contra drug ring
by Gary Webb and Pamela Kramer -- Knight-Ridder Newspapers LOS ANGELES -
During the early 1980s, federal and local narcotics agents knew that a massive drug ring operated by Nicaraguan contra rebels was selling large amounts of cocaine "mainly to blacks living in the South Central Los Angeles area," according to a search-warrant affidavit obtained by the San Jose Mercury News.
The Oct. 23, 1986, affidavit identifies former Nicaraguan government official Danilo Blandon as "the highest-ranking member of this organization" and describes a sprawling drug operation involving more than 100 Nicaraguan contra sympathizers.
The affidavit of Thomas Gordon, a former Los Angeles County sheriff's narcotics detective, is the first independent corroboration that the contra army - the Nicaraguan Democratic Force - was dealing "crack" cocaine to gangs in Los Angeles' black neighborhoods. Known by its Spanish initials, the FDN was an anti-communist commando group formed and run by the CIA during the 1980s.
Gordon's sworn statement says that both the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI had informants inside the Blandon drug ring for several years before sheriff's deputies raided it Oct. 27, 1986. Gordon's affidavit is based on police interviews with those informants and one of the DEA agents who was investigating Blandon.
Twice during the past year, Ron Spear, Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department spokesman, told the Mercury News that his department had no records of the 1986 raids and denied having a copy of Gordon's search-warrant affidavit.
The Mercury News obtained the entire search-warrant affidavit this week. Sheriff Sherman Block's office did not respond yesterday to written questions about the affidavit.
A recent Mercury News series revealed how Blandon's operation, which sold thousands of kilos of cocaine to black Los Angeles drug dealers, created the first mass market for crack in America during the early 1980s and helped fuel a crack explosion that is still reverberating through black communities. Both the CIA and the Justice Department have denied government involvement.
But according to a legal motion filed in a 1990 case involving a deputy who helped execute the search warrants, one of the suspects involved in the raid identified himself as a CIA agent and asked police to call CIA headquarters in Virginia to confirm his identity. The motion, filed by Los Angeles defense attorney Harlan Braun on behalf of Deputy Daniel Garner, said the narcotics detectives allowed the man to make the call but then carted away numerous documents purportedly linking the U.S. government to cocaine trafficking and money-laundering efforts on behalf of the contras.
The motion said CIA agents appeared at the sheriff's department within 48 hours of the raid and removed the seized files from the evidence room. But Braun said detectives secretly copied 10 pages before the documents were spirited away. Braun attempted to introduce them in the 1990 criminal trial to force the federal government to back off the case. Braun was hit with a gag order, the documents were put under seal and Garner was convicted of corruption charges.
Internal sheriff's department records of the raid "mysteriously disappeared" around the same time the seized files were taken, Braun's motion said. That claim was buttressed in an interview this week by an officer involved in the raid.
The officer, who requested anonymity, said the alleged CIA agent was Ronald Lister, a former Laguna Beach police detective who worked with Blandon in the drug ring. The 1986 search-warrant affidavit identifies Lister's home in Laguna Beach as one of the places searched. It says Lister was involved in transporting drug money to Miami and was Blandon's partner in a security company. The company, according to a former employee, was doing work at a Salvadoran military air base in the early 1980s. Lister pleaded guilty to cocaine trafficking in 1991.
Gary Webb
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Gary Webb Dead: Suicide?
another "suicide".
Investigative journalist Gary Webb joins artist Mark Lombardi, J.H. Hatfield (author of "Fortunate Son"), and Danny Casolaro & Hunter S Thompson as yet another 'suicide' by a writer/researcher, who was trying to establish a deeper and more detailed understanding of the structure and function of the Bush Dy-nasty...
Webb was found Friday Dec 11th 2004 - at his home in Sacramento County, dead of an apparent suicide. Moving-company workers called authorities after discovering a note posted on his front door that read, "Please do not enter. Call 911 and ask for an ambulance." Webb died of a gunshot wound to the head, according to the Sacramento County coroner's office. He is survived by two sons and a daughter.
Gary Webb's 1996 series in the San Jose Mercury News titled "Dark Alliance" revealed that for the better part of a decade, a Bay Area drug ring sold tons of cocaine to Los Angeles street gangs and funneled millions in drug profits to the CIA-backed Nicaraguan Contras.
It provoked a fierce reaction from the media establishment, which denounced the series. Following the controversy, San Jose Mercury News executive editor demoted Webb within the paper. He resigned and pushed his investigation even further in his book "Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras, and the Crack Cocaine Explosion."
