Why the surge in Afghanistan? Part 2

Everything is not as it Seems: (It’s about oil!)

Historical statistics: U.S. Oil Imports in 2001

The U.S. with 4.5% of the world's population, in 2001 used 26% of the world's oil.

In 2001, the U.S imported 54% of the oil it required, importing 11-12 million barrels a day and producing about 8-9 million a day. The US was consuming about 20 million barrels of oil daily.

Of those imports, 48% came from the Western Hemisphere and 30% came from the Persian Gulf region, with the rest came from Africa and Europe.

[Source: Energy Information Administration - 5/02]

Although the U.S. imports only 11.4 % of its oil from the Persian Gulf region, that area contains 590 billion barrels of known reserves. Add Iran, Libya and Algeria and you have another 130 billion barrels. The enormous pool of oil stretching form Algeria to Iran is estimated at 720 billion barrels. The reserves expected from the Caspian Sea in Central Asia will be added to this total in a few years those reserves are estimated to be another 44 billion barrels of oil reserves and possibly more.

[Source - American Petroleum Institute, 2003] there is even less in oil reserves today! It has been known for decades that the world is heading for a catastrophic energy crunch that could cripple a global economic recovery because most of the major oil fields in the world have passed their peak production.

The Caspian region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves, much of them located in the Caspian Sea basin itself. Proven natural gas reserves within Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet. The region’s total oil reserves may reach more than 60 billion barrels of oil —Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels. In 1995, the region was producing only 870,000 barrels per day (44 million tons per year [Mt/y]).

The Afghanistan war is about securing the territory through which the oil and gas pipelines will have to pass through in order to ensure Russia, China and Iran are out-maneuvered in the last great wars for the last of the global oil supplies on planet Earth.

Unocal a company now owned by Chevron enters the picture and begins negotiations with the Taliban to construct an oil pipeline:

In 1995, the US-based oil company Unocal signed a tentative agreement with the Turkmenistan government to research the possibilities of constructing an oil pipeline to Pakistan by way of Afghanistan. As the project developed, Unocal began to seek an agreement with the Taliban, who had recently risen to power, to construct a pipeline across their country. On two separate occasions, in February and December 1997, Taliban officials were flown to the US to meet with, and be wined and dined by, Unocal executives. One of those executives was claimed to have been Hamid Karzai (Currently the US Installed President of Afghanistan) Although Karzai denies his involvement with Unocal, there is strong evidence to support his connections.

Background on Karzai, Bush and UNOCAL

This information is quoted from an article by the Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), globalresearch.ca, January 23, 2002 (Reprinted here with fair use permission)

According to Afghan, Iranian, and Turkish government sources, Hamid Karzai, the interim Prime Minister of Afghanistan, was a top adviser to the El Segundo, California-based UNOCAL Corporation which was negotiating with the Taliban to construct a Central Asia Gas (CentGas) pipeline from Turkmenistan through western Afghanistan to Pakistan.

Karzai, the leader of the southern Afghan Pashtun Durrani tribe, was a member of the mujaheddin that fought the Soviets during the 1980s. He was a top contact for the CIA and maintained close relations with CIA Director William Casey, Vice President George HW Bush, and the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) Service. Later, Karzai and a number of his brothers moved to the United States under the auspices of the CIA.

According to Middle East and South Asian sources Karzai serve the agency's interests, as well as those of the Bush Family and their oil friends in negotiating the CentGas deal.

When one peers beyond all of the rhetoric of the White House and Pentagon concerning the Taliban, a clear pattern emerges showing that construction of the trans-Afghan pipeline was a top priority of the Bush administration from the outset.

Although UNOCAL claims it abandoned the pipeline project in December 1998, the series of meetings held between U.S., Pakistani, and Taliban officials after 1998, indicates the project was never off the table.

Note: According to European intelligence sources; Meetings between the Taliban and the US Government over the pipe line are said to have continued even after the September 11, attack and the beginning of the war.

Karzai's who allegedly had strong ties with both UNOCAL and the Bush administration was the main reason why the CIA pushed him for Afghan leader over rival Abdul Haq.

When Haq entered Afghanistan from Pakistan, his position was immediately known to Taliban forces, which subsequently pinned him and his small party down, captured, and executed them. Former Reagan National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, who worked with Haq, vainly attempted to get the CIA to help rescue Haq. The agency claimed it sent a remotely-piloted armed drone to attack the Taliban but its actions were too little and too late.

Some observers in Pakistan claim the CIA tipped off the ISI about Haq's journey and the Pakistanis, in turn, informed the Taliban. McFarlane, who runs a K Street oil consulting firm, did not comment on further questions about the circumstances leading to the death of Haq.

It has been suggested that the CIA allowed Hag’s assassination, seen by Langley as being too close to the Russians and Iranians. Haq had no apparent close ties to the U.S. oil industry and, as both a Pushtun and a northern Afghani, was popular with a wide cross-section of the Afghan people, including the Northern Alliance. Those credentials likely sealed his fate.

