emarine

Ever wonder why we have wars?
The Carlyle White House
Monday, 13 November 2006 22:03 by: Anonymous



The Carlyle White House
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Columnist

Tuesday 14 November 2006

It was bad enough when the Carlyle Group bought Dunkin' Donuts last year, forcing millions of conscientious caffeine addicts to look elsewhere for their daily fix. Now, it appears Carlyle has added 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to its formidable portfolio of acquisitions.

The Carlyle Group achieved national attention in the early days of the Iraq occupation, especially after Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" exposed the firm's umbilical ties to the Bush family and the House of Saud. For the uninitiated, Carlyle is a privately-owned equity firm organized and run by former members of the Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations.

Currently, Carlyle manages more than $44 billion in 42 different investment funds, which is an interesting fact in and of itself: Carlyle could lay claim to only a meager $12 billion in funds in December of 2001. Thanks to their ownership of United Defense Industries, a major military contractor that sells a whole galaxy of weapons systems to the Pentagon, Carlyle's profits skyrocketed after the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Some notable present and former employees of Carlyle include former president George H.W. Bush, who resigned in 2003; James Baker III, Bush Sr.'s secretary of state and king fixer; and George W. Bush, who served on Carlyle's board of directors until his run for the Texas governorship. One notable former client of Carlyle was the Saudi BinLaden Group, which sold its investment back to the firm a month after the September 11 attacks. Until the October 2001 sellout, Osama bin Laden himself had a financial interest in the same firm that employed the two presidents Bush.

How has Carlyle managed to acquire the White House? The newest edition of Newsweek begins to tell the tale in a story titled "The Rescue Squad": "Bush Senior has been relegated to watching all those political talk shows his son refuses to watch, wincing each time he hears his son's name being mocked or criticized. George H.W. Bush has been, in effect, sidelined by nepotism. He has repeatedly told close friends that he does not believe it is appropriate or wise to second-guess his son, or even offer advice beyond loving support. This time, however, was different. A source who declined to be identified discussing p**********l confidences told NEWSWEEK that Bush 41 left 'fingerprints' on the Rumsfeld-Gates decision, though the father's exact role remains shrouded in speculation."

There is much more to this than Big George simply trying to shove Little George in a different direction, because Big George never travels alone. All of a sudden, two of the elder's main men - James Baker III and Robert Gates - are back in the saddle. Baker has spent the last weeks riding herd over the Iraq Study Group, a collection of old foreign policy hands tasked to come up with a solution to the Iraq debacle. Gates was a member of this group until he was tapped to replace Don Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense. The Iraq Study Group is slated to produce some tablets of wisdom come December.

A third member of the Iraq Study Group, former congressman Lee Hamilton, is the rope that ties this curious historical package together. During the Reagan days, Hamilton was chairman of the committee investigating the Iran/Contra scandal that nearly submarined Reagan's presidency and haunted Bush Sr. until his defeat in 1992. In essence, Hamilton took Reagan's people at their word when they assured the chairman that neither Reagan nor Bush were "in the loop" regarding the arms-for-hostages deal.

History and investigation have proven this to be quite separate from the t***h, and Hamilton later admitted he should not have bought what Reagan's people were selling. The fact remains, however, that Hamilton let these guys slip the noose during what was, at the time, an investigation into one of the most serious abrogations of Constitutional law in our history. It is worthwhile to note that the man who brought the most pressure upon Hamilton within Congress to be "bipartisan" and avoid a protracted investigation was then-Wyoming representative Dick Cheney.

One of the men spared prosecution in the Iran/Contra scandal, thanks in no small part to the gentility of Mr. Hamilton, was Robert Gates. Gates, then a senior official within the CIA, was widely believed to have been neck-deep in the plot. During the investigation into the scandal, Gates parroted Reagan and claimed not to remember when he knew what he knew about everything that was happening down in Ollie North's office. In 1991, he was nominated and eventually appointed to be the head of CIA by Bush Sr. During his confirmation hearings, according to the New York Times, it was revealed that "Mr. Gates [had] distorted intelligence reports so they would conform to the political beliefs of his superiors."

That sounds familiar.

Gates's nomination to the post of secretary of defense was field-generaled behind the scenes by James Baker III, who has suddenly taken on a muscular role within the Bush White House since the spectacular Republican wipeout during the midterm e******ns last Tuesday. Baker's return, along with the new prominence of Bush Sr., has been hailed in the mainstream press as a healthy step toward stability and sanity.

One is forced to wonder, however, which masters Mr. Baker is actually serving. Baker's Carlyle Group has profited wildly from the conflict in Iraq, which begs the question: will the bottom line, augmented by Carlyle's defense contracts, trump any attempts to establish a just and lasting peace? It must also be noted that Baker's law firm, Baker Botts, is currently serving as defense counsel for Saudi Arabia against a suit brought by the families of 9/11 victims. The connections between the Bush family and the Saudi royals have been discussed ad nauseam, and Mr. Baker is so closely entwined with the Bush clan that he might as well be a blood relative.

The weakening of George W. Bush, in short, has opened the door for an alumnus of the Iran/Contra scandal, Robert Gates, to gain control of the Pentagon - his nomination, as yet, has met with little Congressional resistance. This process was managed by James Baker, whose Carlyle Group made billions off the Iraq occupation and whose fealty to the American people has all too often taken a back seat to the needs and desires of the royal family of Saudi Arabia. These two, along with Hamilton, have been instrumental in crafting, by way of the Iraq Study Group, what by all accounts will soon be America's foreign policy lynchpin in Iraq and the Middle East as a whole.

Behind it all is George H.W. Bush, former employee of Carlyle, who has somehow managed to refashion his reputation into that of a grandfatherly, level-headed, steady hand, a foreign policy "realist" whose mere presence will soothe and calm the troubled waters we sail in. Unfortunately, his "realism" is a significant reason the United States finds itself in its current mess - until the Gulf War, Saddam Hussein was a boon confederate of both the Reagan and Bush administrations in their fight against Iran - and the team of experts he has brought with him have done more to undermine the national security of the country than any other three people one could name.

The winner in all this, of course, is the Carlyle Group. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. This is older stuff... lots of new in print if you search

OldSchool Loc: Moving to the Red State of Utah soon!

Pure rubbish. Written by a left-wing hack.

emarine

There are tons of articles on the net... Dig around and fine someone you like better.... If half is true... Houston we have a problem...

Boo_Boo Loc: Jellystone

The most convincing lies are those that have some t***h embedded into the articles. It may be distorted and taken out of context, but when a good writer finds that nugget they can present it in such a way that some personality types will pounce on it and believe each and every word. It is best, in stead of posting such information, to check out the facts first. We do indeed have problems, those born and nurtured by this administration. It is easy for them (the current administration) to point fingers and seed damning half t***hs and tainted information to the public rather than facing their failures....and there are plenty that they need to face and make right.

Floyd Brown Loc: Milwaukee WI

You have it made if & when you become one of the good old boys.

They take good care of each other.

emarine

Who needs a theory when you have a conspiracy called Carlyle Group?

As a prototypical Bush Cabal slush fund s**m, the Carlyle Group has gained notoriety because of its name brand directors, members, and advisors - all celebrity politicians, former government officials and sundry unindicted criminal co-conspirators.

The Carlyle Group’s real claim to fame is not necessarily its f**grant conflicts of interest, but its relatively unknown insider s**ms using Other People’s Money (OPM).

According to corporate-government fraud expert Al Martin, author of “The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider,” a first-hand account of Bush Family crimes, the Carlyle Group has capitalized on its high level contacts within the highest circles of global power.

In an exclusive interview with Al Martin, Al Martin Raw.com: Political, Economic & Financial Intelligence, he deconstructs the frauds of the Carlyle Group and explains in simple terms how it’s all done.

The Carlyle Group, after all, is the epitome of the Military Industrial Complex.

As a Bush Cabal-connected company, it p***es itself on having government/ business insiders and their minions in a network that literally covers the globe. This is the hard core of the Bush Cabal

The Chairman Emeritus of Carlyle Group is Frank C. Carlucci, whose claim to fame was Deputy Secretary of Defense (1981-1982) and National Security Adviser (1987-1989). After his government stint, he headed the Sears/ Coldwell Banker s**m.

The current chairman of Carlyle Group is Lou Gerstner, the former Chairman of IBM.

Sir James Baker III, Chief of Staff (1981 -‘85), and Secretary of Treasury (1985-‘89) under Reagan; and Secretary of State (1989 - 1993) under George H. W. Bush Sr., is a “Senior Advisor.”

Sir George Herbert Walker Bush, Director of CIA (1976-‘77) under Ford; Vice-President (1981-‘89) under Reagan; and President (1989 - ‘93), acts as a broker and also senior advisor.

Other name brand politicos connected to Carlyle include, former British prime minister John Major (Chairman of Carlyle Europe), Dick Darman, the former Reagan-Bush director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Arthur Levitt, former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Carlyle Senior Advisor.

In fact, the so-called Global Corporate Establishment can be described as a complex web of interlocking companies and executives. Since the Carlyle Group holds ownership stakes in 164 companies and ranks as the eleventh largest defense contractor in the US (but, as Al Martin wryly notes, “even though Carlyle has never sold a weapons system that actually works.”), this further emphasizes its pre-eminence within this world-wide web of fraud, and the somewhat disproportionate links to many foreign intelligence services as well.

“The Carlyle Group is a quintessential Bushonian operation,” says Al. “In other words, they don’t use a dime of the firm’s own capital, nor a dime of the firms partners capital. Including Frank Carlucci, etc. They use exclusively borrowed money and/or limited partnerships that they form to stick stock into. It is a 100% OPM company [company using other people’s money].”

“This also means that Carlyle Group deals are always highly leveraged because they have no equity in anything,” he continues, “The only real way they build equity is through general partnerships because, over time, with each passing year, another quarter or another half of one percent of the limited partnership equity gets t***sferred to the general partners up to the limit of 5% -10%, depending on where the partnership is incorporated. The general partners never put any money in, but they do expense back a management fee on top of that -- which is unusual.”

“Normally what is supposed to happen when you form a limited partnership is that the general partnership holds 5% upfront,” he says. “That is essentially their front-end load, as it were, for putting the deal together. They take 5% of the equity for no money, which constitutes their load. Then over time, usually a period of 10 years, that 5% of the GP will gradually increase to 10%. This means that over a 10-year time frame, one half of 1% annually of the equity is being t***sferred from the Limited Partnership to the General Partnership as a management fee.”

So how do they get enough liquid capital to buy assets? Is it through the funding by the limited partners? And how did they acquire United Defense? Carlyle Group, after all, is the definition of the prototypical “bottom feeder,” (buying bankrupt companies for pennies on the dollar) albeit on an unprecedented global scale

“Yes, United Defense was a limited partnership deal,” Al explains. “It was United Defense LP. If you notice -- almost all of the Carlyle Group deals have the LP after them. They are all separate deals, limited partnerships.

“They take their general partnership equity which really isn’t costing them anything because they are assessing management fees or charging back to the LP management fees on top of that equity. They then take that general partnership equity and its accompanying fee stream and hypothecate it at a bank, usually at Credit Lyonnais, the famous Bushonian S**mscateer Bank. That’s how George Bush Sr. was able to do the famous Credit Lyonnais Fraud of 1992, when the Bush Family ripped of Credit Lyonnais for $63 million. What gave them the ability to do it was having their boy as the chairman of the bank.”

“They take the General Partner equity that didn’t cost them anything to begin with,” he continues. “Then they’ll hypothecate the General Partnership shares, which are non-convertible. They're still v****g shares, but non-convertible. It’s not collateral. There is a difference between collateral and hypothecation.

In other words, to hypothecate is to take a purported asset to a bank and get a line of credit or credit instrument in exchange for a pledge. They take the LP interests and hypothecate them to a loan, usually at Credit Lyonnais or they use it as a hypothecation to a Standing Letter of Credit.

