Who Makes The Profits?
By General Smedley Butler, USMC
Reader’s Digest
First Published 1935

The World War, rather our brief participation in it, has cost the United States some $52,000,000,000. Figure it out. That means $400 to every American man, woman, and child. And we haven’t paid the debt yet. We are paying it, our children will pay it, and our children’s children probably still will be paying the cost of that war.
The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits - ah! that is another matter - twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent - the sky is the limit. All that traffic will bear. Uncle Sam has the money. Let’s get it.

Of course, it isn’t put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and “we must all put our shoulders to the wheel,” but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket - and are safely pocketed. Let’s just take a few examples:

Take our friends the du Ponts, the powder people - didn’t one of them testify before a Senate committee recently that their powder won the war? Or saved the world for democracy? Or something? How did they do in the war? They were a patriotic corporation. Well, the average earnings of the du Ponts for the period 1910 to 1914 were $6,000,000 a year. It wasn’t much, but the du Ponts managed to get along on it. Now let’s look at their average yearly profit during the war years, 1914 to 1918. Fifty-eight million dollars a year profit we find! Nearly ten times that of normal times, and the profits of normal times were pretty good. An increase in profits of more than 950 per cent.

Take one of our little steel companies that patriotically shunted aside the making of rails and girders and bridges to manufacture war materials. Well, their 1910-1914 yearly earnings averaged $6,000,000. Then came the war. And, like loyal citizens, Bethlehem Steel promptly turned to munitions making. Did their profits jump - or did they let Uncle Sam in for a bargain? Well, their 1914-1918 average was $49,000,000 a year!

Or, let’s take United States Steel. The normal earnings during the five-year period prior to the war were $105,000,000 a year. Not bad. Then along came the war and up went the profits. The average yearly profit for the period 1914-1918 was $240,000,000. Not bad.

There you have some of the steel and powder earnings. Let’s look at something else. A little copper, perhaps. That always does well in war times.

Anaconda, for instance. Average yearly earnings during the pre-war years 1910-1914 of $10,000,000. During the war years 1914-1918 profits leaped to $34,000,000 per year.

Or Utah Copper. Average of $5,000,000 per year during the 1910-1914 period. Jumped to an average of $21,000,000 yearly profits for the war period.

Let’s group these five, with three smaller companies. The total yearly average profits of the pre-war period 1910-1914 were $137,480,000. Then along came the war. The average yearly profits for this group skyrocketed to $408,300,000.

A little increase in profits of approximately 200 per cent.

Does war pay? It paid them. But they aren’t the only ones. There are still others. Let’s take leather.

For the three-year period before the war the total profits of Central Leather Company were $3,500,000. That was approximately $1,167,000 a year. Well, in 1916 Central Leather returned a profit of $15,000,000, a small increase of 1,100 per cent. That’s all. The General Chemical Company averaged a profit for the three years before the war of a little over $800,000 a year. Came the war, and the profits jumped to $12,000,000. a leap of 1,400 per cent.

International Nickel Company - and you can’t have a war without nickel - showed an increase in profits from a mere average of $4,000,000 a year to $73,000,000 yearly. Not bad? An increase of more than 1,700 per cent.

American Sugar Refining Company averaged $2,000,000 a year for the three years before the war. In 1916 a profit of $6,000,000 was recorded.

Listen to Senate Document No. 259. The Sixty-Fifth Congress, reporting on corporate earnings and government revenues. Considering the profits of 122 meat packers, 153 cotton manufacturers, 299 garment makers, 49 steel plants, and 340 coal producers during the war. Profits under 25 per cent were exceptional. For instance the coal companies made between 100 per cent and 7,856 per cent on their capital stock during the war. The Chicago packers doubled and tripled their earnings.

And let us not forget the bankers who financed the great war. If anyone had the cream of the profits it was the bankers. Being partnerships rather than incorporated organizations, they do not have to report to stockholders. And their profits were as secret as they were immense. How the bankers made their millions and their billions I do not know, because those little secrets never become public - even before a Senate investigatory body.

But here’s how some of the other patriotic industrialists and speculators chiseled their way into war profits.

Take the shoe people. They like war. It brings business with abnormal profits. They made huge profits on sales abroad to our allies. Perhaps, like the munitions manufacturers and armament makers, they also sold to the enemy. For a dollar is a dollar whether it comes from Germany or from France. But they did well by Uncle Sam too. For instance, they sold Uncle Sam 35,000,000 pairs of hobnailed service shoes. There were 4,000,000 soldiers. Eight pairs, and more, to a soldier. My regiment during the war had only one pair to a soldier. Some of these shoes probably are still in existence. They were good shoes. But when the war was over Uncle Sam has a matter of 25,000,000 pairs left over. Bought - and paid for. Profits recorded and pocketed.

There was still lots of leather left. So the leather people sold your Uncle Sam hundreds of thousands of McClellan saddles for the cavalry. But there wasn’t any American cavalry overseas! Somebody had to get rid of this leather, however. Somebody had to make a profit in it - so we had a lot of McClellan saddles. And we probably have those yet.

Also somebody had a lot of mosquito netting. They sold your Uncle Sam 20,000,000 mosquito nets for the use of the soldiers overseas. I suppose the boys were expected to put it over them as they tried to sleep in muddy trenches - one hand scratching cooties on their backs and the other making passes at scurrying rats. Well, not one of these mosquito nets ever got to France!

Anyhow, these thoughtful manufacturers wanted to make sure that no soldier would be without his mosquito net, so 40,000,000 additional yards of mosquito netting were sold to Uncle Sam.

There were pretty good profits in mosquito netting in those days, even if there were no mosquitoes in France. I suppose, if the war had lasted just a little longer, the enterprising mosquito netting manufacturers would have sold your Uncle Sam a couple of consignments of mosquitoes to plant in France so that more mosquito netting would be in order.

Airplane and engine manufacturers felt they, too, should get their just profits out of this war. Why not? Everybody else was getting theirs. So $1,000,000,000 - count them if you live long enough - was spent by Uncle Sam in building airplane engines that never left the ground! Not one plane, or motor, out of the billion dollars worth ordered, ever got into a battle in France. Just the same the manufacturers made their little profit of 30, 100, or perhaps 300 per cent.

Undershirts for soldiers cost 14¢ [cents] to make and uncle Sam paid 30¢ to 40¢ each for them - a nice little profit for the undershirt manufacturer. And the stocking manufacturer and the uniform manufacturers and the cap manufacturers and the steel helmet manufacturers - all got theirs.