While Haq was not part of the Bush administration's Plan for South Asia, Karzai was. During the late 1990s, Karzai worked with an Afghani-American, Zalmay Khalilzad, on the CentGas project. Khalilzad is President Bush's Special National Security Assistant and recently named presidential Special Envoy for Afghanistan. Interestingly, in the White House press release naming Khalilzad special envoy, no mention was made of his past work for UNOCAL. Khalilzad has worked on Afghan issues under National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, a former member of the board of Chevron, (who now owns Unocal) itself no innocent bystander in the future CentGas deal. Rice made an impression on her old colleagues at Chevron. The company has named one of their super-tankers the SS Condoleezza Rice.

Khalilzad, a fellow Pashtun and the son of a former government official under King Mohammed Zahir Shah, was, in addition to being a consultant to the RAND Corporation, a special liaison between UNOCAL and the Taliban government. Khalilzad also worked on various risk analyses for the project.

Khalilzad's efforts complemented those of the Enron Corporation, a major political contributor to the Bush campaign. Enron, which subsequently filed for bankruptcy in the single biggest corporate collapse in the nation's history, conducted the feasibility study for the CentGas deal. Vice President Cheney held several secret meetings with top Enron officials, including its Chairman Kenneth Lay, earlier in 2001. These meetings were presumably part of Cheney's non-public Energy Task Force sessions. A number of Enron stockholders, including Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, became officials in the Bush administration. In addition, Thomas White, a former Vice Chairman of Enron and a multimillionaire in Enron stock, served as the Secretary of the Army.

A chief benefactor in the CentGas deal would have been Halliburton, the huge oil pipeline construction firm that also had its eye on the Central Asian oil reserves. At the time, Halliburton was headed by Dick Cheney. After Cheney's selection as Bush's Vice Presidential candidate, Halliburton also pumped a huge amount of cash into the Bush-Cheney campaign coffers. And like oil cash cow Enron, there were Wall Street rumours in late December that Halliburton, which suffered a forty per cent drop in share value, might follow Enron into bankruptcy court.

Assisting with the CentGas negotiations with the Taliban was Laili Helms, the niece-in-law of former CIA Director Richard Helms. Laili Helms, also a relative of King Zahir Shah, was the Taliban's unofficial envoy to the United States and arranged for various Taliban officials to visit the United States.

Laili Helms' liaison work for the Taliban paid off for Big Oil. In December 1997, the Taliban visited UNOCAL's Houston refinery operations. Interestingly, the chief Taliban leader based in Kandahar, Mullah Mohammed Omar, later on America's international Most Wanted List, was firmly in the UNOCAL camp. His rival Taliban leader in Kabul, Mullah Mohammed Rabbani (not to be confused with the head of the Northern Alliance Burhanuddin Rabbani), favoured Bridas, an Argentine oil company, for the pipeline project. But Mullah Omar knew UNOCAL had pumped large sums of money to the Taliban hierarchy in Kandahar and its expatriate Afghan supporters in the United States. Some of those supporters were also close to the Bush campaign and administration.

While Clinton's State Department omitted Afghanistan from the top foreign policy priority list, the Bush administration, beholden to the oil interests that pumped millions of dollars into the 2000 campaign, restored Afghanistan to the top of the list, but for all the wrong reasons. After Bush's accession to the presidency, various Taliban envoys were received at the State Department, CIA, and National Security Council.

The CIA, which appears, more than ever, to be a virtual extended family of the Bush oil interests, facilitated a renewed approach to the Taliban. The CIA agent who helped set up the Afghan mujaheddin, Milt Bearden, continued to defend the interests of the Taliban. He bemoaned the fact that the United States never really bothered to understand the Taliban when he told the Washington Post, "We never heard what they were trying to say... We had no common language. Ours was, 'Give up bin Laden.' They were saying, 'Do something to help us give him up.'

"There were even reports that the CIA met with their old mujaheddin operative bin Laden in the months before September 11 attacks. The French newspaper Le Figaro quoted an Arab specialist named Antoine Sfeir who postulated that the CIA met with bin Laden in July in a failed attempt to bring him back under its fold. Sfeir said the CIA maintained links with bin Laden before the U.S. attacked his terrorist training camps in Afghanistan in 1998 and, more astonishingly, kept them going even after the attacks. Sfeir told the paper, "Until the last minute, CIA agents hoped bin Laden would return to U.S. command, as was the case before 1998."

Bin Laden actually officially broke with the US in 1991 when US troops began arriving in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm. Bin Laden felt this was a violation of the Saudi regime’s responsibility to protect the Islamic Holy Shrines of Mecca and Medina from the infidels.

Note: according to an article of August 21, 1998 appearing now at CNN.com we were at war with Bin Laden in 1998 at the time of the Unocal negotiations:

“cruise missiles pounded sites in Afghanistan and Sudan Thursday in retaliation for the deadly bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on August 7.

U.S. officials say the six sites attacked in Afghanistan were part of a network of terrorist compounds near the Pakistani border that housed supporters of millionaire Osama bin Laden.

