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September 16, 2007: Draft News from 9/12 to 9/17 |
CORRUPTION UPDATES 116
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Small Israeli force enters Gaza
A small Israeli force has entered the Gaza Strip, but the army offered no details beyond confirming the operation was taking place.
Story from BBC NEWS: September 14, 2007;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/6994445.stm
Local Palestinian residents said the Israeli force included tanks and other armoured vehicles.
Tensions have risen sharply between Israel and the Islamist group Hamas, which took undisputed control of Gaza in May after routing pro-Fatah rivals.
Troops entered the coastal strip at the southern Sufa crossing.
Palestinian sources quoted by the Israeli media said clashes broke out between gunmen and Israeli troops, with the help of helicopters and tanks.
On Thursday night, Israeli forces accompanied by helicopters were reported to be operating in the central and northern Gaza Strip.
Daily violence between militants in Gaza and Israeli troops - with rocket attacks on one side and incursions and air strikes on the other - has led to speculation that Israel may launch a large-scale invasion.
"Israel" Thievery of Arab Lands continues from 1948 to Present
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July 20, 2007
Israel has no legitimate basis. Israel is based on violence, ethnic cleansing, and the military, economic and political power of the United States, and nothing else.
All of Israel is occupied land gained through terrorism, war, and other crimes against humanity.
Until the US recognizes these facts, the middle east will resist, and eventually overthrow, our Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian Dictators. Then the middle east will destroy Israel.
Until the US defines "democracy" as something more than a thin cover for Corporate control of our nation's politics, our middle eastern foreign policy will continue to be nothing more than a tool of the Oil and Israel lobbies. Both political parties have been corrupted by these fascistic interests, and both parties are incapable of dealing honestly with the middle east.
The dismal situation in Iraq represents the final failure of Democracy in America, not the spread of American Democracy.
America's unwarranted attack on Iraq represents the victory of wealth and power over our American democracy, and our foreign policy. In the case of the Iraq war, we got an example of the massive power of the Oil and Israeli lobbies to easily use America's power and wealth to advance their criminal agendas. They have stolen yet another nation. Except this time their hand is wedged tight in the cookie jar.
The Iraq war, and how it came about, does not represent the actions of a democratic country. The Iraq war represents the actions of a corporate fascist state.
Unfortunately for us, the majority of Arabs who are suffering under our various middle eastern dictators and the iron fist of our Jewish colony, have concluded that what we call "democracy" is completely unjust, patently immoral and unacceptable, and are instead embracing political forms based on religion.
Sadly, these religiously based systems, despite their considerable drawbacks and shortcomings, provide considerably more justice than our "democratic" system delivers.
The fault for the rise of extreme islamic radicalism lies with us, with us for allowing our own corporate christian taliban to smash our democracy, and seize the reigns of our foreign policy.
The rise of radical islam is nothing more than a response to our own extreme corruption, which is also the source of the loss of our own democracy.
This tragedy did not begin with 911, as our political and media liars constantly tell us. 911, and many more tragedies to come, began with the loss of our democracy, and our imposition of dictators and tyrants on countries in every continent in the world.
Resistance to American-supported puppet governments around the world is growing rapidly as colonized nations are rejecting our farcical "democratic" governments run by dictators, and seizing the right to define their own identities, cultures, and political systems.
This inevitable post-colonial evolution will only stop if America recognizes the right of every country in the world, especially the nations sitting on top of Oil, mineral resources, and labor, to self-determination and self-definition without us threatening them with war, death squads, or military coups to seize their assets.
If we continue to pursue our program of corporate globalism, the post colonial revolution we are experiencing will end with the violent destruction of our middle eastern dictatorships, Israel, and the shattering of our globalized web of corporate thievery.
A Democrat Congress and President is not going to change this scenario one iota. Until we reimpose democracy on our corporate politicians and release our "free" press from its corporate bondage, the corporate politicians of both parties will only be capable of spreading our corruption and tyranny, not our Democratic Principals, around the world.
The global revolution of democracy must start here, not over there.
Mearsheimer and Walt, March 2006, THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY.
Book Review by Kim Petersen: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe.
Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007; Israel eyes Gaza
Al-Ahram, Egypt, 30 August - 5 September, 2007; 'No elections if Hamas will win'
Full link list of Israel Abstracts
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U.S. Confirms Israeli Strikes Hit Syrian Target Last Week
By MARK MAZZETTI and HELENE COOPER
NY Times, September 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/world/middleeast/12syria.html?ref=
WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 — After days of silence from the Israeli government, American officials confirmed Tuesday that Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes inside Syria last week, the first such attack since 2003.
