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Yodabreath
Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 67
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 Sat Sep 21, 2002 11:45 am
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How can you expect me to answer your questions and directly address your commentary Mech, when you won't answer or address a single one of my points? You really might try having a conversation some time, or you will find yourself going nowhere.
By the way...you used the term Arabs. I used the term terrorists (who are almost universally radical Arab Muslim extremists). |
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KrissaTMC2
Joined: 05 Feb 2002
Posts: 472
Location: Greenwich, CT, USA |
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Sat Sep 21, 2002 7:54 pm
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Bush Gets Military Options for Iraq
By Robert Burns
AP Military Writer
Saturday, September 21, 2002; 1:02 PM
WASHINGTON –– President Bush has received a detailed Pentagon plan containing military options for deposing Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, a senior defense official said Saturday.
The highly classified plan, delivered to the White House in early September by Gen. Tommy Franks, the Central Command chief who would execute any military action in Iraq, will undergo additional refinements in the weeks ahead, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
On a visit to U.S. troops in Kuwait, Franks said Saturday his forces are ready if called upon.
"We are prepared to undertake whatever activities and whatever actions we may be directed to take by our nation," he said at a news conference. But he also noted: "Our president has not made a decision to go to war."
Thousands of American and Kuwaiti forces are preparing to begin a large-scale training exercise, called Eager Mace, using amphibious, ground, air and naval forces. The exercise, which is held periodically in the Kuwaiti desert – most recently in May 2001 – has not been publicly announced.
Franks' delivery of his war plan to Bush was first reported in Saturday's New York Times. The newspaper cited officials familiar with war planning as saying the Franks' plan contains the number of ground troops, combat aircraft and aircraft carrier battle groups that would be needed to knock out Iraq's air defenses and military communications and then seize Baghdad.
In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee this week, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said a key concern of war planners is the possibility that Iraq would launch an attack on U.S. and allied forces in the region using weapons of mass destruction. He suggested that Iraq's means of delivering such weapons – by ballistic missile, aircraft or other means – would be among the priority targets at the outset of a U.S. attack.
As Bush considers his options for using military force against Iraq, his administration is simultaneously consulting with Russia and other countries on a new U.N. resolution that would threaten Iraq with war if it does not meet its decade-old obligation to disarm.
Russia is leaving the door slightly open to compromise on the U.N. resolution. Russia's decision could turn on whether it gets new and convincing evidence that Saddam is building up stockpiles of dangerous weapons.
Talks will continue at the United Nations, where the United States and Britain are trying to overcome resistance from Russia, China and France to leveling new demands without proof.
A defiant Iraq announced Saturday that Baghdad would reject any new U.N. resolutions Saddam's government believes are unfavorable.
"The American officials are trying ... to issue new, bad resolutions from the Security Council," Iraq's state-run radio said.
There was no immediate comment from the White House.
Bush's request for a congressional resolution to authorize the use of force against Iraq continues to draw a mixed reception.
Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., criticized Bush's approach and said "we must not be hell-bent on an invasion until we have exhausted other possible options to assess and eliminate Iraq's supposed weapons of mass destruction program.".
"We must not act alone," he said. "We must have the support of the world."
But Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said there was now broad support among Democrats for Bush's resolution. "We feel that the president should be authorized to take military action (without) the U.N. if the U.N. will not do it," he said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48461-2002Sep21.html |
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Sat Sep 21, 2002 9:02 pm
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Bush's vision to control the world.
Military Supremacy at Heart of Bush Strategy
by Roland Watson in Washington
NO state will be allowed to challenge the military supremacy of the United States under a national security strategy for the 21st century revealed by President Bush yesterday.
Mr Bush’s warning, and the tone of the document, were a far cry from his stance during the presidential election two years ago when he said that he would pursue a “humble foreign policy”.
The document seeks to enshrine Mr Bush’s post- September 11 doctrine of pre-emptive strikes, fleshing out for the first time his assertion that the US must confront emerging threats before they materialize.
The 33-page document, submitted to Congress yesterday, also reveals the previously unstated determination of the US to do everything possible to maintain its status as the world’s sole superpower.
A key pillar of American national security policy would be to “dissuade future military competition”, the White House document states.
The essential role of US military strength is to “build and maintain our defenses beyond challenge”. It says: “Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.”
The document stops short of spelling out what would happen if a potential challenger did begin to emerge. Since the end of the Cold War deprived Moscow of its superpower status a decade ago, the US has had no rival in terms of military strength.
But instead of easing its spending on defense, like many Nato countries, the Pentagon is increasing it. The US defense budget for 2003 is $400 billion, an increase of 6 per cent. Washington spends as much on defense as the next eight largest military powers combined.
With Russia financially strapped, Mr Bush’s message appeared aimed at China, a rising military power which is increasing both its conventional and nuclear capabilities.
Bush's National Security Strategy
Reflecting the changes thrust on to White House foreign policymaking by September 11, the document states: “America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones.” But it aims to “turn adversity into opportunity”, pursuing “a distinctly American internationalism” that reflects US values and interests.
Wary of charges that the US is throwing its weight around, Mr Bush used his foreword to the document to insist that Washington was not acting only for itself. “We do not use our strength to press for unilateral advantage. We seek instead to create a balance of power that favors human freedom,” he said.
But the heart of the President’s proposals for ensuring America’s national security is the vigorous pursuit of threats from rogue states and terrorists before they strike.
Elaborating on the doctrine of which he first spoke at the West Point military academy in June, Mr Bush said that the US would seek allies as it confronted these threats. But the document added that “we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting pre-emptively”.
The key to America’s efforts to combat weapons of mass destruction would be “counter-proliferation”. Although it failed to spell out in detail what measures or pre-emptive move that would encompass, they would allow the US to “deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed”.
The White House conceded that it has been slow to comprehend “the true nature of this new threat”, adding: “Given the goals of rogue states and terrorists, the United States can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture. We cannot let our enemies strike first.”
Iraq is mentioned explicitly at points, but much of the thrust of the new policy is aimed at President Saddam Hussein and others of his ilk.
Deterrence based on the threat of retaliation worked in the Cold War, it argues, but is unlikely to work against “leaders of rogue states more willing to take risks, gambling with the lives of their people and the wealth of their nations”.
In the Cold War weapons of mass destruction were a weapon of last resort, but today America’s enemies regarded them as weapons of choice, and could use them to strike at or blackmail the US. “To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act pre-emptively.”
Senators expressed initial concern at the tone of the new policy. Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, said: “The United States should never forecast to the rest of the world that we desire one inch of foreign territory.”
Extracts from policy blueprint
“America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones. We are menaced less by fleets and armies than by catastrophic technologies in the hands of the embittered few.”
“The US National Security Strategy will be based on a distinctly American internationalism that reflects the union of our values and our national interests. The aim of this strategy is to help make the world not just safer but better.”
“Deterrence based only on a threat of retaliation is less likely to work against leaders of rogue states more willing to take risks . . . to forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act pre-emptively.”
“It is time to reaffirm the essential role of American military strength. Our forces will be strong enough to dissuade potential adversaries from pursuing a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.”
“Counterproliferation must also be integrated into the doctrine, training, and equipping of our forces and those of our allies to ensure that we can prevail in any conflict.”
Copyright 2002 Times Newspapers Ltd
So much for the economy..
Mech
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Mech on 09-21-2002] |
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Sat Sep 21, 2002 10:16 pm
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Top News
Saturday, Sept. 21, 2002
Iraq Rejects New U.N. Resolutions
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - A defiant Iraq said Saturday it will not abide by a U.N. resolution imposing new conditions in the weapons inspections issue or threatening war, while in Kuwait a top U.S. general said his forces are ready to attack Iraq if called on.
The sharp words come as America and Britain try to overcome Russian, Chinese and French resistance to a new U.N. resolution threatening Iraq with war if it does not destroy its weapons of mass destruction.
It also follows news that President Bush has received a detailed set of military options to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and neutralize his most dangerous weapons.
A highly classified plan was delivered to Bush by Gen. Tommy Franks in September and will undergo refinements in the weeks ahead, a U.S. official said Saturday on condition of anonymity.
Franks, speaking in Kuwait, said U.S. soldiers have been training closely with Gulf allies recently and are ready to act against Iraq if Bush gives the order to do so.
Asked if U.S. forces were ready for war, Franks said: ``We are prepared to undertake whatever activities and whatever actions we may be directed to take by our nation.'' But, he noted at a press conference Saturday wrapping up a three-day visit, ``our president has not made a decision to go to war.''
Baghdad's announcement that it would not back any new U.N. resolutions was made during a meeting between Saddam, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan and other senior Iraqi officials. It did not say when the meeting took place.
``American officials are trying, according to the media, to issue new, bad resolutions from the Security Council. Iraq declares it will not deal with any new resolution that contradicts what has been agreed upon with the U.N. Secretary General,'' said the brief announcement, which was carried on state-run Iraqi radio.
The Iraqi statement did not elaborate, but Baghdad is believed to oppose any new U.N. resolution that includes the threat of military strikes on Iraq or a change to the weapons inspections regime or the oil-for-food program.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld expressed little surprise at Iraq's reaction.
``Anyone who has watched the past decade has seen the Iraqi government defy some 16 U.N. resolutions and change their position depending on what they thought was tactically advantageous to them and kind of jerk the United Nations around,'' he told CNN. ``So it is no surprise at all.''
At the White House, Sean McCormack, a National Security Council spokesman, said Iraq's position that it will not comply with future resolutions is ``very disappointing.''
``We are working very hard within the international community and specifically in the United Nations to address in an effective way the issue of Iraqi noncompliance,'' he said. ``As the president has said, this is an important test of the United Nation's resolve.''
Iraq on Monday announced it would accept the unconditional return of weapons inspectors nearly four years after they left. Washington said the move was designed to divide the Security Council and Bush has dismissed it as a ploy and has not ruled out unilateral American military action.
