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Stop the War demonstration, 19.03.05 – why bother?

Diarist | 16.03.2005 00:07 | Analysis | Anti-militarism | Repression | Cambridge | London

The Stop the War Coalition is organising a march and rally in London this Saturday 19th March 2005 to coincide with the second anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Similar demonstrations will be held in cities all over the world; including New York, Paris and Tokyo. But is there really anything to demonstrate against? And does demonstrating make any difference anyway?

An anti-war march? So which war are we supposed to be marching against exactly? Unless I've missed something the Iraq War ended quite a while ago.

Saddam Hussain's regime was of course defeated in April 2003. However, since then most central and some northern areas of Iraq have seen an escalating guerrilla-style war of resistance being waged against the occupying forces and their proxies. Even the south, which has been relatively free of sustained conflict, has seen two major armed uprisings in the last two years. British troops haven’t been directly involved in most of the major operations, but their presence provides crucial support for the US as it wages its counter-insurgency war. When George Bush famously announced the end of the war in April 2003 around 100 US troops had been killed in Iraq. This month the number reached 1500. Some "post war" period.

Certainly the occupiers are not involved in a traditional state v state conflict, with pitched tank, naval and aircraft battles. They are however fighting a large number of irregular forces, which clearly have a significant degree of support amongst many parts of the population. The US presents this resistance as being simply a mixture of old Saddam supporters and religious extremist Sunnis who are trying to provoke civil war with the Shia majority by unleashing suicide bombings on civilians. But many commentators now believe that such terrorist elements are in the minority, outnumbered by forces who concentrate their (less-reported) attacks mainly on the US military and are united by no more than the desire to see an Iraq free of foreign control.

The response to the rebellion has been brutal. In recent months air strikes have been called in on numerous Iraqi cities, including Mosul, Ramadi, Samarra and Falluja. No one knows how exactly many Iraqis have been killed because, as the US military says, "we don't do body counts". The best estimate so far, published in the British medical journal The Lancet says that probably well over 100,000 Iraqi civilians were killed as a result of the conflict between March 2003 and October 2004.

When Falluja was attacked in November 2004 Lieutenant Colonel Paul Newell, battalion commander with the US forces told the New York Times “This is the first time since World War II that someone has turned an American armoured task force loose in city with no restrictions. Let’s hope we don’t see it again any time soon.” Newell wasn't joking. After softening the city up for days with a sustained artillery barrage US troops attacked on 8 November 2004. Associated Press reported the experiences of its photographer, Bilal Hussein, a Falluja resident:

“Heavy bombing raids and thunderous artillery shelling turned Hussein’s northern Jolan neighbourhood into a zone of rubble and death. “I saw people lying dead in the streets, wounded were bleeding and there was no one to come out and help them. There was no medicine, water, no electricity nor food for days. US soldiers began to open fire on the houses…so I decided that it was very dangerous to stay”. Hussein planned to escape across the Euphrates river. “I decided to swim…but I changed my mind after seeing US helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river”. He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross."

Lieutenant Colonel Newell said that the residents of other cities should conclude, “this is what happens if you shelter terrorists”. The irony of describing others as “terrorists” when his own forces were using massive and unrestricted violence to teach civilians a lesson was apparently lost on him.

Falluja remains in ruins to this day. Formerly a city of 300,000, it is now reduced to dust and rubble. Try telling its remaining citizens that the war's been over for two years.

Even if there was no weapons of mass destruction, Blair lied and so on, surely Saddam's been deposed, Iraq is becoming a democracy, and these are pretty good outcomes? Isn't Iraq better off now? Why march against that?

For now, lets leave to one side the obvious point that “better than Saddam” is some way beneath the level of splendour that Bush and Blair promised for the Middle East as the fruits of their crusade. The truth is that Iraq is now in an extremely grave condition, nearly two years after a US-led coalition of wealthy and powerful nations invaded the country.

Since the invasion infant mortality has increased, more children are malnourished – now 3 in 10 – and acute malnourishment among children has almost doubled. Over 700 primary schools have been damaged by bombing, with more that 200 burned and over 3,000 looted. The south is littered with large amounts of the depleted uranium, used in US and UK ammunitions and known to cause respitory problems, kidney problems and cancer. Iraq holds the world’s second largest oil reserves yet its economy is a train-wreck, with unemployment sent soaring up to 67% as a result of US “shock-therapy”.

