Tony Blair: hob nob extraordinaire?
[V]illionaire

With Tony Blair's recent conversion to the Roman Catholic religion, and his headline grabbing new job offer, I thought it fitting to demonstrate the web of influence that the former British Prime Minister can boast of. Here, I will analytically substantiate the connections that Tony Blair has, and show how they intertwine neatly to form a "Genetic Strand" of the New World Order. Do yo see the what I see? All roads lead to Rome... Follow the threads (treads)...

*********

January 10, 2008

Tony Blair to take up £500,000 job as political adviser to US company

Tony Blair is to take a job with JPMorgan Chase,
the international financial services and investment banking group, The Times learnt last night.

The former Prime Minister is to be a political adviser to the American firm which operates in more than 50 countries and whose assets are put at $1.5 trillion, with interests also in commercial banking and private equity.

Sources said last night that Mr Blair would advise the bank on global political issues. His salary is unknown but is likely to be more than £500,000.

Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, said Mr Blair would be “enormously valuable” to the company. “There are only a handful of people in the world who have the knowledge and relationships that he has.”



Related Links
Tony Blair converts to Catholicism
Tony Blair talks big money as £1m speech maker
Mr Blair said that he expected to agree to “a small handful” of similar appointments with other companies in different sectors. He is believed to have held talks with other banks, such as HSBC and Citigroup, about such roles and there was speculation at the end of last year that he would take a position at Credit Suisse because of his close friendship with Russell Chambers, one of the bank’s senior executives.

Mr Blair told the Financial Times: “I have always been interested in commerce and the impact of globalisation. Nowadays, the intersection between politics and the economy in different parts of the world, including the emerging markets, is very strong.”

The JPMorgan Chase job was brokered by Robert Barnett, the Washington lawyer who also negotiated a reported £5 million advance for Mr Blair’s memoirs.

Mr Dimon, who is one of the leading Democrats on Wall Street, said he approached Mr Blair personally. “I went to visit him and we hit it off.” He said it was important to both men “to try to make the world a better place and have a bit of fun doing it”.

Mr Blair will add the part-time advisory role to his job as a Middle East envoy and speaker on the international lecture tour, which is earning him about £100,000 a speech.

It will be the first big City appointment for Mr Blair, who is on course to earn £5 million from the publication of his Downing Street memoirs in 2009. Mr Blair has struck a deal with publishers on both sides of the Atlantic that has only been bettered by the sums paid to Bill Clinton, according to publishing sources.

A source close to Mr Blair said: “Tony is focused on and enjoying the challenge of his task in the Middle East. He continues to receive requests to speak and, as his schedule allows, he does so on both a paid and unpaid basis.”

Mr Blair’s new job will have been approved by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, which vets all jobs given to former ministers.

He is not being paid a salary in his role as Middle East envoy, working on behalf of the Quartet — the US, Russia, the UN and the EU. However, Britain has donated £400,000 to a UN development programme trust fund, which provides “operational and technical support” in the Jerusalem office of Mr Blair.

In a Commons written reply, David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said that Britain had seconded four staff to Mr Blair’s team, and that other international donors were supporting his work. A



Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs

Brief history and influence

Founded in 1920, the organisation is officially called The Royal Institute of International Affairs. The name of the building which houses it - Chatham House - is now commonly used to refer to the organisation itself.
The idea of an Anglo-American institute to study foreign affairs was conceived at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. In the event, the British Institute of International Affairs was founded in London and the Council on Foreign Relations in New York was developed as a sister organisation.


What it does


Aims to be Europe's leading foreign policy thinktank, operating at the heart of the debate on international affairs. It invites academics, business people, politicians, diplomats, media, NGOs, and policy-makers to interact in an open and impartial environment.

Advises over 250 corporate members - including government departments and 2000 individual members - on the latest development in foreign affairs. Operates 10 research programmes with separate regional or thematic specialisations to analyse developments. Recent speakers have included Tony Blair, Russian president Vladimir Putin; Afghan president Hamid Karzai; and author Jung Chang. 1

Research

In August 2006 Chatham House released a report titled Iran, its Neighbours and the Regional Crises which said that the influence of Iran in Iraq had overtaken that of the US. The report asserted that any threatening action towards Iran could result in mass destabilization across the Middle East.