Existing Security Council resolutions give weapons inspectors 60 days from when they begin work in Iraq to give the council a work program. Once the program is approved and the inspectors and International Atomic Energy Agency becomes operational, Iraq will need to cooperate and comply for 120 days.
Western diplomats have said the new U.S.-British draft would tighten the amount of time Iraq has to comply and include new instructions for weapons inspectors.
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Yodabreath
Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 67
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Sat Sep 21, 2002 10:35 pm
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Aside from the idiotic pictures, those posts were music to my eyes, Mech. It is incredibly refreshing that we now have a president who wants to insure that the United States is the world's dominant power, who is not selling ICBM technology to China and renting out the Lincoln bedroom and who is strengthening the military rather than weakening it. It is refreshing that we now have a president who is strengthening this country’s national security, who is very aware of the very real threats rather than practicing ignorance, self gratification and making this country vulnerable to its enemies and terrorist attack as the sick, leftist, sleezball bastard who previously inhabited the White House did.
Softcover
ISBN: 0-9716807-5-2
NewsMax journalists Christopher Ruddy and Carl Limbacher have a blockbuster new book published on September 11, 2002.
It’s called Catastrophe: Clinton’s Role in America’s Worst Disaster - and tells the real story of 9/11 - the one the big media are afraid to report.
Catastrophe begins on January 20, 1993, when William Jefferson Clinton took the oath of office as the 42nd president of the United States of America. Clinton swore to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States” from enemies both foreign and domestic.
During the next eight years, Bill Clinton would preside over the most corrupt administration in American history. He would be only the second president in American history to be impeached.
When Bill Clinton took office, American supremacy on the world stage had never been so great and unchallenged. Our military was without equal. The economy was beginning a record boom.
Soon after Bill Clinton left office, Americans began to discover his bitter legacy.
Even as Clinton was leaving Washington, the American economy had begun to move into a serious recession.
And America’s belief in invulnerability was shattered on September 11, 2001, when 19 Arab hijackers slammed civilian jets into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
As Catastrophe: Clinton’s Role in America’s Worst Disaster demonstrates, the events of September 11 not only were predictable after eight years of Clinton, but they also could have been prevented.
Catastrophe exposes what really happened during the Clinton years, and how Bill Clinton and his administration systematically undermined America’s national security by emasculating the U.S. military and the nation’s intelligence agencies.
Bill Clinton made America vulnerable to attack.
Here are just some of the revelations from Catastrophe:
Clinton’s own admission that he could have extradited Osama bin Laden from Sudan - but he didn’t because he felt bin Laden was not a threat! If you don’t believe this, read his verbatim comments from our exclusive tape recording!
A senior CIA officer goes on record to reveal that Bill Clinton helped Saddam Hussein by allowing him to illegally sell oil - and make billions to stay in power.
Clinton adviser Dick Morris says that Clinton was warned about the terrorist bombings against American troops at the Khobar Towers - and he ignored the warning!
The FBI and CIA could have easily foiled the 9-11 attacks - but were negligent as two known terrorist gained entry into the U.S. with the CIA’s full knowledge. They would later participate in the 9-11 attacks.
FBI agent Coleen Rowley says the FBI could have prevented 9-11, but refused to get a search warrant on one of the 9-11 terrorists.
NewsMax broke the story that Bill Clinton tied the hands of the CIA and FBI - hear from agents on the inside who broke the story on NewsMax and reveal what really happened.
Bill Clinton refused to require driver’s licenses to expire at the time of expiring visas. If he had done this, one of the 9-11 terrorists would have been arrested or deported.
The 1996 Clinton-Gore airline safety commission set the stage for 9-11.
Why Clinton’s adviser Dick Morris says Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinksy helped Osama bin Laden survive and plot 9-11
Read Bill Clinton’s shocking statements about America’s guilt in 9-11 - he even blamed America for 9-11 and cited our treatment of the Indians and Muslims during the Crusades!
A secret 1994 terrorism report warned of suicidal hijackings - and Bill Clinton ignored it.
And there is much, much more in Catastrophe, including:
There is strong evidence that the West Nile virus was the first bioweapon used by Iraq. Did you know the first cases appeared near the United Nations in New York and that a major Iraqi defector said Saddam bragged in 1997 he would release the West Nile virus on America?
A top economics adviser to Russia’s President Putin warned on the front page of Pravda, just months before 9-11, that a catastrophic “financial attack” on the U.S. economy would take place. She has new warnings about the future.
The Russian government officially told its citizens to cash out dollars in the months after 9-11 - and warned of an economic collapse. Did it have advance knowledge?
Two top U.S. military commanders have warned that weapons of mass destruction will be used in the new war on terrorism.
FEMA has a secret plan to build emergency cities that could house millions of Americans - after our cities are attacked by weapons of mass destruction.
New evidence exists that al-Qaeda acquired small nuclear weapons in the late 1990s.
Why is Warren Buffet predicting a nuclear attack on a U.S. city?
China’s hidden ties with the Taliban and al-Qaeda are revealed, along with new evidence that China was providing arms and intelligence to both groups even after 9-11.
A senior Senate aide goes on the record to say that senators and congressman will never investigate the FBI’s role in 9-11 - they are too afraid the FBI will blackmail them.
If the U.S. invades Iraq, Saddam has already told the U.S. how he will retaliate and what weapons he will use.
Catastrophe is a wake-up call to Americans. This is the book that reveals the real story - without media censorship.
Gen. Jack Singlaub says, “Every American needs to get and read Catastrophe. It reveals Bill Clinton’s role in 9-11 and what America must do to prevent future attacks.”
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Yodabreath on 09-21-2002] |
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Dan Rockwell
Joined: 10 Dec 2001
Posts: 1988
Location: Stamford, CT, USA |
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Sat Sep 21, 2002 10:42 pm
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Doesn't look good at all, does it?
Saturday 21 September 2002
WAR'S BEGUN
EXCLUSIVE: British jets hit vital Iraqi HQ
By Tom Newton-Dunn, Defence Correspondent
BRITISH and American warplanes have bombed Iraq's most important air intelligence headquarters.
The dramatic escalation is seen as the first stage of war with Iraq.
President Bush insisted yesterday that the world does not need proof that Saddam Hussein is building nuclear weapons before taking action.
"We must anticipate," he said. "The most dangerous thing would be to find out they had a nuclear weapon after they developed one."
The attack on buildings and bunkers at Tallil Airbase, 160 miles south-east of Baghdad, marked a change in tactics.
Command and communications links in Saddam's air defence system, and military airfields, are now being methodically targeted instead of guns and mobile radars.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in Washington yesterday: "I directed it. I don't like the idea of our planes being shot at."The idea that our planes go out and get shot at with impunity bothers me."
Mr Rumsfeld admitted for the first time that the US and Britain have no "smoking gun" proof that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction.
"There isn't a single smoking gun," he said. "If we waited for a smoking gun in this instance we would find it after the fact."
Air attack site Tallil is home to Iraq's key Southern Sector Operations Centre from where all air defences south of Baghdad are co-ordinated.
Bombers, including four RAF Tornado GR4s, used precision-guided weapons in the raids involving a total of 20 planes. Destroying Saddam's air defences would be crucial for any land invasion.
Military expert Major Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies, said last night: "There is no doubt in my mind that the first stage of war with Iraq has quietly begun."Knocking out Tallil will be of vital strategic interest to an invading force. I believe we will see a lot more raids like this one until the coalition are sure they can operate over southern Iraq safely."
It was the fifth coalition air strike on Iraqi military targets this month, and the 15th since August 5.
All have been made under cover of the UN mandate to enforce the northern and southern no-fly zones set up after the 1991 Gulf War.
But the frequency of the attacks has shot up.
Marine Corps General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the US military Joint Chiefs of Staff, said: "The recent strikes have degraded the air defence capabilities of Iraq."
Mr Rumsfeld said he could not say whether the change of tactics has left Iraq less capable of defending itself against attacks to topple Saddam.
He added: "Whether they are going to be net stronger or weaker in the event anything were to occur in the future is a function of how fast they are able to rebuild, replace and replenish that capability."
Asked when he had ordered the switch of tactics, he snapped: "Less than a year and more than a week. Less than six months and more than a month."
Mr Bush cranked up the war talk in a speech in Iowa.The President warned that with or without the United Nations, "if Iraq's regime continues to defy us and the world, the United States will move deliberately yet decisively to hold Iraq to account."
Baghdad's outer air defence ring - which the Tallil base helps to co-ordinate - has seen the largest concentration of bombing raids in recent weeks.
British and US bombers appear to be clearing a wide path to the Iraqi capital from Kuwait and the Persian Gulf.
There have also been recent reports that US Special Forces entered northern Iraq as long ago as February to begin preparations for war.
Operating freely in the semi-autonomous zone controlled by the Kurds, the troops are believed to be constructing key landing zones and airstrips to support a US-led invasion.
The RAF has begun an exercise at St Mawgan, Cornwall, to practise setting up a remote air base.
The drill involves warplanes and more than 1,500 personnel.An RAF spokesman said the exercise had been planned for a long time and there were no orders to have personnel prepare for further deployment.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=12204872&method=full&siteid=501 43
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Dan Rockwell on 09-21-2002] |
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Sat Sep 21, 2002 11:16 pm
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Nope, clearly BUSH wants to play vigilante cowboy.
Can't see the forest for the trees I guess.
Hey Yoda, you are throwing personal insults now? Not nice!
FYI... I could give two $#!=s about Bill Clinton, never voted for him, never cared for his love of big buisness either.
You RESPECT Bush?...No comment needed.
I see you are hawking Limbacker's book... "Weasel" is the most apt description of Newsmax founder Carl Limbacher. Here's a guy who pops up all over the place, masquerading as a "journalist" on the national scene. But the real story is how he's managed to hoodwink the general public-at-large into acknowledging him as a legitimate and respectable mainstream journalist when in reality he's at best a Republican hack and at worst a man who (at least tacitly) endorses genocide.
