Who's Who and What's What?

by "BushBGone04"

Knowing a little about the background of the people in the White House who are shaping America™’s policies and our future can make us more vigilant in watching what our government is doing. Many of the decision makers are not elected officials, but appointees. Not all of the appointments are filled with the most qualified person for the job. Some are given as favors for campaign contributions. A program of who™’s who and what™’s what will give a better understanding of the how and why we are in the position we™’re in, with a war on 2 fronts, jobs being outsourced overseas, a growing deficit, unemployment and states unable to maintain pre-2001 standards of services. You can't tell the players without a program.

President George W. Bush President and CEO of gas and oil exploration company, Arbusto (Spanish for Bush) 1975-1986. An early investment partner was chief US representative of Salem Bin Laden, Osama's brother.
He changed the name of the company after his father won the vice-presidency to capitalize on the name. The name change did not improve the finances of the company and in a buy out deal with a college friend, Bush Exploration was bought by Spectrum 7 with Bush becoming CEO. Oil prices fell and Bush needed another bailout and it came with Harken Oil and Gas. He was made a director, received stock, stock options, and consulting fees. The Harken company felt it was worth the price to have the George Bush name. Having his father in the White House didn't hurt either, since the little company from Texas was awarded a contract for the drilling rights offshore of Bahrain, even though industry giants Amoco and Chevron were vying for that deal.
Now as a stand-in for his father's second term, he's looking forward to his planned role as "Emperor of the World."
His past political experience consists of serving six years as governor of Texas, a position that carries very little authority since most official duties belong to the lieutenant governor.

Vice President Dick Cheney was Chairman and Chief Executive of Dallas based Halliburton Corporation, the world™’s largest oil field services company with multi-billion dollar contracts with oil corporations including Chevron. Halliburton recently was awarded large government contracts in Iraq without having to go through the bidding process. Cheney still receives $1 million a year as part of a deferred retirement package.
Before becoming vice president, Cheney was Secretary of Defense under Bush, Sr. , White House Chief of Staff under Gerald Ford and was a Wyoming Congressman from 1978-1989. During his terms in Congress, he co-sponsored a measure to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling, voted against extending the Clean Water Act, against the Equal Right's Amendment, against Head Start, opposed banning the sale of armor piercing bullets, opposed the ban on guns that could get through metal detectors, opposed sanctions against South Africa for apartheid in the 1980s, voted against a resolution that called for the release of Nelson Mandela, voted for a Constitutional amendment to ban school busing, supports prayer in school and is an anti-abortion advocate. He consistently voted to raise military spending.
Cheney is a neo conservative, was a senior fellow of AEI, was on the advisory Board of JINSA, a founding member of PNAC and a member of CFR.

National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice Was a Director of Chevron Oil from 1991 until January 15, 2001. Chevron named an oil tanker after her for her loyal service. Chevron has interests in Nigeria, where U.S. military has been increasingly active including training Nigerian troops to police the oil pipeline. Previously she was Senior Director, Soviet Affairs, National Security Council, and Special Assistant to President George Bush Sr. from 1989 to 1991.
She supports only U.S. interests, not the international community. Before her appointment by George W. Bush she referred to environmental and human rights organizations as "The Enemy".

Secretary of State Colin Powell Retired General, Colin Powell served as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1989-1993. After 9-11, to his credit, Powell urged Bush to show restraint in going into Iraq. He advised getting UN approval. Many Americans looked to him to be the voice of reason to subdue the obsession of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld to invade Iraq. Unfortunately, he succumbed to the politics, and gave a 2 hour presentation to the UN promoting invasion. It was discovered that the presentation was a series of lies and a recitation of a plagiarized 12 year old paper written by a graduate student.
Had memories been sharper, the American public would have remembered Powell as an absolute team player, when as Major Powell in 1968 in Vietnam, he attempted to cover up the report of the My Lai massacre.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld In Washington since the 50s, Rumsfeld has served in many capacities. As a Representative from Illinois during the 60s, Rumsfeld had a perfect hard line Conservative voting record. He has been the most vocal in calling for war in Iraq. His years of experience in Washington should have taught him a little more about diplomacy, but he shows no talent for it. He has alienated many in the Pentagon with his post Cold War military strategies to transform US fighting capabilities and in laying out the entire battle plan for Iraq. He insulted many of our allied nations in the UN, calling that organization irrelevant and dismissing France and Germany as ‘old Europe’. He served in this same capacity under Gerald Ford, becoming the youngest Secretary of Defense in our nation™’s history at 43 years old.
The current quagmire in Iraq is due in large part to his refusal to take any advice. He underestimated the reaction of the Iraqis to being bombed and occupied. Before the bombing began, he said the Iraqis would greet our troops with flowers as liberators He apparently thought that after Saddam was gone, a provisional government would be installed and Iraq would get back immediately to business as usual. This was a miscalculation of momentous proportions. Troops are now bogged down with daily attacks from Iraqis who resent our presence there. Morale is low and tours of duty have been extended to twelve months. Many of these troops are National Guard units and did not expect to be an occupation force. At a cost of $4 billion a month and a time frame of being there for several years, it would appear that Rumsfeld™’s strategy was seriously flawed.
To date, we have not captured Osama binLaden or Saddam Hussein. We have lost 350 service men and women and about 6,000 have been wounded. In Afghanistan, the Taliban ruling party that we toppled is regaining power. The puppet we installed, Hamid Karzai, is so unpopular, he requires constant body guards.
Success can only be claimed if our sole purpose was to facilitate the gas and oil pipeline through Afghanistan and the securing of the Iraqi oil fields. Many feel the price we are paying is too high.