In the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, the El Shifa Pharmaceutical Industries factory -- which U.S. officials say also has ties to bin Laden and produces chemicals that can be used to make deadly VX nerve gas -- was heavily damaged.

Note: In Sudan, the missiles destroyed the Al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory, where 50% of Sudan's medications for both people and animals were manufactured. The Clinton Administration claimed that there was ample evidence to prove that the plant produced chemical weapons, but a thorough investigation after the missile strikes revealed that the intelligence was unreliable.

A few months after the attacks and subsequent American missile strikes in Afghanistan, the American energy company Unocal withdrew its plans for a gas pipeline through Afghanistan.

Bill Clinton ordered cruise missiles to be launched from US ships in the Persian Gulf into Afghanistan, which missed Bin Laden by a few hours. The Clinton administration also devised a plan with Pakistan's ISI to send a team of assassins into Afghanistan to kill Bin Laden. But Pakistan's government was overthrown by General Musharraf, who was viewed as particularly close to the Taliban. The CIA cancelled its plans, fearing Musharraf's ISI would tip off the Taliban and Bin Laden.

General Mahmud Ahmed former head of the ISI was in Washington, DC on the morning of September 11 meeting with CIA and State Department officials as the hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Later, both the Northern Alliance spokesman in Washington, Haron Amin, and Indian intelligence, in an apparent leak to The Times of India, confirmed that General Ahmed ordered a Pakistani-born British citizen and known terrorist named Ahmed Umar Sheik to wire $100,000 from Pakistan to the U.S. bank account of Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker.

No move has been made to question General Ahmed or those U.S. government officials, including former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who met with him in that September. Clearly, General Ahmed was a major player in terrorist activities across South Asia, yet still had very close ties to the U.S. government.

The Taliban visits to Washington continued up to a few months prior to the September 11 attacks. The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research's South Asian Division maintained constant satellite telephone contact with the Taliban in Kandahar and Kabul. Washington permitted the Taliban to maintain a diplomatic office in Queens, New York headed by Taliban diplomat Abdul Hakim Mojahed. In addition, U.S. officials, including Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Christina Rocca, who is also a former CIA officer, visited Taliban diplomatic officials in Islamabad.

In the meantime, the Bush administration took a hostile attitude towards the Islamic State of Afghanistan, otherwise known as the Northern Alliance. Even though the United Nations recognized the alliance as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, the Bush administration, with oil at the forefront of its goals, decided to follow the lead of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and curry favour with the Taliban mullahs of Afghanistan. The visits of Islamist radicals did not end with the Taliban. In July 2001, the head of Pakistan's pro-bin Laden Jamiaat-i-Islami Party, Qazi Hussein Ahmed, also reportedly was received at Langley, Virginia the CIA Headquarters.

According to the Washington Post, the Special Envoy of Mullah Omar, Rahmatullah Hashami, even came to Washington bearing a gift carpet for President Bush from the one-eyed Taliban leader. The Village Voice reported that Hashami, on behalf of the Taliban, offered the Bush administration to hold on to bin Laden long enough for the United States to capture or kill him but, inexplicably, the administration refused. Meanwhile, Spozhmai Maiwandi, the director of the Voice of America's Pashtun service, jokingly nicknamed "Kandahar Rose" by her colleagues, aired favourable reports on the Taliban, including a controversial interview with Mullah Omar.

The Bush administration's dalliances with the Taliban may have even continued after the start of the bombing campaign against their country. According to European intelligence sources, a number of European governments were concerned that the CIA and Big Oil were pressuring the Bush administration not to engage in an initial serious ground war on behalf of the Northern Alliance in order to placate Pakistan and its Taliban compatriots. The early-on decision to stick with an incessant air bombardment, they reasoned, was causing too many civilian deaths and increasing the shakiness of the international coalition.

The obvious, and woefully underreported, interfaces between the Bush administration, UNOCAL, the CIA, the Taliban, Enron, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, the groundwork for which was laid when the Bush Oil team was on the sidelines during the Clinton administration, worried the Republicans. Vanquished vice presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman was in the ironic position of being the senator who chaired the Senate Government Affairs Committee hearings on the collapse of Enron. The roads from Enron also lead to Afghanistan and murky oil politics of the Bush administration.

UNOCAL was also clearly concerned about its ties to the Taliban. On September 14, just three days after Saudi terrorists crashed their planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, UNOCAL issued the following statement: "The company is not supporting the Taliban in Afghanistan in any way whatsoever. Nor do we have any project or involvement in Afghanistan. Beginning in late 1997, Unocal was a member of a multinational consortium that was evaluating construction of a Central Asia Gas pipeline between Turkmenistan and Pakistan [via western Afghanistan]. Our company has had no further role in developing or funding that project or any other project that might involve the Taliban."

Subsequently overwhelming evidence that the War in Afghanistan was primarily about building UNOCAL's pipeline and not about fighting terrorism began to be developed by foreign intelligence.