Why, when the war was over some 4,000,000 sets of equipment - knapsacks and the things that go to fill them - crammed warehouses on this side. Now they are being scrapped because the regulations have changed the contents. But the manufacturers collected their wartime profits on them - and they will do it all over again the next time.

There were lots of brilliant ideas for profit making during the war.

One very versatile patriot sold Uncle Sam twelve dozen 48- inch wrenches. Oh, they were very nice wrenches. The only trouble was that there was only one nut ever made that was large enough for these wrenches. That is the one that holds the turbines at Niagara Falls. Well, after Uncle Sam had bought them and the manufacturer had pocketed the profit, the wrenches were put on freight cars and shunted all around the United States in an effort to find a use for them. When the Armistice was signed it was indeed a sad blow to the wrench manufacturer. He was just about to make some nuts to fit the wrenches. Then he planned to sell these, too, to your Uncle Sam.

Still another had the brilliant idea that colonels shouldn’t ride in automobiles, nor should they even ride on horseback. One has probably seen a picture of Andy Jackson riding in a buckboard. Well, some 6,000 buckboards were sold to Uncle Sam for the use of colonels! Not one of them was used. But the buckboard manufacturer got his war profit.

The shipbuilders felt they should come in on some of it, too. They built a lot of ships that made a lot of profit. More than $3,000,000,000 worth. Some of the ships were all right. But $635,000,000 worth of them were made of wood and wouldn’t float! The seams opened up - and they sank. We paid for them, though. And somebody pocketed the profits.

It has been estimated by statisticians and economists and researchers that the war cost your Uncle Sam $52,000,000,000. Of this sum, $39,000,000,000 was expended in the actual war itself. This expenditure yielded $16,000,000,000 in profits. That is how the 21,000 billionaires and millionaires got that way. This $16,000,000,000 profits is not to be sneezed at. It is quite a tidy sum. And it went to a very few.

The Senate (Nye) committee probe of the munitions industry and its wartime profits, despite its sensational disclosures, hardly has scratched the surface.

Even so, it has had some effect. The State Department has been studying “for some time” methods of keeping out of war. The War Department suddenly decides it has a wonderful plan to spring. The Administration names a committee - with the War and Navy Departments ably represented under the chairmanship of a Wall Street speculator - to limit profits in war time. To what extent isn’t suggested. Hmmm. Possibly the profits of 300 and 600 and 1,600 per cent of those who turned blood into gold in the World War would be limited to some smaller figure.

Apparently, however, the plan does not call for any limitation of losses - that is, the losses of those who fight the war. As far as I have been able to ascertain there is nothing in the scheme to limit a soldier to the loss of but one eye, or one arm, or to limit his wounds to one or two or three. Or to limit the loss of life.

There is nothing in this scheme, apparently, that says not more than 12 per cent of a regiment shall be wounded in battle, or that not more than 7 per cent in a division shall be killed.

Of course, the committee cannot be bothered with such trifling matters.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Administration Misleads On Prospects In Iraq
The Daily Mis-Lead
September 17th, 2004

In late July, a report prepared for the President by his National Intelligence Counsel spelled out “a dark assessment of prospects for Iraq.”[1] According to the New York Times, “the estimate outlines three possibilities for Iraq through the end of 2005, with the worst case being developments that could lead to civil war, the officials said. The most favorable outcome described is an Iraq whose stability would remain tenuous in political, economic and security terms.”[2] But that didn’t stop Bush and other members of the administration from telling the American people that Iraq was headed in the right direction.
On August 5, President Bush said, “[Iraq is] on the path to lasting democracy and liberty.”[3] On August 24, Vice President Cheney told voters in Iowa that “We’re moving in the right direction [in Iraq].”[4] And this Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said Iraqis were “working at making a success out of that country…And I think they’ve got a darned good crack at making it.” [5]

Sources:

1. “U.S. Intelligence Shows Pessimism on Iraq’s Future,” New York Times, 9/16/04
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1202081&l=56345
2. Ibid., http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1202081&l=56345
3. “President Signs Defense Bill ,” The White House, 8/05/04
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1202081&l=56346
4. “Remarks by the Vice President and Mrs. Cheney Followed by Question and Answer at a Town Hall Meeting ,” The White House, 8/24/04
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1202081&l=56347
5. “Secretary Rumsfeld Town Hall Meeting at Ft. Campbell, Ky.,” U.S. Department of Defense, 9/14/04
http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1202081&l=56348

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Energy Task Force Documents Feature Iraqi Oilfields Cheney Energy Task Force Documents Feature Map of Iraqi Oilfields
Judicial Watch
July 17, 2003

Commerce & State Department Reports to Task Force Detail Oilfield & Gas Projects, Contracts & Exploration

Saudi Arabian & UAE Oil Facilities Profiled As Well

(Washington, DC) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption and abuse, said today that documents turned over by the Commerce Department, under court order as a result of Judicial Watchís Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit concerning the activities of the Cheney Energy Task Force, contain a map of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals, as well as 2 charts detailing Iraqi oil and gas projects, and “Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield Contracts.” The documents, which are dated March 2001, are available on the Internet at: www.JudicialWatch.org
The Saudi Arabian and United Arab Emirates (UAE) documents likewise feature a map of each countryís oilfields, pipelines, refineries and tanker terminals. There are supporting charts with details of the major oil and gas development projects in each country that provide information on the projects, costs, capacity, oil company and status or completion date.

Judicial Watch has been seeking these documents under FOIA since April 19, 2001. Judicial Watch was forced to file a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Judicial Watch Inc. v. Department of Energy, et al., Civil Action No. 01-0981) when the government failed to comply with the provisions of the FOIA law. U.S. District Court Judge Paul J. Friedman ordered the government to produce the documents on March 5, 2002.

The documents were produced in response to Judicial Watchís on-going efforts to ensure transparency and accountability in government on behalf of the American people. Judicial Watch aggressively pursues those goals by making FOIA requests and seeking access to public information concerning government operations. When the government fails to abide by these ìsunshine laws, Judicial Watch files lawsuits in order to obtain the requested information and to hold responsible government officials accountable.

“These documents show the importance of the Energy Task Force and why its operations should be open to the public,” stated Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

The Private Contractor - GOP Gravy Train
By Robert Schlesinger
Salon.com

May 11th, 2004

From Blackwater to CACI, mercenary companies in Iraq have a warm and cozy relationship with the Republican politicians who are employing them.