The Limbacher deception runs the gamut from CNN and MSNBC, where he appears from time to time, to scores of talk radio shows across the nation, to college campuses such as the University of Akron, who inflicted him and Reed Irvine upon impressionable students, portraying these two as "acclaimed, nationally recognized journalists." Limbacher is highly esteemed at Freak Republic and with Sean Hannity, who calls him one of the "best reporters in America."
What irks alot of people is the rank hypocrisy of Limbacher and NewsMax. If he/they would just be honest and admit that they're propagandists engaging in advocacy journalism and not true journalism, then they could take their rightful place, but we're certainly not holding our breath. Even Matt Drudge de-linked from NewsMax long ago while another staunch right-wing conservative, Thomas Clough, is onto the weasel, writing that "Limbacher is best known to New York area radio talk show listeners as 'Carl from Oyster Bay' from the days when he worked as a printer. He was a relentless caller to the ABC Radio talk show lineup: Lionel, former Mayor Ed Koch, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh. He has made the transition from talk show caller to internet political LouElla Parsons. NewsMax articles feel like Limbacher: short and shallow, seldom over two printed pages, and heavy on the gossip."
Cutting to the chase, the real Limbacher emerges in his hundreds if not thousands of calls to talk radio programs, particularly Bob Grant. In fact it was Limbacher with whom Grant was conversing in a negative way about the late Ron Brown when Grant hoped aloud that Brown was dead before the news confirmed that he had indeed been killed. Yet unbeknownst to most is Limbacher's calls and guest appearances on far right fringe shortwave radio programs such as the Right Perspective with John VanSoest and Frank Magnavito, who broadcast from Hal Turner's house on Friday evenings. On one occasion Limbacher called into the Right Perspective and AGREED with host Hal Turner that it might be OKAY if China bombs LosAngeles because of all the minorites living there.SICK!
Limbacher's racial bias against the African American community in evident in several of his "Inside Cover" digs, where he routinely condemns various prominent African Americans as bigoted for relatively tame remarks and yet never calls someone like his good friend and associate Bob Grant on the carpet for blatant racism. Instead, Grant is portrayed as a victim of the same type of smear that in fact Limbacher himself actually engages in. Meanwhile, Limbacher places Jesse Lee Peterson on a unique pedestal as the preeminent "civil rights leader" in America today and people buy into it. It's the same old tired game of another white bigot telling African Americans who your leaders shall and shall not be, as if African Americans as individuals are supposed to have any sort of leader(s) anyway.
I don't buy his arch conservative fluff.
But back to the topic of the GULF WAR....
Mech
[Edited 6 times, lastly by Mech on 09-21-2002] |
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Yodabreath
Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 67
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Sat Sep 21, 2002 11:40 pm
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Mech, if you're going to cut and paste something, give the real author credit, will ya?
You don't know it yet...but you're a little left of Lenin politically speaking.
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Sat Sep 21, 2002 11:51 pm
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What the heck do you care what I am politically?
I am a person not a pet for politicians.
You try to label and divide people all the while thinking your way of thinking is best and "right for this country".
Obviously you have proven yourself intolerant of others ideas that don't fit into your political value system by attacking and insulting them.
Mech
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Yodabreath
Joined: 20 Sep 2002
Posts: 67
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Sun Sep 22, 2002 12:41 am
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quote:
I am a person not a pet for politicians.
Ah, but you are a pet for politicians.....You're practically a walking spokesperson for the liberal Democrat left. Every argument you've made, is also being made by this group of politicians and mindless gnomes who thoughtlessly echo their lies and spin.
Tom Daschle and Partrick Lehey would love you.
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Sun Sep 22, 2002 12:47 am
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Whatever.
They are just as corrupt..you forgot PRO GULF WAR Joeseph Lieberman.
Your more than welcome to have your delusions of granduer...Supposedly it's still a "free" country.
LOL!
Mech
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Mech on 09-21-2002] |
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Sun Sep 22, 2002 12:54 am
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BUSH Family help build Hitler's Nazi Germany
George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography --- by Webster G. Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin
Chapter - II - The Hitler Project
Bush Property Seized--Trading with the Enemy
In October 1942, ten months after entering World War II, America was preparing its first assault against Nazi military forces. Prescott Bush was managing partner of Brown Brothers Harriman. His 18-year-old son George, the future U.S. President, had just begun training to become a naval pilot. On Oct. 20, 1942, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of Nazi German banking operations in New York City which were being conducted by Prescott Bush.
Under the Trading with the Enemy Act, the government took over the Union Banking Corporation, in which Bush was a director. The U.S. Alien Property Custodian seized Union Banking Corp.'s stock shares, all of which were owned by Prescott Bush, E. Roland `` Bunny '' Harriman, three Nazi executives, and two other associates of Bush.@s1
The order seizing the bank `` vests '' (seizes) `` all of the capital stock of Union Banking Corporation, a New York corporation, '' and names the holders of its shares as:
`` E. Roland Harriman--3991 shares ''
[chairman and director of Union Banking Corp. (UBC); this is `` Bunny '' Harriman, described by Prescott Bush as a place holder who didn't get much into banking affairs; Prescott managed his personal investments]
`` Cornelis Lievense--4 shares ''
[president and director of UBC; New York resident banking functionary for the Nazis]
`` Harold D. Pennington--1 share ''
[treasurer and director of UBC; an office manager employed by Bush at Brown Brothers Harriman]
`` Ray Morris--1 share ''
[director of UBC; partner of Bush and the Harrimans]
`` Prescott S. Bush--1 share ''
[director of UBC, which was co-founded and sponsored by his father-in-law George Walker; senior managing partner for E. Roland Harriman and Averell Harriman]
`` H.J. Kouwenhoven--1 share ''
[director of UBC; organized UBC as the emissary of Fritz Thyssen in negotiations with George Walker and Averell Harriman; managing director of UBC's Netherlands affiliate under Nazi occupation; industrial executive in Nazi Germany; director and chief foreign financial executive of the German Steel Trust]
`` Johann G. Groeninger--1 share ''
[director of UBC and of its Netherlands affiliate; industrial executive in Nazi Germany]
`` all of which shares are held for the benefit of ... members of the Thyssen family, [and] is property of nationals ... of a designated enemy country.... ''
By Oct. 26, 1942, U.S. troops were under way for North Africa. On Oct. 28, the government issued orders seizing two Nazi front organizations run by the Bush-Harriman bank: the Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation.@s2
U.S. forces landed under fire near Algiers on Nov. 8, 1942; heavy combat raged throughout November. Nazi interests in the Silesian-American Corporation, long managed by Prescott Bush and his father-in-law George Herbert Walker, were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act on Nov. 17, 1942. In this action, the government announced that it was seizing only the Nazi interests, leaving the Nazis' U.S. partners to carry on the business.@s3
These and other actions taken by the U.S. government in wartime were, tragically, too little and too late. President Bush's family had already played a central role in financing and arming Adolf Hitler for his takeover of Germany; in financing and managing the buildup of Nazi war industries for the conquest of Europe and war against the U.S.A.; and in the development of Nazi genocide theories and racial propaganda, with their well-known results.
The facts presented here must be known, and their implications reflected upon, for a proper understanding of President George Herbert Walker Bush and of the danger to mankind that he represents. The President's family fortune was largely a result of the Hitler project. The powerful Anglo-American family associations, which later boosted him into the Central Intelligence Agency and up to the White House, were his father's partners in the Hitler project.
President Franklin Roosevelt's Alien Property Custodian, Leo T. Crowley, signed Vesting Order Number 248 seizing the property of Prescott Bush under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The order, published in obscure government record books and kept out of the news,@s4 explained nothing about the Nazis involved; only that the Union Banking Corporation was run for the `` Thyssen family '' of `` Germany and/or Hungary ''--`` nationals ... of a designated enemy country. ''
By deciding that Prescott Bush and the other directors of the Union Banking Corp. were legally front men for the Nazis, the government avoided the more important historical issue: In what way were Hitler's Nazis themselves hired, armed and instructed by the New York and London clique of which Prescott Bush was an executive manager? Let us examine the Harriman-Bush Hitler project from the 1920s until it was partially broken up, to seek an answer for that question.
Origin and Extent of the Project
Fritz Thyssen and his business partners are universally recognized as the most important German financiers of Adolf Hitler's takeover of Germany. At the time of the order seizing the Thyssen family's Union Banking Corp., Mr. Fritz Thyssen had already published his famous book, I Paid Hitler,@s5 admitting that he had financed Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement since October 1923. Thyssen's role as the leading early backer of Hitler's grab for power in Germany had been noted by U.S. diplomats in Berlin in 1932.@s6 The order seizing the Bush-Thyssen bank was curiously quiet and modest about the identity of the perpetrators who had been nailed.
But two weeks before the official order, government investigators had reported secretly that `` W. Averell Harriman was in Europe sometime prior to 1924 and at that time became acquainted with Fritz Thyssen, the German industrialist. '' Harriman and Thyssen agreed to set up a bank for Thyssen in New York. `` [C]ertain of [Harriman's] associates would serve as directors.... '' Thyssen agent `` H. J. Kouwenhoven ... came to the United States ... prior to 1924 for conferences with the Harriman Company in this connection.... ''@s7
When exactly was `` Harriman in Europe sometime prior to 1924 ''? In fact, he was in Berlin in 1922 to set up the Berlin branch of W.A. Harriman & Co. under George Walker's presidency.
The Union Banking Corporation was established formally in 1924, as a unit in the Manhattan offices of W.A. Harriman & Co., interlocking with the Thyssen-owned Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart (BHS) in the Netherlands. The investigators concluded that `` the Union Banking Corporation has since its inception handled funds chiefly supplied to it through the Dutch bank by the Thyssen interests for American investment. ''
Thus by personal agreement between Averell Harriman and Fritz Thyssen in 1922, W.A. Harriman & Co. (alias Union Banking Corporation) would be transferring funds back and forth between New York and the `` Thyssen interests '' in Germany. By putting up about $400,000, the Harriman organization would be joint owner and manager of Thyssen's banking operations outside of Germany.
How important was the Nazi enterprise for which President Bush's father was the New York banker?