Let's remember Unocal's Maresca's statement to the US Congress in 1998. "From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders, and our company." Within a week of the commencement of war with the Taliban, the Bush administration discussed the shape of a post-war Afghan government. The focus on Afghanistan compels our notice. After all, the Middle East is full of people and governments that have no love for the US. The WTC hijackers hailed predominately from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Afghan citizens were not included. But Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban got the scapegoat's tail. Is this based on real hard evidence? Or is it simply because Bin Laden opened the way for the full military might of the US armed forces to make the Caspian and Central Asian region safe for the US led oil and gas pipelines? What is the current status of the Afghanistan pipe line?

Why the surge in Afghanistan?

Part 1

It’s about oil!

On February 12, 1998, John J. Maresca, then vice president, international relations for the UNOCAL oil company; testified before the US House of Representatives Committee on International Relations.

During his testimony, Maresca provided information to Congress on Central Asia oil and gas reserves and how they might shape US foreign policy. The main part of this discussion, centered around, the oil reserves in the Caspian Sea. The Caspian Sea holds as much as 44 billion barrels of oil in its reserves, with the southern waters near Iran holding at least half of that.

The Caspian Sea shelf is considered one of the largest sources of petroleum outside the Persian Gulf and Russia.

The oil reserves are in areas north of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Russia. Routes for a pipeline were proposed that would transport oil on a 42-inch pipe southward thru Afghanistan for 1040 miles to the Pakistan coast. Such a pipeline would cost about $2.5 billion (at the time) and carry about 1 million barrels of oil per day. The region's largest producers were and remain Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.

Afghanistan was under the control of multiple war lords, because of this lack of a single governing body Maresca told Congress then that: "It's not going to be built until there is a single Afghan government. That's the simple answer." The key to foreign investment in these two Caspian nations was obtaining secure export routes. The lack of a secure means of transporting Caspian Sea oil and gas to world markets has been an impediment to foreign investment. Until foreign investors could rely on access to markets, investment in the Caspian region's huge petroleum potential would remain small.

The problem, Unocal needed control over the region, and a single government leader with whom it would deal. Unocal sought to build a relationship with the Taliban!

Beginning in 1998 UNOCAL was chastised, particularly by women's rights groups, for discussions with the Taliban, and headed in retreat as a worldwide effort mounted to come to the defense of the Afghani women. This forced UNOCAL to withdraw from its talks with the Taliban and dissolve its multinational partnership in that region.

In 1999 Alexander's Gas & Oil Connections newsletter said: "UNOCAL company officials said late last year (1998) they were abandoning the project because of the need to cut costs in the Caspian region and because of the repeated failure of efforts to resolve the long civil conflict in Afghanistan." [Volume 4, issue #20 - Monday, November 22, 1999]

Political pressure against the Taliban was maintained through the channels of the US Government.

UNOCAL at the time was not the only party positioning themselves to tap into oil and gas reserves in central Asia. UNOCAL was primary member of a multinational consortium called CentGas (Central Asia Gas) along with Delta Oil Company Limited (Saudi Arabia), the Government of Turkmenistan, Indonesia Petroleum, LTD. (INPEX) (Japan), ITOCHU Oil Exploration Co., Ltd. (Japan), Hyundai Engineering & Construction Co., Ltd. (Korea), the Crescent Group (Pakistan) and RAO Gazprom (Russia).

So, in 1998 Osama bin Laden was identified as the villain behind the Taliban, and the Afghanistani women the victims of an oppressive Taliban regime. The stage was set for a future destabilization effort (i.e. a war). The US media began to attack the Taliban in a propaganda move to set that stage.

Women's rights were introduced into Congressional record testimony by Congressman Rohrbacher as the wedge for UNOCAL to build its pipeline through Afghanistan. Three years later CNN would be airing its acclaimed TV documentary "Under The Veil," which displayed the oppressive conditions that women endure in Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban (a propaganda film for the oil pipeline).

Part 2 next

Norway Spiral

Project Blue Beam?

A strange spiral appeared in the sky above northern Norway leaves Residents stunned after the light show, which appeared and looked to be computer-generated.

Rumors that Russia tested a rocket over Norway which gave off a spiraling lighted affect appear to be more than just rumors.

Leaving the unanswered question: was it a rocket with the potential to carry multiple nuclear warheads, as proffered by Russia or a test of Russia’s equivalent to America’s Project Blue Beam?

The Blue Beam project is alleged by many to be a NASA Project which has four different steps in order to implement “a new age religion with the antichrist at its head” The basis of this project is the ability, which is real and exists, to project images into the sky, which then appear to be speaking from heaven. This technology has been tested and does really exist. Its true purpose and planned use though is still unknown.

So we offer the following suggestion, if you see and hear someone talking to earth from the sky, be leery and doubtful that it is real.

General Electric Bailing Out of NBC

GE in financial trouble is bailing out of NBC, when it should simply dissolve. GE just announced that it was selling its troubled asset NBC to Comcast.

