Top UK defense official jailed for taking bribes from US arms dealer

Senior MoD jailed for taking bribes from US arms dealer

Last updated at 17:16pm on 16th April 2007

A senior Ministry of Defence official who built a luxury villa in the sun with bribes for helping an American company win a lucrative contract has been jailed for two years.

Greedy Michael Hale's lengthy betrayal of trust saw the American company being fed so much confidential information that it was able to run circles around the competition.

More....

• Browne grovels to save his neck

In addition to backhanders of more than £217,000, the 58-year-old civil servant's five-star lifestyle featured free flights, champagne hospitality aboard an ocean-going cruiser and stays in top hotels, London's Southwark Crown Court heard.

But when his secret paymaster was taken over by another firm, "due diligence" attorneys in California uncovered a total of nine corrupt payments paid to him over the years.

The US authorities promptly informed the MoD.

During the ensuing investigation both his wife and stepson were arrested and wrongly accused of money-laundering. They were subsequently cleared of any wrongdoing.

Hale, of Crown Mews, Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, pleaded guilty to nine counts of accepting bribes from Pacific Consolidated Industries between November 1999 and July 2003.

He showed no reaction as Judge Christopher Elwen told him jail was inevitable for his life of crime.

He said the £4.5 million contract Hale was in charge of as a team leader and a senior professional technology officer was for the supply of gas and containment equipment for all three services, particularly the RAF.

He said: "The first set of payments, all of which were actually made in US dollars, was made to you using your stepson's bank account.

"The second set of payments were paid from an American account to one in Spain in relation to the purchase and building of a five-bedroom villa with swimming pool in Benidorm.

"You were well aware of the strict rules about behaviour to be avoided so as not to raise the presumption of corruption.

"In that context you got to know Pacific Consolidated Industries (PCI) in Santa Ana, California, initially on a legitimate basis.

"But the relationship with that company and in particular with one of the company's vice-presidents, one Lee Smith, became corrupt."

The judge said that if the normal tendering process had been followed, interested companies would have received only the "general specifications" of what was needed in order to "trigger and provoke innovation of solutions".

"But as a result of your intervention, that tender process became, on occasions, entirely corrupted.

"In other words, the playing field sloped considerably in favour of PCI and against everybody else who chose to enter into the competition."

He continued: "It is suggested on your behalf that nothing you did resulted in the MoD being supplied with sub-standard equipment.

"There is, however, no doubt that offences of this nature, which to put it bluntly are the taking of bribes by public servants involving breach of trust and breach of confidence, can be visited by an immediate custodial sentence.

"And sentences for public servants acting corruptly contain an element of deterrence as well as punishment."

Christopher Donnellan, prosecuting, said the investigation by MoD police revealed the full extent of Hale's life of luxury.

Apart from his five-bedroom Spanish villa, he bought another house near his home and enjoyed "lavish hospitality" from his alleged American partner-in-crime, who is still awaiting trial.

"He was taken out for meetings and dealings on Lee Smith's boat and air fares and hotel bills paid for him," said counsel.

A confiscation hearing will be held later this year.

US Defense Secretary to Visit Israel to Sell Weapons

_{Last update - 02:04 12/04/2007}

U.S. defense secretary to visit Israel

_{By Shmuel Rosner}

WASHINGTON - U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates will visit Israel next week for a series of meetings with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz on the strategic situation in the Middle East.

The visit, scheduled for April 17, is the first time a U.S. Defense Secretary will be visiting Israel in eight years.

American sources told Haaretz on Tuesday that the visit was decided and a date finalized, though an official announcement on the matter has not been made public.

The visit, which comes about a month after Peretz visited Washington, will also deal with bilateral defense ties between the U.S. and Israel.

Gates was appointed Defense Secretary less than six months ago, replacing Donald Rumsfeld. A planned visit of Rumsfeld to Israel in June 2006 was canceled last minute.

The last U.S. Defense Secretary to have visited Israel was William Cohen, who came in 1999, during the second Clinton administration.

The Gates visit is critical to helping heal the rift in the relations between the U.S. and Israel defense establishments, following the crisis that occured over Israeli's sale of defense equipment to China. In 2005, the U.S. defense establishment placed severe sanctions on Israel, which included restrictions on defense-related sales, joint projects and exchanges of information on advanced weapons systems.

Gates' main mission at this point is to oversea the renewed effort to stabilize Iraq, in light of President George Bush's decision to increase the number of U.S. troops in that country.

American sources told Haaretz yesterday that Gates is interested in hearing what the Israeli leadership thinks about the situation in Iraq. He is also planning to discuss tactics for dealing with the IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) employed by terrorists in Iraq, which have taken a toll on U.S. forces.

Among the bilateral issues to be discussed is Israel's wish to be included once more in the JSF (Joint Strike Fighter) project for the new American strike fighter - from which it was excluded following the China crisis. Senior Israeli officials argued in their recent meetings with American counterparts that it is advisable to include some Israeli sub-systems in the new aircraft. However, the Americans were adamant that they do not intend to make further changes in the design and development of the aircraft.

The Israelis said they raised some of the lessons of the Lebanon war in conversations with their American colleagues and recommended that these should be studied before the JSF development program is finalized.

Another issue of interest to Gates and Israel, and a subject covered extensively last week by the New York Times, is Israel's opposition to the sale of advanced weapons systems to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States.