But the number one concern for Iraqis is security. According to Patrick Quinn of AP:

"By day or night, Baghdad has become a cacophony of automatic weapons fire, explosions and sudden death, its citizens living in constant fear of being shot by insurgents or the security forces meant to protect them. Streets are crammed with passenger cars fighting for space with armored vehicles and pickups loaded with hooded and heavily armed Iraqi soldiers. Hundreds of bombs in recent months have made mosques, public squares, sidewalks and even some central streets extremely dangerous places in Baghdad. On Haifa Street, rocket-propelled grenades sometimes fly through traffic. Rashid Street is a favorite for roadside bombers near the Tigris River.”

The state of anarchy makes media reporting from anywhere outside of Baghdad close to impossible.

As for democracy, while much talk has been made of it this was never a matter of urgency for the US. Former governor Paul Bremner had intended to drag out American rule indefinitely, but the Shia leader Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani brought mass demonstrations onto the streets in favour of elections, forcing the hand of the occupier. When the elections came turnout was high and voters jubilant in the largely peaceful Shia-dominated south, but almost nobody voted in the war ravaged, predominantly Sunni centre, leaving a government completely unrepresentative of Iraq’s cultural make-up. A serious election campaign was practically impossible, with candidates subject to death threats and unable to reveal their identity to voters as a result. Unlike in elections in East Timor and Palestine for example, international observation to guarantee a free and fair vote was nowhere to be seen. If any countries other than the US and the UK had presided over these elections they would have been held up to international ridicule.

Now, behind the newly elected government, lurks the might of the US military. It’s something of a stretch to describe a country with tens of thousands of foreign troops on its soil, bombing its towns and cities and killing its people, as free, sovereign and democratic. However, at this point we should recall that the US and the UK backed Saddam while he committed all his worst atrocities and maintained a sanctions regime upon Iraq in the 1990’s that UN officials described as genocidal, which killed over a million civilians; 4,000 under-fives per month according to UNICEF. The idea that the welfare and freedom of Iraqis can be entrusted to these governments is a contentious one, to put it rather mildly.

If Iraq's in the state you say it’s in wouldn't it be irresponsible to leave now? Wouldn't the country descend into anarchy and civil war, and possibly be taken over by religious extremists? Shouldn't the troops stay to provide the Iraqis with security?

Since the lack of security stems in no small part from the war being waged between the resistance and the occupying forces, its no great leap of logic to suppose that if the country were no longer under occupation a good deal of the violence would cease. The occupation is to an enormous extent the cause of the violence, not the solution. That much seems blindingly obvious. In fact the resistance has been responsible for far fewer “collateral” casualties than the occupiers.

One of the central questions regarding the competence of the US to provide security is that regarding its well documented practice of sexually torturing prisoners. The latest of many chilling stories to emerge is that of resistance figures broken during interrogation by being forced to watch their children undergoing torture. Its doubtful that such methods inspire feelings of security and well being amongst the population.

After a US/UK withdrawal, security provision would of course be required, at least until such time as the nascent Iraqi forces were ready to take on the task. A plan for such a force has existed for some time; made up of Muslim troops under politically neutral command, or under the command of the Iraqi Government, and so more acceptable to the population. In the absence of US/UK forces it might be politically possible to introduce such forces in greater numbers than was originally proposed. This conciliatory measure could go a long way to cooling the temperature in Iraq and securing the country. But the plan was rejected out of hand by the US, which in itself gives an indication of their true priorities.

Even if I accept what you say, why should I spend my Saturday afternoon going on a march about it? What's that going to achieve? The demonstration in London before the war was enormous and it didn't change a thing.

The first and most important reason is that we all share responsibility for what our country does. We live in a relatively free and democratic society. We’re not prevented by the state from speaking out or organising in opposition to our government. Whether by voting or by abstaining, by taking direct action or by staying at home, the net result of all our political activity or non-activity is the government of this country, no matter how poor our electoral system or how narrow our choices. Britain has taken a central role in the invasion of Iraq, is the US Government’s strongest ally on the world stage, and is plainly on the wrong side at this point in history. Since the way Britain conducts itself is literally a matter of life or death, any contribution we can make to influence how our country behaves, however small that contribution may be, is something to be taken very seriously indeed. Iraqis, for example, don’t have the luxury of being apathetic about what our government does.