- |more @ democracynow
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Total control of the Earth
Clearly the unstated aim of the federal government of the United States of America is the attainment of total control of the Earth, including all its material resources and peoples, by economic, political and military means. The achievement of this requires the expenditure of vast amounts of money over several decades. A major part of this money comes from covert U.S. government trafficking in illegal drugs, primarily the addictive drugs cocaine and heroin. U.S.-sponsored world-wide drug prohibition, a.k.a. the "War on Drugs", is primarily a tactic to keep street prices high and profits astronomical, regardless of the huge social and personal damage done. U.S.-sponsored drug prohibition will continue until either the U.S. attains its aim of complete military and political domination of the Earth (which is still some time away, if it ever happens) or the junta which rules the U.S. and which aims at total control is removed from power. Only an alliance of anti-fascist nations, and sustained resistance by people who value their freedom, can prevent the subjugation of the Earth to those intent on controlling and exploiting it. Repeal of the laws, and of the U.S.-imposed international treaties, prohibiting possession and sale of drugs which are presently illegal would remove the enormous profits derived from wholesale illegal drug trafficking and cut off a major source of the money required by the U.S. for the achievement of its aim of total world domination. Obviously the U.S. will never repeal these laws and treaties, so it is up to the other countries of the world to do so, if they value their sovereignty, freedom and cultural tradition.
serendipity
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"The U.S. has been aware for years about the reported ties between Afghan militants and the drug trade. Washington, however, didn't make a stink about this drug connection when they were helping Afghan rebels in the 1980s.
When the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the CIA helped to fund and arm the country's anti-Communist Islamic rebels, known as the Mujaheddin."
Opium, Afghanistan and Misinformation
Alejandro Bustos -Forget magazine
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A CIA photo of their friends opium crop.
The CIA says no to drugs on their website,
except when your warlord allies grow it
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US Mercenaries Spill Blood Over Afghan Opium
It was the first day of Afghanistan's new opium eradication program and the quiet town of Maiwand in Kandahar province had been chosen for action.
Hundreds of Afghan eradicators under the command of American private security contractors were going to head into the fields around the town and destroy the beautiful red and white blooms days before they could be harvested for their narcotic sap.
But instead of the peaceful, model operation that was promised as an example to demonstrate the Kabul government's serious intentions, Maiwand and its surrounding villages exploded into violence in what could be a foretaste of resistance to Western-backed efforts to bring Afghanistan's opium industry under control.
By the end of yesterday four government soldiers had been wounded by gunfire from farmers, American security contractors were said to be sheltering behind razor wire in a protected camp, and Afghan police and counter-narcotics forces had fought fierce battles which local people said left five dead. Plans to eradicate poppies were temporarily shelved in the area as political bigwigs shuttled to and fro trying to ease tensions and broker some kind of deal with the angry opium farmers. - steve gilliard.blogspot
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"War in Afghanistan, anthrax, unprecedented powers of detention:
the public mind moves from one shock to another, appearing to accept the government's lead."
source
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The 'use' of religious ideology and unquestioning fundamentalism in order to direct foreign policy.
The Invasion of Iraq...More bombings throughout the world in Bali, Saudi Arabia, Turkey...London killing how many ???
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"A new Amnesty International report charges that in 2002, the Bush Administration violated the spirit of its own export policy and approved the sale of equipment implicated in torture to Yemen, Jordan, Morocco and Thailand, despite the countries' documented use of such weapons to punish, mistreat and inflict torture on prisoners. The US is also alleged to have handed suspects in the 'war on terror' to the same countries."
US Exports $20 million of Shackles,
Electro-Shock Technology
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"Amnesty International, Oxfam, and the International Network on Small Arms said that on average 500,000 people were killed each year by armed violence - roughly one victim a minute. "
War on terror fuels small arms trade
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Hang on... what were those numbers again?
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Sept 11th 2001
estimated people killed each year by armed violence
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2752
500,000
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The arms trade revealed
read US arms total fiscal amounts made world wide for 2002 - from federation of American Scientists [pdf file]
Update:
2004 FOREIGN MILITARY SALES DETAILED
The United States sold more than $12.6 billion worth of military
equipment to foreign countries in 2004, according to a July 2005
report to Congress released in declassified form last week.
Items sold are broken down by country. Details of sales to several
countries, including Australia, Japan and Taiwan, were blacked out
in the declassified version.
The document was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by
Matthew Schroeder of the Federation of American Scientists Arms
Sales Monitoring Project.
See the 2004 report to Congress on Foreign Military Sales here:
http://www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/655-2004/6552004.html#DOD
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Deja Vu?
Bush makes deal with Saudis - keep oil prices low before the election
But, hey it's nothing new...so that's OK...[huh!!!?]
"The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who appeared on the program with Woodward, said his characterization of Saudi policy was "accurate."
"We hoped that the oil prices will stay low, because that's good for America's economy, but more important, it's good for our economy and the international economy," he said. "This is nothing unusual. President Clinton asked us to keep the prices down in the year 2000. In fact, I can go back to 1979, President Carter asked us to keep the prices down to avoid the malaise."
