Tag Archives: Kleptocracy

The Daily Bell Asks A Question

Posted on by

Update: Antiwar has a good piece about Dr. Lani Kass, Senior Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff to the US Air Force General Norton A. Schwartz, who reached the rank of Major in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) before rising to her present highly sensitive position at the Pentagon. Dr. Kass is also rumored to be an unofficial adviser to Admiral Mike Mullen, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Middle East Policy.

“There are indications that Dr. Kass is a major player in shaping US security policy.  She has been described as a “key participant” in the development of the national strategy for combating terrorism, as well as the national military strategic plan for the Global War on Terrorism. In September 2007, The Times of London reported that she was a leading participant in “Project CHECKMATE, a “highly confidential strategic planning group tasked with ‘fighting the next war’ as tensions rise with Iran” that was “quietly established” by the US Air Force in June 2007 as a “successor to the group that planned the 1991 Gulf War’s air campaign.”

Also per The Times, CHECKMATE “consists of 20-30 top air force officers and defense and cyberspace experts with ready access to the White House, the CIA and other intelligence agencies.” Its director Brigadier-General Lawrence A. Stutzriem and Kass reported directly to General Michael Moseley, at the time chief of staff of the Air Force. The Times cited Defense sources saying, “detailed contingency planning for a possible attack on Iran has been carried out for more than two years.” Regarding Iran operations, Kass was quoted as saying “We can defeat Iran, but are Americans willing to pay the price?”

ORIGINAL POST

The Daily Bell asks a good question:

“Leaving aside the legal issues involved, one does wonder at America’s insistence that Iran remain nuke-free. Back in the 1950s, America participated in a regime change in Iran and there is considerable evidence that America might have destabilized Iran again in the late 1970s. And despite mistranslations, Iran has never directly threatened Israel with nuclear weapons – even if it had them. Israel on the other hand is said to have up to 400 nuclear missiles or more, though Israel has never confirmed their existence.

States, in fact, usually do not commit suicide. The idea that a nuclear Iran would suddenly start lobbing nukes at Israel strikes us as preposterous. Even if Israel did not strike back, the US has enough firepower to turn all of Iran into molten slag. The regime would not survive the first missile. But none of this seems to matter. The US is the de facto policeman of the new global “Power Elite” order. It is harrying nations around the world into falling in line with the US position that so long as there is any hint of a possibility that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, Iran ought to be severely boycotted, its economy squeezed and its businesses barred.

It is a serious situation. Boycotts are not inevitably a prelude to war, but they are often destabilizing and can well be a cynical prelude to action. In this case, we believe that certain US leaders seem to want to ratchet up the pressure on Iran to a point that is positively dangerous. Why would the US put world peace at risk over an atomic program that has not yet been proven to exist?”

Why?

Here is one answer: “The Zionist Power Configuration” (James Petras). (Note: The tone of this is shriller than necessary, but because it is a systematic and superbly documented critique that I can’t really find any where else, and because of Lieberman’s new, extremely dangerous call for war in Iran at a time of maximum global fragility (and with the very suspicious downing of the Polish plane in the background), I am going to post it anyway.

And here is more on the IL:

PY TRADE: How Israel’s Lobby Undermines America’s Economy
by Grant F. Smith
Foreword by Michael Scheuer, former chief, CIA Bin Laden unit
Large Cover Image

Page Count: 180
Language: English
ISBN: 978-0-9764437-1-1
Price $12.95 (before retailer discounts)
















Buy now at:
















Praise for Spy Trade:

“This terrific historical expose ought to be required background reading for those FBI agents assigned to investigate foreign espionage and public corruption matters.  For many reasons, such cases are amongst the most challenging to investigate and prosecute, but are made even harder when undue political pressures enter into the picture.  FBI officials responsible for setting investigative priorities and allocating resources would also do well therefore to read Spy Trade so they are aware of the historical linkage between Israel’s ‘Uzi diplomacy’ arms dealing, the Iran-Contra scandal, and the Jonathan Pollard spy incident with AIPAC’s nefarious ‘lobbying’ activities.” Coleen Rowley, former FBI agent and 2002 Time Magazine “Person of the Year.”

“Grant F. Smith’s excellent, deeply disturbing book..is a welcome addition to a growing scholarly literature.” Michael Scheuer, former senior CIA analyst and author of “Imperial Hubris”

“Like political parties, lobbies are groups of citizens with shared interests, an important part of a functioning democracy.  When they have enormous power, however, and especially if their activities remain almost completely hidden, lobbies can be dangerous.