Beyond Iraq, the US has made it clear that aggressive militarism is its new modus operandi - with action being considered against Syria and Iran - and that international law is something it holds in utter contempt. The question here is whether we’re content for our country to help push the world yet further in this direction, and accept responsibility for the disasters that ensue.

Without direct action the world would be very different. Its victories include the abolition of slavery, the vote, women’s suffrage, Indian independence, and ending apartheid to name but a few. In each case victory was not handed down by the powerful through sheer generosity, nor was it ever won through a single afternoon’s demonstrating, as easily as flicking a switch. It was won by ordinary people organising and acting and repeating their actions, escalating the pressure on those governments by raising the political costs of their crimes. The demonstration this Saturday won’t change things by itself, but it will certainly makes its contribution. We can’t be sure of how much we’ll achieve by joining the march, but we can be absolutely certain of how much we’ll achieve by staying away.

Diarist
- e-mail: democratsdiary@yahoo.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.democratsdiary.co.uk


Comments

Hide the following 15 comments

Stopping A War by Marching would be like winning the Lottery.

16.03.2005 06:39

I think you’re pretty much spot on.

And: “We can’t be sure of how much we’ll achieve by joining the march, but we can be absolutely certain of how much we’ll achieve by staying away.”

Going on the March is a bit like doing the Lottery: you’ve got practically zero chance of winning if you enter, and absolutely no chance if you don't. The anti-war movement is not going to stop any war, no matter how many tickets are sold to the march 19 demo.

Ed


Three reasons to get out and march on Saturday

16.03.2005 09:51

1. 100,000 Iraqis are dead because of a war based on lies. Thousands now languish in US detention camps, where torture is routine. Our own troops have also been implicated in sadistic acts of torture. Billions of dollars of oil wealth have been looted by corrupt British and American Corporations. If you think that all of this is AOK, then stay at home on Saturday and watch MTV. But if not, and if you want to do something about it, you'd be welcome to join us.

2. "Stop the War" did not prevent the US-British occupation of Iraq, but we can help to end it. And we almost certainly helped deter Tony Blair from getting involved in further "misadventures", like the Iran war that the neocons are so desperate to start. Marching on Saturday will save lives, by reminding Tony Blair (he needs it) that Britain is against this dangerous new militarism.

3. Tony Blair wants us to shrug our shoulders and "move on" from this illegal war. What he's really afraid of is that the British people will hold him accountable for his lies at the ballot box. Marching on Saturday will help to ensure that Tony's Grand Theft is not quietly forgotten about when we come to vote in May.

Richard


4 good reason to be on the demo

16.03.2005 10:06

firstly, by UK troops being involved with this illegal occupation we are in fact given a helping hand to the US and george bush's policy of further wars and more control of the world resources. Think about it, if the UK troops were to pull out tomorrow it would mean that GW Bush would have to send in 10,000 more US troops to cover the areas like Basra. This will make it more difficult for Bush&Co to start attacking other countries like Iran (which has already been singled out). I heard today that Italy is pulling out in September, therefore sapping the US military resources which is excellent news.

Secondly, everybody knows that Tony B is a liar , the attacks on civil liberties is a sign of desperation, he wants people to forget about the war and therefore divert our attention to scare mongering. This demonstration will help re-divert attention back to the war and all those who march will also be helping to defend civil liberties.

Thirdly, it not true that Iraq's want this occupation, what do the troops actually do?? remember Falllajuh - the city was blown apart in november. over 1000,000 iraqs have died as a direct result of this occupation. The troops are not trained to build hospitals and schools, they are trained to kill and serve their superiors.

forthly, The new and exciting developments in the anti-war movement is the military families against war. MFAW and veterans will be leading the demo, more and more serving troops and TAs are speaking out agianst this war, the demo is "Troops Out Of Iraq". we need to support such actions, we must remember that the vietnam war ended when the military rulers did not have control over their soldiers. It took 10yrs for the GIs to start disobeying orders and killing unpopular officers. we need to support the troops who are against this war as much as possible.

NO MORE WARS



red letter


thjsthj srtu

16.03.2005 10:07

Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, who confirmed he will seek re-election next year, alluded to the rising public discontent, saying: "I've spoken about it with (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair, and it's the public opinion of our countries that expects this decision."

xfyj j


Lets all stay at home then

16.03.2005 10:39

Lets all stay at home then until the world is run according to my ideology. Then when everything meets up to my standards of ideological purity, the world will be a fucking boring place. Otherwise I could go on the demo and try to actually achieve something, rather than scratching my fat arse and bullshitting from the comfort of my keyboard. Enough said. Go on the demo.

ultra left twats


why bother?

