Wednesday, December 30, 2009
ICELAND, GREECE, GAZA, WALLS, IRAN/IRAQ, I TOLD YA SO
The next chapter in Iceland's forgotten, orchestrated, manufactured financial debacle continues, overshadowed by events elsewhere:
http://icelandweatherreport.com/2009/12/icesave-the-hour-is-nigh.html
My response to her/their question raised above regarding Icesave.
DO NOT, UNDER ANY OR ALL CIRCUMSTANCES, ACCEPT ICESAVE DEBT OBLIGATION AND IMF LOANS.
Declare an independent Socialist Republic of Iceland.
Re-Nationalize industry at all and any cost.
Otherwise, you ARE SLAVES!!
If tiny Cuba and North Korea can hold out all this time, so can Iceland.
MORE governments will FALL, collapse, implode, explode SOON under weight of their now oh so many, many, numerous external and internal contradictions OUT IN THE OPEN.
For example, as forecast in one of my previous posts, Greece is NOT to receive MORE PRIVATE international "investment, assistance, aid" putting a direct squeeze on THEIR government and THEIR RESISTANCE, OPPOSITION.
It's going to be shit or get off the pot.
Likewise, Turkey.
Meanwhile, our ersatz, bogus, NAZI CIA and State, Private Foundation FRONT Left groupings stage one of their customary PR Gaza events, SIMULTANEOUS to events exploding immediately around them, next door, in Iran, Iraq, Yemen, Turkey, Greece, AND HERE, EVERYWHERE.
Timing is NOT a coincidence, accident.
It is an intentional distraction, diversion AWAY FROM THE ABOVE AND BELOW RELATED ISSUES and escalating, building CONFRONTATION.
Sounds good, though, doesn't it?
We nice humanitarian, moral folks.
But, it is totally and completely impotent, useless, meaningless, a completely symbolic gesture AWAY from the REAL, underlying issues, causes and power confrontations, challenges, represented above/below.
THEY FORGET, for example, conveniently, opportunistically, to mention the numerous WALLS, GHETTOS, SECTARIAN VIOLENCE, SLAUGHTER, CARNAGE right next door in IRAQ and IRAQ/IRAN PRIVATIZATION AND OCCUPATION!!
Much less ANYTHING else on MY posts.
US Secy of State, or, PRESIDENT, Hillary Clinton JUST gave a speech, recently, in December, a couple of weeks back, about OUR need to expand "HUMAN RIGHTS" on the globe, escalating THEIR/HER/OUR SUPPORT for covert and overt operations in MYRIAD WAYS and places, one, out of others, of course, being Iran:
http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/290659-1
Well, the above OPERATE as but one arm, part and parcel, for her/their new/old program!!
Of course, I have NO problem overthrowing Iran's NAZI Mullah regime and their Revolutionary Guards.
On the contrary.
But, one must be cognizant events in NAZI Iran represent an internal, Fascist, imperialist power struggle to execute a COUP, but, replace it with another more amenable, reactionary, PRIVATIZING Iranian government and thus rid themselves of the intractable problem surrounding Iran's PRESENT NAZI Mullah regime in Iraq and Iranian Baghdad Oil Minister, Sistani's son-in-law, Shahristani, in particular.
This is Plan A.
Plan A outcome will determine Plan B, which, however, is simply greater militarization, unfolding anyway for quite some time.
Into this nauseating, repulsive, sick, pathological, diseased NAZI gutter, cesspool, sewer represented by the human garbage and detritus of NAZI Iran and their imperialist, reactionary, counter-revolutionary alliances and intrigue, steps another Fascist cabal, Russia, which is as demoralizing and sickening as one can possibly imagine.
They, TOO, MUST GO!
It is a MOMENT FRAUGHT, PREGNANT WITH OPPORTUNITY IF one has NO illusions, delusions, distractions, diversions, extraneous matter and/or disinformation AND OPERATES STRATEGICALLY, TACTICALLY, PROGRAMMATICALLY FROM A PRINCIPLED POSITION!
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
THE GREAT MCGINTY
I will start today's entry with a Sherlock Holmes quote I lifted straight out of a very entertaining piece in Helmer's website:
"...But remember again what Holmes had told Dr Watson of Moriarty:
“He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, and abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them...”
FROM:
http://www.johnhelmer.net/?p=2394
Why the above quote?
As you may recall IF you have been reading my posts for awhile, ONLY the
www.madcowprod.com
website has followed the internecine, international drug cartel connections between events in South Florida, Wally Hilliard's airport, Mohammad Atta and 9/11.
And, they continue updating.
You should read/watch him/it, their website.
So, possibly, just possibly, from whence, which, what sort of NETWORK, clientele, do our current "terrorists" emanate??
One can speculate on this.
But, the reason I chose the Holmes quote above pertains to the following, as well as, or, in addition to, the above.
A recapitulation, reminder from two previous posts I did:
http://karlmarxwasright2.blogspot.com/2008/11/one-nation-world-under-citigroup.html
AND:
http://karlmarxwasright2.blogspot.com/2009/04/citigroup-lucy-komisar-schacht-gehlen.html
It is oft said, "those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it."
I might edit and end the sentence above with "doomed."
However, instead, I modify this statement slightly to read the following way.
Those who know neither history nor theory are doomed for they are ACTED UPON rather than the other way around.
Finally, beginning this post with a fictional reference, I will continue on the theme and for those perhaps unfamiliar with my title in today's entry, "The Great McGinty," here is a VERY brief synopsis:
http://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/cteq/05/35/great_mcginty.html
In addition to McGinty is the ever CLASSIC F. Scott Fitzgerald novel,
"The Great Gatsby."
If you are unfamiliar with The Great Gatsby, it is must reading.
Too many synopsis, summaries, analysis are available for me to chose from on the internet for "The Great Gatsby."
It is, has been, subject to multiple interpretations, reinterpretations, endless analysis, symbolism and historical context.
You must do your own research and followup if you are interested and do NOT know it already.
Monday, December 28, 2009
TALKING TURKEY
TURKEY, TURKEY, TURKEY!!
An idiomatic expression exists, here, "let's talk Turkey."
Actually, I have NO idea HOW the expression initially originated.
But, it connotes, let's be frank, honest, forthright, straightforward.
So, I am more than happy to talk Turkey about Turkey.
Since POSSIBLY I am the ONLY blog HERE that has been following Turkey's events for some time and Turkey's CRITICAL role in the Middle East PRIVATIZATION, you can see, here, AND, additional articles on the same website, the EXPLOSIVE confrontations AND OPPOSITION that has BEEN percolating all along in Turkey which can turn EVERYTHING upside down!!
It is important to recall Turkey's PREVIOUS government did NOT allow US troops to use it's territory as a staging ground for Iraq's invasion.
This one, important factor made ALOT of difference, influence, to the ultimate outcome in MANY ways.
So, here's the latest, including other articles on the homepage of their publication, website:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=mgk-calls-for-common-sense-skips-alleged-plot-2009-12-28
And, then, I have an IMPORTANT reminder to go with the above for those PERHAPS new to this subject and my blog, reported in 1997:
http://karlmarxwasright2.blogspot.com/2008/11/turkey-faces-political-turmoil-from.html
Now, I have an informative link below about SHUAA as an introduction.
Shuaa AND Hamid Jafar's (Dana Gas/Crescent Oil) Abraaj, although indicated below as competitors, really overlap.
These two are PRINCIPLE players in the Middle East, so you MUST become familiar with their names, interests, investors, Board, Advisers, etc:
http://www.shuaapartners.com/news/news002.htm
And, here's the reason I posted the ABOVE about Shuaa.
MY emphasis in BOLD:
"GCC Investor Confidence: Shaken but still positive
Posted: December 28, 2009
UAE. SHUAA Capital has issued its December Special Edition GCC Investor Sentiment Report, the only report of its kind for the Gulf markets..."
FROM:
http://www.bi-me.com/main.php?id=43057&t=1&c=34&cg=4&mset=1011
ALL, above, are getting nervous, worried, anxious, concerned about the fate of their counterrevolutionary, reactionary, Middle East privatization project.
Everything exploding, unraveling simultaneously.
All balls juggled up in the sky, now.
Where will they fall??
How will they land??
SO MANY variables.
Also see my previous posts on this subject, below.
The ante has been upped, so, military escalation and confrontation inevitable, along with increasing polarization, militarization, confrontation under guise of national security and an emergency state here and perhaps elsewhere, abroad.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
YEMEN and the MID EAST EXPLOSION
In case you are thick headed, which includes many, it seems, below, it is spelled out for morons, idiots, suckers and doormats worldwide.
Yemen's Gas City, referred to below, is an extension of Hamid Jafar's UAE based Dana Gas/Crescent Oil empire.
France's MEDEF ALSO in Yemen.
If you are unfamiliar with the MEDEF acronym, here is a snapshot:
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/MEDEF
Alongside French MEDEF, of course, previously profiled, Hunt Oil, Exxon, Palestinian billionaire Masri, Saudi Binladin group, Dana Gas, above, and a cast of hundreds, thousands more as I have posted in previous entries, and, of course, our NAZI Iranian Mullah, Revolutionary Guard regime upstarts.
Yemen WAS a Soviet ally.
