Bill and George, happy at last

It's funny how the sight of Bill Clinton standing shoulder to shoulder with a Bush can still raise the blood pressure of some Democrats. You'd almost think the left hand of Jackson Stephens doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

I'm always up for a good Bush-bash, but if we're serious about exposing unpleasant truths we shouldn't balk when our own pleasant assumptions are exposed as little more than comfortable lies. And it seems to me that quite a few who study the high crimes of state do so not for the sake of justice, but rather to score points against political adversaries, as though politics still mattered.

Invariably, the conclusions then drawn are shallow and incomplete, and the systemic, bipartisan corruption again fails to receive the radical critique it deserves. (I find this sometimes with the 9/11 short-hand "Bush Knew," which backward-masks the mere political over the parapolitical.)

For an illustration of what I mean, spend some time digging through the Clinton-era archives of a number of conservative websites. You'll recover lots of good material on BCCI, the Inslaw affair, Mena drug trafficking and more. But almost invariably, it's all dumped at the feet of the Clinton White House, rather than the true perp which has cast a shadow over every White House since Harry Truman's: the perpetual, criminalized and increasingly privatized National Security State.

It was no surprise that, when Bush was selected President, most Republicans lost interest in the material, which again became the domain of "wild-eyed conspiracy theorists."

Likewise for Democrats. A number have no trouble entertaining the notion that 9/11 was an inside job, but they have persuaded themselves that Mena drug-trafficking was a right-wing lie (even though it was a Bush Iran/Contra operation for which Clinton provided cover, earning for Arkansas a tithe of laundered money), and that there was nothing suspicious about Vincent Foster's death (even though it stinks of PROMIS and BCCI).

I mentioned Jackson Stephens. Let's take a quick look.



The Arkansas billionaire was the principal domestic bagman for both George HW Bush and Bill Clinton.

The Kerry Committee identified Stephens as "possibly BCCI's principal US broker," having facilitated its first American acquisitions, the National Bank of Georgia and its former parent, Financial General Bankshares. Stephens in fact introduced the bank's Pakistani financier, Agha Hasan Abedi, to Bert Lance way back in 1975. And Stephens, along with Salem bin Laden via James Bath, became the financial saviours of George W Bush's troubled Harken Energy.

Stephens' name is linked to everything from BCCI to Mena to PROMIS to 9/11 (Daniel Hopsicker has found Stephens "active" in Venice Florida, where the 9/11 pilots trained and were sheltered.) Enough spirals to make even the late Mark Lombardi dizzy.

So, is Stephens a Republican or Democrat? What a silly question. His first allegiance is to the National Security Agency:

The chief government effort to spy on U.S. domestic banking transactions was directed by the electronic spy agency, the National Security Agency (NSA), working in connection with the Little Rock software firm Systematics. Systematics, half-owned by billionaire Jackson Stephens (of Stephens Inc. fame), has been a major supplier of software for back office clearing and wire transfers. It was Stephens' attempt to get Systematics the job of handling the data processing for the Washington-D.C. bank First American that led to the BCCI takeover of that institution. Hillary Clinton and Vince Foster represented Systematics in that endeavor, and later Foster became an overseer of the NSA project with respect to Systematics.

Working together, the NSA and Jackson Stephens' Systematics developed security holes in much of the banking software Systematics sold. Now we face a crisis in banking and financial institution security, according to John Deutch, Director of the CIA. "One obstacle is that banks and other private institutions have been reluctant to divulge any evidence of computer intrusions for fear that it will leak and erode the confidence of their customers. Deutch said 'the situation is improving' but that more cooperation was needed from major corporations, and said the CIA remains willing to share information with such firms about the risks they might face."

What Deutch failed to mention was that this "banking crisis" in large part was itself created by one of the U.S. intelligence agencies--the NSA in cahoots with Stephens' software firm Systematics.

And what about Mena? If the drug trafficking really happened on Clinton's watch as Governor, some Democrats argue, then why didn't Kenneth Starr go after it?

It may have something to do with what Starr was doing in 1982: aiding Attorney General William French Smith excise drug trafficking from a long list of crimes the CIA was legally bound to report if Agency operatives were found to be perpetrating them. This laid a premeditated cover for Iran/Contra's guns for drugs, of which Mena was a critical hub.

As Hopsicker wrote:

This explains the dichotomy between Starr's handling of the Foster murder and the Arkansas Horrors versus his handling of the Monica Lewinsky/ perjury issue. Starr isn't protecting Bill Clinton per se, he is protecting the CIA.... Starr is not afraid to press on the Monica Lewinsky issue because that scandal does not risk exposure of the CIA's Iran-Contra smuggling. Starr...is connected to the CIA drug cartel. He helped write their "license to smuggle". This is why Starr covered up Foster's murder, to protect that operation. This is not a Republican scandal. This is not a Democratic scandal. This is a CIA drug scandal. And both parties are dirty as hell.

So enough of gaming left or right "conspiracy theories." They're either right or wrong. Enough, even, of politics. The truth isn't out there, it's down there: below the surface of things. And as usual, that's where things get really stinky.



By the way, heads up: Popular Mechanics is coming out swinging at some of the more ridiculous strawmen of 9/11 research with its March 2005 cover story. The magazine chooses 16 mostly farcical claims of physical evidence to demolish, pinata-like - "pods"; "no windows on Flight 175"; "hole too small for a 757" - and then presumes to have vindicated the official story. Go here to read Jim Hoffman's terrific response.

And with Deep Throat in the news again - was it Bush? - Lisa Pease has posted an excellent consideration of the candidates, and John Dean's possible veiled warning, on her Real History Blog.