16.03.2005 10:52

I'm not sure that the anti-war movement had "no effect." I think there's a case that the anti-war movement may have measurably slowed the military escalation in the middle east. Rich, elected governments are as vulnerable to people power as any other type, especially in concert with other forces, and western governments are still sabre-rattling, but the tone seems rather more muted these days. This isn't success, but it's a heartening hint of possibilities. No-one seems to be saying this (that I know of), but it wouldn't be the first time that the "people power effect" had escaped notice. What does anyone think?

Simon
mail e-mail: srheywood@ukonline.co.uk


Read the article please

16.03.2005 11:14

Please read the original article carefully before making
defamatory comments. The second paragraph is in quotes
(perhaps this is not clear enough). The conclusion is
that people should be on the demo. If we keep fighting each
other Bush 'n' Blair will be laughing all the way to the next
war. We may have differences about the relative importance
of types of actions but attacking each other (and using
sexist language in doing it) will not help any of us.

Chill folks.

Nick Savage


what war???

16.03.2005 11:30

i don't see any war

i do see an illegal multi-national sponsored invasion force

i do see labelling of any dissidents as 'insurgents'
to justify an attack
[economic-psychological & physical]

on Iran Syria, and eventually North Korea and then
CHINA

i do see Prisons illegally holding & torturing dissidents/asylum/refugees
[seen as trouble-makers in repressive regimes-including UK-US axis]

i do see SYRIA a nation supposedly on the
axis of evil - used as destination for the
CIA secret rendition program


while one persom remains incarcerated under this evil system
NONE OF US ARE FREE

SO GET OFF YOUR ARSE

to all the protestors/marchers/fighters for human rights -

you inspired me to question and to hope

and to start doing the things i do...

thank you and don't stop now
because i fear this is all just the beginning

stopping this evil NAZI reich is OUR WAR

love
cw

 http://www.warcrimes.org.uk/captain/murder_inc/










capt wardrobe


Some clarification from the author

16.03.2005 21:00

The article above is a rather savagely edited version of the one I submitted to Indymedia, and seriously undermines the point I wanted to make as a result (which, as Nick pointed out, was that we definitely should march this Saturday). Please visit www.democratsdiary.co.uk and have a read of the original. Each of the points made in quotes in the second para (above) is answered in full, with links to the source material.

So…

Ed – in fact I disagree completely. To say that direct action doesn’t work is just factually incorrect. Its how the British got kicked out of India, to give but one example. But long-term, sustained action is required, and the demo’s just a part of that.

Richard, red letter, xfyj j, ….er….Ultra Left Twats(?), Simon, Nick, cw – please read the original. you’ll like it.

mary – you need to see a passport before you feel compassion?

Michael – Germany in ’39 was an economic and military superpower with a decent chance of dominating the globe. Iraq in 2003 was a crippled, tin-pot dictatorship whose economy was in tatters, its infrastructure in ruins and its armed forces emasculated. Was Iraq going to invade Britain and the US? Were legions of Republican Guard going to march on London and Washington? Be serious

Diarist
mail e-mail: democratsdiary@yahoo.co.uk
- Homepage: http://www.democratsdiary.co.uk


Shut it, knee-jerks

16.03.2005 21:18

Re: Micheal

My God. Sense spoken. On Indymedia.

Let's ask the opinion of John Middleton Murray, late editor of Peace News (9/9/1940).

"Personally I don't believe that a Hitlerian Europe would be quite so terrible as most people believe it would be. "

plus ca change. And this in the aftermath of Kristallnacht.

Vera Brittain, writing in the war's immediate aftermath, belittled reports made to parliament as to the suffering of Jews, Romanies and dissidents in concentration camps thus:

"(talk is being made of the suffering of individuals in Nazi death camps) in order to divert attention from the havoc produced in German cities by allied obliteration bombing. "

in spirit and form reminiscent of a good many among comments posted upon these pages.

