by SadButTrueHere's an interesting story from Ellen Hodgson Brown, writing at Global Research.caOn a recent visit to Tucson, Arizona, where I was invited to give a presentation on monetary reform, I was disturbed by a story of strange goings on in the desert. A little over a year ago, it seems, a new industrial facility sprang up on the edge of town. It was in a remote industrial zone and appeared to be a bus depot. The new enterprise was surrounded by an imposing security fence and bore no outward signs identifying its services. However, it soon became apparent that the compound was in the business of outfitting a fleet of prison buses. Thirty or so secondhand city buses were being reconfigured with prison bars in the windows and a coat of fresh paint bearing the “Wackenhut G4S” logo on the side.First off I should tell you that Ellen Brown does a fair bit of economics blogging, and has written a book Web of Debt on the "shocking truth about our money system" as it stands. Private interests like the Federal Reserve control the issuance of US currency, and don't think they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart. But I'm just saying that to give you a bit of background on the source of the story. Ellen also has a Web of Debt Blog, which I recommend. She is not an economist, which ironically gives her an edge when discussing how the economy really works. I first blogged about her last October, in a post that discussed The Working Group on Financial Markets, also known as the Plunge Protection Team. Set up by the Reagan administration in 1988 the PPT was established to stabilize the financial markets, but like all things Republican it a) operates without any real oversight and b) has a great potential for corruption.
The new Wackenhut operation is shrouded in mystery. It has been running its fleet of empty prison buses night and day, apparently logging miles on a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) contract. Multiple buses can be seen driving all over town and even on remote desert back roads. Oddly, except for the driver and one escort guard seated in front, these buses are always empty.
Wackenhut Services was founded by George Wackenhut in 1954 to provide prison guard services to state and federal governments. Wackenhut Services is now owned by the Danish corporation G4S.
Observers originally thought that the purpose of the new Wackenhut operation was to outfit prison buses to be distributed in other parts of the country. But it soon became apparent that none of the buses was leaving the Tucson depot. Recently, a passerby observed what appeared to be a training operation there. In what seemed to be strange activity for 10:30 PM on a Saturday night, the depot yard was fully illuminated, the entire fleet of buses was up and running, and drivers and guards were scrambling around the yard. The question is, what were they training for?
Some time ago I pondered how taking over the government from Bush would be like taking the controls of the Hindenburg after it had burst into flames. I never considered that a mutinous crew would also be part of the disastrous equation. And you can rest assured that as long as it is in their power these same Republican hirees will be handing out as many no-bid contracts to as many cronies as they possibly can. And maybe these buses are just part of that.Fraud and waste aside, this mysterious activity has sinister implications. Why the obvious secrecy? Since the World Trade Center disaster in 2001, the Department of Homeland Security has grown to monster proportions, claiming a projected $50 billion of the federal budget in 2009. DHS includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), which earned notoriety in 2005 for its gross mishandling of the Katrina disaster in New Orleans. Al Martin, a retired naval intelligence officer and former contributor to the Presidential Council of Economic Advisors, has linked the remilitarization of FEMA to the civil unrest anticipated along with economic collapse. He wrote in a November 2005 newsletter called “Behind the Scenes in the Beltway”:So, the obvious pertinent questions to ask here are,
“FEMA is being upgraded as a federal agency, and upon passage of PATRIOT Act III, which contains the amendment to overturn posse comitatus, FEMA will be re-militarized, which will give the agency military police powers. . . . Why is all of this being done? Why is the regime moving to a militarized police state and to a dictatorship? It is because of what Comptroller General David Walker said, that after 2009, the ability of the United States to continue to service its debt becomes questionable. Although the average citizen may not understand what that means, when the United States can no longer service its debt it collapses as an economic entity. We would be an economically collapsed state. The only way government can function and can maintain control in an economically collapsed state is through a military dictatorship.”
All of this is quite ominous. It is also a good argument for considering radical funding alternatives. There are other ways to deal with the federal debt besides relying on the waning appetites of the Chinese and the Japanese for U.S. securities. Some innovative alternatives for funding both the federal debt and President Obama’s new economic stimulus package will be the subject of followup articles. Stay tuned.
Iraq is hell if you live there, survive there, get tortured there. If it gets worse —and it will — the dead will be called lucky. War may be hell but Iraq is the product of one man's lies, frauds, deceptions. Things are so bad that I wonder if Bush will withdraw, re-invade and hope things turn out better. But that assumes Bush wants things to turn out better. He doesn't. Truth is things couldn't be worse but, as long as Bush occupies Iraq and the White House, things will get worse anyway. Truth is the Iraqi people were better off under Saddam than Bush and are probably nostalgic for Saddam. Truth is we won't get the truth —not on the American media, anyway. It was left to the BBC to report its lead story: torture in Iraq is more hellish now than under former leader Saddam Hussein, demonized and all but compared to Satan by Bush.
