by Larry Chin
Online Journal Associate Editor
Apr 10, 2009
To sober, clear-eyed observers of history and political deception, the ascension of Barack Obama held the promise for unprecedented new dangers: a revitalized New World Order, led by the Anglo-American empire’s neoliberal criminal faction and an iconic, deceptive new facilitator; and a continuation of Bush/Cheney criminality and war, under smarter and much more effective management.
Now, just months into their tenure, the Barack Obama administration has more than fulfilled the murderous promises he made to his elite constituency, deepening the mass destruction of Bush/Cheney, while charming its victims all over the world into enjoying their own demise.
The empire’s facilitator
Beneath his seemingly boundless charisma and charm, Barack Obama has always been an utterly ruthless politician. He has been a compromiser who has danced with the darkest forces of political and criminal power, while winning over common people; a consensus-abiding chameleon and a “pragmatist.” Obama is the true model of what George W. Bush only claimed to be: “a uniter, not a divider.”
The signs were clear from the early days of the presidential contest that Obama was, like every presidential candidate, a handpicked puppet. His cadre of national security and foreign policy advisors included the most notorious war criminals, intelligence/security “advisors” and corrupt think tank assets in the world. His campaign was bankrolled by Wall Street, and big corporations. His policy agenda was taken from the playbook of the Bilderberg Group, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission. Both neoliberal (and neocon) elite power and money coalesced behind Obama, as his political rivals dropped off.
Obama’s record in the US Senate was one of general complicity with Bush/Cheney and the status quo, including enthusiastic support of the consensus “war on terrorism” deception and the big 9/11 lie. Former US Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney has described how, in her encounters with Obama, the senator from Illinois repeatedly refused to act in opposition to Bush/Cheney policies. Time again, during his days in the Senate, and throughout the presidential campaign, Obama has not only fully supported the Bush/Cheney administration on the USAPATRIOT Act, and the wholesale militarization and criminalization of the United States.
Immediate destabilization
The naïve, the hopeful and the ignorant have continued to harbor fantasies about “change,” even as Obama promptly destroyed every single hope, starting with the composition of his administration. He handpicked a transition team, and then a cabinet consisting entirely of legendary war criminals and corrupt elites, each more malodorous and corrupt than the next. From Iran-Contra participant Robert Gates and war criminal Richard Holbrooke, to Hillary Clinton and an economic advisory team comprised of the architects of Wall Street destruction, including Paul Volcker, Robert Rubin, Larry Summers, and new Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.
Under Geithner and Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, the Ponzi scheme that is Wall Street, the wholesale robbery of the American people begun by Alan Greenspan, Bernanke, and Bush/Cheney Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, has not only continued unabated, but has metastasized with each new bailout, and every new fraud orchestrated by Geithner.
While the people on “Main Street” have continued to suffer a new Great Depression without real assistance from the Obama administration, the New World Order’s financial coffers continue to fill with stolen US taxpayer money. No relief for the impoverished, while the administration “bails out” banks and Wall Street, under such frauds as the “Public Private Partnership Program”. Leaving the wolves in charge of the financial henhouse, Geithner and the Obama administration authorized Congress to toss out securities pricing standards on “toxic assets.” (Also see this op-ed, and the piece by Arthur Leavitt, former head of the SEC, and the Carlyle Group.) Essentially, the Obama administration is simply going to let the banks and financial institutions, that created the crisis with their massive Ponzi schemes, determine how they wish to price their own “toxic assets.”
This move, not surprisingly, sparked a huge Wall Street rally. Some even hailed it as the end of the crisis.
A criminal stimulus plan
Obama’s so-called stimulus package is yet another Trojan horse. As exhaustively and incisively detailed by Michel Chossudovsky in “America’s Fiscal Collapse”:
“This is a ‘War Budget.’ The austerity measures hit all major federal spending programs with the exception of: 1. Defence and the Middle East War: 2. the Wall Street bank bailout, 3. Interest payments on a staggering public debt.
“The Obama stimulus program constitutes a continuation of the Bush administration’s bank bailout packages. The proposed policy solution to the crisis becomes the cause, ultimately resulting in further real economy bankruptcies and a corresponding collapse of the standard of living of Americans.
“Both the Bush and Obama bank bailouts are intended to come to the rescue of troubled financial institutions, to ensure the payment of ‘inter-bank’ debt operations. In practice, large amounts of money transit through the banking system, from the banks to the hedge funds, to offshore banking havens and back to the banks.
“What we are dealing with is the fraudulent transfer and confiscation of lifelong savings and pension funds, the fraudulent appropriation of tax revenues to finance the bank bailouts, etc. To understand what has happened: follow the money trail of electronic transfers with a view to establishing where the money has gone.
“What is at stake is the outright criminalization of the financial system: ‘financial theft’ on an unprecedented scale.
“The monetary system, which is integrated into the State budgetary process, has been destabilized.”
