Climate Change 101

by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change (2006)

Edited from a PDF document by The Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a non-profit, nonpartisan, independent organization dedicated to providing credible information, straight answers, and innovative solutions in the effort to address global climate change.

Introduction

The science is clear: climate change is happening, and it is linked directly to human activities that emit greenhouse gases. This overview summarizes the six-part series Climate Change 101: Understanding and Responding to Global Climate Change. (References for other PDF documents in the Pew series appear at end of the essay.)

Science and Impacts discusses the most current scientific evidence for climate change and explains its causes and projected impacts. As explored here and in greater depth in Technological Solutions, a number of technological options exist to avert dangerous climatic change by dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions both now and into the future. Business Solutions, International Action, State Action, and Local Action describe how business and government leaders at all levels have recognized both the challenge and the vast opportunity climate change presents. These leaders are responding with a broad spectrum of innovative solutions. To successfully address the enormous challenge of climate change, new approaches are needed at the international level, and the United States must re-engage in the global effort and adopt strong and effective national policies.

I. A Real Problem with Real Solutions

An overwhelming body of scientific evidence paints a clear picture: climate change is happening, it is caused in large part by human activity, and it will have many serious and potentially damaging effects in the decades ahead. Scientists have confirmed that the earth is warming, and that greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants and other manmade sources - rather than natural variations in climate - are the primary cause. Due largely to the combustion of fossil fuels, atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, are at a level unequaled for more than 400,000 years. As a result, an enhanced greenhouse effect is trapping more of the sun's heat near the earth's surface and gradually pushing the planet's climate system into uncharted territory. (Figure 1 explanation and URL appear at end of essay.)

Carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases always have been present in the atmosphere, keeping the earth hospitable to life by trapping heat. Yet, since the industrial revolution, emissions of these gases from human activity have accumulated steadily, trapping more heat and exacerbating the natural greenhouse effect. As a result, global average temperatures have risen both on land and in the oceans, with observable impacts already occurring that foretell increasingly severe changes in the future. Polar ice is melting. Glaciers around the globe are in retreat. Storms are increasing in intensity. Ecosystems around the world already are reacting, as plant and animal species struggle to adapt to a shifting climate, and new climate-related threats emerge.

Scientists predict that if the increase in greenhouse gas emissions continues unabated, temperatures will rise by as much as ten degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century, potentially causing dramatic - and irreversible - changes to the climate. The consequences, both anticipated and unforeseen, will have profound ramifications for humanity and the world as a whole. Water supplies in some critical areas will dwindle as snow and ice disappear. Sea levels will rise, threatening coastal populations. Droughts and floods will become more common. And hurricanes and other powerful storms will increase in intensity. Adding to the threat will be the impacts of climate change on agricultural production and the spread of disease. Human health will be jeopardized by all of these changes.

Climate change is a real problem, but it also has real solutions. Some of its effects are already inevitable and will require some degree of adaptation. But humanity has the power - working collectively and individually and at all levels of society - to take serious action to reduce the threat posed by climate change. To avoid the worst effects, scientists say we will need to stabilize greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere; that means reducing emissions of these gases by about fifty to eighty percent. It is a major challenge that will require unprecedented cooperation and participation across the globe. Yet, the tools exist to begin addressing this challenge now. Around the country and throughout the world, many political, business, and community leaders already are working to prevent the consequences of global warming. They are acting because they understand that the science points to an inescapable conclusion: addressing climate change is no longer a choice, but an imperative.

II. Reducing Emissions: What it Will Take

Climate change is not just a daunting challenge; it is also an enormous opportunity for innovation. While there is no "silver bullet" technological solution, many tools already exist for addressing climate change, and new options on the horizon could potentially yield dramatic reductions in worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases.

Although greenhouse gas emissions are primarily associated with the burning of fossil fuels (chiefly, coal, oil and natural gas), they come from many sources. As a result, any effort to reduce the human impact on the climate will need to engage all sectors of society. As shown in Figure 2 (URL at end of essay), the largest contributors to total US emissions are the electricity generation and transportation sectors; significant emissions also come from other commercial and agricultural activity and from residential and industrial buildings. In each of these areas, technologies and practices already exist that can reduce emissions. Other tools that are still being developed hold tremendous promise. Significant reductions will require a transformation in global energy use through a combination of short-term and long-term commitments. Real reductions are possible today, but we also need more advanced technology - and we need to begin developing it now.

Given the many sources of emissions, a comprehensive response to climate change requires a portfolio of solutions. In the electricity sector, these solutions include improving the efficiency of power plants; generating an increasing share of electricity from climate-friendly renewable sources such as solar, wind and tidal power; developing new technologies to store carbon-dioxide emissions underground; and investing in new nuclear facilities. Increased energy efficiency in buildings and appliances also can provide significant and cost-effective reductions. At the same time, transportation-sector emissions can be reduced through investments in new and existing technologies to improve the fuel efficiency of cars and trucks. Other transportation solutions include using low-carbon fuels (such as biofuels, fuel cells or electricity) and adopting "smart growth" policies that reduce driving.

There will certainly be costs associated with adopting these technologies and transforming the way we consume energy. Yet, addressing climate change also offers enormous economic opportunities, starting with the opportunity to avoid the considerable costs that climate change will pose to societies and businesses. In addition, the global technology revolution that is needed to protect the climate will create new economic opportunities for businesses and workers, as well as the localities, states and nations that successfully position themselves as centers of innovation and technology development for a low-carbon world. However, innovation will not happen quickly enough or at the necessary scale without government action to push and pull new technologies into mainstream use. A comprehensive strategy of economy-wide and sector-specific policies is needed. Key policy solutions include investments in science and technology research; efficiency standards for buildings, vehicles, and appliances; and perhaps most importantly, an overall limit on greenhouse gas emissions and a market for reductions. One such system, known as cap-and-trade, would set a cap on greenhouse gas emissions and allow companies to trade emission allowances so they can achieve their reductions as cost-effectively as possible.

III. Embracing Climate Solutions

In the absence of a strong US federal policy, leaders in business and government at all levels have begun taking significant steps to address climate change. Current efforts cannot deliver the level of reduction needed to protect the climate, but they provide a foundation for future action, as well as proof that progress is possible without endangering economic success.

1. Business Solutions

Leading businesses around the globe are taking action to reduce their impact on the climate and to advocate for sensible policy solutions. A survey of over thirty companies asking why they are taking action on climate change revealed a number of key motivations for action, including increasing profits, influencing government regulation, enhancing corporate reputations, and managing risk. (Figure 4 explanation appears at end of essay).

Recent years have seen a shift in corporate approaches to climate change from focusing exclusively on risk management and protecting the bottom line to the pursuit of new business opportunities. Improvements in energy efficiency, for example, can lead to reduced costs; sales of climate-friendly products and services are growing rapidly; and new markets for carbon reductions are taking off.

Many corporate leaders increasingly believe that the growing certainty about climate science means that government action is imminent. Companies want a head start over their competitors in learning how to reduce their emissions. Others in the private sector are responding to growing pressure from investor and consumer groups for disclosure of climate-related risks and integration of climate concerns into companies' core business strategies. There may also be considerable risk to a company's brand and reputation if customers, partners, investors and/or employees don't view the firm as responsible with regard to climate change. The potential physical impact of climate change on business operations is another concern among corporate leaders.

Recognizing both that government action is inevitable and that policy decisions made on this issue will have substantial implications for future profits, business leaders increasingly are engaging with policymakers to help influence those decisions. Many of these business leaders favor approaches that level the playing field among companies, create more certainty for businesses, and spread responsibility for greenhouse gas emission reductions across all sectors of the economy. The Pew Center on Global Climate Change's Business Environmental Leadership Council includes more than forty companies at the forefront of corporate action on climate change. Council members' diverse, innovative efforts show the power of business to have a significant impact on reducing greenhouse gas emissions while helping the bottom line. These companies employ over three million people and have combined a stock market value of over $2.4 trillion. Thirty-two of these companies have set targets that reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

2. International Action

Climate change is a global problem requiring a global response. Carbon dioxide emissions have risen 130-fold since 1850 and are projected to increase another sixty percent by 2030. Most emissions come from a relatively small number of countries. An effective strategy to avert dangerous climate change requires commitments and action by all the world's major economies.
The United States, with five percent of the world's population, is responsible for 25 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, more than any other country. On an intensity basis (emissions per gross domestic product or GDP), US emissions are roughly fifty percent higher than the European Union's or Japan's. On a per capita basis, US emissions are roughly twice as high as those of the EU and Japan (and five times the world average).