A Defense Department official said Israeli jets had struck at least one target in northeastern Syria last Thursday, but the official said it was still unclear exactly what the jets hit and the extent of the bombing damage.
Syria has lodged a protest at the United Nations in response to the airstrike, accusing Israel of “flagrant violation” of its airspace. But Israel’s government has repeatedly declined to comment on the matter.
Yet Another Unilateral Act of War by Israel
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October 13, 2007
The US and Israel continue to act as if they were above the law. We have convinced ourselves and each other that we are justified in committing crimes against humanity and international law whenever we feel like it.
Thus the Jews feel justified in keeping the Arabs in a vast Warsaw Ghetto, starving, bombing, and arbitrarily killing the residents of the Gaza Ghetto at will.
We Americans have complimented this fascism by propping up a ring of western bitch dictators around Israel's borders.
Our Middle-Eastern foreign policy is doomed to violently fail, along with Israel.
Bush "Democracy" Requires People Vote for Bush's Side, or our Dictators will Brand you as a "Terrorist" and Kill you.
America only respects elections that have a preordained Outcome: our dictator wins.
Why We Must Negotiate with Hamas
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., June, 2007
The governments of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt are American supported dictatorships who have no democratic or Islamic legitimacy. Their Kingdoms are propped up by American political, military and economic support.
The opponents of these regimes have been labeled "terrorists," as have the opponents of Israel Occupation.
50 years of denying the democratic rights of colonized Arabs, especially the Palestinians, has caused Arabs to look towards religion, rather than secular Western "democracy," for political justice.
Our denial of democratic justice to the Middle-East has radicalized resistance by forcing insurgents to depart "democracy," and find justification for their resistance to Western Imperialism in religion. Our "democracy" has delivered nothing but dictators, invasions, occupations, and injustice by any standard.
Thus our military and political victories, as complete as they seem to us, have laid the groundwork for our ultimate failure. Our victory has repudiated our legitimacy, and empowered radical Islam to provide justice and legitimacy to replace our secular democratic injustices.
The ethical and moral void created when the West and its dictators denied political legitimacy, democracy, and self-determination to Arabs is now filled with radical Islam.
50 years of military domination and occupation has not forced the Palestinians to accept defeat. Instead, they brazenly deny Israeli victory, and willingly give up their lives in asymmetrical warfare against the overwhelming superiority of Israeli and American weapons.
An American Patriot once said he was sorry he had only one life to give, in pursuit of his country's freedom.
The Palestinians are, at their most destructive, no threat to Israel. The real threat the Palestinians pose to to the Israeli-American domination of the Middle-East is their refusal, at the cost of lives, liberties, and property, to accept Israel's "victory," over them, let alone accept the terms of victory the Israelis are dictating.
This bare rejection of Israeli legitimacy is a shining example of the triumph of the spirit of freedom and justice even when crushed under the treads of an American supplied Israeli tank.
Our response to this temerity is to declare the defeated, occupied residents of Palestine who refuse to accept Israeli victory, occupation, and domination "Terrorists."
This designation, according to Bush, puts the Palestinians beyond the pale of humanity, and the protections of international law. They may be kidnapped, tortured, and killed with extra-legal impunity.
The Ironic counterpoint to our "war on terror," is that to maintain the pretense of Israeli legitimacy in the Middle-East we fund and arm the Saudi, Jordanian and Egyptian Dictatorships. These governments recognize no civil rights. They arbitrarily detain, torture, and kill their opponents.
Our state sponsored terror has stimulated individual "terror," which has triggered a flood tide of American state terror. Now we have a self-sustaining cycle of terror that is going to alter the political geography of the Middle-East.
Our Middle-Eastern Dictatorships repay our support by recognizing the legitimacy of Israel. They can only recognize Israel by holding their people in check at gunpoint.
Calling Islamic resistance to foreign dictators and foreign occupation "terrorism" is a thin effort win the war of words, and define away legitimate domestic political resistance to American backed dictators.
But as I pointed out above, Arabs are retreating from Western political and diplomatic forms, which have completely failed them, and are now basing the legitimacy of their insurgencies on Islam.
Winning the war of words is irrelevant when you have lost the war for the hearts and minds of the Middle-East.
The change in the terms of legitimacy in the Middle-East, from secular to Islamic, was spawned by our long term abuses of Palestine and our long term support of despotic regimes.
Iraq has merely released long pent up forces, instantly, and has accelerated the de colonization that was already changing the political landscape of the Middle-East.
Bush's definition of terrorism, combined with his attacks on Islamic nations, when coupled with our long term support of Arabic dictatorships, has created the conditions for a perfect storm of Islamic legitimacy to blow down our corrupted Middle-Eastern Empire.