Meticulously detailed in this riveting addition to his earlier exposes, Grant Smith reveals yet another facet of the extent to which the pro-Israel Lobby is beyond dangerous, and has become a serious threat to a broad range of American ideals, objectives and interests abroad, as well as here at home.  This book contains many highly disturbing, documented revelations.  Read it.” Ambassador Edward L. Peck, former Chief of Mission in Iraq and Former Deputy Director, Cabinet Task Force on Terrorism, Reagan White House

“This book presents formidable and dangerous new evidence of spying by Israel and the corrosive long term influence of its lobby on US governance.” Paul Findley, member of Congress from 1961 to 1983 and author of three books on the US-Israeli relationship, including the Washington Post bestseller They Dare to Speak Out: People and Institutions Confront Israel’s Lobby

“Grant F. Smith is without peer as an archival scholar of the history of the Zionist power configuration operating in tandem inside and outside of the US government.  His meticulous research on the long-term operations of AIPAC in shaping US Middle East policy provides the best contemporary framework for understanding our involvement in Middle East wars.  He shows how American foreign policy in the Middle East follows Israel’s agenda and documents the enormous cost to our Treasury and economy as well as the loss of American lives.  This is a book that should be read by all citizens who are concerned about the aggressive manipulation of our media and political institutions to enhance Israel’s power and further its privileged position in the Middle East.” James Petras, Bartle Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology at Binghamton University, New York

About the Book

Israel and its American lobby have committed audacious but generally unknown crimes against the United States.  Government secrecy across the CIA, FBI, Department of Justice and Pentagon long kept files about Israeli espionage, weapons smuggling and covert operations on American soil classified…until now.

Spy Trade begins on the trail of a vast smuggler network funneling stolen and illegally purchased surplus WWII arms to Jewish fighters in Palestine.  When the FBI threatened to crack down—a clandestine summit meeting yielded minor convictions for small time operators—but not the financial masterminds behind the scheme.  This germ of immunity soon flowered into a full scale assault on American industry, the electoral system, national defense secrets and rule of law itself.

Spy Trade probes Israel lobby smuggling operations diverting uranium from the US to Israel’s Dimona nuclear weapons facility.  The US Department Justice battled mightily to regulate two key enablers—the Jewish Agency and American Zionist Council—as Israeli foreign agents in the 1960s.  But when the effort failed it generated a massive counterstrike.

Israel lobby campaign finance violations unleashed a network of coordinated stealth political action committees that intimidated American politicians and made a “pro-Israel” outlook and voting record requirements for staying in government.  A new legal battle to regulate the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as a political action committee—this time launched by concerned citizens—began two decades ago but has not yet been resolved.

Spy Trade also reveals the long term impact of a newly declassified “third scandal” that began in the 1980s.  In the midst of both the Iran-Contra affair and Jonathan Pollard espionage incident AIPAC and the Israeli embassy conducted a spectacular clandestine operation against American industries and workers.  It has so far cost the US economy $71 billion and a hundred thousand jobs each year by shutting down or diverting US exports.  Trade privileges obtained by Israel under the treaty not only permit financing illegal settlement construction with proceeds from diamonds sold in the US.  The US pharmaceutical industry faces an unrelenting onslaught against its capacity to innovate and protect its intellectual property.

Spy Trade is much more than a groundbreaking dissection of the tactics Israel and its American lobby repeatedly use to evade justice.  The book also provides stunningly simple strategies for ending criminal immunity and subversion of law enforcement that may someday restore American governance.

SEC Brings Action Against Goldman Sachs

Posted on by

Update 1(April 17)

Glad to see that Simon Johnson is making the same point I make here, that charges should also be brought against John Paulson, or the system is broken beyond repair.

Market Watch:

“SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — The Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday charged Goldman Sachs & Co. and one of its vice presidents for defrauding investors by misstating and omitting key facts about a financial product related to subprime mortgages.

The SEC alleged in a lawsuit that Goldman /quotes/comstock/13*!gs/quotes/nls/gs (GS 158.38, -25.89, -14.05%) structured and marketed a collateralized debt obligation that hinged on the performance of subprime residential mortgage-backed securities. However, it failed to disclose the role that a major hedge fund, Paulson & Co., played in the portfolio selection process as well as the fact that the hedge fund had taken a short position against the CDO.”

This hit the FTSE, which fell 100 points, and the DJIA, 120 points and caused a tumble in GS’s share value, down by about (GS 165.40) 18% this morning. Investment banks and brokerages are down 7.6%.

This is likely to start a sell-off in the financial sector as a whole (down 3.1%) and possibly the much waited next leg down of the great correction that began in 2007-08.