US emissions are projected to rise eight percent above 2004 levels by 2010 (and 28 percent by 2025). By comparison, emissions are projected to hold steady in the EU, and decline five percent in Japan, by 2010.

Emissions are rising fastest in developing countries. China's emissions are projected to nearly double, and India's to increase an estimated eighty percent, by 2025. Annual emissions from all developing countries are projected to surpass those of developed countries between 2013 and 2018. Their per capita emissions, however, will remain much lower than those of developed countries. In 2025, per capita emissions in China are expected to be one-fourth - and in India, one-fourteenth - those of the United States.

In 1992, countries signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change with the objective of avoiding dangerous human interference in the climate system (189 countries, including the United States, have ratified the agreement). In the Convention, developed countries agreed to "take the lead" in addressing climate change and to the voluntary "aim" of reducing their emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. Soon recognizing that stronger action was needed, governments launched new negotiations on binding emission targets for developed countries. The resulting agreement, the Kyoto Protocol, requires industrialized countries to reduce emissions on average 5.2 percent below 1990 levels by 2008 to 2012. All major industrialized countries but the United States and Australia have ratified the protocol.

At the national and regional levels, a range of policies contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The most far-reaching is the European Union's Emissions Trading Scheme, which caps emissions from 12,000 facilities across 25 countries. In major developing countries like China and India, policies driven by economic, energy, or development objectives in many cases contribute to greenhouse gas reduction. China, for instance, reduced its energy intensity 68 percent from 1980 to 2000 and has ambitious targets to further improve energy efficiency and expand renewable energy.

In 2005, governments launched new processes under the Framework Convention and the Kyoto Protocol to consider next steps in the international effort. The report of the Climate Dialogue at Pocantico, a group of senior policymakers and stakeholders from fifteen countries convened by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, calls for a flexible international framework allowing different countries to take on different types of commitments (including economy-wide emission targets, sectoral agreements, and policy-based approaches). The future of the international effort hinges in large measure on the United States - other major emitters are unlikely to commit to stronger action without the participation of the world's largest economy and emitter. As it strengthens its domestic response to climate change, the United States must also provide the leadership needed for an effective long-term global effort.

3. United States: Federal Action

In February 2002, President Bush announced a voluntary target to achieve an eighteen-percent reduction in US greenhouse gas intensity (the ratio of emissions to gross domestic product) by 2012. Under this target, emissions actually will continue to rise as the economy grows. In 2004, US emissions were eighteen percent higher than they were in 1990, and 2.6 percent higher than at the start of 2002. A number of senators and representatives - both Democrats and Republicans - have offered proposals to limit emissions, but a mandatory climate bill has yet to pass in either branch of Congress. Nonetheless, momentum for action is growing, as indicated by the increasing number of bills, votes and hearings held on climate-related issues in Congress in recent years.

4. United States: State Action

The lack of action in Washington on the climate issue has prompted many states to seek their own solutions both individually and cooperatively. At this point, nearly every state is engaged in working in some way on climate solutions. By taking action to address climate change, US states are fulfilling their role in American democracy as "policy laboratories", developing initiatives that serve as models for federal action.

To date, states have implemented a broad spectrum of climate policies. Twenty-eight states have adopted climate action plans detailing steps they will pursue in addressing climate change, and twelve states actually have set targets, ranging from modest to aggressive, to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions in the decades ahead. Beyond these broad-based plans and targets, many states have adopted sector-specific policies that reduce emissions from electricity generation - for example, by promoting the development of clean and renewable energy resources and by requiring that utilities generate a specified share of power from renewable sources. States also are directing public funds to energy efficiency and renewable energy projects and adopting new standards for power plant emissions and energy efficiency. In the transportation sector, states are adopting policies and standards to promote efficient, low-emission vehicles and climate-friendly fuels. They are also working on smart growth, zoning reform, and transit-oriented development. Agricultural policies also are being redesigned to promote biomass as another solution to climate change.

Among the main motivating factors for state action has been concern about the potential impact of climate change on state economies from consequences such as sea level rise or extreme weather. However, many state leaders also see enormous and largely untapped economic opportunities that will come with developing new markets for climate-friendly technologies. In contrast to the global warming debate at the federal level, climate-related policies typically enjoy bipartisan support among the states.

This activity on the part of states is significant because some US states are major emitters of greenhouse gases, producing levels comparable to those of many developed countries. In addition, state actions are showing it is possible to reduce emissions and spur technological innovation without endangering economic competitiveness. And, through interstate partnerships, states are demonstrating the power of collective action to reduce costs and to achieve increased efficiency, while cutting emissions across a larger geographic area. (Figure 5 explanation and URL appear at end of this essay.)

In addition to spotlighting what works, however, states also are demonstrating that their efforts alone are not enough. States have limited resources and strict budget requirements that make far-reaching climate policies difficult to implement, and they also lack certain powers that would be crucial to a comprehensive climate change policy. Moreover, the patchwork quilt that can result when states take individual approaches to the climate issue can be inefficient and pose challenges for business. State action is important, but strong and coherent federal policies are needed to ensure consistency and to mobilize climate solutions throughout the economy and the nation.

5. Local Action

State leaders are hardly alone in their movement to address climate change. Across the country and all over the world, city and county governments are implementing their own policies aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Cities have a strong history of climate action, and continue to mount responses to climate change that are resulting in emissions cuts. Cities are working together to achieve their goals through a number of programs and mechanisms, including the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives and the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, both of which have experienced dramatic growth in participation.

Policies adopted by cities and towns within the United States span everything from energy supply to transportation to tree planting. Local leaders are taking action because they recognize that their communities have a lot to lose should emissions remain unchecked and climate change accelerate. Many of the potential effects of climate change - such as extreme weather, higher sea levels and reduced water supplies - will be felt most sharply by urban populations. In addition to reducing risks, cities and towns also can realize indirect benefits by tackling climate change, such as energy savings and improved air quality. Localities, like the states, are offering lessons in what works to protect the climate. However, as is the case with action by the states, a patchwork of local policies is no substitute for economy-wide action at the federal and international level.

IV. The Path Forward

The science is clear. Climate change is happening, and the time to act is now. While the early actions of local and state governments, nations, and business leaders are significant, climate change remains a global problem requiring a global solution. Ultimately, a fair and effective international approach must engage all of the world's major economies and allow enough flexibility for all countries to contribute.

Substantive US engagement at the international level is going to be crucial to the success of the global effort. On the domestic front, the federal government needs to adopt policies that recognize that climate change is real, and that it poses both risks and opportunities for the United States and the rest of the world. With comprehensive federal policy and constructive international engagement, the United States can harness the power of markets to drive innovation and protect the climate.

URL for this essay is http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/1114%5FOverviewFinal%2Epdf

Figures and References:

Figure 1 The Greenhouse Effect:

1.A. Natural Greenhouse Effect: The greenhouse effect is a natural warming process. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and certain other gases are always present in the atmosphere. These gases create a warming effect that has some similarity to the warming inside a greenhouse, hence the name "greenhouse effect".

1.B. Enhanced Greenhouse Effect: Increasing the amount of greenhouse gases intensifies the greenhouse effect. This side of the globe simulates conditions today, roughly two centuries after the Industrial Revolution began.

Greenhouse Effect explanation: Illustration of the greenhouse effect: Visible sunlight passes through the atmosphere without being absorbed ...

1.1 Some of the sunlight striking the earth is absorbed and converted to heat, which warms the surface.

1.2 The surface emits heat to the atmosphere.

1.3 Some heat is absorbed by greenhouse gases.

1.4 Some absorbed heat is re-emitted toward the surface.

1.5 Some of the heat not trapped by greenhouse gases and escapes into space.

1.6 Human activities that emit additional greenhouse gases to the atmosphere increase the amount of heat that gets absorbed before escaping to space, thus enhancing the greenhouse effect and amplifying the warming of the earth.

Source: Marian Koshland Science Museum of National Academy of Sciences http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/1114%5FOverviewFinal%2Epdf

Figure 2 shows 2004 US Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Sector (Million Metric Tons CO2 Equivalent)

Figure 3: Getting it Done - in "Wedgers". One oft-cited forecast suggests that under a "business-as-usual" scenario, annual global greenhouse gas emissions will reach fourteen billion tons per year by 2055. Assuming we need to cut those emissions at least in half (or by a minimum of seven billion tons), researchers Robert Socolow and Stephen Pacala have suggested that one way to think about the problem is to break the necessary reduction into seven wedges. Each wedge represents a strategy that can reduce carbon emissions by one billion tons per year within fifty years.