This reversion to Islamic legitimacy has made American support for our dictatorships there as much a threat to their continuation in power, as our support is necessary for these dictators to continue in power.
These governments will instantly crumble in open elections, or if our military and economic support was withdrawn. They are presently under serious domestic pressure for accepting our support.
American supported dictatorships in the Middle-East have only one viable solution to this contradiction: radicalizing their positions to reflect their peoples' hatred of America. Only by putting themselves at the head of rising popular sentiment against American interference can our dictators hope to retain power.
Our dictators must do this to maintain what little moral authority they still have over their people, to postpone the day when they either pay for their disloyalty with their heads, go radically "native," or flee to the protection of the United States.
Bush has accelerated the process of Middle-Eastern de colonization by highlighting and inflaming Arabic rage against their American supported dictators by de legitimizing the Palestinians as "terrorists," and attempting to steal Iraq.
Our grasping for empire has hastened the inevitable fall, or radicalization of the Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian dictatorships. This will end the Arab peoples' forced recognition of Israel, and leave Israel in a considerably degraded negotiating position.
Israel's legitimacy cannot be honestly recognized in the Middle-East until the Arab peoples have rid themselves of their American dictatorships, and form legitimate governments that represent their beliefs, positions, and interests.
Only then will there be legitimate negotiating partners that represents the Arab's true perspective on Israel.
This has already happened in Iran and Syria. And it should come as no surprise that they hate and mistrust both Israel and the US.
Until we stop imposing dictators and policies on the Middle-East who serves our interests above local self-determination and self-rule, we will continue to be attacked by people who will go to great lengths to give up their lives to kill us.
We can strengthen and expand this hatred, by crushing the Arabs as they revolt against American dictatorships. This will fail, and when the Arabs finally defeat their American-Backed Dictators, and gain true independence and freedom from our empire, there will be hell to pay for both Israel and the US.
Or we can diminish the hatred. We have a choice with the parts of the Middle East we still control, Let's tell our Arab dictators that our reign of terror is over, and so is theirs.
We can demand free and fair elections under threat of taking away the military and political umbrella of protections that we shield our Egyptian, Saudi, Jordanian, and Pakistani dictators with.
It is obvious that rather than justice, we have chosen the path of greed and power. We have chosen to strengthen tyranny and increase violence to pursue wealth and power. This will fail, and it will fail in a bloodbath.
When failure occurs, the survivors, the rich Saudi Princes, and the minions of the Egyptian dictator, will move here, their true “homeland,” with billions of stolen dollars, just as the Cubans and Iranians have.
We can still avoid the bloody birth of an independent Middle-Eastern Enemy. Before us lays a critical choice. We can continue down the present path of supporting dictatorships and occupations which are accelerating the breakdown of our moral authority and legitimacy.
Our legitimacy, and the legitimacy of our various dictatorships, no longer extends beyond the range of our weapons.
Our other option is to radically shift direction by empowering Hamas as a legitimately elected representative of the Palestinians, and begin peace negotiations that respect their position. Our only requirement should be that they come to the negotiation table.
This would have to be accompanied by an refusal to fund or arm Israel unless they agreed to put the legitimacy of Israel up for negotiation with Hamas. We would also have to de fund, disarm, and demand that our Middle-Eastern Dictatorships immediately democratize. Our first demand must be that the region's armies have no role in domestic politics or security.
The price Israeli would pay for legitimacy in negotiations with Hamas would be substantial. But giving up East Jerusalem, Golan, the right of return, and linking the West Bank with Gaza would not just buy peace for Israel, but would de fang Islamic fundamentalism around the world.
If Israel fairly negotiates for its legitimacy with the Palestinians, rather than imposing itself through violence, the United States will no longer need to fund and support regional dictators to protect Israel. A deal between Hamas and Israel would defuse the vast majority of Islamic hatred for the Jews.
But even more importantly, an honestly negotiated settlement between Israel and Palestine would re legitimize the validity of western secular democracy and be more effective at deflating the expansion of radical Islam than any dictator or war on "terror" we ever could throw at them.
We've thrown vinegar on the Arabs for long enough. Let's try sugar.
Unfortunately, the state of American Politics makes it virtually impossible to rip our foreign policy out of the grip of Big Oil and the Israeli Lobby. The only way to stop our government from supporting tyranny around the world is to take it back from the corporate fascists who have captured our parties, elections, and the government itself. A tall order indeed.
The problem is deeper than party or political belief. Our democratic system itself has been hijacked by wealth and power. Our government fights for wealth and power around the world because these forces have captured our democracy here.
The fact is that we are no longer a democracy, independent of which party controls which branch of government. Both parties are tools of wealth and power, and use our foreign policy as a weapon of empire to expand the profit and power of their corporate masters.