In December 2006 the departing director of Chatham House – Victor Bulmer-Thomas – produced a briefing paper on U.K. foreign policy during the Blair era entitled Blair’s Foreign Policy and its Possible Successor(s). The paper generated a media storm as it heavily criticized the Prime Minister for allying the U.K. too closely to the U.S. at the expense of closer ties with Europe.2


CFR.org sponsored in part by

MorganStanley
WORLDWISE 3

Early history
The earliest origin of the Council stemmed from a working fellowship of about 150 distinguished scholars, called "The Inquiry," tasked to brief President Woodrow Wilson about options for the postwar world when Germany was defeated. Through 1917-18, this academic band, including Wilson's closest adviser and long-time friend Col. Edward M. House, as well as Walter Lippmann, gathered discreetly[citation needed] at 155th Street and Broadway in New York City, to assemble the strategy for the postwar world. The team produced more than 2,000 documents detailing and analyzing the political, economic, and social facts globally that would be helpful for Wilson in the peace talks. Their reports formed the basis for the Fourteen Points, which outlined Wilson's strategy for peace after war's end.[4]

These scholars then traveled to the Paris Peace Conference, 1919 that would end the war; it was at one of the meetings of a small group of British and American diplomats and scholars, on May 30, 1919, at the Hotel Majestic, that both the Council and its British counterpart, the Chatham House in London, were born.[1] Although the original intent was for the two organizations to be affiliated, they became independent bodies, yet retained close informal ties.[5]

Some of the participants at that meeting were, apart from Edward House, Paul Warburg, Herbert Hoover, Harold Temperley, Lionel Curtis, Lord Eustace Percy, Christian Herter, and American academic historians James Thomson Shotwell of Columbia University, Archibald Cary Coolidge of Harvard and Charles Seymour of Yale.

Morgan and Rockefeller involvement
The Americans who subsequently returned from the conference became drawn to a discreet club of New York financiers and international lawyers who had organized previously in June 1918 and was headed by Elihu Root, J. P. Morgan's lawyer;[13] this select group called itself the Council on Foreign Relations.[14] They joined this group and the Council was formally established in New York on July 29, 1921, with 108 founding members, including Elihu Root as a leading member and John W. Davis, the chief counsel for J. P. Morgan & Co. and former Solicitor General for President Wilson,[15] as its founding president. Davis was to become Democratic presidential candidate in 1924.

Other members included John Foster Dulles, Herbert H. Lehman, Henry L. Stimson, Averell Harriman, the Rockefeller family's public relations expert, Ivy Lee,[16] and Paul M. Warburg and Otto H. Kahn of the law firm Kuhn, Loeb.[17]

The Council initially had strong connections to the Morgan interests, such as the lawyer, Paul Cravath, whose pre-eminent New York law firm (later named Cravath, Swaine & Moore) represented Morgan businesses; a Morgan partner, Russell Cornell Leffingwell, later became its first chairman. The head of the group's finance committee was Alexander Hemphill, chairman of Morgan's Guaranty Trust Company. Economist Edwin F. Gay, editor of the New York Evening Post, owned by Morgan partner Thomas W. Lamont, served as Secretary-Treasurer of the organization. Other members related to Morgan included Frank L. Polk, former Under-Secretary of State and attorney for J.P. Morgan & Co. Former Wilson Under-Secretary of State Norman H. Davis was a banking associate of the Morgans.[18] Over time, however, the locus of power shifted inexorably to the Rockefeller family. Paul Cravath's law firm also represented the Rockefeller family.[19]

Edwin Gay suggested the creation of a quarterly journal, Foreign Affairs. He recommended Archibald Cary Coolidge be installed as the first editor, along with his New York Evening Post reporter, Hamilton Fish Armstrong, as assistant editor and executive director of the Council.[20]

Even from its inception, John D. Rockefeller, Jr. was a regular benefactor, making annual contributions, as well as a large gift of money towards its first headquarters on East 65th Street, along with corporate donors (Perloff 156). In 1944, the widow of the Standard Oil executive Harold I. Pratt donated the family's four-story mansion on the corner of 68th Street and Park Avenue for council use and this became the CFR's new headquarters, known as The Harold Pratt House, where it remains today.