NBC has been a headache for GE from the onset, including NBC Universal. The unit includes Universal Pictures movie studios, the NBC network, the Universal Studios chain of theme parks, and such cable channels as USA, Bravo and Syfy. The unit has suffered from the recession, with a drop in broadcast advertising, and some flops at the box office, such as "Land of the Lost."

The NBC network ranks fourth in ratings and is cutting down on scripted shows to save money. Its operating profit fell 27 percent in the first three quarters of 2009.

The financial crisis has been difficult for GE. In an effort to eliminate debt, GE has sold some businesses, is shopping others, and is chasing nearly $200 billion in stimulus money from worldwide governments in an effort to stabilize the company.

GE slashed its dividend by 68 percent and lost its top bond rating, its stock fell 90 percent below the peak it had in 2000, and GE is still attempting to work through its Hugh losses at its GE Capital lending unit, once the source of half of GE’s profits, in areas like commercial real estate and credit cards.

To make the Comcast deal work GE was required to buy out the 20 percent stake in NBC Universal that is held by French media company Vivendi SA. GE and Comcast are then expected to turn NBC Universal into a joint venture, with Comcast holding a 51 percent. GE would leave the partnership in a few years.

The Comcast deal is expected to bring in needed cash. GE anticipates it will be able to clear away about 17 Billion in debt, a net to GE of $5 to $7 billion from Comcast by forming the partnership, and GE would also be able to transfer to the Joint Venture about $8 to $10 billion in debt.

GE has been beset with litigation over the past decade, on August 4, 2009 the SEC fined General Electric $50 million for breaking accounting rules in two separate cases, misleading investors into believing GE would meet or beat earnings expectations.

GE has faced criminal action regarding its defense related operations. GE was convicted in 1990 of defrauding the U.S. Department of Defense, and again in 1992 on charges of corrupt practices in the sale of jet engines to Israel .

Defense Contracting Fraud
On July 23, 1992, GE pled guilty in federal court to civil and criminal charges of defrauding the Pentagon and agreed to pay $69 million to the U.S. government in fines, one of the largest defense contracting fines ever. The company said in a statement that it took responsibility for the actions of a former marketing employee who, along with an Israeli Air Force General, diverted Pentagon funds to their own bank accounts and to fund Israeli military programs not authorized by the United States. Under the settlement with the Justice Department over violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, GE paid $59.5 million in civil fraud claims and $9.5 million in criminal fines.

GE’s civil and criminal problems stemming from the Israeli military program are by no means isolated. GE is a repeat offender when it comes to Defense Department fraud. The company has repeatedly violated the False Claims Act — a measure originally proposed by Lincoln to protect federal coffers.

When the Project on Government Oversight surveyed defense contractors, it found that General Electric was responsible for 15 instances of fraudulent activity in just a four year period (1990-1994) — more than any other defense contractor.

On August 10, 1995 the U.S. Department of Justice announced (# 95-438) that GE would pay $7.1 million to settle a contract fraud suit initiated by Ian Johnson, an engineer at GE's Aircraft Engines plant in Evendale, Ohio in 1993. Johnson had alleged that GE "sold several thousand jet engines to the military that did not comply with military electrical bonding and electromagnetic interference testing requirements," according to DOJ. (Subsequently, the Air Force tested the engines and found them to be safe.) Johnson filed the suit on behalf of the United States under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.

On January 10, 1997, the U.S. Department of Justice announced (# 97-012) that GE would pay $950,000 to settle allegations that it fraudulently misrepresented that it had conducted certain test procedures on circuit boards for hundreds of aircraft engine controls when in fact the tests were not conducted.

GE paid $5.87 million (along with Martin Marietta) to settle a qui tam suit associated with improper sales of radar systems to Egypt.

GE paid fines between 1990 and 1994 ranging from a $20,000 criminal fine to a $24.6 million civil fine for a variety of defense contracting frauds, including: misrepresentation, money laundering, defective pricing (2 incidents), cost mischarging (3 incidents), false claims, product substitution, conspiracy/conversion of classified documents, procurement fraud and mail fraud.

On July 22, 1992, GE “(pled) guilty to diverting some $26.5 million from the U.S. foreign military aid program used to finance General Electric's sale of F-16 jet engines and support equipment to Israel." (United States v General Electric, Docket #90-CV-792, US DC SD OH, Cincinnati) See Defense Contracting:

Contractor Claims for Legal Costs Associated Stockholder Lawsuits, GAO/NSIAD-95-66
(July 1995)
GE was convicted on February 3, 1990 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia of defrauding the government out of $10 million for a battlefield computer system. GE pled guilty on May 19, 1985 to charges of fraud and falsifying 108 claims on a missile contract. GE was convicted of defrauding the Air Force out of $800,000 on the Minuteman Missile Project. GE was convicted of bribing the Puerto Rico Water Resources Authority.

Violations of Securities Laws
On September 24, 2004, the SEC announced (# 2004-135) that it had settled charges against GE for failing to fully disclose in proxy statements issued between 1997-2002 all of the retirement benefits granted to former CEO Jack Welch.

