Bush, Enron, and Bin Laden...

[Sinister]

Bush, Enron, and Bin Laden
Connections Within Connections
by William Pitt
Bush Cronies Guilty of High Treason and Murder?
The Enron Story thus far is nothing less than astounding: A company valued in the billions on Wall Street suddenly filed for the largest bankruptcy claim in the history of the known universe. Four thousand employees were abruptly shown the door after having been barred from dumping the company stock, meant to fund their retirement, while it was worth something. Meanwhile, Enron executives in the know were able to dump the stock, back when it was the gold standard on the Street, for a cool $1 billion.
So What's New, You Ask.
Well, apparently, although Enron was ailing for around the last 4 years (to be defined exactly in the courts), the aforementioned executives were able to maintain the mirage of financial viability by stuffing the debt into what are called “off-balance-sheet partnerships.” In essence, each of the executives built personal banking bunkers and hid what has been revealed to be staggering Enron debts within them, keeping the fact that the company was hemorrhaging money off the publicly displayed balance sheets. This maintained the company's credit rating, and allowed it to continue doing business.
Kenneth Lay was perhaps the best financial friend George W. Bush has ever known.
The fact that this went on for four years means several things:
· most of the Enron executives were aware of and/or actively participating in this highly criminal and irresponsible activity
· the stockholders, including 4,000 loyal Enron employees, were lied to
· the executives probably knew the stock value was doomed when they bailed out and cashed in several months ago
· they let their employees lose the retirement funds they believed were growing within their Enron stock portfolios
· a lot of people got screwed by a pack of sharp operators who didn't give a damn about anyone but themselves.
So What's New, You Ask Again!!!!
Well, what's new starts to emerge when the umbilical political and financial connections between Bush and Enron are illuminated. Enron's capo, Kenneth Lay, was perhaps the best financial friend George W. Bush has ever known. He and a number of Enron employees essentially bankrolled Bush's 2000 Presidential campaign, even lending Bush an Enron corporate jet for trips between whistle stops. And long before Bush got White House stars in his eyes, he worked very closely with Enron on energy policy in Texas.
This close connection led to the Bush administration's hiring of a number of influential individuals within Enron's orbit for important government positions:
THOMAS E. WHITE, Bush's Secretary of the Army, had been Vice-Chairman of Enron Energy Service, and held millions in Enron stock.
KARL ROVE, Presidential Advisor, owned as much as $250,000 of Enron stock.
LARRY LINDSAY, Economic Advisor, leapt straight from Enron to his current White House job.
ROBERT B. ZOELLICK, Federal Trade Representative, ditto above.
HARVEY PITTS, SEC Chairman, was handpicked by Kenneth Lay for the position, due to his notorious aversion to governmental regulation of any kind.
DONALD RUMSFELD, Defense Secretary, together with 31 Bush administration officials had a line item for Enron in their stock portfolio. The woebegone corporation held, and continues to hold, enormous influence over the day-to-day machinations of Federal government policy. Was Bush's recent gutting of the Clean Air Act, a decision designed to improve the fortunes of companies like Enron, the brainchild of people with deep connections to the energy industry?
DICK CHENEY, Vice President, admitted recently to six separate meetings with Enron executives while formulating the Bush administration's energy policy. Cheney, a former executive of the Halliburton Petroleum interest, was in charge of creating this policy. For reasons soon to be exposed by subpoena, Cheney refused to detail the specifics of the creation of this policy, which included the multiple Enron meetings. The General Accounting Office was preparing to sue Cheney to reveal this information when the September 11th attacks took place. Those subpoenas may be dusted off and mailed within a month.
In the meantime, the Justice Department is preparing a serious criminal investigation into the collapse of Enron. The democratically controlled Senate is planning hearings on the matter as well. Columnist Robert Scheer has referred to the Bush administration's involvement in the Enron debacle as “Whitewater in spades.” One wonders if “Watergate” would be a more appropriate comparison.
Bush Makes Bundle, Everyone Else Gets Shafted
Bush's own dealings within the energy industry carry a disturbingly familiar echo to the Enron situation: Once upon a time, he was a high-ranking officer of a petroleum interest called Harken Oil. On June 22, 1990, a week before Harken announced a $23.2 million loss in quarterly earnings, making its stock lose 60 percent of its value over the next six months, Bush made $848,560 by selling his Harken stock, earning him a 200% profit. Bush made a bundle while the other investors lost millions. Harken was Enron in miniature.
Some say that Daddy tipped little George off about Saddam's impending invasion of Kuwait which was the reason for the sudden fall in value. Now I wonder which oil companies specifically have profited from replacing Mullah Omar by a CIA guy? Somebody care to dig out the records?
All Right, But Where's the Treason and Murder?!
There's a school of thought, espoused primarily by Republicans, that any investigation into potentially dishonorable or illegal actions by the Bush administration is tantamount to treason. We are at war, undeclared though it may be, and Bush must be free to prosecute this war vigorously.
However, if reports recently aired on CNN have any credence, Bush and his cronies may well have to answer for actions that make the Enron catastrophe look like a jaywalking offense, actions that led directly to the incredible carnage in New York and Washington, D.C!