Private armies have become ubiquitous in Iraq, supplying everything from support services to mercenary soldiers to interrogators. While Halliburton’s contracts for logistical support have been widely reported, until the firefight in Fallujah in late March left four Blackwater Security employees dead, the public knew little about the extent to which the estimated 20,000 private military forces in Iraq are participating in direct military action.
The shocking photographs of the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison raise anew questions about the U.S. military’s use of private contractors. Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba’s report about practices at the prison contained information that two CACI employees “were either directly or indirectly responsible for the abuses at Abu Ghraib.” Contractors from Titan International were also present during the abuses.

“This industry really didn’t exist 10 years ago,” says Peter Singer, a national security fellow at the Brookings Institution and author of “Corporate Warriors: The Rise of the Privatized Military Industry.” A decade ago, mercenary soldiering was less the stuff of corporate America than the inspiration for Soldier of Fortune fantasies. Now, as Singer reported in Salon, the industry generates over $100 billion annually worldwide.

As little known as these companies are to the general public, they are only too familiar in Washington, where they have deployed a different kind of mercenary force — phalanxes of lobbyists — along with the ammunition of modern political warfare, campaign contributions. And they have found eager friends, particularly among Republican leaders in and out of Congress.

“The move into the political game tends to happen for three reasons,” Singer says. “One, this business is growing. Second, companies that are in other industries move into the sector, bringing influence and lobbyists to bear.” Examples include Halliburton and, in the case of private security firms and other companies that provide combat- or intelligence-oriented services, firms like CACI and Titan. Finally, Singer says, “A lot of firms have picked up lobbyists as they’ve gained a public profile.”

Blackwater, the firm that guards Coalition Provisional Authority chief Paul Bremer, and whose men were killed at Fallujah, has hired the well-connected Alexander Strategy Group to guide it through the current publicity storm and help influence Congress on whatever rules are generated to govern private militias in war zones, according to the Hill newspaper.

Alexander may turn out to be a clever choice: Ed Buckham, former chief of staff to House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, is Alexander’s chairman. Tony Rudy, another former top DeLay operative, and Karl Gallant, who once ran DeLay’s leadership PAC, are also onboard.

Blackwater also works other angles. One of the firm’s founders is Michigan native Erik Prince, a former Navy SEAL. His father, Edgar Prince, helped religious right leader Gary Bauer found the Family Research Council in 1988. Erik Prince’s sister, Betsy DeVos, is the chairwoman of the Michigan Republican Party. But Blackwater is a relative newcomer to the Washington influence game, especially compared with CACI and Titan, which have been trailblazers.

For more than four years, CACI has employed the Livingston Group and its “strategic partner,” Louisiana law firm Jones, Walker, Waechter, Poitevent, Carrere and Denegre, to represent the company’s interests in Washington. Since 2000, CACI has poured $160,000 into Livingston and $150,000 into Jones, Walker.

The Livingston who gave the firm its name is former House Appropriations Committee chairman Bob Livingston, the Louisiana Republican designated as Newt Gingrich’s successor to the speaker’s gavel in 1998. Amid the House debate over the impeachment of President Clinton, Livingston dramatically announced his retirement because of his own sexual peccadilloes. “Livingston is the only former chairman of the powerful Appropriations Committee now in private practice,” reads a bio on his firm’s Web site.

Livingston’s former top staffers, who have joined him in the private sector, also work on the CACI account, according to lobbying filings with the House and Senate. In addition, the two firms employ former legislative liaisons (bureaucratese for lobbyists) from the Navy, Air Force and Coast Guard — all registered to lobby for CACI.

More than 92 percent of CACI’s $843 million in revenues last year came from the federal government — 63 percent from the Pentagon alone. The company’s lobbyists are essential in the continuing effort to grease that wheel of fortune.

Titan’s lineup of lobbyists is even broader. Its in-house team includes chairman Gene Ray, a former top Air Force official; John Dressendorfer, a former White House lobbyist under President Reagan who also worked in President Nixon’s Pentagon; Lawrence Delaney, who closed out his service to the Clinton administration as acting undersecretary of the Air Force; and, for good measure, Susan Golding, a former Republican mayor of San Diego.

Titan’s hired guns include the law firm of Copeland, Lowery, Jacquez, Denton and Shockey, which employs Letitia White, a longtime staffer to Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., to work on Titan’s issues. Lewis, by the way, is the chairman of the defense subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. The firm American Defense International, also employed by Titan, includes Van Hipp, a former deputy assistant secretary of the Army under then Defense Secretary Dick Cheney who was later appointed the No. 2 lawyer in the Navy, and Michael Herson, a former special assistant to then Secretary Cheney.

What’s more, Titan has engaged the services of NorthPoint Strategies, composed mainly of former top staffers to Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif. Cunningham, a former member of the Armed Services Committee, as it happens sits on the Appropriations defense subcommittee as well as the Intelligence Committee.

All told, Titan has spent $1.29 million since 2000 on Washington lobbying. In 2003 alone, it paid NorthPoint $240,000. And its lobbying has paid off. Last year, the company had revenues of $1.8 billion, according to its annual report: “Our revenues from U.S. government business represented approximately 96% of our total revenues for the year ended December 31, 2003.”

This revolving door between congressional staffers or retired military personnel and lobbying firms is not circumscribed by the requirements of the House and Senate lobby registration. Most of the private contractors operating in Iraq have high-ranking retired brass in their executive suites. CACI’s board of directors, for example, features retired Gen. Larry Welch, a former Air Force chief of staff. Carl Vuono and Ronald Griffith, the president and executive vice president, respectively, of Alexandria, Va., firm MPRI, which is helping to train and equip the new Iraqi Army, are both retired generals.

But preexisting relationships are only one weapon in the Washington operator’s arsenal. Money remains one of the most important tools.

Not surprisingly, these companies have been very generous to the Republican Party. Titan’s PAC, for example, has contributed a dozen times more money to Republicans than to Democrats during this election cycle: It kicked in $182,000 to Republican committees and candidates, including $10,000 apiece to the leadership PACs of Lewis, Cunningham, Senate Appropriations Committee chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, and House Armed Services Committee chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif. (whose leadership group is called Peace Through Strength PAC). Titan’s PAC also gave the maximum $10,000 to the campaign committees of Cunningham, Lewis and Hunter. Democrats have received a mere $15,000 from Titan.