Granville


hmmm, how very interesting

16.03.2005 22:18

your psyops are badly thought through

not thinking about a war 5000 miles away
and concerning yourselves with poverty in
'the homeland' huh?

stramnge there was no mention in todays budget

just how much cost to the national economy

SOLDIERS,EQUIPMENTS,LOGISTICS,INTELLIGENCE
TANKS,GUNS,BULLETS,PLANES, ETC

ARE COSTING THOSE POVERTY STRICKEN
INHABITANTS IN THIS SCEPTIC ISLE

not to mention all those lawsuits for damages done
because of Rape and torture
[the ones we can prove and that the MOD/MI6 haven't hidden]

Bush & Blair are freedom fighters huh?
---------------------------------------------------

Please spread this story as widely as possible, the author is currently being harrassed by mainstream press outlets, the IRS, and the banking industry. They are trying to shut him up we must get the word out!
---------------------------------------------------

Bush - Nazi Link Confirmed (references)
from The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 1, October 10, 2003


By John Buchanan


Journalist & Magazine Writer
4100 Collins Avenue
Apartment 507
Miami Beach, FL 33140
(305) 535-9606





WASHINGTON - After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media, newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his "enemy national" partners.


The documents also show that Bush and his colleagues, according to reports from the U.S. Department of the Treasury and FBI, tried to conceal their financial alliance with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a steel and coal baron who, beginning in the mid-1920s, personally funded Adolf Hitler's rise to power by the subversion of democratic principle and German law.


Furthermore, the declassified records demonstrate that Bush and his associates, who included E. Roland Harriman, younger brother of American icon W. Averell Harriman, and George Herbert Walker, President Bush's maternal great-grandfather, continued their dealings with the German industrial baron for nearly eight months after the U.S. entered the war.


No Story?


For six decades these historical facts have gone unreported by the mainstream U.S. media. The essential facts have appeared on the Internet and in relatively obscure books, but were dismissed by the media and Bush family as undocumented diatribes. This story has also escaped the attention of "official" Bush biographers, Presidential historians and publishers of U.S. history books covering World War II and its aftermath.


The White House did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.


The Summer of '42


The unraveling of the web of Bush-Harriman-Thyssen U.S. enterprises, all of which operated out of the same suite of offices at 39 Broadway under the supervision of Prescott Bush, began with a story that ran in the New York Herald-Tribune on July 30, 1942. By then, the U.S. had been at war with Germany for nearly eight months.


"Hitler's Angel Has $3 Million in U.S. Bank," declared the headline. The lead paragraph characterized Fritz Thyssen as "Adolf Hitler's original patron a decade ago." In fact, the steel and coal magnate had aggressively supported and funded Hitler since October 1923, according to Thyssen's autobiography, I Paid Hitler. In that book, Thyssen also acknowledges his direct personal relationships with Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Rudolf Hess.


The Herald-Tribune also cited unnamed sources who suggested Thyssen's U.S. "nest egg" in fact belonged to "Nazi bigwigs" including Goebbels, Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, or even Hitler himself.


Business is Business


The "bank," founded in 1924 by W. Averell Harriman on behalf of Thyssen and his Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V. of Holland, was Union Banking Corporation (UBC) of New York City. According to government documents, it was in reality a clearing house for a number of Thyssen-controlled enterprises and assets, including as many as a dozen individual businesses. UBC also bought and shipped overseas gold, steel, coal, and U.S. Treasury and war bonds. The company's activities were administered for Thyssen by a Netherlands-born, naturalized U.S. citizen named Cornelis Lievense, who served as president of UBC. Roland Harriman was chairman and Prescott Bush a managing director.


The Herald-Tribune article did not identify Bush or Harriman as executives of UBC, or Brown Brothers Harriman, in which they were partners, as UBC's private banker. A confidential FBI memo from that period suggested, without naming the Bush and Harriman families, that politically prominent individuals were about to come under official U.S. government scrutiny as Hitler's plunder of Europe continued unabated.


After the "Hitler's Angel" article was published Bush and Harriman made no attempts to divest themselves of the controversial Thyssen financial alliance, nor did they challenge the newspaper report that UBC was, in fact, a de facto Nazi front organization in the U.S.


Instead, the government documents show, Bush and his partners increased their subterfuge to try to conceal the true nature and ownership of their various businesses, particularly after the U.S. entered the war. The documents also disclose that Cornelis Lievense, Thyssen's personal appointee to oversee U.S. matters for his Rotterdam-based Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V., via UBC for nearly two decades, repeatedly denied to U.S. government investigators any knowledge of the ownership of the Netherlands bank or the role of Thyssen in it.


