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Missile Defense

Technology has always found its greatest consumer in a nation's war and defense efforts. Since the last attempts at a "Star Wars" defense system, has technology changed considerably enough to make the latest Missile Defense initiatives more successful? Can such an application of science be successful? Is a militarized space inevitable, necessary or impossible?

Read Debates, a new Web-only feature culled from Readers' Opinions, published every Thursday.

lchic - 07:32pm Jan 23, 2002 EST (#11003 of 11011)

"The Carlyle Group, which is Frank Carlucci, and the Blackstone Investment Group are virtually one and the same. Two different names, but they are virtually the same organization," he continues. "All they do is ride the crest of the waves of various frauds from country to country. Before the so-called Global Financial Crisis of 1998, Blackstone and Carlyle suddenly opened up an office in Jakarta. They didn't have an office in Jakarta before because they were very friendly with President Sukarto. Sukarto gave them all sort of inside capabilities to short, or sell short, the Indonesian rupiah which nobody really had the ability to do because the currency wasn't particularly liquid. They do on a large scale on a multi-billion dollar scale what Richard Hamil does on a multi-million dollar scale."

"They actually purchase a security, let's say US Treasury Bonds, one security with their own money. They then use that security and hypothecate it ten or twenty times to all different types of transactions. Now that kind of fraud is not particularly hard to commit, particularly if you have a trust company under your control or a trust company that's willing to play ball with you. It isnÕt that hard to take the same asset and pledge it twenty times."

Because bank officers don't do due diligence or what? I asked. "You have to understand that the securities don't move anyplace. They're just pledged. They're usually just held in an account in a securities firm."

And one bank won't tell another bank that these assets have been pledged and there's no way of finding it out? I pressed on.

"Not if you got people willing to play ball with you," Al Martin replies. "The people willing to play ball are the security firms in the United States which have long-standing relationships with, not only the CIA, but also this little Eastern Country Club Cabal, as I call it. The firms that have had longstanding intelligence activities and illegal relationships with wealthy Republicans would be undoubtedly Goldman Sachs and Merril Lynch."

You could call them the Insiders' Insider Deals. "Look where Press Secretary Regan came from," Al Martin points out. "He was the chairman of Merril Lynch."

THE BUSH FAMILY - HARKEN ENERGY FRAUD

In his online column, "Behind the Scenes of the Beltway," (http://www.almartinraw.com), Al Martin has written that "you have to look at the entire Bush Family in this context -- as if the entire family ran a corporation called 'Frauds-R-Us.' Each member of the family, George Sr. , George Jr., Neil, Jeb, Prescott, Wally, etc., have their own specialty of fraud."

"George Jr.'s specialty was insurance and security fraud. Jeb's specialty was oil and gas fraud. Neil's specialty was real estate fraud. Prescott's specialty was banking fraud. Wally's specialty was securities fraud. And George Bush Sr.'s specialty? All of the above."

In this context, the infamous Harken Energy Fraud takes on new meaning as a multi-generational family of fraudsters, using high-level insider contacts, are able to manipulate stock prices for their own profiteering.

"Harken was one of those deals that was a combination fraud as well as a manipulation," says Al Martin. "There's different types of fraud when you get into securities. When George Jr. was put in charge of Harken Energy by his father [George Herbert Walker Bush], he essentially took it down the tubes. You have to realize that every business that George Jr. has ever had has failed. That's the man's business record."

Enquiring minds want to know -- was it deliberate? "It was a deliberate act by the old man, knowing that his son would take it down the tubes because the son's incompetent," Al Martin replies.

"George Bush, Sr. and James Baker and Senator Tower would heavily short Harken stock. I have a list of everybody because I was one of them but to a much smaller extent. Harken stock was trading at 7-3/4

lchic - 07:35pm Jan 23, 2002 EST (#11004 of 11011)

"George Bush, Sr. and James Baker and Senator Tower would heavily short Harken stock. I have a list of everybody because I was one of them but to a much smaller extent. Harken stock was trading at 7-3/4 or 8, when George Jr, was put in charge of it. A year later, the stock was trading at 1-1/8 bid, 3/8 offer. They pumped the stock back up through a lot of bogus press releases and by using essentially worthless leases in Bahrain and essentially worthless South American oil leases and through sympathetic geologists making them appear to be really worth something and making it appear that Harken's about to make a strike when in fact it's all made up. It's all fictitious. And through carefully crafted broker releases and broker statements and press releases, you can pump the stock back up. This has happened sixteen times to my knowledge. Harken would get pumped back up from the dead, from say a buck, buck and a half, back to seven, seven and a half, then it would get dumped again. Originally George Jr. had control of the company. He stayed on the board." AlMartin/Book

lchic - 07:52pm Jan 23, 2002 EST (#11005 of 11011)

How does this play?

Taxpayer works, pays tax.
Tax allocated to Administration
Who put in orders with Carlyle for MD stuff
Meantime Carlyle are building a bridge to their banker's castle in the air and pushing dollars upstream
Castle-in-the-air banker re-allocates to fav charities - perhaps a baseball team
While downstream Enronisation is happening
Adminstration then turn to Congress and say

Give me more!

lchic - 08:10pm Jan 23, 2002 EST (#11006 of 11011)

What to do? What to do? What to do? rshow55 1/23/02 7:02pm

lchic - 08:28pm Jan 23, 2002 EST (#11007 of 11011)

|Head|Change|Islam|

MARGARET WARNER: So then who is going to bring about what you've called this war within Islam, not a war against Islam by the West but a war within Islam, a war for enlightenment or reform?

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: It can only come from Arabs and Muslims themselves. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/international/jan-june02/friedman_1-21.html...

MARGARET WARNER: When they say we need you, do they mean we need you Americans to be part of the force?

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Absolutely. Everyone wants us. They don't trust anyone else.

MARGARET WARNER: Not even the Europeans.

THOMAS FRIEDMAN: Not even the Europeans.

lchic - 09:03pm Jan 23, 2002 EST (#11008 of 11011)

China is introduing a REGIONAL separation of powers to limit corruption. A checking system.

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