The Money Cartel, Part 3

You may wish to review Part 1 and Part 2 before you read this.

There is a great deal more to write on this matter, and an article in Global Research dated April 4th offers just the smooth transition to saying more of it. The article is entitled The Smooth Criminal Transition from Bush/Cheney to Obama, and has a great many links which I did not reproduce; please read the original and check out the links. Here I provide some excerpts with my comments:

The Smooth Criminal Transition from Bush/Cheney to Obama
Corrupt new administration deepens and expands systemic criminalization and war agenda

by Larry Chin

To sober, clear-eyed observers of history and political deception, the ascension of Barack Obama held the promise for unprecedented new dangers: a revitalized New World Order, led by the Anglo-American empire’s neoliberal criminal faction and an iconic, deceptive new facilitator; and a continuation of Bush/Cheney criminality and war, under smarter and much more effective management.

In Truther, Part 1, I wrote:

2) During the 1990’s, I learned to recognize a corrupt, dishonest chief executive; I know a treasonous crook when I see one, and this guy Bush-43 and his successor Obama….

Continuing with The Smooth Criminal Transition from Bush/Cheney to Obama:

Now, just months into their tenure, the Barack Obama administration has more than fulfilled the promises he made to his elite constituency, deepening the mass destruction of Bush/Cheney, while charming its victims all over the world into enjoying their own demise.

The empire’s facilitator

Beneath his seemingly boundless charisma and charm, Barack Obama has always been an utterly ruthless politician. He has been a compromiser who has danced with the darkest forces of political and criminal power, while winning over common people; a consensus-abiding chameleon and a “pragmatist”. Obama is the true model of what George W. Bush only claimed to be: “a uniter, not a divider”.

The signs were clear from the early days of the presidential contest that Obama was, like every presidential candidate, a handpicked puppet. His cadre of national security and foreign policy advisors included the most notorious war criminals, intelligence/security “advisors” and corrupt think tank assets in the world. His campaign was bankrolled by Wall Street, and big corporations. His policy agenda was taken from the playbook of the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Both neoliberal (and neocon) elite power and money coalesced behind Obama, as his political rivals dropped off.

The CRF, the TLC — standard stuff of conspiracy theorists.

There was a time when I kind of laughed all that off — now, I merely look for the documentation, and if it bears up under examination, then maybe there is something to the accusations, and if it doesn’t, well, we should already know not to believe everything we read. (Of course, many of us don’t know that; and, our education industry in this country is making it harder and harder to find someone who can read: sometimes I wonder if that’s a coincidence. Ah, but one conspiracy at a time.)

However, money behind both neocons and neolibs — this is something I have addressed repeatedly at this blog. And, this money coalescing behind Obama — this is evident to anyone who looks at this clearly.

Obama’s record in the US Senate was one of general complicity with Bush/Cheney and the status quo, including enthusiastic support of the consensus “war on terrorism” deception and the big 9/11 lie. Former US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has described how, in her encounters with Obama, the senator from Illinois repeatedly refused to act in opposition to Bush/Cheney policies. Time again, during his days in the Senate, and throughout the presidential campaign, Obama has not only fully supported the Bush/Cheney administration on the Patriot Act, and the wholesale the militarization and criminalization of the United States.

And the criminal conduct of the Bush Administration is well-documented for anyone with a mind open enough to consider it — just like the criminal conduct of the Clinton Administration is well-documented.

In fact, the Clinton Administration was by far the most corrupt administration in US history, until Bush-43 came along. Now it looks like Obama is going to set a new record.

Immediate destabilization

The naïve, the hopeful and the ignorant have continued to harbor fantasies about “change”, even as Obama promptly destroyed every single hope, starting with the composition of his administration. He hand picked a transition team, and then a cabinet consisting entirely of legendary war criminals and corrupt elites, each more malodorous and corrupt than the next. From Iran-Contra participant Robert Gates and war criminal Richard Holbrooke, to Hillary Clinton and an economic advisory team comprised of the architects of Wall Street destruction, including Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

Under Geithner and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, the Ponzi scheme that is Wall Street, the wholesale robbery of the American people begun by Alan Greenspan, Bernanke, and Bush/Cheney Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has not only continued unabated, but has metastasized with each new bailout, and every new fraud orchestrated by Geithner.

As I pointed out in The Wild Ride, Part 1:

Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke:

As the blogger Yankee Doodle pointed out — in a post entitled Economic 9-11? (!) — Bernanke is the guy who heads the organization that was responsible to monitor the financial industry, and who should have detected the initial rumblings of this crisis and prevented it from ever occurring; and, Bernanke is one of Bush-43’s Banana Republicans (the original has links that I did not reproduce):

So, it is the job of the Federal Reserve to monitor the loans of its member banks, and, if they are “playing fast and loose”, to report the matter and, ultimately, it is the job of the Board of Governors to suspend those banks from the Federal Reserve System if they continue with their irresponsible lending practices.

