Friday, 10 August 2012

  • Is Mitt Romney Connected To Leaders (past & present) Of Death Squads?

    Mitt Romney can be connected to several crime families with death squads. Both foreign and domestic...

     

    From Huffington Post: Mitt Romney Started Bain Capital With Money From Families Tied To Death Squads...

    In 1983, Bill Bain asked Mitt Romney to launch Bain Capital, a private equity offshoot of the successful consulting firm Bain & Company. After some initial reluctance, Romney agreed. The new job came with a stipulation: Romney couldn't raise money from any current clients, Bain said, because if the private equity venture failed, he didn't want it taking the consulting firm down with it.

    When Romney struggled to raise funds from other traditional sources, he and his partners started thinking outside the box. Bain executive Harry Strachan suggested that Romney meet with a group of Central American oligarchs who were looking for new investment vehicles as turmoil engulfed their region.

    Romney was worried that the oligarchs might be tied to "illegal drug money, right-wing death squads, or left-wing terrorism," Strachan later told a Boston Globe reporter, as quoted in the 2012 book "The Real Romney." But, pressed for capital, Romney pushed his concerns aside and flew to Miami in mid-1984 to meet with the Salvadorans at a local bank.

    It was a lucrative trip. The Central Americans provided roughly $9 million -- 40 percent -- of Bain Capital's initial outside funding, the Los Angeles Times reported recently. And they became valued clients.

    "Over the years, these Latin American friends have loyally rolled over investments in succeeding funds, actively participated in Bain Capital's May investor meetings, and are still today one of the largest investor groups in Bain Capital," Strachan wrote in his memoir in 2008. Strachan declined to be interviewed for this story.

    When Romney launched another venture that needed funding -- his first presidential campaign -- he returned to Miami.

    "I owe a great deal to Americans of Latin American descent," he said at a dinner in Miami in 2007. "When I was starting my business, I came to Miami to find partners that would believe in me and that would finance my enterprise. My partners were Ricardo Poma, Miguel Dueñas, Pancho Soler, Frank Kardonski, and Diego

    Romney could also have thanked investors from two other wealthy and powerful Central American clans -- the de Sola and Salaverria families, who the Los Angeles Times and Boston Globe have reported were founding investors in Bain Capital.

    While they were on the lookout for investments in the United States, members of some of these prominent families -- including the Salaverria, Poma, de Sola and Dueñas clans -- were also at the time financing, either directly or through political parties, death squads in El Salvador. The ruling classes were deploying the death squads to beat back left-wing guerrillas and reformers during El Salvador's civil war.

    The death squads committed atrocities on such a mass scale for so small a country that their killing spree sparked international condemnation. From 1979 to 1992, some 75,000 people were killed in the Salvadoran civil war, according to the United Nations. In 1982, two years before Romney began raising money from the oligarchs, El Salvador's independent Human Rights Commission reported that, of the 35,000 civilians killed, "most" died at the hands of death squads. A United Nations truth commission concluded in 1993 that 85 percent of the acts of violence were perpetrated by the right, while the left-wing Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front, which was supported by the Cuban government, was responsible for 5 percent.

    When The Huffington Post asked the Romney campaign about Bain Capital accepting funds from families tied to death squads, a spokeswoman forwarded a 1999 Salt Lake Tribune article to explain the campaign's position on the matter. She declined to comment further.

    "Romney confirms Bain had investors in El Salvador. But, as was Bain's policy with any big investor, they had the families checked out as diligently as possible," the Tribune wrote. "They uncovered no unsavory links to drugs or other criminal activity."

    Nobody with a basic understanding of the region's history could believe that assertion.

    By 1984, the media had thoroughly exposed connections between the death squads and the Salvadoran oligarchy, including the families that invested with Romney. The sitting U.S. ambassador to El Salvador charged that several families, including at least one that invested with Bain, were living in Miami and directly funding death squads. Even by 1981, El Salvador's elite, largely relocated to Miami, were so angered by the public perception that they were financing death squads that they reached out to the media to make their case. The two men put forward to represent the oligarchs were both from families that would invest in Bain three years later. The most cursory review of their backgrounds would have turned up the ties.