In addition, top executives with Titan have contributed in excess of $58,000 to political candidates and committees since 2000, more than $49,000 of that amount going to Republicans. Ray alone gave $28,000, the bulk of it to Republicans. Reps. Cunningham and Hunter each got from Titan executives at least $10,000 (not including the $3,000 given to Hunter’s Peace Through Strength PAC). The Democrat who has received the most money from Titan executives is Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, the ranking Democrat on the Appropriations Committee’s defense subcommittee.

CACI executives gave a total of $29,250 over the same time period, $25,750 of it to Republican interests. J.P. “Jack” London, CACI’s CEO, alone gave $10,000, all to Republicans.

Some of the private security firms in Iraq are clearly fresh to the political game: Three executives from Triple Canopy — whose forces fought a pitched battle against Iraqi insurgents in April — each wrote $2,000 in checks to the Bush-Cheney campaign in March.

While Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has now testified on Iraqi prisoner abuse — some of it carried out by workers employed by private firms — no hearings have yet been scheduled on the widespread use of mercenaries to fill jobs once performed by U.S. soldiers. And deployment of such workers is unlikely to decrease as election year contributions grow: The number of hired mercenaries is expected to double after the June 30 hand-over of “limited sovereignty” to an Iraqi government.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Heroin Boom In Afghanistan Overwhelms Border Nations
By Mark McDonald
Knight Ridder Newspapers

May 3rd, 2004

DUSHANBE, Tajikistan - Heroin producers in Afghanistan, some of the principal financiers of al-Qaida and other terrorists, have never before been so brazen or so wealthy.
With a bumper crop of opium poppies under cultivation, Afghan narco-barons have begun stamping their brand names on the 2.2-pound bags of heroin they smuggle out of Central Asia to buyers in Moscow, Amsterdam, London and New York.

Sacks of high-quality Afghan heroin seized last week in Tajikistan carried the trademarks “Super Power” and “555.” Some of the sacks, which were hidden inside foil-lined containers of instant cappuccino mix, even included the addresses of the labs in Afghanistan where the heroin had been refined.

A Western-led campaign against opium-growing and heroin laboratories has been a wholesale failure, and drug-control experts say the number of processing facilities in Afghanistan has exploded over the last year. The trade and huge sums of money involved threaten to undermine vulnerable bordering states such as Tajikistan.

“There’s absolutely no threat to the labs inside Afghanistan,” said Maj. Avaz Yuldashov of the Tajikistan Drug Control Agency. “Our intelligence shows there are 400 labs making heroin there, and 80 of them are situated right along our border. Some of them even work outside, in the open air.”

Some 200,000 acres of opium poppies have been planted in Afghanistan - opium serves as the raw material of heroin - and the country’s late-summer harvest will produce three-fourths of the world’s heroin. That will mean further billions for growers, smugglers, corrupt officials and Afghan warlords.

It’s also likely to mean a windfall of tithes to al-Qaida and its Islamist brethren said to be regrouping in the mountains of Central Asia.

“Drug trafficking from Afghanistan is the main source of support for international terrorism now,” Yuldashov said. “That’s quite clear.”

But in recent congressional testimony about heroin flow out of Afghanistan, Drug Enforcement Administration head Karen Tandy spoke only of “potential links” and “possible relationships” between Afghan traffickers and terrorists. Drug agents in Central Asia say they’re baffled by Tandy’s hedging.

“The connection is absolutely obvious to us,” said Col. Alexander Kondratiyev, a senior Russian officer who has served with border guards in Tajikistan for nearly a decade. “Drugs, weapons, ammunition, terrorism, more drugs, more terrorism - it’s a closed circle.”

That circle has profound and ominous implications for the U.S.-led fight against international terrorism. Regional diplomats, aid workers and law-enforcement officials fear that the expanding drug trade will destabilize one of the “stans,” the five former Soviet republics that gained independence after the U.S.S.R. collapsed.

They worry about the emergence of a Central Asian narco-state, a country dominated by the drug economy and effectively controlled by a heroin mafia with roots in Afghanistan and ties to al-Qaida and regional Islamists.

“We have a deep responsibility to keep these Central Asian republics from becoming failed states,” said a Western diplomat in Dushanbe who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Look what happened in Afghanistan. It was a failed state - and it became a nest for terrorists.

“We have to stop that same thing from happening here. For our own security, we can’t afford it.”

At particular risk is Tajikistan, a desperately poor, predominantly Muslim nation of 7 million.

Tajikistan produces almost no opium or heroin of its own, but it has become a natural pathway for traffickers due to its 900-mile border with Afghanistan. Also, enough heroin has been “falling off the trucks” in Tajikistan that it now has galloping rates of heroin addiction, drug crime and HIV infection.

The Tajik Drug Control Agency - outmanned, outgunned and poorly equipped - said it managed to seize nearly 6 tons of heroin from traffickers last year. Senior commanders estimate they catch about 20 percent of the traffic. Some analysts think it’s probably about half that much.

Tajikistan, isolated and landlocked, has almost no industrial economy other than a state-controlled aluminum smelter. Foreign investment is minuscule; not a single American firm is operating in the country. “Nobody even comes to look anymore,” said a foreign diplomat, who also asked not to be named.

The national budget is barely $300 million a year, a pittance compared with the size of the drug economy. The heroin trade alone, Yuldashov said, is 10 times bigger.

That kind of disparity leaves many Tajiks vulnerable to corruption and compromise by wealthy drug mafiosi, especially when the average salary is $10 a month and 80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. A single trip as a drug courier can feed a Tajik family for a month.

Another worrisome development is in the offing for Tajikistan: Next month, along the Afghan border, Russia will begin withdrawing 2,200 border-control officers who’ve been stationed here since the Soviet era. Their departure and the loss of Russian funding could further undermine Tajikistan’s ability to defend itself from Afghan drug traffickers.

Tajik officers and army conscripts will take over from the Russians, although they’ll have no night-vision equipment, satellite phones or helicopters. Even now, many of the border posts lack two-way radios and binoculars.

It remains to be seen whether European countries, the target destinations for much of Afghanistan’s opium and heroin, will pick up the slack. The United States contributes to U.N. drug programs in the region, but the DEA has only a minimal presence here in terms of human intelligence: The DEA has deployed two agents to cover all of Afghanistan. There are no DEA agents in Tajikistan or neighboring Kyrgyzstan, another paradise for traffickers.