The result of the so-called "wedges" analysis of Socolow and Pacala is shown in Figure 3. Achieving the necessary total reductions will require a combination of strategies. The following examples of wedges give an indication of the magnitude of the effort required:

3.1 Producing two billion cars that travel sixty miles per gallon of gas instead of thirty miles per gallon

3.2 Build one million two megawatt wind turbines to displace coal power

3.3 Build 700 gigawatts of nuclear power to displace coal power (twice current global nuclear capacity)

3.4 Decrease car travel for two billion 30 MPG cars from 10,000 to 5,000 miles per year

3.5 Capture and store carbon emissions at 800 gigawatts of coal plants

3.6 Improve energy efficiency by one-fourth in buildings and appliances

3.7 Produce 100 times current US ethanol output

Source: S Pacala and R Socolow. 2004. "Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies". Science, 305(5686): 968-972.]

Figure 4: Why Companies Take Action (Explanation): Once begun, how important are the following measures of success in undertaking your climate-related strategy?

Scale of one to five where one indicates least important and five indicates most important:

(a) Energy Efficiency: 3.7 (b) Operational Improvement: 3.5 (c) Cost Savings 3.4 (d) Anticipating and influencing climate change regulation: 3.3 (e) Protect the global climate: 3.3 (f) Elevating corporate reputation: 3.3 (g) Social responsibility: 3.2 (h) Improving risk management: 3.1 (i) Identifying new market opportunities: 2.9 (j) Enhancing human resource management and corporate culture: 2.8

Source: Getting Ahead of the Curve: Corporate Strategies That Address Climate Change, Pew Center on Global Climate Change, 2006. http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/1114%5FOverviewFinal%2Epdf

Figure 5 indicates Regional Initiatives for US states

Figure 6: Cities Committed to the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement. Mayors of 320 cities have signed the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement as of October 2006. Source: http://www.seattle.gov/mayor/climate/

Other Pew Global Climate Change PDF documents in the Global Climate Change series:

In an effort to inform the climate change dialogue, The Pew Center on Global Climate Change and the Pew Center on the States have developed a series of brief reports entitled Climate Change 101: Understanding and Responding to Global Climate Change.

These reports are meant to provide a reliable and understandable introduction to climate change. They cover climate science and impacts, technological solutions, business solutions, international action, recent action in the US states, and action taken by local governments. The overview serves as a summary and introduction to the series.

Climate Change 101: Understanding and Responding to Global Climate Change http://www.pewclimate.org/images/cover-climate-101.gif

Climate Change 101: The Science and Impacts http://www.pewclimate.org/images/science_101_cover_100906_163644.gif

Climate Change 101: Technological Solutions http://www.pewclimate.org/images/tech_101_cover.gif

Climate Change 101: Business Solutions http://www.pewclimate.org/images/business-cover.gif

Climate Change 101: International Action http://www.pewclimate.org/images/intl-cover_113006_073345.gif

Climate Change 101: State Action http://www.pewclimate.org/images/states_101_cover.gif

Climate Change 101: Local Action http://www.pewclimate.org/images/local-cover.gif

Contact: Pew Center on Global Climate Change 2101 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 550, Arlington, Virginia 22201 www.pewclimate.org

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Medal of Honor Recipient Addresses U.S. Forces in Iraq

Congressional Medal of Honor recipient addresses U.S. forces in Iraq.
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By Charlie Liteky May 7, 2003
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By way of introduction, my name is Charlie Liteky, a U.S. citizen, a Vietnam Veteran, and a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient. However, I renounced the Medal of Honor on July 29,1986 in opposition to U.S foreign policy in Central America. What the U.S. was supporting in El Salvador and Nicaragua, namely the savagery and domination of the poor, reminded me of what I was a part of in Vietnam 15 years earlier.
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I placed the medal at the apex of the Vietnam Memorial Wall into which are etched the names of 58 thousand young American men. In depth study of the Vietnam War revealed political and military liars insensitive to the value of human life, inclusive of their own countrymen. The biggest liar was the Commander in Chief of U.S. armed forces, President Lyndon Johnson, who lied to Congress about the Gulf of Tonkin incident. It was this lie that motivated Congress to vote the money for the war. As a veteran of an ill-fated war, in the waning years of my life, I’d like to share some reflections on my country’s attack on Iraq.
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Once again, I find myself in protest of a U.S. military action that no court in the world will declare legal. The U.S. attack on the sovereign country of Iraq fails to meet any of the necessary provisions of a just war. Iraq on the other hand, met the most fundamental condition for a country to use military force against an adversary, namely the defense of its homeland against an unjust aggressor. But, because of the incredible superiority of the U.S. military, there was no possibility of a successful defense.
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In its attack on Iraq, the U.S. violated the UN Charter, international law and universal standards of morality. This is borne out by the worldwide condemnation of the U.S. attack by mainstream religious denominations and spiritual leaders.
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Claiming liberation of the Iraqi people as a just cause for a war that kills thousands of innocents is hypocrisy at its worst. If liberation of an oppressed people were the real motive behind the invasion of Iraq - why did the U.S. wait 25 years to act? Why did the U.S. refrain from condemning Saddam Hussein’s use of chemical weapons in its war with Iran in the 80s? Why did the U.S. fail to prevent chemicals critical to the production of biological weapons from reaching Iraq? How is it that what we condemn today we approved yesterday?
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Many Iraqi people rejoiced at the sight of their American/British liberators, but many more did not, because they had no legs to walk to the sites of celebration, no arms to wave in jubilation or they had no life left to celebrate. The sanitary military term for such people is “collateral damage.”
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I first came to Iraq in November of 2002 in response to the bellicose words of war coming from the President of the U.S. and his staff. When I think of children, the most vulnerable of the innocents. In my imagination I could hear them crying, I could see the terror in their eyes and faces as they heard the planes overhead, followed by bombs exploding. I wanted to be with them to offer what small comfort I could.
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This cartoon [of a sly, American eagle with its talons deeply planted in Iraqi earth] published in the Jordan Times on April 23, 2003 depicts what many Arab people believe is the U.S. motivation behind its attack on Iraq, namely, a deep-rooted, long-lasting presence. Recently, newspapers have reported that plans are underway to establish four military bases in Iraq.
What the cartoon does not include is the U.S. interest in and access to Iraq’s immense oil reserves.
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A two-time Medal of Honor recipient, General Smedley Butler, said that “War is a Racket” and that he spent his 33 year military career being a bodyguard for U.S. business interests. I submit that protecting U.S. business interests, sometimes referred to as “national interests” is still the primary mission of the U.S. military. Wartime profits go to a select few at the cost of many. Again to quote Gen. Smedley Butler:
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“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.”
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This letter containing some of my reflections is not meant to cast blame for an attack on Iraq on U.S. military personnel. I’m sure you believe that what you are a part of is right and just. I once believed the same of my participation in the Vietnam War. I share my thoughts and conclusions as gifts of truth revealed to me through years of studying U.S. foreign policy.
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Sincerely,
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Charlie Liteky, Vietnam Veteran
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PS: God be with you in your search for truth, your quest for justice, and your efforts to help a beautiful people.
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Charles Angelo J. Liteky was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for rescuing wounded soldiers under fire while serving as a chaplain with the 199th Light Infantry Brigade in Vietnam.
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Note: For more on Liteky www.mishalov.com/Liteky.html
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Interview with Dr. Francis Boyle

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article15983.htm

Impending Police State in America Interview with Professor Francis Boyle

Francis A Boyle says 9/11 was allowed to happen, war on terror is facilitating the downfall of The Republic, concentration camps are in place and US citizens are the targets
CLICK PLAY TO LISTEN

12/23/06 "CRG" --- - Alex Jones was joined on air this week by a leading American professor, practitioner of and expert on international law to discuss his detailed knowledge of the cover up of the 2001 anthrax attacks, which he is adamant were perpetrated by criminal elements of the US government in an attempt to foment a police state by killing off opposition to hardline post 9/11 legislation.

Dr Franics A. Boyle literally helped write the law with regards to terrorism, as he was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989 that was passed unanimously by both Houses of Congress and signed into law by President Bush Snr.

Professor Boyle teaches international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign. He holds a Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science, both from Harvard University. He has also served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-1992), and represented Bosnia- Herzegovina at the World Court.