Several of Rockefeller's sons joined the council when they came of age; David Rockefeller joined the council as its youngest-ever director in 1949 and subsequently became chairman of the board from 1970 to 1985; today he serves as honorary chairman.[21] The major philanthropic organization he founded with his brothers in 1940, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, has also provided funding to the Council, from 1953 to at least 1980.[22]

Another major support base from the outset was the corporate sector; around 26 corporations provided financial assistance in the 1920s, seizing the opportunity to inject their business concerns into the weighty deliberations of the academics and scholars in the Council's ruling elite. In addition, the Carnegie Corporation contributed funds in 1937 to expand the Council's reach by replicating its structure in a diminished form in eight American cities.[23]

John J. McCloy became an influential figure in the organization after the Second World War, and he held connections to both the Morgans and Rockefellers. As assistant to Secretary of War (and J. P. Morgan attorney) Henry Stimson during World War II, he had presided over important American war policies; his brother-in-law John Zinsser was on the board of directors of JP Morgan & Co. during that time, and after the war McCloy joined New York law firm Milbank, Tweed, Hope, Hadley & McCloy as a partner. The company had long served as legal counsel to the Rockefeller family and the Chase Manhattan bank. McCloy became Chairman of the Board of Chase Manhattan, a director of the Rockefeller Foundation and Chairman of the Board of the CFR from 1953 to 1970. President Harry S. Truman appointed him President of the World Bank Group and U.S. High Commissioner to Germany. He served as a special adviser on disarmament to President John F. Kennedy and chaired a special committee on the Cuban crisis. He was said to have had the largest influence on American foreign policy of anyone after World War II. McCloy's brother-in-law, Lewis W. Douglas, also served on the board of the CFR and as a trustee for the Rockefeller Foundation; Truman appointed him as American ambassador to Great Britain.[24]4

Mixed reaction for plan to make Blair Middle East envoy


· Backing from US, Israel and Fatah leadership
· Moscow unlikely to want retiring PM as spokesman

Julian Borger, diplomatic editor and Ian Black, Middle East editor
Friday June 22, 2007
The Guardian



Tony Blair is keen to become the international community's Middle East envoy after leaving Downing Street and has the support of the US, Israel and the Palestinian Fatah leadership, the Guardian has learned. However, a formal job offer depends on the agreement of the international quartet attempting to salvage the Israeli-Palestinian peace process: the US, Europe, the United Nations and Russia.
The greatest obstacle is Moscow, which has had an increasingly combative relationship with the Blair government, particularly over the poisoning of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko.

The Bush administration has been the driving force behind the Blair candidacy but many Middle East observers see the job as a poisoned chalice. Since the last quartet envoy, James Wolfensohn, a former World Bank president, resigned in April 2006, conditions in the Palestinian territories have worsened markedly.Nevertheless, both Israel and Palestinians loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas said they would welcome Mr Blair as a special envoy. Zvi Heifetz, Israel's ambassador to London, said: "It's an excellent idea. There is no better person for this job. He has been dealing with the Middle East for 10 years, and he has been objective and balanced."...5

Blair received into Catholic Church in private Mass at cardinal's home


Tony Blair has long celebrated his religious faith and now joins his family as a Catholic. Pictures: PA


By Bill Jacobs
CARDINAL Keith O'Brien, the Archbishop of Edinburgh, last night welcomed Tony Blair, the former prime minister, into the Roman Catholic Church.

Mr Blair made the long- predicted conversion at a special service on Friday conducted by the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, and his private secretary, Monsignor Mark O'Toole.

Mr Blair joins his wife Cherie and four children in the Roman Catholic faith.

Cardinal O'Brien told The Scotsman: "I was very happy to hear that Tony Blair had been received into the Catholic Church.

"He had obviously spent a long time considering God's call. Now I join with others in wishing him and his family every blessing as they go forward together in one faith."

Following the special Mass at the archbishop's house in Westminster, attended by Mrs Blair and their children, Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor – the leading Roman Catholic in England and Wales – said the service was "very intimate, very prayerful". The Vatican has also welcomed Mr Blair's decision to become a Catholic.

It comes as research suggests Catholic churchgoers now outnumber Anglicans in the UK for the first time in 500 years.

A Vatican spokesman said such an "authoritative personality" choosing to join the Catholic Church "could only give rise to joy and respect".

Last year, Mr Blair, who is now a Middle East peace envoy, said he had prayed to God when deciding whether or not to send UK troops into Iraq.

It had been an open secret that Mr Blair had been taking instruction from a Catholic priest as a prelude to conversion.

Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, wished the former prime minister well in his spiritual journey.