The American defense establishment is determined to sell these systems to Arab states and will seek a compromise formula in order to prevent supporters of Israel in Congress from foiling the deal. Israel has also expressed interest in procuring a number of advanced systems from the U.S. and it is possible that Washington will agree to reconsider the sale of these to Israel in exchange for an easing of Israeli objections to the Saudi deal.

46 of 49 nations OK ban on cluster bombs

By DOUG MELLGREN, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 10 minutes ago

A declaration calling for a 2008 treaty banning cluster bombs was adopted Friday by 46 out of 49 nations attending a conference in Oslo, officials for the Norwegian government and two non-governmental groups said.

Norway's deputy foreign minister Raymond Johansen said Poland, Romania and Japan did not approve the final declaration. Officials for Human Rights Watch and the Cluster Munition Coalition also said those three countries dissented.

The gathering was snubbed by some key arms makers — including the U.S., Russia, Israel and China — but organizers said other nations needed to forge ahead regardless to avoid a potential humanitarian disaster posed by unexploded cluster munitions.

A declaration presented on the last day of the meeting urged nations to "conclude by 2008 a legally binding international instrument" to ban cluster bombs.

The treaty would "prohibit the use, production, transfer and stockpiling of those cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians," the declaration said.

Cluster bomblets are packed by the hundreds into artillery shells, bombs or missiles, which scatter them over vast areas, with some failing to explode immediately. The unexploded bomblets can then lie dormant for years after conflicts end until they are disturbed, often by civilians.

As many as 60 percent of the victims in Southeast Asia are children, the Cluster Munition Coalition said. The weapons have recently been used Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Lebanon, it said. The U.N. estimated that Israel dropped as many as 4 million bomblets in southern Lebanon during last year's war with Hezbollah, with as many 40 percent failing to explode on impact.

Children can be attracted to the unexploded weapons by their small size, shape and bright colors, activists say.

Friday's declaration urged countries to take steps at a national level before the treaty takes effect. Norway has already done so, while Austria announced a moratorium on cluster bombs at the start of the conference.

"It is nonbinding. It is not a legal document. But it is a statement of political will," Steve Goose of Human Rights Watch said of the declaration.

Norway hopes the treaty would be similar to one outlawing anti-personnel mines, negotiated in Oslo in 1997.

The U.S., China and Russia have refused to sign the land mine treaty and oppose the Norwegian initiative on cluster bombs. They did not send representatives to the meeting. Australia, Israel, India and Pakistan also did not attend. Those nations say the weapons should be dealt with in other arenas, such as the U.N. Convention on Conventional Weapons, known as CCW.

Goose said the major powers don't need to be involved for the treaties to have an impact. Activists say the point is to stigmatize the weapons.

"If you need proof that you can conclude a treaty without the United States, Russia and China, look at the land mine treaty," he said. Goose said even though major powers have rejected the treaty, they have stopped deploying land mines, and that the number of civilian casualties have been cut in half since 1997.

Before the meeting, activist groups feared some countries would seek to water down, or even squash, a declaration by insisting on a longer or nonexistent deadline. But Nash said the first day of talks made it clear that there would be a declaration, with the 2008 deadline, even if some countries rejected it.

The declaration said work on the cluster bomb treaty would be carried out in Lima, Peru, in May or June; in Vienna, Austria, in November or December, and in Dublin, Ireland, in early 2008.

___

On the Net: http://www2.norway.or.jp/policy/news

How long can BAE, Britain's biggest arms company, run a secret service and trump the armed forces?

The parallel universe of BAE: covert, dangerous and beyond the rule of law

How long can Britain's biggest arms company run a secret service and trump the armed forces in political influence?

George Monbiot
Tuesday February 13, 2007
The Guardian

There is a state within a state in the United Kingdom, a small but untouchable domain that appears to be subject to a different set of laws. We have heard quite a bit about it over the past two months, but hardly anyone knows just how far its writ runs. The state is BAE Systems, Britain's biggest arms company. It seems, among other advantages, to be able to run its own secret service.

This week, Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) hopes to obtain a court order against BAE. The order would allow it to discover how the arms company obtained one of its confidential documents. CAAT instructed its lawyers, Leigh Day & Co, to seek a judicial review of the government's decision to drop the corruption case against BAE, which is alleged to have paid massive bribes to members of the Saudi royal family. Leigh Day sent CAAT an email containing advice on costs and tactics. The email ended up in the hands of the arms company.

How? Correspondence between a plaintiff and his lawyers couldn't be more private. The last people you would show it to are the defendants in the case. But somehow the letter found its way to BAE's offices.

The arms company argues that it was the unwitting and unwilling recipient of the email. So why does it refuse to tell CAAT who sent it? Why, far from assisting CAAT's attempt to explain this mystery, has it threatened the group with costs for seeking to reveal BAE's source?

CAAT has good reason to be suspicious. In 2003, the Sunday Times revealed that BAE had carried out a "widespread spying operation" on its critics. "Bank accounts were accessed, computer files downloaded and private correspondence with members of parliament and ministers secretly copied and passed on." The paper said the arms company made use of a network run by a former consultant for the Ministry of Defence called Evelyn Le Chene. "Le Chene recruited at least half a dozen agents to infiltrate CAAT's headquarters at Finsbury Park, north London, and a number of regional offices." They provided BAE with advanced intelligence on CAAT's campaign against the sale of its Hawk aircraft to the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia. The arms company also obtained CAAT's membership list, its bank account details, the identity of its donors, its letters to ministers, even the contents of private diaries belonging to its staff.