Look for the US to attempt to bomb Iran into the Stone Age, triggering a massive regional war, if not an eventual global conflict.
At the very least our policies of violence and greed will midwife the bloody emergence of an independent, post-colonial Middle-East, and will formalize a new world balance of power that will feature China, Russia and India rising to fill the power vacuum our moral and military blunders are creating. American control of the world oil markets is ending.
For the Middle-East this will involve changing the definition of "terrorism" from applying it to those who oppose tyranny, to those who impose tyranny.
That's us.
Mearsheimer and Walt, March 2006, THE ISRAEL LOBBY AND U.S. FOREIGN POLICY.
Book Review by Kim Petersen: The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappe.
Full link list of Israel Abstracts
Search the Corruption Database under
Israel
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Marching to war with cold feet
Was an Israeli attack on Syria averted by good defence? asks Sami Moubayed
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/862/re82.htm
Israeli warplanes violated Syrian airspace on 6 September, penetrating deep into Syrian territory to Deir ez-Zour near the border with Turkey. Syrian defences confronted them, forcing the four Israeli warplanes to drop their fuel and ammunition in order to secure a rapid exodus.
. News of the Israeli intrusion was surprisingly released not by Israel, as one would have expected, but by the Syrians themselves. A few days before that, Ehud Barak had said that his country was not interested in war with the Syrians, despite serious mobilisation of Israeli troops on the border with Syria. The Syrians seemed to believe him and that is why they consider what happened on 6 September as foul play. Syria's allies Turkey, Russia and Iran immediately condemned the attack. The United States and Israel refused to comment.
Violating airspace is common in the Lebanese-Israeli conflict, but not as frequent when it comes to Syria, where the Golan front has been quiet since 1973. Back in 2001, Israel struck Syrian radar posts in Dahr Al-Baydar in Lebanon. In October 2003, they hit the Syrian village of Ain Al-Saheb near Damascus, claiming that it was being used as a training camp for Palestinian militants during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. The camp was in fact empty.
The last time Israeli violated Syrian airspace was in June 2006. All of these events were seen merely as Israeli muscle-flexing; by no means did they imply that Israel was interested in going to war against Syria. This time, however, the mood is different in the Middle East.
Since crushing Hizbullah is very difficult it would be senseless for a second round in Lebanon. It would be wiser, many Israelis reasoned, to go to war with Syria to neutralise Hizbullah and cut off its main supply line. This would end the Hizbullah danger, they believed.
Syrian MP Mohamed Habash believes that "what happened was an attempted attack. But it definitely failed and that is what led to the contradictions in Israeli declarations." Former MK Azmi Bishara seconded Habash's opinion, claiming that what happened on 6 September was "an aerial operation, not an [airspace] violation in order to send a message." He described the operation as extremely serious, pointing out that it may have been carried out to test Syrian defences. Speaking from Rome, Vice- President Farouk Al-Sharaa said: "all I can say is that the military and political echelon is looking into a series of responses as we speak. Results are forthcoming." All options were on the table, the Syrian VP was saying, without ruling out military responses.
THE COMMITTEE SAYS:
Clouds of War Gathering over Greater Middle-East
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October 13, 2007
After fifty years of American Imperial Dominance, the Middle-East is finally fighting like mad to break out of the Military Headlock we have held them in, as we struggle like mad to reassert control of their governments, politics, economics, and most importantly, their oil.
We will only recognize our failure of ethics, our political values, after we lose. Before we reach this moment we will force a bloody war that will force the rebirth of an independent Middle-East.
This attack on Syria is, like our attack on Iraq, just another blow in our struggle to maintain control of the Middle-East and its oil.
But these attacks no longer suppress dissent. Instead, our attacks on independent Muslims now have the effect of destabilizing our regional dictatorships by inspiring, rather than suppressing, greater resistance to foreign domination.
When the US attacks Iran, Israel will invade Lebanon, and attack Syria. Egypt will fall to the Muslim Brotherhood. Jordan will last as an ally for 3 seconds after war breaks out, and will try to navigate "neutrality,," until Hussien is picked-off, or flees the country. The Gulf Emirates will go "native," and embrace a Western-Free Islam.
Iran will reinforce all insurgent forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, send repeated special forces into Saudi Arabia to attack oil facilities, close the Persian Gulf, and bombard Israel with "Scuds."
China and Russia will militarily and politically reinforce Iran.
These Iranian response to an American air attack on Iran will require that we significantly reinforce our positions in Iraq and Afghanistan, requiring a domestic draft. The current "surge" in Iraq was sent to bolster forces prepatory to attacking Iran, not to gain control of Iraq.
