Dissident Veteran For Peace

As confirmed in the DVD bonus features, The International (2009) is transparently inspired by the case of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI). In its heyday, the BCCI was one of the world's largest banks.

BCCI was dissolved in 1991 amidst charges of fraud, arms trafficking, money laundering, and other crimes. The bank served as a CIA conduit and according to the film's screenwriter, Eric Warren Singer, the BCCI was also a Mossad tool (for more on this subject see The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America by Peter Dale Scott (Univ. of California Pr., 2007)).

In 1992, über-Zionist Clark Clifford and his law partner Robert A. Altman were indicted by a grand jury in connection with the scandal at the behest of Zionist Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau. However, as with the fictional bank in The International, no one was ever held criminally responsible for BCCI's conduct. The charges against Clifford were dropped and Altman was acquitted.

Likewise, Bill Clinton pardoned Marc Rich. The 1992 Senate Committee on Foreign Relations BCCI report said of him:

Marc Rich remains the most important figure in the international commodities markets, and remains a fugitive from the United States following his indictment on securities fraud. BCCI lending to Rich in the 1980's amounted to tens of millions of dollars. Moreover, Rich's commodities firms were used by BCCI in connection with BCCI's involving in U.S. guarantee programs through the Department of Agriculture. The nature and extent of Rich's relationship with BCCI requires further investigation.

Three months after he was pardoned the New York Times reported: "Israeli officials disclosed in interviews that they rallied around the campaign out of gratitude for Mr. Rich's philanthropy in Israel and because of Mr. Rich's clandestine role as a 'sa-ayon,' a Hebrew word for an unpaid supporter of intelligence operations. Mr. Rich, they said, financed sensitive missions and allowed agents to use his offices around the world as cover, when Israel was isolated diplomatically." After Rich died in 2013, he was buried in Israel.

If BCCI was such a useful tool then why was it shut down? I can think of at least two possibilities: First, BCCI had become so exposed that it was a liability, a magnet for investigations; closing it was damage control. Second, at times even elites have disagreements, BCCI may have been shut down because its principals had simply made too many powerful enemies.


Below are two outtakes from the film.

Character of Italian arms manufacturer Umberto Calvini (Luca Barbareschi at 35:10): "the real value of a conflict, the true value, is in the debt that it creates. You control the debt, you control everything ... this is the very essence of the banking industry, to make us all, whether we be nations or individuals, slaves to debt."


Character of New York District Attorney "Arnie" (James Rebhorn at 59:30): "Do you have any idea of the shitstorm you've gotten me into?"

Character of Assistant District Attorney Eleanor "Ella" Whitman (Naomi Watts): "We're just trying to get to the truth."

Arnie: "I get it. But what you need to remember is that there's what people want to hear, there's what people want to believe, there's everything else and then there's the truth."

Ella: "Since when is that okay? I can't even believe you're saying this to me. The truth means responsibility, Arnie."

Arnie: "Exactly, which is why everyone dreads it."

See also: Puppets & Money

Post last revised: 12 September 2015 

Labels: banking, Clintons, debt, Israel, money, Pakistan, quotations, United States, video

It's been almost three years since I posted a new cartoon by Carlos Latuff to this blog. So, to make up for lost time below are five cartoons that he's produced since then.

Labels: Afghanistan, art and literature, Carlos Latuff, Iraq, Obama, Pakistan, United States

In "Robot Wars," Eric Stoner writes:

Predator drones armed with laser-guided Hellfire missiles have regularly bombed Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years, and their use is skyrocketing. In 2008, 71 Predators flew 138,404 combat hours — a 94 percent increase over the year before, according to a recent presentation by U.S. Air Force Col. Eric Mathewson. And over the last year, drones flown largely by the CIA have launched missile attacks inside Pakistan more than 40 times. Rather than reconsider this deadly policy, President Obama has become an enthusiastic backer. Since his inauguration, he has authorized 11 such attacks that have collectively killed over 145 people, many of them civilians, and sparked large protests within Pakistan.

I would add that Obama--the "peace candidate"--authorized UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) attacks on Pakistan in his very first week in office.