The 1942 U.S. government investigative report said that Bush's Nazi-front bank was an interlocking concern with the Vereinigte Stahlwerke (United Steel Works Corporation or German Steel Trust) led by Fritz Thyssen and his two brothers. After the war, Congressional investigators probed the Thyssen interests, Union Banking Corp. and related Nazi units. The investigation showed that the Vereinigte Stahlwerke had produced the following approximate proportions of total German national output:
50.8% of Nazi Germany's pig iron
41.4% of Nazi Germany's universal plate
36.0% of Nazi Germany's heavy plate
38.5% of Nazi Germany's galvanized sheet
45.5% of Nazi Germany's pipes and tubes
22.1% of Nazi Germany's wire
35.0% of Nazi Germany's explosives.@s8
Prescott Bush became vice president of W.A. Harriman & Co. in 1926. That same year, a friend of Harriman and Bush set up a giant new organization for their client Fritz Thyssen, prime sponsor of politician Adolf Hitler. The new German Steel Trust, Germany's largest industrial corporation, was organized in 1926 by Wall Street banker Clarence Dillon. Dillon was the old comrade of Prescott Bush's father Sam Bush from the `` Merchants of Death '' bureau in World War I.
In return for putting up $70 million to create his organization, majority owner Thyssen gave the Dillon Read company two or more representatives on the board of the new Steel Trust.@s9
Thus there is a division of labor: Thyssen's own confidential accounts, for political and related purposes, were run through the Walker-Bush organization; the German Steel Trust did its corporate banking through Dillon Read.
The Walker-Bush firm's banking activities were not just politically neutral money-making ventures which happened to coincide with the aims of German Nazis. All of the firm's European business in those days was organized around anti-democratic political forces.
In 1927, criticism of their support for totalitarianism drew this retort from Bert Walker, written from Kennebunkport to Averell Harriman: `` It seems to me that the suggestion in connection with Lord Bearsted's views that we withdraw from Russia smacks somewhat of the impertinent.... I think that we have drawn our line and should hew to it. ''@s1@s0
Averell Harriman met with Italy's fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini. A representative of the firm subsequently telegraphed good news back to his chief executive Bert Walker: `` ... During these last days ... Mussolini ... has examined and approved our c[o]ntract 15 June. ''@s1@s1
The great financial collapse of 1929-31 shook America, Germany and Britain, weakening all governments. It also made the hard-pressed Prescott Bush even more willing to do whatever was necessary to retain his new place in the world. It was in this crisis that certain Anglo-Americans determined on the installation of a Hitler regime in Germany.
W.A. Harriman & Co., well-positioned for this enterprise and rich in assets from their German and Russian business, merged with the British-American investment house, Brown Brothers, on January 1, 1931. Bert Walker retired to his own G.H. Walker & Co. This left the Harriman brothers, Prescott Bush and Thatcher M. Brown as the senior partners of the new Brown Brothers Harriman firm. (The London, England branch of the Brown family firm continued operating under its historic name--Brown, Shipley.)
Robert A. Lovett also came over as a partner from Brown Brothers. His father, E.H. Harriman's lawyer and railroad chief, had been on the War Industries Board with Prescott's father. Though he remained a partner in Brown Brothers Harriman, the junior Lovett soon replaced his father as chief executive of Union Pacific Railroad.
Brown Brothers had a racial tradition that fitted it well for the Hitler project! American patriots had cursed its name back in U.S. Civil War days. Brown Brothers, with offices in the U.S.A. and in England, had carried on their ships fully 75 percent of the slave cotton from the American South over to British mill owners. Now in 1931, the virtual dictator of world finance, Bank of England Governor Montagu Collet Norman, was a former Brown Brothers partner, whose grandfather had been boss of Brown Brothers during the U.S. Civil War. Montagu Norman was known as the most avid of Hitler's supporters within British ruling circles, and Norman's intimacy with this firm was essential to his management of the Hitler project.
In 1931, while Prescott Bush ran the New York office of Brown Brothers Harriman, Prescott's partner was Montagu Norman's intimate friend Thatcher Brown. The Bank of England chief always stayed at the home of Prescott's partner on his hush-hush trips to New York. Prescott Bush concentrated on the firm's German activities, and Thatcher Brown saw to their business in old England, under the guidance of his mentor Montagu Norman.@s1@s2
Hitler's Ladder to Power
Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany January 30, 1933, and absolute dictator in March 1933, after two years of expensive and violent lobbying and electioneering. Two affiliates of the Bush-Harriman organization played great parts in this criminal undertaking: Thyssen's German Steel Trust; and the Hamburg-Amerika Line and several of its executives.@s1@s3
Let us look more closely at the Bush family's German partners.
Fritz Thyssen told Allied interrogators after the war about some of his financial support for the Nazi Party: `` In 1930 or 1931 ... I told [Hitler's deputy Rudolph] Hess ... I would arrange a credit for him with a Dutch bank in Rotterdam, the Bank fu@aur Handel und Schiff [i.e. Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart (BHS), the Harriman-Bush affiliate]. I arranged the credit ... he would pay it back in three years.... I chose a Dutch bank because I did not want to be mixed up with German banks in my position, and because I thought it was better to do business with a Dutch bank, and I thought I would have the Nazis a little more in my hands... .
`` The credit was about 250-300,000 [gold] marks--about the sum I had given before. The loan has been repaid in part to the Dutch bank, but I think some money is still owing on it.... ''@s1@s4
The overall total of Thyssen's political donations and loans to the Nazis was well over a million dollars, including funds he raised from others--in a period of terrible money shortage in Germany.
Friedrich Flick was the major co-owner of the German Steel Trust with Fritz Thyssen, Thyssen's long-time collaborator and occasional competitor. In preparation for the war crimes tribunal at Nuremberg, the U.S. government said that Flick was `` one of leading financiers and industrialists who from 1932 contributed large sums to the Nazi Party ... member of `Circle of Friends' of Himmler who contributed large sums to the SS. ''@s1@s5
Flick, like Thyssen, financed the Nazis to maintain their private armies called Schutzstaffel (S.S. or Black Shirts) and Sturmabteilung (S.A., storm troops or Brown Shirts).
The Flick-Harriman partnership was directly supervised by Prescott Bush, President Bush's father, and by George Walker, President Bush's grandfather.
The Harriman-Walker Union Banking Corp. arrangements for the German Steel Trust had made them bankers for Flick and his vast operations in Germany by no later than 1926.
The Harriman Fifteen Corporation (George Walker, president, Prescott Bush and Averell Harriman, sole directors) held a substantial stake in the Silesian Holding Co. at the time of the merger with Brown Brothers, Jan. 1, 1931. This holding correlated to Averell Harriman's chairmanship of the Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation, the American group owning one-third of a complex of steel-making, coal-mining and zinc-mining activities in Germany and Poland, in which Friedrich Flick owned two-thirds.@s1@s6
The Nuremberg prosecutor characterized Flick as follows:
`` Proprietor and head of a large group of industrial enterprises (coal and iron mines, steel producing and fabricating plants) ... `Wehrwirtschaftsfuh@aurer', 1938 [title awarded to prominent industrialists for merit in armaments drive--`Military Economy Leader'].... ''@s1@s7
For this buildup of the Hitler war machine with coal, steel and arms production, using slave laborers, the Nazi Flick was condemned to seven years in prison at the Nuremberg trials; he served three years. With friends in New York and London, however, Flick lived into the 1970s and died a billionaire.
On March 19, 1934, Prescott Bush--then director of the German Steel Trust's Union Banking Corporation--initiated an alert to the absent Averell Harriman about a problem which had developed in the Flick partnership.@s1@s8 Bush sent Harriman a clipping from the New York Times of that day, which reported that the Polish government was fighting back against American and German stockholders who controlled `` Poland's largest industrial unit, the Upper Silesian Coal and Steel Company.... ''
The Times article continued: `` The company has long been accused of mismanagement, excessive borrowing, fictitious bookkeeping and gambling in securities. Warrants were issued in December for several directors accused of tax evasions. They were German citizens and they fled. They were replaced by Poles. Herr Flick, regarding this as an attempt to make the company's board entirely Polish, retaliated by restricting credits until the new Polish directors were unable to pay the workmen regularly. ''
The Times noted that the company's mines and mills `` employ 25,000 men and account for 45 percent of Poland's total steel output and 12 percent of her coal production. Two-thirds of the company's stock is owned by Friedrich Flick, a leading German steel industrialist, and the remainder is owned by interests in the United States. ''
In view of the fact that a great deal of Polish output was being exported to Hitler Germany under depression conditions, the Polish government thought that Prescott Bush, Harriman and their Nazi partners should at least pay full taxes on their Polish holdings. The U.S. and Nazi owners responded with a lockout. The letter to Harriman in Washington reported a cable from their European representative: `` Have undertaken new steps London Berlin ... please establish friendly relations with Polish Ambassador [in Washington]. ''
A 1935 Harriman Fifteen Corporation memo from George Walker announced an agreement had been made `` in Berlin '' to sell an 8,000 block of their shares in Consolidated Silesian Steel.@s1@s9 But the dispute with Poland did not deter the Bush family from continuing its partnership with Flick.
Nazi tanks and bombs `` settled '' this dispute in September, 1939 with the invasion of Poland, beginning World War II. The Nazi army had been equipped by Flick, Harriman, Walker and Bush, with materials essentially stolen from Poland.
There were probably few people at the time who could appreciate the irony, that when the Soviets also attacked and invaded Poland from the East, their vehicles were fueled by oil pumped from Baku wells revived by the Harriman/Walker/Bush enterprise.
Three years later, nearly a year after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government ordered the seizure of the Nazis' share in the Silesian-American Corporation under the Trading with the Enemy Act. Enemy nationals were said to own 49 percent of the common stock and 41.67 percent of the preferred stock of the company.
