All-New Terrorist Evil-Doers Trading Card # 10 of 55 - Carlyle Group
The Carlyle Group
The Carlyle Group is a US-based global war-profiteering alliance of arms financiers, defense contractors, and "revolving-door" militarist politicians.  As the 10th largest US Defense contractor, the Carlyle Group benefits greatly from almost every dollar of anti-terrorist and military spending the White House requests, by representing and investing in a large number of corporate contractors and other special interest businesses who are able to obtain anti-competitive, no-bid government contracts, for military and reconstruction spending, in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other foreign theatres of US military involvment.
The Axis of Corporate Evil
The Carlyle Group, a Washington based private equity firm whose offices are located midway between the White House and the Capitol building at 1001 Pennsylvania Ave., has profited immensely ever since the Jan. 2001 innauguration of George W. Bush as President of the US.  The group has been called "the ex-presidents' club."

 George Bush with King Faud
In a luxurious desert compound outside Riyadh, former US President George Bush (left) chats with King Fahd of Saudi Arabia (right).  This meeting occurred during W.'s 2000 presidential campaign, according to this March 5, 2001 New York Times article.  George Herbert Walker Bush, under pressure and denying close ties with the bin Laden family or the Saudi royals, retired as a Senior Advisor to the Carlyle Group in Oct. 2003, but remains as a shareholder.
The Axis of Corporate Evil
The Military Industrial Complex
 The Bush-Saudi Connection
The Bush-bin Laden Connection

The Carlyle Group has become one of the biggest players in the growing, largely deregulated, and often informal network of financial investment groups, banks, defense contractors, and various infiltrated government groups, spy agencies, political parties, lobbying groups, and professional politicians.  Former Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his farewell address to the nation in 1961, warned the US Public against "the acquisition of unwarranted influence" and "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power" which "exists and will persist" at the "conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry."  For this speech, he gets credit for being the first ever to coin the phrase "military industrial complex" (MIC) to describe such relationships, a term which has since become part of the common lexicon.

A Partial List of Known Carlyle Group Members:
Insider's name
 Position with Carlyle Group
 Former Government offices/ affiliations
George Herbert Walker Bush, ret.
 Sr. Advisor, Asia advisory board
 US President, Vice-President, CIA Director
Frank Carlucci
 Chairman Emeritus
 US Sec'y of Defense, Deputy CIA Director
James A. Baker III
 Senior Counselor
 US Sec'y of State, Sec'y of Treasury
Fidel Ramos
 Asia Advisory Board
 Philippines President
John Major
 Europe Advisory Board
 UK Prime Minister
Richard G. Darman
 Managing Director
 US Office of Mgmt. & Budget, Director

The influence of the Carlyle Group extends past it's membership and into a network of insider relations, including lunch meetings and personal correspondence between Frank Carlucci and William Perry of the Carlyle Group, with Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense.  Clear conflicts of interest arise from the mere existence of such relationships.  For instance, by promoting the Army's Crusader mobile artillery project, which benefited some key Caryle Group investments in United Defense Industries, Rumsfeld helped former Senator Dan Coats (R-Ind.), the late former Representative Marvin Leath (D-Tex.) and other lobbyists to share in more than $1 million that United paid in each of the past three years to promote the Crusader and other weapons systems it was developing and producing.  Carlyle as whole reportedly made over $400 million in capital gains and dividends over 5 years, just from their investments with United alone.  The group as a whole had grown from 4 investors in 1987, with $5 million in capital, to become a private equity firm managing over $12.5 billion in 2002.  United also produces the well-known Bradley fighting vehicle, the M109 self-propelled howitzer, and a vertical launching system for cruise missiles.  It was sole-source developer of the gun for the new DDX destroyer.  It's just a drop in the bucket overall for Carlyle, however, with billions invested in other major contractors including Northrup Grummond, Halliburton (Kellogg, Brown, & Root), Vought Aircraft, Federal Data Systems, US Investigations Systems, and hundreds of other defense related businesses, large and small.

Disregarding for a moment the question of whether or not George Bush ever personally met with any members of the bin Laden family, there is no dispute as to whether or not the bin Laden family business had invested heavily and repeatedly, in and through the Carlyle Group, and has profited greatly from these investments.  According to this article, and many other sources, including Wall Street Journal and New York Times, the bin Ladens have met at various times with Bush, Carlucci, and James Baker regarding their investment portfolios and other overlapping business interests.