Dr Williams said: "A great Catholic writer of the last century said that the only reason for moving from one Christian family to another was to deepen one's relationship with God.

"I pray that this will be the result of Tony Blair's decision in his personal life."

But the former Tory minister Ann Widdecombe – herself a Catholic convert – said Mr Blair's voting record as an MP had often "gone against Church teaching" and that his conversion raised some questions.

The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) reacted with surprise to the news of Mr Blair's conversion.

John Smeaton, its national director, said: "During his premiership Tony Blair became one of the world's most significant architects of the culture of death, promoting abortion, experimentation on unborn embryos, including cloned embryos, and euthanasia by neglect.

"SPUC is writing to Tony Blair to ask him whether he has repented of the anti-life positions he has so openly advocated throughout his political career."

There has never been a Roman Catholic prime minister of Britain, although there is no constitutional barrier to such a move.

However, it had been suggested in the past that Mr Blair would wait until after leaving office, to avoid possible clashes such as that of the role in appointing Church of England bishops.

A RELIGIOUS OFFICE

TONY Blair's formal conversion appears to have taken a number of months and it is thought his decision followed a period of contemplation rather than a "falling out" with the Church of England over an issue such as the ordination of women priests.

The move comes after years of speculation that Mr Blair would convert from Anglicanism after he resigned from No 10 in June.

Converting while in office would have caused him problems in connection with issues such as abortion, contraception, homosexuality and faith schools.

Mr Blair's former spokesman, Alastair Campbell, once famously told reporters "We don't do God", but has since said that his former boss "does do God in quite a big way".

Even while in office, Mr Blair attended Catholic services with his family, but did not participate fully.



The full article contains 638 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
Last Updated: 23 December 2007 10:42 PM. 6

Article Footnotes:

A http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3162665.ece

1 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/thinktanks/page/0,,1538994,00.html

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_House

3 http://www.cfr.org/

4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_on_Foreign_Relations

5 http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2108848,00.html

6 http://news.scotsman.com/uk/Blair-received-into-Catholic-Church.3617088.jp



Note: Extensive Bolds, Large Fonts, and Highlights used for emphasis. Blogman

Arsenio

Originally appeared on my blog: www.endrtimes.blogspot.com

Chris Hedges: America’s Holy Warriors

Posted on Dec 31, 2006


By Chris Hedges

Editor’s note: The former New York Times Mideast Bureau chief warns that the radical Christian right is coming dangerously close to its goal of co-opting the country’s military and law enforcement.


The drive by the Christian right to take control of military chaplaincies, which now sees radical Christians holding roughly 50 percent of chaplaincy appointments in the armed services and service academies, is part of a much larger effort to politicize the military and law enforcement. This effort signals the final and perhaps most deadly stage in the long campaign by the radical Christian right to dismantle America’s open society and build a theocratic state. A successful politicization of the military would signal the end of our democracy.

During the past two years I traveled across the country to research and write the book “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.” I repeatedly listened to radical preachers attack as corrupt and godless most American institutions, from federal agencies that provide housing and social welfare to public schools and the media. But there were two institutions that never came under attack—the military and law enforcement. While these preachers had no interest in communicating with local leaders of other faiths, or those in the community who did not subscribe to their call for a radical Christian state, they assiduously courted and flattered the military and police. They held special services and appreciation days for all four branches of the armed services and for various law enforcement agencies. They encouraged their young men and women to enlist or to join the police or state troopers. They sought out sympathetic military and police officials to attend church events where these officials were lauded and feted for their Christian probity and patriotism. They painted the war in Iraq not as an occupation but as an apocalyptic battle by Christians against Islam, a religion they regularly branded as “satanic.” All this befits a movement whose final aesthetic is violence. It also befits a movement that, in the end, would need the military and police forces to seize power in American society.

One of the arguments used to assuage our fears that the mass movement being built by the Christian right is fascist at its core is that it has not yet created a Praetorian Guard, referring to the paramilitary force that defied legal constraints, made violence part of the political discourse and eventually plunged ancient Rome into tyranny and despotism. A paramilitary force that operates outside the law, one that sows fear among potential opponents and is capable of physically silencing those branded by their leaders as traitors, is a vital instrument in the hands of despotic movements. Communist and fascist movements during the last century each built paramilitary forces that operated beyond the reach of the law.