The professor started off by explaining the motivation behind the October 2001 anthrax attacks:

"After the September 11th 2001 Terrorist attacks, the Bush administration tried to ram the USA PATRIOT Act through Congress, that would have, if already had not, set up a police state. And we know for a fact that the PATRIOT Act had already been drafted and was sitting on Ashcroft's desk as of September 10th.

Senators Daschle and Leahy were holding it up because they realised what this would lead to, indeed the first draft of the Patriot Act, they would have suspended the writ of habeas corpus. And all of a sudden out of nowhere come these anthrax attacks. And at the time I myself did not know precisely what was going on, either with respect to September 11th or the anthrax attacks, but then the New York Times revealed that the technology behind the letter to Senator Daschle. A trillion spores per gram, special electro-static treatment.

This is super-weapons grade Anthrax that even the United States government, in its openly proclaimed programs, and we had one before Nixon, had never developed before. So it was obvious to me that this was from a US Government lab, there is no where else you could have gotten that."

Dr Boyle proceeded to call a very high level official in the FBI who deals with terrorism and counter-terrorism, Spike Bowman, whom he had met at a terrorism conference at the University of Michigan Law School.

He told Bowman that the only people that would have the capability to carry out the attacks were people working on US government programs on Anthrax and with access to high level a bio-safety lab. Dr Boyle went through all the names, the contractors and the labs for Anthrax work with the FBI's Bowman.

Bowman then informed Dr Boyle that the FBI was working with Fort Detrick on the matter, to which he responded that Fort Detrick could really be the main problem.

It was documented at the time that the anthrax strain used was military grade. This was widely reported in 2002 in publications such as the New Scientist.

"Soon after I had informed Bowman of this information, the FBI authorised the destruction of the AMES cultural Anthrax database." The Professor continued.

The destruction of the anthrax culture collection at Ames, IA., from which the Ft. Detrick lab got its pathogens, was blatant destruction of evidence as it meant that there was no way of finding out which strain was sent to who to develop the larger breed of anthrax used in the attacks. The trail of genetic evidence would have led directly back to a secret but officially-sponsored US government biowarfare program that was illegal and criminal.

"Clearly for the FBI to have authorised this was obstruction of justice, a federal crime. That collection should have been preserved and protected as evidence. That's the DNA, the fingerprints right there. It later came out of course that this was AMES strain anthrax that was behind the Daschle and Leahy letter."

At that point Boyle says it became very clear to him that there was a cover up in operation by the FBI. He points out that later on on reading one of David Ray Griffin's books on the 9/11 attacks, he discovered that Agent Bowman was the same FBI agent who sabotaged the FISA warrant for access to Zacarious Moussaoui's computer, which contained information that could have facilitated the prevention of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Later on Bowman was promoted and given a decoration, presumably because he did such a fine job on Moussaoui's computer and also on the anthrax.

So it was to be that the patriot act was rammed through, because the opposition from Leahy and Daschle, whom they had tried to kill, disappeared. Congress and even the House itself officially shut down for the first time in the history of the Republic. The Senate refused to shut down. Dr Boyle commented that he believes this to be one of the biggest political crimes in the history of America.

The professor agreed that actions such as this and legislation such as the Patriot act and the new Military Commissions act are the precursors to a military dictatorship.

"And remember that the first draft of the Patriot act that sat on Ashcroft's desk before 9/11, and also remember that Ashcroft was flying around in a private jet because he was told that there was going to be a terrorist attack with airplanes, so all this had been planned.

They were going to move to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, which is all that really separates us from a police state. And that is what they have done now with respect to enemy combatants."
With regards to 9/11 itself the professor asserted that it is clear Bush, Rice, Tennet, Ashcroft and other Bush Administration officials all knew a terrorist attack was coming and that the attacks were at the very least allowed to go ahead.

"They let it happen because they wanted a war and they wanted a police state, all the elements for a war against Afghanistan were there in place, even the military force in the gulf were there on the scene, there were massive military forces in the gulf, in the Atlantic, in the Mediterranean, in the Arabian Ocean before September 11th poised for an attack, whether it was going to be Afghanistan or Iraq would be decided by Bush and the rest of them."

The professor pointed out that it is now being argued by lawmakers that the 14th amendment does not mean what it has been taken to mean and that under the Military Commissions Act any US citizen can be stripped of their citizenship and thus be labeled an enemy combatant.

"So in other words they are taken the position that in some point in time if they want to, they can unilaterally round up United States native born citizens, as they did for Japanese Americans in World War Two, and stick us into concentration camps. That is correct. They haven't actually yet done it but my guess is that the papers have been drawn up... and we know that the FEMA camps are out there.

So it's clear that the Bush people, I guess they are waiting for some other terrorist attack, another anthrax attack, who knows what, and then they will proceed to invoke these emergency orders."

Dr Boyle believes that the domestic police state is a seen as a must by the neoconservatives who are pushing for dominance in the middle east in order to quell dissent from an American public who, the informed majority of, clearly will not stand for such aggression in their names.

The professor then went on to talk about the sickness of the neoconservative sympathizers who are pushing for the practice of torture to be made legal. Legislators such as John Yu and Professor Goldsmith of Harvard Law School. Dr Boyle believes that there is a move afoot to infiltrate both the legal profession and legal education with opinion and legislature that subverts long established US law. His warning is stark:

"The Nazis did the exact same thing too. They had their lawyers infiltrating law schools. Carl Schmidt was the worst and he was the mentor to Leo Strauss, the founder of the neoconservatives. So the same phenomena that started out in Nazi Germany is happening here and I exaggerate not... we could all be tortured, we could all be treated this way."

Dr Boyle stressed that in order to seek justice over the anthrax attacks it is vital to keep the pressure on Senator Leahy who will apparently be becoming the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leahy will have subpoena power and investigative power, and if anyone would have motivation to try to get to the bottom of the attacks, it would be him.

Dr Boyle ended by urging readers and listeners to become informed and spread this information. He also admitted that in the Summer of 2004 he was interrogated by an agent with the CIA/FBI joint terrorism task force. The agent tried to recruit Dr Boyle as an informant to provide the FBI with information on his Arab and Muslim clients. When he refused the FBI placed him on all of the government's terrorism watch lists and he now finds it very difficult to travel in and out of the US.

=============

All Kinds of Holocaust Denial Going Around

BUSH-NAZI LINK CONFIRMED

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Documents in National Archives Prove George W. Bush's Grandfather Traded with Nazis - Even After Pearl Harbor

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by John Buchanan (Exclusive to the New Hampshire Gazette)

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WASHINGTON - After 60 years of inattention and even denial by the U.S. media, newly-uncovered government documents in The National Archives and Library of Congress reveal that Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, served as a business partner of and U.S. banking operative for the financial architect of the Nazi war machine from 1926 until 1942, when Congress took aggressive action against Bush and his "enemy national" partners.

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The documents also show that Bush and his colleagues, according to reports from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, tried to conceal their financial alliance with German industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a steel and coal baron who, beginning in the mid-1920s, personally funded Adolf Hitler's rise to power by the subversion of democratic principle and German law.

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Furthermore, the declassified records demonstrate that Bush and his associates, who included E. Roland Harriman, younger brother of American icon W. Averell Harriman, and George Herbert Walker, President Bush's maternal great-grandfather, continued their dealings with the German industrial tycoon for nearly a year after the U.S. entered the war.

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No Story? For six decades these historical facts have gone unreported by the mainstream U.S. media. The essential facts have appeared on the Internet and in relatively obscure books, but were dismissed by the media and Bush family as undocumented diatribes. This story has also escaped the attention of "official" Bush biographers, Presidential historians and publishers of U.S. history books covering World War II and its aftermath.

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The White House did not respond to phone calls seeking comment.

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The Summer of '42 The unraveling of the web of Bush-Harriman-Thyssen U.S. enterprises, all of which operated out of the same suite of offices at 39 Broadway in New York under the supervision of Prescott Bush, began with a story that ran simultaneously in the New York Herald-Tribune and Washington Post on July 31, 1941. By then, the U.S. had been at war with Germany for nearly eight months.

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"Hitler's Angel Has $3 Million in U.S. Bank," declared the front-page Herald-Tribune headline. The lead paragraph characterized Fritz Thyssen as "Adolf Hitler's original patron a decade ago." In fact, the steel and coal magnate had aggressively supported and funded Hitler since October 1923, according to Thyssen's autobiography, I Paid Hitler. In that book, Thyssen also acknowledges his direct personal relationships with Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels and Rudolf Hess.

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The Herald-Tribune also cited unnamed sources who suggested Thyssen's U.S. "nest egg" in fact belonged to "Nazi bigwigs" including Goebbels, Hermann Goering, Heinrich Himmler, or even Hitler himself.