Keep that fact in mind for those of you who like to forget history and enjoy killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
Instead, Yemen NOW IS OPEN FOR IMPERIALIST PRIVATE BUSINESS and with that comes more imperialist war, rivalries, competition and its concomitant, intensified class conflicts.
Furthermore, Yemen's CURRENT garbage government has ASSURED, PROMISED, GUARANTEED EVERYONE ABOVE NO RE-NATIONALIZATION, WHATSOEVER!
NOT TO WORRY!! COME ON OVER, YAWL!!:
http://www.yemen-today.com/go/development/3160.html
So, expect more LOTS more fighting and warfare from now until eternity or until Hell freezes over, whichever comes first.
OR, until Turkey's military comes a marching INTO the picture and completely upsets, overturns the Middle East, regional, PRIVATIZING applecart.
Turkey's NAZI Islamic AKP government, "whose passion is to sell state enterprises," remains on the defensive, threatened, both by their military and the Turkish workers.
GO, ATATURK, GO!!
Throw out the bastards both at home and in Iraq:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=gov8217t-military-tension-amounts-ahead-of-the-key-summit-2009-12-27
Speaking of bastards, our NAZI client Iranian and Peshmerga militias in Iraq and Iran remain pissed as hell they are getting cut out of their "just desserts" and war booty.
After all, it was they who did ALL the dirty work and bloodied their hands.
Certainly NOT those above who NEVER suffer.
Only the fools at home and abroad who work for them.
It is a race against time to foment a successful Iranian coup prior to Iraq's so-called provincial elections and displace Iran's oil minister in Baghdad, thus, control over Iraq oil revenues, contracts and their militias.
A fight to the finish.
If unsuccessful with covert, internal operations, then, Plan B will kick in.
Bombs will fly.
CONTROLLED internal destabilization clearly is Plan A.
NAZI Iran now is surrounded, squeezed on all sides, from their Western to their Eastern flank and internally.
Plan B is contingent upon the outcome of Plan A AND more developments elsewhere.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
PRESCIENCE and THE NUMBERS GAME
Ironic, isn't it?
I have to laugh at myself.
Just two days ago, on Thursday, I ended my post, below, with the following three sentences, predictions, quoting myself:
Declare a "state of emergency" caused both by external and internal "terrorist threats" abroad and at home.
And, then, institute compulsory, Fascist "universal national service."
And, then, institute compulsory, Fascist "universal national service."
But, of course, I did and could not know when I wrote the above/below it would be the very next day, on Friday, Xmas Day, that another prearranged "terrorist" plot occurs, like our mysterious shooting at Fort Hood, all conveniently connected to Yemen.
I have done numerous posts regarding the economic interests competing in Yemen and will not bother repeating it now.
See my post about Yemen from October 31, 2009:
HERE
In hindsight, though, the timing is obvious. I have done numerous posts regarding the economic interests competing in Yemen and will not bother repeating it now.
See my post about Yemen from October 31, 2009:
HERE
A religious holiday with all its abundant symbolism, a slow news day/week, a time when everybody's guard is let down, the stock market is closed, etc.
A good time.
Besides, we have our escalating Middle East proxy wars, confrontation and Iran/Iraq's destabilization. A good time.
I DID promise you all, sometime ago, Iran's Mullah regime and pipsqueak, upstart Revolutionary Guards are NO match with Morgan Stanley's First Persia Fund and his/their international NAZI connections.
Speaking of NAZIS, since most everybody plays the numbers game, I thought I would throw around some numbers today, myself.
Let us all participate in a thought experiment, as Einstein liked to call it, an exercise. IN WWII, it is ESTIMATED, 30 MILLION RUSSIANS DIED ALONE.
Then, IF I recall correctly, approximately 60 MILLION died in WWII, encompassing the Russian figure, above. I do not know, however, IF the preceding number includes the Pacific Front as well the European one.
But, for the moment, let's just leave it at the above. That's a large number, in and of itself.
But, then, without ANY further information, let us just argue that for every ONE person who died, there are/were AT LEAST 4 other people, DIRECT family members, affected. That is just an average, obviously.
A mother, father, wife, husband, grandparents, children. Other relatives. So, a multiple of 4 for 60 million dead. That is 240 million more directly affected. Plus the 60 million who died. So, 300 million, taken together.
A mother, father, wife, husband, grandparents, children. Other relatives. So, a multiple of 4 for 60 million dead. That is 240 million more directly affected. Plus the 60 million who died. So, 300 million, taken together.
Then, there are those who did not die, who survived, but, were disabled for life, suffered severe and/or minor ailments, problems, disease, wounds, emotional, physical, psychological stress, complications, rape, torture, dismemberment, starvation, imprisonment, whatever.
So, let's just estimate for every ONE person who died, there must have been at least one more survivor who suffered from so many other complications like those above.
That's another 60 million.
So, let's round it off to 350 million, combined.
Then, of course, we have entire countries, cities, industries, infrastructure, civilizations, TOTALLY demolished, flattened, unrecognizable, uninhabitable.
I do not know the number of displaced persons wandering around at the end of WWII. But, again, for arguments sake, let's just round off the above number, 350 million, including displaced persons, to 400 million.
We are getting close, not to far from, a half billion.
We are getting close, not to far from, a half billion.
We really could reasonably argue that the ENTIRE populations of Western, Central, Eastern Europe, Asia, the Eurasian continent, COMBINED, were, for the most part, affected in varying degrees, more or less, traumatized.
That would be an accurate and true statement.
I do NOT count the US, Canada, South America, more southern, middle parts of continental Africa, Australia because these continents were NOT impacted DIRECTLY as were those in the THEATRE OF WAR.
Nor were their militaries proportionally a LARGE part of the above statistics. Furthermore, the above numbers come almost on the heels, NOT LONG AFTER, a previously devastating war in the same area, WWI.
What would be the numbers and trauma taken together, WWI and WWII? And, then, of course, we can combine those numbers and add to it slow deaths subsequent to WWII related to massive global poverty, malnutrition, housing, disease, illness from more imperialist war, dislocation and counter-revolution.
That has been ESTIMATED at two billion people more or less.
That has been ESTIMATED at two billion people more or less.
In ALL cases, above, it is/was PRIVATE CAPITAL, profit, greed, imperialism and the SAME interests now at work.
So, you see, what's a few million more or less to them.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
CONFRONTATION ESCALATES, ALL COALESCES, UNRAVELS SIMULTANEOUSLY
SO MANY battle fronts occurring simultaneously, the most obvious one being the Middle East North Africa, MENA, Turkey, Yemen, Iran/Iraq/KRG arena, as MULTIPLE, competing imperialist and internal class CONTRADICTIONS escalate, marching in tandem, goose stepping together, side by side.
The Middle East is but the tip of a grand, global NAZI iceberg, a thermometer, barometer as all else unwinds, coalesces, simultaneously.
I cannot help noticing, once again, Turkey's LATEST development:
"...Crisis ensued Thursday when police blocked workers of Turkey’s former state-owned alcohol and tobacco monopoly, or Tekel, as they tried to visit the country’s opposition parties..." FROM:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=tekel-workers8217-visit-to-opposition-turns-into-crisis-2009-12-24
Meanwhile, our own bogus, United Suckers and Assholes NAZI Citigroup/Exxon/Morgan Obooma Dictatorship and AFL-CIA, SEIU led labor aligned front group MONOPOLY, FINALLY, INTERNALLY challenged!!
This represents CLASS OPPOSITION, not the bullshit rhetoric of our fake, ersatz, CIA manufactured, knee jerk Left Palestine and "Israel Lobby."
A union revolt, rebellion, upsurge and leadership struggle ensuing, a la NNU (National Nurses United and California Nurses) and NUHW (National Union of Healthcare Workers) and Sal Rosselli, etc., as their NAZI collaborative AFL-CIA, SEIU leadership partners expose themselves and betray everyone else in the process.
So, TO ME, it is with divine, poetic irony, justice and music to my ears that our premiere ANTI-SOVIET, ANTI-COMMUNIST AFT (American Federation of Teachers) union leadership comes under attack, BELOW, having been a MAJOR covert supporter and contributor to Polish Solidarity, the downfall of the Soviet Union AND advocate of OUR private/public partnership "charter" school program.
More regarding California's educational fiasco also on the website.
"The chickens come home to roost," said Malcolm X.
Or, what goes around comes around:
http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2009/12/detroit-teachers-agree-new-contract-deal-sort
Of course, this comes as our NAZI Citigroup/Exxon/Morgan CIA petty, empty headed, slave boy Obooma Dictatorship conspires to ASSASSINATE SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE in which the above AFL-CIA and SEIU ACTIVELY collaborate and compromise to kill it with their divide and conquer, red herring, bogus public option plan.
But, in turn, THEY, THEMSELVES, will be assassinated.
It is BOTH THEIR death knell and the Democratic Party, as well, whom, as I have said previously, were Dead On Arrival at the White House. Obooma's inauguration was a NAZI funeral, death march, not a celebration.
Meanwhile, on the NAZI Russian homefront, cabal, some ubiquitous NAZI names appear, among them, some of my favorites, but, others when you read another of Helmer's excellent reports about Russia's aluminum giant. Excerpt, link below...
"...The Hong Kong Exchange chief executive, Paul Chow, steps down next month, and will be replaced by Charles Li, a JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch alumnus..."
However, before posting the link from which I pulled the above excerpt, I want to draw everybody's attention to the following POSTSCRIPT in the article above/below which is of real concern.
I do not take this threat lightly, nor, I imagine, does Helmer, of course:
"Note: on December 20 the author of this report received the following message from the Consular Emergency Centre of the Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Canberra: “we have received information suggesting that your personal security in Russia could be threatened. In light of this possibility, we recommend that you carefully consider your personal security arrangements.”
BOTH ABOVE FROM:
http://johnhelmer.net/?p=2360#more-2360
The Middle East is but the tip of a grand, global NAZI iceberg, a thermometer, barometer as all else unwinds, coalesces, simultaneously.
I cannot help noticing, once again, Turkey's LATEST development:
"...Crisis ensued Thursday when police blocked workers of Turkey’s former state-owned alcohol and tobacco monopoly, or Tekel, as they tried to visit the country’s opposition parties..." FROM:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=tekel-workers8217-visit-to-opposition-turns-into-crisis-2009-12-24
Meanwhile, our own bogus, United Suckers and Assholes NAZI Citigroup/Exxon/Morgan Obooma Dictatorship and AFL-CIA, SEIU led labor aligned front group MONOPOLY, FINALLY, INTERNALLY challenged!!
This represents CLASS OPPOSITION, not the bullshit rhetoric of our fake, ersatz, CIA manufactured, knee jerk Left Palestine and "Israel Lobby."
A union revolt, rebellion, upsurge and leadership struggle ensuing, a la NNU (National Nurses United and California Nurses) and NUHW (National Union of Healthcare Workers) and Sal Rosselli, etc., as their NAZI collaborative AFL-CIA, SEIU leadership partners expose themselves and betray everyone else in the process.
So, TO ME, it is with divine, poetic irony, justice and music to my ears that our premiere ANTI-SOVIET, ANTI-COMMUNIST AFT (American Federation of Teachers) union leadership comes under attack, BELOW, having been a MAJOR covert supporter and contributor to Polish Solidarity, the downfall of the Soviet Union AND advocate of OUR private/public partnership "charter" school program.
More regarding California's educational fiasco also on the website.
"The chickens come home to roost," said Malcolm X.
Or, what goes around comes around:
http://www.labornotes.org/blogs/2009/12/detroit-teachers-agree-new-contract-deal-sort
Of course, this comes as our NAZI Citigroup/Exxon/Morgan CIA petty, empty headed, slave boy Obooma Dictatorship conspires to ASSASSINATE SINGLE PAYER HEALTH CARE in which the above AFL-CIA and SEIU ACTIVELY collaborate and compromise to kill it with their divide and conquer, red herring, bogus public option plan.
But, in turn, THEY, THEMSELVES, will be assassinated.
It is BOTH THEIR death knell and the Democratic Party, as well, whom, as I have said previously, were Dead On Arrival at the White House. Obooma's inauguration was a NAZI funeral, death march, not a celebration.
Meanwhile, on the NAZI Russian homefront, cabal, some ubiquitous NAZI names appear, among them, some of my favorites, but, others when you read another of Helmer's excellent reports about Russia's aluminum giant. Excerpt, link below...
"...The Hong Kong Exchange chief executive, Paul Chow, steps down next month, and will be replaced by Charles Li, a JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch alumnus..."
However, before posting the link from which I pulled the above excerpt, I want to draw everybody's attention to the following POSTSCRIPT in the article above/below which is of real concern.
I do not take this threat lightly, nor, I imagine, does Helmer, of course:
"Note: on December 20 the author of this report received the following message from the Consular Emergency Centre of the Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Canberra: “we have received information suggesting that your personal security in Russia could be threatened. In light of this possibility, we recommend that you carefully consider your personal security arrangements.”
BOTH ABOVE FROM:
http://johnhelmer.net/?p=2360#more-2360
Desperate times demand desperate responses as our bogus NAZI FRONT Obooma grouping, alliance, unravels, unwinds, deteriorates, disintegrates with rank and file labor upheavals, challenges and further leadership confrontations and further war and militarization necessary and the not-so-creeping Middle East grand explosion or implosion.
One obvious, clear POSSIBILITY to me.
Declare a "state of emergency" caused both by external and internal "terrorist threats" abroad and at home.
And, then, institute compulsory, Fascist "universal national service."
One obvious, clear POSSIBILITY to me.
Declare a "state of emergency" caused both by external and internal "terrorist threats" abroad and at home.
And, then, institute compulsory, Fascist "universal national service."
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
TURKEY'S PRIVATIZATION UPDATE and SADDAM HUSSEIN
I have two subjects/links, today.
First, Turkey.
Second, Saddam Hussein.
They are totally related, as is everything else about which I write.
Below, the latest in Turkey's NAZI AKP, "whose passion is to sell state enterprises," government and about whom both NAZI Vali Nasr (See my previous entry about "Vali Nasr")
AND NAZI ersatz, anti-Soviet, anti-Communist, FRONT Left groupings, Ramsey Clark and his/their Anti-Imperialist Conference, coalition, Chomsky, et.al, believe is just the cat's meow and super hot tamales.
(See my previous post, December 15, 2009, "Left is Right")
My reply to ALL:
SMASH this piece of NAZI Turkish AKP garbage to smithereens!!
It remains for Turkey's military to OVERTHROW THESE NAZI SCUMBAGS, along with Citigroup and their Akbank and Iranian partners and ALL the others combined, as well.
And, then, march into Kurdistan:
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=privatizations-full-speed-ahead-2009-12-21
And, then, the following about Saddam Hussein.
I cannot speak to all of what he says, below, since I have NO way to corroborate any of it.
But, I CAN say, for sure, Hussein's daughters HAVE been approached, like former Iraq Parliamentary Speaker, Mashhadani, and, MECATAC, for Iraq's forthcoming, NEW government, the one being planned to replace current Iranian Baghdad Oil Minister Shahristani, Sistani's son-in-law, which I discussed and linked in previous posts and for which Iran's current regime change MUST HAPPEN SOON, QUICKLY, prior to or just after Iraq's so-called provincial elections.
There is not much time.
The window of opportunity is now only a few months long, which is why you are witnessing escalating events both internally in Iran AND Iraq AND extending outwards to proxy wars in Yemen, Pakistan, Afghanistan.
Returning to the subject matter in the link below.
The assertion below about Hussein's daughters has been reported and verified more than once.
It has also been reported, some time back, that the US had a high level military traitor in Iraq when they invaded.
For sure, Hussein's government was a nest of high level traitors and spies. If Hussein was not paranoid, he SHOULD have been!
I CAN make one more assertion with confidence.
ONE NAME NOT MENTIONED BELOW is HAMID JAFAR of Dana Gas/Crescent Oil/Abraaj fame and whose brother is now Director of Iraq's South Oil Company.
There is absolutely NO question in my mind JAFAR features possibly as THE MOST PROMINENT, key, central figure in this abysmal story of subterfuge, betrayal, conspiracy.
Hamid Jafar is/was one of Iraq's MOST high level figures in Iraq's former and present puppet regime, and, judging from his connections and subsequent events, rewards, possibly, THE most significant, pivotal character on which the entire den of Iraq spy/traitor network rests.
He MIGHT have been the INTERNAL, key, money bag man, conduit.
That is A supposition on MY part.He MIGHT have been the INTERNAL, key, money bag man, conduit.
Externally, a wealthy, interwoven, expatriate, ideological circle of US Harvard University's Iraq Memory Project, Kanan Makiya, Rend Rahim Francke, their relatives, and, of course, Chalabi existed, all of whom have been amply rewarded and ONCE MORE restored to their formerly PROMINENT and lucrative positions in a now PRIVATIZED Iraq:
http://nebuchadnezzar-ii.blogspot.com/2009/12/saddam-hussein-human.html
Lastly, since some gory, horrific details pertaining to NAZI Iran's behaviour are detailed in the link above, for those, perhaps, unfamiliar with its antecedents and/or not reading my posts for some time, a reminder below about OUR NAZI sponsored Iran-Iraq war which preceded, but, not by long, the above dates and its SIGNIFICANT, ongoing, continuing role.
Additionally, as you will note, the time period and events discussed in Iraq above and below overlap with my post regarding France and Mitterand.
Of course, there are procedural and tactical lessons and similarities to be noted, ones that CONTINUE to this very moment:
http://karlmarxwasright2.blogspot.com/2009/04/revisited-initiation-of-iran-iraq-war.html
Of course, there are procedural and tactical lessons and similarities to be noted, ones that CONTINUE to this very moment:
http://karlmarxwasright2.blogspot.com/2009/04/revisited-initiation-of-iran-iraq-war.html
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
1999: THE MITTERAND MYSTERY
I stored this subject, article, above/below, in my own files, online, for quite a long time, as you can see from the date.
Probably, however, not from 1999, but, soon thereafter, most likely.
And, I always meant to follow up on it and do more reading and research.
But, other events took precedence after 2001 and it languished in my files.
Finally, I thought I would resuscitate it with THE CAVEAT I HAVE NOT researched or read further and one report is not sufficient.
Finally, I thought I would resuscitate it with THE CAVEAT I HAVE NOT researched or read further and one report is not sufficient.
Nonetheless...
I could NOT find a link for this online, after many fruitless searches.
So, I reproduced the text entirely, instead.
One reason, amongst others, I chose to post, highlight, this now is the PATTERN it represents AND the fact, for example, Greek debt is now downgraded by international financial markets.
Many ways are utilized to COMPROMISE, squeeze, bring down, overturn, infiltrate any Socialist/Communist ELECTED government from the following to direct military intervention.
So, I reproduced the text entirely, instead.
One reason, amongst others, I chose to post, highlight, this now is the PATTERN it represents AND the fact, for example, Greek debt is now downgraded by international financial markets.
Many ways are utilized to COMPROMISE, squeeze, bring down, overturn, infiltrate any Socialist/Communist ELECTED government from the following to direct military intervention.
They have numerous, creative techniques to skin a cat.
By the way, if you believe the assertion below Citibank did NOT know what it was doing, than, you also believe in Santa Claus.
The Saudis, Citigroup's largest private shareholder, Saudi Prince Talal, Rockefeller and Exxon are interchangeable names, as well as NAZI and Fascism.
MY EMPHASIS, below, in BOLD and RED the points I thought most important.
The Saudis, Citigroup's largest private shareholder, Saudi Prince Talal, Rockefeller and Exxon are interchangeable names, as well as NAZI and Fascism.
MY EMPHASIS, below, in BOLD and RED the points I thought most important.
IF you have further links, factual information, followup to add, both for my own and everyone else's edification and benefit, there is always the public comment section, below.
So...
February 7, 1999
THE MITTERRAND MYSTERY
Did François Mitterrand preside over the scandal of the century?
Tony Allen-Mills reports on an explosive affaire that France is afraid to investigate
"On the third anniversary last month of the death of François Mitterrand, a touching scene unfolded on a grey, chilly morning in a cemetery in southwestern France.
Mazarine Pingeot, the illegitimate daughter of the late Socialist president, stood alone before her father's stone sepulchre at Jarnac, a few miles west of Angoulême.
At her feet lay vast official wreaths dispatched from Paris by President Jacques Chirac and his prime minister Lionel Jospin.Mazarine carried a single red rose wrapped in Cellophane.
After a few moments lost in thought, she placed her tribute and walked away.
Her face, unknown to the French until the dying months of Mitterrand's 14-year reign, was solemn but composed
That evening Mazarine dined in Paris with the keepers of the Mitterrand flame.
It has become an annual ritual.
The veteran Socialist president's family and closest friends gather to toast his memory in one of his favourite oyster restaurants - L'Assiette on the Rue du Château.
It is both a private and a public occasion: cameras are permitted, as if to prove to the world that whatever calumnies and scandals have scarred Mitterrand's posthumous reputation, there is still a loyal circle of friends determined to honour his name.
This year's dinner was especially poignant.
At one end of a long table laden with bottles of robust country wine sat Danielle Mitterrand, the widow obliged to endure the most torrid public exposure of her late husband's sexual conquests.
At the other end sat Mazarine.
The child of a presidential mistress, she remains the object of intense fascination in a country that has only recently begun to realise the depths of deceit and betrayal that were plumbed during the Mitterrand era.
The evening ended with a kiss.
Whatever Danielle may feel about her husband's extramarital past, she is not about to betray him in public.
She embraced Mazarine, who is 24, as if she were her own daughter.
It was a magnificent display of family solidarity, yet even as the bottles were being cleared away, the table was being set elsewhere for the mother of all Mitterrand scandals.
Within a week of the family dinner, Paris newspapers were reporting jaw-dropping allegations of a multi-billion-dollar fraud concerning a government loan allegedly negotiated with Saudi Arabia in 1983, two years after Mitterrand became president.
It has become known as l'affaire Josephine and one of the few things that can be said about it with certainty is that, unlike many recent French political scandals, it does not involve a beautiful woman - Josephine is the name of the 18th-century bank salon where the deal was allegedly struck. It does involve, however, all manner of sleaze and murk.
It is alleged in the Josephine affair that French officials conspired to skim more than $1 billion in illicit "commissions" from a $25 billion loan supposedly negotiated with Saudi Arabia in 1983.
The allegation has variously been dismissed as a CIA plot to destabilise France's Socialists, as a hoax by extreme rightwingers and as an attempted fraud by international conmen.
Not its least remarkable feature is that despite - or perhaps because of - the enormity of the alleged corruption involved, no judicial inquiry has ever attempted to establish what on earth happened.
In two crucial respects, the affair has confounded government attempts to ignore it, however.
First is the determination of Jean Montaldo, a controversial investigative writer, to play the accuser.
"They looted $1 billion," claims Montaldo.
"It's the biggest political and financial heist in the history of humanity. You can't just pretend it didn't happen."
Second, the fallout from the scandal has engulfed a figure who had hitherto managed to steer clear of the sleaze-filled Mitterrand avalanche.
Jacques Delors, the former president of the European commission, was France's finance minister at the time the Saudi loan is alleged to have been negotiated.
Delors has publicly denied all knowledge of l'affaire Josephine, but that has not stopped the French media from rampant speculation.
According to a former official quoted in France-Soir, the Paris daily, Josephine may be the answer to one of the most puzzling questions of recent French political history: why did Delors, one of the most accomplished statesmen in Europe, never try to become president of France - a prize that many believe should have been easily within his grasp?
Is there something in the Josephine file that confines him to the political shadows?
Or is he the victim of a hoax?
Last week, Delors confirmed publicly for the first time that France had indeed negotiated a loan from Saudi Arabia, although he insisted that it was of $2 billion and not $25 billion.
He also revealed to The Sunday Times that he had seen a document from the Josephine file purportedly bearing his signature.
"The document is false and the signature is an imitation," he said.
FRANCE has long been resistant to Anglo-Saxon traditions of investigation and exposure: whenever a scandal threatens, the ruling elite closes ranks, particularly when there is a danger that the country's image may be damaged abroad.
While a new breed of magistrate is attempting to wield a new broom, much of the legal and media establishment still takes its orders from the government.
Montaldo first mentioned the Josephine affair in a bestselling exposé provocatively entitled Mitterrand and the 40 Thieves.
At the time, he tried to persuade the French authorities to investigate Josephine.
Their response was comical.
"Picture this," he recounted, tucking into a grilled sole in a Paris hotel last week.
"I walk with my lawyer into the office of the public prosecutor.
I am carrying my black leather briefcase with gold locks. Inside is my Josephine file.
"My revelations are apocalyptic. I have bank documents, witness statements, photocopies, originals, affidavits, everything about the Saudi loan. I say to the prosecutor, this is what I am going to publish in my new book in 15 days' time. Here is the evidence for my allegations. I start to undo my locks. He turns white as a sheet, and says: 'Don't open that'."
Montaldo's lawyer insists that the prosecutor must read them. "My client is offering you this evidence spontaneously," the lawyer says.
"Ah," replies the prosecutor.
"But these things are excessively complex. We will read your book and advise you."
That was in 1995.
Montaldo is still waiting for the call.
As long as Montaldo was the only accuser, Josephine seemed likely to die with him.
For all his investigative prowess, he has many enemies in the media.
Some suspect him of links to the extreme right.
Others claim he has a pathological hatred of Mitterrand as a result of some past slight to Montaldo's father, a former French colonial official in Algeria.
Many more scorn Montaldo's readiness to breach the taboo on politicians' private lives.
In Mitterrand and the 40 Thieves, published two years before the president's death, he became the first writer to discuss publicly the existence of Mazarine and her mother, Anne Pingeot.
He also delved into the network of rancid cronyism around Mitterrand's closest friend, Roger-Patrice Pelat, who died of a heart attack while awaiting trial on corruption charges.
These revelations turned Montaldo into one of France's fastest selling authors.
He is a short, dapper figure with the bearing of a retired tank commander.
When he was recognised at our lunch by a television producer, she came up to me and said:
"You're lucky to be talking to him. He's crazy - but great."
It was not until last month, when Montaldo appeared in court accused of defamation, that the French media began to take notice of Josephine and this story of the bleak early days of the Mitterrand government began to emerge.
It would be difficult to overstate the enormity of the task facing Delors when he took over as finance minister in 1981.
Mitterrand's election victory over Valéry Giscard d'Estaing had stunned the financial markets.
After decades of Gaullist hegemony, the Socialists had scrambled into power and taken the Communist party with them.
The cold war was still very much alive and suddenly there were Communist government ministers in Paris.
There was an immediate run on the franc as the wealthy poured their funds abroad.
Mitterrand set about nationalising companies with a vengeance.
The International Monetary Fund began issuing alarms about France's national debt.
The economy tottered towards bankruptcy.
Delors seemed to be presiding over a debacle.
Reports of a Saudi Arabian bail-out loan began circulating in the Paris media in 1984.
Delors had come under fire for understating the extent of France's foreign debts and a parliamentary inquiry was launched to establish the true position.
According to one report from the time, Delors had been arranging short-term loans to cover repayments of long-term debts.
Asked about the Saudi loan, the finance ministry refused all comment but at least two instalments of $2 billion were reported to have been received.
The Sunday Times has obtained a photocopy of a purported affidavit sworn at the American embassy in London on October 24, 1983.
It bears the signature and seal of Janet L Bogue, vice-consul, and appears to be one of the keys to the Josephine affair.
According to this affidavit, France had decided in the summer of 1982 to obtain "a private placement of funds".
This had to be done discreetly and not in the name of the French government, "as the loan would not be recorded through the IMF".
A series of meetings was eventually held at the Mayfair offices of Peter T James and Co, a London firm of solicitors, according to the affidavit.
Alan Lowe, then a senior lawyer at the firm, presided over the meetings, it states.
On at least one of these occasions, on April 25, 1983, Delors was allegedly present while the terms of the loan were agreed.
According to the affidavit, a Saudi Arabian trust would provide an unspecified loan that would be "drawn down in increments of $2 billion on a weekly basis".
The money was to be delivered through the London branch of Citibank.
There is no suggestion that the bank or any of the English lawyers named was aware of any illegality or corruption.
So far, so straightforward - except for one detail.
The affidavit was sworn by a group of American businessmen, acting for companies and offshore trusts in the Cayman Islands, who claimed to have been cheated out of their commission on the deal.
Commission?
On a government loan?
It was one thing to suggest that France's Socialist government might be resorting to unorthodox means to shore up its beleaguered budget; quite another to suggest that a slice of the proceeds was being skimmed off the top.
Yet if the affidavit is a forgery, someone has gone to enormous trouble to create a convincing tale.
Peter T James and Co, which also has offices in Saudi Arabia and Washington, confirmed last week that an Alan Lowe had worked for it in 1983.
He had left to start his own firm and he continues to work in London, but he did not respond last week to requests for an interview.
The American embassy confirmed that it offers affidavit services to businessmen with grievances, but it could not provide 15-year-old records.
Then there is the awkward matter of Delors.
Responding last week to a list of questions put to him by The Sunday Times, he denied that he had been present for any negotiations in London.
"I don't know this Peter James firm," he said.
For the first time, however, he publicly acknowledged that France had negotiated a $2 billion loan from Saudi Arabian funds.
"It is true that this loan was negotiated at the end of 1982 or the beginning of 1983," he said.
"It was a difficult time for the French economy. But I have checked with my officials at the time, in case my own memory is faulty. No commissions were paid. And all my collaborators confirmed that they had never heard of the people mentioned in this affair."
Delors recalled that the government was approached at the time by a number of intermediaries offering to provide funds. "We refused many offers," he said.
The government concluded only two official agreements - the Saudi Arabian loan and another through the European Community.
Was it possible that Delors might have been unaware of subsequent manipulations that, according to Montaldo's files, raised the interest rate on the Saudi loan, thereby increasing the amount of repayments and providing a margin for illicit commissions?
"Nobody accepts that," he said.
"A member of the Elysée Palace staff told me they recognised that all the documents [in the Josephine affair] were false."
Delors insisted he had no idea who might be behind this apparent attempt to smear him.
As for why he has resisted calls to run for president of France, he said: "I've been working for 55 years. I'm tired."
So where does all this leave Montaldo?
In the middle of a thickening plot.
IN May 1996, there was a devastating fire at the Paris headquarters of Crédit Lyonnais, the scandal-plagued bank that had run up so many debts through fraud and reckless management - the bill to the French taxpayer may eventually top $30 billion - that it became known as Debit Lyonnais.
The fire all but destroyed a wing of the bank on the Rue du 4 Septembre.
Among the files that burnt were all those relating to the bank's international affairs.
Investigators would later establish that the cause of the blaze was arson.
Montaldo could not resist it.
He had already publicly identified Crédit Lyonnais as the bank that had managed the juggling of interest rates which allegedly sliced the icing off the Saudi Arabian loan.
Although the bank had formally denied all knowledge of the Josephine affair, Montaldo suggested in Le Point magazine last year that the fire had been arranged to destroy the Josephine records filed in the Crédit Lyonnais archives.
The bank promptly sued for defamation.
This time Montaldo did not fight alone.
From the shadows of the French secret service stepped a figure called Bernard Pichon.
He claimed to have carried out the parliamentary investigation in 1984 into the French foreign debt, and he was keeping the records in a battered blue cardboard file secured with an old rubber band.
The two men exchanged files, and Montaldo was astonished. "I remember his stuff as if by heart," he said.
"It confirmed everything I had suspected and went further."
When Pichon attempted to present his blue file as evidence during Montaldo's defamation hearing last month, however, the judge would not let him open it.
"The tribunal wants no incidents," the judge said.
Last week Pichon sat in the corner of a Paris bar, chain-smoking filtered Chesterfield cigarettes and looking every inch what the French call a barbouze - a government security agent - and revealed what was in the file.
A loyal Socialist, Pichon had, according to his own account, been based in the French Caribbean, dabbling in real estate and writing occasional reports for the French secret service, before returning to Paris to assist with Mitterrand's presidential campaign.
He was later summoned by the president of the national assembly's finance committee and asked to investigate reports of a Saudi Arabian loan that did not appear in the finance ministry's accounts.
The paper trail took him to Texas, London and Switzerland, via the Cayman Islands and Lebanon.
Pichon claims to have spent six months tracking bank transfers and calling on old secret service contacts for details of private accounts.
His version of the Josephine affair differs in details from Montaldo's, but not in substance.
By manipulating interest rates, he claims, some of those involved in the Saudi loan made off with hundreds of millions of dollars.
As we talked, Pichon repeatedly delved in his blue file for papers to support his argument.
He showed memos that indicated a $25 billion Saudi loan originally financed at an 8.0830% rate of interest, which should have yielded repayments over 20 years of $40,415,150,000.
Then the rate was raised to 9.5367%, yielding $42,915,150,000.
The difference of $2.5 billion provided a handsome surplus from which the middlemen were to take their cut.
Pichon claimed to have identified at least $700m in "commissions" that were subtracted from the first installments of the loan.
The affair might never have come to light, he said, had the French side not become greedy and failed to pay the American intermediaries the share they had agreed.
Much of Pichon's material was photocopied and therefore unverifiable.
Some of the headings on letters purporting to come from Cayman Islands companies looked distinctly fake.
Several documents written in English - notably the affidavit - were riddled with spelling mistakes.
At the same time, however, other documents appeared genuine.
Whether or not this affair is a Byzantine invention by a sinister genius, it seemed incredible that the first person apart from Montaldo or Pichon to be examining the mountain of evidence should be a British reporter and not a detective from the French ministry of justice.
Suppose for a moment that the Josephine affair is the work of forgers and conmen.
If that is the case, then a number of crimes have evidently been committed.
The victims include Mitterrand, Delors, Pierre Mauroy, the former Socialist prime minister, and Roland Dumas, the former foreign minister.
Add to the injured list the American embassy in London and sundry British solicitors and bankers, all of whom appear in Montaldo's and Pichon's files, and the question might fairly be asked: why isn't someone investigating the truth of the Josephine affair?
"In France we lack a tradition of l'auto-critique (self-criticism)," said Pichon as he lit up another Chesterfield.
He settled back in his chair and blew out a cloud of smoke. "There is a new generation of magistrates and even journalists who are starting to change things.
But this internal revolution still needs a little time to acquire critical mass."
For France's European partners, this reluctance to address past sins remains acutely worrying as a new era approaches of financial and political harmonisation.
British confidence in the euro will scarcely be enhanced if Paris continues to give the impression that big international transactions are subject to a 10% rake-off by les commissionaires - the officials who take their commissions.
One problem with getting to the bottom of these scandals is the French accent on an elite cadre of professional administrators who are trained to progress smoothly from government to business and back again.
They are experts at governing France, but when trouble starts their first move is to pull down the shutters.
Another problem - perhaps the only one that really matters - is the brooding enigma of Mitterrand himself.
He arrived in power in 1981, committed to la force tranquille - the virile Socialist reforms that would ease France away from its post-war Gaullist malaise.
By the time he departed in 1995, stricken with prostate cancer, there was little Socialism left in the Mitterrand regime.
He had become a remote, regal figure surrounded by fawning courtiers.
The satirical press nicknamed him Dieu.
The Elysée Palace became known as le château.
Rumours about Mitterrand's Swiss bank accounts dogged most of his career.
During his failed 1974 presidential campaign, Paris journalists were sent anonymous documents identifying the Swiss banker who allegedly controlled Mitterrand's private fortune. The banker, Jean-Pierre François, would later become a regular visitor to the Elysée Palace.
Yet Mitterrand always presented himself publicly as a man of simple tastes, who preferred the neighbourhood bistro to three-star restaurants.
For holidays he would retire to his cottage near Bordeaux, where he would take his labradors truffle-hunting.
He repeatedly expressed contempt for money.
What possible use could such a man have for several hundred million dollars supposedly skimmed from a loan?
Montaldo and Pichon assert that the primary aim of the Josephine affair was not so much to line Mitterrand's pockets but to provide his Socialist party with a solid financial base. Most of the big financial scandals of the past 20 years in France have been linked to party funding, on the left and the right.
In the Josephine case, it is impossible to be specific about the ultimate beneficiaries of the funds that Pichon claims to have traced to a variety of Swiss accounts.
He alleges that, in addition to Socialist party funding, there were significant payoffs to a number of government officials at the time.
Delors's position is clear: "During my time as minister of finance I never heard of this operation."
The president, however, was not who he pretended to be. The family man with country tastes kept his mistress in a handsome government flat on the Quai Branly and retired with her for pleasant weekends at the Château Souzy-la-Briche, a presidential property expensively renovated for his private use.
Of his supposed Swiss accounts there is, not surprisingly, little trace, but one investigating magistrate has recorded a remarkable statement from a company finance director who was giving evidence to an inquiry into one of Pelat's companies, Vibrachoc, which was sold to the state for a vastly inflated price.
The director recalled that he had once arranged a small transfer of funds "to a bank in Lausanne for Monsieur François Mitterrand".
Years later at a dinner in London, a retired diplomat reminiscing about a European summit recalled an occasion when Mitterrand had intervened unexpectedly in a debate about tax harmonisation and the problems posed by Switzerland, Liechtenstein and other tax havens.
A French ambassador later confided that his president was worried that the path to his own funds might be blocked.
It would not be hard to imagine that Mitterrand took certain measures to provide for his two families - there have even been rumours of a third.
At the same time, it must be said that neither his widow nor his daughter shows much sign of living high on the hog. Danielle was recently reduced to auctioning off tacky presidential memorabilia to raise funds for the charity she runs; Mazarine prefers woolly sweaters and anoraks to Parisian haute couture.
Perhaps more serious than the question of personal corruption is the atmosphere of decadence that Mitterrand allowed to permeate his government.
Repeatedly warned by his advisers that he was surrounding himself with "bandits", Mitterrand stuck by his friends, even when, in the notorious case of René Bousquet, the Nazi-era collaborator, they were tainted by allegations of mass murder.
Whatever the reality of the Josephine affair, it now seems clear that France is in serious need of a government committed at least to the idea of public transparency - the notion, still so foreign in Paris, that the people should actually know what its elected representatives are up to.
It also needs an aggressive media prepared to root out corruption.
Instead, it has Montaldo."
1999 Times Newspapers Ltd.
THE MITTERRAND MYSTERY
Did François Mitterrand preside over the scandal of the century?
Tony Allen-Mills reports on an explosive affaire that France is afraid to investigate
"On the third anniversary last month of the death of François Mitterrand, a touching scene unfolded on a grey, chilly morning in a cemetery in southwestern France.
Mazarine Pingeot, the illegitimate daughter of the late Socialist president, stood alone before her father's stone sepulchre at Jarnac, a few miles west of Angoulême.
At her feet lay vast official wreaths dispatched from Paris by President Jacques Chirac and his prime minister Lionel Jospin.Mazarine carried a single red rose wrapped in Cellophane.
After a few moments lost in thought, she placed her tribute and walked away.
Her face, unknown to the French until the dying months of Mitterrand's 14-year reign, was solemn but composed
That evening Mazarine dined in Paris with the keepers of the Mitterrand flame.
It has become an annual ritual.
The veteran Socialist president's family and closest friends gather to toast his memory in one of his favourite oyster restaurants - L'Assiette on the Rue du Château.
It is both a private and a public occasion: cameras are permitted, as if to prove to the world that whatever calumnies and scandals have scarred Mitterrand's posthumous reputation, there is still a loyal circle of friends determined to honour his name.
This year's dinner was especially poignant.
At one end of a long table laden with bottles of robust country wine sat Danielle Mitterrand, the widow obliged to endure the most torrid public exposure of her late husband's sexual conquests.
At the other end sat Mazarine.
The child of a presidential mistress, she remains the object of intense fascination in a country that has only recently begun to realise the depths of deceit and betrayal that were plumbed during the Mitterrand era.
The evening ended with a kiss.
Whatever Danielle may feel about her husband's extramarital past, she is not about to betray him in public.
She embraced Mazarine, who is 24, as if she were her own daughter.
It was a magnificent display of family solidarity, yet even as the bottles were being cleared away, the table was being set elsewhere for the mother of all Mitterrand scandals.
Within a week of the family dinner, Paris newspapers were reporting jaw-dropping allegations of a multi-billion-dollar fraud concerning a government loan allegedly negotiated with Saudi Arabia in 1983, two years after Mitterrand became president.
It has become known as l'affaire Josephine and one of the few things that can be said about it with certainty is that, unlike many recent French political scandals, it does not involve a beautiful woman - Josephine is the name of the 18th-century bank salon where the deal was allegedly struck. It does involve, however, all manner of sleaze and murk.
It is alleged in the Josephine affair that French officials conspired to skim more than $1 billion in illicit "commissions" from a $25 billion loan supposedly negotiated with Saudi Arabia in 1983.
The allegation has variously been dismissed as a CIA plot to destabilise France's Socialists, as a hoax by extreme rightwingers and as an attempted fraud by international conmen.
Not its least remarkable feature is that despite - or perhaps because of - the enormity of the alleged corruption involved, no judicial inquiry has ever attempted to establish what on earth happened.
In two crucial respects, the affair has confounded government attempts to ignore it, however.
First is the determination of Jean Montaldo, a controversial investigative writer, to play the accuser.
"They looted $1 billion," claims Montaldo.
"It's the biggest political and financial heist in the history of humanity. You can't just pretend it didn't happen."
Second, the fallout from the scandal has engulfed a figure who had hitherto managed to steer clear of the sleaze-filled Mitterrand avalanche.
Jacques Delors, the former president of the European commission, was France's finance minister at the time the Saudi loan is alleged to have been negotiated.
Delors has publicly denied all knowledge of l'affaire Josephine, but that has not stopped the French media from rampant speculation.
According to a former official quoted in France-Soir, the Paris daily, Josephine may be the answer to one of the most puzzling questions of recent French political history: why did Delors, one of the most accomplished statesmen in Europe, never try to become president of France - a prize that many believe should have been easily within his grasp?
Is there something in the Josephine file that confines him to the political shadows?
Or is he the victim of a hoax?
Last week, Delors confirmed publicly for the first time that France had indeed negotiated a loan from Saudi Arabia, although he insisted that it was of $2 billion and not $25 billion.
He also revealed to The Sunday Times that he had seen a document from the Josephine file purportedly bearing his signature.
"The document is false and the signature is an imitation," he said.
FRANCE has long been resistant to Anglo-Saxon traditions of investigation and exposure: whenever a scandal threatens, the ruling elite closes ranks, particularly when there is a danger that the country's image may be damaged abroad.
While a new breed of magistrate is attempting to wield a new broom, much of the legal and media establishment still takes its orders from the government.
Montaldo first mentioned the Josephine affair in a bestselling exposé provocatively entitled Mitterrand and the 40 Thieves.
At the time, he tried to persuade the French authorities to investigate Josephine.
Their response was comical.
"Picture this," he recounted, tucking into a grilled sole in a Paris hotel last week.
"I walk with my lawyer into the office of the public prosecutor.
I am carrying my black leather briefcase with gold locks. Inside is my Josephine file.
"My revelations are apocalyptic. I have bank documents, witness statements, photocopies, originals, affidavits, everything about the Saudi loan. I say to the prosecutor, this is what I am going to publish in my new book in 15 days' time. Here is the evidence for my allegations. I start to undo my locks. He turns white as a sheet, and says: 'Don't open that'."
Montaldo's lawyer insists that the prosecutor must read them. "My client is offering you this evidence spontaneously," the lawyer says.
"Ah," replies the prosecutor.
"But these things are excessively complex. We will read your book and advise you."
That was in 1995.
Montaldo is still waiting for the call.
As long as Montaldo was the only accuser, Josephine seemed likely to die with him.
For all his investigative prowess, he has many enemies in the media.
Some suspect him of links to the extreme right.
Others claim he has a pathological hatred of Mitterrand as a result of some past slight to Montaldo's father, a former French colonial official in Algeria.
Many more scorn Montaldo's readiness to breach the taboo on politicians' private lives.
In Mitterrand and the 40 Thieves, published two years before the president's death, he became the first writer to discuss publicly the existence of Mazarine and her mother, Anne Pingeot.
He also delved into the network of rancid cronyism around Mitterrand's closest friend, Roger-Patrice Pelat, who died of a heart attack while awaiting trial on corruption charges.
These revelations turned Montaldo into one of France's fastest selling authors.
He is a short, dapper figure with the bearing of a retired tank commander.
When he was recognised at our lunch by a television producer, she came up to me and said:
"You're lucky to be talking to him. He's crazy - but great."
It was not until last month, when Montaldo appeared in court accused of defamation, that the French media began to take notice of Josephine and this story of the bleak early days of the Mitterrand government began to emerge.
It would be difficult to overstate the enormity of the task facing Delors when he took over as finance minister in 1981.
Mitterrand's election victory over Valéry Giscard d'Estaing had stunned the financial markets.
After decades of Gaullist hegemony, the Socialists had scrambled into power and taken the Communist party with them.
The cold war was still very much alive and suddenly there were Communist government ministers in Paris.
There was an immediate run on the franc as the wealthy poured their funds abroad.
Mitterrand set about nationalising companies with a vengeance.
The International Monetary Fund began issuing alarms about France's national debt.
The economy tottered towards bankruptcy.
Delors seemed to be presiding over a debacle.
Reports of a Saudi Arabian bail-out loan began circulating in the Paris media in 1984.
Delors had come under fire for understating the extent of France's foreign debts and a parliamentary inquiry was launched to establish the true position.
According to one report from the time, Delors had been arranging short-term loans to cover repayments of long-term debts.
Asked about the Saudi loan, the finance ministry refused all comment but at least two instalments of $2 billion were reported to have been received.
The Sunday Times has obtained a photocopy of a purported affidavit sworn at the American embassy in London on October 24, 1983.
It bears the signature and seal of Janet L Bogue, vice-consul, and appears to be one of the keys to the Josephine affair.
According to this affidavit, France had decided in the summer of 1982 to obtain "a private placement of funds".
This had to be done discreetly and not in the name of the French government, "as the loan would not be recorded through the IMF".
A series of meetings was eventually held at the Mayfair offices of Peter T James and Co, a London firm of solicitors, according to the affidavit.
Alan Lowe, then a senior lawyer at the firm, presided over the meetings, it states.
On at least one of these occasions, on April 25, 1983, Delors was allegedly present while the terms of the loan were agreed.
According to the affidavit, a Saudi Arabian trust would provide an unspecified loan that would be "drawn down in increments of $2 billion on a weekly basis".
The money was to be delivered through the London branch of Citibank.
There is no suggestion that the bank or any of the English lawyers named was aware of any illegality or corruption.
So far, so straightforward - except for one detail.
The affidavit was sworn by a group of American businessmen, acting for companies and offshore trusts in the Cayman Islands, who claimed to have been cheated out of their commission on the deal.
Commission?
On a government loan?
It was one thing to suggest that France's Socialist government might be resorting to unorthodox means to shore up its beleaguered budget; quite another to suggest that a slice of the proceeds was being skimmed off the top.
Yet if the affidavit is a forgery, someone has gone to enormous trouble to create a convincing tale.
Peter T James and Co, which also has offices in Saudi Arabia and Washington, confirmed last week that an Alan Lowe had worked for it in 1983.
He had left to start his own firm and he continues to work in London, but he did not respond last week to requests for an interview.
The American embassy confirmed that it offers affidavit services to businessmen with grievances, but it could not provide 15-year-old records.
Then there is the awkward matter of Delors.
Responding last week to a list of questions put to him by The Sunday Times, he denied that he had been present for any negotiations in London.
"I don't know this Peter James firm," he said.
For the first time, however, he publicly acknowledged that France had negotiated a $2 billion loan from Saudi Arabian funds.
"It is true that this loan was negotiated at the end of 1982 or the beginning of 1983," he said.
"It was a difficult time for the French economy. But I have checked with my officials at the time, in case my own memory is faulty. No commissions were paid. And all my collaborators confirmed that they had never heard of the people mentioned in this affair."
Delors recalled that the government was approached at the time by a number of intermediaries offering to provide funds. "We refused many offers," he said.
The government concluded only two official agreements - the Saudi Arabian loan and another through the European Community.
Was it possible that Delors might have been unaware of subsequent manipulations that, according to Montaldo's files, raised the interest rate on the Saudi loan, thereby increasing the amount of repayments and providing a margin for illicit commissions?
"Nobody accepts that," he said.
"A member of the Elysée Palace staff told me they recognised that all the documents [in the Josephine affair] were false."
Delors insisted he had no idea who might be behind this apparent attempt to smear him.
As for why he has resisted calls to run for president of France, he said: "I've been working for 55 years. I'm tired."
So where does all this leave Montaldo?
In the middle of a thickening plot.
IN May 1996, there was a devastating fire at the Paris headquarters of Crédit Lyonnais, the scandal-plagued bank that had run up so many debts through fraud and reckless management - the bill to the French taxpayer may eventually top $30 billion - that it became known as Debit Lyonnais.
The fire all but destroyed a wing of the bank on the Rue du 4 Septembre.
Among the files that burnt were all those relating to the bank's international affairs.
Investigators would later establish that the cause of the blaze was arson.
Montaldo could not resist it.
He had already publicly identified Crédit Lyonnais as the bank that had managed the juggling of interest rates which allegedly sliced the icing off the Saudi Arabian loan.
Although the bank had formally denied all knowledge of the Josephine affair, Montaldo suggested in Le Point magazine last year that the fire had been arranged to destroy the Josephine records filed in the Crédit Lyonnais archives.
The bank promptly sued for defamation.
This time Montaldo did not fight alone.
From the shadows of the French secret service stepped a figure called Bernard Pichon.
He claimed to have carried out the parliamentary investigation in 1984 into the French foreign debt, and he was keeping the records in a battered blue cardboard file secured with an old rubber band.
The two men exchanged files, and Montaldo was astonished. "I remember his stuff as if by heart," he said.
"It confirmed everything I had suspected and went further."
When Pichon attempted to present his blue file as evidence during Montaldo's defamation hearing last month, however, the judge would not let him open it.
"The tribunal wants no incidents," the judge said.
Last week Pichon sat in the corner of a Paris bar, chain-smoking filtered Chesterfield cigarettes and looking every inch what the French call a barbouze - a government security agent - and revealed what was in the file.
A loyal Socialist, Pichon had, according to his own account, been based in the French Caribbean, dabbling in real estate and writing occasional reports for the French secret service, before returning to Paris to assist with Mitterrand's presidential campaign.
He was later summoned by the president of the national assembly's finance committee and asked to investigate reports of a Saudi Arabian loan that did not appear in the finance ministry's accounts.
The paper trail took him to Texas, London and Switzerland, via the Cayman Islands and Lebanon.
Pichon claims to have spent six months tracking bank transfers and calling on old secret service contacts for details of private accounts.
His version of the Josephine affair differs in details from Montaldo's, but not in substance.
By manipulating interest rates, he claims, some of those involved in the Saudi loan made off with hundreds of millions of dollars.
As we talked, Pichon repeatedly delved in his blue file for papers to support his argument.
He showed memos that indicated a $25 billion Saudi loan originally financed at an 8.0830% rate of interest, which should have yielded repayments over 20 years of $40,415,150,000.
Then the rate was raised to 9.5367%, yielding $42,915,150,000.
The difference of $2.5 billion provided a handsome surplus from which the middlemen were to take their cut.
Pichon claimed to have identified at least $700m in "commissions" that were subtracted from the first installments of the loan.
The affair might never have come to light, he said, had the French side not become greedy and failed to pay the American intermediaries the share they had agreed.
Much of Pichon's material was photocopied and therefore unverifiable.
Some of the headings on letters purporting to come from Cayman Islands companies looked distinctly fake.
Several documents written in English - notably the affidavit - were riddled with spelling mistakes.
At the same time, however, other documents appeared genuine.
Whether or not this affair is a Byzantine invention by a sinister genius, it seemed incredible that the first person apart from Montaldo or Pichon to be examining the mountain of evidence should be a British reporter and not a detective from the French ministry of justice.
Suppose for a moment that the Josephine affair is the work of forgers and conmen.
If that is the case, then a number of crimes have evidently been committed.
The victims include Mitterrand, Delors, Pierre Mauroy, the former Socialist prime minister, and Roland Dumas, the former foreign minister.
Add to the injured list the American embassy in London and sundry British solicitors and bankers, all of whom appear in Montaldo's and Pichon's files, and the question might fairly be asked: why isn't someone investigating the truth of the Josephine affair?
"In France we lack a tradition of l'auto-critique (self-criticism)," said Pichon as he lit up another Chesterfield.
He settled back in his chair and blew out a cloud of smoke. "There is a new generation of magistrates and even journalists who are starting to change things.
But this internal revolution still needs a little time to acquire critical mass."
For France's European partners, this reluctance to address past sins remains acutely worrying as a new era approaches of financial and political harmonisation.
British confidence in the euro will scarcely be enhanced if Paris continues to give the impression that big international transactions are subject to a 10% rake-off by les commissionaires - the officials who take their commissions.
One problem with getting to the bottom of these scandals is the French accent on an elite cadre of professional administrators who are trained to progress smoothly from government to business and back again.
They are experts at governing France, but when trouble starts their first move is to pull down the shutters.
Another problem - perhaps the only one that really matters - is the brooding enigma of Mitterrand himself.
He arrived in power in 1981, committed to la force tranquille - the virile Socialist reforms that would ease France away from its post-war Gaullist malaise.
By the time he departed in 1995, stricken with prostate cancer, there was little Socialism left in the Mitterrand regime.
He had become a remote, regal figure surrounded by fawning courtiers.
The satirical press nicknamed him Dieu.
The Elysée Palace became known as le château.
Rumours about Mitterrand's Swiss bank accounts dogged most of his career.
During his failed 1974 presidential campaign, Paris journalists were sent anonymous documents identifying the Swiss banker who allegedly controlled Mitterrand's private fortune. The banker, Jean-Pierre François, would later become a regular visitor to the Elysée Palace.
Yet Mitterrand always presented himself publicly as a man of simple tastes, who preferred the neighbourhood bistro to three-star restaurants.
For holidays he would retire to his cottage near Bordeaux, where he would take his labradors truffle-hunting.
He repeatedly expressed contempt for money.
What possible use could such a man have for several hundred million dollars supposedly skimmed from a loan?
Montaldo and Pichon assert that the primary aim of the Josephine affair was not so much to line Mitterrand's pockets but to provide his Socialist party with a solid financial base. Most of the big financial scandals of the past 20 years in France have been linked to party funding, on the left and the right.
In the Josephine case, it is impossible to be specific about the ultimate beneficiaries of the funds that Pichon claims to have traced to a variety of Swiss accounts.
He alleges that, in addition to Socialist party funding, there were significant payoffs to a number of government officials at the time.
Delors's position is clear: "During my time as minister of finance I never heard of this operation."
The president, however, was not who he pretended to be. The family man with country tastes kept his mistress in a handsome government flat on the Quai Branly and retired with her for pleasant weekends at the Château Souzy-la-Briche, a presidential property expensively renovated for his private use.
Of his supposed Swiss accounts there is, not surprisingly, little trace, but one investigating magistrate has recorded a remarkable statement from a company finance director who was giving evidence to an inquiry into one of Pelat's companies, Vibrachoc, which was sold to the state for a vastly inflated price.
The director recalled that he had once arranged a small transfer of funds "to a bank in Lausanne for Monsieur François Mitterrand".
Years later at a dinner in London, a retired diplomat reminiscing about a European summit recalled an occasion when Mitterrand had intervened unexpectedly in a debate about tax harmonisation and the problems posed by Switzerland, Liechtenstein and other tax havens.
A French ambassador later confided that his president was worried that the path to his own funds might be blocked.
It would not be hard to imagine that Mitterrand took certain measures to provide for his two families - there have even been rumours of a third.
At the same time, it must be said that neither his widow nor his daughter shows much sign of living high on the hog. Danielle was recently reduced to auctioning off tacky presidential memorabilia to raise funds for the charity she runs; Mazarine prefers woolly sweaters and anoraks to Parisian haute couture.
Perhaps more serious than the question of personal corruption is the atmosphere of decadence that Mitterrand allowed to permeate his government.
Repeatedly warned by his advisers that he was surrounding himself with "bandits", Mitterrand stuck by his friends, even when, in the notorious case of René Bousquet, the Nazi-era collaborator, they were tainted by allegations of mass murder.
Whatever the reality of the Josephine affair, it now seems clear that France is in serious need of a government committed at least to the idea of public transparency - the notion, still so foreign in Paris, that the people should actually know what its elected representatives are up to.
It also needs an aggressive media prepared to root out corruption.
Instead, it has Montaldo."
1999 Times Newspapers Ltd.
Monday, December 21, 2009
A HOLIDAY GREETING
My Holiday sentiment expressed below, borrowed, lifted entirely from the indefatigable, perhaps, abominable snowman, John Helmer, once again, to my rescue.
Editorial commentary, POEM, below illustration:
(http://johnhelmer.net/?p=2350)
Sunday, December 20, 2009
VALI NASR: THE MESSAGE IS THE MAN, OR, VICA VERSA
In case you have NOT received MY message, BELOW/ABOVE is its premiere spokesperson HERE in his/their most convoluted, exquisitely tortured logic and language.
Ideologue, propagandist extraordinaire and Obooma "advisor," Vali Nasr, not to be confused with Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Indeed, diametrically opposite.
I do not know how much play, exposure, apologist, scumbag, shithead, asshole and whore NAZI Nasr gets elsewhere, abroad, but, he is UBIQUITOUS here, as you can easily see.
The LATTER, SECOND half of the following program interviews Nasr on his favorite theme and tortured logic, both literally and metaphorically, and a transcript below.
Skip the first interview.
GO TO MINUTE 22:00 in the following link.
That's when Nasr's interview begins:
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/podcasts/fareedzakaria/site/2009/12/20/gps.podcast.12.20.cnn?iref=allsearch
And, a transcript, if not provided, yet, coming soon:
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/fzgps.html
And, here is another, more extended interview and variation on Nasr's theme, in case you found yourself slightly confused, befuddled, amused, scratching your head.
An entire youtube section exists devoted to Nasr's interviews, talks, if you search under his name:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTm6DGlhpqs
So, should you be unfamiliar with Nasr's NAZI bona fides, credentials, connections, prominence, background, a couple of cursory links provided below.
See Page 2 in the following:
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/12/20/briefing_book_12-20.09.pdf
And, then:
www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vali_Nasr
And, my first post from earlier today, just below..
NAZI IRAN OCCUPIES NAZI IRAN
The above is NOT a typographical or spelling error.
Has not anyone else besides myself noticed the headline that OUR pipsqueak Iranian junior NAZI partners, creation and rebellious upstarts occupied an Iraq oil well is an ABSURD characterization when IRAN HAS OCCUPIED IRAQ all along, since the beginning of the Gulf War, placed into position by US troops, Sistani's son-in-law, Shahristani, is Baghdad's Oil Minister, Iran's militias are entrenched in Iraq, Iraq's torturer-in-chief, former so-called Iraq National Security Advisor, Muwafaq Al-Rubaie, is Iranian and so on.
Of course, the reality that barbarian Fascist, NAZI imperialist partners liquidate and war with each other is a fact of imperialist life.
GET WITH THE PROGRAM!
It goes with the territory.
It goes without saying.
It makes absolutely NO difference to me if they go at each other and get killed. As a matter of fact, I think it an excellent, superb idea.
The more the better.
It would be an even better idea if Turkey's military, whom nobody here can find, liquidated ALL of them, above, and their own government, together, as well.
And the former Russian Red Army did the same.
And to all concerned about the above, I ask, did/are you
DEMANDING AN END TO IRAN'S OCCUPATION OF IRAQ IN ADDITION TO THE US OR ANY OTHER FOREIGN TROOPS AND PROSECUTION??
ARE YOU RECOGNIZING IRAQ'S OCCUPATION AS LEGITIMATE??
ARE YOU SUPPORTING RESTORATION OF THE FORMER BAATH ARAB SOCIALIST PARTY, IRAQ'S FORMER CONSTITUTION and NATIONALIZED INDUSTRIES AND RESOURCES??
Until and unless you can answer affirmatively YES to any of the former questions, as well as ones similar at home and ELSEWHERE abroad, then, it is just fine with me if all the troops everywhere kill off each other.
The more the merrier.
A very merry Christmas and Happy New Year, indeed.
It is only a logical expediency, exigency, expectation, outcome of such policies.
So, I do not wish to hear whining and complaining that seems to be prevalent, at least, here, in addition to myopic apathy, ignorance, stupidity, excuses, rationalizations, apologetics, etc.
It is a waste of yours and ours and everyone's time and energy.
If YOUR ECONOMICS are dependent upon NAZI imperialism, than, by Jove, be imperialist.
When falling, fall.
Stop pretending at something other than objective reality.
Being determines consciousness.
Dive into it.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do.
Cheers for the British Empire on which the sun never set.
Or, the Chinese Emperor, alas, who lost their/his opportunity for global dominance awhile back due to a few bad, inopportune decisions and unlucky, unfortunate events.
Otherwise, we might all be speaking Chinese, here, instead of, or, in addition to, English, French, Spanish or Portuguese.
Let's have alittle pride in the exigencies, necessities, realities of daily imperialist life rather than this ceaseless schizophrenic, impotent, browbeating, self-deprecating angst, hypocritical self-flagellation and bogus morality, a la our ersatz, sanctimonious religious fundamentalist creations both here and abroad.
Sarah Palin is correct.
Since we are a NAZI imperialist economy, then, let's have honest, true, proud, forthright, straightforward advocates of such policies in government rather than pretend, PR, NAZI wolves, Fuhrer, Party, dressed in Sheep's clothing.
Why are they all, as well as elsewhere, SO ashamed, embarrassed they feel compelled to represent themselves as something they are NOT??
One wonders, just now, who stole the unpleasant Auschwitz sign, reminder, in Poland,
"Arbeit Macht Frei?"
ANY of the above are conspiratorial suspects, culprits.
Friday, December 18, 2009
TURKEY, GREECE and HERE
Greek General Strike December 17:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/teacherdudebbq2/4187577463/in/photostream/
(Continuing the subject matter from my previous posts, below...)
Turkey Tekel workers third day of riots...
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=tekel-workers-dispersed-by-police-on-third-day-of-riots-2009-12-17
Turkey's General Lashes Out...
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/93989/turkey-39-s-top-general-lashes-out-at-circles-showing-terrorist-attacks-as-false-flag-operations.html
In contrast, back in the insecure Homeland of the greatest United Suckers and Assholes country on planet Earth, aside from multi-billion, trillion dollar tax subsidies, gifts, giveaways, bonanzas, boondoggles to MAJOR FINANCIAL CORPORATIONS, the following ALSO:
"House passes defense bill 395-30
By Roxana Tiron - 12/16/09 04:31 PM ET
The House on Wednesday passed a $636.3 billion defense appropriations bill by a vote of 395-30, sending the must-pass spending measure to the Senate for a final vote...
...The massive Pentagon spending bill also contains $128.3 billion in war funds..."
FROM:
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/72601-house-passes-defense-bill-395-30
And, the UNPRINCIPLED NAZI labor carpetbaggers and scumbags below CONTINUE scuttling Single Payer and support, instead, their stinking, bogus, red herring public option alternative and NOBODY holds them accountable:
http://blog.aflcio.org/2009/12/17/trumka-senate-health-care-bill-must-change-to-be-real-reform/
The globe is now so deeply compromised, mired, enmeshed, entrenched in a debauched, debased, depraved, barbaric CAPITALIST NAZI STATE sewer, gutter, muck and mire, swimming in a denial toilet bowl, that it will take further war and many more explosions to change anything.
United Suckers and Assholes are NOT alone.
But, Russia's despicable, deplorable, piece of criminal, intertwined NAZI oligarch artwork that calls itself a government is THE worst, considering their historical background, revolution and WWII.
Where is Russia's RED Army??
What happened to all of them??
Are they now ALL languishing in prisons, except for the collaborators??
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