UBC's original group of business associates included George Herbert Walker, who had a relationship with the Harriman family that began in 1919. In 1922, Walker and W. Averell Harriman traveled to Berlin to set up the German branch of their banking and investment operations, which were largely based on critical war resources such as steel and coal.


The Walker-Harriman-created German industrial alliance also included partnership with another German titan who supported Hitler's rise, Friedrich Flick, who partnered with Thyssen in the German Steel Trust that forged the Nazi war machine. For his role in using slave labor and his own steel, coal and arms resources to build Hitler's war effort, Flick was convicted at the Nuremberg trials and sentenced to seven years in prison.


The Family Business


In 1926, after Prescott Bush had married Walker's daughter, Dorothy, Walker brought Bush in as a vice president of the private banking and investment firm of W.A. Harriman & Co., also located in New York. Bush became a partner in the firm that later became Brown Brothers Harriman and the largest private investment bank in the world. Eventually, Bush became a director of and stockholder in UBC.


However, the government documents note that Bush, Harriman, Lievense and the other UBC stockholders were in fact "nominees," or phantom shareholders, for Thyssen and his Holland bank, meaning that they acted at the direct behest of their German client.


Seized


On October 20, 1942, under authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act, the U.S. Congress seized UBC and liquidated its assets after the war. The seizure is confirmed by Vesting Order No. 248 in the U.S. Office of the Alien Property Custodian and signed by U.S. Alien Property Custodian Leo T. Crowley.


In August, under the same authority, Congress had seized the first of the Bush-Harriman-managed Thyssen entities, Hamburg-American Line, under Vesting Order No. 126, also signed by Crowley. Eight days after the seizure of UBC, Congress invoked the Trading with the Enemy Act again to take control of two more Bush-Harriman-Thyssen businesses - Holland-American Trading Corp. (Vesting Order No. 261) and Seamless Steel Equipment Corp (Vesting Order No. 259). In November, Congress seized the Nazi interests in Silesian-American Corporation, which allegedly profited from slave labor at Auschwitz via a partnership with I.G. Farben, Hitler's third major industrial patron and partner in the infrastructure of the Third Reich.


The documents from the Archives also show that the Bushes and Harrimans shipped valuable U.S. assets, including gold, coal, steel and U.S. Treasury and war bonds, to their foreign clients overseas as Hitler geared up for his 1939 invasion of Poland, the event that sparked World War II.


That's One Way to Put It


Following the Congressional seizures of UBC and the other four Bush-Harriman-Thyssen enterprises, The New York Times reported on December 16, 1944, in a brief story on page 25, that UBC had "received authority to change its principal place of business to 120 Broadway." The Times story did not report that UBC had been seized by the U.S. government or that the new address was the U.S. Office of the Alien Property Custodian. The story also neglected to mention that the other UBC-related businesses had also been seized by Congress.


Still No Story?


Since then, the information has not appeared in any U.S. news coverage of any Bush political campaign, nor has it been included in any of the major Bush family biographies. It was, however, covered extensively in George H.W. Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, by Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin. Chaitkin's father served as an attorney in the 1940s for some of the victims of the Bush-Harriman-Thyssen businesses.


The book gave a detailed, accurate accounting of the Bush family's long Nazi affiliation, but no mainstream U.S. media entity reported on or even investigated the allegations, despite careful documentation by the authors. Major booksellers declined to distribute the book, which was dismissed by Bush supporters as biased and untrue. Its authors struggled even to be reviewed in reputable newspapers. That the book was published by a Lyndon LaRouche's organization undoubtedly made it easier to dismiss, but does not change the facts.


The essence of the story been posted for years on various Internet sites, including BuzzFlash.com and TakeBackTheMedia.com, but no online media seem to have independently confirmed it.


Likewise, the mainstream media have apparently made no attempt since World War II to either verify or disprove the allegations of Nazi collaboration against the Bush family. Instead, they have attempted to dismiss or discredit such Internet sites or "unauthorized" books without any journalistic inquiry or research into their veracity.


Loyal Defenders


The National Review ran an essay on September 1 by their White House correspondent Byron York, entitled "Annals of Bush-Hating." It begins mockingly: "Are you aware of the murderous history of George W. Bush - indeed, of the entire Bush family? Are you aware of the president's Nazi sympathies? His crimes against humanity? And do you know, by the way, that George W. Bush is a certifiable moron?" York goes on to discredit the "Bush is a moron" IQ hoax, but fails to disprove the Nazi connection.