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Business is Business The "bank," founded in 1924 by W. Averell Harriman on behalf of Thyssen and his Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V. of Holland, was Union Banking Corporation (UBC) of New York City. According to government documents, it was in reality a clearing house for a number of Thyssen-controlled enterprises and assets, including as many as a dozen individual businesses. UBC also bought and shipped overseas gold, steel, coal, and U.S. Treasury bonds. The company's activities were administered for Thyssen by a Netherlands-born, naturalized U.S. citizen named Cornelis Lievense, who served as president of UBC. Roland Harriman was chairman and Prescott Bush a managing director.

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The Herald-Tribune article did not identify Bush or Harriman as executives of UBC, or Brown Brothers Harriman, in which they were partners, as UBC's private banker. A confidential FBI memo from that period suggested, without naming the Bush and Harriman families, that politically prominent individuals were about to come under official U.S. government scrutiny as Hitler's plunder of Europe continued unabated.

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After the "Hitler's Angel" article was published Bush and Harriman made no attempts to divest themselves of the controversial Thyssen financial alliance, nor did they challenge the newspaper report that UBC was, in fact, a de facto Nazi front organization in the U.S.

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Instead, the government documents show, Bush and his partners increased their subterfuge to try to conceal the true nature and ownership of their various businesses, particularly after the U.S. entered the war. The documents also disclose that Cornelis Lievense, Thyssen's personal appointee to oversee U.S. matters for his Rotterdam-based Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart N.V., via UBC for nearly two decades, repeatedly denied to U.S. government investigators any knowledge of the ownership of the Netherlands bank or the role of Thyssen in it. Brown Brothers Harriman sent letters to the government seeking reconsideration of the seizures by using false information.

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UBC's original group of business associates included George Herbert Walker, President Bush's maternal great-grandfather, who had a relationship with the Harriman family that began in 1919. In 1922, Walker and W. Averell Harriman traveled to Berlin to set up the German branch of their banking and investment operations, which were largely based on critical war resources such as steel and coal.

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The Walker-Harriman-created German industrial alliance also included partnership with another German titan who supported Hitler's rise, Friedrich Flick, who partnered with Thyssen in the German Steel Trust that forged the Nazi war machine. For his role in using slave labor and his own steel, coal and arms resources to build Hitler's war effort, Flick was convicted at the Nuremberg trials and sentenced to prison.

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The Family Business In 1926, after Prescott Bush had married Walker's daughter, Dorothy, Walker brought Bush in as a vice president of the private banking and investment firm of W.A. Harriman &Co., also located in New York. Bush became a partner in the firm that later became Brown Brothers Harriman and the largest private investment bank in the world. Eventually, Bush became a director of and stockholder in UBC.

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However, the government documents note that Bush, Harriman, Lievense and the other UBC stockholders were in fact "nominees," or phantom shareholders, for Thyssen and his Holland bank, meaning that they acted at the direct behest of their German client.

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Seized On October 20, 1942, under authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act, the U.S. Congress seized UBC and liquidated its assets after the war. The seizure is confirmed by Vesting Order No. 248 in the U.S. Office of the Alien Property Custodian and signed by U.S. Alien Property Custodian Leo T. Crowley.

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In August, under the same authority, Congress had seized the first of the Bush-Harriman-managed Thyssen entities, Hamburg-American Line, under Vesting Order No. 126, also signed by Crowley. Eight days after the seizure of UBC, Congress invoked the Trading with the Enemy Act again to take control of two more Bush-Harriman-Thyssen businesses - Holland-American Trading Corp. (Vesting Order No. 261) and Seamless Steel Equipment Corp. (Vesting Order No. 259).

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The documents from the Archives also show that the Bushes and Harrimans shipped valuable U.S. assets, including gold, coal, steel and U.S. Treasury bonds, to their foreign clients overseas between 1931-33, as Hitler engineered his rise to power.

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Still No Story? Since 1942, the information has not appeared in any U.S. news coverage of any Bush political campaign, nor has it been included in any of the major Bush family biographies. It was, however, covered extensively in George H.W. Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, by Webster Tarpley and Anton Chaitkin. Chaitkin's father served as an attorney in the 1940s for some of the victims of the Bush-Harriman-Thyssen businesses.

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The book gave a detailed, accurate accounting of the Bush family's long Nazi affiliation, but no mainstream U.S. media entity reported on or even investigated the allegations, despite careful documentation by the authors. Major booksellers declined to distribute the book, which was dismissed by Bush supporters as biased and untrue. Its authors struggled even to be reviewed in reputable newspapers. That the book was published by Lyndon LaRouche's organization undoubtedly made it easier to dismiss, but does not change the facts.

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The essence of the story has been posted for years on various Internet sites, including BuzzFlash.com and TakeBackTheMedia.com, but no online media seem to have independently confirmed it.

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In the 1990s, former U.S. Justice Department Nazi war crimes prosecutor John Loftus, now honorary president of the Florida Holocaust Museum, wrote a book and launched a web site (www.john-loftus.com) which did breakthrough reporting, including establishing the link between Prescott Bush, Consolidated Silesian Steel Corporation and forced labor at Auschwitz. Although the widely-respected Loftus established a successful international speaking career with his information, no U.S. newspaper or major TV news program acknowledged his decade of work, nor did he ever see many of the recently released documents.

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Meanwhile, the mainstream media have apparently made no attempt since World War II to either verify or disprove the allegations of Nazi collaboration against the Bush family. Instead, they have attempted to dismiss or discredit such Internet sites or "unauthorized" books without any journalistic inquiry or research into their veracity.

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Loyal Defenders The National Review ran an essay on September 1 by their White House correspondent Byron York, entitled "Annals of Bush-Hating." It begins mockingly: "Are you aware of the murderous history of George W. Bush - indeed, of the entire Bush family? Are you aware of the president's Nazi sympathies? His crimes against humanity? And do you know, by the way, that George W. Bush is a certifiable moron?" York goes on to discredit the "Bush is a moron" IQ hoax, but fails to disprove the Nazi connection.

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The more liberal Boston Globe ran a column September 29 by Reason magazine's Cathy Young in which she referred to "Bush-o-phobes on the Internet" who "repeat preposterous claims about the Bush family's alleged Nazi connections."

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Poles Tackle the Topic Newsweek Polska, the magazine's Polish edition, published a short piece on the "Bush Nazi past" in its March 5, 2003 edition. The item reported that "the Bush family reaped rewards from the forced-labor prisoners in the Auschwitz concentration camp," according to a copyrighted English-language translation from Scoop Media

(http://www.scoop.co.nz). The story also reported the seizure of the various Bush-Harriman-Thyssen businesses.

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Still Not Interested Major U.S. media outlets, including ABC News, NBC News, CNN, The New York Times, Washington Post, Washington Times, Los Angeles Times and Miami Herald, as well as Knight-Ridder Newspapers, have repeatedly declined to investigate the story when information regarding discovery of the documents was presented to them beginning Friday, August 29. Newsweek U.S. correspondent Michael Isikoff, famous for his reporting of big scoops during the Clinton-Lewinsky sexual affair of the 1990s, declined twice to accept an exclusive story based on the documents from the archives.

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Aftermath In 1952, Prescott Bush was elected to the U.S. Senate, with no press accounts about his well-concealed Nazi past. There is no record of any U.S. press coverage of the Bush-Nazi connection during any political campaigns conducted by George Herbert Walker Bush, Jeb Bush, or George W. Bush, with the exception of a brief mention in an unrelated story in the Sarasota Herald Tribune in November 2000 and a brief but inaccurate account in The Boston Globe in 2001.

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John Buchanan is an award-winning and internationally published journalist and investigative reporter with 33 years of experience in New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Miami. His work has appeared in more than 50 newspapers, magazines and books. He can be reached by e-mail at: jtwg@bellsouth.net. Interview with a Prosecutor John Buchanan interviews John Loftus on the significance of the Prescott Bush - Nazi story.

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Interview by John Buchanan from The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 2, October 24, 2003

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Buchanan - What do you think is the true significance of the story in the New Hampshire Gazette?

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Loftus - Your story, the first in a "reputable" US newspaper in 60 years, redeemed my two decades of work that only resulted in the mainstream media slamming doors in my face, despite my credentials as a Justice Department Nazi war crimes prosecutor. I give a lot of credit to the courage of the New Hampshire Gazette as well, for practicing journalism as it should be practiced - tell the truth and let the facts speak for themselves.