Attorney General John Ashcroft Former Missouri Senator who was defeated by a dead opponent before his appointment. A proclaimed devout Christian fundamentalist, he saw nothing immoral or hypocritical about sponsoring legislation to extend Schering-Plough™’s patent on their allergy medicine, Claritin and then taking a $50,000 Schering-Plough donation. Ashcroft is rabidly anti Roe v Wade, and just as anti environmental protections. His voting record to roll back clean water protections and allowing mining companies to dump toxic waste including cyanide on public lands made him the darling of such industrial giants as Dupont, Monsanto, Amoco, Exxon and Union Carbide, who donated over $1.7 million to his campaign coffers.
Some of his stranger actions have been to spend $8,000 to cover the exposed breast of the statue of Justice, anointing himself with cooking oil before starting a new assignment and his avoidance of calico cats because of his belief that they are signs of the devil.
An extremist, Ashcroft is pro death penalty and anti gay rights. He opposed school desegregation in Missouri as State Attorney General, which has labeled him a racist among minorities.
He proposed the Patriot Act after 9-11 which was supposed to make detection of terrorists easier, but severely limited the rights and freedoms guaranteed to Americans by the Bill of Rights.

Senior Advisor Karl Rove Called ‘Bush™’s Brain’, Karl Rove is perhaps the most powerful man in Washington. First as Chief Campaign Strategist and now as Senior Presidential Advisor, nothing is decided unless it has Rove™’s stamp of approval. On the surface, his outward amiability is disarming, but he can quickly turn into his Mr. Hyde alter ego, destroying those who would dare oppose him without the slightest twinge of conscience.
His mentor was Donald Segretti, Nixon™’s ‘dirty tricks’ master. While Segretti™’s goal was to discredit opposition, Rove surpasses him in evil intent, with his objective being the complete destruction of any challenger. To Rove, the most important thing is winning, whatever it takes, who ever gets crushed in the process. The only consideration is the win.

Carlyle Group Since its establishment in 1987, The Carlyle Group has grown from a group of four investors with $5 million in capital to one of the world™’s largest private equity firms with over $13.9 billion in capital committed private equity funds as of September 2002 making it the world's largest private equity global investment firm. MBOs (Management-led buyouts) make up the bulk of Carlyle's investments. Its part in MBOs has provided investment capital for major companies in aerospace and defense with contracts with the U.S. government, consumer products, energy, health care, information technology, real estate, bottling companies and telecommunications. It has 550 investor clients in 55 countries. The Carlyle Group has created a global network of business and investment professionals and, an exceptional network of portfolio companies through its 23 funds. One of the companies held was Caterair, the company in which GW Bush was made a director. It™’s list of corporate officers reads like a Hall of Fame of past political luminaries. Among its key people are: Frank Carlucci, Chairman/CEO and former Reagan Secretary of Defense, Reagan Secretary of the Treasury James Baker serves as a senior counselor, and Richard Darman, former director of the Office of Management and Budget under George Bush (the elder), is a managing director. Former President George Bush has served with Carlyle as a Senior Advisor, John Major, Former Prime Minister of the UK, and Colin Powell, before becoming Secretary of State, made an appearance on behalf of the firm.
September 11th, 2001 brought Carlyle Group to the general public's attention when it was revealed that both the Bush family and the binLaden family had made profits from transactions related to the Group.

Halliburton Corporation One of the world's largest providers of products and services to the oil and gas industries through the entire cycle of oil and gas reservoirs and provides and integrates products and services, starting with exploration and development, moving through production, operations, maintenance, conversion and refining, to infrastructure and abandonment. Halliburton employs 85,000 people in more than 100 countries. Lawrence Eagleburger, a seasoned Bush counselor who held top State Department posts under George Bush Sr., is a director of Halliburton Corporation.
Dick Cheney was its CEO until he left to join GW Bush as the vice presidential candidate on the 2000 Republican Presidential ticket. The war with Iraq and Cheney™’s influence have added billions of dollars in no-bid contracts for Halliburton..