James Baker is among the most notable of a large number of so-called "revolving-door" politicians who move in and out of government jobs with total disregard and no accountability for their apparent and obvious conflicts of interest.  In December 2003, Baker was appointed as a US envoy to help the Iraqis restructure their debt.  In April 2004, it became public that he was representing Saudi clients against a class-action lawsuit which was filed on behalf of some of the families of victims of the 9/11 bombings.

Although Bush's connections to US Government through his son, US President George W. Bush, are plausibly deniable, and both father and son claim that the elder Bush neither offers, nor is asked to provide, any words of advice or counsel to the sitting president, George W. Bush still has other conflicts of interest which are largely his own, and he can be linked to the Carlyle Group and the bin Ladens through James R. Bath.  He also has other questionable Saudi connections, to Bandar bin Sultan (Bandar Bush), and with the Al-Arian family.

Superspy George Herbert Walker Bush, AKA "George Bush of the CIA," would sooner bite down on his cyanide tooth than ever admit to being a former spy, but, besides being a former US president, vice-president, and CIA director, he is also probably the only CIA spy, operative, or "asset" in history who ever attained the office of the president.  Like James Bond, agent of MI5, Napoleon Solo, agent of UNCLE, Nick Fury, agent of SHIELD, or 'most any CIA or KGB operative who was ever worth his salt, he would sooner go to his grave under extreme torture than to betray any of his prior top secret spy assignments and affiliations.  Like many other CIA officials and operatives before him, he is a true master of dissembling and "plausible deniability."

Plausible deniability in the US Government, with all of it's numerous terrorist/ anti-terrorist/ security/ spy agencies, involves the formation and use of power structures and chains of commands which are so loose, informal, and "highly classified," that any secrets can be easily kept, simply by disclaiming any knowledge or responsibility.  This is done at any and all points in the chain of command, creating an effective circle of no accountability.  International laws can be systematically, repeatedly, and unaccountably violated by government officials, even though, by and large, our national image abroad is repeatedly trashed, among the governments and citizens of most all of our allied and adversary nations alike, none of whom are quite so naive' as our government might wish them to be.  The US was declared a rogue nation by the World Court at the Hague, after the 1980's era Iran-Contra scandal.  This occurred when the elder Bush was acting as vice-president under Ronald Reagan.  More recently, the UN declared that the US war on Iraq was an illegal war.  These rather embarassing consequences are not as well reported in the US as in other countries, and they never seem to come up at all in political dialogs, debates, or campaigns in the US.

Any embarrassing facts, bodies, or skeletons in the closet are hidden away, however effectively or ineffectively, by sweeping them under the rug of "national security."  Unwanted political opponents, dissidents, whistle-blowers, journalists, or other snoops can be targeted as enemies of the state, and by implication, of the nation-at-large, by labeling them without further explanation as "threats to national security."  A key word in "plausible deniability" is "plausible" because even when it might seem terribly obvious that an official is lying, as long as no records or witnesses can be brought forth to dispute the lie, then it's still "plausible" enough that he might be telling the truth.  It may seem improbable, or unlikely, that he's telling the truth, but as long as it's still possible, and it's still plausible.  People will believe what they want to believe, and those who are predisposed to believe will believe, and those who are not will not.

For instance, there was a long period in which the elder Bush consistently claimed that he never had met with any of the bin Laden family, either prior to 9/11, or afterwards.  As long as no records or witnesses could be be brought forth to dispute the lie, plausible deniablity was maintained.  Later, however, his chief of staff and personal secretary, when confronted with a signed thank you note from him to the bin Ladens, slipped him up publicly.  There was physical evidence.  The lie was exposed, so he now admits that he actually had met with them, in 1998 and again in 2000, but he dissembles that he had "not remembered" the encounter when previously asked.  His stories are inconsistent, and again, it might not seem very probable that he would have repeatedly failed to remember, not only one, but two such meetings, but it's not entirely outside the range of unlikely possibilities, so it's still "plausible enough" to pass the limited muster of the sedated law and the sleeping press.  His detractors lash out, because it all seems so transparent to them, while he feigns surprise, shock, and indignation, and his supporters rally around him.