After the story was published, CAAT asked a team of investigators to examine the messages sent from its offices. They found that one of the group's most senior members of staff, the national campaigns and events coordinator, had sent 181 emails to an unfamiliar address. Many of them contained extremely sensitive information.

The coordinator, Martin Hogbin, denied that he was an agent of Le Chene's. He claimed that the mysterious email address belonged to a former CAAT volunteer, and that he had been sending him this information because he might find it interesting.

The investigators contacted the former volunteer, who told them that he had not received any messages from Hogbin, and did not recognise the address. CAAT took the case to the United Kingdom's Information Commissioner, who found that the email address belonged to "a company with links to Evelyn Le Chene". Both Le Chene and Hogbin refused to assist the investigations. If it was true that Hogbin was working for Le Chene, it would be a tremendous coup for her and her clients. As campaigns and events coordinator, he knew more than anyone else about CAAT's plans. If BAE were to obtain and make use of such intelligence, it could anticipate and outmanoeuvre the Campaign's attempts to expose or embarrass it.

BAE's spying operations represent just one way in which the company looks like a parallel state. It also appears to enjoy crown immunity. Last August, this column suggested that the Saudi corruption case might be dropped, in order to protect a new order for 72 BAE jets. It was not a hard prediction to make - Saudi Arabia had made the new deal conditional on the abandonment of the case. But I could not have guessed that both the attorney general and the prime minister would make such a show of squashing the investigation. They seemed to go out of their way to demonstrate to BAE's clients that they would do whatever it took to protect the new order, even if it meant exposing themselves to allegations of collusion.

The prime minister has never taken such a risk on behalf of one of his departments, let alone his ministers or officials (witness how Lord Levy and Ruth Turner have been left to swing). There are just two friends for whom he will put his legacy on the line: George Bush and BAE.

In 2001, Blair overruled Clare Short and Gordon Brown to grant an export licence for BAE's sale of a military air-traffic control system to one of the world's poorest countries, Tanzania. The World Bank had pointed out that the contract was ridiculously expensive - Tanzania could have bought a better system elsewhere for a quarter of the price. In January the Guardian revealed that BAE Systems allegedly paid a $12m (£6.2m) "commission" to an agent who brokered the deal.

In 2005, Blair made a secret visit to Riyadh to expedite BAE's deal with the Saudi princes. He then sent both John Reid and Des Browne to clinch the order. Ministers in the UK have always acted as unpaid salesmen for the arms companies, but seldom has a prime minister muddied his hands this much. Blair pushed the order through by promising the Saudis that they could have the first 24 planes ahead of schedule. How? By selling them the jets already allotted to the RAF. BAE's interests, in other words, trump the requirements of our own armed forces.

Blair has also broken his government's pledge to publish the report by the National Audit Office on BAE's dealings in Saudi Arabia. It remains the only NAO report never to have been made public. We can only guess why the prime minister needs to protect it.

It could be argued, with some force, that this government has always had a special relationship with big business, rather like its special relationship with George Bush (it gets beaten up and thanks him for it). But the special favours it grants BAE are deeply resented by other corporations. After the suppression of the Saudi case, F&C Asset Management, a very large institutional investor, wrote to the government to complain that its decision undermined the rule of law and the predictability of the investment climate. Hermes, Britain's biggest pension fund, said that it threatened the UK's reputation as a leading financial centre, and the chairman of Anglo-American wrote that the abandonment of the case "damaged the reputation of Britain".

At what point does the government conclude that this company has got out of control? That it presents a danger to national interests, to the reputation of the prime minister, to the privacy and civil liberties of its opponents? Why does it appear to be above the law? For how much longer will it be permitted to run what looks like a parallel secret service? Of all the questions we might ask of our ministers, these are the least likely to be answered.

George Monbiot is the author of the bestselling books The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order and Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain, as well as the investigative travel books Poisoned Arrows, Amazon Watershed and No Man’s Land.

He has held visiting fellowships or professorships at the universities of Oxford (environmental policy), Bristol (philosophy), Keele (politics) and East London (environmental science). He is currently visiting professor of planning at Oxford Brookes University. In 1995 Nelson Mandela presented him with a United Nations Global 500 Award for outstanding environmental achievement. He has also won the Lloyds National Screenwriting Prize for his screenplay The Norwegian, a Sony Award for radio production, the Sir Peter Kent Award and the OneWorld National Press Award. A full archive of his articles, with references, is available at www.monbiot.com.

Jewish Liberals Say The Dog Wags the Tail (I Say the Tail Wags the Dog)

Doni Remba, a peace activist, disputes my claim that the progressive voice in Jewish life has been marginalized by the neocons. He has some evidence: he says he's getting traction in the Jewish press for his view that there has to be a progressive lobby, to push for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine. His post follows, below.