Dare I point out that all of the current members of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors were appointed by President George W. Bush? Ben Bernanke, Donald Kohn, Kevin Warsh, Randall Kroszner and Elizabeth A. Duke; by 2006, four of the five were in place on the Board of Governors.

Now President Bush — in reaction to this crisis that the people he appointed to the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors should have seen coming and should have avoided — has given us a hard-sale on a 700 billion dollar (?) bailout package — which we all know will cost much more by the time this plays out.

Why do I have the feeling we have been stampeded again?

And, as YD predicted, that $700 billion price tag is already a relic of the good ol’ days, when things were less expensive.

And there’s an interesting article at Global Research about US Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner.

Skipping down some in The Smooth Criminal Transition from Bush/Cheney to Obama we have:

AIG: Obama strikes back for the empire

The Obama administration’s most telling criminal hand was revealed in its handling of American International Group (AIG), one of the largest beneficiary of the “bailout” frenzy. The Obama-AIG conspiracy, which continues to unfold, is also the least well understood.

While popular “outrage” has been channeled (by the corporate media, Obama, and Congress) to focus on the least important symptoms of the problem—bonuses paid to AIG executives—the greater crime that is AIG itself has gone unnoticed. As was the case with Enron, and with every action of Bush/Cheney, the AIG “outrage” is another “limited hangout” and cover-up.

AIG is not “too big to fail”. It is simply too important a repository of dirty money and dirty secrets to be exposed. Barack Obama and his administration know this.

AIG, one of the largest pools of investment capital on earth, is also one of the largest launderers of drug money and illegal funds for covert operations. Mike Ruppert’s investigation “AIG” (From The Wilderness, August 14, 2001) exhaustively deconstructed AIG, exposing continuing connections to covert operations, narcotrafficking, money laundering, and AIG’s central role in the Wall Street/Washington power nexus.

(Though I did not reproduce the links in this article, please see Mike Ruppert’s investigation “AIG”.)

Narcotics trafficking and money laundering…

Now, narcotics trafficking and money laundering is how the Bush Administration was connected to Al Qaeda. (Did you ever wonder why we never seemed to be able to get bin Laden?)

A quote from Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds Calls Current 9/11 Investigation Inadequate by Jim Hogue, May 7, 2004:

JH: Here’s a question that you might be able to answer: What is al-Qaeda?

SE: This is a very interesting and complex question. When you think of al-Qaeda, you are not thinking of al-Qaeda in terms of one particular country, or one particular organization. You are looking at this massive movement that stretches to tens and tens of countries. And it involves a lot of sub-organizations and sub-sub-organizations and branches and it’s extremely complicated. So to just narrow it down and say al-Qaeda and the Saudis, or to say it’s what they had at the camp in Afghanistan, is extremely misleading. And we don’t hear the extent of the penetration that this organization and the sub-organizations have throughout the world, throughout their networks and throughout their various activities. It’s extremely sophisticated. And then you involve a significant amount of money into this equation. Then things start getting a lot of overlap — money laundering, and drugs and terrorist activities and their support networks converging in several points. That’s what I’m trying to convey without being too specific. And this money travels. And you start trying to go to the root of it and it’s getting into somebody’s political campaign, and somebody’s lobbying. And people don’t want to be traced back to this money.

And that money is making its way through Albanian organized crime cartels into the hands of Vice President Joe Biden and of Senator John McCain; it is also making its way via Turkish organized crime into the hands of Congressman Henry Waxman.

From An Interview with Sibel Edmonds, Page Two by Chris Deliso, July 1, 2004:

CD: [snip] At several points you state that such organized crime networks employ “semi-legitimate organizations” as their point of interface with governments and the “legit” world. Can you explain exactly what you mean?

SE: These are organizations that might have a legitimate front — say as a business, or a cultural center or something. And we’ve also heard a lot about Islamic charities as fronts for terrorist organizations, but the range is much broader and even, simpler.

CD: For example?

SE: You might have an organization supposed to be promoting the cultural affairs of a certain country within another country. Hypothetically, say, an Uzbek folklore society based in Germany. The stated purpose would be to hold folklore-related activities — and they might even do that — but the real activities taking place behind the scenes are criminal.

CD: Such as?

SE: Everything — from drugs to money laundering to arms sales. And yes, there are certain convergences with all these activities and international terrorism.

CD: So with these organizations we’re talking about a lot of money —

SE: Huge, just massive. They don’t deal with 1 million or 5 million dollars, but with hundreds of millions.

Ah, but there is so much more….

If you appreciate what George Washington and our men did at Valley Forge, if you appreciate all the sacrifices since, in war and on the home front, defending our freedom from the Nazis and the Communists, spreading freedom and civil rights to women and minorities, then you need to take a moment and read the articles at the links provided in this post — it is that important that you do so.