"So yes, it's in our interests and in America's interests to keep the prices down. But that was not a deal."
Woodward, White House, Saudis: No election deal on oil
PLAN OF ATTACK : Deciding on War
Behind Diplomatic Moves, Military Plan Was Launched
'We're Going to Have to Go to War,' Bush Said to Rice
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Peter Kilfoyle, the former Labour defence minister, said: "It seems very, very unwise for us to pledge our money on what seems to be an increasingly shaky regime. . . This seems to be a triumph of optimism over reality."
In a similar scandal in the past, the ECGD lost £650m of taxpayers' money by giving guarantees to Saddam Hussein on the instructions of the Thatcher government. In the 70s, huge tank contracts backed by the Labour government were obtained in Iran by bribing the shah and intermediaries, only for the deals to collapse with the fall of the regime.
The Ministry of Defence maintained its reputation for secrecy over the deals when asked the size and nature of the contracts now being supported by the taxpayer. It replied: "Everything to do with Al Yamamah is confidential." - odious debts
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Secret £1bn deal to insure Saudi arms contract
David Leigh and Rob Evans - Tuesday December 14, 2004 - The Guardian
The government has secretly agreed to pay the arms firm BAE Systems £1bn in the event that the Saudi regime, one of the company's main military customers, collapses.
The insurance arrangement, which is not detailed in any public documents, has been made through the Department of Trade and Industry's export credits guarantee department (ECGD). If the Saudi royal family falls and a successor refuses to pay its debts, BAE, which is under corruption in vestigation in London, will be compensated by the government. The UK Treasury is already burdened by a string of other foreign bad debts.
The Saudis are committed to handing over £1bn-worth of oil every year to BAE, in return for the firm virtually running the Saudi air force.
BAE has nearly 5,000 staff inside the country, and the Saudi income is crucial to the fortunes of Britain's biggest arms company. It is believed to provide more than 20% of its profits. But Saudi willingness to continue paying came into question last week, when BAE unexpectedly warned of a reduction in future Saudi profits thanks to what was described as a decision to have greater "local content".
The company is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office over allegations that a £60m "slush fund" paid a Saudi prince to keep its contract income flowing.
BAE is by far the ECGD's biggest customer, but this fact is not disclosed in its annual report. The ECGD has been accused of benefiting a coterie of big arms firms at taxpayers' ex pense. But it has promised in recent years to come clean about the guarantees it issues.
It now publishes an annual list, which claims to detail the deals it has done, and the countries and companies they benefit. But its biggest single commitment, the BAE deal with Saudi Arabia, appears nowhere on the list. The £1bn figure is listed in the accounts under an obscure entry reading: "Other insurance."
The agency issued total guarantees of £2.99bn last year. The "invisible" BAE deal represented nearly 40% of that total. A Guardian analysis of ECGD's accounts shows that in each of the past three years the ECGD has provided BAE with slightly more than £1bn of cover for its Saudi arms deals.
This appears to represent the amounts which the Saudi regime is due to hand over to BAE annually in return for spare parts, maintenance, crew training, ammunition and missiles for Tornado and Hawk warplanes, originally sold under the huge Al Yamamah arms purchase.
ECGD insures export deals which are too risky for the pri vate market to touch. BAE appears to have paid a steeply increased premium last year, of approximately £35m, as against less than £9.5m three years earlier.
This may represent fears of an increased risk of instability in Saudi Arabia, whose regime, often accused of corruption, is a prime target of Islamist fundamentalists.
During the Thatcher and Major Conservative governments, the ECGD lost huge sums of taxpayers' money in bad debts by subsidising companies to export to unstable regimes. A total of almost £10bn in bad debts has been accumulated by the agency, including interest, although it claims that it still has hopes of recovering up to 37% of them.
The ECGD claims it keeps insurance deals secret because if the purchaser knew the supplier was insured, it might tempt them to default. Asked how this could apply to a government-to-government deal such as the Saudi contract, the ECGD refused to answer. Asked why the published accounts were misleading, in concealing the identity of their largest cus tomer, and the fact that the taxpayers' biggest exposure was to a single arms deal with Saudi Arabia, it also refused to answer. BAE said: "Contracts covered by the ECGD are commercial in confidence."
The ECGD's decision to keep its biggest deal secret is likely to be an early test for the Freedom of Information Act, which comes into force next month. The Guardian is to appeal under the act against the government's refusal to release information about the Saudi deal. - Gaurdian
- Corpwatch article
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2005: British defense minister in Saudi
RIYADH (AFP) Dec 20, 2005 - British Defense Secretary John Reid began a two-day visit to Saudi Arabia Tuesday, amid reports of a multi-billion-dollar bid by London to sell the kingdom Typhoon fighter planes. Reid was met on his arrival at Riyadh's air force base by his Saudi counterpart, Prince Khaled, the official SPA news agency said without providing further details.