“They will use that Standing Letter of Credit as leverage to get into another deal to buy something else,” Al continues. “They will use that full faith and credit obligation (FFC-LC) from a major bank and it’s as good as cash. They would post that LC to buy other assets or another deal. This is how the Great Republican Frauds work through these LCs. The LCs are as good as cash money, but they only become as good as cash money, when another party that owns an interest in it (because they have sold assets against it) goes to draw on the instrument. As long as they never draw on the instrument, the only thing it costs the pledgor of the instrument is wh**ever the fees are to carry the LC. It necessitates a ‘friendly’ bank and a ‘friendly banker.’”

“If you look at the banks that the Carlyle Group does business with, they are the same banks that all the large Bushonian frauds ($50 million and above) have been committed through. These include Credit Lyonnais, The Bank of Greece, The Jarlska Bank of Denmark, Credit Suisse, Daiwa, Banque Paribas, etc. It’s the same 12 banks again and again that these frauds have been perpetrated through, Banque Paribas Panama, Banque Paribas EAB.”

Carlyle Group is also well known for being a “Members Only Club” with its Crony Capitalists Pals, former world politicians, Bushonian Cabalists and sundry Trilateralists and Bilderberger Group lunch chums.

The question comes up -- Why do they do it this way? How do they get guys like former Canadian Prime Minister Mulroney on the board?

“It’s for control,” Al replies. “With each pal comes that pal’s separate sphere of influence. Then you build a company through a conglomeration of conjoining spheres of influence under one umbrella. That’s what gives them the ability to wheel these deals with no money. Then they use an asset (at the core of the fraud is an asset and, in this case, the asset is a general partner equity on a real deal) that has been used to pledge or hypothecate top a bank in exchange for a full faith and credit letter of credit LC. Or they will do it through Marsh McLennon for instance and hypothecate it for some sort of performance, fidelity and / or guarantee instrument”

And who keeps track of how many times the same instrument has been hypothecated or pledged toward a line of credit?

Al answers, "Obviously Carlyle Group keeps track of how many times the same asset has been hypothecated against a different deal - but nobody else does.”

“That commercial property deal that Carlyle Group owned in Riyadh was a pretty good example - taking the GP equity hypothecating it a FFC LC (Full faith and credit letter of Credit) at European Arabian Bank (EAB) which then became part of Banque Paribas, the most corrupt bank in France and one of the most corrupt banks on earth.”

“Credit Lyonnais is also up there. If you’re going to commit a huge fraud, it’s always easier to use the large banks of Europe or Japan. These are the socialist, welfare model countries because you know the government will pump as much money as necessary into a failing bank to keep it alive. They never let anything fail, and that’s why their economies have become so inefficient.”

“How much money has the French government pumped into Credit Lyonnais in the last 20 years? Billions of francs.”

“The only difference between a c*******t state economic model and a socialist welfare state (centralized systems in which state assets are nationalized under the control of the regime) is that a socialist state has layers in between, that is they have banks which effectively act as proxies for the state, instead of the state acting directly.”

People have wondered about the long-standing ties between the Bush Family, the Bin Laden Family, and the Carlyle Group business, in which they are all involved.

“The real Bin Laden connection comes from Osama bin Laden’s uncle,” Al explains. “Osama’s father's brother (his uncle) ran the construction business. Osama’s father was a minority partner since he had been a screw up all his life. But he got the contracts to build the US Army bases, US Army medical facilities, communications facilities and office buildings in Saudi Arabia. The Bin Laden family had been involved with the Carlyle Group since it had been formed in the late 1970s. Carlyle represented them and then the involvement deepened from there.”

“Carlyle formed a series of limited partnerships with wealthy Bushonian Cabalists, including George H.W. Bush himself and Henry Kissinger, who were partners in the same limited partner-ships. They borrowed money from banks based on bogus equity and other s**m deals. The banks then extended full faith letters of credit to the partnership which then in turn extended a line of credit to the Bin Laden Construction consortium.”

Al Martin also points out that the common agent between the Bush Family, the Carlyle Group and the Bin Laden organization was former Saudi chief of intelligence Ghaith Pharaon.

“Then the limited partnership through Carlyle became not equity participants but profit/ revenue participants through bin Laden Construction Company,” Al explains. “Since the Bin Laden deals were all non-compete non-bid contracts, they simply keyed all the prices. Key means to double. In other words, if it cost them $10 million to build an office building in Saudi Arabia, they charged the US Army $20 million and the Bin Laden Construction Group, then took a piece of that $10 million The partnership group under Carlyle took a piece of that $10 million. The beauty of the s**m and how it all works is that the people who got the profit never had any of their own money in it.”

“This would obviously make the bonds of friendship (and profit taking) between the Bush Family and Bin Laden Family even closer, under the guise that the Families that prey together stay together.

This is at the very heart of the way that Bushonian Cabalism works and the way it makes money.”

“What makes these s**ms bullet-proof,” says Al, “is that every Bushonian S**m mentioned in the book [‘The Conspirators’] and the ones I’ve mentioned before, the common linkage between all these s**ms (and this gets into the essence of How the Real World Works and what it’s really about on this planet) is that these deals are made as complex as you can possibly make them, legally complex that is. They don’t have to hide anything. They involve as many entities in as many different jurisdictions as possible. They don’t have to shred the documents. You can actually follow these deals, and there actually is a paper trail on every single one of these bogus deals. The problem is that the paper trail is so enormous and so complex that nobody in Mainstream Media or Cred Media (as BBC calls it, or "Credible Media”) can follow them. The age of investigative journalism is over because they haven’t got the money to allow journalists to ‘follow the money’ and put these deals together and expose them.

Al Martin is referring to a deal, for example, in which a limited partnership is domiciled in Netherlands Antilles, which is then owned by an international business company (IBC) in the Turks and Caicos, which is held by another anstalt or business corporation in Liechtenstein, which is the holding company

“This is the complexity. They use as many different types of legally formed entities in as many different discrete jurisdictions as possible, wherein it is inherently difficult to follow a paper trail and furthermore these are jurisdictions where there is no regulatory authority and where monies and assets are essentially sacrosanct from being seized by creditors or by any other nation and furthermore, they are tax free.”

