kakki wrote:
(randy said)
> > "Bushie I" and the Emir royal family/rulers of Kuwait, like the
> > bin laden family, have been business associates.
>
> So what? Tons of Americans and Europeans have been employed working in the
> oil business in the middle east for decades.
Doesn't it seem to you to be, at the very least, a conflict of interest
that Bush Sr. is running around the middle east negotiating weapons
and oil contracts while his son is president? That is why, when Dubya
became pres, Judiial Watch publicly called for Bush Sr. to step down
from that position.
> >The US taxpayers and soldiers came to the rescue of Kuwait, which was
> drilling
> > diagonal oil wells under Iraqi soil (where all the oil was, and which
> > was Hussein's cheif complaint).
>
> The UN, Saudis and many other countries asked the US to become involved
> because no other ally had the military power to stop Saddam effectively and
> quickly. I have not heard of this drilling into Iraq for their oil. I've
> always heard that Kuwait, though small, has loads of its own oil.
>
> > A US ambassador told Hussein, who had been our ally and whose rise to
> power we funded, that,
> > were he to invade Kuwait, we would not become involved.
>
> Which ambassador and when? I really want to go back and find the
> Congressional Record on all this.
The Congressional Record (correct me if I'm wrong) is a
record of conversations within Congress, where anyone can
say anything. The Congressional Record does not reflect
actions taken by the government, overt or covert. Regardless,
here are the details on this aspect, from Mark Zepezauer's
eye-opening "The CIA's Greatest Hits"(Odonian Press, 1994)
His source for this chapter is Ramsey Clark's "The Fire This Time:
US War Crimes In The Gulf" publ. Thunder's Mouth 1992.
Feel free to disprove any of this.
[beginning of quote]
The Gulf War of early 1991 didn't change much. Our old buddy,
the despotic Emir of Kuwait, is back on his throne. Our former
buddy, Saddam Hussein, while knocked down a peg or two,
is still in power and as brutal as ever. Hundreds of thousands
of Iraqis are dead, hundreds of US vererans are suffering from
a mysterious disease, and the Persian Gulf has been ravaged by
the largest oil spill in history. The question naturally arises, could
any of this have been avoided?
The whole dispute started because Kuwait was slant-drilling.
Using equipment bought from National Security Council chief
Brent Scowcroft's old company, Kuwait was pumping out some
$14-billion worth of oil from underneath Iraqi territory. Even the
territory they were drilling from had originally been Iraq's. Slant
drilling is enough to get you shot in Texas, and it's certainly enough
to start a war in the Mideast.
Even so, this despute could have been negotiated. But it's hard to
avoid a war when what you're actually doing is trying to provoke
a war.
The most famous example of that is the meeting between Saddam
and the US Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, five days before
Iraq invaded Kuwait. As CIA satellite photos showed an Iraqi
invasion force massing on the Kuwaiti border, Glaspie told Hussein
that "the US takes no position" on Iraq's dispute with Kuwait.
A few days later, during last-minute negotiations, Kuwait's
foreign minister said: "We are not going to respond to [Iraq]...
If they don't like it, let them occupy our territory...We are going
to bring in the Americans." The US reportedly encouraged Kuwait's
attitude.
Pitting the two countries against each other was nothing new. Back
in 1989, CIA Director William Webster advised Kuwait's security
chief to "take advantage of the deteriorating economic situation in
Iraq..to put pressure on [Iraq]." At the same time, a CIA-linked
think tank was advising Saddam to put pressure on the Kuwaitis.
A month earlier, the Bush administration issued a secret directive
that called for greater economic cooperation with Iraq. This ultimately
resulted in billions of dollars of illegal arms to Saddam.
The Gulf War further destabilized the region and made Kuwait
more dependent on us. US oil companies can now exert more
control over oil prices (and thus boost their profits). The US
military got an excuse to build more bases in the region (which Saudi
Arabia, for one, didn't want) and the war also helped justify
the "need" to continue exorbitant levels of military spending. Finally, it
sent a message to the Third World leaders about what they could
expect if they dared to step out of line.
[end of quote]
>
>
> > Well, if there is one thing more profitable (for some) than oil,
> > it is war. Turns out we can have two wars, and the oil.
>
> This just sounds so flippant. War COSTS us.
Yes, it costs us, in so many ways. But defense profiteers do not
make any money from peace. Think about it. The largest industry
there is. Do they profit from war? You bet they do. And the
taxpayers pick up the tab, that's true.
(Harper's index says the US spends 50 billion/year to guard
19 billion worth of oil. So the military is the bigger business
here, at least until we can seize Iraqi oil).
> By the way, what did
> people think when Clinton unilaterally launched weeks of air strikes on
> Iraq? Is he in on the cut from the oil cartel, too?
What were people to think when it wasn't even reported in the
US media?
> > Who will profit from all this? George Bush Sr. works for The
> > Carlyle Group, the 11th largest defense contractor.
> The Bush family
> have been extremely wealthy since their ancestors came over this country I
> think a couple hundred years ago. They don't need to put the whole world
> and themselves in jeopardy to make a few bucks for some stupid Carlyle
> Group.
I agree that they don't need to, they should find some way to increase
their vast wealth without killing and impoverishing millions. But that
seems to be the history of the Bush family. Prescott Bush, Dubya's
grandfather, helped Hitler's Germany come to power and made
a large fortune in the process, stopping only when, in 1942, his
businesses were seized by the US under the trading with the
enemy act. Maybe it's genetic. Anyway, here is
a well researched article detailing Bush family ties to Hitler,
Hussein, and the bin ladens. The sources include such lefties
as ABC News and the Wall Street Journal.
http://www.hermes-press.com/crimes.htm
Other related articles on Bush's oil interests, etc
http://www.scoop.co.nz/archive/scoop/stories/ff/a4/200208141353.d2d38465.html
http://www.flora.org/library/wtc/burleigh.html
http://www.reddeeradvocate.com/editorials/radC77CE.htm
http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson56.html
I know I waste my words here but I hope some can see that it is really
> difficult to make these connections. There is just too much contradictory
> history that refutes it to me.
>
> Kakki
History supports the notion that US intervention in foreign countries
has been about $$ interests. The book that spelled this out so
clearly for me was Chomsky's "What Uncle Sam Really Wants"
I recommend it.
RR