On October 2, Saudi Arabia denied it was engaged in secret negotiations with Britain over the deal, but acknowledged that London would like to sell the plans to Riyadh. "There are no secret negotiations between the two countries on the deal to sell the Typhoon planes," a defence ministry spokesman said at the time. "But the British side has openly expressed a desire to supply Saudi Arabia with these planes, like any of the many friendly countries which produce sophisticated weapons systems."
On September 27, the British daily The Guardian reported that Britain had been in secret discussions with Saudi Arabia over a deal worth up to 40 billion pounds (71 billion dollars, 59 billion euros). It said Reid sought to persuade Saudi Crown Prince Sultan to re-equip his air force with the European Typhoon, which is largely manufactured by British defence and aerospace giant BAE Systems.
The Guardian quoted anonymous defence, diplomatic and legal sources as saying negotiations were stalling because the Saudis were demanding "three favours."
Riyadh allegedly demanded that Britain expels two anti-Saudi dissidents, resume British Airways flights to Riyadh and drop a corruption investigation implicating the Saudi ruling family and BAE.
The Saudi defense official said his country's arms purchases were driven by "operational needs, and not against any political deals." - spacewar.com
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Kachiiiiiiiing!!!
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Eurofighter sold to Saudi Arabia
Shares in BAE Systems have risen over 6% in value after the UK government agreed to supply Saudi Arabia with the new Eurofighter. This is the first contract for the jet outside Europe and will safeguard thousands of UK jobs. The Eurofighter has been developed by a consortium of firms in the UK, Germany, Spain and Italy. It is competing for market share against two rival jets, the US Joint Strike Fighter and the French Rafale.
The Royal Saudi Armed Forces are on a mission to modernise, which will see the Eurofighter Typhoon replace the Tornado in the Royal Saudi Air Force. BAE has provided Tornado planes to Saudi Arabia since 1985.
Confidential deal
Both BAE and the Ministry of Defence were keeping mum about the precise number of Eurofighters that would be sold to Saudi Arabia but the deal is rumoured to be worth more than £6bn ($10.6bn).
"The specific details of these arrangements are governed by the existing confidentiality agreement," the British embassy in Riyadh said.
Notably, the Saudi agreement is only the second export deal for Eurofighter - Austria previously bought 18 of the aircraft. The countries behind the Eurofighter have ordered 620 of them. The Eurofighter has its UK base at Warton, Lancashire, where BAE Systems employs 9,000 people in its aircraft division. These jobs will be safeguarded by the deal over the next 10 years, said UK defence secretary John Reid. Shares in BAE Systems hit a three-year high on Wednesday, up 22.25 pence to 370p. - BBC
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all you need is bombs! la la laaa la la
March - 2006 - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Liverpool...Blackburn? eh? slap an ASBO on 'er....she said that "no-one should doubt America's commitment to justice and the rule of law. In a major foreign policy speech" Ms Rice said ..."the US had no desire to be the world's jailer", referring to the detention of inmates at Guantanamo Bay. She said ..."the cause of advancing freedom was the greatest hope for peace today."
[read the shocking letter by Jumah Al Dossari, a Bahraini national whose attorney found him hanging by his neck in a suicide attempt at Guantanamo in October 2005]
Hopes of meeting former Beatle Paul McCartney fell through, a mosque withdrew its invitation and a local luminary lined up to host a concert in nearby Liverpool pulled out as a political statement. She visited a school in this community that is 25 percent Muslim, but many of the children were kept home for the day by protesting parents. Others cut classes to join the protests.
Jack Straw also guided Condoleezza Rice around the BAE Systems factory in the Ribble valley, which makes the Joint task force fighter... on the first day of a visit during which protesters had to crane their necks around police cordons to catch a glimpse of the high-security cavalcade. She then went to Blackburn Footbal club to meet the overpaid game-rigging soccer twats..as they graciously curtzied and fluttered their dopey eyes at the fuhrers ladyhawk...Rice was supposed to attend a match, but it was mysteriously moved toa Monday night kick-off...
funnily enough this visit co-incides with rumours that the UK is less than happy with the deal - The head of British military procurement ...Lord Drayson... told the U.S. Congress this month that the UK would be unable to follow through with plans to buy Lockheed Martin Corp.'s next-generation F-35 Joint Strike Fighter unless the United States could ensure that Britain would be able to do its own upgrades, including software, once the jets enter service. [report]
Lord Drayson is an interesting fellow...he got his peerage after lending New Labour shitloads of cash...he also had his fingers in a dodgy pharma deal involving a new type of injecting mech syringe that was unreliable......HEY just llike Tessa Jowells hubby David Mills - who was helping tax dodge infected Blood supplies via italy - small world isn't it?
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