Bush had cited Saddam's own hellish torture program as one of his many rationales for the US war of aggression —itself a hell on earth called "Shock and Awe" —the source of pictures of modern, mechanized, souless hell fire if not brimstone. After the attack and invasion, Bush boasted about how much better things were for the Iraqi on the street. That was just one of innumerable lies that this "deceiver of nations" has perpetrated upon the American people and the entire world. Had the Iraqi people been delivered? Into hell! None of this was told us. We were deliberately deceived. All the nations of the world were deceived.
"Iraq is free of rape rooms and torture chambers.Uh huh! That was a lie that was told to all the nations of the world. There's more.—"President" Bush, 2003 Republican National Committee Presidential Gala, Oct. 8, 2003
"The Iraqi people are now free. And they do not have to worry about the secret police coming after them in the middle of the night, and they don't have to worry about their husbands and brothers being taken off and shot, or their wives being taken to rape rooms. Those days are over."Another lie told to the entire world. The BBC's source, UN chief anti-torture expert Manfred Nowak, paints a vivid picture of reality and truth, a situation "...out of control" and a seemingly endless stream of abused victims traceable directly to the US-led multinational forces, security forces, militia groups and anti-US guerrillas. It's a picture of hell on earth:—Paul Bremer, Administrator, [Iraq] Coalition Provisional Authority, Sept. 2, 2003
The UN report says detainees' bodies often show signs of beating using electrical cables, wounds in heads and genitals, broken legs and hands, electric and cigarette burns.But Bush had assured the American people and the world that Iraq was better off now that the evil dictator had been deposed by an American army that Dick Cheney said would be greeted as liberators.Bodies found at the Baghdad mortuary "often bear signs of severe torture including acid-induced injuries and burns caused by chemical substances".
Many bodies have missing skin, broken bones, back, hands and legs, missing eyes, missing teeth and wounds caused by power drills or nails, the UN report says.
Now —Bush wouldn't deliberately lie through his teeth, would he? The reality in Iraq is a harsh light on the lie. The situation is much worse now; Bush brought to Iraq an American corporate apocalypse, in fact, a preview of the corporate hell that awaits the US.Because we acted, torture rooms are closed, rape rooms no longer exist, mass graves are no longer a possibility in Iraq."
—Bush, remarks at "Ask President Bush" event, Michigan, May 3, 2004
But one hell at a time. Back to Iraq. Bush's civilian body count, likewise, continues to rise —250,000 dead civilians in Iraq and climbing.
The invasion of Iraq in March 2003 by U.S.-led coalition forces has been responsible for the death of at least 150,000 civilians.Each one of them is one count in the war crimes indictment that may one day be returned. Meanwhile, as Bush diverted more than $200 billion from needed services in the US, he has created, in Iraq, a hot bed for discontent, anger, hatred of US imperialism —a hell on earth. In short, Bush has created an incubator for real terrorism —not the phony stuff he exploits; rather, the real thing that will rise up against us in ways Bush will never, could never predict or understand, despite whatever Skull and Bones powers he may pray to in private. In a worst case, Bush may have sealed our fate, insured our doom.
Why did Bush embark upon this deliberate campaign of torture and atrocity? Why did the Bush administration inflame the middle east? Why did Bush pursue policies guaranteed to radicalize moderates and give cause to real terrorists? Why has Bush, in fact, endangered the people of the United States by making of our nation a rogue, outlaw state? Ironically, Bush cannot claim to have made us safer. To do so would remove the only issue around which he might hope to rally the American people: fear!
Whatever was discussed by Dick Cheney and his so-called "Energy Task Force", the result has been the American corporate takeover of Iraq. Surely, in that meeting, it was all planned and discussed just as Hitler literally auctioned off the Third Reich to Thyssen, Krupp, and I.G. Farben —a single meeting described vividly by William Shirer in "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich". Just as Hitler favored Farben, lucrative contracts were awarded to Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, circumventing even the pretense of a bid process.
The liar-in-chief would have you believe that Iraq is better off. In fact, Iraqi civilians were abandoned to chaos, out-sourced torture, hunger, and —now — civil war. Nothing said by Bush about Iraq has ever been true. By every sane definition Iraq is lost —but for Halliburton, the very picture of a fascist corporate rule, things couldn't be better. Truth is, Iraq has been looted!
A great collection of "worse off under Bush" links:
Additional resources:The New Testament tells us that Satan is a liar, the great Deceiver, who appears as an angel of light. It tells us that this great master of hoax and deception will lead many Christians into apostate Christianity to their own destruction. It describes him, in the book of Revelation, as the great deceiver of nations.I'm an agnostic. But I am also a logical positivist who believes that a "thing" is defined by a finite number of "attributes" that are known to exist. If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck and swims like a duck, it's a duck! Simply —if the "Beast" is defined as "deceiver of nations" ...well, who do you suppose that is? You get one guess.