I have one important quibble, ahead of time. Remba reflects the conventional leftish pro-Israel view that the dog wags the tail. I.e., that Israel is a client that does as the imperial U.S. wants it to do. The U.S. doesn't want Israel to talk to Syria; so it doesn't. His view of the Israel lobby is that it is merely seconding rightwing choices that the U.S. government is making. And so he says:

American choices heavily constrain the Jewish state, eliminating options and creating the environment in which Israel must make its own now far more limited and difficult choices.

That's where I demur. I feel like a lot of lefty Jews want to think this is true; it is the Stephen Zunes line, that neocon Zionist Jews have had only minor influence over a rightwing administration. I believe that Israel has made its own choice not to speak to Syria, for years, and that its friends in Congress reinforce that line here. Or here is Shlomo Ben-Ami, in the latest Commentary, making the same point (I'm afraid it's not online yet, but I just got my issue in the mail):

"[T]he interplay of factors that truly make up American foreign policy [are] strategic considerations, imperial ambitions, oil, the arms industry, corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, ideology, and, last but not by no means least, the political and intellectual profile of the president. Bush's moral certitude and self-imposed divine mission makes [sic] utterly redundant the need for an 'Israel Lobby' to teach him the political gospel it wants him to follow in the Middle East."

I think Ben Ami is wrong, that he is blinding himself to a multitude of sins under that little word "ideology," and that George Bush had little idea of anything when he came into office. I.e., that neocons are smart guys with a highly-developed belief system; and they also had agency here (yes, along with a lot of other fools who pushed this war).

In fairness, Remba does go after Jewish "communal leaders" choices. A nice way of putting the fact that neocon beliefs about the Arab world have gained wide currency in the erstwhile liberal Jewish leadership. But read Remba's post (which he was not able to post; problems again, sorry folks):

You write: "I do question the political will of the body of American Jewry; if they feel misrepresented by the Israel lobby and their congressmen, they ought to rise up against them. George Soros says he's going to start an anti-occupation lobby. Good for him, I'm in his camp. Will he get numbers?"

I'd like to offer two of my recent articles on this subject for your and your readers' consideration. The first, published in the English edition of Ha'aretz, "Wanted: A Moderate Pro-Israel Lobby," can be read in Ha'aretz or on my blog at http://tough-dove-israel.blogspot.com/2006/11/haaretz-wanted-moderate-pro-israel.html

The new dovish pro-Israel peace lobby is not a Soros initiative, but an cooperative effort of many liberal/progressive Jews from various Jewish organizations, think tanks, liberal Democratic political activists and funders.

How many supporters will we get? Watch and wait. Many of us are working on it.

As president of Chicago Peace Now (Americans for Peace Now's Illinois-Indiana Chapter) for the last six years I, for one, have had some success, with the help of many colleagues and friends, in building support for dovish policies on the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli conflicts in the mainstream Chicago Jewish community and beyond.

Second, here is an excerpt from my latest monthly column in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, which is sometimes syndicated nationally in the Jewish press. Perhaps it will give you a dash more hope to realize that pieces like mine are printed in mainstream Jewish papers around the country. This piece is titled, "Look Who's Pressuring Israel":

Writing in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz in November, I wondered whether AIPAC would work to promote a US-Israeli peace initiative with Syria or the Palestinians. AIPAC's Israel spokesperson responded on November 23rd in Ha'aretz that "AIPAC's mandate is not to pressure the Israeli government to follow a particular course." Reading these words, I scratched my head. Who said anything about "pressure?" In reality, the Bush Administration is pressuring the Israeli government to refuse peace talks with Syria, according to the testimony of Prime Minister Olmert, his advisors and cabinet ministers. AIPAC, and its allies in the organized Jewish community, who rush to loudly protest any time there is a whiff of US pressure on Israel in favor of a peace initiative, has absolutely nothing to say when the White House blocks Israel from talking with Syria. Even when the US isn't making overt demands on Israel, US foreign policy choices have so large an impact on the Middle East and the overall strategic context in which Israel lives, that every action the US takes--and those actions it fails to take--casts an iron boot of coercion on Israel. American choices heavily constrain the Jewish state, eliminating options and creating the environment in which Israel must make its own now far more limited and difficult choices.

The Bush Administration's military escalation in Iraq, which includes raids and arrests of Iranians, may lead the US down the slippery slope to a new war with Iran, warns Kenneth M. Pollack of the Brookings Institution. Bush's actions may provoke "the Iranians to respond, which in turn would escalate the situation and provide the Bush administration with the casus belli it needs to win Congressional support" for such a war, fears Johns Hopkins University Iran scholar Trita Parsi. Bush's refusal to bargain directly with Iran, his rejection of the unanimous bipartisan recommendation of the Iraq Study Group for direct talks with Iran and Syria, and his preference for more force, are recklessly pushing Israel and our Sunni Arab allies into an incendiary region-wide conflagration with Iran, Hezbollah and Syria. Neither Israel nor the US will achieve their military or political goals in such a clash, which will give birth to an even more insecure and explosive Middle East in which Israel will have to live.

I called, and I call again, on the Bush Administration to return to sanity: to abandon its failed policy of isolation and implied threats of regime change against Syria and Iran; to explore the possibilities for a grand bargain with both countries which would meet US strategic interests in Iraq, Lebanon, the Gulf Arab states, Israel and Palestine. I call on the President not only to permit Israel to test the waters with Syria through a secret back-channel, but to send American mediators to such meetings to maximize the chances of their success.