Michael Roston points out the obvious. The amount in question in the Abacus deal is $15 million bucks, which is chump change.

Point two. No one’s saying anything about John Paulson, who made $1 billion out of it.

[Or, to take another instance, what about the Greek government, which is also getting bailed out….by tax-payers of another country? No culpability for the governments who get into these kinds of deals?]

You’ll also notice, as I blogged earlier, that George Soros, another speculator, has also called for the IB’s to be broken up (using the same argument, “too big to fail means too big to exist” – something also pushed by David Einhorn and the left-liberals). Now, I can see the sense in the “too big to fail, too big to exist” mantra, especially, if it had been used against the banks before they helped themselves to tax-payer money. But I wonder why it’s being repeated now, after the fact….and not then..

I didn’t hear these same critics of size pipe up at that crucial time.

Why?

More On Einhorn’s Rumor-Mongering About Lehman

Posted on by

Matthew Goldstein and Steven Eder

(Hat-tip to Sean at Deep Capture):

“In forwarding Starr’s email to the SEC, former Lehman General Auditor Beth Rudofker wrote: “I phoned you earlier to review and pass on some recent rumor activity and information that is concerning to us.”

In June, Rudofker sent another email to lawyers at the SEC, pointing out additional “rumors” about Lehman that she said “continue to be destructive.” In her long email to the SEC, she said: “We have been able to prevent 3 stories containing these specific rumors that were set to run.”

Also included in the documents is a back-and-forth email exchange between Einhorn and Callan, in which Callan accused him of being “very disingenuous.” Callan said she would not have talked to Einhorn if she knew he was going to make a speech criticizing the firm’s finances.

“I can only feel that you set me up and you will now cherry pick what you like out of the conversation to your thesis,” she wrote in an May 19, 2008 email.

Einhorn defended himself in a lengthy response, saying that Callan knew Greenlight was “short” the stock when she reached out to talk to him.

“You had no reason to expect that our discussion was confidential in any way,” Einhorn wrote in response. “In fact, you knew that I do not want to be restricted in trading the stock and I did not request any information that you would not provide to any other investor who asked.”

A few days later, Einhorn gave another speech blasting the email exchange.

A spokesman for Einhorn declined to comment on Wednesday evening.

For his part, Starr now says, “obviously I was wrong” about Lehman. But he isn’t backing down on his criticism of Einhorn.

“I still stand by those words,” said Starr, who noted that his fund has $50 million under management. “I think that manipulating the market and running a high publicity business is just not appropriate behavior and disruptive to free and open markets.”

My Comment:

Goldstein is the excellent Reuters reporter whose story on Steven Cohen was reportedly spiked…

(more later)

Sir James Goldsmith: GATT, Nukes, Agribusiness Devouring Society

Posted on by

Sir James Michael Goldsmith, Anglo-French financier and corporate raider of the 1980s, is most infamous for taking over Goodyear Tires and restructuring it, thereby putting its many employees out of work.

In this deeply prophetic interview with Charlie Rose in 1994 he discusses his book about globalization, The Trap, and displays a more humane side of his complex intelligence.

In the earlier part of the interview (not shown here), Goldsmith gets into a heated debate with Clinton economic honcho Laura Tyson over the benefits of NAFTA and GATT in which Tyson comes off as both naive and uninformed.

In another part, Goldsmith calls Indian physicist and environmental activist Vandana Shiva “remarkable” and asks why it is that global “free” trade, supposedly so beneficial to developing countries, was protested widely and vigorously by huge numbers of people in India.

Take away points from the interview:

*This (globalization) is the establishment against the rest of society

*I am for big business until it devours society

*Big business loves total access to unlimited give-away labor

*In every developing nation you have a handful of people who control everything, the oligarchs

*This (globalization) is the poor in rich countries subsidizing the rich in the poor countries
(Lila: I’d add that the poor in poor countries are also subsidizing the rich in rich countries)

*Free trade within homogeneous regions is to be preferred to global trade
(Lila: This coincides with something I’ve advocated for a while, on the principle of subsidiarity)

*The European parliament is a force for pseudo-democratic institutions

*It’s already fixed by the two main parties, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists

*The people have a right to vote on the single most important economic decision of their life times

*Here in the USA we’ve had no debate on it (GATT) while we’ve had a huge debate about NAFTA which was a pimple

*GATT is going through because business wants it
*It’s a fix here (the US), as it is in Europe

*We’ve allowed instruments that are supposed to serve us to become our masters

*GATT is an example of how an economic doctrine is going to destabilize our society

*Nuclear is another example. Here in Europe, we’ve not been allowed to discuss this disastrous form of energy, disastrous in terms both of economics and in terms of security

*Corporate agriculture is a third example of how we are destroying our societies

*The ruling machinery of government power in Europe is imposing this (GATT) without a debate

Arms and Mark Thatcher..