“Iran Contra played so much of a part in all of this because Iran Contra was the impetus to change the way media does business. Why? Because the Bush Cabal was frightened that what they called Iran Contra would be revealed to the public,” Al concludes. “It wasn’t the individual frauds they were concerned about. They were concerned that if all of Iran Contra was revealed, it show the public the way everything works and What It’s Really All About. This is what my attorney Marc Signoff used to call ‘standing over the abyss and looking into the Great Chasm, wherein lies the Great Vortex of T***h.’”

© Copyright 2003, Uri Dowbenko. All rights reserved.


URI DOWBENKO is CEO of
New Improved Entertainment

Constitutional libertarian Loc: St Croix National Scenic River Way

Read the FDA is now going after e cigs. Follow the money trail as to who is behind this assault...

AuntiE Loc: 45th Least Free State

Ten year and seven year old articles. I would care why? Gates is no longer Sec. def. Bush is no longer President, oh right, everything is his fault. There is little doubt in my mind, with due diligence, I could locate a similar group with ties to LBJ, Clinton and Obama. Oops, forgot...only Republicans participate in such activities. Democrats are vestal virgins, wearing only white hats. :lol:

banpc27

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

crm

I believe Eisenhower warned us about the military-industrial complex.

lpnmajor Loc: Arkansas

Democrats do wear white hats, on occasion, and they hire virgins for an hour at a time. Be that as it may, it was no surprise to find Cheney picked as Bush jr. Vice President. Cheney who spent time as DoD under HW. Did Cheney and his peeps " arrange " for 9/11? nope, but they were quick to capitalize on it. Companies like Carlyle have no party loyalty, they will parasitize wh**ever administration is there. When the parasites are deeply imbedded, they are harder to find, but they are still there.

emarine

I did not reply to anyone to save space... Yes AuntiE they are older articles but a little history never hurts... I plan on posting newer... I am playing the follow the money game and one way or another Carlyle is involved as is Koch Industry's .... They way Carlyle does business I find very interesting .... This is not about slamming Bush or Republicans... I am confident their will be many others brought to light as I dig deeper , It appears that is exactly how they conduct business..... From the inside.... Just like the corruption in our Government past and present. Anyone who wants to share info on this topic... post away :thumbup:

emarine

I snagged this link from TP Ron... What a twisted money game they play. The Carlyle group seems to be the movers and shakers within the Industrial military complex, multinational investment bankers... war profiteers ... I found the conclusion interesting.... I have no opinion on the content

President Obama’s presidency has a definitive shelf life. His backpedaling in the Middle East is of major concern to the military establishment but also to special interest groups such as the Carlyle Group. Obama is threatening to let Iraq and Afghanistan follow in the footsteps of Vietnam. Further, Obama’s refusal to attack Syria and Iran threatens the viability of the Petrodollar. This two part series will examine the forces which are lining up against this President and how five simultaneous political scandals are being held over his head to gain compliance from several powerful special interest groups.

The Aftermath of B******i

b******i obama leaves em behindObama’s presidency may not survive until 2016. He has the most dramatic set of political scandals in the history of the Oval Office. The only question remaining for this president is will he leave office as a result of the scandals or the result of a direct military c**p? Obama has already survived one military c**p attempt, but it is difficult to believe that there aren’t more military c**ps waiting in the wings for the right moment to strike.

The First Military C**p

In the fall of 2012, it is now clear that President Obama survived an attempted military c**p. My sources tell me, that Obama, is fully aware of the fact that key elements of the military want him gone as the President and, in response, Obama has secretly embedded his CIA operatives in various military command structures around the world by placing these operatives into executive command positions in order to help them prevent just such a military c**p and these embedded forces have indeed served him well in the aftermath of B******i.

Often, these embedded operatives serve as the second-in-command. The sole purpose of Obama’s operatives is to keep watch on key military leaders and to prevent them from moving against the policies of the present administration.

The murder of Ambassador Chris Stevens and his security detail at B******i served as a flashpoint for an attempted military c**p. What is interesting about the c**p attempt, is that very divergent military forces have joined together to take down Obama’s presidency. At issue was the attempted rescue of Ambassador Stevens by two senior military command officers.

Can you imagine the reaction of Stevens, his security team, and two senior command officers if Stevens had indeed been rescued? The gun-running stories of the CIA to Al-Qaeda would have turned the general populace on its ear. This would have been Obama’s Watergate moment. Of course, Stevens had to be murdered to cover up Obama’s complicity in gun-running to Al-Qaeda. Remember, it was Hillary Clinton, on behalf of Obama, who refused to beef up security for Ambassador Stevens at his request. With all that the B******i event represents, the sheep of America would’ve been awakened if Stevens had survived to talk. With the inability of the Obama administration to squelch the cries of conspiracy in the aftermath of B******i, Hillary, in an effort to preserve her 2016 e******n hopes, could not jump off the Obama ship fast enough. And even Napolitano has jumped ship and look for more defections in the weeks ahead. Obama is in real trouble. Spying on reporters and using the IRS to harass political enemies is damning, but B******i is career ending.

A Review of B******i

Let’s review what we have learned about what t***spired at B******i. The B******i consulate, which was no more than a CIA safe house, came under attack by Al Qaeda forces and the attack lasted several hours. We now know that CIA forces were right down the street at the time of the attack that murdered Stevens Al Qaeda attackers, as they attempted to flee the murder scene, were subsequently murdered by the CIA forces, who could have been used to rescue Stevens. This was a desperate attempt to conceal Obama’s gun running operations. We also know that several key personnel at B******i have been forced to sign nondisclosure agreements about what they know. What did they know?

The T***h Is Hiding In Plain Sight

What is known, and what was reported in the New York Times, is that this administration ran guns to Al Qaeda in a Middle East version of fast and furious. We’ve also learned that Ambassador Stevens was the conduit between the establishment and Al Qaeda receiving weapons, which they used to o*******w the Libyan government.