Finally, there's the stifling burden of inaction to which we subject Israel daily: the crushing weight of the Bush Administration's failure to build a regional diplomatic framework within which Israel can make safe and secure choices for peace with its Arab neighbors; the failure of American Jews to speak up--as American citizens, if not as Jews who are deeply concerned for Israel's well-being--about what's best for the national security of the United States and its allies, especially Israel; the timorousness and apathy of so many American Jews who have yet to express their solidarity with the forces of progress and peace in Israel itself, even within the Israeli government. We, the American Jewish community, have massively constrained Israel's freedom by the many dangerous choices we have let our communal leaders, and our government, make in the Middle East. Citizenship doesn't end at the voting booth.

Gidon D. Remba is co-author of the forthcoming The Great Rift: Arab-Israeli War and Peace in the New Middle East. His commentary is available at http://tough-dove-israel.blogspot.com/ He served as senior foreign press editor and translator in the Israel Prime Minister's Office during the Egyptian-Israeli peace process from 1977-1978. His essays have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the New York Times, the Nation, the Jerusalem Report, Ha'aretz, Tikkun, the Forward, the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, Chicago Jewish News, JUF News, and the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle.

(Gidon) Doni Remba (aka Tough Dove Israel)

P.S. My piece, "Look Who's Pressuring Israel," excerpted in my post, was also reprinted by the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago/Jewish United Fund in their weekly E-Alert. You can't get more Jewish mainstream than that. It's slightly encouraging that such establishment outlets are circulating my writing, particularly when I say the kinds of things I say in this piece, including the criticisms of AIPAC, exposing its hawkishness and bursting its propaganda bubble.

FILE UNDER: Neocons, U.S. Policy in the Mideast

Posted by Phil Weiss on January 30, 2007 10:12 AM | Permalink

Arms Sales-An Alternative To Dialogue

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Christopher R. Brauchli

But I’m always true to you, darlin’ in my fashion, yes,
I’m always true to you, darlin, in my way.
— Ella Fitzgerald Song

There’s one thing George Bush knows. You don’t get to be the biggest arms merchant in the world by only selling arms to friends. If that were the case the only countries to which we’d sell arms would be countries like Great Britain and Canada and they’re not going to buy enough to keep us in first place. And it’s not Mr. Bush’s fault that he doesn’t know that there is a history in the United States of selling arms to people who have ended up using the arms against the United States. After all, it’s hard enough for him to keep up with what’s going on right now.

If Mr. Bush knew history, he’d know that in the 1980s the United States sold Iran 12,000 anti-tank missiles, 235 Hawk missiles and 200 Phoenix air-to-air missiles costing more than $1 million each. He’d recall that when we thought Mr. bin Laden was our friend for trying to kick the Soviets out of Afghanistan (a country to which we are now bringing law and order in order to show the Russians how good old American know-how can get the job done) we provided him with stinger missiles. The ones bin Laden couldn’t use he sold to Iran and got cash that has helped in his ongoing battle with his former arms supplier). Now Mr. Bush is arming the Palestinian organization known as Fatah.

President Mahmoud Abbas is a member of the Fatah party and the president of the Palestinian Authority. He was elected in 2005 and until 2006 Fatah controlled the Palestinian Authority. Some parts of Fatah get along with Israel-sort of. In 2006 legislative elections were held. Hamas won and took control of parliament. Fatah cabinet members resigned and were replaced by Hamas members. Hamas does not get along with Israel. It wants it removed from the face of the earth. Since the elections, relations between Fatah and Hamas have been tense and often violent. The two groups have tried unsuccessfully to form a unity government and since that failed have resorted to shooting at one another in the streets.

Mr. Bush is very concerned about the destabilizing effect a full-scale conflict between the two groups could have on the region. He fears it could turn into another Iraq. One way of dealing with the concern would be for him to initiate talks with the two groups and see if there is a way forward that would protect Israel’s right to exist while at the same time eliminating the risk of civil war between Hamas and Fatah. That is impossible because the United States (and Israel for that matter) do not talk to groups that are dedicated to the destruction of Israel. Mr. Bush also doesn’t talk to countries he doesn’t like but that’s another story. Ever creative, Mr. Bush has another plan. Sell arms.

Mr. Bush is going to pour $86 million into the coffers of Fatah. That is more than the total of all the monies the United States has given the PLO since it was formed in 1994. None of this aid would be necessary if Fatah had not lost the 2006 election. The money will help it regain what it lost at the ballot box. Mr. Bush understands that kind of thinking since he had to go the Supreme Court to become president after losing at the ballot box.

According to media reports in late December, with Israel’s and the United States’s approval, 2,000 AK-47s and two million bullets were transferred to Mr. Abbas’s security forces, many of whom are loyal to Mr. Abbas and to Fatah. (Fatah’s armed wing known as Al-Aqsa fighters are hostile to Israel and some Fatah folk have launched terrorist attacks against both the U.S and Israel but Mr. Bush hopes those people won’t be given those weapons.) With $86 million it’s a sure bet there will be lots more weapons heading Fatah’s way. More arms is a sure fire way to bring peace to that region.