    The connection between the families involved with Bain's founding and those who financed death squads was made by the Boston Globe in 1994 and the Salt Lake Tribune in 1999. This election cycle, Salon first raised the issue in January, and the Los Angeles Times filled out more of the record earlier this month.

    There is no shortage of unsavory links. Even the Tribune article referred to by the Romney campaign reports that "about $6.5 million of $37 million that established the company came from wealthy El Salvadoran families linked to right-wing death squads."

    The Salaverria family, whose fortune came from producing cotton and coffee, had deep connections to the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA), a political party that death-squad leader Roberto D'Aubuisson founded in the fall of 1981. The year before, El Salvador's government had pushed through land reforms and nationalized the coffee trade, moves that threatened a ruling class whose financial and political dominance was built in large part on growing coffee. ARENA controlled and directed death squads during its early years.

    On March 24, 1980, Oscar Romero, the archbishop of San Salvador and an advocate of the poor, was celebrating Mass at a chapel in a small hospital when he was assassinated on D'Aubuisson's orders, according to a person involved in the murder who later came forward.

    The day before, Romero, an immensely popular figure, had called on the country's soldiers to refuse the government's orders to attack fellow Salvadorans.

    "Before another killing order is given," he advised in his sermon, "the law of God must prevail: Thou shalt not kill."

    Note: You also have to ask if any respectable crime family would get involved with filth like Mitt Romney - especially at this point in his background search - unless he had an army behind him.

     

    The next one up is the sudden savior of the GOP who is supposedly a better person than George Bush! George Bush may be a heartless fool but he's also as dumb as a doornail. Anyways, the Dick Cheney and Romney connection...


    Romney, with Cheney's help, raises $4 million at Wyoming fundraiser

    Updated 12:00 a.m. ET: WILSON, Wyo. -- Mitt Romney's campaign roped in more than $4 million in a single campaign stop here in Western Wyoming with a boost from one of the most controversial political figures of the last decade: former Vice President Dick Cheney.

    Cheney, who has not previously appeared with Romney on the campaign trail, was effusive in his praise for the presumptive GOP nominee, calling him the only man he would want at the helm in the event of another crisis like the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

    “Sooner or later there is going to be a big surprise,” Cheney said. “Usually a very unpleasant one. Whether it’s 9-11 or the other kinds of difficulties or crises that arrive, they always do. That’s when you find out what kind of leader your president is.”

    He continued: “When I think about the kind of individual I want in the Oval Office in that moment of crisis, who has to make those key decisions, some of them life and death decisions, some of them decisions as the commander-in-chief who has the responsibility of sending our young men and women into harm's way -- that man is Mitt Romney."

    Romney returned Cheney's praise but did not mention Cheney's former boss, George W. Bush.

     

    Investigating prisoner abuse will be a political food fight, and that is messier than torture. (03:31)...

    The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
    The Word - A Perfect World
    www.colbertnation.com
    Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

     

    News Reports:

    Secret torture memo from Dick Cheney (you can undertand why the GOP leaders are scared of leaks to the press... they have allot to hide!)

    Dick Cheney charged over abuse in private prisons

    US vice president Dick Cheney has been charged with "organised criminal activity" over allegations about abuse in privately-run prisons.

    Later...

    Cheney Prison Abuse Investigation Officially Dismantled

    December 10, 2008 Raymondville, TX--In a story that is already disappearing from view, Willacy County District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra has been removed from prosecuting the prison abuse scandal case that brought national attention to this South Texas town by charging Vice President with conspiracy to profit from prisoner abuse and neglect.

    Though the case initially portended to possibly have national impact, today's news is just the latest act of what has evolved into an ongoing battle of wills between prosecutor and judge, State District Judge Manuel Banales, a judge Guerra attempted to have recused from the case and had warned would be prejudiced against him. Banales, who had already thrown out Guerra original set of indictments on technicalities, has now barred Guerra from in any way working on the case which appears to be the only criminal charges likely to be filed against any high ranking member of the Bush administration

    Related: Pat Robertson Is Begining To See The Light! Hallelujah!

     

    Cheney's Secret Assassination Squad

    Investigation STILL in progress...

