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Poppy
Bush Cashing Out on War
A
BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
by One Citizen
According
to London's Financial Times, on October 20, 2003, former U.S.
President George H.W. Bush retired from his position as senior
adviser to the Carlyle Group. A spokesman for the investment banking
firm explained that Mr. Bush had simply expressed his desire to move
on to "other concerns". [LINK]
Only 3 days earlier, the Associated Press reported that George H. W.
Bush's father had been a director of an investment bank which was seized
by the federal government because it had helped finance Adolph Hitler's
rise to power, who, in turn, started World War II. [LINK]
The Carlyle Group is a Washington-based investment bank that specializes
in buyouts of defense companies and so-called ''offset deals'' which
facilitate the global arms trade. There had been some controversy about
the possibility of "corporate cronyism" due to the fact that
the former President's son has the ability to award defense contracts
to firms which could directly benefit his father's Carlyle Group to the
detriment of the American public. There was also that international dust-up
over the fact that the bin Laden family had millions invested in the
same Carlyle Group at the time their son, Osama, declared war on the
former President's son, George W. Bush.
So "Poppy" Bush has apparently decided to wind down from the
controversy of war profiteering, and because of "age concerns," he'll
have to settle for less stressful ventures like puttering about in his
garden. It is likely that he'll be relying on the benefits of
long-held business investments for maintaining his family's income, perhaps "calling
in" a few old favors. [LINK]
Speaking of old favors (and gardening), did you ever wonder why George
H.W. Bush didn't "Just Say No" back in 1993 when former Senator
Jesse Helms (R - North Carolina) asked him to pardon an international
heroin trafficker? If you blinked you might've missed that news report
regarding Bush, Sr.'s inexplicable Executive Clemency wherein he pardoned
convicted Pakistani heroin smuggler Aslam Adam from his 55 year sentence
for smuggling $1.5 million worth of smack into the U.S. [LINK]
Today's
Tip is for Seniors and Right Wing Radio Commentators: Gardening can
be a relaxing and rewarding pastime if the war profiteering industry
becomes overly stressful.
-One
Citizen-
A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY |
