http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/middleeast/29iran.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=all
Peace.
Michael Santomauro
@ 917-974-6367
What sort of TRUTH is it that crushes the freedom to seek the truth?
Check out this video on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIx_F56dsTM&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Peace.
Michael Santomauro
@ 917-974-6367
What sort of TRUTH is it that crushes the freedom to seek the truth?
Much of great interest in the Wikileaks documents dump as recounted by the N.Y. Times. One especially interesting tidbit concerns a lunch meeting between the French defense minister and Robert Gates, U.S. defense secretary. When the Frenchman asks if Israel could attack Iran without U.S. approval, Gates replies:
Mr. Gates responded "that he didn't know if
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From: Paul..... <paul.....
Date: November 17, 2010 9:01:09 PM EST
In going through an old file recently I discovered a reference in a clipping from 1986 that jumped out at me. I wouldn't have reacted to the names at the time (although I would have a year or so later), because they didn't mean anything to me. However, it appears that I filed the article for reference without reading it, because it wasn't marked with underlinings and notes (an annoying habit I have).
Benjamin H. Freedman (1890-1984) was an anti-Communist, anti-Zionist Jew and convert to Roman Catholicism. He funded Conde McGinley's "notoriously anti-Semitic" magazine Common Sense and was otherwise active in righteous causes. Late J&E member Robert John included an acknowledgement of Freedman's assistance in providing material for his book Behind the Balfour Declaration (IHR, 1988). Jews routinely refer to Freedman as a "self-hating Jew."
Issa Nakhleh is (or was--I don't know if he's still alive) a longtime champion of the Palestinian cause, a Barnes Review board member, and author of Encyclopedia of the Palestine Problem.
So the two names jumped out at me. Here's the passage:
"If you are dealing in such intangibles as consulting and brokerage services, the courts argue, you must protect yourself with a written agreement. For industrial consultant Benjamin Freedman, that turned out to be a $2.05-million lesson.
Freedman had pitched David Fulton, an officer of Chemical Construction Corp., in New York City, on the idea of building a plant in Saudi Arabia to convert flared-off natural gas to fertilizer. The deal would be worth $41 million to Chemical, and, for acting as broker, Freedman would be entitled to a 5% fee. The two men met several times; Freedman brought his Syrian associate, Issa Nakhleh, into the deal, and Nakhleh negotiated directly with the Saudi government at Chemical's request. Chemical won the contract, and finished construction of the plant four years later, but refused to pay Freedman's fee. Despite interoffice memos signed by Fulton acknowledging that Freedman was involved in the transaction, Freedman lost his lawsuit to force Fulton to pay. There was no written agreement."
-"Let's Shake on That," INC. magazine, June 1986, 131.
Now, the question that immediately jumps into one's mind is whether organized Jewry (and Jews and Gentiles they'd have enlisted, including, probably, officers at Chemical, which saved a bundle by not paying) illegally stuck their nose into this private transaction in order to prevent $2 million from falling into Freedman's hands. That possibility strikes me as being enormous.
For sure it was Jewish judges who ruled against Freedman. It also turns out that Nakleh had to sue separately in an attempt to obtain his own 5% fee. Whether he was successful or not I don't know, but Jews would have had the same incentive to interfere in his case.
(Kevin, I'm cc'ing you because I know you are interested in and knowledgeable about Freedman, have written about him, reprinted some of his work, and posted an audio speech by him.)
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J. Hugh Liedtke, the longtime head of the Pennzoil Company who began his career by drilling scores of consecutive successful oil wells with his partner, George H. W. Bush, and went on to win billions of dollars from Texaco in a dramatic legal battle, died on Friday in Houston. He was 81.
His son Blake said that he had suffered from several maladies for a long time.
Mr. Liedtke was a leading member of a generation of Texas oilmen who turned their jackpots from wildcat wells into large public companies. Like his fellow oilman, T. Boone Pickens, his specialty was buying assets for less than he thought they were worth and repackaging them to make them more attractive to investors.
Early in his career, he engineered one of the first major hostile takeovers when Pennzoil acquired the United Gas Pipeline Company, which was nearly eight times the size of Pennzoil. It was described at the time as a minnow swallowing a whale.
But his biggest triumph came in the courtroom where his legal team convinced a jury in 1988 that Texaco had illegally usurped his handshake deal to acquire an interest in the Getty Oil Company. He ended up with $3 billion that he used to acquire Chevron stock, only to trade that back to the company for lucrative oil and gas properties.
He had earlier turned down a $2 billion settlement offer from Texaco, causing Fortune magazine to ask him if he was the greediest man in the world or needed psychiatric help.
''Maybe both,'' he answered in the slow, gravelly voice that perhaps deliberately belied his extensive education. He then showed his famous teeth, saying he was prepared to wait for years for more money.
''Maybe now we should sit back a while and see how they like bankruptcy,'' he told Fortune. Texaco was indeed forced to seek bankruptcy protection.
When he finally got the $3 billion that he considered adequate from Texaco, Mr. Liedtke celebrated with a double cheeseburger and two bottles of beer at a Houston hamburger emporium he favored.
John Hugh Liedtke was born on Feb. 10, 1922, in Tulsa, where his father was a lawyer for the Gulf Oil Corporation. He majored in philosophy and won departmental honors at Amherst College. His thesis was titled ''Religion and the Limits of Knowledge in the Philosophies of Hume, Santayana and Dewey,'' according to the book ''Oil and Honor: The Texaco-Pennzoil Wars'' by Thomas Petzinger Jr. (Beard Books, 1999).
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As William Cohen noted, David Stockman continues to make the rounds after bucking with the Republicans on tax cuts for the rich last summer.
A Republican for Higher Taxes:
David Stockman has never been one to shy away from a roaring economic-policy debate. The former boy-wonder budget director in the first Reagan administration and the architect of Reagan's supply-side economic policies, Stockman has been very busy lately rejecting the tax-cutting recommendations of Republicans in Washington and arguing that we must get our fiscal house in order or watch our way of life continue its decline. As an "imperialist power," he says, America is in danger of being at "sundown." Stockman, who turned 64 on Wednesday, has always been ahead of the curve on tax and fiscal issues, and it appears that he is ahead of it again this time, too. Read on...
Stockman continued his media appearances with CNN's Fareed Zakaria and went after the GOP for their single minded devotion to tax cuts.
Reagan Budget Director: GOP Has Abandoned Fiscal Responsibility By Adopting 'Theology' Of Tax Cuts:
As Congress prepares to take up extension of the Bush tax cuts during its lame duck session, Republican lawmakers have been unanimous in demanding that the cuts for the richest two percent of Americans be extended, claiming they are necessary for economic growth and that tax cuts (miraculously) pay for themselves.
While independent economists have shown these arguments to be false, today on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, President Reagan's former budget director took on his own party for pushing this faulty logic. David Stockman, who led the all-important Office of Management and Budget under Reagan and was a chief architect of his fiscal policy, criticized today's GOP for misreading Reagan's legacy by adopting a "theology" of tax cuts. Stockman has spoken out before, but took perhaps his strongest stance yet against his own party today, saying "I'll never forgive the Bush administration" for "destroying the last vestige of fiscal responsibility that we had in the Republican Party."
new article by petras - cutting the deficit - see attached - please confirm receipt of attached article - jpetras
Attachment(s) from James Petras
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