The attack on Iran will further destabilize our tottering regional dictatorships, and bring American defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan into clear view. This impending defeat will induce our idiot corporate fascist politicians, of both parties, to consent to an invasion of Iran with ground forces.
From that point on the whole of the Middle-East will be embroiled in war. Our dictators in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan will be fighting for their lives against domestic insurgencies. Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran will be fighting invading armies.
Our armies will not be defeated in the field, but will be forced from the field in defeat by the breakdown of our global empire and economy.
Corruption Updates 97, 1st article on the page, Bush fuels middle eastern Arms Race
Abstracts on Egypt
Abstracts on Iran
Seymore Hersh, The New Yorker, “The Redirection”
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Iran
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Iranian Sisyphus: Rafsanjani returns to high position
Al Ahram, 13 - 19 September 2007;
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/862/re83.htm
If Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's recent election as chairman of the Assembly of Experts restores some balance between various camps of the Iranian regime, it by no means signifies a radical change in tack. After all, Rafsanjani has been an integral part of the ruling order since the victory of the Iranian Revolution in 1979. His influence would ebb at times, but never to the degree of exclusion from the narrow circle of decision-makers in Tehran.
Rafsanjani's star began to rise in Iran's post-revolutionary skies while they were still lit by Ayatollah Al-Khomeini. He was Iran's de facto commander-in-chief during the Iraq-Iran War (1980-1988) and it was he who issued the decision to accept the ceasefire. Following Khomeini's death, it was Rafsanjani who orchestrated the transfer of power to the current supreme leader Sayed Ali Khamenei, whose extensive powers over executive decisions, the armed forces, the judiciary, the Guardian Council, the national media and the clergy dwarf the powers of the president.
Rafsanjani served as the first speaker of the Majlis of Iran, the post-revolutionary parliament, after which he was catapulted to the presidency, from 1989-1997. He was then appointed head of the Expediency Discernment Council, which resolves legislative differences between the Majlis and the Council of Guardians.
With his recent appointment as chairman of the Assembly of Experts, Rafsanjani added a new post to his impressive CV. It is not an insignificant position. This 86-member body, consisting exclusively of clergymen elected by popular vote, is the sole authority empowered to elect or dismiss a supreme leader. Yet, in spite of the fact that he is now both the head of this assembly and the head of the Council of Guardians, his combined constitutional authorities are still not as extensive as Iran's number-two man, the president, let alone the supreme leader.
Abstracts on Iran
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Greenspan Faults Bush Over Spending
By JEANNINE AVERSA and ANN SANNER, Associated Press Writers
SF Chron, September 15, 2007
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/15/national/w103118D67.DTL
(09-15) 19:48 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, in his new book, bashes President Bush for not responsibly handling the nation's spending and racking up big budget deficits.
A self-described "libertarian Republican," Greenspan takes his own party to task for forsaking conservative principles that favor small government.
"My biggest frustration remained the president's unwillingness to wield his veto against out-of-control spending," Greenspan wrote.
And he weighed in briefly but pointedly on the Iraq war: "I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil."
Bush took office in 2001, the last time the government produced a budget surplus. Every year after that, the government has been in the red. In 2004, the deficit swelled to a record $413 billion.
"The Republicans in Congress lost their way," Greenspan wrote. "They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither. They deserved to lose."
Greenspan's memoir, "The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World," is scheduled for release Monday.
Greenspan, 81, ran the Fed for 18 1/2 years and was the second-longest serving chief. He served under four presidents, starting with his initial nomination by Ronald Reagan.
Greenspan tells truth after Years of Lying:
Telling the Truth too Late
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October 13, 2007
Greenspan has been at the helm of the Fed during the concentration of the greatest amount of wealth in the fewest people's hands in all human history.
Greenspan's tireless work at the Fed was vital to making the political and economic policies of corporate fascism work.
Now, Greenspan's bitching about the consequences of his policy of serving unmitigated greed in our country sound like the Devil trying to talk his way into heaven.
Corruption Updates 59, 6th article on the page, Greenspan Remarks Deflate Market Mood
era of easy money over, financial times, 1-2-08
Abstracts on Economics
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Alaska: Former Executive Says He Bribed State Lawmakers
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 14, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/14/us/14brfs-FORMEREXECUT_BRF.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print
The former head of an oil field service company said in federal court that he bribed three Alaska legislators, including the son of a senator who is under federal investigation. The man, Bill Allen, 70, the former chief executive of the VECO Corporation, testified in the corruption trial of former Speaker Pete Kott of the state House. Mr. Allen is awaiting sentencing on bribery charges.