The murder of Stevens and his team at B******i is a seminal moment in American history. We have further learned that al-Qaeda forces, fighting on the side of NATO in Libya, obtained 20,000 hand-held stinger missiles. This means that the Obama administration has allowed al-Qaeda to be armed to the teeth including the acquisition of 20,000 stinger missiles in which only one is needed to take down an American airliner. To cover their tracks, the Obama administration left Chris Stevens and his bodyguards defenseless as they were k**led by the very terrorists who this administration armed. Can you imagine how the e******n of 2012 would’ve turned if the American public had this information. This is why Stevens had to be k**led, but there’s more.

Arming Al-Qaeda In Syria

It is now common knowledge that this administration was also running guns to Al Qaeda in an attempt to o*******w Assad of Syria. However, news of their gunrunning was beginning to leak and the source of the gunrunning had to be eliminated. That source was Ambassador Chris Stevens and the sensitive information that he held, unfortunately for Stevens, came only a couple of months prior to the 2012 p**********l e******n. It is quite apparent that this administration felt that the evidence of their gunrunning trail must be totally obliterated and the only way to accomplish that was to arm Al Qaeda forces to assassinate Ambassador Stevens. These are not shocking revelations and I believe it’s likely that Congress knew the t***h is far back as December of 2012. However, the congressional investigation did not succeed in their attempts at getting to the bottom of the Stevens murder. For more than a month Hillary Clinton refused to show up and testify. Other establishment figures were less than cooperative with regard to the congressional investigation. However, there is a clear and distinctive pattern of high command military awareness of this establishment’s murderous and treacherous actions which culminated in the death, the preventable death of Stevens and his bodyguard contingency.

The Middle East command structure of the American military was not on board with President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. Panetta is so unpopular with the troops, that when he visits Afghanistan, the troops must be disarmed prior to his landing because he has been fired upon before from American ground forces.


In the aftermath of the B******i massacre, two senior level command officers, General Carter Ham, the former commander of AFRICOM and Admiral Charles M. Gayouette were removed from the command positions and arrested by their executive officers. Do you remember that I previously said that Obama was embedding CIA operatives into the number two command positions in key military commands around the world? When Hamm was in the process of launching a rescue mission to save Stevens, General Rodriguez promptly arrested Hamm and assumed his position as the head of AFRICOM.

Before we get into why Hamm and Gayoutte were sacked on the same day, please allow me to first say that Obama’s action of sacking two high ranking officers is so unprecedented, so reckless, that it is difficult to comprehend. Please allow me to offer a sports analogy in order to explain the magnitude of this action. Imagine that your favorite football team was on the eve of playing in the Super Bowl and the owner of your team fired both the head coach and the quarterback the night before the big game. Wouldn’t this throw your team into a state of disarray? Of course it would, and subsequently your team would face annihilation. This is exactly the case with our forces in the Middle East after the firing of these two military leaders at this critical point in time. The deposing and subsequent arrest of the AFRICOM commanding officer, and the firing of a Carrier task force commander was an irresponsible move by the Obama administration and left a dangerous leadership void in the Middle East that has needlessly put the lives of our military at risk. And it is important to note that these firings took place at a time when it appeared that war with Iran, Syria, China and Russia was on the immediate horizon.

Admiral Gayouette
Admiral Gayouette

The positions held by Hamm and Gayouette are so powerful and so sensitive, that their replacements require approval from the Senate. Why would Obama engage in such a reckless act when the country was so close to war? Very simply, both men were jointly attempting to rescue Ambassador Stevens and his bodyguards, despite being told to stand down by Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta who was acting under Obama’s orders.

As Stevens was begging for help after the attack had begun, General Hamm had activated a special forces team within minutes of learning that the embassy, which was really a CIA safe house, was under attack. When General Ham received his “stand down” orders from Obama, he still continued with his plans to go ahead with the rescue and was arrested within minutes of contravening the order by his second in command, General Rodriquez. Admiral Gayouette, the commander of Carrier Strike Group Three, was preparing to provide intelligence and air cover for General Hamm’s rescue in violation of his standing orders and he was promptly relieved of command for allegations of inappropriate leadership judgment.” What is so significant about the sacking of these two military officers is that they were from two completely different command structures in two different branches of the military. This speaks clearly to an overall military mindset with regard to how they view Obama.

It is abundantly clear that had Obama been concerned for saving the lives of the four murdered Americans, American forces could have stopped the mortar fire that eventually k**led Ambassador Stevens. However, Panetta and Obama blocked any rescue attempt. In legal parlance, Obama, Panetta and Clinton are, at minimum, accomplices to murder. At maximum these three rogue government officials are co-conspirators to first degree murder and now they have sacked two senior command military leaders to cover their complicity in an act of treason. I feel like I am watching an episode of the former popular television show, 24, as we are presently engaged in a plot that scarcely anyone would have believed if it had aired on television and not occurred in real life.

Others Have Taken Note and Spoken Out

Even though the corporate controlled media refuses to provide detailed coverage of the events in B******i, Representative Buck McKeon wrote a letter to Obama in which he boldly stated ”As we are painfully aware, despite the fact that the military had resources in the area, the military did not deploy any assets to secure U.S. personnel in B******i during the hours the consulate and the annex were under attack. I find it implausible that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Commander of U.S. Africa Command (author’s note: General Hamm) and the Commander of U.S. European Command would have ignored a direct order from the Commander in Chief.”

There is also proof that Obama was warned in advance of the coming attack in which Stevens begged for more protection and his impassioned plea was denied by Clinton.

There’s further evidence that US agents in Libya were at least aware of weapons and militants moving across the border. The ties between murdered U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and jihadist Syrian rebels are becoming more clear as it is now known that Chris Stevens was an arms dealer for the CIA and brokered arms deals with Al-Qaeda and their affiliate rebels in both Libya and Syria. Can anyone imagine the political fallout to this President if word of this had ever leaked out? Stevens was the link between the CIA and Al-Qaeda. With Stevens out of the way, the trail could grow cold and the American public would be none the wiser. This is why a rescue attempt was not permitted and this explains why two senior level officials were sacked for trying to do so. However, it is becoming increasingly clear this mutiny represents a military mindset and has the backing of the Carlyle Group. This connection will be explored in part two.