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Buchanan - How do you explain the fact that the mainstream media has simply refused to touch it?

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Loftus - It's a complex story and the media hate that now in the age of the sound bite headline. It's also unpopular and frightening to most people, understandably. But the truth about this period of our history as a nation must come out and be dealt with. You and the Gazette have helped to accomplish that. It will come out now, I think.

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Buchanan - What is the importance of it coming out, in your view?

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Loftus - Your stories will be the crack in the dam and it will come flooding out. For 60 years, it has been a huge cover-up of the activities of some of the people who brought us the worst grief in the history of the world - the Holocaust. This country needs to understand which of its most prominent families supported Hitler, even after the US went to war with Germany.

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Buchanan - Can you offer a good example?

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Loftus - Joseph Kennedy bought his Nazi stocks from Prescott Bush. The British thought Kennedy was guilty of treason because his code clerk was tried in London as a Nazi agent and convicted.

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Buchanan - How do you account for the failure of the media to break this story before the Gazette did?

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Loftus - My feeling is that about 15 years ago, when big corporations started taking over media companies that had been privately owned by families or individuals, we ended up with an over-worked but well-intentioned media without the staff or resources, in light of all the corporate cost-cutting that was done, to look into the really big stories. The real enemy is the multinational corporations who are only interested in profits and choose profits over truth.

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Buchanan - What can be done about that?

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Loftus - We need to educate the media.

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Buchanan - Should Prescott Bush, George Herbert Walker and the Harrimans have been tried for treason?

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Loftus - Yes, they should have been tried for treason, because they continued to support Hitler after the US entered the war. As a former prosecutor, I could have made that case.

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Buchanan - What do you think their true motives were in betraying their country for profit?

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Loftus - It was a perfect example of spin, before the term was even invented. Their goal was that no matter which side won the war, their international industrial cartel would survive and prosper. They had a perfect set-up - a bank in New York (UBC), one in Holland (Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart), and one in Germany (August Thyssen Bank). They were prepared for anything that could have happened. They wanted to avoid exactly what happened to Fritz Thyssen after WWI. That was the whole point. He had lost many of his major businesses, and they came up with a better way to prepare for the Second World War.

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Buchanan - How did they manage the cover-up after the first seizures in 1942 and continue with their dealings until 1951, when Thyssen died in Argentina?

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Loftus - They brought in John Foster Dulles and Sullivan and Cromwell, and his brother Allen in Europe. The Dulles brothers put into effect a cloaking arrangement?that was reflected in the records of Brown Brothers Harriman. There was one account - Brown Brothers Schroeder Rock - that was a cloaking account at Schroeder Bank. The Rock was the Rockefellers.

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Buchanan - What were they most guilty of after the US entered the war?

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Loftus - They shipped gold through axis countries after the US entered the war. That certainly was treason, because it gave aid and comfort to the enemy and assisted them economically.

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Buchanan - Why would they do that - take that chance of facing execution for treason if caught?
Loftus - They were afraid Britain would lose the war and they were protecting themselves.
Buchanan - If there is information like that to be uncovered still, what do you propose?

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Loftus - I want a full Congressional investigation and I think your reporting in the Gazette certainly justifies one. I want the cover-up itself investigated, and I want the long-concealed Nazi histories of these families brought out to the public.

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Buchanan - Who should investigate?

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Loftus - Now that this information has finally come out, I am calling for full investigations by both the House and Senate Judiciary committees. We'll see where it goes from there. But I want the cover-up fully and aggressively investigated. The American people and Congress have a right to find out how this happened, to make sure it never happens again. It's too late for justice, but it's never too late for the truth. The American people and survivors of the Holocaust and veterans of the war are entitled to the truth.

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Buchanan - Why hasn't it come out before?

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Loftus - President Clinton wanted all the Nazi files declassified, but it didn't happen fast enough. Some of the documents you saw on I.G. Farben were only declassified a few days before you walked into the archives. You were very lucky, I'd say.

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Buchanan - What is the most damning single thing you've learned in your 20 years of working on this?

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Loftus - That it wasn't just the Nazis. The Harrimans backed a Communist-Soviet front of international trade and they sold the Czar's gold to support the Bolsheviks and fund the Russian Revolution. W. Averell Harriman also did business through other Brown Brothers Harriman and Harriman Fifteen Corp. enterprises that did business with Joseph Stalin as he purged his opposition.

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Buchanan - How many people died while Brown Brothers Harriman and the Bush-Walker-Harriman partnership did business with Stalin?

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Loftus - Millions, including American and Allied soldiers and people in concentration camps, both in Germany and Russia. And all the while, even during WWI when American troops died in Russia, the Harrimans did business with the Bolsheviks and then Stalin.

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Buchanan - What should happen next as a result of this coming out?

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Loftus - I think that American war veterans and Holocaust survivors are entitled to compensation. I'm not as interested in filing another reparations lawsuit, as I am in a bill in Congress.

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Buchanan - How realistic is that?

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Loftus - They did it for Japanese internees. I don't see why they wouldn't do it on this issue if the public outcry is loud enough. We should reimburse those vets and Holocaust survivors whose lives were harmed by the Bushes and Harrimans in their dealings as traitors with enemies of the US.

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Buchanan - Do you think it will happen?

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Loftus - I don't know, but I do know that all you can do in this world is tell the truth and see what happens.

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John Loftus served as a prosecutor with the Justice Department's Nazi-hunting unit. John Buchanan wrote "Bush - Nazi Link Confirmed," in our last issue. - The Ed.

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Bush - Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951?- Federal Documents

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If George W. Bush had been born poor he never would have been made president. Where did his family's money come from?

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By John Buchanan and Stacey Michael from The New Hampshire Gazette Vol. 248, No. 3, November 7, 2003

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After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal.

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Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators.

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Bush's partners in the secret web of Thyssen-controlled ventures included former New York Governor W. Averell Harriman and his younger brother, E. Roland Harriman. Their quarter-century of Nazi financial transactions, from 1924-1951, were conducted by the New York private banking firm, Brown Brothers Harriman.

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The White House did not return phone calls seeking comment.

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Although the additional seizures under the Trading with the Enemy Act did not take place until after the war, documents from The National Archives and Library of Congress confirm that Bush and his partners continued their Nazi dealings unabated. These activities included a financial relationship with the German city of Hanover and several industrial concerns. They went undetected by investigators until after World War Two.

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At the same time Bush and the Harrimans were profiting from their Nazi partnerships, W. Averell Harriman was serving as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's personal emissary to the United Kingdom during the toughest years of the war. On October 28, 1942, the same day two key Bush-Harriman-run businesses were being seized by the U.S. government, Harriman was meeting in London with Field Marshall Smuts to discuss the war effort.

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Denial and Deceit

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While Harriman was concealing his Nazi relationships from his government colleagues, Cornelius Livense, the top executive of the interlocking German concerns held under the corporate umbrella of Union Banking Corporation (UBC), repeatedly tried to mislead investigators, and was sometimes supported in his subterfuge by Brown Brothers Harriman.

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All of the assets of UBC and its related businesses belonged to Thyssen-controlled enterprises, including his Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart in Rotterdam, the documents state.

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Nevertheless, Livense, president of UBC, claimed to have no knowledge of such a relationship. "Strangely enough, (Livense) claims he does not know the actual ownership of the company," states a government report.

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H.D Pennington, manager of Brown Brothers Harriman and a director of UBC "for many years," also lied to investigators about the secret and well-concealed relationship with Thyssen's Dutch bank, according to the documents.

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Investigators later reported that the company was "wholly owned" by Thyssen's Dutch bank.
Despite such ongoing subterfuge, U.S. investigators were able to show that "a careful examination of UBC's general ledger, cash books and journals from 1919 until the present date clearly establish that the principal and practically only source of funds has been Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart."

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In yet another attempt to mislead investigators, Livense said that $240,000 in banknotes in a safe deposit box at Underwriters Trust Co. in New York had been given to him by another UBC-Thyssen associate, H.J. Kouwenhoven, managing director of Thyssen's Dutch bank and a director of the August Thyssen Bank in Berlin. August Thyssen was Fritz's father.

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The government report shows that Livense first neglected to report the $240,000, then claimed that it had been given to him as a gift by Kouwenhoven. However, by the time Livense filed a financial disclosure with U.S. officials, he changed his story again and reported the sum as a debt rather than a cash holding.

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In yet another attempt to deceive the governments of both the U.S. and Canada, Livense and his partners misreported the facts about the sale of a Canadian Nazi front enterprise, La Cooperative Catholique des Consommateurs de Combustible, which imported German coal into Canada via the web of Thyssen-controlled U.S. businesses.