“We know shockingly little about how the drug trade operates out here,” said a Western official who asked not to be identified.

Heroin moves out of Afghanistan via the so-called southern route - through Iran or Pakistan - or the northern route, which makes its way through the Central Asian “stans.”

It’s unknown how much drug traffic passes through Turkmenistan. The secretive nation doesn’t release information on drug seizures and no longer cooperates with regional drug-control initiatives.

“They have open borders with Afghanistan, but not even the U.N. knows what they’re doing” about drug trafficking, said Kamol Dusmetov, the head of the Uzbek National Center for Drug Control.

Heroin is carried out of Afghanistan in vegetable trucks, fuel tankers and donkey carts. It’s hidden in women’s underwear, children’s backpacks or sacks of pistachios.

In Tajikistan, well-organized teams of couriers wade across the Amu Daria and Pyanj rivers, usually at night, backed up by accomplices armed with satellite phones, off-road vehicles, bales of bribe money and plenty of heavy weapons. In one recent seizure, troopers found $280,000 in cash stuffed among the 1-kilogram bags of heroin.

In Uzbekistan, which has an 80-mile border with Afghanistan, smuggling can be more rudimentary.

Dusmetov said rural couriers sometimes forced their dogs and donkeys to swallow balloons full of heroin. They tie a string to the balloons and wrap the other end of the string around the animal’s tooth. Once across the border, the smuggler pulls the string and retrieves the balloons.

“Borders (throughout the region) are not guarded well,” Dusmetov said. “In many places, like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, borders are virtually open. You jump across a ditch and you’re in another country.”

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Who Commands The Private Soldiers?
By David Leigh
The Guardian

May 17th, 2004

Allegations of abuse have raised wider questions about the role - and accountability - of civilian contractors.

Here on the outskirts of the Great Dismal Swamp, now a nature reserve, is the new face of the privatised American army. Some fear it is getting out of control.
Grim-faced men in battle fatigues are oiling their M4s and Glocks, blasting their way through mocked-up terrorist streets, and riddling old cars with bullets.

The TV set in the rest room is tuned to gung-ho Fox News and the mess tables are shared today by a mixed bunch of 200, mostly male. Some are freelances readying themselves for Iraq, some are from the overstretched real US military buying firing-range time, some are coastguards about to be deployed to an unspecified spot “overseas”. Young men at one table have Grupe Tactico Chile on their shoulders.

This is Blackwater, a commercial army base - the largest private firearms training centre in the world, according to its owner, Eric Prince, a former Navy Seal.

Blackwater guards provincial outposts for the Iraqi coalition provisional authority, and the firm has the contract to keep its head, Paul Bremer, alive. It fought in a heroic rescue of a wounded soldier in Najaf, but four of its men were ambushed and killed in Falluja, causing an international crisis.

This week the company is bulldozing a long twisting track out of its 6,000 acres of swampland so convoy troops can experience being shot at, as they will be in Iraq. The trainers will use live ammunition.

Blackwater is at the forefront of lobbying efforts to stop a clampdown on private military companies in Iraq. The US defence department has issued draft regulations seeking to bring them under US military law, instead of their present local legal immunity.

“You simply can’t do that,” said Chris Bertelli, their Washington lobbyist. “How do you enforce it? At the end of your 60-day contract, you can just go home.”

Weapons Ban

Other proposals being resisted are a ban on private weapons, or a rule that they be returned to the US military when off duty. Blackwater, whose weaponry ranges from M4 rifles to 20mm cannon on its helicopters, says this is impractical in a war zone. It suggests voluntary standards.

“We’re very particular. We only hire former special forces people. There is still a deep patriotism in many of them,” Mr Bertelli said.

The US military has gone headlong for privatization, urged on by the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld. One 2002 memo from the secretary of the army, Thomas White, suggests that as much as a third of its budget is going on private contractors, while army numbers are falling. The rationale is to save money on permanent soldiers by using temporary ones.

But the policy has other, political ad vantages. When a mortar shell lobbed at Baghdad airport earlier this year killed Corporal Tomasi Ramatau, 41, no one in the US media took much notice.

Names like his do not appear on the roll-calls of US soldiers killed in Iraq, solemnly enunciated on the daily TV shows. Ramatau was one of the unemployed men from the Pacific island of Fiji hired in their hundreds by another prominent private military firm, Global Risk of London, to take the bullets for the Pentagon.

The loose control of the 20,000-plus private-enterprise soldiers in Iraq has been thrown into painful relief by the accusations that hired civilian interrogators and translators encouraged obscene tortures at Abu Ghraib prison and that one even allegedly raped an Iraqi boy in his cell.

No senator or congressman appears to have had the least idea until the scandal broke that the drive to privatise the military had gone so far as to use civilian contractors for such sensitive jobs.

Aides to Democrat congressman Ike Skelton were particularly incensed with a reply by Mr Rumsfeld to a demand last month for information about private mil itary firms in Iraq. Mr Rumsfeld produced a list of 60 companies, half a dozen of them British, but withheld all mention of two of the biggest and best-connected recruiting firms alleged to be at the centre of the torture scandal - CACI in Washington and Titan in San Diego, California.

One of the few people to have conducted a full-scale study of military privatisation, Peter Singer of the Brookings Institution, said: “No lawmakers seemed to know that they were hiring civilians as interrogators. They had this concept that the civilians were there to mow lawns and answer phones.” In his recent book, Corporate Warriors, he lists dangers in excessively privatised soldiering, such as cutting corners to save money, secrecy, and hollowing out the genuine military by poaching their troops. All have duly come to pass in Iraq.

CACI, for example, placed Steve Stefanowicz, a former reservist from the Philadelphia area who had once worked in naval intelligence, in Iraq. According to his fellow interrogator Torin Nelson, CACI hired interrogators over the phone, without even meeting them.

“I was interviewed in September 2003 in a very short telephone conversation, which was more like a sales pitch of how great the company was, than a typical interview for a professional job,” Mr Nelson said. “I never met anyone from CACI until I landed in Fort Bliss [an army induction centre in Texas], and then it was some other new hires.”

Frantic

CACI website entries show increasingly frantic efforts to attract interrogators, with the qualifications required being reduced from seven years’ interrogation experience, to five years, to two.