    Seymour Hersh, the legendary investigative reporter who exposed My Lai and Abu Ghraib, exploded another bombshell at the University of Minnesota on Tuesday: Dick Cheney had his own Death Squad (h/t Alternet).

    "Right now, today, there was a story in the New York Times that if you read it carefully mentioned something known as the Joint Special Operations Command -- JSOC it’s called. It is a special wing of our special operations community that is set up independently. They do not report to anybody, except in the Bush-Cheney days, they reported directly to the Cheney office. They did not report to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff or to Mr. [Robert] Gates, the secretary of defense. They reported directly to him [Cheney] ...

    "Congress has no oversight of it. It’s an executive assassination ring essentially, and it’s been going on and on and on. Just today in the Times there was a story that its leaders, a three star admiral named [William H.] McRaven, ordered a stop to it because there were so many collateral deaths.

    "Under President Bush’s authority, they’ve been going into countries, not talking to the ambassador or the CIA station chief, and finding people on a list and executing them and leaving. That’s been going on, in the name of all of us.

    Is anyone surprised? We've all seen the movies about assassination teams. And we know there is nothing - absolutely nothing - that Dick Cheney wouldn't do. 

    Hersh didn't identify the countries, but the NY Times article he cited focused on Afghanistan, where commando operations have killed numerous civilians and enraged Afghan president Hamid Karzai. But Afghanistan doesn't really fit Hersh's description because U.S. troops have been fighting there since 2001; they are not "going in... and leaving." That sounds more like the cross-border raids from Afghanistan into Pakistan, which are well-known. Hersh's revelation suggests similar operations went into other countries, but these remain secret.

    So will Congress investigate Cheney's death squads? Who has jurisdiction? After all, Cheney pretended he was a "fourth branch" of the government, neither in the Executive nor the Legislative branches. Of course he was always part of the Executive.

    "It’s complicated because the guys doing it are not murderers, and yet they are committing what we would normally call murder. It’s a very complicated issue. Because they are young men that went into the Special Forces. The Delta Forces you’ve heard about. Navy Seal teams. Highly specialized.

    "In many cases, they were the best and the brightest. Really, no exaggerations. Really fine guys that went in to do the kind of necessary jobs that they think you need to do to protect America. And then they find themselves torturing people.

    "I’ve had people say to me -- five years ago, I had one say: ‘What do you call it when you interrogate somebody and you leave them bleeding and they don’t get any medical committee and two days later he dies. Is that murder? What happens if I get before a committee?’

    "But they’re not gonna get before a committee.”  

    If Cheney's death squads were comprised of Special Forces, then it's a military operation. Obviously the lines of authority were drawn carefully to bypass the Secretary of Defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but the Times says the officer in charge of JSOC Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, obviously a senior military officer. And the order to suspend operations in Afghanistan was "supported" by Gen. David Petraeus, also a military officer. 

    So the Armed Services Committees need to hold hearings: that's Carl Levin (D-MI) in the Senate and Ike Skelton (D-MO) in the House.

    Hersh also exploded a second bombshell, which is even scarier for those of us here in the U.S.A. 

    After 9/11, I haven’t written about this yet, but the Central Intelligence Agency was very deeply involved in domestic activities against people they thought to be enemies of the state. Without any legal authority for it. They haven’t been called on it yet. That does happen.

    That's all he said, which isn't much. But the idea of the CIA operating inside the US against people deemed "enemies of the state" by George Bush and Dick Cheney is terrifying. What exactly did they do??? We need to know more - lots more.

    This one clearly falls under the jurisdiction of the Intelligence Committees. That's Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) in the Senate and Silvestre Reyes (D-TX) in the House.

    Congress, it's time to get to work.

    Update 1: Attytood says this should be reviewed by Pat Leahy's Truth Commission. He adds,

    in case there's any ambiguity on the subject, President Gerald Ford in 1975 signed an executive order that said this: "No employee of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, political assassination." It's been upheld by every subsequent president. Apparently vice presidents are another matter.

    Who was Ford's Chief of Staff? Dick Cheney! Makes it kinda hard for Cheney to plead ignorance...