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"The Canadian authorities, however, were not taken in by this maneuver," a U.S. government report states. The coal company was later seized by Canadian authorities.

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After the war, a total of 18 additional Brown Brothers Harriman and UBC-related client assets were seized under The Trading with the Enemy Act, including several that showed the continuation of a relationship with the Thyssen family after the initial 1942 seizures.

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The records also show that Bush and the Harrimans conducted business after the war with related concerns doing business in or moving assets into Switzerland, Panama, Argentina and Brazil - all critical outposts for the flight of Nazi capital after Germany's surrender in 1945. Fritz Thyssen died in Argentina in 1951.

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One of the final seizures, in October 1950, concerned the U.S. assets of a Nazi baroness named Theresia Maria Ida Beneditka Huberta Stanislava Martina von Schwarzenberg, who also used two shorter aliases. Brown Brothers Harriman, where Prescott Bush and the Harrimans were partners, attempted to convince government investigators that the baroness had been a victim of Nazi persecution and therefore should be allowed to maintain her assets.

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"It appears, rather, that the subject was a member of the Nazi party," government investigators concluded.

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At the same time the last Brown Brothers Harriman client assets were seized, Prescott Bush announced his Senate campaign that led to his election in 1952.

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Investigation Investigated?

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In 1943, six months after the seizure of UBC and its related companies, a government investigator noted in a Treasury Department memo dated April 8, 1943 that the FBI had inquired about the status of any investigation into Bush and the Harrimans.

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"I gave 'a memorandum' which did not say anything about the American officers of subject," the investigator wrote. "(Another investigator) wanted to know whether any specific action had been taken by us with respect to them."

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No further action beyond the initial seizures was ever taken, and the newly-confirmed records went unseen by the American people for six decades.

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What Does It All Mean?

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So why are the documents relevant today?

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"The story of Prescott Bush and Brown Brothers Harriman is an introduction to the real history of our country," says L.A. art book publisher and historian Edward Boswell. "It exposes the money-making motives behind our foreign policies, dating back a full century. The ability of Prescott Bush and the Harrimans to bury their checkered pasts also reveals a collusion between Wall Street and the media that exists to this day."

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Sheldon Drobny, a Chicago entrepreneur and philanthropist who will soon launch a liberal talk radio network, says the importance of the new documents is that they prove a long pattern of Bush family war profiteering that continues today via George H.W. Bush's intimate relationship with the Saudi royal family and the bin Ladens, conducted via the super-secret Carlyle Group, whose senior advisers include former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III.

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In the post-9/11 world, Drobny finds the Bush-Saudi connection deeply troubling. "Trading with the enemy is trading with the enemy," he says. "That's the relevance of the documents and what they show."

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Lawrence Lader, an abortion rights activist and the author of more than 40 books, says "the relevance lies with the fact that the sitting President of the United States would lead the nation to war based on lies and against the wishes of the rest of the world." Lader and others draw comparisons between President Bush's invasion of Iraq and Hitler's occupation of Poland in 1939 - the event that sparked World War Two.

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However, others see an even larger significance.

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"The discovery of the Bush-Nazi documents raises new questions about the role of Prescott Bush and his influential business partners in the secret emigration of Nazi war criminals, which allowed them to escape justice in Germany," says Bob Fertik, co-founder of Democrats.com and an amateur 'Nazi hunter.' "It also raises questions about the importance of Nazi recruits to the CIA in its early years, in what was called Operation Paperclip, and Prescott Bush's role in that dark operation."

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Fertik and others, including former Justice Department Nazi war crimes prosecutor John Loftus, a Constitutional attorney in Miami, and a former Veterans Administration official, believe Prescott Bush and the Harrimans should have been tried for treason.

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What Next?

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Now, say Fertik and Loftus, there should be a Congressional investigation into the Bush family's Nazi past and its concealment from the American people for 60 years.

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"The American people have a right to know, in detail, about this hidden chapter of our history," says Loftus, author of The Secret War Against the Jews. "That's the only way we can understand it and deal with it."

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For his part, Fertik is pessimistic that even a Congressional investigation can thwart the war profiteering of the present Bush White House. "It's impossible to stop it," he says, "when the worst war profiteers are George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, who operate in secrecy behind the vast powers of the White House."
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John Buchanan is a journalist and magazine writer based in Miami Beach. He can be reached by e-mail at jtwg@bellsouth.net.

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Stacey Michael is a New Orleans-based journalist and the author of Religious Conceit. His most recent book is Weapons of Mass Dysfunction: The Art of "Faith-Based" Politics, due in early 2004. He can be reached by email at staceymichael@religiousconceit.com.

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ETERNAL CAPITALISM AND ITS SYCOPHANTS

Eternal Capitalism and its Sycophants by Jim Craven

One of my favorite poems of Bertolt Brecht:

"Those who take the meat from the table,

teach contentment.

Those for whom the taxes are destined,

demand sacrifice.

Those who eat their fill, speak to the hungry,

of wonderful times to come.

Those who lead the country into the abyss,

call ruling too difficult,

for ordinary folk."

Indeed those who most benefit from a given order or system, along with their sycophants, will always characterize--and martial contrived data and syllogisms in support of--their own system, interests, behaviors, proclivites--and supporting constructs--as "eternal, immutatble, inevitable", in accordance with Their [Which they characterize as generalized "Human"] Nature. And if a given system is in agreement with, or does not violate, or does not attempt to suppress but rather actually puts to work, "Human Nature", even if that "Nature" be rather ugly, such a system is likely to last longer and work "better" than some system that seeks to deny or suppress "Human Nature".

In the old days, when the academic salesmen of capitalism were really crude, the texts would give the example of the proverbial monkey picking up a stick to reach low-hanging fruit from a tree. It was said that the stick was "capital" because, although the monkey did not craft the stick with a knife or even break it off of a tree, nonetheless the monkey saw an everyday stick and saw it could be used as a " tool" in roundabout ways to produce his meal. Capital, the text tells you, is anyTHING that has been produced (or appropriated for uses beyond its natural state) used to produce something else. Capital, it was seen, is a THING or a "Stock" of conceptually fixed quantity in time and space, not a social relation that is historically determined and specific.

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And it gets better. Since the monkey's DNA is similar to Human DNA with (estimates varying from 92 to around 97% correspondence), but the monkey cannot even define, spell or plan "capital" or plan its further development, this must mean an INSTINCT, part of overall "Human Nature", for "capital" and even roundabout methods of production and distribution. Further look at the monkeys fighting over the stick and the fruit. This is further "evidence" of other Human-Nature-based "INSTINCTS": to "compete"; for selfishness; for "private property" (of the fruit) and its appropriation; even for "War".

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Now this is not merely an example of "extrapolating" from the features of the present to "understand" the causes of the present in the past without going into research on the past; this is also simply rationalizing, for the purpose of preserving, the present and its fundamental and defining features, imperatives and interests. After all, if only capitalism is in accordance with "Human Nature", then it is futile--even disastrous--to try to change, modify or overthrow it (Human Nature is, after all, summarily and metaphysically asserted to be eternal, immutable and thus non-negotiatable).

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Further, if it is the case that Capitalism (and its defining/differentiating categories and constructs that reflect the historical realities and uniqueness of that mode of production) is not immutable and eternal, but instead, is merely one of several modes of production historically determined and specific, which means that since "History" aint't over until the human species is, then maybe not only capitalism, but even "Human Nature" itself (e,g, classic Homo Oeconomicus) can be changed and not accepted simply as "given, eternal, immutable or NATURAL.

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When I think of all the academic salesmen (called professors) I had in economics going back to the mid 1960s, sometimes I smile, sometimes I don't when I think of all that they could have turned me on to but didn't because of their imperial arrogance and patent intellectual dishonesty in service of their capitalist masters and petit-bourgeois interests/proclivities. When I was in China and someone said that he thought sending the professors out to the countryside to work the rice paddies was a crime, I disagreed and think it would be a great idea (I'll volunteer even with health problems) just to see some of these pampered and super-annuated elites do a decent day's--and real--work for a change.

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First it was Economic Growth is primarily a function of K/L ratios with "K" defined as a "STOCK" of "Physical" Capital (machines, tools etc). Then someone got the bright idea in the 1970's that even with all these fancy machines, if your workforce is illiterate and not properly "tuned up" by the teachers at the schools, and if they can't read a technical manual to fix the fancy machines, well what good are they? Along comes "Human Capital" (again a "STOCK" of Human education, skills and experience to interface with and further augment "Physical" Capital). Interestingly, the classic definitions of Human Capital didn't even mention accompanying "work ethic", socialization etc necessary to put that "STOCK" of education, skills and experience to effective use.