And yet we may be further down this road than we care to admit. Erik Prince, the secretive, mega-millionaire, right-wing Christian founder of Blackwater, the private security firm that has built a formidable mercenary force in Iraq, champions his company as a patriotic extension of the U.S. military. His employees, in an act as cynical as it is deceitful, take an oath of loyalty to the Constitution. These mercenary units in Iraq, including Blackwater, contain some 20,000 fighters. They unleash indiscriminate and wanton violence against unarmed Iraqis, have no accountability and are beyond the reach of legitimate authority. The appearance of these paramilitary fighters, heavily armed and wearing their trademark black uniforms, patrolling the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, gave us a grim taste of the future. It was a stark reminder that the tyranny we impose on others we will one day impose on ourselves.

“Contracting out security to groups like Blackwater undermines our constitutional democracy,” said Michael Ratner, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “Their actions may not be subject to constitutional limitations that apply to both federal and state officials and employees—including First Amendment and Fourth Amendment rights to be free from illegal searches and seizures. Unlike police officers they are not trained in protecting constitutional rights and unlike police officers or the military they have no system of accountability whether within their organization or outside it. These kind of paramilitary groups bring to mind Nazi Party brownshirts, functioning as an extrajudicial enforcement mechanism that can and does operate outside the law. The use of these paramilitary groups is an extremely dangerous threat to our rights."

The politicization of the military, the fostering of the belief that violence must be used to further a peculiar ideology rather than defend a democracy, was on display recently when Air Force and Army generals and colonels, filmed in uniform at the Pentagon, appeared in a promotional video distributed by the Christian Embassy, a radical Washington-based organization dedicated to building a “Christian America.”

The video, first written about by Jeff Sharlet in the December issue of Harper’s Magazine and filmed shortly after 9/11, has led the Military Religious Freedom Foundation to raise a legal protest against the Christian Embassy’s proselytizing within the Department of Defense. The video was hastily pulled from the Christian Embassy website and was removed from YouTube a few days ago under threats of copyright enforcement.

Dan Cooper, an undersecretary of veterans affairs, says in the video that his weekly prayer sessions are “more important than doing the job.” Maj. Gen. Jack Catton says that his being an adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff is a “wonderful opportunity” to evangelize men and women setting defense policy. “My first priority is my faith,” he says. “I think it’s a huge impact.... You have many men and women who are seeking God’s counsel and wisdom as they advise the chairman [of the Joint Chiefs] and the secretary of defense.”

Col. Ralph Benson, a Pentagon chaplain, says in the video: “Christian Embassy is a blessing to the Washington area, a blessing to our capital; it’s a blessing to our country. They are interceding on behalf of people all over the United States, talking to ambassadors, talking to people in the Congress, in the Senate, talking to people in the Pentagon, and being able to share the message of Jesus Christ in a very, very important time in our world is winning a worldwide war on terrorism. What more do we need than Christian people leading us and guiding us, so, they’re needed in this hour.”

The group has burrowed deep inside the Pentagon. It hosts weekly Bible sessions with senior officers, by its own count some 40 generals, and weekly prayer breakfasts each Wednesday from 7 to 7:50 a.m. in the executive dining room as well as numerous outreach events to, in the words of the organization, “share and sharpen one another in their quest to bridge the gap between faith and work.”

If the United States falls into a period of instability caused by another catastrophic terrorist attack, an economic meltdown or a series of environmental disasters, these paramilitary forces, protected and assisted by fellow ideologues in the police and military, could swiftly abolish what is left of our eroding democracy. War, with the huge profits it hands to businesses and right-wing interests that often help bankroll the Christian right, could become a permanent condition. And the thugs with automatic weapons, black uniforms and wraparound sunglasses who appeared on street corners in Baghdad and New Orleans could appear on streets across the U.S. Such a presence could paralyze us with fear, leaving us unable to question or protest the closed system and secrecy of an emergent totalitarian state and unable to voice dissent.

“The Bush administration has already come close to painting our current wars as wars against Islam—many in the Christian right apparently have this belief,” Ratner said. “If these wars, bad enough as imperial wars, are fought as religious wars, we are facing a very dark age that could go on for a hundred years and that will be very bloody.”