AIG: Obama strikes back for the empire
The Obama administration’s most telling criminal hand was revealed in its handling of American International Group (AIG), one of the largest beneficiaries of the “bailout” frenzy. The Obama-AIG conspiracy, which continues to unfold, is also the least well understood.
While popular “outrage” has been channeled (by the corporate media, Obama, and Congress) to focus on the least important symptoms of the problem -- bonuses paid to AIG executives -- the greater crime that is AIG itself has gone unnoticed. As was the case with Enron, and with every action of Bush/Cheney, the AIG “outrage” is another “limited hangout” and cover-up.
AIG is not “too big to fail.” It is simply too important a repository of dirty money and dirty secrets to be exposed. Barack Obama and his administration know this.
AIG, one of the largest pools of investment capital on earth, is also one of the largest launderers of drug money and illegal funds for covert operations. Mike Ruppert’s investigation “AIG” (From The Wilderness, August 14, 2001) exhaustively deconstructed Greenberg and AIG, exposing continuing connections to covert operations, narco trafficking, money laundering, and AIG’s central role in the Wall Street/Washington power nexus.
AIG’s involvement in US covert operations stretches back to World War II, in its roots as C.V. Starr, the intelligence-related proprietary founded by OSS agent Cornelius Vander Starr. The Starr proprietary was connected to CIA/OSS figures Paul Helliwell and Tommy Corcoran. The notorious CIA fronts connected to C.V. Starr, including Civil Air Transport, Sea Supply, and Air America/Pacific Corp were exposed by Peter Dale Scott in his book Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina.
It is also a huge financial “pass-through,” whose counter-parties include Goldman Sachs and (not surprisingly) the same major financial institutions that are the top recipients of the US government’s TARP bailout.
It is no surprise that Barack Obama is the top recipient of AIG funds. AIG’s money also lines the pockets of other members of the Obama administration, and prominent members of Congress, including Senator Christopher Dodd, who has been accused of a sweetheart deal aiding AIG.
The man in the shadows
AIG’s former CEO, Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, remains a pivotal figure connected to the institution, which he has fought against, sued, and publicly lambasts the officials in charge of his former company, his “baby.”
Greenberg is a member of world planning groups (Council on Foreign Relations, the Bilderberg Group, the Trilateral Commission) and the Heritage Foundation, a former candidate for CIA director (1995). He is longtime friend of the Bush family. David Boies (of Bush v. Gore fame) is his attorney. So well-connected is Greenberg that he was considered as a nominee for CIA director by Bill Clinton in 1995. The profile of Greenberg in the June 20, 2005, edition of Time magazine, “Down But Not Out”, details Greenberg’s career as a government asset, foreign policy guru, and strongman.
In 2005, while still heading AIG, Greenberg was the target of multiple investigations into the orchestration of sham transactions, the inflation of reserves, illegal stock trades, deception, and book-cooking in an investigation by Eliot Spitzer, who declared that AIG was “a black box run with an iron fist by a CEO who did not tell the public the truth.” Spitzer’s probes of AIG, and other Wall Street malfeasance, was subsequently and conveniently stopped in its tracks, when Spitzer became entangled in a prostitution scandal.
Although Greenberg was forced to resign as CEO and chairman of the AIG board, he remains,to this day, the CEO of Starr International (SICO) and C.V. Starr, the private holding companies that control billions in AIG stock. It is the Starr companies that constitute the conglomerate’s original roots as an intelligence-related proprietary. In other words, Greenberg remains in charge of the heart of AIG.
Was AIG manipulation behind Wall Street rally?
For the past few weeks, the US stock market has enjoyed a robust rally, despite otherwise nightmarish economic news. One of the factors that sparked this rally was the news that major banks such as Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America -- banks that were reportedly on the verge of collapse, and subsequently major recipients of TARP bailout funds -- posted profits in January and February 2009.
How was this possible?
A report by Tyler Durden, citing an anonymous insider trader involved with AIG trades, reveals that manipulation fraudulently transferred US taxpayer money to AIG’s counter-parties -- the top banks and financial institutions -- with AIG as the “pass-through.” The profit report sparked a market rally that comes at the expense of US taxpayers.
The complete report (thanks to Jenna and the Mike Ruppert Blogspot for this find) is damning and startling:
Exclusive: Big Banks’ Recent Profitability Due to AIG Scam?
Excerpt:
“AIG, knowing it would need to ask for more capital from Treasury imminently, decided to throw in the towel, and gifted major bank counter-parties with trades which were egregiously profitable to the banks, and even more egregiously money-losing to the U.S. taxpayers, who had to dump more and more cash into AIG, without having the U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner disclose the real extent of this -- for lack of a better word -- fraudulent scam.