Obama’s Tumultuous Relationship with the Military

General Ham had been in command of the initial 2011 US-NATO military intervention in Libya. And as we can, in part, read from US military insider accounts of this growing internal conflict between the White House and US Military leaders. The first sign of a major rift between the American military and Obama became evident when the supreme commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, was fired by Obama for derogatory comments made by the general about the president. Interestingly, the reporter who published a story which led to McChrystal’s firing was none other than recently murdered reporter Michael Hastings.

First McChrystal, then Hamm and Gayoutte were fired by Obama. There appears to be a growing body of evidence that the military is becoming more emboldened in their r*******n against this rogue President.


CIA Director David Patraeus Is Sacked

Patraeus was the former commander in Iraq and in Afghanistan after McChrystal was fired by Obama. He was rewarded when he was appointed to be the CIA director. An extramarital affair with Paula Broadwell brought down his reign as CIA director in November of 2012, just following the e******n.

There is the reason given to explain an event and there is the real reason behind the event. Sixty percent of all married men c***t on their spouses. The more money they make and the more power a man possesses, the more opportunity for c***ting.

I have swamp land for sale, in Florida, for anyone to purchase if they are naive enough to believe that David Petraeus, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), resigned solely based upon having an extramarital affair with the biographer-turned-mistress, Paula Broadwell. How did the affair compromise Petraeus’ position as CIA director? The FBI, who vetted Patraeus for the CIA director position, concluded that it did not.

Within two months after the B******i attack, four senior U.S. military officers were purged by Obama:
◾Gen. Hamm, on October 18, 2012.
◾Adm. Gayouette, on October 18, 2012.
◾Gen. Petraeus, on November 9, 2012.
◾General Allen, on November 13, 2012.

Other casualties of military leadership during this time frame includes General Keene and General Odierno. Further, the second in commander of Central Command, General Mattis, And who could forget about General Mckiernan? In total, Obama has sacked nearly 20 generals during his tenure as president.

Conclusion

Not wanting the Middle East to become America’s next Vietnam, the military wants Obama gone. And now the military has a strong partner, the Carlyle Group whose connections ripple through the American power structure. These connections and the other reasons why the Obama administration may not be standing by the end of year will be presented in part two.

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The Big Guys Work For
The Carlyle Group