    Update 2: Scott Horton explains how Presidents give themselves (or their Vice Presidents) the power to assassinate:

    The practice of targeted killings is controlled by Executive Order 12333, issued by President Reagan in 1981, which provides “No person employed by or acting on behalf of the United States Government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in, assassination.” There are two exceptions to this rule. One is that as a basic principle of the law of armed combat, it is permitted to strike against the command-and-control apparatus (including both political and military leaders) of a hostile force in connection with armed conflict. The other is that the President may, by special action, authorize such an operation. The operation that Hersh describes almost certainly would have required a presidential finding which concluded that it was in the nation’s national security interest, and authorized the operation to go forward. Hersh suggests that the entire process was delegated to the Vice President, however, which may have required a more extensive modification of E.O. 12333. President Bush issued a complete revamping of EO 12333 on July 30, 2008—and he directed that the details of his revision be withheld from the public. The publicly disclosed text of Bush’s action in 2008 focus on a structural reorganization, bolstering the authority of the intelligence czar, largely at the expense of the director of central intelligence. There has been continuous speculation that Bush also made changes in the operational guidelines on this occasion, or perhaps in an earlier secret order or finding.

    Update 3: Marcy Wheeler says Bush paid no attention to Executive Orders like E.O. 12333, so that was not a constraint on Cheney's actions.

    Update 4: Marcy Wheeler thinks Yassir Arafat might have been a victim, but if his mysterious illness was unnatural, it would be the result of a spy operation, not a military one.

    Update 5: Raw Story's Muriel Kane adds:

    Stories have been coming out about covert Pentagon assassination squads for the last several years. In 2003, Hersh himself reported on Task Force 121, which operated chiefly out of the Joint Special Operations Command. Others stories spoke of a proposed Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group.

    Update 6: Rep. Dennis Kucinich asked for an investigation of Cheney's Death Squad by Chairman Edolphus Towns of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

    Update 7: Rob Arend traces previously published reports about JSOC.

     

    It's hard to believe Dick Cheney had the time to command a secret lawless assassination squad with all the secret lawless torture. (02:10)...

    The Colbert Report Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
    Cheney's Secret Assassination Squad
    www.colbertnation.com
    Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

     

    ****

    Dick Cheney lied about Iraq saying that it would be an easy "invasion" while he had said earlier that such an action would put the US in a "quagmire"...

     

    Cheney/Halliburton Chronology Vice President Dick Cheney told NBC's Meet the Press "I have absolutely no influence of, involvement of, knowledge of in any way, shape or form of contracts" that Halliburton received in Iraq. But an internal Pentagon email later obtained by Time magazine indicates that months before the war "action" on the Iraqi oil contract was "coordinated" with Cheney's office. Two months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the Wall Street Journal reported, "The Bush administration is eager to secure Iraq's oil fields and rehabilitate them, industry officials say. They say Mr. Cheney's staff hosted an informational meeting with industry executives in October, with Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Texaco Corp., ConocoPhillips and Halliburton among the companies represented. Both the Bush administration and the companies say such a meeting never took place." (Thaddeus Herrick, "U.S. Oil Wants to Work in Iraq," Wall Street Journal, Jan. 17, 2003.)

    Halliburton got $7B in no-bid Iraq contracts During Vice President Dick Cheney's tenure as its chief executive, the Halliburton Corporation altered its accounting policies so it could report as revenue more than $100 million in disputed costs on big construction projects, public filings by the company show. Halliburton did not disclose the change to investors for over a year.

    Senate report

     

    Moment of Zen?

    Fox News's Judith Miller explains why the Obama administration's leaks are jeopardizingly injurious to national security in a way Dick Cheney's WMD leaks were not...

    News Report: Vice President Dick Cheney’s stock options in Halliburton rose from $241,498 in 2004 to over $8 million in 2005, an increase of more than 3,000 percent, as Halliburton continues to rake in billions of dollars from no-bid/no-audit government contracts.

     

    A long overdue investigative report (overdue by several years!), stated plainly that the authorities seem to have intentionally misled us into a war...

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     Reports as yet Unpublished in the United States

     
     
     

    4. Illegal War In Afghanistan

     

    Another incomplete investigation 

    Video clip comparison between UK and US investigations...