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Now comes the late 1980s and the academic salesmen of capitalism get caught in another potential contradiction. Even if I have a "STOCK" of fancy machines, and even if I have a workforce of compliant and/or desperate workers bringing in a "STOCK" of their "Human Capital", forced to sell their labor power or capacity to work for far less than the "value" they will produce through the appropriation and employment of that labor power, what if they, or even the capitalists and "investors", have no hope, no cohesion, no cooperation or even no more belief in the system itself? Then what good is all that "STOCK" of Human and Physical Capital? So, along comes "SOCIAL" Capital--a "STOCK" of "GIVEN institutions" to promote socially requisite (for the continual expanded reproduction of capitalism) levels of trust, hope, cohesion, cooperation and buying into the system. It was not defined as David Gordon defined a slightly parallel concept of SSA (Social Structures of Accumulation): dynamic complexes of embedded and interrelated institutions and relations--politico-legal, socio-cultural-, economic, domestic and international--necessary for the preservation and expanded reproduction of capitalism and its fundamental and defining features--like "Capital" as an historically generated and specific relation.

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Now there was a problem. The academic salesmen of capitalism could no longer simply ignore "institutions", imperially "assuming" them away or as "given". But here is now another problem: If social capital is about institutions to foster not only hope (without hope no reason to save, invest, give credit, suffer the tyranny of university profs, vote etc) but also "trust", social cohesion and even cooperation, well with all this social shit about cooperation and social cohesion, etc, what about "Human Nature" and its associated "INSTINCTS" for selfishness, ultra-individualism, cooperation, private property, capital formation etc?

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Well along comes Robert Putnam from Harvard to the rescue with his "Bowling Alone". Yes, social capital is about getting people to be social and to buy into a social system that may be kicking their asses; but, but, people only do social stuff (like reprocity, cooperation etc) in order to really be individualists and do their own self-maximizing/satisficing things (profit, income, ultility, pleasure etc). When people are being "social", or appear so, they are really only giving up short-term pain for long-term gain.: E.G. "I obey laws I personally don't like so that others will obey the same and/or others and not fuck me over or interfere with the playing out of my own "Human Nature" in pursuit of my own individual interests. The social shit is like the stick for the monkey--merely another form of 'capital'".

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Of course you have to watch it because this might even smack of a little "dialectics" like social and individual are both opposites and yet complements, or even that the social or macro is a lot more--or potentially less with internal contradictions--than the sum of the individuals or micros making it up--thus challenging the Thatcherite right-wing notion of "there is no such thing as society; there are only individual men and women and there are families".

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Why do we call the monkey the monkey and the human the human if they share perhaps 97% of common DNA? Why don't we call the monkey a 97% proto-human and the human a 97% proto-monkey to show their commonalities? Well why do we have different names for anything? By having different names for different things, logically and linguistically, we are implying that these different things are called by different names because they stand in relation to-- and are different from--each other in some very fundamental ways. Each possesses its own defining, differentiating (from other things with their own respective different--defining--features) and naming characteristics. Why do we have even the words Communalism, Slavery, Feudalism, Capitalism, Socialism, Communism?

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First of all DNA is not all that makes any organism what it is and what it is capable of. Rats, who also share considerable DNA commonalities with humans--enough to make them suitable analogs for research purposes--for example, are capable of learned behaviors and retaining that learning for some time. Further, Human DNA is not 97% Monkey and 3% Human; it is 100% Human as that which is shared with common ancestors with the monkey, when interacted with that which is uniquely human, causes organic interdependency and resulting synergy producing a quantum leap in consciousness, capabilities, phenotypes etc. The same appplies with "social DNA" when, aspects of the present, which may appear to be in common or appear to be somewhat similar with something from the past interact; this creates a organic unity and new and quantum leap so fundamental that the new forms, for all practical purposes, are 100% part of that which makes in the present what is unique, characteristic, defining and differentiating it from something else--including aspects from the past that help to shape that unique present.

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So yes, if you summarily define "capital" as a THING that is produced to produce other THINGS, yes it appears that "capital" has always existed and even there is a human biologically--based "instinct" to form and use "capital". If you define "capital" as a social/power relation, then you have something historically developed and specific. The same with "credit". If you define "credit" as simply a product of an "act", like trusting and advancing resources today to be paid back tomorrow (for whatever kind of return--interest, portion of future output, hope of default to take moe valuable collateral advanced ) then it appears that "credit", as it assumes superficial forms under capitalism, indeed existed also prior to capitalism. But now we are back to the monkey and the stick.

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Economic surpluses have existed in some form since Communalism (sorry for reference to "some Canadian Tribe", but the "Winter Count" is about production and setting aside surpluses for Winter non-hunting times), but in different modes of production and social formations, how, by whom, for whom and how the surpluses were to be ultilized were differnt in essence as well as form. The forms and methods of production and extraction of surpluses, for whom they were destined as well as how they were likely to be used, under Feudalism and Slavery, were quite open, direct and relatively unambiguous. Under capitalism, the production, extraction, realization and appropriation of the capitalist form--surplus value--is much more hidden, abstract, roundabout, mystified and dressed up.

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The worker is "free" to sell his/her labor-power or is also "free" to starve. How can this be "exploitation" as the worker is "free" to choose? It gets even better: If a capitalist is an "owner" of one the means of production called capital, then the worker is a capitalist also because, as he/she is no longer a serf or slave or indentured servant, he/she also "owns" another "factor of production" called "labor power" that he/she is free to use or not use as she/he pleases.

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The capitalist, who is partly defined in terms of his relation to non-capital as hot is partly defined in relation to cold and vice versa, once obtaining "ownership"(sanctioned/facilitated by institutions of "private property" which is not the same as personal property) and/or "control", also sanctioned and facilitated by "private property", not only acquires the power to hire and fire, but also acquires "ownership" of any surplus "value". Surplus value, a form of economic surplus unique to capitalism, because that which is unique to capitalism (e.g. wage labor) is required to produce it, is defined as the difference between what the capitalist was willing to pay for the use of the labor-power (capacity to work which the worker "owns") versus what the capitalist was able to sell the product of "labor" (the application of labor power in conjunction with other forces of production) for. And indeed the price obtained for that product of labor may even be at vaiance with the long-run "value" of it through let's say market power and managed elasticities of supply and demand creating economic rents etc.

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But as capitalism develops, attempting to mitigate fundamental and defining contradictions (part of what also defines and differentiates different modes of production--unique contradictions) in the course of attempting to mitigate or cover-up some contradictions(partly what SSAs--Social Structures of Accumulation--are about) new ones emerge and/or surface from relative hiding. For example the contradiction between the production of surplus value and its realization. In the course of attempting to increase both relative and absolute surplus value, and in the course of pushing down costs of labor-power, since those costs are also incomes of the broad masses who drive a large part of aggregate demand, well the classic problems of "underconsumption" and "overproduction" (not the same) also emerge and intensify thus increasing the role of finance capital realtive to industrial, manufacturing, and agricultural capital.

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Historically, increasing mechanization of agriculture led to incerasing organic fusion between agricultural and industrial capital under the hegemony of industrial capital. The same occurred with increasing organic fusion of agricultural, industrial, manufacturing, "service-sector" and finance capital under the increasing hegemony of finance capital.

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What happens is not new methods and powers for producing surplus value, but rather new methods and powers for realizing and dividing it. You can do compounding all day on a basic calculator racking up interest, late payments, over limit charges etc (over 50% of total profits of banks); but it is all a bunch of numbers on the caluculator until it is paid off and realized. And where do the funds to ultimately pay off--and thus have realized for the financiers--come from? More compounding? Yes, new types of financial instruments and markets continually extend the time horizons for "borrowing from peter to pay--or clear the accounts receivable--of paul", but the possibilities are not endless. You can make bankruptcy impossible, but if I cannot pay off my debt what will you do? Here you get into what Marx dealt with dismissing exchange as the basis for genesis of surplus value: what one seller (lender) would gain as a seller, is offset as also a buyer (borrower).

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Shifting divisions of Surplus value, into rent, interest, profit, dividends (property income) occur as different elements of overall "Capital" (as a class and social relation) emerge, compete, collude, and take more political-economic power relative to others. This can be seen in the shifting "functional" divisions of national income as well as in dominant and subordinate influences of various wings of overall "Capital" in the State.

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to be continued...

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