He said he bribed Mr. Kott; the former State Senate president, Ben Stevens; and former Representative Vic Kohring. Mr. Stevens, the son of United States Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, is under federal investigation but has not been charged.
The Apple doesn't Fall Far From the Tree
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., September , 2007
Corruption Updates 1, 10th article on page, "BIG OIL OWNS OUR POLITICIANS"
Corruption Updates 5, 3rd article on page, "Politics in Alaska Under Investigation"
Corruption Updates 24, 4th article on page, "Big Oil Owns Interior Dept"
Corruption Updates 55, 1st article on page, "Alaska Oil Executives Admit to Bribery"
Corruption Updates 70, 6th article on page, "Alaska II, Big Oil's Control of Alaska Contested by FBI"
Corruption Updates 97, 6th article on the page, U.S. Sen. Stevens' Home Searched by FBI
Search the Corruption Database under
Alaska (12 Abstracts)
Big Oil
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In Alaska, scandal flows like crude
Many of the investigations lead to oilman Bill J. Allen. The scope of corruption threatens to reshape the state's political landscape and touch Sen. Stevens.
By Scott Martelle
Times Staff Writer
LAT, August 17, 2007
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-stevens17aug17,0,622334,full.story?coll=la-home-center
From the Los Angeles Times
There are generally two views here about the career trajectory of Bill J. Allen, an oilman and political wheeler-dealer who over four decades built his VECO Corp. into one of the state's largest and most influential companies.
He was driven by greed, or by a thirst for political power.
How Allen wielded his considerable influence is a major strand in a knot of political scandals that have touched both of Alaska's U.S. senators -- including longtime powerhouse Republican Ted Stevens -- its sole congressman and at least six members of the Legislature.
And the scandals -- some overlapping, some stand-alone -- have shaken the state's small political world to its core.
Allen's relationship with Stevens is key to some of the inquiries. The VECO executive oversaw the 2000 renovation of Stevens' home in Girdwood, a picturesque enclave about 40 miles south of Anchorage. Federal agents searched the house in late July. Stevens has declined to discuss the investigation other than to say that he has done nothing wrong.
But in a sign that the investigations are broadening, National Science Foundation spokesman Dana W. Cruikshank confirmed Anchorage Daily News reports Thursday that the FBI was looking into $170 million in contracts VECO won beginning in 1999 to support foundation polar research programs. When the first contract was awarded, Stevens was an influential member of the Senate Commerce Committee, which oversees the foundation.
The scope of the scandals is staggering in a state with fewer than 700,000 residents -- smaller than San Francisco.
Allen and VECO Vice President Richard L. Smith have pleaded guilty to bribing or attempting to bribe five state representatives, three of whom have been indicted.
Allen and Smith said in court documents that they illegally funneled more than $400,000 to political candidates, including about $243,000 to an unidentified politician believed to be Ben Stevens, Ted Stevens' son and the former head of the state Senate. He has not been charged.
Search warrants have been executed on several businesses and homes -- including those of Ben Stevens -- as investigators try to untangle connections among Allen, the Stevenses, Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska) and state politicians.
In another unrelated controversy, Alaska's other U.S. senator, Republican Lisa Murkowski, recently announced she was returning 1.27 acres she had bought along the Kenai River for $179,000, or about $100,000 less than what local real estate experts reported it might be worth, according to an overview in a complaint filed July 24 with a Senate ethics panel.
Corporate Democracy Continues to Corrupt American Democracy
The Below was written on September 1, 2006
POLITICS IN ALASKA UNDER INVESTIGATION:
The ownership of Alaskan politics by the oil industry has an unusual challenger:
The FBI
This 20 search warrants executed on the political leaders of Alaska are described in this article. Apparently, legal political contributions were mistaken for influence peddling and bribery linked to a new production tax law, and a draft natural gas pipeline contract Little solid information about corruption is offered in this article, but since corporate contributions legally buy favorable contracts, policies, laws, it's hard to see how any law was broken.
Whatever anyone says about Alberto Gonzales, his corruption attorneys are prosecuting corruption, and they have plenty of corruption to prosecute. You can't turn around without stepping into a pile of corruption. Except there is one minor problem. Corruption is legal, under our Campaign Finance laws.
The Alaskan warrants, if productive, indicate a particularly intense greed. George Bush was put into the presidency by a special interest coalition led by the oil companies. Enron's internal abuses are now legendary, but the external economic and political power of Enron, and the whole energy industry has been so profitable, and the money spread so widely among the political parties, that it would take an extremely voracious greed to break the law, and threaten their legally sanctioned corrupt profits.
This article cites six of the that warrants were served on the offices of:
“Republican Senate President Ben Stevens, whose father is Alaska's senior senator, who has reported collecting more than $240,000 in consulting fees.”