See also: "The Great Robot Race"

Labels: drones, Empire, militarism, Obama, Pakistan, robots, technology, War

The recently assassinated Benazir Bhutto is being lauded in the West. No surprise there, she was, as fellow Pakistani Tariq Ali wrote in the London Review of Books almost a month ago, a "Daughter of the West." More crudely put, she was a lackey of the West. Charismatic and courageous, she was also corrupt and ruthless--a perfect possible replacement for a faltering pro-US dictator. Below is the opening section from Ali's article, followed by an excerpt from Robert Fisk's primer on who killed Bhutto and why.

Arranged marriages can be a messy business. Designed principally as a means of accumulating wealth, circumventing undesirable flirtations or transcending clandestine love affairs, they often don’t work. Where both parties are known to loathe each other, only a rash parent, desensitised by the thought of short-term gain, will continue with the process knowing full well that it will end in misery and possibly violence. That this is equally true in political life became clear in the recent attempt by Washington to tie Benazir Bhutto to Pervez Musharraf.

The single, strong parent in this case was a desperate State Department – with John Negroponte as the ghoulish go-between and Gordon Brown as the blushing bridesmaid – fearful that if it did not push this through both parties might soon be too old for recycling. The bride was certainly in a hurry, the groom less so. Brokers from both sides engaged in lengthy negotiations on the size of the dowry. Her broker was and remains Rehman Malik, a former boss of Pakistan’s FIA, who has been investigated for corruption by the National Accountability Bureau and who served nearly a year in prison after Benazir’s fall, then became one of her business partners and is currently under investigation (with her) by a Spanish court looking into a company called Petroline FZC, which made questionable payments to Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Documents, if genuine, show that she chaired the company. She may have been in a hurry but she did not wish to be seen taking the arm of a uniformed president. He was not prepared to forgive her past. The couple’s distaste for each other yielded to a mutual dependence on the United States. Neither party could say ‘no’, though Musharraf hoped the union could be effected inconspicuously. Fat chance.

Both parties made concessions. She agreed that he could take off his uniform after his ‘re-election’ by Parliament, but it had to be before the next general election. (He has now done this, leaving himself dependent on the goodwill of his successor as army chief of staff.) He pushed through a legal ruling – yet another sordid first in the country’s history – known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance, which withdrew all cases of corruption pending against politicians accused of looting the national treasury. The ruling was crucial for her since she hoped that the money-laundering and corruption cases pending in three European courts – in Valencia, Geneva and London – would now be dismissed. This doesn’t seem to have happened.

Many Pakistanis – not just the mutinous and mischievous types who have to be locked up at regular intervals – were repelled, and coverage of ‘the deal’ in the Pakistan media was universally hostile, except on state television. The ‘breakthrough’ was loudly trumpeted in the West, however, and a whitewashed Benazir Bhutto was presented on US networks and BBC TV news as the champion of Pakistani democracy – reporters loyally referred to her as ‘the former prime minister’ rather than the fugitive politician facing corruption charges in several countries.

She had returned the favour in advance by expressing sympathy for the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, lunching with the Israeli ambassador to the UN (a litmus test) and pledging to ‘wipe out terrorism’ in her own country. ...

In the Independent (UK) Robert Fisk closes his article today, "They don't blame al-Qa'ida. They blame Musharraf," as follows:

So let's run through this logic in the way that Inspector Ian Blair might have done in his policeman's notebook before he became the top cop in London.
Question: Who forced Benazir Bhutto to stay in London and tried to prevent her return to Pakistan? Answer: General Musharraf.
Question: Who ordered the arrest of thousands of Benazir's supporters this month? Answer: General Musharraf.
Question: Who placed Benazir under temporary house arrest this month? Answer: General Musharraf.
Question: Who declared martial law this month? Answer: General Musharraf.
Question: who killed Benazir Bhutto?
Er. Yes. Well quite.
You see the problem? Yesterday, our television warriors informed us the PPP [Pakistan Peoples Party] members shouting that Musharraf was a "murderer" were complaining he had not provided sufficient security for Benazir. Wrong. They were shouting this because they believe he killed her.

See also: "Olmert: Bhutto could have been bridge to Muslims" in the Jerusalem Post.

Addendum: Some interesting discussions on this topic are at feministing.com and at the Womens Writes blog.

Last revised: 01/01/2008

Labels: Benazir Bhutto, Empire, Pakistan, violence