Posted on by

Mark Thatcher, son of the former UK PM, seems to have been dogged with accusations of financial impropriety. I bring him up, because of a comment on this blog about his direct involvement in an international conspiracy to cover up the manipulation of precious metals that was apparently outed in 2002 in the UK, but was covered up. In researching the comment, I began with some background on Mark Thatcher.

Here’s a brief summary of some financial “improprieties” as they show up in a Guardian article from 2004.

“But hit controversy in 1984 when the Observer alleged that he benefited from his mother’s position when a large construction deal in Oman was awarded to a building firm, Cementation, with which he was involved, after Mrs Thatcher visited the tiny Gulf state. The accusations were never proven.

Further controversy dogged him through his friendship with the Middle East businessman Wafic Said – a quiet-spoken Syrian with close links with Saudi royalty.

Among other business ventures in the 1980s, he was involved in several large-scale arms deals, most notably a £20bn contract between British Aerospace and Saudi Arabia.

Although rumours of impropriety have dogged his business career, he largely disappeared off Fleet Street’s radar after moving to the US.

But it is recorded that his wealth grew to the point where he spent periods as a tax exile in Switzerland.

In the 1990s he helped secure the multimillion pound contract for his mother’s Downing Street memoirs, but after the failure of a security alarm business in the US and a prosecution for tax evasion, Mark, his wife and their two children moved again – this time to South Africa.

Three years after the move to Cape Town, in 1998, he was investigated by South African police over a money-lending business to police officers. He counter-claimed that officers working for him as agents had defrauded him and the investigation was eventually dropped.

He returned to the UK last July for the funeral of his father, Sir Denis, a former oil businessman, who died aged 88. He inherited his father’s hereditary baronetcy to become Sir Mark.

Sir Mark, who was known as “Thickie Mork” among other nicknames at Harrow and who has been criticised for his lack of charm, was once described by the Financial Times as “a sort of Harrovian Arthur Daley with a famous Mum”.

A devoted Lady Thatcher, however, has always had faith in him. “Mark could sell snow to the Eskimos, and sand to the Arabs,” she is reported to have said.

His notoriety was not welcomed by Sir Bernard Ingham, Lady Thatcher’s former press secretary.

Asked by Sir Mark how he could best help his mother win the 1987 general election, Ingham reportedly replied: “Leave the country.”

Daily Bell Interview of GATA’s Bill Murphy

Posted on by

The Daily Bell interviews Bill Murphy of GATA (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee):

“It’s something like out of a James Bond movie. What are the odds that my testimony gets blotted out from live coverage and then our whistleblower and wife get hit by a car the next day? … The gold scandal story is larger than life to begin with. Now throw this spooky stuff on top of it. Veteran Cafe (Le Metropole Cafe, Murphy’s website) members will recall that in the early part of this century what happened to me during a six week period …

My car was stolen and then found on a nearby highway one day after the insurance company paid me off. There was no damage to the car, money left in the console, and a cashmere sweater in the back seat.

My web site was hacked and somebody sent out a very goofy email supposedly from me, but it was not me.

Coming out of a restaurant/night spot less than two blocks from where I live, somebody jumped out from behind a wall and sucker-punched me with brass knuckles. I was out cold and thought my jaw was broken.

Nothing like this has happened before or since.

Daily Bell: Do you think, this time, that the CFTC must take all this seriously.

Bill Murphy: Outside of Bart, it appears none of them want to go there. GATA is like their worst nightmare because they are like everyone else … kowtowing to the rich and powerful. However, a firestorm is growing about what GATA has to say, partially ignited by the Andrew Maguire revelations. I suspect we are finally going to receive some mainstream press in the months ahead, which will be like shining a light on Dracula.

Daily Bell: Why hasn’t it already?

Bill Murphy: The relationship between a government agency like the SEC and the CFTC is insidious. Nobody wants to rock the boat. Heck a number of these people at these agencies end up working on Wall Street, or interact business-wise in some other manner. The Chairman of the CFTC is a Goldman Sachs alumni. That about says it all.”

My Comment:

To follow..