Tax issues:
For examples of facility-specific GE tax-abatements up to 2001 see “GE Tax Abatement Ripoffs” published by Multinational Monitor.

Additionally if this weren’t enough to make your hair stand on end, GE also has a less than sterling labor record abroad. In 1988 the International Metalworkers' Federation held a convention of delegates from GE factories in 23 countries. Reports delivered at the gathering showed that the company was depressing wages and weakening unions just about everywhere. Some of the strongest anti union postures were taken by GE in Brazil and Colombia.

GE’s business model can be considered a global system of management by stress, with the company viewing stress and the fear of job loss as the magic formula for productivity and efficiency.

Retirees claim the company has used accounting gimmicks and other means to reduce their pensions.

According to Multinational Monitor magazine, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) cited GE for at least 858 violations of OSHA rules from 1990 through March 2001. From 1994 to 1999, OSHA cited GE for at least 98 “serious” violations. OSHA issues “serious” citations to companies for conditions posing “a substantial probability that death or serious physical harm could result.”

Employment Discrimination
A black worker at GE’s Burkville, Alabama plant filed a suit claiming that General Electric officials fostered a racially hostile environment. GE reached settlements with two ex-GE employees employed at the plant. The workers claimed they were subjected to Ku Klux Klan symbols, swastikas and a hangman’s noose at the plant.

In 1991 GE was assessed over $ 590,000 in association with a disability claim for its refusal to reasonably accommodate a machinist with a back injury. A jury awarded $1.2 million in damages, which the district court reduced to $300,000 in accordance with the statutory cap on ADA damages. The machinist was also awarded $141,110 in front pay and $150,837 in attorney’s fees, according to the ADA newsletter.

Environment and product safety
Persistent concerns about PCB Contamination of the Hudson River from two GE manufacturing plants in Hudson Falls and Fort Edward have caused EPA to study the issue on a continuous basis since the site was listed on the nation’s Superfund priority site list in the early 1980s. Finally, on December 6, 2000, after 16 years of studies, proposals and more studies, EPA announced a 5-year plan to dredge 2.65 million cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediment along a 40-mile stretch of the river. The cost of EPA’s proposal to GE: $460 million. The high cost of the cleanup has led company officials to mount one of the biggest public relations campaigns ever waged around a toxic waste site. Although EPA and the company signed a Record of Decision agreement in 2002 and numerous cleanup agreements after that, remediation is scheduled to begin during 2009. (For more information also see Clean Up GE)

Until reaching an agreement with EPA, GE denied the problem, sometimes with outright distortions of the truth. At an April 22, 1998 shareholder meeting, GE CEO Jack Welch claimed: “PCBs do not pose adverse health risks.” Testifying in Albany on July 9, 1998, EPA Administrator Carol Browner stated: “GE tells us this contamination is not a problem. GE would have people of the Hudson River believe, and I quote: ‘living in a PCB-laden area is not dangerous.’ But the science tells us the opposite is true ... And concern about PCBs goes beyond cancer ... The science has spoken: PCBs are a serious threat...”

PCBs from GE have also contaminated the Housatonic River in Connecticut, as well as in or near the Coosa River Basin in Georgia (traced to GE's Rome, Georgia plant).

On May 30, 2003 US EPA announced that GE would pay a $ 94,380 penalty to settle a TSCA enforcement action related to the improper storage of PCBs at its Pittsfield, MA facility.

Other Pollution Issues
On March 26, 1998, General Electric agreed to pay a $92,000 fine for previous violations of environmental reporting requirements for toxic releases at its silicone manufacturing plant in Waterford, New York, according to EPA’s regional office. In addition, GE agreed to spend about $112,000 to upgrade local emergency response capabilities in surrounding communities. Between 1991 and 1996, EPA cited GE for 23 violations when toxic releases were un- or underreported. Chemicals involved include dimethyl sulfate, chlorine, 1, 1, 1, -trichloroethane, ammonia, and toluene.

On March 13, 1992, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a $20,000 fine against General Electric for violations of regulations at the fuel fabrication plant in Wilmington, North Carolina. On May 29, 1991, GE personnel accidentally moved about 320 pounds of uranium to a waste treatment tank. The danger of the mistake was that the size and shape of the waste container caused unsafe concentrations of uranium, which could have led to a nuclear accident. The NRC dispatched a special incident investigation team the same day and an inspection began two days later. The NRC found that the mistake was the result of lax safety controls.

According to documents obtained by Public Citizen under the Freedom of Information Act, GE-designed nuclear reactors around the world have a design flaw that make it virtually certain (90 percent) that in the event of a meltdown, radiation would be released directly into the environment and into surrounding communities, leaving the public without any protection. The NRC acknowledges that the reactor containment structure in GE-built nuclear power plants does not work, but they licensed the reactors anyway. (Also, a dozen or more GE-designed boiling water reactors in the United States and abroad have evidence of cracking in the reactor core shroud — a metal cylinder surrounding the reactor’s radioactive fuel rods.)