In 1998, during the Clinton administration, the U.S.-based energy concern Unocal canceled plans to exploit massive natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan by running a pipeline from there to Pakistan, where the natural gas could have been processed for Asian and Western energy markets. The idea was scuttled after Clinton ordered the cruise missile bombing of Afghanistan in response to a terrorist attack upon U.S. embassies in Africa which were planned and executed by Osama bin Laden.
The pipeline would have had to pass through Afghanistan, and Unocal was given the message in Technicolor by Clinton's people that Taliban-controlled Afghanistan was not to be given any sort of financial boon.
The Bush administration found no moral dilemma in dealing with the Taliban to get to the gas. Immediately upon their arrival in Washington, a vigorous courtship of the Taliban was undertaken. In fact, if former U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler is to be believed, the Bush administration had a vested interest in strengthening and stabilizing the Taliban regime, because a stable regime would enable investors to revive the Turkmenistan natural gas pipeline deal. The Taliban, demon of the moment, was the Bush administration's idea of a “stable” government. Stable enough, anyway, to see the pipeline through.
The connections between Bush and the Taliban became so close that the Taliban went so far as to hire an expert on U.S. public relations to smooth the way between the two regimes.
The connections between Bush and the Taliban became so close that the Taliban went so far as to hire an expert on U.S. public relations named Laila Helms, so as to smooth the way between the two regimes. Meetings between the two nations continued at a high level, the last of which occurred in August, scant weeks before the September 11th attacks. All of these actions were taken to exploit the vast energy reserves in Turkmenistan for the benefit of American energy corporations.
Former FBI Deputy Director John O'Neill stated, “The main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests, and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it.”
The cozy relationship between Bush and the Taliban frustrated the investigative efforts of former FBI Deputy Director John O'Neill. He was the FBI's chief bin Laden hunter, in charge of the investigations into the bin Laden-connected bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993, the destruction of an American troop barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996, the African embassy bombings in 1998, and the attack upon the U.S.S. Cole in 2000.
If these allegations carry even the faintest whiff of credibility George W. Bush and members of his administration stand in taint of high treason and murder.
O'Neill quit the FBI in protest two weeks before the destruction of the World Trade Center towers. He did so because his investigation was hindered by the Bush administration's connections to the Taliban, and by the interests of American petroleum companies. O'Neill was quoted as stating, “The main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism were U.S. oil corporate interests, and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it.” After leaving the FBI, O'Neill took a position as head of security for the World Trade Center. He died on September 11th, 2001, trying to save people trapped by the attack. The irony in this, simply, is horrifying.
In essence, the Federal agent who knew more about bin Laden than any living American was kept from investigating terrorist threats against America because the Bush administration was desperate to cultivate the favor of the Taliban, so as to gain access to lucrative natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan.
In essence, the Federal agent who knew more about bin Laden than any living American was kept from investigating terrorist threats against America because the Bush administration was desperate to cultivate the favor of the Taliban, who held terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden in great esteem, so as to gain access to lucrative natural gas deposits in Turkmenistan.
If these allegations prove true, Bush and his friends allowed this affinity to hamstring investigations that could have thwarted bin Laden's September plans. If these allegations prove true, everything since September 11th has been a massive cover-up operation in which American soldiers and thousands of Afghan civilians have died. If these allegations prove true, the Bush administration has the blood of thousands of American civilians on its hands.
If these allegations carry even the faintest whiff of credibility, George W. Bush and members of his administration stand in taint of high treason and murder.
On November 7th, 2000, a clear majority of Americans came to the conclusion that George W. Bush was unfit to govern this nation. For a variety of dark and controversial reasons, that conclusion was thrown over. Sometime soon, if the media's electronic web continues to carry these sordid stories of corruption, greed and death, the American people will come to fully understand the consequences of that failed election.
It is one thing to coddle and court a corrupt energy company for political and financial gain. But it's quite another to coddle and court a murderous terrorist-supporting regime, hindering anti-terrorism investigations in the process, for the purpose of exploiting valuable natural resources.
It is one thing to coddle and court a corrupt energy company for political and financial gain. But it's quite another to coddle and court a murderous terrorist-supporting regime, hindering anti-terrorism investigations in the process, for the purpose of exploiting valuable natural resources. The former cost a number of people their retirement funds. The latter has cost thousands of people their lives. One is criminal. The other is abominable. George W. Bush is deeply implicated in both.