There is, of course, always the chance that the arms being sold will eventually be used against the merchant (us) or even Israel. That is because there are people loyal to Fatah who dislike Israel. Bassam Eid, head of the Palestinian Rights Monitoring Group in East Jerusalem says the Fatah faction is not a moderate movement and that the infusion of cash will “double the number of thugs” in Fatah. Dennis Roth, a Middle East advisor to two administrations said: “The $86 million reflects the basic sense in the administration that the only way to change things is through confrontation.”
That is not surprising. Bullies are usually inarticulate and prefer a show of force to a show of brains, especially when not possessed of the latter. Mr. Bush is their poster child.

Discuss this column [1]

Christopher Brauchli, columnist and lawyer is known nationally for his work.

He is a graduate of Harvard University and the University of Colorado School of Law where he served on the Board of Editors of the Rocky Mountain Law Review. Chris served as President of the Boulder Bar Association in 1974-1975 and the Colorado Bar Association in 1989-1990. He is a fellow in the American College of Trust and Estate Counsel, the American Bar Foundation, the Colorado Bar Foundation and the Boulder Bar Foundation of which he was the founder and first president. He was the founder and first President of the Colorado Bar Association’s Lend-a-Lawyer, Inc., a program designed to provide legal services to the less fortunate members of society through out the State of Colorado. Chris is the author of The Human Race and Other Sports, a newspaper column that is syndicated by Knight Ridder newswire.

Soldiers and Imperial Presidents

January 3, 2007

By Charles Sullivan

The vast majority of those who serve in the United States military probably do so with the best of intentions and with honor. The belief that they are defending their country from foreign attackers and doing their patriotic duty as citizens is persistently reinforced. Military service is one of America's sacred cows; it is something that is rarely questioned and is surrounded by an invisible aura of nobility. No one, especially those who serve, wants to think of their time in the military as anything less than honorable and worthy of glorification.

But the trouble with sacred cows is that they tend to preclude critical examination and often escape the scrutiny of rational thinking and moral judgments. The premise of honorary military service thus goes virtually unchallenged, and often becomes the essence of dogma. But it seems to me that anyone contemplating a military career, especially since it may require killing other human beings and broad scale environmental destruction, should do so with open eyes and clear senses. They need to know who they are serving and whose interests they are protecting.

There is no escaping the fact that the U.S. is an imperialist nation conceived in genocide and racism that has continued through the ages, and worsened with the rise of modern technology and weaponry. With the advent of smart bombs came stupid and immoral leaders. Our litany of crimes against earth and humanity are concealed under layers of moral language, but the actual deeds belie the intent behind what is being done in our name. Ignorance, however, does not absolve anyone from culpability.

Anyone considering military service should deliberate upon the promises proffered by recruiters with extreme skepticism. Recruiters are trained to exalt war as the highest expression of patriotism and love of country; when, in fact, it is often the most debasing expression of our humanity that makes a shallow mockery of real service to god and country. The war resister and the conscientious objector may be the true patriot.

I will make no effort to conceal my contempt for military recruiters who prey upon unsuspecting and inexperienced youth, especially the poor and economically disadvantaged. No parent should expose their children to these predators. Recruiters are the moral equivalent of ambulance chasers, and they should be accorded no more respect than them, or the corporate con men who sell us goods that are detrimental to our health. These people are not concerned about the welfare of our children or the country; they are the representatives of imperialism, empire, and Plutocracy; and they are in search of cannon fodder.

Marketing militarism and war to society at large is no different than selling potato chips laced with trans-fats or carcinogenic chemicals, without regard to public health and its attendant social costs. It is all about managing public perception and providing widening profit margins to the corporations that are running the government. To hell with the public welfare and moral pronouncements, the plantation owner demands blood sacrifices as a show of loyalty and gratitude.

Thus it is not surprising that military sacrament is couched in the language of service to country, patriotism, and other noble causes that are as divorced from reality as the President is removed from sanity. The hypocrisy of righteous language contrasted to the actual deed is readily apparent to anyone who knows history. It is propaganda in the purest and most lethal form.

No doubt, the millions of men and women working in the armed forces today do so in the belief that they are heroically serving their country, as well as the cause of freedom and democracy. But in fact, they are serving the ruling clique, the illuminati, and a few thousand wealthy investors, which represent less than 0.02% of the population. There must be no confusion that the financial interests of Halliburton, Bechtel, and the Bush dynasty are not the interests of America's citizens, especially those in the armed forces.

There is nothing noble or moral about invading defenseless sovereign nations and killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent human beings. There is no morally justifiable way of making occupation and the outright theft of natural capital, such as oil, respectable or gallant. Genocide and theft are crimes against humanity, regardless how the corporate advertisers and public relations firms couch them; and the military is complicit in the commission of those crimes, whether they are ignorant of their role in them or not.

Consider, for example, the role the military has traditionally played in carrying out the plans of one imperial president after another. We have troops permanently stationed in 135 nations protecting America's corporate interests from democracy. Stifling democracy is quite different from nurturing it. Either most of our presidents are pathological liars or they do not know the difference between nurturing and destroying. America's record of imperialism speaks for itself; and it is something that, when critically examined, is not easily mistaken for anything other than what it is.

Similarly, the bogus war on terror is a contradiction in terms, as historian Howard Zinn has so aptly pointed out. War is terrorism. Terrorism begets terrorism, and nothing but terrorism. War does not, and cannot ever lead to peace.