     

    Related:

    Securities Fraud & The Demolition of Building #7


    A clip from Air America about CIA Opium drug involvements (Starring Mel Gibson)


    DRUG FALLOUT: The CIA's forty-year complicity in the narcotics trade

     

    **********

     

    Ann Romney's Role (set him up to look good and help hide his gaffes & lack of policy explanations)...

    Does Ann Romney *Literally* Lack Empathy & Compassion?

    "These aren't the droids you're looking for" Ann Romney's Jedi Mind Trick

    Extension for this trick: "These are NOT the taxes you are looking for" Mitt Romney & Karl Rove...

    BTW...

     From Mother Jones: Romney Invested in Medical-Waste Firm That Disposed of Aborted Fetuses, Government Documents Show

     

     

    The Paul Ryan EXOPOSOTHON Link Ring...

    Proof of Paul Ryan's Corruption And Thus The Reason For His Lies...

    Nuns Disagree With The Vatican On Many Things BUT NOT Paul Ryan

    Paul Ryan Is A Liar And A Hypocrite

    The Paul Ryan Plan Leads To War

    Paul Ryan's Plan Is EXTREMELY Bad For Seniors

     

    The MITT ROMNEY EXOPOSOTHON Link Ring...

    On Mitt Romney

    Mitt Romney Is More Than A Flip-Flopper

    Mitt Romney Is Trying To Hide Something!!!!

    Is Mitt Romney A Robber Baron?

    Mitt Romney Isn't Trying Anymore. He's LITERALLY Hiding Something.

    Mitt Romney Should Be Disqualified From Running For The Presidency

    More Evidence That Disqualifies Mitt Romney From Running For The Presidency.

    Mitt Romney Puts "Sacred Symbols" On His Underwear!... ON HIS UNDERWEAR!!!

    Is Mitt Romney Connected To Leaders (past & present) Of Death Squads?

    Mitt Romney Lies So Much Obama Must Be Bought NOT To Bring Him To Trial (Remember Bill Clinton?)

    Mitt Romney Has Provided NO Proof (Zero, Nada) Of HOW He Made Money

    Mitt Romney Has Federal Government & Federal Reserve Connections (Obviously)

    Mitt Romney & His Allies Cover-Up Of Ron Paul...

    Disturbing - & Covered Up - Information On Mitt Romney's Beliefs.

     

    Rick Santorum's Personal Link Ring...

    Proofs That Rick Santorum Makes Up His Facts!

    Rick Santorum Is NOT Comparable To Ronald Reagan!

    Rick Santorum, Paul Ryan, Todd Atkin Of "The Party Of Rape & War"

     

    On Fox News...

    1. Bill O'Reilly Defends His Nazi Analogies.

    2. 24 Hour Nazi Party People.

    3. Glen Beck's Nazi Tourette's Syndrome.

    Moment Of Zen: Glenn Beck agrees with the CIA... that Osama should attack America!!!!

     

     "Advance, and never halt, for advancing is perfection. Advance and do not fear the thorns in the path, for they draw only corrupt blood." Khalil Gibran (Khalil Gibran was a Catholic Christian from Lebanon)

     

    On My "Rhetoric": Everything in my blogs is proven. You want rhetoric based on lies then you can go back to the arguments between the Founding Fathers. You can't touch my proofs.

    1. Founding Fathers arguing in context of today's politics...

    The only thing different this election is Mitt Romney using Newt Gingrich's tactic when Newt gets caught lying, i.e. you're getting mean be polite! Well, the founding fathers didn't do that. Let's see if Mitt Romney can handle truthful attacks against his outright and proven lies (see above).

    2. Mitt Romney's Is Using Divisive politics like when he endorsed Scott Walker who divided his State so badly he went through a recall election - He was doing the opposite of Ronald Regan too!  (i.e. Mitt is DEFINITELY using Frank Luntz - see video of Frant Luntz above)

    Related: Mitt Romney calls for an end to divisiveness... by insulting Chicago!

    3. Romney Supervised Medical Testing Company Guilty Of Massive Medicare Fraud

     

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