Former CIA Director Bush has successfully helped to carry these spy agency principles and techniques over to the Carlyle Group, where they have proven just as effective.  It's not as if they couldn't have pulled it off without him.  Bush and the other government connected players and revolving-door public servants in the Carlyle Group seem to be able to "walk between the raindrops" when it comes to escaping any real accountability, or close scrutiny by the major media, or even by the public at large.  For instance, It might seem terribly obvious to some that Bush, Baker, Carlucci, Major, the bin Ladens, the Saudi royals, et. al., are all profiting, or have profited, heavily, on insider government connections, if only by promoting and participating in wars which divert billions from tax revenues to defense clients in whom the Carlyle Group invests heavily.  Whenever a limited amount of circumstantial evidence might arise, they simply deny that they ever "officially lobbied" the government on behalf of the Carlyle Group.  They can deny that they even speak among themselves about such important matters, when they meet informally and socially.  They keep no public records, of whatever private agreements and understandings they might reach in these informal settings, so plausible deniability is rigorously maintained.  They'll just keep doing what they do so well, for as long as the Courts, the Congress, and the People keep letting them get away with it.
April 26, 2004 - Post-war Contractors Ranked by Total Government Earnings
Contractor Contract Total
General Electric Company $43,736,487,000
Vinnell Corporation (Northrop Grumman) $42,414,198,000
Science Applications International Corp. $16,194,431,000
DynCorp (Computer Sciences Corp.) $15,809,649,000
Bechtel Group Inc. $11,742,537,000
Unisys Corporation $10,772,003,000
Fluor Corp. $8,544,917,000
United Defense Industries, L.P. $7,299,691,000
Kellogg, Brown & Root (Halliburton) $5,686,006,000
Dell Marketing L.P. $2,714,952,000

All federal contracts from 1990 through fiscal year 2002  From : Icij.org

April 26, 2004 - Campaign Contributions of Post-war Contractors
Contractor Total Contributions
General Electric Company $8,843,884

Vinnell Corporation (Northrop Grumman)

$8,517,247

BearingPoint Inc.

$4,949,139

Science Applications International Corp.

$4,704,909

Fluor Corp.

$3,624,173

Bechtel Group Inc.

$3,310,102

Kellogg, Brown & Root (Halliburton)

$2,379,792

American President Lines Ltd.

$2,185,303

Dell Marketing L.P.

$1,774,971

Parsons Corp.

$1,403,508

DynCorp (Computer Sciences Corp.)

$1,218,944

TECO Ocean Shipping Co.

$1,217,587

Washington Group International

$1,185,232

United Defense Industries, L.P.

$1,076,006

Unisys Corporation

$626,239

From 1990 through fiscal year 2002  From : Icij.org


"Daddy Warbucks", a nickname sometimes used to satirically describe both George Herbert Walker Bush and his fellow CFR member George Soros (a $100 million Carlyle Group investor himself), is actually the name of the fictional supercapitalist war profiteer who adopted Little Orphan Annie in her long-running comic strip, which was created in 1924 by a cartoonist named Harold Gray.  Daddy may have been partially inspired by Wickliffe P. Draper, a textile industry heir linked to Draper Labs, Remington Arms, Rockwell International, and Prescott Bush, the US presidential father and grandfather, through the $2 million dollar Pioneer Fund, a genetics research fund which attempted to scientifically "prove" the genetic inferiority of blacks.  Draper advocated eugenics and the "Back to Africa" movement.  Both Draper and Bush have been reportedly identified by records in the US National Archives as being among the many US based financial architects of Nazism in the 1930's.  Unlike the fictional Daddy Warbucks, Draper was purportedly a big Nazi admirer and supporter, and among his many accomplishments, he disseminated an English-subtitled Nazi propaganda film entitled "Eugenics in Germany" to high schools, colleges, clubs, and churches in the US.  Daddy seemed pretty patriotic during the war, but who ever knows what's really up, when it comes to the enigmatic Daddy?
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The Curmudgeonly Old Fussbudget would like to invite all his e-mail prey to check out these other Carlyle Group related links, straight from the SHAFT Web site's archives:  The Carlyle Group,  bin Laden family, Bush family, Halliburton, Enron, American Oil Interests, BCCI, Iran-Contra, Persian Gulf War, Dick Cheney, Unocal, Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline, Hamid Karzai, Kazakh State Oil Board, Zalmay Khalilzad, Chevron, and Chevron Connie.

They don't pull punches at SHAFT.  The All-New Terrorist Evil-Doers Trading Card Series owes it all to www.shaftagents.com.  General Fury and his crew have recently added new content to their site, as of Aug.29/2004, and you'll clearly be derelict in your duties if you don't mine it out.
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