By Melanie Warner Fortune.com
3-11-2





Are you the sort of person who believes in conspiracies--the Trilateral Commission secretly runs the world, that sort of thing? Well, then, here's a company for you. The Carlyle Group, a Washington, D.C., buyout firm, is one of the nation's largest defense contractors. It has billions of dollars at its disposal and employs a few important people. Maybe you've heard of them: former Secretary of State Jim Baker, former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci, and former White House budget director Dick Darman. Wait, we're just getting warmed up. William Kennard, who recently headed the FCC, and Arthur Levitt, who just left the SEC, also work for Carlyle. As do former British Prime Minister John Major and former Philippines President Fidel Ramos. Let's see, are we forgetting anyone? Oh, right, former President George Herbert Walker Bush is on the payroll too.
The firm also has about a dozen investors from Saudi Arabia, including, until recently, the bin Laden family. Yes, those bin Ladens. Is it any wonder that Internet sites with names like paranoiamagazine.com are rife with stories about Carlyle's shadowy, corrupt global network? And it's not just wackos. "Be careful," a tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley wrote in an e-mail when he learned I was doing a story on Carlyle. "The rabbit hole runs really deep on this one.''
Leaving aside the conspiracies for a moment, what exactly does the Carlyle Group do? Start with the basics: It's one of the world's largest and most powerful private-equity investment firms, meaning it buys and sells privately held companies and divisions of large public companies for big profits. Founded in 1987 (and named after the favorite New York hotel of the firm's first investors, the Mellon family), Carlyle has raised a total of $14 billion from investors in just the past five years--more than any other private-equity firm has attracted in the same period, except the B****stone Group and CSFB Private Equity. Profits, too, have been pretty terrific. Not counting the standard 20% cut that goes to Carlyle's partners and managing directors, the firm's average annual rate of return has been 36%.
It's quite a success story, and to understand how Carlyle pulled it off, FORTUNE spent a month and a half peeking down that rabbit hole. One conclusion seems clear: While most of the conspiracy theories are amusingly overblown, this is a firm that's been built on the backs of Bush and other big shots who have lent Carlyle their names, their golden networks of friends in high places, and their insights into how government works. It wasn't until Carlucci joined, for instance, that Carlyle really took off. Founded by David Rubenstein, a lawyer who worked as an aide in the Carter White House, Bill Conway, a former CFO at MCI, and Dan D'Aniello, a former finance executive for Marr**tt, Carlyle early on invested in a motley assortment of deals--buying an airline-catering business, a health-food chain, and a biotech firm, for example. In 1990, Carlucci got the trio interested in the $150-billion-a-year U.S. defense industry, making introductions to companies that would turn into some of Carlyle's most lucrative investments. Rubenstein quickly realized the wisdom of recruiting a former Secretary of Defense and followed it up with a former Secretary of State, then a former White House budget director, and on and on.
The revolving door has long been a fact of life in Washington, but Carlyle has given it a new spin. Instead of toiling away for a trade organization or consulting firm for a measly $250,000 a year, former government officials can rake in serious cash by getting equity cuts on corporate deals. Several of the onetime government officials who have hooked up with Carlyle--Carlucci, Baker, and Darman, in particular--have made millions. Carlyle isn't the only organization doing it: Metropolitan West Financial in Los Angeles recently hired Al Gore to help with tech deals and make introductions overseas, for example. But Carlyle, which pioneered the idea, seems more adept at it than any other firm.
Unlike other private-equity groups, Carlyle concentrates on companies funded by the government, such as defense contractors, or those affected by government regulation, such as telecommunications firms, and then hires people with relevant government experience. As the company once put it in a brochure, "We invest in niche opportunities created in industries heavily affected by changes in governmental policies." Doing so, of course, raises the ultimate rabbit-hole question: Is Carlyle's approach just a smart twist on good old business networking or a step over the line into an ethical twilight zone in which the public trust is broken?
Half a mile from the White House, inside nondescript offices sparsely adorned with generic depictions of ships and ducks, co-founder Rubenstein sits with his hands folded on a table so shiny you can see your reflection. Next to him sits Chris Ullman, Carlyle's first-ever full-time PR person. Habitually wary of media attention, Rubenstein and his partners agreed to rare interviews with FORTUNE. That's because since Sept. 11 the firm has been under unusual fire. First there was the bin Laden thing. Shafig bin Laden, one of Osama's many brothers and a Carlyle investor, was in attendance at a Carlyle conference at a Washington hotel on that infamous day. As the media were quick to point out, this meant that George H.W. Bush was working for a firm that was helping to make the bin Ladens money. Even though the wealthy Saudi family has reportedly cut all ties to Osama, the press lambasted Carlyle.
The firm has since given the bin Ladens back their money, some $2 million, but controversy lingers. Sept. 11 and its aftermath also created the appearance of further conflicts of interest--namely, that while his son is in the Oval Office directing the war effort and proposing the largest increase in defense spending since Ronald Reagan, Bush is working for a firm that, through various investments, has become the nation's 14th-largest defense contractor. "It destroys the office of the presidency no less, in my view, than having sex with an intern," says Larry Klayman, director of the watchdog group Judicial Watch. On top of all that, there's the unfolding Enron saga and the likely passage of the campaign-finance-reform bill, which suddenly make it look bad for businesses to have too many friends in Washington.
It's no surprise, then, that Rubenstein is anxious to downplay the roles of Carlyle's famous people and to dispel the aura of mystery surrounding the firm. "The word I h**e most is 'secretive,' " says Rubenstein, whose wry countenance and shock of white hair suggest a less rubbery version of Steve Martin. Rubenstein insists that all Bush does for Carlyle is give speeches to investors and that it is silly to think of him whispering in his son's ear about how to help Carlyle's companies.
On the whole, Rubenstein says, the big names at Carlyle do a lot less than most people think. "We don't lobby the government," he says, echoing a claim made by other partners interviewed by FORTUNE. He insists that if Carlyle is at all remarkable, it's because of the firm's innovative approach to private equity, its great returns, and its global ambitions--not because it happens to employ a few famous people. "Out of the 500 people at the firm, we have maybe eight or nine who served in government. The rest are your typical Harvard, Stanford, or Wharton MBAs, who do all the same things they do at other firms,'' says Rubenstein. (In fact, the number of former government big shots is 12, but who's counting?)
The conspiracy theorists like to imagine that Bush, Baker, and Major are jetting around the world cutting deals and making money for companies owned by Carlyle, but after nearly two dozen interviews with CEOs of current and former Carlyle companies and people familiar with Carlyle's business, it seems clear that this really isn't happening. What Bush & Co. actually do is far less pernicious but clearly valuable to Carlyle--they help raise money. Every year Rubenstein sets up scores of lunches and dinners around the world intended to woo new investors and gratify existing ones. As you might imagine, people like Bush, Baker, and Major are a huge draw. "If you call and say you're doing a dinner with Jim Baker or with George Bush, and could they please attend, chances are people are going to show up," explains a former employee, who, like all ex-Carlyle staffers I talked to, didn't want his name used. In the mid-'90s, for instance, Baker introduced Rubenstein to members of the royal family in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait; since he left Parliament last year, Major has been opening doors to big money in Europe and Canada. The allure of a former President is particularly irresistible. At Carlyle's annual investor meetings, CEOs and money managers line up to have their pictures taken with Bush.
For his camera mugging and speech giving, Bush is paid "in line with market rates,'' says Rubenstein. That would mean about $100,000 per speech, so if Bush makes five or six speeches a year, as Rubenstein claims, then the former President is earning at least $500,000 annually from Carlyle, not including the money he makes investing in deals. Rubenstein declines to specify which companies Bush has put money into, except to say that as a rule, they have nothing to do with the U.S. government.
There's no doubt that without these stars Carlyle would not have been able to raise as much money as it has. The firm's impressive returns and Rubenstein's seemingly inexhaustible energy and willingness to spend 300 days a year traveling have certainly played a role, but it's the bigwigs who draw crowds and really leave an impression. Their names on Carlyle brochures and their faces at Carlyle events give the firm a patina of power and credibility. "David's a brilliant fundraiser," says a source formerly associated with Carlyle. "What he's done so masterfully is traffic on the impression that the connections they have from these guys can bring them many valuable deals."