Aided by the CIA and death squads trained at the School of the America's at Fort Benning, Georgia, the U.S. has crushed one fledgling democracy after another and replaced them with brutally oppressive right wing dictatorships friendly to American corporations and financial investors. Let us recall that Saddam Hussein was our man in Iraq until he converted from the dollar to the euro. From Iran to Chile there are hundreds, if not thousands, of cases that could be cited. For a more detailed analysis of these incursions, I refer readers to William Blum's provocative book, Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions since World War Two.

Let us assume that the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is a fairly typical example of imperial policies that have been in vogue for well over a century. Like previous military actions, the invasion of Iraq was based upon a litany of lies set forth by the president and his cabinet, and carried forth in the corporate media. Iraq did not pose a threat to America or to the interests of the American people, and both the President and the commercial media knew it. Their intent was to deceive and to garner support for unconscionable acts of aggression and terror that are not in the people's interest.

Thus our armed forces are in Iraq under false pretenses that have nothing to do with spreading democracy or liberating oppressed people from tyranny. They are there for reasons that are as nefarious as they are treasonous. More than anyone, the men and women in the armed forces need to know why they are in Iraq and what is expected of them by the commander in chief.

The Plutocratic interests in Iraq may be summarized as the use of technologically advanced military forces and high tech weaponry that provide incalculable wealth to a privileged few. In this context, soldiers are nothing more than a means to and end; a Machiavellian way of socializing costs and privatizing profits-the ultimate in corporate welfare. Well over $50 billion in profits have been hauled out of Iraq by 150 U.S. corporations, including the privatization of lucrative Iraqi oil. The profits and the death toll continue to rise simultaneously.

To date, some 700,000 Iraqi people have died in the war and occupation, and the violence is rapidly escalating. Most of the dead are civilians, many of them women and children. Over 3,000 American soldiers have died on the basis of lies and thousands more are permanently maimed and traumatized-all to enhance the bottom line of America's wealthiest and most privileged elite.

It is not well publicized in the western mainstream media that fourteen permanent military bases are under construction in Iraq. The occupation is growing deep tap roots that are drawing the life, and the oil, out of the region, and consuming it in a firestorm of self-perpetuating violence.

President Bush and his kind, always eager to exploit a photo opportunity, frequently pay homage to the troops stationed around the world and in return garner their respect and admiration, neither of which is deserved. Placing soldiers in peril when there is no threat to America or to national security is an expression of utter contempt for them; it is a treasonous offense worthy of the most severe punishment short of execution.

Aside from photo ops, Bush and his wealthy brethren do not associate with enlisted men, whose petty lives transpire far below the lofty socio-economic status the elite were born into. Enlisted men and women are permitted to wipe the cow dung from the president's cowboy boots, but they are not allowed to wear them or travel in the same social circles as their owner.

The parasites that are running the country produce nothing, and have no more loyalty to the American people or to the Constitution than Frito-Lay or Halliburton. Their only allegiance is to accruing ever more wealth and power to themselves by all possible means, including war. You see, America is also an occupied country.

Neither the Iraqi nor American people's interest is served by the military industrial complex. War is never in the interest of those who are fooled into fighting them. War benefits those who instigate them and reap their financial reward from the safety of posh offices and marbled halls. War is the century's old tradition of peasants doing the bidding of kings and queens. That is whose interest is being served by our soldiers.

The truth is that soldiering is a particularly virulent manifestation of America's unending class war; the continued exploitation of the working class by the ruling elite-the rich preying upon the poor. Now the President and his accomplices in Congress intend to send even more soldiers to Iraq, further escalating the violence, and acting contrary to public sentiment. The lives of these men and women mean nothing to the emperor and his minions. They are only so much excrement to be wiped from their boots; the sacrificial lambs of empire crawling beneath their ignoble gaze.

Despite my severe criticism, it is not my intention to disparage either soldiers or military service. However, these men and women are being duped and exploited, and someone has to tell them what they are killing and dying for. It will remain for each individual to weigh the evidence and decide whether it is right or wrong, courageous or foolish.


Sources:

The Bush Agenda: Invading the World One Economy at a Time, Regan Books, 2006

Information Clearinghouse, www.informationclearinghouse.info

Killing Hope, William Blum, Common Courage Press, 1995

The arms deal they called the dove: how Britain grasped the biggest prize

The Saudis want Iran whacked. Time to go after these sumbitches, folks.
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· No expense spared as UK wooed Saudi politicians
· US and France lost out on tens of billions

David Pallister
Friday December 15, 2006
The Guardian

The deal of the century, as it came to be known, took three years to complete. But when it was finally signed by Prince Sultan, the Saudi defence minister, on the Caribbean island of Bermuda in 1988 it provided British Aerospace with a stream of revenue worth around $2bn (£1.02bn) a year, with a current total that stands at more than $40bn.

It involved the sale of 72 Tornado fighters and 50 Hawk jet trainers, the construction of two airbases and a host of other equipment, training and spares, serviced by more than 3,000 UK experts stationed in Saudi Arabia. They called it Al-Yamamah: the dove.