“ . . . What this all means is that the statements by major banks, i.e., JP Morgan Chase, Citi, and BofA, regarding abnormal profitability in January and February were true, however these profits were a) one-time in nature due to wholesale unwinds of AIG portfolios, b) entirely at the expense of AIG, and thus taxpayers, c) executed with Tim Geithner’s (and thus the administration’s) full knowledge and intent, d) were basically a transfer of money from taxpayers to banks (in yet another form) using AIG as an intermediary [my emphasis-LC].
“For banks to proclaim their profitability in January and February is about as close to criminal hypocrisy as is possible. And again, the taxpayers fund this “one time profit,” which causes a market rally, thus allowing the banks to promptly turn around and start selling more expensive equity . . . also funded by taxpayers’ money flows into the market. If the administration is truly aware of these events (and if Zero Hedge [the name of the author-LC] knows about it, it is safe to say Tim Geithner also got the memo), then the potential fallout would be staggering once this information makes the light of day . . .
“This wholesale manipulation of markets, investors and taxpayers has gone on long enough.”
Bush/Cheney’s war is also Obama’s war
On March 27, 2009, Obama launched his “new strategy for Afghanistan.” This new strategy is a continuation and expansion of the Bush/Cheney war plan, hatched in the wake of the false flag operation of 9/11, utilizing the identical “war on terrorism” and 9/11 lies as justification.
As articulated by Obama:
“I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That is a cause that could not be more just.
“I remind everybody, the United States did not choose to fight a war in Afghanistan. Nearly 3,000 of our people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, for doing nothing more than going about their daily lives.”
The consensus “Al-Qaeda” deception is not only alive and well under Obama, it is now the justification for a surge of 21,000 US troops into Afghanistan, massive covert operations throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, and an even more aggressive “war on terrorism.” This is the conquest of the “Grand Chessboard” that the Anglo-American elites wanted to execute after 9/11, but “squandered” due to the Bush/Cheney administration’s “fumble” in Iraq.
Obama, who made the rounds with the G-20 leadership, will not fumble with a war that is consistent with the “war on terrorism” goals that he has articulated for years, and promised to deliver (to his New World Order “bosses”) throughout his campaign.
As detailed by Michel Chossudovsky in “The Democrats endorse the “Global War on Terrorism”: Obama “goes after Osama,” the Obama promise is more perpetual war:
“9/11 constitutes for Obama the main justification for waging a humanitarian war in the Middle East and Central Asia. In this regard, his position does not differ from that of the Bush administration.
“Withdraw from Iraq, but remain in Afghanistan. Confront Iran, challenge Russia . . . Apart from the rhetoric of ‘bringing the troops home’ from war torn Iraq, which may or may not be carried out, what distinguishes the Democrats from the Republicans?
“A more articulate, knowledgeable and charismatic President?
“A more dignified and diplomatic approach to US foreign policy?
As a pacifying and unifying icon, Obama was positioned to perpetuate the cover-up of the American Empire’s crimes, and retrieve the “squandered opportunity” presented by the false-flag operation of 9/11: a world united behind imperial war.
“An opportunity to the US ruling elite to ‘present a different face to the world that could revive illusions to its democratic pretensions, not only internationally but within the United States as well.’ . . .
“A spurious and counterfeit ‘humanitarian’ approach to Empire, which serves to mask the truth and gain popular support.
“A less reckless Commander in Chief, who has an understanding of geopolitics and is capable of taking foreign policy decisions. A more carefully thought out military agenda than that experienced during the Bush administration? But no substantive shift in direction.
“A means to quelling mounting dissent and opposition to the ruling corporate establishment by providing the illusion that the Democrats constitute a Real Alternative.
“A means to sustaining the illusion that African-Americans can move up the social ladder in America and that their fundamental rights are being upheld.
“A means to undermining real progressive movements by further embedding civil society organizations, trade unions and grass roots organizations, not to mention “Leftist” intellectuals into the realm of the Democratic Party.
“A distraction from the extensive war crimes committed under successive US administrations.
“A ‘human face’ to war and globalization?”
A call to resist
As this writer warned in “Obama: return to elite status quo,” written shortly following Obama’s victory:
“ . . . the arrival of Obama as the new imperial figurehead of the Anglo-American empire is not a victory of, or for, the people. It will not signify a dramatic upheaval, in any way, and by no means is any sort of revolution at hand. This election was a necessary rotation of management, scripted at the highest levels of the Anglo-American elite.
“The ‘change’ that a Barack Obama presidency will bring to America and the world will be one of style, not substance: a return to the centrist corporate globalism of the Clinton and Carter eras, complete with regurgitated Democratic Party elites from those administrations, and new neoliberal politicians touting similar ideologies.
“ . . . The velvet gloves will be slipped back over the iron fists, but the fists will still be wielded aggressively. Within months, the global conquest that Bush-Cheney started will resume under the vastly more convincing and adored Obama, who has consistently stated his intention to intensify the war in Afghanistan, and “kill ‘terrorists’” across the Middle East.”
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