The order characterized the company as a `` business enterprise within the United States, owned by [a front company in] Zurich, Switzerland, and held for the benefit of Bergwerksgesellschaft George von Giesche's Erben, a German corporation.... ''@s2@s0
Bert Walker was still the senior director of the company, which he had founded back in 1926 simultaneously with the creation of the German Steel Trust. Ray Morris, Prescott's partner from Union Banking Corp. and Brown Brothers Harriman, was also a director.
The investigative report prior to the government crackdown explained the `` NATURE OF BUSINESS: The subject corporation is an American holding company for German and Polish subsidiaries, which own large and valuable coal and zinc mines in Silesia, Poland and Germany. Since September 1939, these properties have been in the possession of and have been operated by the German government and have undoubtedly been of considerable assistance to that country in its war effort. ''@s2@s1
The report noted that the American stockholders hoped to regain control of the European properties after the war.
Control of Nazi Commerce
Bert Walker had arranged the credits Harriman needed to take control of the Hamburg-Amerika Line back in 1920. Walker had organized the American Ship and Commerce Corp. as a unit of the W.A. Harriman & Co., with contractual power over Hamburg-Amerika's affairs.
As the Hitler project went into high gear, Harriman-Bush shares in American Ship and Commerce Corp. were held by the Harriman Fifteen Corp., run by Prescott Bush and Bert Walker.@s2@s2
It was a convenient stroll for the well-tanned, athletic, handsome Prescott Bush: From the Brown Brothers Harriman skyscraper at 59 Wall Street--where he was senior managing partner, confidential investments manager and adviser to Averell and his brother `` Bunny ''--he walked across to the Harriman Fifteen Corporation at One Wall Street, otherwise known as G.H. Walker & Co.--and around the corner to his subsidiary offices at 39 Broadway, former home of the old W.A. Harriman & Co., and still the offices for American Ship and Commerce Corp., and of the Union Banking Corporation.
In many ways, Bush's Hamburg-Amerika Line was the pivot for the entire Hitler project.
Averell Harriman and Bert Walker had gained control over the steamship company in 1920 in negotiations with its post-World War I chief executive, Wilhelm Cuno, and with the line's bankers, M.M. Warburg. Cuno was thereafter completely dependent on the Anglo-Americans, and became a member of the Anglo-German Friendship Society. In the 1930-32 drive for a Hitler dictatorship, Wilhelm Cuno contributed important sums to the Nazi Party.@s2@s3
Albert Voegler was chief executive of the Thyssen-Flick German Steel Trust for which Bush's Union Banking Corp. was the New York office. He was a director of the Bush-affiliate BHS Bank in Rotterdam, and a director of the Harriman-Bush Hamburg-Amerika Line. Voegler joined Thyssen and Flick in their heavy 1930-33 Nazi contributions, and helped organize the final Nazi leap into national power.@s2@s4
The Schroeder family of bankers was a linchpin for the Nazi activities of Harriman and Prescott Bush, closely tied to their lawyers Allen and John Foster Dulles.
Baron Kurt von Schroeder was co-director of the massive Thyssen-Hu@autte foundry along with Johann Groeninger, Prescott Bush's New York bank partner. Kurt von Schroeder was treasurer of the support organization for the Nazi Party's private armies, to which Friedrich Flick contributed. Kurt von Schroeder and Montagu Norman's prote@aage@aa Hjalmar Schacht together made the final arrangements for Hitler to enter the government.@s2@s5
Baron Rudolph von Schroeder was vice president and director of the Hamburg-Amerika Line. Long an intimate contact of Averell Harriman's in Germany, Baron Rudolph sent his grandson Baron Johann Rudolph for a tour of Prescott Bush's Brown Brothers Harriman offices in New York City in December 1932--on the eve of their Hitler-triumph.@s2@s6
Certain actions taken directly by the Harriman-Bush shipping line in 1932 must be ranked among the gravest acts of treason in this century.
The U.S. embassy in Berlin reported back to Washington that the `` costly election campaigns '' and `` the cost of maintaining a private army of 300,000 to 400,000 men '' had raised questions as to the Nazis' financial backers. The constitutional government of the German republic moved to defend national freedom by ordering the Nazi Party private armies disbanded. The U.S. embassy reported that the Hamburg-Amerika Line was purchasing and distributing propaganda attacks against the German government, for attempting this last-minute crackdown on Hitler's forces.@s2@s7
Thousands of German opponents of Hitlerism were shot or intimidated by privately armed Nazi Brown Shirts. In this connection we note that the original `` Merchant of Death, '' Samuel Pryor, was a founding director of both the Union Banking Corp. and the American Ship and Commerce Corp. Since Mr. Pryor was executive committee chairman of Remington Arms and a central figure in the world's private arms traffic, his use to the Hitler project was enhanced as the Bush family's partner in Nazi Party banking and trans-Atlantic shipping.
The U.S. Senate arms-traffic investigators probed Remington after it was joined in a cartel agreement on explosives to the Nazi firm I.G. Farben. Looking at the period leading up to Hitler's seizure of power, the Senators found that `` German political associations, like the Nazi and others, are nearly all armed with American ... guns.... Arms of all kinds coming from America are transshipped in the Scheldt to river barges before the vessels arrive in Antwerp. They then can be carried through Holland without police inspection or interference. The Hitlerists and Communists are presumed to get arms in this manner. The principal arms coming from America are Thompson submachine guns and revolvers. The number is great. ''@s2@s8
The beginning of the Hitler regime brought some bizarre changes to the Hamburg-Amerika Line--and more betrayals.
Prescott Bush's American Ship and Commerce Corp. notified Max Warburg of Hamburg, Germany, on March 7, 1933, that Warburg was to be the corporation's official, designated representative on the board of Hamburg-Amerika.@s2@s9
Max Warburg replied on March 27, 1933, assuring his American sponsors that the Hitler government was good for Germany: `` For the last few years business was considerably better than we had anticipated, but a reaction is making itself felt for some months. We are actually suffering also under the very active propaganda against Germany, caused by some unpleasant circumstances. These occurrences were the natural consequence of the very excited election campaign, but were extraordinarily exaggerated in the foreign press. The Government is firmly resolved to maintain public peace and order in Germany, and I feel perfectly convinced in this respect that there is no cause for any alarm whatsoever. ''@s3@s0
This seal of approval for Hitler, coming from a famous Jew, was just what Harriman and Bush required, for they anticipated rather serious `` alarm '' inside the U.S.A. against their Nazi operations.
On March 29, 1933, two days after Max's letter to Harriman, Max's son, Erich Warburg, sent a cable to his cousin Frederick M. Warburg, a director of the Harriman railroad system. He asked Frederick to `` use all your influence '' to stop all anti-Nazi activity in America, including `` atrocity news and unfriendly propaganda in foreign press, mass meetings, etc. '' Frederick cabled back to Erich: `` No responsible groups here [are] urging [a] boycott [of] German goods[,] merely excited individuals. '' Two days after that, On March 31, 1933, the American-Jewish Committee, controlled by the Warburgs, and the B'nai B'rith, heavily influenced by the Sulzbergers (New York Times), issued a formal, official joint statement of the two organizations, counseling `` that no American boycott against Germany be encouraged, '' and advising `` that no further mass meetings be held or similar forms of agitation be employed. ''@s3@s1
The American Jewish Committee and the B'nai B'rith (mother of the `` Anti-Defamation League '') continued with this hardline, no-attack-on-Hitler stance all through the 1930s, blunting the fight mounted by many Jews and other anti-fascists.
Thus the decisive interchange reproduced above, taking place entirely within the orbit of the Harriman/Bush firm, may explain something of the relationship of George Bush to American Jewish and Zionist leaders. Some of them, in close cooperation with his family, played an ugly part in the drama of Naziism. Is this why `` professional Nazi-hunters '' have never discovered how the Bush family made its money?
The executive board of the Hamburg Amerika Line (Hapag) met jointly with the North German Lloyd Company board in Hamburg on Sept. 5, 1933. Under official Nazi supervision, the two firms were merged. Prescott Bush's American Ship and Commerce Corp. installed Christian J. Beck, a long-time Harriman executive, as manager of freight and operations in North America for the new joint Nazi shipping lines (Hapag-Lloyd) on Nov. 4, 1933.
According to testimony of officials of the companies before Congress in 1934, a supervisor from the Nazi Labor Front rode with every ship of the Harriman-Bush line; employees of the New York offices were directly organized into the Nazi Labor Front organization; Hamburg-Amerika provided free passage to individuals going abroad for Nazi propaganda purposes; and the line subsidized pro-Nazi newspapers in the U.S.A., as it had done in Germany against the constitutional German government.@s3@s2
In mid-1936, Prescott Bush's American Ship and Commerce Corp. cabled M.M. Warburg, asking Warburg to represent the company's heavy share interest at the forthcoming Hamburg-Amerika stockholders meeting. The Warburg office replied with the information that `` we represented you '' at the stockholders meeting and `` exercised on your behalf your voting power for Rm [gold marks] 3,509,600 Hapag stock deposited with us. ''
The Warburgs transmitted a letter received from Emil Helfferich, German chief executive of both Hapag-Lloyd and of the Standard Oil subsidiary in Nazi Germany: `` It is the intention to continue the relations with Mr. Harriman on the same basis as heretofore.... '' In a colorful gesture, Hapag's Nazi chairman Helfferich sent the line's president across the Atlantic on a Zeppelin to confer with their New York string-pullers.
After the meeting with the Zeppelin passenger, the Harriman-Bush office replied: `` I am glad to learn that Mr. Hellferich [sic] has stated that relations between the Hamburg American Line and ourselves will be continued on the same basis as heretofore. ''@s3@s3
Two months before moving against Prescott Bush's Union Banking Corporation, the U. S. government ordered the seizure of all property of the Hamburg-Amerika Line and North German Lloyd, under the Trading with the Enemy Act. The investigators noted in the pre-seizure report that Christian J. Beck was still acting as an attorney representing the Nazi firm.@s3@s4
In May 1933, just after the Hitler regime was consolidated, an agreement was reached in Berlin for the coordination of all Nazi commerce with the U.S.A. The Harriman International Co., led by Averell Harriman's first cousin Oliver, was to head a syndicate of 150 firms and individuals, to conduct all exports from Hitler Germany to the United States.@s3@s5
This pact had been negotiated in Berlin between Hitler's economics minister, Hjalmar Schacht, and John Foster Dulles, international attorney for dozens of Nazi enterprises, with the counsel of Max Warburg and Kurt von Schroeder.
John Foster Dulles would later be U.S. Secretary of State, and the great power in the Republican Party of the 1950s. Foster's friendship and that of his brother Allen (head of the Central Intelligence Agency), greatly aided Prescott Bush to become the Republican U.S. Senator from Connecticut. And it was to be of inestimable value to George Bush, in his ascent to the heights of `` covert action government, '' that both of these Dulles brothers were the lawyers for the Bush family's far-flung enterprise.
Throughout the 1930s, John Foster Dulles arranged debt restructuring for German firms under a series of decrees issued by Adolf Hitler. In these deals, Dulles struck a balance between the interest owed to selected, larger investors, and the needs of the growing Nazi war-making apparatus for producing tanks, poison gas, etc.
Dulles wrote to Prescott Bush in 1937 concerning one such arrangement. The German-Atlantic Cable Company, owning Nazi Germany's only telegraph channel to the United States, had made debt and management agreements with the Walker-Harriman bank during the 1920s. A new decree would now void those agreements, which had originally been reached with non-Nazi corporate officials. Dulles asked Bush, who managed these affairs for Averell Harriman, to get Averell's signature on a letter to Nazi officials, agreeing to the changes. Dulles wrote:
Sept. 22, 1937
Mr. Prescott S. Bush
59 Wall Street, New York, N.Y.
Dear Press,
I have looked over the letter of the German-American [sic] Cable Company to Averell Harriman.... It would appear that the only rights in the matter are those which inure in the bankers and that no legal embarrassment would result, so far as the bondholders are concerned, by your acquiescence in the modification of the bankers' agreement.
Sincerely yours,
John Foster Dulles
Dulles enclosed a proposed draft reply, Bush got Harriman's signature, and the changes went through.@s3@s6
In conjunction with these arrangements, the German Atlantic Cable Company attempted to stop payment on its debts to smaller American bondholders. The money was to be used instead for arming the Nazi state, under a decree of the Hitler government.
Despite the busy efforts of Bush and Dulles, a New York court decided that this particular Hitler `` law '' was invalid in the United States; small bondholders, not parties to deals between the bankers and the Nazis, were entitled to get paid.@s3@s7
In this and a few other of the attempted swindles, the intended victims came out with their money. But the Nazi financial and political reorganization went ahead to its tragic climax.
For his part in the Hitler revolution, Prescott Bush was paid a fortune.
This is the legacy he left to his son, President George Bush.
An Important Historical Note:
How the Harrimans Hired Hitler
It was not inevitable that millions would be slaughtered under fascism and in World War II. At certain moments of crisis, crucial pro-Nazi decisions were made outside of Germany. These decisions for pro-Nazi actions were more aggressive than the mere `` appeasement '' which Anglo-American historians later preferred to discuss.
Private armies of 300,000 to 400,000 terrorists aided the Nazis' rise to power. W.A. Harriman's Hamburg-Amerika Line intervened against Germany's 1932 attempt to break them up.
The 1929-31 economic collapse bankrupted the Wall-Street-backed German Steel Trust. When the German government took over the Trust's stock shares, interests associated with Konrad Adenauer and the anti-Nazi Catholic Center Party attempted to acquire the shares. But the Anglo-Americans--Montagu Norman, and the Harriman-Bush bank--made sure that their Nazi puppet Fritz Thyssen regained control over the shares and the Trust. Thyssen's bankrolling of Hitler could then continue unhindered.
Unpayable debts crushed Germany in the 1920s, reparations required by the Versailles agreements. Germany was looted by the London-New York banking system, and Hitler's propaganda exploited this German debt burden.
But immediately after Germany came under Hitler's dictatorship, the Anglo-American financiers granted debt relief, which freed funds to be used for arming the Nazi state.
The North German Lloyd steamship line, which was merged with Hamburg-Amerika Line, was one of the companies which stopped debt payments under a Hitler decree arranged by John Foster Dulles and Hjalmar Schacht.
Kuhn Loeb and Co.'s Felix Warburg carried out the Hitler finance plan in New York. Kuhn Loeb asked North German Lloyd bondholders to accept new lower interest steamship bonds, issued by Kuhn Loeb, in place of the better pre-Hitler bonds.
The Opposition
New York attorney Jacob Chaitkin, father of coauthor Anton Chaitkin, took the cases of many different bondholders who rejected the swindle by Harriman, Bush, Warburg, and Hitler. Representing a women who was owed $30 on an old steamship bond--and opposing John Foster Dulles in New York municipal court--Chaitkin threatened a writ from the sheriff, tying up the 30,000 ton transatlantic liner Europa until the client received her $30. (New York Times, January 10, 1934, p. 31 col. 3).
The American Jewish Congress hired Jacob Chaitkin as the legal director of the boycott against Nazi Germany. The American Federation of Labor cooperated with Jewish and other groups in the anti-import boycott. On the other side, virtually all the Nazi trade with the United States was under the supervision of the Harriman interests and functionaries such as Prescott Bush, father of President George Bush.
Meanwhile, the Warburgs demanded that American Jews not `` agitate '' against the Hitler government, or join the organized boycott. The Warburgs' decision was carried out by the American Jewish Committee and the B'nai B'rith, who opposed the boycott as the Nazi military state grew increasingly powerful.
The historical coverup on these events is so tight that virtually the only expose@aa of the Warburgs came in journalist John L. Spivak's `` Wall Street's Fascist Conspiracy, '' in the pro-communist New Masses periodical (Jan. 29 and Feb. 5, 1934). Spivak pointed out that the Warburgs controlled the American Jewish Committee, which opposed the anti-Nazi boycott, while their Kuhn Loeb and Co. had underwritten Nazi shipping; and he exposed the financing of pro-fascist political activities by the Warburgs and their partners and allies, many of whom were bigwigs in the American Jewish Committee and B'nai B'rith.
Given where the Spivak piece appeared, it is not surprising that Spivak called Warburg an ally of the Morgan Bank, but made no mention of Averell Harriman. Mr. Harriman, after all, was a permanent hero of the Soviet Union.
John L. Spivak later underwent a curious transformation, himself joining the coverup. In 1967, he wrote an autobiography (A Man in His Time, New York: Horizon Press), which praises the American Jewish Committee. The pro-fascism of the Warburgs does not appear in the book. The former `` rebel '' Spivak also praises the action arm of the B'nai B'rith, the Anti-Defamation League. Pathetically, he comments favorably that the League has spy files on the American populace which it shares with government agencies.
Thus is history erased; and those decisions, which direct history into one course or another, are lost to the knowledge of the current generation.
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NOTES:
1. Office of Alien Property Custodian, Vesting Order No. 248. The order was signed by Leo T. Crowley, Alien Property Custodian, executed October 20, 1942; F.R. Doc. 42-11568; Filed, November 6, 1942, 11:31 A.M.; 7 Fed. Reg. 9097 (Nov. 7, 1942). See also the New York City Directory of Directors (available at the Library of Congress). The volumes for the 1930s and 1940s list Prescott Bush as a director of Union Banking Corporation for the years 1934 through 1943.
2. Alien Property Custodian Vesting Order No. 259: Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation; Vesting Order No. 261: Holland-American Trading Corp.
3. Alien Property Custodian Vesting Order No. 370: Silesian-American Corp.
4. The New York Times on December 16, 1944, ran a five-paragraph page 25 article on actions of the New York State Banking Department. Only the last sentence refers to the Nazi bank, as follows: `` The Union Banking Corporation, 39 Broadway, New York, has received authority to change its principal place of business to 120 Broadway. ''
The Times omitted the fact that the Union Banking Corporation had been seized by the government for trading with the enemy, and even the fact that 120 Broadway was the address of the government's Alien Property Custodian.
5. Fritz Thyssen, I Paid Hitler, 1941, reprinted in (Port Washington, N.Y.: Kennikat Press, 1972), p. 133. Thyssen says his contributions began with 100,000 marks given in October 1923, for Hitler's attempted `` putsch '' against the constitutional government.
6. Confidential memorandum from U.S. embassy, Berlin, to the U.S. Secretary of State, April 20, 1932, on microfilm in Confidential Reports of U.S. State Dept., 1930s, Germany, at major U.S. libraries.
7. Oct. 5, 1942, Memorandum to the Executive Committee of the Office of Alien Property Custodian, stamped CONFIDENTIAL, from the Division of Investigation and Research, Homer Jones, Chief. Now declassified in United States National Archives, Suitland, Maryland annex. See Record Group 131, Alien Property Custodian, investigative reports, in file box relating to Vesting Order No. 248.
8. Elimination of German Resources for War: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Military Affairs, United States Senate, Seventy-Ninth Congress; Part 5, Testimony of [the United States] Treasury Department, July 2, 1945. P. 507: Table of Vereinigte Stahlwerke output, figures are percent of German total as of 1938; Thyssen organization including Union Banking Corporation pp. 727-31.
9. Robert Sobel, The Life and Times of Dillon Read (New York: Dutton-Penguin, 1991), pp. 92-111. The Dillon Read firm cooperated in the development of Sobel's book.
10. George Walker to Averell Harriman, Aug. 11, 1927, in the W. Averell Harriman papers at the Library of Congress (designated hereafter WAH papers).
11. `` Iaccarino '' to G. H. Walker, RCA Radiogram Sept. 12, 1927. The specific nature of their business with Mussolini is not explained in correspondence available for public access.
12. Andrew Boyle, Montagu Norman (London: Cassell, 1967).
Sir Henry Clay, Lord Norman (London, MacMillan & Co., 1957), pp. 18, 57, 70-71.
John A. Kouwenhouven, Partners in Banking ... Brown Brothers Harriman (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1969).