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Britain's role as one of the world's top arms exporters was guaranteed by the partnership, but it was a close-run battle. In 1985 the Saudis were desperate to upgrade their defences. They were concerned even then about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism touching their Shia citizens in the oil-rich east, as well as the possibility of being drawn into the Iran-Iraq war, in which they took the side of Saddam Hussein. They approached France for its Mirage 2000s and the US for the F-15E, in the face of strenuous opposition from the Israeli lobby.

In the end Britain triumphed, due, in large part, to the intervention of Margaret Thatcher. She assiduously cultivated Sultan on his private visits to London and developed a close relationship with King Fahd, whose opinion of the British prime minister verged on infatuation.

The British party that flew to Bermuda to sign the memorandum of understanding included Sir Colin Chandler, head of defence export services and now chairman of easyJet; air vice-marshal Ronald Stuart-Paul, head of the Saudi armed forces project at the Ministry of Defence; and John Weston, the British Aerospace director in charge of the project.

The deal was immediately controversial and perpetually shrouded in secrecy. It was paid for by the delivery of up 600,000 barrels oil a day, with the money going into a dedicated MoD account. But given the Saudi royal family's propensity for extravagance and corruption, the allegations of kickbacks soon surfaced and have never gone away.

It was not only princes and their officials who were said to have benefited but also, allegedly, Mrs Thatcher's son, Mark, through his friendship with one of the intermediaries, the Syrian/Saudi billionaire Wafic Said.

Campaigners against the arms trade argued that Britain should not be selling war planes and military equipment to an undemocratic regime that practised torture. They claimed that the British government refrained from criticising Saudi human rights abuses, even when British citizens were involved, in order not to upset the arms sales.

Such was the sensitivity of the arrangement that a National Audit Office report in the early 1990s was, unprecedentedly, suppressed. The official British line has always been that this was a government-to-government contract, and no agents were involved. But evidence that commissions or bribes were paid by BAE, as it now is, and some of its sub-contractors such as Rolls Royce, Thorn EMI and Royal Ordnance, have been seeping into the public domain for years. Rolls Royce was even sued in the high court by agents acting for one of the princes because it had reduced the level of its commissions.

The alleged principal method for concealing the bribes was to increase the price of the goods; so, it appears, the Saudi princes were stealing from their people.

But after Al-Yamamah 1, the deal just rolled on. It was renewed in 1993 when Saudis agreed to buy another batch of 48 Tornado war planes. In a third stage, signed last year, Britain is selling up to 72 more planes, this time Typhoons.

The Guardian disclosed that accidentally released Whitehall papers, including a telegram from Chandler, revealed how the price of the Tornados had been inflated by 32%. Another document in the archives quotes a dispatch from a British ambassador saying the family of Prince Sultan "had a corrupt interest in all contracts". Two years ago this newspaper also revealed something of the quantity of money that was allegedly being passed around when it published details of the lavish BAE Systems hospitality showered on Prince Turki bin Nasser, the deputy head of the air force, and his family.

By then, the Serious Fraud Office had launched an inquiry into allegations; laws that came into force in 2002 made paying bribes on overseas deals a criminal offence. SFO officers have been trawling seized documents and have arrested and interviewed some BAE officials.

They unravelled details of arrangements for commissions being paid through Swiss bank accounts, and appeared to be about to approach the Swiss authorities for access to them. The scale of the alleged slush fund, concealed in Swiss bank accounts of Panamanian companies, may be as much as £100m.

BAE and all individuals have always denied any wrongdoing.

All the allegations have infuriated the Saudi royal family, not least because they have fuelled the resentment against the regime by its own militants and fundamentalists throughout the Muslim world.

In the past few weeks there have mutterings - aired by BAE Systems itself - that the Saudis are upset, the new Typhoon deal is in peril, and thousands of jobs are at risk if the Serious Fraud Office continues its investigations.

Key dates

Mid-1980s
Saudis keen to upgrade defences; consider French and US-made systems as well as British.

1985
Al-Yamamah deal signed by Saudi defence minister Prince Sultan and then defence secretary Michael Heseltine. Britain's biggest arms deal, it provides for the sale of 72 Tornado and 30 Hawk warplanes to Saudi Arabia. Worth £43bn so far. Al-Yamamah means "the dove" in Arabic.

1989
Deliveries begin.

1992
National Audit Office scrutinises the deal following allegations that members of Saudi royal family and middlemen were secretly paid hundreds of millions of pounds in kickbacks. But report is suppressed over fears it would anger the Saudis.

1993
Al-Yamamah deal renewed. Saudis agree to buy 48 Tornados.

1997-1999
BAE sets up offshore accounts in British Virgin Islands and Switzerland to move around large sums of off-balance-sheet cash.

2002
Laws come into force making it illegal to pay bribes to foreign public officials.

2004
Guardian reveals scale of hospitality BAE showered on Prince Turki bin Nasser, deputy head of air force.

2004
SFO launches investigation into corruption, including allegations that BAE Systems ran a multimillion pound "slush fund" to secure the Saudi arms deals.

2005
Third phase of deal sees Britain sell up to 72 Typhoon aircraft in £6bn deal.

2005
Sir Richard Evans, BAE chairman, interviewed by SFO.

Oct 2006
Guardian publishes documents showing how price of Tornado warplanes was inflated by £600m.

Nov 2006
SFO pursues evidence that millions of pounds of BAE cash was found in Swiss accounts potentially linked to the Saudi royal family.