The more liberal Boston Globe ran a column September 29 by Reason magazine's Cathy Young in which she referred to "Bush-o-phobes on the Internet" who "repeat preposterous claims about the Bush family's alleged Nazi connections."


Poles Tackle the Topic


Newsweek Polska, the magazine's Polish edition, published a short piece on the "Bush Nazi past" in its March 5, 2003 edition. The item reported that "the Bush family reaped rewards from the forced-labor prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp," according to a copyrighted English-language translation from Scoop Media (www.scoop.co.nz). The story also reported the seizure of the various Bush-Harriman-Thyssen businesses.


Still Not Interested


Major U.S. media outlets, including ABC News, NBC News, The New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Los Angeles Times and Miami Herald, have repeatedly declined to investigate the story when information regarding discovery of the documents was presented to them beginning Friday, August 29. Newsweek U.S. correspondent Michael Isikoff, famous for his reporting of big scoops during the Clinton-Lewinsky sexual affair of the 1990s, declined twice to accept an exclusive story based on the documents from the archives.


Aftermath


After the seizures of the various businesses they oversaw with Cornelis Lievense and his German partners, the U.S. government quietly settled with Bush, Harriman and others after the war. Bush and Harriman each received $1.5 million in cash as compensation for their seized business assets.


In 1952, Prescott Bush was elected to the U.S. Senate, with no press accounts about his well-concealed Nazi past. There is no record of any U.S. press coverage of the Bush-Nazi connection during any political campaigns conducted by George Herbert Walker Bush, Jeb Bush, or George W. Bush, with the exception of a brief mention in an unrelated story in the Sarasota Herald Tribune in November 2000 and a brief but inaccurate account in The Boston Globe in 2001.
John Buchanan is a journalist and investigative reporter with 33 years of experience in New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Miami. His work has appeared in more than 50 newspapers, magazines and books. He can be reached by e-mail at:  jtwg@bellsouth.net.

 http://burningbush.twentythree.us/index.htm
---------------------------------------------------

The Large-scale Money Laundering for the Nazis by President Bush's Grandfather
and Maternal Great-Grandfather : documents:
 http://www.debatecomics.org/BushFamilyFortune/
---------------------------------------------------


 http://www.warcrimes.org.uk/captain/murder_inc/massdeception.html

capt wardrobe


nice people huh?

16.03.2005 22:29


just look at the compassion...folks...

 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5041.htm

cw


All absolutely true, Capt Wardrobe

16.03.2005 23:54

So absolutely no reason to go out under the conventional banners
All the more reason to go out under Bush/Blair=Nazi banners, all the more reason to go out under 'Bush engineered 911' banners
The only reason for protesting at this moment, I believe

dh


lets not forget tonys remarkkkable record

17.03.2005 00:21


New Labour manifesto- 1997




Over the five years of a Labour government:


1 Education will be our number one priority, and we will increase the share of national income spent on education as we decrease it on the bills of economic and social failure


2 There will be no increase in the basic or top rates of income tax


3 We will provide stable economic growth with low inflation, and promote dynamic and competitive business and industry at home and abroad


4 We will get 250,000 young unemployed off benefit and into work


5 We will rebuild the NHS, reducing spending on administration and increasing spending on patient care


6 We will be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime, and halve the time it takes persistent juvenile offenders to come to court


7 We will help build strong families and strong communities, and lay the foundations of a modern welfare state in pensions and community care


8 We will safeguard our environment, and develop an integrated transport policy to fight congestion and pollution


9 We will clean up politics, decentralise political power throughout the United Kingdom and put the funding of political parties on a proper and accountable basis


10 We will give Britain the leadership in Europe which Britain and Europe need


We have modernised the Labour Party and we will modernise Britain. This means knowing where we want to go; being clear-headed about the country's future; telling the truth; making tough choices; insisting that all parts of the public sector live within their means; taking on vested interests that hold people back; standing up to unreasonable demands from any quarter; and being prepared to give a moral lead where government has responsibilities it should not avoid.


Britain does deserve better. And new Labour will be better for Britain.


Tony Blair

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Ernest Hemingway:

"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists."


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compare some blueprints for control:
 http://www.warcrimes.org.uk/captain/murder_inc/manifesto.html



cw


Jesus H suffficed

17.03.2005 00:43

I really do love cpt Wardrobes clarity and wit and I can't get enough!

Bring it on warrior

(not taking the piss either)

set of chairs


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