In the case of Carlucci, that impression happens to be true. The deals he's brought in total close to $2 billion in profits. There were Magnavox and GDE, makers of top-secret electronics gear, and Vought, an aircraft-parts manufacturer, all of which Carlyle bought and sold within two years, netting $300 million, $109 million, and $140 million, respectively.
Carlyle today is mostly associated with the defense industry, and one of the things Rubenstein and his partners would like to get across is that they invest in other things too. In fact, the firm owns stakes in everything from European automotive-parts manufacturers to Silicon Valley startups and Japanese DSL companies; roughly 25% of its profits last year came from real estate. But if you follow the money, it leads straight back to defense, which is where the greatest chunk of Carlyle's profits have come from. Today defense accounts for about 10% of the firm's total investments, but in the early days it was 60%.
The firm's biggest score to date also involved a military contractor--United Defense, which went public in November, turning Carlyle's $130 million investment into $900 million. But the story of United Defense's latest c**p also shows why Carlyle will probably never be seen as just another shrewd investment firm.
Last spring, when United Defense was feverishly pitching the Crusader, one of its new products, to the Department of Defense, Jacques Gansler, then in charge of acquisitions at the Pentagon, got a call from across the Potomac. It was Frank Carlucci, and according to Gansler, he wanted to know how Gansler felt about the Crusader, a controversial self-propelled artillery system that many inside the Pentagon felt was out of sync with plans for a lighter, more mobile Army. "I think he [Carlucci] wanted to make sure I was personally involved and that it wasn't going to be one of these things that got pushed down the bowels of the system,'' says Gansler, who has known Carlucci since the Reagan Administration and occasionally sees him at D.C. social events. As it turned out, Gansler was no fan of the Crusader and told Carlucci as much, ending that conversation. But Gansler thinks that had he been a fan, Carlucci "definitely would have wanted to make sure I was involved.'' It wasn't the first time Carlucci had had a conversation with a member of the Pentagon brass on behalf of a Carlyle company. In the early '90s, when Carlyle owned GDE, Carlucci drove over to Bethesda, Md., and met with, among others, Major General Raymund O'Mara, who was head of the Defense Department's Defense Mapping Agency, then a big GDE customer.
Carlucci acknowledges both conversations but asserts that neither constitutes lobbying. In O'Mara's case, he points out that GDE already had business from the mapping agency; in the case of Gansler, Carlucci says his call did nothing to advance the Crusader's cause. Nor, he says, did any of his interactions with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during that time. The two men have known each other since their days on Princeton's wrestling team. The Rumsfelds have been to the Carluccis' for dinner and on several occasions have offered their ski house in Taos, N.M., to Carlucci and his wife, Marsha. It certainly would be easy for Carlucci to strike up a conversation over cocktails about the Crusader or some other Carlyle-related matter, but Carlucci says he never does that. "In light of our friendship, I'm particularly cautious about not discussing Carlyle business with him. In fact, I have never mentioned the word 'Crusader' in his presence," he says. All this may well be true. Yet it certainly can't hurt if it's known throughout the Pentagon that you are good friends with the Secretary of Defense. The Crusader, incidentally, is on the 2003 defense budget, making it likely that the Pentagon will ultimately buy 480 of the artillery systems for $5 billion.
There's no question that Carlyle does occasionally make calls to the government on behalf of its companies. They may not be hard-sell lobbying calls, but making introductions to influential people is often just as effective. One company Carlyle funded recently through its venture fund hopes to tap into the firm's government connections. Indigo Systems, a maker of infrared-camera technology in Santa Barbara, has an interest in seeing the laws restricting exports of U.S.-made infrared technology lifted or amended. Indigo's technology goes into tiny cameras that manufacturers are starting to place in cars. These cameras "see'' objects out of the range of the headlights and display them on a digital monitor. "The automotive industry is not centered on the U.S. today, and if our product is going to become a standard item on cars, I've got to have access to a global marketplace,'' says CEO Tim Fitzgibbons. During the five months it took Indigo and Carlyle to put together a deal, the two sides talked about ways Carlyle could help open doors within the government. "If somebody at Carlyle says to whoever is chairing a committee, 'We wish you would listen to these guys, we're invested in them, and they've got a good point,' then that says a lot. As opposed to me landing in D.C. and trying to get appointments, which is damn near impossible,'' says Fitzgibbons. Indigo's camera technology also has lots of security applications, and the company would like to get a slice of next year's $38 billion federal budget allocated for homeland security. "Carlyle certainly can't influence the outcome, but they can at least get us an audience,'' says Fitzgibbons.
Besides opening doors, fundraising, and marketing, there is another advantage to getting ex-government honchos to join your firm, and that's investment insight. Carlucci didn't help companies like Magnavox, GDE, and Vought win any defense business, but he brought these firms to Carlyle because of connections he'd made with defense contractors while at the Pentagon. And as a former Defense Secretary just a few years out of the job, he knew how to evaluate the companies. It was the end of the Cold War and Pentagon budgets were way down, but Carlucci knew big money was still going to be spent on certain programs. He figured that highly classified electronic equipment--such as the boxes for analyzing radar imagery and the battlefield radios made by Magnavox, as well as the digital mapping technology for cruise missiles made by GDE--was going to be very valuable as the Pentagon tried to make the Armed Forces smarter. Later, when Carlyle invested in Elgar Electronics in 1996, Carlucci looked favorably on something that scared off other investors. Says Elgar CEO Ken Kilpatrick: "Other people questioned what would happen if our business of selling automatic testing equipment to the Navy would go away. But Carlyle understood that the Navy was committed to this program and that it was just in the middle of it." Carlyle sold Elgar in 1998 for a profit of $100 million.
Carlucci downplays the extent of his insight by saying that top analysts like Loren Thompson at the Lexington Institute know just as much as he does about defense spending, and maybe more. Certainly people like Thompson are quite knowledgeable and have networks of contacts at the Pentagon, but they don't belong to the same high-level coterie that a former Secretary of Defense does. They don't, for instance, go to lunches like the one Rumsfeld gave a little over a year ago where former Pentagon heavyweights like Carlucci, William Cohen, Caspar Weinberger, William Perry, and Dick Cheney all chatted and mingled. "Cabinet-level people are a small fraternity who all stay in touch,'' says a former Carlyle staffer. "Once they've reached that global 50,000-foot view, they tend to stay there.''
Though defense has been Carlyle's most fruitful area to date, Carlucci and the firm's current head of defense investing, Alan Holt, don't have plans to do many deals this year. Wars are such an obvious bonanza for defense contractors that prices get bid up, and Carlyle thinks they're too high now. Fortunately, there are lots of other opportunities on the horizon. Carlyle recently launched its first energy fund in partnership with Riverstone Holdings; it is also in the process of putting together an asset-management group, headed by the former treasurer of the World Bank, that will invest in other private-equity funds. With the help of former SEC chief Levitt, Rubenstein is setting up a financial services fund. There's also telecom, which has the biggest team of people dev**ed to it of any area at Carlyle. "There are dramatic restructurings in the telecom and media business going on right now, and the one thing they have in common is that they're all driven at some point by government action,'' says former FCC boss Kennard--who, like Levitt, is a Democrat, which shows that Carlyle can be bipartisan.
Rubenstein started recruiting Kennard to be a managing director in Carlyle's telecom group as soon as he left the commission last year, and ultimately won out over lots of other bidders. He was quite a catch. Kennard knows everyone who's anyone in telecom and has extensive contacts at regulatory agencies around the world. Could telecom be Carlyle's new defense? Rubenstein doesn't like to put in it those terms, but he's hoping for big returns. Looking at what Carlyle and its star-studded team have been able to do in the past, would you bet against him? http://www.fortune.com/indexw.jhtml?channel=artcol.jhtml&doc_id=206684


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