State Sen. John Cowdery, the Senate Rules chairman.
Republican state Rep. Vic Kohring.
Republican state Rep. Bruce Weyhrauch.
Democratic state Sen. Donald Olson.
Republican state Rep. Pete Kott.
The rest of the warrants were served on a “Republican pollster,” and VECO Corp, apparently a powerful force in Alaskan Oil Politics.
The problem was that Bill Allen and Richard Smith, executives of “oil field services giant” VECO Corp. may have been a little too enthusiastic with their political participation. And the politicians a little too enthusiastic about about pursuing careers in Big Oil after their terms expired. Mr. Volz reported that, “Agents also looked for documents about contracts, agreements or employment of legislators provided by VECO, Allen, Smith and company president Peter Leathard. This must be stopped.
Abstracts on Alaska Corruption
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Big Oil
Alaska
Stevens
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8) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
More Studies Cast Doubt on Safety of Diabetes Drug
By GARDINER HARRIS
NY Times, September 12, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/12/health/12drug.html?ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=print
Two more studies published in yet another prominent medical journal have raised questions about the safety of Avandia, a once-popular diabetes medicine.
One study found that Avandia, made by GlaxoSmithKline, doubled the risks of heart failure and raised the risks of heart attack by 42 percent. A second study found that Actos, a similar drug made by Takeda, actually lowered the risks of heart attacks, strokes and death but, like Avandia, also raised risks of heart failure.
Taken together, some of the authors said, the two studies in The Journal of the American Medical Association confirm what doctors and patients using Avandia have already done in great numbers, that is, switch to another drug. Sales of Avandia have plunged.
GlaxoSmithKline said in a written statement that the studies were flawed and “offered no new information on the safety of Avandia.”
First Vioxx, Now FDA Allows Pharmaceutical Giant to Kill with Avandia
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July , 2007
At the FDA it is almost impossible to tell where the Government begins, and the influence of the pharmaceutical industry ends. In Congress and the White House the influence of the pharmaceutical industry does not end, but has exerted itself to kill effective oversight by the FDA, and subsidize its obscene profits by stealing from seniors, and killing our citizens.
The reality of contemporary politics is that Industry controls the reigns of governmental regulation. Be it manufacturing, Big Oil, telecommunications, food or the pharmaceutical industries, each pays our politicians very well for the privilege to regulate themselves.
The direct relationship between the voters and their elected representatives at every level of government has been broken by the expenditure of vast sums of special interest bribe money from industry into politics.
The costs of this corruption have exceeded mere cupidity and greed, and has transformed our democratic republic into a corporate state. This has cost tens of thousands of Americans their lives, from taking unsafe drugs, eating unsafe foods, and in Iraq.
Our politicians and their corporate sponsors have stolen untold billions of dollars from the American people. They have taken us down a road to hell lined with evil intentions. We must change to course our corporate politicians and their corporate sponsors have taken us down.
The solution to this endemic corruption does not lay in changing policy or party, but can only be solved by changing who is sponsoring our politicians.
I recommend that we insist that only the individual voters be allowed to sponsor our politicians. This would do something novel, that we only get to experience in our history books: it would turn our country back to a democracy by and for the people, rather than an auction by and for the richest corporations.
That is the sole goal of our initiative. Our initiative is not designed to end corruption, but to make corruption illegal. Our goal is to break the monopoly of wealth on politics by restricting all contributions to candidates to citizens qualified to vote in the elections they contribute in.
The goal is to bring politicians into office who are actually elected by their own constituents, rather than the getting elected on a flood of special interest bribes, as is the case today.
Today voters are offered a choice between candidates who all got on the ballot by selling their souls to the special interests. Our government has been dominated by politicians who live in the deep pockets of the corporate special interests for long enough to break our democratic institutions, seriously damage every aspect of our nation's domestic health and welfare, and lead us to international conflict in a bid for world domination, globalism, as they call it these days.
The initiative cannot eliminate all outside money, for that would end the political parties, which would violate our Constitutional rights to freely assemble and speak.
The parties are Constitutionally legitimate, but have been captured by corporate wealth. The Political parties are, for the most part, vast collections of special interest money that have virtually eliminated the local voter's power to influence their local election, or control their representatives after the election.
Our initiative gets around the "party problem" by preserving their rights to assemble, speak, and channel funding that reflects their beliefs and positions into local elections.
Our Initiative merely restricts the total of combined party funding for a candidate to 30% of the total contributions collected from local voters. The parties get to assemble, speak, and contribute, but their contributions will not be allowed to either dominate local elections, or purchase our candidates.
