Bushladen

SSRN-Cooperative Federalism and Police Reform: Using Congressional Spending Power to Promote Police Accountability by Kami Simmons: "Simmons, Kami Chavis, Cooperative Federalism and Police Reform: Using Congressional Spending Power to Promote Police Accountability (March 22, 2010). Wake Forest Univ. Legal Studies Paper No. 1576688. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1576688"

Who Needs Enemies When You Have Political Friends Like These?

2010-12-02T15:06:00.000-08:00

Eric Holder, Hillary Clinton and the Administration are revealed in a new Mother Jones published print account as having high level contacts, diplomatic and state department communiques with the Spanish govt

to protect six former Cheney Administrative contacts and DOJ lawyer John Yoo who created the "torture memo" along with Alberto Gonzales...

from a high profile, announced Spanish high commission on human and international rights judiciary inquiry into the human rights criminal investigation of these Six republican legal and administrative and DOJ officials...

at stake was America' image of a "human rights advocate worldwide"

pressure was clearly brought to bear upon high ranking Spanish authorities to NOT proceed with any such inquiry and investigation into Bush/Cheney's horrible human rights violations and critical memos which basically broke every international and some domestic legal treaty obligations pertaining to war time torture activities...

...the suprising thing about this revelation, is they weren't protected by right wing nutjobs, or partisan wingnuts

but top present day Obama administration liberals and their agencies and even our State Department communiques along with a good dose of Republican Latin state department officials...

...with the top Spanish AG and other judiciary officials

...what exactly was communicated to end this prosecution of these six culpable americans from an international inquiry into their torture policies, is yet to be fully revealed'

and quite possibly, will never be fully revealed nor the subject of any congressional oversight committee anytime soon

[you can just imagine this congress taking up such a hearing...on what was stated to the Spanish authorities to stop this open and publically disclosed, formal, extremely routine, professional official human rights Court inquiry ...

its just another example however how real politics gets the job done...
at the expense of our national purpose and express highest principles and many many individuals who were directly impacted and subjected to significant human rights violations and deprivations directly resulting from these "legal memos"...

the question that this leaves with the watching world and for all american citizens; are we trying now, to protect America's image? or her principles abroad?

when these do not square with real politics we see which of the two wins...[hint: its not exactly our Constitutional democratic idealogy... ]

one has to wonder...

Bush and Bid Laden's Brother: Bathing in Old News In Houston Texas

2007-09-01T22:56:00.000-07:00

Tracking bin Laden's money flow leads back to Midland, Texas
by Wayne Madsen
On September 24, President George W. Bush appeared at a press conference in the White House Rose Garden to announce a crackdown on the financial networks of terrorists and those who support them. “U.S. banks that have assets of these groups or individuals must freeze their accounts,” Bush declared. “And U.S. citizens or businesses are prohibited from doing business with them.”
But the president, who is now enjoying an astounding 92 percent approval rating, hasn’t always practiced what he is now preaching: Bush’s own businesses were once tied to financial figures in Saudi Arabia who currently support bin Laden.
In 1979, Bush’s first business, Arbusto Energy, obtained financing from James Bath, a Houstonian and close family friend. One of many investors, Bath gave Bush $50,000 for a 5 percent stake in Arbusto. At the time, Bath was the sole U.S. business representative for Salem bin Laden, head of the wealthy Saudi Arabian family and a brother (one of 17) to Osama bin Laden. It has long been suspected, but never proven, that the Arbusto money came directly from Salem bin Laden. In a statement issued shortly after the September 11 attacks, the White House vehemently denied the connection, insisting that Bath invested his own money, not Salem bin Laden’s, in Arbusto.
In conflicting statements, Bush at first denied ever knowing Bath, then acknowledged his stake in Arbusto and that he was aware Bath represented Saudi interests. In fact, Bath has extensive ties, both to the bin Laden family and major players in the scandal-ridden Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI) who have gone on to fund Osama bin Laden. BCCI defrauded depositors of $10 billion in the ’80s in what has been called the “largest bank fraud in world financial history” by former Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During the ’80s, BCCI also acted as a main conduit for laundering money intended for clandestine CIA activities, ranging from financial support to the Afghan mujahedin to paying intermediaries in the Iran-Contra affair.
When Salem bin Laden died in 1988, powerful Saudi Arabian banker and BCCI principal Khalid bin Mahfouz inherited his interests in Houston. Bath ran a business for bin Mahfouz in Houston and joined a partnership with bin Mahfouz and Gaith Pharaon, BCCI’s frontman in Houston’s Main Bank.
The Arbusto deal wasn’t the last time Bush looked to highly questionable sources to invest in his oil dealings. After several incarnations, Arbusto emerged in 1986 as Harken Energy Corporation. When Harken ran into trouble a year later, Saudi Sheik Abdullah Taha Bakhsh purchased a 17.6 percent stake in the company. Bakhsh was a business partner with Pharaon in Saudi Arabia; his banker there just happened to be bin Mahfouz.
Though Bush told the Wall Street Journal he had “no idea” BCCI was involved in Harken’s financial dealings, the network of connections between Bush and BCCI is so extensive that the Journal concluded their investigation of the matter in 1991 by stating: “The number of BCCI-connected people who had dealings with Harken—all since George W. Bush came on board—raises the question of whether they mask an effort to cozy up to a presidential son.” Or even the president: Bath finally came under investigation by the FBI in 1992 for his Saudi business relationships, accused of funneling Saudi money through Houston in order to influence the foreign policies of the Reagan and first Bush administrations.
Worst of all, bin Mahfouz allegedly has been financing the bin Laden terrorist network—making Bush a U.S. citizen who has done business with those who finance and support terrorists. According to USA Today, bin Mahfouz and other Saudis attempted to transfer $3 million to various bin Laden front operations in Saudi Arabia in 1999. ABC News reported the same year that Saudi officials stopped bin Mahfouz from contributing money directly to bin Laden. (Bin Mahfouz’s sister is also a wife of Osama bin Laden, a fact that former CIA Director James Woolsey revealed in 1998 Senate testimony.)
When President Bush announced he is hot on the trail of the money used over the years to finance terrorism, he must realize that trail ultimately leads not only to Saudi Arabia, but to some of the same financiers who originally helped propel him into the oil business and later the White House. The ties between bin Laden and the White House may be much closer than he is willing to acknowledge.
Wayne Madsen, an investigative journalist based in Washington, is the author of Genocide and Covert Operations in Africa 1993-1999.