It does not seem that CACI saved any military manpower for the US by hiring Mr Stefanowicz. According to naval records, he was on active duty as a petty officer 3rd class in the reserves already, but apparently resigned in September 2003 to join CACI. Private companies are offering pay of up to $115,000 (about £65,000) a year.

In Iraq, the status of the CACI interrogators was ambiguous. Mr Nelson said some of his colleagues went around in desert camouflage uniform. “We contractors were often able to establish our own method of actually implementing the chain of command’s intent, which was to glean information for intelligence purposes.”

Mr Stefanowicz ended up being accused in the now-notorious leaked classified Taguba report, of telling untrained and unsupervised reservist military policemen to abuse the Abu Ghraib prisoners.

He remains in Iraq, according to the US army on “administrative duties” while investigations continue. The accused soldiers below him, however, all face courts martial, beginning this month.

Unlike the gun-toting security companies, firms like CACI seem to function merely as recruiting postboxes. CACI, based in a Washington suburb, put former defence officials on its board, including the former London representative of the code-breaking National Security Agency, Barbara McNamara. It moved seamlessly from origins as an IT firm to acquiring such small companies last year as Premier Technology, also in Washington, which had contracts to supply 96 analysts to US military intelligence in Germany.

From there it was a short step, when the call went out, to recruiting freelance army interrogators. Similarly, firms like Blackwater and Global have shifted, almost unnoticed, from providing bodyguard services to engaging in fighting.

Mr Singer points out that mercenaries are nothing new, and huge standing national armies are a recent development.

But one former British special forces officer, recently returned to Europe from Iraq, said: “The trouble is the private companies often have an attitude that ‘Yeah, we can do it’. Then they become overstretched. As officers in the military, there is an integrity level we would operate under normally. And it just isn’t there.”

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Company Chosen By Pentagon To Extinguish Iraqi Oil Well Fires Has History Of Supporting Terrorist Regimes
By Jason Leopold

16 April 2003

Kellogg Brown & Root, the company chosen last month by the Pentagon to extinguish oil well fires in Iraq, has a long history of supporting the same terrorist regimes vilified by the Bush administration and on at least one occasion defrauded the United States government to the tune of $2 million, according to public documents.
Halliburton, headed by Dick Cheney before he became vice president, and it’s KBR subsidiary did business with some of the world’s most notorious governments and dictators - in countries such as Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Nigeria. The company has routinely skirted U.S. sanctions placed on these countries and lobbied the U.S. government to lift sanctions so it could set up new partnerships and create new business opportunities in these countries.

Still, the Pentagon awarded the Iraqi oil well contract to KBR without competitive bidding; a move that some Democratic lawmakers in Congress said was based on favoritism because of Cheney’s ties to the company.

Charges of cronyism led the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Monday to open the job of putting out Iraqi oil well fires to other firms that will now bid for the multibillion -dollar contract and KBR would have to compete with other companies for the right to finish the job. The Army Corps of Engineers said it would seek new bidders to rebuild Iraq’s oil infrastructure, considered the key to reviving that country’s economy.

KBR and Halliburton have broken U.S. laws on numerous occasions while Cheney was chief executive and as far back as 1978. Moreover, the company inflated the price of some of its military contracts and defrauded the government.

Last year, KBR agreed to pay the U.S. government $2 million to settle allegations it defrauded the military while Cheney was chief executive of parent company Halliburton. KBR was accused of inflating contract prices for maintenance and repairs at Fort Ord, a now-shuttered military installation near Monterey, Calif. The lawsuit, filed in Sacramento, alleged KBR submitted false claims and made false statements in connection with 224 delivery orders between April 1994 and September 1998.

KBR and Halliburton has also paid out settlements to end investigations and lawsuits on half-a-dozen other occasions.

In 1978, a grand jury indicted KBR on charges that it colluded with a competitor on marine construction work. KBR paid a $1 million fine to settle the charges. In 1995, the U.S. fined Halliburton $3.8 million for violating a ban on exports to Libya. Four years later, a Halliburton subsidiary opens an office in Iran, despite a U.S. ban on doing business in that country. In 2001, Halliburton shareholders lash out at company executives for its pipeline project in Burma, citing that country’s human-rights abuses. Also in 2001, watchdog groups blast Cheney for placing 44 Halliburton subsidiaries in foreign tax havens.

Halliburton’s dealings in six countries - Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Libya and Nigeria - show that the company’s willingness to do business where human rights are not respected is a pattern that goes beyond its involvement in Burma. A May 2001 report in the Multinational Monitor identified the following countries in which Halliburton and its KBR unit did business with, despite U.S. sanctions and charges of human rights abuses.

Azerbaijan - Dick Cheney lobbied to remove Congressional sanctions against aid to Azerbaijan, sanctions imposed because of concerns about ethnic cleansing. Cheney said the sanctions were the result only of groundless campaigning by the Armenian-American lobby. In 1997, Halliburton subsidiary Brown & Root bid on a major Caspian project from the Azerbaijan International Operating Company.

Indonesia - Halliburton had extensive investments and contracts in Suharto’s Indonesia. The post-Suharto government during a purging of corruptly awarded contracts canceled one of its contracts. Indonesia Corruption Watch named Kellogg Brown & Root (Halliburton’s engineering division) among 59 companies using collusive, corruptive and nepotistic practices in deals involving former President Suharto’s family.

Iran - Dick Cheney has lobbied against the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act. Even with the Act in place, Halliburton has continued to operate in Iran. It settled with the Department of Commerce in 1997, before Cheney became CEO, over allegations relating to Iran for $15,000, without admitting any wrongdoing.

Iraq - Dick Cheney cites multilateral sanctions against Iraq as an example of sanctions he supports. Yet since the war, Halliburton-related companies helped to reconstruct Iraq’s oil industry. In July 2000, the International Herald Tribune reported, “Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump Co., joint ventures that Halliburton has sold within the past year, have done work in Iraq on contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq’s oil industry, under the United Nations’ Oil for Food Program.” A Halliburton spokesman acknowledged to the Tribune that the Dresser subsidiaries did sell oil-pumping equipment to Iraq via European agents.

Libya - Before Cheney’s arrival, Halliburton was deeply involved in Libya, earning $44.7 million there in 1993. After sanctions on Libya were imposed, earnings dropped to $12.4 million in 1994. Halliburton continued doing business in Libya throughout Cheney’s tenure. One Member of Congress accused the company “of undermining American foreign policy to the full extent allowed by law.”