Source: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20061231_chris_hedges_americas_holy_warriors

Iraq Study Group or Saudi Protection League?by Greg Palast

They’re kidding, right?
James Baker III and the seven dwarfs of the “Iraq Study Group” have come up with some simply brilliant recommendations. Not.
Baker’s Two Big Ideas are:
1. Stay half the course. Keeping 140,000 troops in Iraq is a disaster getting more disastrous. The Baker Boys’ idea: cut the disaster in half — leave 70,000 troops there.
But here’s where dumb gets dumber: the Bakerites want to “embed” US forces in Iraqi Army units. Question one, Mr. Baker: What Iraqi Army? This so-called “army” is a rough confederation of Shia death squads. We can tell our troops to get “embedded” with them, but the Americans won’t get much sleep.
2. “Engage” Iran. This is a good one. How can we get engaged when George Bush hasn’t even asked them out for a date? What will induce the shy mullahs of Iran to accept our engagement proposal? Answer: The Bomb.
Let me explain. To get the Iranians to end their subsidizing the Mahdi Army and other Shia cut-throats, the Baker bunch suggest we let the permanent members of the UN Security Council — plus, Germany — decide the issue of Iran’s nukes. Attaching Germany is the signal. These signers of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) agree that Iran should be allowed a “peaceful” nuclear power program.
Now, I am absolutely wary of neo-con nuts who want to blow Iran to Kingdom-come over its nuclear ambitions. But that doesn’t mean we should kid ourselves. Iran has zero need of “peaceful” nuclear-generated electricity. It has the second-largest untapped reserve of natural gas on the planet, a clean, safe, cheap source of power. There’s only one reason for a “nuclear” program, and it’s not to light Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s bedside lamp.
Here’s the problem with Baker’s weird combo of embedding our boys with Iraq’s scary army while sucking up to the Iranians: it won’t work. The mayhem will continue, with Americans in the middle, because the Baker brigade dares not mention two words: “Saudi” and “Arabia.”
Saudi Arabia is the elephant in the room (camel in the tent?) that can’t be acknowledged — and the reason Baker is so desperately anxious to sell America on keeping half our soldiers in harm’s way.
James III wants to seduce or bully Iran into stopping their funding of the murderous Shia militias. But the Shias only shifted into mass killing mode in response to the murder spree by Sunni “insurgents.”
Where do the Sunnis get their money for mayhem? According to a seething memo by the National Security Agency (November 8, 2006), the Saudis control the, “public or private funding provided to the insurgents or death squads.” Nice.
Baker wants us to bribe or blackmail Iran into stopping one side in Iraq’s uncivil war, the Shia. Yet we close our eyes to the Saudis acting as a piggy bank for the other side, the Sunni berserkers. (The House of Saud follows Wahabi Islam, a harsh, fundamentalist sect of Sunnism.)
Why is Baker, ordinarily such a tough guy, so coy with the Saudis? Baker Botts, the law firm his grandfather founded, became a wealthy powerhouse by representing Saudi Arabia. But don’t worry, the Iraq Study Group is balanced by Democrats including Vernon Jordan of the law firm of Akin, Gump which represents … Saudi royals.
Of course, the connections between Baker, the Bush Family and the Saudis go way beyond a few legal bills. (See, “The Best Little Legal Whorehouse in Texas” in my book Armed Madhouse.
Baker is more than aware that, two weeks ago, Dick Cheney dropped his Thanksgiving turkey to fly to Riyadh, at the demand of the Saudis, for a dressing down by King Abdullah. The King wants US forces to stay to baby-sit the Shias in Iraq’s army. The Saudis have made it clear that, if the US pulls out our troops, Saudi Arabians will crank up payments to their brothers, the Sunni warlords in Iraq, and Baghdad, or the entire region, will run with blood.
The outcome was foregone: King Abdullah’s wish is Cheney’s command — and Baker’s too. And so 70,000 of our soldiers will stay.
What gives King Abdullah the power to ghost-write the Iraq Study Group recommendations? It’s not because the Saudis sell us broccoli.
And therein lies the danger. Behind the fratricidal fracas in Iraq is something even more dangerous than civil war — a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia over control of Iraq’s pivotal position in OPEC, the oil cartel.
Because what is painted by Baker’s Iraq Study Group as an ancient local clash between Shia and Sunni over the Kingdom of God, is, in fact, a remote control war between Iran and Saudi Arabia over the Kingdom of Oil.
*******
Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, “Armed Madhouse” which includes Palast’s investigation, conducted for Harper’s Magazine, of the secret role of James Baker III and Saudi Arabia in the forming of US plans for Iraq’s oil.

Source:http://www.gregpalast.com/the-baker-boys-stay-half-the-course#more-1549
Appeared: Dec. 7, 2006.