Gold, Silver, and “Suspicious Foreigners”

Posted on by

Mark Mitchell comments on the CFTC hearings and the manipulation of trading of gold and silver derivatives (read IOUs):

“Maguire added: “What’s going to happen, if you’re an Asian trader, or a non-Western trader, who has no loyalty, or doesn’t care about homeland security or anything else, who says, now wait a minute, if I can establish in my mind that there is 100 ounces of paper gold, paper silver for example, for each ounce of real silver, than I have a naked short situation here that I can squeeze and they can go on the spot market which is basically a foreign exchange transaction, short dollar, long silver to any amount they want – billions, trillions — whatever they want, and they can take this market, squeeze this market, and blow it up…”

In other words, the problem isn’t just that criminal naked short sellers manipulate the metals market downwards. It is that they have created a condition where a foreign entity can merely demand delivery of real metal to induce a massive “squeeze” that sends the price of metals skyrocketing, putting huge downward pressure on the dollar. Meanwhile, says Maguire, with prices rising, “for 100 customers who show up there is only one guy who is going to get his gold or silver and there’s 99 who will be disappointed, so without any new money coming into the market, just asking for that gold and silver will create a default.”

This would be a point, except…except..

1. This kind of fraudulent activity in the markets in the West is going to be seen by most foreigners as a direct act of financial aggression against them, not just domestic market participants. You can’t admit that your entire market system is rigged in favor of US and European banks, and then expect that the rest of the world is just going to stand there and not retaliate in some way…with justification.

Turnabout is fair play. Defense is not offense.

2.  I doubt that Chinese, Saudis or any other foreigners are interested in squeezing the dollar, since they are the primary holders of dollars. In international markets, the dollar is still the reserve currency and most people save in it. Nor is the American middle class, loyal or disloyal, going to want a weaker dollar. They earn their money in dollars. The only people likely to attack the dollar are speculators, who will do it because they see a gain to be made from it. And the people most likely to do it successfully are the same people who are involved in manipulating it in the first place...the corrupt bankers and financiers who’ve got the most to gain in this and the least to lose.

Nothing that Paulson, Greenspan, Geithner, Summers, or Bernanke have been doing adds up to anything like a “strong dollar” policy. They’ve done everything but shout “bail” to dollar holders.

The Black Hole In The Military Budget…

Posted on by

A January 29, 2002 piece in the Los Angeles Times suggests that 25% of the defense budget is “missing in action.” Have you ever wondered about the financing of blackops (here and abroad), bribery of public officials (here and abroad), and arms sales without Congressional approval?

“On Sept. 10, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared war. Not on foreign terrorists, “the adversary’s closer to home. It’s the Pentagon bureaucracy,” he said.

He said money wasted by the military poses a serious threat.

“In fact, it could be said it’s a matter of life and death,” he said.

Rumsfeld promised change but the next day – Sept. 11– the world changed and in the rush to fund the war on terrorism, the war on waste seems to have been forgotten.

Just last week President Bush announced, “my 2003 budget calls for more than $48 billion in new defense spending.”

More money for the Pentagon, CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales reports, while its own auditors admit the military cannot account for 25 percent of what it spends.

“According to some estimates we cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions,” Rumsfeld admitted.

$2.3 trillion — that’s $8,000 for every man, woman and child in America. To understand how the Pentagon can lose track of trillions, consider the case of one military accountant who tried to find out what happened to a mere $300 million.

“We know it’s gone. But we don’t know what they spent it on,” said Jim Minnery, Defense Finance and Accounting Service.

Minnery, a former Marine turned whistle-blower, is risking his job by speaking out for the first time about the millions he noticed were missing from one defense agency’s balance sheets. Minnery tried to follow the money trail, even crisscrossing the country looking for records.

“The director looked at me and said ‘Why do you care about this stuff?’ It took me aback, you know? My supervisor asking me why I care about doing a good job,” said Minnery.

He was reassigned and says officials then covered up the problem by just writing it off.

“They have to cover it up,” he said. “That’s where the corruption comes in. They have to cover up the fact that they can’t do the job.”

The Pentagon’s Inspector General “partially substantiated” several of Minnery’s allegations but could not prove officials tried “to manipulate the financial statements.”

Twenty years ago, Department of Defense Analyst Franklin C. Spinney made headlines exposing what he calls the “accounting games.” He’s still there, and although he does not speak for the Pentagon, he believes the problem has gotten worse.

“Those numbers are pie in the sky. The books are cooked routinely year after year,” he said.

Another critic of Pentagon waste, Retired Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, commanded the Navy’s 2nd Fleet the first time Donald Rumsfeld served as Defense Secretary, in 1976.

In his opinion, “With good financial oversight we could find $48 billion in loose change in that building, without having to hit the taxpayers.”

Is it permitted to wonder if there wasn’t also deliberate siphoning off of funds for illegitimate purposes…