Defense Policy Guidance After Desert Storm, the Soviet Union was breaking apart and Congress wanted to reap the benefits of the end of the Cold War by reducing the military budget. Dick Cheney was Secretary of Defense and was paranoid about the possibility of the Soviet Union recovering. The more war-seasoned Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Colin Powell, knew that the Soviet Union was in its death throes. He also saw the handwriting on the wall and knew that a cut in military spending was inevitable. He devised a plan for the implementation of vastly expanded operational objectives for US military forces. It stipulated that the military should be able to complete one major war in 100 days and two in less than 180 days. In order to achieve and maintain this, it would be necessary for the United States to have control of the access to the oil necessary for its military needs. Paul Wolfowitz saw the plan and devised one of his own. Cheney put elements of both in a paper and they presented it to Bush Sr. A draft was leaked to the New York Times and the uproar from Congress, because it was so radical, caused a more moderate plan to be drawn up. Bush lost the 1992 election and it was shelved.

Project For A New American Century (PNAC) In 1997, a group of Neo Conservatives formed this think tank. Included in the founding members were Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush and several other officials and advisors in this administration. They were all of the belief that with the Soviet Union dismantled, leaving America the only remaining world super power, the opportunity should be seized to make sure that status could never be challenged. Paul Wolfowitz saw it as the chance to institute Pax Americana, world peace enforced by America™’s military might.
In September 2000, before the election, they collaborated on a paper, using the ‘˜Defense Policy Guidance’ as a blueprint. It was called ‘Rebuilding America™’s Defenses’ and in it they outlined their plan for global domination. It states, "The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."
It clearly shows the intent of Bush's cabinet to take military control of the Gulf area whether or not Hussein was still in power. Note that the wording says, "...the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification...not an immediate threat. This was a year before 9-11 and there was no mention of WMD.
It further states: "The United States is the world™’s only superpower, combining pre-eminent military power, global\ technological leadership, and the world™’s largest economy. At present the United States faces no global rival. America™’s grand strategy should aim to preserve and extend this advantageous position as far into the future as possible."
It states that in order for the American people to accept a policy of pre-emptive strikes if necessary, a Pearl Harbor type event would be needed.
The concepts in this paper have so much dictated our foreign policy that it has been nicknamed, ‘The Bush Doctrine.’

National Security Strategy The Bush administration published its ‘National Security Strategy of the United States of America’ on September 17, 2002. What this document states as the guiding policy of the United States is the right to use military force anywhere in the world, at any time it chooses, against any country it believes to be, or believes may at some point in the future, become a threat to American interests.
It begins by declaring, ‘The United States possesses unprecedented’”and unequaled’”strength and influence in the world.’ It then goes on to state, ‘The US national security strategy will be based on a distinctly American internationalism that reflects the union of our values and our national interests.’
It makes Bush's statements clear concerning unilateral action in the Iraq invasion since it says in the document, ‘While the United States will constantly strive to enlist the support of the international community, we will not hesitate to act alone.’ Acting alone may be wise so there won't be any witnesses. Of course, it probably wouldn't matter since the document also states, the United States ‘will take the actions necessary to ensure that our efforts to meet our global security commitments and protect Americans are not impaired by the potential for investigations, inquiry, or prosecution by the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose jurisdiction does not extend to Americans and which we do not accept.’ In other words, the actions of the leaders of the United States will not be bound by the conventions or authority of international law.
Our policy, that we are declaring to the world, says that we claim the right to use our unchallenged powers to take unilateral action against anyone, without having to show proof of immediate threat whenever we, alone, decide it's justified. ‘We must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends.’ It warns other countries, not to pursue ‘a military build-up in hopes of surpassing, or equaling, the power of the United States.’ While on the other hand, ‘It is time to reaffirm the essential role of American military strength. We must build and maintain our defenses beyond challenge.’ To monitor the other countries we would have to occupy them or their neighbors. ‘To contend with uncertainty and to meet the many security challenges we face, the United States will require bases and stations within and beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia, as well as temporary access arrangements for the long-distance deployment of US forces.’
It doesn™’t take much to be able to see that the intent of all 3 of these papers are identical or that our current policies had their seeds sown in 1992. Apparently the plan was simply put on hold, since all the key players were put back in place in this administration, with eight years of experience dealing with the oil industry, augmented by major players from the oil industry itself and Bush, the son acting as stand-in for Bush, the father.

In order to carry out its self appointed role as global policeman, changing regimes and militarily imposing peace, America must have unrestricted access to oil. Unless we control a large source of oil, our military could be rendered powerless by cutting off oil shipments to us.

The Pentagon runs on oil. Our position as a superpower is dependent on oil. Without oil, we have no army. If armies and economies run on oil, whoever controls the oil controls the planet. In peacetime the US military consumes more than 37 million tons of oil each year. (The Pentagon's programs consume another 150 million tons.) Oil supplies around 34 percent of the world's energy needs but 79 percent of the Pentagon energy. It's primary objective is to ensure adequate oil supplies for the national defense (or pre-emptive offense)..

Consider these facts:
A US aircraft carrier burns 5,628 gallons per hour.
An M-1 Abrams tank burns through 252 gallons of fuel per hour.
A B-52 bomber swallows 3,612 gallons per hour.
An F-15 on afterburners can torch 240 gallons per minute.

Any questions? Just do the math.

10-09-03