13. Coordination of much of the Hitler project took place at a single New York address. The Union Banking Corporation had been set up by George Walker at 39 Broadway. Management of the Hamburg-Amerika Line, carried out through Harriman's American Ship and Commerce Corp., was also set up by George Walker at 39 Broadway.
14. Interrogation of Fritz Thyssen, EF/Me/1 of Sept. 4, 1945 in U.S. Control Council records, photostat on page 167 in Anthony Sutton, An Introduction to The Order (Billings, Mt.: Liberty House Press, 1986).
15. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression--Supplement B, by the Office of United States Chief of Counsel for Prosecution of Axis Criminality, United States Government Printing Office, (Washington: 1948), pp. 1597, 1686.
16. `` Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation - [minutes of the] Meeting of Board of Directors, '' Oct. 31, 1930 (Harriman papers, Library of Congress), shows Averell Harriman as Chairman of the Board.
Prescott Bush to W.A. Harriman, Memorandum Dec. 19, 1930 on their Harriman Fifteen Corp.
Annual Report of United Konigs and Laura Steel and Iron Works for the year 1930 (Harriman papers, Library of Congress) lists `` Dr. Friedrich Flick ... Berlin '' and `` William Averell Harriman ... New York '' on the Board of Directors.
`` Harriman Fifteen Corporation Securities Position February 28, 1931, '' Harriman papers, Library of Congress. This report shows Harriman Fifteen Corporation holding 32,576 shares in Silesian Holding Co. V.T.C. worth (in scarce depression dollars) $1,628,800, just over half the value of the Harriman Fifteen Corporation's total holdings.
The New York City Directory of Directors volumes for the 1930s (available at the Library of Congress) show Prescott Sheldon Bush and W. Averell Harriman as the directors of Harriman Fifteen Corp.
`` Appointments, '' (three typed pages) marked `` Noted May 18 1931 W.A.H., '' (among the papers from Prescott Bush's New York Office of Brown Brothers Harriman, Harriman papers, Library of Congress), lists a meeting between Averell Harriman and Friedrich Flick in Berlin at 4:00 P.M., Wednesday April 22, 1931. This was followed immediately by a meeting with Wilhelm Cuno, chief executive of the Hamburg-Amerika Line.
The `` Report To the Stockholders of the Harriman Fifteen Corporation, '' Oct. 19, 1933 (in the Harriman papers, Library of Congress) names G.H. Walker as president of the corporation. It shows the Harriman Fifteen Corporation's address as 1 Wall Street--the location of G.H. Walker and Co.
17. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression--Supplement B, op. cit., p. 1686.
18. Jim Flaherty (a BBH manager, Prescott Bush's employee), March 19, 1934 to W.A. Harriman.
`` Dear Averell:
In Roland's absence Pres[cott] thought it advisable for me to let you know that we received the following cable from [our European representative] Rossi dated March 17th [relating to conflict with the Polish government]....''
19. Harriman Fifteen Corporation notice to stockholders Jan. 7, 1935, under the name of George Walker, President.
20. Order No. 370: Silesian-American Corp. Executed Nov. 17, 1942. Signed by Leo T. Crowley, Alien Property Custodian. F.R. Doc. 42-14183; Filed Dec. 31, 1942, 11:28 A.M.; 8 Fed. Reg. 33 (Jan. 1, 1943).
The order confiscated the Nazis' holdings of 98,000 shares of common and 50,000 shares of preferred stock in Silesian-American.
The Nazi parent company in Breslau, Germany wrote directly to Averell Harriman at 59 Wall St. on Aug. 5, 1940, with `` an invitation to take part in the regular meeting of the members of the Bergwerksgesellsc[h]aft Georg von Giesche's Erben.... '' WAH papers.
21. Sept. 25, 1942, Memorandum To the Executive Committee of the Office of Alien Property Custodian, stamped CONFIDENTIAL, from the Division of Investigation and Research, Homer Jones, Chief. Now declassified in United States National Archives, Suitland, Maryland annex. See Record Group 131, Alien Property Custodian, investigative reports, in file box relating to Vesting Order No. 370.
22. George Walker was a director of American Ship and Commerce from its organization through 1928. Consult New York City Directory of Directors.
`` Harriman Fifteen Corporation Securities Position February 28, 1931, '' op. cit. The report lists 46,861 shares in the American Ship & Commerce Corp.
See `` Message from Mr. Bullfin, '' Aug. 30, 1934 (Harriman Fifteen section, Harriman papers, Library of Congress) for the joint supervision of Bush and Walker, respectively director and president of the corporation.
23. Cuno was later exposed by Walter Funk, Third Reich Press Chief and Under Secretary of Propaganda, in Funk's postwar jail cell at Nuremberg; but Cuno had died just as Hitler was taking power. William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1960), p. 144. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression--Supplement B, op. cit., p. 1688.
24. See `` Elimination of German Resources for War, '' op. cit., pp. 881-82 on Voegler.
See Annual Report of the (Hamburg-Amerikanische-Packetfahrt-Aktien-Gesellschaft (Hapag or Hamburg-Amerika Line), March 1931, for the board of directors. A copy is in the New York Public Library Annex at 11th Avenue, Manhattan.
25. Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression--Supplement B, op. cit., pp. 1178, 1453-54, 1597, 1599.
See `` Elimination of German Resources for War, '' op. cit., pp. 870-72 on Schroeder; p. 730 on Groeninger.
26. Annual Report of Hamburg-Amerika, op. cit.
Baron Rudolph Schroeder, Sr. to Averell Harriman, Nov. 14, 1932. K[night] W[ooley] handwritten note and draft reply letter, Dec. 9, 1932.
In his letter, Baron Rudolph refers to the family's American affiliate, J. Henry Schroder [name anglicized], of which Allen Dulles was a director, and his brother John Foster Dulles was the principal attorney.
Baron Bruno Schroder of the British branch was adviser to Bank of England Governor Montagu Norman, and Baron Bruno's partner Frank Cyril Tiarks was Norman's co-director of the Bank of England throughout Norman's career. Kurt von Schroeder was Hjalmar Schacht's delegate to the Bank for International Settlements in Geneva, where many of the financial arrangements for the Nazi regime were made by Montagu Norman, Schacht and the Schroeders for several years of the Hitler regime right up to the outbreak of World War II.
27. Confidential memorandum from U.S. embassy, Berlin, op. cit.
28. U.S. Senate `` Nye Committee '' hearings, Sept. 14, 1934, pp. 1197-98, extracts from letters of Col. William N. Taylor, dated June 27, 1932 and Jan. 9, 1933.
29. American Ship and Commerce Corporation to Dr. Max Warburg, March 7, 1933.
Max Warburg had brokered the sale of Hamburg-Amerika to Harriman and Walker in 1920. Max's brothers controlled the Kuhn Loeb investment banking house in New York, the firm which had staked old E.H. Harriman to his 1890s buyout of the giant Union Pacific Railroad.
Max Warburg had long worked with Lord Milner and others of the racialist British Round Table concerning joint projects in Africa and Eastern Europe. He was an advisor to Hjalmar Schacht for several decades and was a top executive of Hitler's Reichsbank. The reader may consult David Farrer, The Warburgs: The Story of A Family (New York: Stein and Day, 1975).
30. Max Warburg, at M.M. Warburg and Co., Hamburg, to Averill [sic] Harriman, c/o Messrs. Brown Brothers Harriman & Co., 59 Wall Street, New York, N.Y., March 27, 1933.
31. This correspondence, and the joint statement of the Jewish organizations, are reproduced in Moshe R. Gottlieb, American Anti-Nazi Resistance, 1933-41: An Historical Analysis (New York: Ktav Publishing House, 1982).
32. Investigation of Nazi Propaganda Activities and Investigation of Certain Other Propaganda Activities: Public Hearings before A Subcommittee of the Special Committee on Un-American Activities, United States House of Representatives, Seventy Third Congress, New York City, July 9-12, 1934--Hearings No. 73-NY-7 (Washington: U.S. Govt. Printing Office, 1934). See testimony of Capt. Frederick C. Mensing, John Schroeder, Paul von Lilienfeld-Toal, and summaries by Committee members.
See New York Times, July 16, 1933, p. 12, for organizing of Nazi Labor Front at North German Lloyd, leading to Hamburg-Amerika after merger.
33. American Ship and Commerce Corporation telegram to Rudolph Brinckmann at M.M. Warburg, June 12, 1936.
Rudolph Brinckmann to Averell Harriman at 59 Wall St., June 20, 1936, with enclosed note transmitting Helfferich's letter.
Reply to Dr. Rudolph Brinckmann c/o M.M. Warburg and Co, July 6, 1936, in the Harriman papers at the Library of Congress. The file copy of this letter carries no signature, but is presumably from Averell Harriman.
34. Office of Alien Property Custodian, Vesting Order No. 126. Signed by Leo T. Crowley, Alien Property Custodian, executed August 28, 1942. F.R. Doc. 42-8774; Filed September 4, 1942, 10:55 A.M.; 7 F.R. 7061 (No. 176, Sept. 5, 1942.) July 18, 1942, Memorandum To the Executive Committee of the Office of Alien Property Custodian, stamped CONFIDENTIAL, from the Division of Investigation and Research, Homer Jones, Chief. Now declassified in United States National Archives, Suitland, Maryland annex. See Record Group 131, Alien Property Custodian, investigative reports, in file box relating to Vesting Order No. 126.
35. New York Times, May 20, 1933. Leading up to this agreement is a telegram which somehow escaped the shredder and may be seen in the Harriman papers in the Library of Congress. It is addressed to Nazi official Hjalmar Schacht at the Mayflower Hotel, Washington, dated May 11, 1933: `` Much disappointed to have missed seeing you Tuesday afternoon.... I hope to see you either in Washington or New York before you sail.
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Sun Sep 22, 2002 1:11 am
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G.W. Bush compared to Hitler
Bush wants to divert attention from his domestic problems. It's a classic tactic. It's one that Hitler used.