For the last 63 months, there has been one name that has been mentioned by Old Dubya (old devil you), repeatedly until it is noticed by no one else but me. I'm sick and tired of hearing Dubya repeat the "I" word. Now that the "I" Study Group has returned with its findings; Old Dubya claims that he will make us wait until January before he gives us his new and improved solution to the mayhem in "I". He (Dubya) stated that he will consult with those of differing opinions to arrive at a conclusion on what to do about "I". Stop the "I" merry-go round I want to puke!

Well, if you ask me,Old Dubya will offer more of the same "I" poppy-cock. He will rant and rave, lose his temper, forget his line, and repeat the dreaded "I" word, umpteen times, and propose to splurge more man-power,and US dollars, in that mythical illusion of his "I" as a democratic republic. This defies all logic, but, his Yale education has taught him something that no one else seems to know about; Old H (41) was made famous for his "voodo" economics, well Old Dubya is now famous for "screwy war tactics". Throw another 100 Billion$ at the "I" quagmire? Old Dubya believes in his heart of hearts that he can impose democracy (a foreign and ridiculous concept to Islam) by force or chicanery. If he believes he can really achieve this, he is brighter that he is given the credit of being. But, to me it seems he is on a mission to devastate the American Economy and its Traditions.

He has decimated the U.S. Constitution, stroke by stroke, he has stacked the Supreme Court, chock-full of Roman Catholics who traditionally hate our Constituion because it allows the individual's rights to trump those of the State or religion. Now back to his fixation on "I", it's perplexing that someone hasn't called him on this; He's become like a scratched record, stuck in the (I) groove. We need a President that represents this Nation. Not a lobbyist for diverting U.S. funds to Valhalla or Shangrila, or whereever Old Dubya thinks he can vacate our funds to. We are not deluded, we are sober and vigilant, and can see the malarkey and monkey-shines through the smoke and mirrors. Bring the boys backhome, and keep our hard-earned (non-existant) dollars here, where they are needed. Old Dubya you can keep your Bud and Baloney.

Give us back our Republic, you can return to your Texas Republic anytime you want. There's plenty of talent around to ruin ou nation, you don't have a corner on the market. And by the way what's with the Iraq fetish thing?

BP BP: No, not Wylie Coyote; But British Petroleum, the behemoth that owns and operated the Alaskan Pipe-line. This week (Aug. 7, 2006) we have the latest salvo on the assault on the dwindling economy of the U.S.
BP, or as quiet as it's been kept (even since acquiring Amoco in 2003) British Petroleum. No wonder I find it odd that on saturday and sunday nights all I see is "Brit Comedies" of PBS. Where's Paul Revere when you need him? The British have come! And they have the pipe to show it.
Now they can finally stick it to us. No oil for you, said the oil Nazi.


Well, a British subject, and prominent Catholic in Protestant England, by the name of Sir Peter Sutherland has the priviledge of being at the helm of H.M.S.BP, as its Chairman, he's also the Chairman of Goldman Sachs (Stock trading company), and founding Director of the WTO: World Trade Organization. Does the scent of rodent hit you rather abruptly? Let's see, the Pipeline in Alaska belongs to whom? It's being run by BP. Rather, reminiscent of the recent failed Port Deal; In which some outfit out of Dubai would control, lock- stock and barrell a considerable number of U.S. Ports with the Prez's blessing. We need not enquire about who is running the Panama Canal (China) since our pull-out last century.

So the pipes haven't been "pigged-out" in a long time, and corrosion has set in. So, logically we have to shut down the operation of a Pipeline of over 500 miles for 8 months, or so. If you believe that one, you'll believe the Wizard of Oz is really running things behind the scenes. Well, I think he is ,and I think his role model is Machiavelli. And I think his favorite Statesman (Mason) was Albert Pike who supposedly along with other illumunist of his day planned WWI, WWII, and WWIII (aka West vs. Islam). Call me paranoid, but I know when I'm being lied to. You gotta get up pretty early in the morning to fool me, I'm up by 4:30 AM. Hoodwinked, bamboozled, flim-flamed, or Shanghaied. Pick one of these verbs for yourself, and I'll tell you that's what's being done to John Q and Jane Q. Public. If you think $3 per Gallon is too much wait until these maniacs pull the latest rabbit out of there hats. As Rocky would say: "Again!"