Nigeria - Local villagers have accused Halliburton of complicity in the shooting of a protester by Nigeria’s Mobile Police Unit, playing a similar role to Shell and Chevron in the mobilization of this ‘kill and go” unit to protect company property. Dick Cheney has been a strong advocate for preventing or eliminating federal laws that place limits on Halliburton’s ability to do business in these countries.

Before it awards the contract this time around, the Pentagon ought to consider that KBR, which the Army Corps of Engineers says is most qualified to extinguish Iraq’s oil well fires, supports the same terrorist regimes we’re at war with.

- Jason Leopold is a freelance journalist based in California, he is currently finishing a book on the California energy crisis. He can be contacted at jasonleopold@hotmail.com

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

With U. S. Troops Still in the Mideast, Private Firms Must Guard Military Bases at Home
The Daily Misleader

October 22, 2003

One of George Bush Jr.’s campaign promises was to “rebuild the military power of the United States,”1 which Dick Cheney, his vice-presidential candidate, claimed had lapsed because of “multiplying missions and unclear goals.”2 However, Bush’s multiple deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan have overtaxed the military even more and now have led to hiring more civilian contractors for such basic duties as guarding U.S. military bases.
Private security firms have taken over what traditionally was a sole province of the military.3 In a typical contract, Akal Security has been awarded $70 million to guard eight stateside Army bases.4

In Iraq, almost a third of the $4 billion monthly costs are going to private contractors. One foreign policy expert estimates the current Bush Administration has five times as many civilian contractors in Iraq as his father’s administration did during the first Gulf War in 1991.5

The privatization practice, first explored when Cheney was Secretary of Defense for the senior Bush, led to an $8.9 million logistics contract for Brown and Root, a company Cheney later oversaw as head of Halliburton after he left government. Of approximately 3,000 civilian contracts awarded by the Pentagon since 1994, about 2,700 have gone to Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root and one other firm.6

Sources:
“Bush Won’t Rest on Defense: GOP Candidate Says ‘Help Is On The Way’ For Military,” ABCNews.com, 8/21/00
“Military Offensive: Cheney Steps Up Attacks on Gore Defense Record,” ABCNews.com, 8/30/00
“Soldiers of Good Fortune,” Mother Jones, May/June 2003
“Akal Wins Army Contracts,” Albuquerque Business Journal, 10/13/03
“Dogs of Peace,” Newsweek Interactive, 8/25-9/1/03
“Making a Killing: The Business of War,” International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Pat Robertson Engages in Illegal Mining Operation in Liberia
By Abraham M. Williams
The Perspective

December 4, 2001

Over the past few months, columnist Colbert King of the Washington Post had used his columns to expose Pat Robertson’s dealing in Liberia. In a series of articles King had sketched out Robertson’s profit motives, and his quest to strike it in rich gold in Liberia, which has overriden any morality of doing business with one of Africa’s most notorious tyrants.
What Colbert King has been writing about is Pat Robertson’s desire to make profits at the expense of all else which has become a study in contrasts of a self-professed Christian, who has piously mouthed indignation at others for their alleged immoral conduct.

Rev. Robertson is not troubled or concerned at all about doing business with President Taylor, a man widely known for “fueling the violence in Sierra Leone” and “actively supporting the RUF at all levels.” Taylor is a known menace to his people as well as a danger to his neighbors in the West African sub-region. The heinous atrocities he inflicted upon the Liberian people are well documented, yet Pat Robertson claims to “have no knowledge of the activities in Liberia during its bitter civil war.”

But then Robertson is a man of contradictions, a self-proclaimed righteous man whose actions often betray his words. Shortly after the Sept.11 tragedy, according to GQ, an upscale men’s fashion magazine, Robertson posted an odd message on his Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) web site. “The focus of many in America has been the pursuit of health, wealth, material pleasures and sexuality.” He continued “Sadly, those in the churches have been as self-indulgent as those in the world.”

But while he was calling into question the morality of others, Pat Robertson was actively engaged in a questionable, cutthroat gold-mining arrangement - for wealth - with Taylor, the infamous West African terrorist. And we suppose the good man of the cloth finds nothing inherently wrong dealing with a ruthless, corrupt dictator, who enriches himself while his people sink farther into squalor and destitution.

We now know that in April 1999, Charles Taylor and Pat Robertson signed a document labeled “Mineral Development Agreement between the Republic of Liberia and Freedom Gold Limited”. By signing his agreement, Taylor was, in fact, assigning gold mining concession rights to Pat Robertson from an established businessman, Ken Ross II, whose Bocon Jideh gold-mining operation dates back to the Tolbert administration.

According to the GQ article, Pat Robertson has committed at least US$15 million of investment to Freedom Gold. The terms of contract call for Freedom Gold to spend about US$500,000 annually in investment and rental fees in Liberia. “The agreement gives Freedom Gold the right to mine, sell, export and explore minerals, with an additional three percent royalty rate to be paid to the government of Liberia.”

Many observers believe the royalty payments would be pocket money for Charles Taylor, as Liberia has become “Taylor, Inc.” President Taylor considers state resources, including foreign investments and development assistance funds as his personal asset.

But there is one tiny problem for the Televangelist’s bloodsucker deal, perhaps not immediate; but nevertheless, a problem. And Robertson may have unwittingly entangled himself in the very issue that could unravel his gold mine and expose him to legal consequences in the future.

In his response to Colbert L. King of the Washington Post, Pat Robertson accused the columnist of ignoring Liberian political structure. He wrote, “Mr. King has ignored the constitution of Liberia, its elected Congress (Legislature), its administrative departments and its courts in order to assert that the government is an alter ego of President Charles Taylor.” But this is exactly what happened when President Taylor violated the Liberian constitution by usurping legislative power and Pat Robertson knowingly went along without protest.

Under Liberian law, specifically Chapter V: Article 34 section (f) of the Liberian constitution states “The Legislature shall have the power: to approve treaties, conventions and such international agreements negotiated or signed on behalf of the Republic.”

The Liberian Legislature refused to ratify the Freedom Gold agreement signed by President Taylor and Pat Robertson. So on Oct. 30,2000, a second contract, which is virtually identical to the first, except for one significant passage, was drawn up. Section 2 of the document was modified, according to GQ and Liberian legal experts familiar with the deal, to read that the contract will go in effect “when approved by the president of Republic of Liberia.” Gone is the language that reads that the contract is to become valid only “in accordance with the constitution and laws of the Republic.”