U.S. Slams German Minister for Bush-Hitler Comment
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's spokesman on Thursday expressed outrage that Germany's justice minister drew a link between Bush's saber-rattling on Iraq to the tactics used by Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
Spokesman Ari Fleischer said the United States and Germany have long had a strong relationship, "but this statement by the justice minister is outrageous and is inexplicable."
The regional Schwaebisches Tagblatt newspaper quoted German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's justice minister, Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, as saying "Bush wants to divert attention from his domestic problems. It's a classic tactic. It's one that Hitler used."
The Bush administration has been none too pleased that criticizing the United States over Iraq has been a key campaign plank for Schroeder in his re-election battle but has refrained from publicly commenting on the issue.
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Someone got it right!
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Mech on 09-21-2002] |
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KrissaTMC2
Joined: 05 Feb 2002
Posts: 472
Location: Greenwich, CT, USA |
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Sun Sep 22, 2002 1:28 am
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quote:
It is incredibly refreshing that we now have a president who wants to insure that the United States is the world's dominant power,
Substitute laughing stock or the world's newest third world country for dominant power and ya might have something there.
quote:
who is not selling ICBM technology to China and renting out the Lincoln bedroom and who is strengthening the military rather than weakening it.
I suppose it's better that President Bush invites Putin and that Saudi Prince to his Texas barbeques.
Oh yes China does have long range ICBM technology now... And hypothetically, they could launch one in the opposite direction and catch us completely off guard. Don't forget that they also have control of the Panama canal now thanks to someone.
They're a country that has a population problem as well as a pretty substantial military and we should be paying just a little more attention to them than we are now. They do have a lot of the industry that left the US years ago and you'd really be surprised how much it has expanded there. And they did sign a pact with Russia which I still consider a threat, especially since we can't tell if they're receiving funding from Iraq, or Saudi Arabia. Somebody did manage to walk away with 200 or more of their nukes and that has me more than just a little bit concerned if that information is correct. They claim that they have no clue where those nukes went and do you really think that they're really telling the truth? One maybe, but 200? - I really find that hard to believe.
As far as strengthening us up goes, well we're kind of spread thin at the moment with nowhere near the number of troops we had during Desert Storm and then we only had one operation going back then, and not two or is that three now?... The President did say something about us hitting targets all over the world didn't he?... And back during Storm we had a coalition that we don't seem to have now and we also don't seem to have the same amount of support that we had back then either.
quote:
It is refreshing that we now have a president who is strengthening this country’s national security
Strengthening is one thing, but this is getting just a little bit out of hand, don't you think Yoda? |
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Sun Sep 22, 2002 1:44 am
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This "Getting it Write" is excerpted from a radio interview Gulf War vet Andrew McGuffin.
RadioFree Berkley 2002
My name is Andrew McGuffin and I was in the Marine Corps during the Gulf War. I joined in 1990 and deployed with 2nd Battalion 7th Marines in August of '90 to the Persian Gulf. I guess at that time being a young man of 21 years I had a different set of beliefs that I was operating under. I bought the hype of what my recruiter was telling me and what the government was telling me about why we were there and all these good ideas about how we had to get rid of this tyrant who used chemical-biological weapons against Iran and against the Kurds. I thought we really were there to restore democracy to Kuwait and that was the farthest thing from the truth. There is no democracy in Kuwait. There was no democracy in Kuwait and what we did essentially was go in there to further the interests of multinational corporations. What I saw there was not what my friends and neighbors saw on CNN but rather a genocide. It's hard to describe precisely what that is in any way that would make one understand. Certainly the talk, the euphemisms that we use, the collateral damage, the surgical attack, were anything but. There was wholesale burning, we used weapons like Foo-gas to light the so-called enemy on fire. We used conventional weapons, B-52's which are certainly a weapon of mass destruction, we used napalm and DPICM an explosive round which cracks like popcorn on the ground. People who wanted to surrender were killed sometimes so we wouldn't be slowed up in our attack into Kuwait City. It was just wholesale slaughter and I participated in that, much to my regret.
There comes a time when one realizes what war is and certainly the rhetoric coming out of DC is just a further insult to gunboat diplomacy and the dollar diplomacy we've had in this country since the inception of our country a couple hundred years ago. It's a sad thing, but the thing that sticks in my mind today about the protest [He participated in that day. -- Ed.] was that there was a united front of many different people and organizations there and that we marched together and that across the nation in 42 other cities there were people out and about saying that they did not believe the bombing was an appropriate action. That we have no right to drop bombs on people to try and convince them not to be violent, it's hypocritical, the foreign policy is short-sited and it's wrong and there is no way to morally justify it. Madeleine Albright has tried to justify it, but once you see the bombs coming down and once you know the harm that that's inflicting upon people, whether they are men, women or children, it's morally reprehensible. I guess I was really excited to be out there today on the other side of the issue. The last time, I was telling my friend, I was on CNN, a couple of years ago, I was on there attacking an airfield called al-Jumuhuriya outside of Kuwait City, and we were on CNN. And I am proud that recently I was on CNN again taking part in the protest today on the other side of the issue. It really does my heart good and helps me to heal a lot to know that I am on the right side this time instead of the side of violence and cynicism and fighting for interests which aren't our own. I don't think any of the interests that we're fighting for over there are the interests of the people in this country or the people of Iraq. It's just there is no way to justify it.
It is hard to talk about my combat experience because it is really heart breaking stuff. It not only broke my heart but it broke my spirit to see what we were doing and to participate in that. The survival skills I turned on... I was saying at the protest that it is a scarlet letter that I carry on my chest, probably for the rest of my days, but the methods that I used to cope with the things I was doing were racism and dehumanization. Calling Arabs sand-niggers or ragheads or all these reprehensible terms that we use to dehumanize people, that we use to make them look like they are not human. Like we are not actually killing human beings. But when you are face-to-face with people who have been bombed incessantly day after day, morning noon and night for a month. And then these people are so desperate to surrender that they walk across mine fields to come to you and some of them are blown to bits by their own mines, by their own people so that they can not fight anymore. It is absolutely heart wrenching. Some of our commanders, even when people wanted to surrender, so that we wouldn't be slowed up, they would go ahead and drop artillery rounds on them. There were a lot, a lot of burnt people there, that is what sticks out most in my mind is the burnt bodies, and the smell of burning people, and the fires from the oil wells hundreds of feet in the air. When my unit Task Force Grizzly, 2nd Bat, 7th Marines went into Kuwait February 21st of 1991 I was mortified, I didn't think that I would come back alive. In fact we were expecting 70 or 80% casualties. So we were in Kuwait prior to the ground war actually starting to breech mine fields a number of obstacle belts of mine fields and fire trenches and concertinine barbed wire and so-on and so-forth with enemy on the other side. People just like me who were sent there by their government and didn't really know what they were there for and we killed those people with FA-18's and F-15 fighters, we killed them with artillery rounds, we killed them with Foo-gas, with napalm with AD-10's, with just about every weapon that we have at our disposal. And the United States has a multitude, a plethora of weapons to use against people. As I was saying before these are not surgical weapons. When you see people burning like on the Highway of Death [The Road to Basra. -- Ed.] just miles and miles of a traffic jam of smoldering cars and people in and out of those cars on the ground burning, cooking, and that smell and those visions just completely assault you and change the way that you live for the rest of your life.
It's tragic, it's really tragic. It is something that sticks with me to this day and horrifies me, it horrifies me. And I hope that for the rest of my life I will be devoted to furthering the cause of peace so that these things will not continue to happen. To try and also make up for the wrong that I have done, to make up for the damage that I have done against human beings, POW's, or what they called EPW's, that was the new euphemism at the time, enemy prisoners of war. And we take these people and we were brutal with them. We captured them, we beat them, they were Muslim and nonetheless we fed them pork meals, we had no respect for them and it was just really, really heart breaking. It was heart breaking to see them killed by automatic weapons fire, by our automatic weapons fire, people in my unit. Seeing men I had known for six months intimately mutilating bodies or doing other things. And these are things that go on in every war. It is not isolated to the Balkans or to the Vietnam War or any other war. Every war these things go on and we need to stand up and say enough is enough.
Jeff Paterson [1st Gulf War GI Resister -- Ed.] and I got a real laugh out of how I used to feel about the GI resisters. At the time I felt a lot of hatred towards people like Jeff. And I thought well you know you are a big wuss, and you signed on the line, and you knew what you were getting into, this is the Marine Corps for god-sakes, didn't you expect that if you signed up that there might be a war and you might have to go to it? And I was very angry at people like him, and I thought they were cowardly and it's funny how I look back on that now and I think Jeff had a lot more courage than I did actually, to sit down and say 'I am not going to take part in this.' Because the ridicule and peer pressure against people in the military who decide not to fight is immense and many people decide they are going to fight out of fear rather than out of bravery. During the Vietnam War, I was reading a book called The Things They Carried and the guy who wrote that book [Tim O'Brien -- Ed.] talked about how he didn't go to Canada out of fear because he was a coward. And he had a moment when he had an epiphany and thought he would go to Canada. But in the end he turned back because he was afraid of what his people would think. He was afraid that his community and his family would reject him. And I had a friend, we were in Saudi Arabia, on August 25 it was my birthday, he shot himself that day so that he wouldn't have to go on fighting. And it saddens me that there is not enough support in this country to say to those military men and women who don't want to continue on, who don't want to fight wars that are unjust, wars that hurt innocent people, there's no support to encourage them to not do that. Like I said, Jeff and I were having a couple of laughs today about the old ideas that I had and how I thought that he was a big wuss. And I saw a picture of Jeff sitting on that airstrip with his gunnery sergeant pulling on his web gear, his field gear, and these other marines yelling at him and trying to get him to go on the plane. And he was sitting there resolutely and I was really proud. I was proud that he did that. It really touched me. And I hope that there's Marines and airmen and airwomen and sailors and soldiers out there today who will not participate in imperialistic war. More war which leads to nowhere except to dollars in the big white male leaders' pockets. These aren't wars which are in any way related to the interests of the American people.
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