[Tim Rich]

Okay, I'll bite. I'm giving it more attention than it deserves. Pitt's a hack who wouldn't know a fact if it bit him. For a laugh, go read what he and his ilk have scrawled at their home site, www.truthout.org. Liberal rants with no semblance of logic or reason.

Tough to make this list-relevant, but it's this same type of thought-free, liberal, we'll protect you - we know best drivel that has the greens wanting to crush our trucks and eliminate the internal combustion engine.

[COBALT]

I have to agree. I tend to keep myself from buying into this garbage one way or another. The "can you believe what Clinton & Hillary are getting away with now" crap made me just as anoyed while he was president. Pitt is a freelance pot stirrer who needs to get his facts straight instead of printing unsubstantiated rumors.

[woodrow59]

This post has no place on this board. It should and will be removed. I could say MUCH more, but I respect this board and all it's members and would never inflict my political views on anyone.

[jrj001]

Man, what drivel. To deem it sinister to consult one of the biggest energy companies regarding energy policy is just idiotic. Who are they supposed to consult with , a veternarian? One of Enron's biggest money deals, a power plant in India, occurred during the Clinton presidency! Enron gave money to whoever was in office both repubs and dems. Worldcom is now the biggest bankruptcy in history and I'm sure that somehow you will find a way to blame Bush for that too. Guess it doesn't matter that the accounting transgressions all occurred during the
Clinton years. Who was it that contacted the Bush administration to try to keep Enron afloat using some questionable rating gimmick? None other than the former Clinton treasury sec. now working for Citibank. Somehow that was left out of your article. Afganistan doesn't have oil to interest the evil oil companies. Russia has the oil and needs a pipeline to sell it. It will be in our long term best interests to get our oil from Russia. Man I wish I had more time...

[70 Jimmy]

What's funny is that Will Pitt thinks he has to write paragraph upon paragraph to prove he's an idiot.

Sinister, think for yourself man! Don't let some droning idiot do it for you.

Oh, and use the General Discussion board please.

[68 Stepside]

This post is being moved. If you don't like the post, don't reply to it distastefully, please. It'll save us from getting into a pissing match.

TJ

[nucleus]

The government is not run by corporations, but by honest, decent hard working people like you and me who care more for each other than for wealth and power.

Corporate money has no influence on politics - American politicians are too honest to let a few million dollars worth of inside deals sway their position.

Everything on the television news is true and complete.

BLIND FAITH is a wonderful thing.

Saddam Hussein gassed his own people way back in the 1980's and the US did nothing about it. Why? Because we were too busy financing him to fight the Iranians.

The real reason for the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was that the Kuwaitis were slant drilling Iraqi oil. Slant drilling is drilling sideways, in this case, under the Iraq border.

Why the sudden US interest in getting rid of Hussein? The US oil industry, led by Bush and Cheney, want to control Iraq's 300+ billion barrels of oil.

The plans to invade Afghanistan were on the boards well before 9/11. Why? Because UNOCAL owns 75% of the oil rights in central Asia, and the best way to get it out is through ... you guessed it, Afghanistan!

Blindness is the inability to see. Blind faith is the inability to think. Don't believe everything you read, but read enought to form an intelligent opinion on your own.

BTW, Bin Laden is Dead.

[JackP]

Not even a year after the attacks and the Anti-Americanism that allowed the attacks is back. It's losers like you that run to "protect" terrorists and blame the government for "racial profiling" and other nonsense. The next time you see an 80 year old women being searched before boarding a plane while a 25 year old Irainian walks by, think of Sinister and his ilk. God Bless America.

[nucleus]

I’m not defending terrorists, I’m just pointing out that the US is:

the world’s largest international supplier of arms

and

the world’s largest developer of weapons of mass destruction.

As such, it is disingenuous for the US to necessitate a “regime change” in Iraq, which has not been demonstrated to have either of these capabilities, although it does have a particularly large supply of a strategic natural resource – oil.

I’m not anit-American, I’m anti-Stupid. If you sit drinking beer and watching I Love Lucy reruns all day you’ll never know what your country is doing, and they depend on that.

God Bless the poor, and especially the used and abused around the world who are victims of US imperialism. Screw the rich and powerful (unless, of course, they do something really good with all that money).