Clearly Mr. Robertson, a graduate of Yale Law School who was represented by Gerald Padmore, a Liberian-born Harvard Law School graduate, must know that his agreement with Taylor is unconstitutional. Also we will argue that such unconstitutional contracts are unenforceable, therefore non-binding.

www.theperspective.org
e-mail: editor@theperspective.org

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

Dirty Diamonds
By Michael Barone
U.S. News & World Report

November 12, 2001

What do Jesse Jackson, Pat Robertson, and al Qaeda have in common?

The answer is: They all have been associated with the bloody Liberian dictator Charles Taylor.
The al Qaeda connection is the one that has most recently come to light. In a November 2 Washington Post article, Douglas Farah reported that “the terrorist network led by Osama bin Laden has reaped millions of dollars in the past three years from the illicit sale of diamonds mined by rebels in Sierra Leone.” Al Qaeda has been buying the diamonds at below-market rates in Africa and selling them for higher prices in Europe. Diamonds are easy to transport and smuggle, and diamond transactions are hard to trace; al Qaeda evidently increased its purchases in July, presumably in anticipation of its bank accounts being frozen. The diamonds are mined in Sierra Leone by the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels, who famously hacked off the arms and legs of hundreds of people and built up an army of boys. Since 1998, the diamonds have been sold for cash in Liberia to al Qaeda agents by the RUF’s diamond dealer, alleged to be a Libyan-trained Senegalese rebel. There is big money here: A United Nations panel estimated RUF diamond sales in 1999 at $75 million. Farah writes that Taylor receives a commission on each sale in Liberia; Taylor has repeatedly denied this.

Taylor runs a regime that, according to Amnesty International, routinely imprisons, tortures, and rapes citizens for offenses like participating in peaceful demonstrations. Taylor has been the major supporter and arms provider to the RUF and its leader, Foday Sankoh. In a lengthy and well-documented article in the July 2000 New Republic, Ryan Lizza describes how Taylor’s regime has had the enthusiastic and effective support of Jesse Jackson. As Bill Clinton’s special envoy to Africa, Jackson in late 1998 pressed the president of Sierra Leone to “reach out” to Sankoh; “a man,” Lizza wrote, “who built his Revolutionary United Front (RUF) by systematically kidnapping children and forcing them to murder their parents. … Once children were conscripted, their loyalty was maintained through drugs, they were injected with speed, which numbed their sensitivity to violence and rendered them dependent on their adult suppliers, and violence. When conscripts tried to escape, RUF leaders amputated their limbs. Refugees even accused the RUF of cannibalism.” Taylor, who had taken power by starting a rebellion in Liberia in 1989 and building his own Small Boys Unit, had gone to the same revolutionary school as Sankoh.

Jackson first met Taylor in 1998, in what was billed as a friendly meeting, and in November 1998 called for the Sierra Leone government to “reach out to these RUF in the bush battlefield.” In January 1999 the RUF launched an attack Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital and, as Lizza recounted, “burned down houses with their occupants still inside, hacked off limbs, gouged out eyes with knives, raped children, and gunned down scores of people in the streets.” Even so, Jackson strongly supported the July 1999 Lome agreement, pushed through by the Clinton administration, which made Sankoh vice president, placed him in charge of a commission overseeing Sierra Leone’s diamonds, and granted amnesty to the RUF for all crimes. In May 2000 the RUF took U.N. peacekeepers hostage, and the Clinton administration sent Jackson to mediate. As Lizza told the story: “the Sierra Leonean government told him it could not guarantee his safety. One group of prominent Sierra Leonean democracy activists warned Jackson, ‘Our people will greet your presence in the country with contempt, and we’ll encourage them to mount massive demonstrations in protest.’ During a conference call with Freetown leaders in which he tried to explain himself, Jackson was openly attacked as a RUF ‘collaborator.’ His trip to Sierra Leone was canceled.” Only later were the hostages released and Sankoh captured; Taylor cpontinued to arm the RUF, who have remained in control of the diamond areas.

Pat Robertson’s tie to Charles Taylor is based on a financial connection. In 1999 Robertson’s Freedom Gold company signed a deal to mine an area in southeastern Liberia. The Liberian government, i.e. Taylor, has a 10 percent interest in Freedom Gold. “I pray that this investment may become a wonderful blessing to the people of Liberia,” Robertson said in a press release. More likely the government’s 10 percent share will go to maintain Taylor’s of the Sierra Leone diamond trade - and its big customer, al Qaeda. Colbert King of the Washington Post has written two columns criticizing Robertson for associating with the likes of Taylor. In reply, a Freedom Gold vice president faxed King, “Freedom Gold Limited was formed in response to Liberia’s need to spur economic activity after their long and devastating civil war. Dr. Robertson remains a friend of Liberia and is working to alleviate the suffering of the Liberian people. Dr. Robertson’s first and foremost goal is to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all nations.”

Robertson and Jackson, both candidates for president in the 1980s, have not had a good time in the post-September 11 season. On Robertson’s 700 Club program days after September 11, Jerry Falwell said, “I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America, I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’ ” Said Robertson, “Well, I totally concur, and the problem is we have adopted their agenda at the highest levels of our government.” For this both were roundly criticized, not least by conservatives, and both apologized. Jesse Jackson’s first initiative after September 11 was to volunteer to go to Afghanistan and mediate with the Taliban. First he suggested that he had been asked by the Taliban; then he said that he had been contacted by family members of Americans held captive by the Taliban; then he said it didn’t matter who asked him, he was available to help. Unsurprisingly, U.S. officials said his services weren’t needed. Then near the end of October, he suggested that children should not go trick-or-treating on Halloween. In November, he appeared on BET Tonight and said, among other things, “We are really killing a lot of innocent people.” “By saying on the one hand we have global terrorism but by focusing on one cave man in one country, it seems to me that they’re looking at this crisis through a keyhole rather than a door.” On targeting Saddam Hussein, “Even to threaten him in this way is in fact to misread his own capacity to respond perhaps chemically and biologically.”

It is impossible to believe that Jesse Jackson or Pat Robertson were aware that their friend and business ally Charles Taylor’s regime was helping fund al Qaeda by selling it diamonds. But they should have known that they were dealing with, and aiding, a very unsavory character indeed. At a time when their recent comments make their erstwhile presidential ambitions seem preposterous, they would both do well to break their ties with Charles Taylor and denounce his regime for aiding and abetting terrorism, before people start asking which side they are on.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)