But this is not up to me, it's up to you, and the values you have, to determine the outcome of the challenges we face.
Corruption Updates 42, 3rd article on the page, Bush Assures Health Executives Continued Massive Profits
Corruption Updates 69, 6th article on the page, Doctor Says He Was Assailed for Challenging Drug’s Safety
Corruption Updates 85, 4th article on the page, Uninsured in U.S.: 43.6 Million, Bush Assures Health Executives Continued Massive
Corruption Updates 92, 6th article on the page, Congress: FDA Lab Closure Plan Too Risky
Corruption Updates 97, 4th article on the page, Panel backs diabetes drug despite heart attack risks: First Vioxx, Now FDA Allow
Corruption Updates 97, 8th article on the page, Food in Botulism Recall Still Being Sold: American Food Supply Unsafe
Corruption Updates 98, 2nd article on the page, FDA Suspends Plans to Close Field Labs
Corruption Updates 116, 8th article on the page, More Studies Cast Doubt on Safety of Diabetes Drug
Search the Corruption Database under
Food and Drug Administration (14 Abstracts)
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9) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
Senate Democrats Warn Against Olson Pick
By LAURIE KELLMAN, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
(09-12) 14:08 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) –
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/09/12/national/w123746D64.DTL
Senate Democrats will block Ted Olson from succeeding Alberto Gonzales as attorney general if President Bush nominates him, Majority Leader Harry Reid said Wednesday.
"Ted Olson will not be confirmed," Reid, D-Nev., said in a written statement. "I intend to do everything I can to prevent him from being confirmed as the next attorney general."
Search the Corruption Database under
Democrats
Gonzales
US Attorney
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10) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.
Democrats See Politics in a Governor’s Jailing
By ADAM NOSSITER
NY Times, September 11, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/us/11siegelman.html?ref=todayspape
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — House leaders are beginning an investigation this week of the prosecution of Don Siegelman, the former Democratic governor of Alabama who was imprisoned in June on federal corruption charges. The case could become the centerpiece of a Democratic effort to show that the Justice Department engaged in political prosecutions.
Republicans strongly deny the suggestion, and as Mr. Siegelman enters the fourth month of his 88-month sentence, the case is becoming a bitter flash point between Democratic officials and the Bush administration.
Jill Simpson, an Alabama lawyer who signed an affidavit saying she overheard a Republican political operative connect the prosecution of Mr. Siegelman to Karl Rove, will be questioned under oath this week by investigators for the House Judiciary Committee. The chairman of that committee, Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan, has asked the Justice Department to turn over its documents in the case.
The department has refused his request, saying in a letter last week to the committee that “we want to avoid any perception that the conduct of our criminal investigations and prosecutions is subject to political influence.”
On Monday, Mr. Conyers called the department’s position “unacceptable,” saying of its reasoning, “This concern should lead to precisely the opposite result.”
Bankrupted Politically Corrupted Government Incapable of Administering Justice
Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., October 13, 2007
Is Senator Domenici retiring because he got busted demanding the US Attorney in New Mexico pursue exactly the same kind of prosecution the netted Siegielman of Alabama?
Rove and Weh have generated emails that prove they were trying to influence US Attorneys to initiate political prosecutions against Democrat opponents.
The Justice Department's refusal to turn over documents relating to the case indicates that they manipulated the prosecution of Siegielman the same way that they interfered in prosecution of the tobacco industry, the same way they worked sentence mitigations for their good friend Abramoff, and the way they killed an investigation into massive insurance fraud that was on the same scale as the Enron Fraud.
Despite the righteous indignation of the right wing babblers, neither the President nor any of his men have the right to initiate, stop, or interefere in the conduct of a federal prosecutor's duty, as they have repeatedly done.
It is obvious that this administration has attempted to both start prosecutions against political enemies, unpopular minority groups, civil rights groups, voting rights, domestic environmental radicals, and the anti-war people.
This must be seen in light of the ongoing use of criminal governmental powers by corporate financed interests to maintain their illegal control of our government.
Beyond corrupting the law and Justice Department during their tenure, Bush has politicized the hiring of career Justice Department employees, a clear violation of the law, and a clear and present danger to the rule of law itself under our Constitutional system.
Corruption Updates 15, 3rd article on the page, "ACORN: Allegations trip up voting rights group"
Corruption Updates 64, 10th article on the page, Ex-Governor Says Affidavit Shows Politics in Bribe Case
Corruption Updates 68, 4th article on the page, Political Indictments of Acorn may have bent Justice's rules
A Root and Branch Survey of the Politicization of Justice in the office of the US Attorney and Department of Justice.
Search the Corruption Database under
US Attorney
Gonzales
Politicization
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