On October 18, 2004, the California Department of Pesticide Registration announced that it would seek $202,959 in penalties for violations by GE's Betz Water business of the State of California’s pesticide registration requirements. The matter was ultimately settled in 2005 for $120,916, GE later explained in a letter to the Project on Government Oversight.

In August, 1996 the Florida Department of Environmental Protection informed Greenwich Air Services that it was seeking penalties of $278,555 for violations of the state's hazardous waste law at its Miami facility (the facility was subsequently acquired as a portion of GE's purchase of Greenwich which was consummated in September 1997). According to GE (10-K filed in March 1998), the matter was tentatively settled for $36,270 plus a pledge to perform a supplemental wastewater treatment project.

Human rights
In 1995, a Presidential Advisory Commission revealed details of GE’s human experiments with nuclear radiation. GE ran the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Richland, Washington as part of the U.S. weapons program. Beginning in 1949, General Electric deliberately released radioactive material to see how far downwind it would travel. One cloud drifted 400 miles, all the way down to the California-Oregon border, carrying perhaps thousands of times more radiation than that emitted at Three Mile Island.

In 1986, Representative Edward Markey, D-Massachusetts, held hearings in which it was disclosed that the United States and General Electric had conducted experiments on hundreds of United States citizens who became “nuclear calibration devices for experimenters run amok.” According to Markey: “Too many of these experiments used human subjects that were captive audiences or populations ... considered ‘expendable’ ... the elderly, prisoners and hospital patients who might not have retained their full faculties for informed consent.” One of GE’s most gruesome experiments — disclosed in the Markey hearings — was performed on inmates at a prison in Walla Walla, Washington, near Hanford.

Starting in 1963, 64 prisoners had their scrotums and testes irradiated to determine the effects of radiation on human reproductive organs. Although the inmates were warned about the possibility of sterility and radiation burns, the forms said nothing about the risk of testicular cancer. Markey’s committee heard allegations that, at the time of the experiments, General Electric violated both civil and criminal laws.

Anti-competitive and consumer protection
GE was among four companies that ended up paying New York City over $4 million in 1982 to settle a lawsuit charging that wiring and cables in 754 subway cars were defective.

In 1992 GE agreed to pay $165,000 to settle a suit brought by 11 state attorneys general alleging the company deceptively advertised its light bulbs. According to the state AGs, the ads promised consumers the same amount of light for less energy, but in fact the light bulbs simply delivered less wattage.

GE Capital was ordered to pay $100 million for unfair debt collection practices as part of a 1999 class-action lawsuit settlement. The suit alleged that GE solicited agreements from bankrupt creditors to pay their credit card agreements without notifying bankruptcy courts of the agreements.

GE recalled 3.1 million dishwashers beginning in 1999, stating that a side switch could melt and ignite, presenting a fire hazard. In 2002, the CPSC announced that GE would pay a $1 million fine to settle allegations that the company knowingly failed to report the defects to the CPSC.

Unlawful Debt Collection Practices
On August 7, 1998, 50 States announced a $97 million settlement agreement with General Electric Credit Corporation (GECC) for unlawful debt collection practices from consumers who declared bankruptcy, in association with private label credit cards issued together with Montgomery Ward Credit Corporation. Under the settlement, GECC and Montgomery Ward Credit together paid an estimated $70 million to approximately 70,000 consumers nationwide from whom the companies collected invalid debts. In addition, the companies paid the states attorneys general $24.5 million. GECC also paid $3 million into a consumer education trust fund.

In April 2001, New York State AG Eliot Spitzer won a ruling in state court that, in connection with the dishwasher recall, GE falsely told consumers the problem could not be repaired, prodding customers with partial rebates to buy new GE dishwashers.

A November 1998 Time magazine profile of GE concluded that “there is no starker example of the phenomenon of corporate welfare and vanishing jobs than General Electric Co.”

On July 14, 1998, the U.S. Department of Justice announced (# 98-327) a settlement with GE over anti competitive practices involving restrictions GE had imposed in software licenses with more than 500 hospitals throughout the country. The restrictions prevented the hospitals from competing with GE to service medical equipment at other hospitals and at clinics.

With all this adverse activity, it would be in the public interest to dissolve GE and start another company, apparently the history of this company is one in which we the consumers should be very aware and very cautious!

Bernanke Lacks Sufficient Knowledge to Lead the FED

In Remarks before Congress Bernanke has shown his ignorance of the important issues facing America , and exemplified his lack of ability to lead the FED.

