Global Policy Forum

By Chris Floyd

We've talked a lot about grand strategy and national purpose in the last few weeks, but now let's leave that rarefied air and get down to what your savvy, no-nonsense operators like Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld would no doubt call, in their jaunty, plain-man jargon, "brass tacks."

Namely: who's going to gobble up the loot from President Pretzel's buggering of Baghdad? Besides the oil industry, of course. Their eager slobbering over Saddam's barrels of black gold -- second largest oil reserves in the world -- has reached such torrential proportions in recent weeks that even the Dear Leader's cheerleaders in mainstream American media have had to put down their pom-poms for a second and take note of it. Usually in this vein: "An unexpected side benefit to President Bush's campaign to liberate the Iraqi people could be the opportunity it represents for some of America's largest hydrocarbon enterprises to develop profitable new venues for their useful goods and services," or some other such gumming of milky pablum. But in any case, that particular fat cat is now out of the bag for all to see.

We don't wish to be simplistic, however. Crude assertions such as "This is a war for oil" or "Bush will kill thousands of people to enrich his fellow oil barons" do a grave injustice to the complexities -- the subtle nuances -- of the situation. And Mr. Bush -- despite the many unjust aspersions cast upon his intelligence by liberal bigots and late-night comedians -- is in perfect command of these complexities. He knows he is not going to "kill thousands of people to enrich his fellow oil barons." No; he's going to kill thousands of people to enrich a whole range of special interests, not just oil barons. Who says Dub don't do nuance?

So what other war profiteers are high on the Bush hit parade? It's certainly no surprise to find our old friends, the Carlyle Group, turning the shredded viscera of dead children into boffo box office for its associates. For those who came in late, the Carlyle Group is the world's largest "private equity" firm -- a gang of former government honchos cashing in on their connections while keeping a place warm for current officeholders who throw sweetheart deals their way. Carlyle specializes in transactions controlled by dispensers of state largess: defense contracts, privatizations -- anything that can be done on the QT with a nod and a wink between old pals.

Their heavy-hitters are hardwired into the global power grid: James Baker (Bush I's secretary of state), Frank Carlucci (former Reagan secretary of defense, and college chum of Rumsfeld), John Major (moralizing former British prime minister turned tabloid fodder this week after being outed as an adulterous hypocrite by a former lover), and of course, George Herbert Walker Bush, who serves as a roving shill for the group, sealing backroom deals with old family friends -- like the bin Ladens of Saudi Arabia. Carlyle is now one of the top U.S. military contractors, and is busy expanding its tentacles into America's client states. Just last month, Tony "The Ranch Hand" Blair privatized one of Britain's top-secret defense laboratories and gave a chunk of it to Dubya's dad, despite strong objections from Parliament. The Groupsters are also negotiating a deal for Israel's anti-terror training unit, which is being privatized by the Sharon government.

It's a cunning business plan, worthy of the Harvard Business School grad in the White House. More war means more money for Carlyle. More terror means more money for Carlyle. The more war you wage, the more terror you will provoke. And that means -- what else? -- even more money for the family firm.

Carlyle is not the only insider making out like a bandit from the Bush Wars, of course. There's Halliburton, which just before the 2000 election gave Dick Cheney a $36 million "retirement package" -- i.e., bribe for services to be rendered once he was installed in office. And he has come through for the home team: Halliburton's military services division has been given open-ended, no-bid Pentagon contracts worth untold billions. Its other main business -- oil services -- will reap even more profit from the upcoming conquest.

Meanwhile, Rumsfeld sold up to $91 million in defense-related stocks last year, including his major stake in a partnership with family members of China's communist leadership: a technology venture designed to give the Chinese army protection against, er, U.S. computer espionage. Like Cheney, who did $30 million in business with Saddam Hussein during the 1990s, Rummy swings both ways when there's money to be made.

Here's the bottom line: every military action taken by the United States puts money directly into the pockets of George W. Bush, his family and their elite business associates around the world. Every act of terrorism against the United States puts money directly into those same pockets -- because such acts lead to more military responses, more military spending, more anti-terror measures in both the public and private spheres.

Thus every single decision that George W. Bush makes about war and terrorism is compromised and corrupted by the indisputable fact that he and his closest associates stand to profit directly from conflict, destruction, fear and death. The more aggressive his response, the more money they will make. Whatever other motives you choose to see behind his decisions, this one fact taints them all.

These men have shown that they put profit above everything else -- and for them there is no profit in peace.

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