Chairman Bernanke. “If somebody has their wealth in dollars and they are going to buy consumer goods in dollars who is a typical American, then the decline in the dollar, the only effect it has on their buying power is it makes imported goods more expensive”. November 8, 2007

The Facts: Inflation robs those responsible citizens who have their money in Bank CD’s or other savings accounts, as the dollar becomes worth less by inflation (more of it in circulation) it will purchase less. The very definition of inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. The price of the commodity will adjust upward to absorb the excess money. For Example in 1900 the Dollar purchased around $26.00 in goods and services, yet today it can purchase only about $0.25

Chairman Bernanke. “The mandate that Congress gave us is to look at employment and inflation as measured by domestic price growth, …, and I think you would agree we do see risks to inflation and we are taking those into account and want to make sure that prices remain as stable as possible in the United States ”. November 8, 2007

The Facts: (i) Under the Fed we have experienced inflation from which prices have doubled every 20 years, and are accelerating even faster now. Since 1913 we have seen 1929% inflation, and (ii) our Job market has decreased substantially since the 1980’s, with high paying jobs moving to other countries, and unemployment is at a real 20%.

Mr. BERNANKE. “Well, first, our national savings includes corporate savings as well as household savings. If you put those together, you get a positive number, so there is some net savings going on in the United States ”. July 18, 2007

The Facts: A Negative “Consumer” Saving Rate should be very Worrisome!

The U.S. personal saving rate’s negative turn which began to show in 2005 suggested that Americans would curtail their spending and accept a lower standard of living as they pay off rising debts. Or otherwise have no spend-able income available.

Personal saving has been negative since the second quarter of 2005. For 2005 as a whole, current data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) show a personal saving rate of -0.4 percent—a figure that dropped to -1.1 percent in 2006. These readings are well below the 1999-2004 average of 2.2 percent, a good deal below the 1993-98 average of 4.6 percent, and considerably below the 1950-92 norms of 8.6 percent.

Negative saving would seem to point to growing indebtedness and, ultimately, a decline in living standards, which we have evidenced. Low levels of household, private, and especially national saving will as we have seen take a toll over the long run. Economists generally agree that consumer spending decisions are largely explained by the life cycle–permanent income model. According to the model, households estimate the constant-dollar, or real, resources likely to be available to them over a long planning horizon, including in these resources anticipated after-tax income current wealth, and expected movements in asset prices. Given the estimated stream of resources, households plan on maintaining steady growth in real spending over their lifetimes.

The typical summary of this model is that real consumer spending is a constant fraction of “permanent income.” Permanent income is a smoothly growing measure whose present value is equal to the present value of the real resources available to consumers. The fraction of permanent income that is spent may depend on a host of factors, such as demographics, but ones that could be of particular interest are uncertainty and the ability to borrow. It is likely that the more uncertain future income is seen to be, and the more difficult it is to borrow in an emergency, the lower spending will be relative to permanent income.

So to the point, Personal Savings are very important, much more so than Corporate Savings.

Bernanke, obviously is reality impaired, as was his predecessor, or there is a plan unfolding in which this deception is an integral part.

Business as Usual?

The man on the Street has had enough of wars and plunder, unemployment and bank rescue, they are mad as hell and may not take much more.

The latest Afghanistan build up approach by Mr. Obama is just doing business as usual, spending money for the Military Industrial Complex, and the Bankers behind it, and the hell with the men and women who are killed and wounded, they are expendable. In short NO change necessary, except for the face of Obama. Everything else is business as usual.

Comments such as:

“I really wanted to be able to trust Obama... but the truth is that our invasion of Afghanistan under W had nothing to do with 9/11. Nothing at all--pure theater. For Obama to cite 9/11 as prime rationale for staying and escalating operations there is truly, to put it mildly, disingenuous. I thought the man was smarter than this and had more respect for us all. Yes we can? How about: no we should not. 'Cmon man what do you take us for?”

“Anyone in the media ( right or left), or anyone holding office who continues to suppress or censure rational/science based discussion addressing the overwhelming evidence that 9/11 was a "false flag" event, is complicit in the deaths of our troops and hundreds of thousands of innocent citizens!! The probability of the government's theory that 19 men with box cutters directed by a guy in a cave CONSPIRED to attack the U.S., is sick and absurd to almost everyone who takes the time to become informed through diligent research starting with www.ae911truth.org . “

“Apparently there is some kind of 40-year long echo in this country - we've heard all this before - well, I'm glad nobody threw away those early Vietnam military buildup political speeches - most of those phrases will be perfect for America's near future if we just substitute "Afghanistan" for "Vietnam" - no other changes will be needed - luckily, we already have all the material we'll need to cover years of debate and political speeches justifying the escalation Obama's choosing today .”

“What I found most disturbing about O's speech last night was the larger rationale he put forward, beyond the 9/11 justification - that of the "American mission" of providing imperial "leadership" for the rest of the world, intertwined with a concern for "credibility". The US military as a force for "nation building" stability in that part of the world? Does anyone truly believe that? At least the man has kept one of his campaign promises-- to escalate the Afghan war. And he's come through on that particular pledge just prior to his trip to Sweden to receive the Nobel Peace Prize! “

These comments and others like them are springing up all over the net. This is a small sampling of the anger and frustration that permeates America. We were duped into electing another George Bush, we were promised change, and we got it, a new face but the same game plan.