The Bush-Putin-Gold Connection

When someone is asked to remove something from the Internet for national security purposes, I sit up and take note.  Then I immediately scour archives for the offending piece of information in hope that it will not be lost forever.  (First place to look:  The Memory Hole.)  Naturally, I was concerned when I read Al Martin's weekly column in which he wrote:

“Readers should be advised that I am withdrawing a previous story, now in the archives of Al Martin Raw.com, at the request of the US State Department. The article in question revealed an ongoing conspiracy, between the Bush and Putin Regimes, to illicitly manipulate the price of certain high value metals and to further, and unlawfully, allow certain Russian corporations to purchase US corporation's involved in the production of domestic natural resources.”

I searched the archives and found the offending post, which I have quoted liberally.  Very liberally, but not technically in its entirety.  It's something that everyone should read.   Al has a subscription service for $6.95 a month.  It's one of the few sites that I find worthy of a monthly subscription, even though the content scares me at times.

Russia: The Best Enemy US Taxpayers Can Buy – Again; The Bush-Putin Conspiracy

(Mar 15) For the first time in 24 years, on March 1, platinum traded above $900 an ounce, having doubled its price over the past 18 months. This event bespeaks of the conspiracy that the Bush Regime and the Russian government have entered, in order to force the price of platinum higher. Russia, it should be noted, produces 3/5 of the world’s platinum, and it is a substantial export earner for Russia. And this is how the conspiracy has been orchestrated...

 The Bush-Cheney Regime has passed a series of discreet laws regarding the mining industry. These laws have acted to discourage platinum production in the United States. It’s often forgotten that the United States, although not a large platinum producer, accounts for about 10% of the world’s platinum production. To further aid this conspiracy, last year the Bush Cheney Regime unlawfully allowed a Russian company Norilsk secretly controlled by the Russian government to purchase Stillwater Mining which is the largest platinum producer in the United States. In fact it mines 90% of all US platinum. Stillwater is headquartered in Denver and its primary mining operations are in Montana. The company does both hard rock and leach platinum mining.

 After they bought it, the Russians closed down Stillwater mining operations, using the lie that the market was over saturated with platinum. The Russian government had been withholding the metal in order to force up prices.

 It should be once again noted that the purchase of Stillwater Mining by the Russian government (granted, it was through a supposedly private company, but the Russian government was behind it) is unlawful in that platinum is classified as a strategic metal.

  It is against the law for a Russian firm, controlled by the Russian government, to purchase any mining company in the United States which produces any strategic metal or mineral. “Strategic” in this case means that besides any precious metal value it has and its normal industrial value, it is a metal which is needed to build certain weapons systems, principally strategic weapons systems.

 So what is the purpose of this conspiracy? Why is the Bush Cheney Regime interested in helping Russia dramatically increase the price of one of its prime exports?

 It is simply to help the Russian government t earn as much revenue as possible to aid the Russian government in its re-arming – to make Russia once again a strategic threat to the United States in order to justify Bush-Cheney Regimes intentions (as can be seen on their PNAC website) of constructing a new American military empire in the 21st century. By recreating enemies of the past. By redividing the world behind “Curtains” both “Iron” and “Bamboo,” in order to justify a second enormous military build-up a la 1984-1987.

 The US military build-up ultimately has to be justified, and you can’t justify doubled defense expenditures on “terrorism.”

 This is especially so, when $200 billion a year is being spent to build strategic weapons system which have no value in any war against “terrorism.”

 The reasons why this instance stands out is that the Bush-Cheney Regime late last year 2003 had expressed “concerns” over Russia’s continuing development of their TOPOL-M strategic missile system, which is supposedly the most advanced such system ever developed.

 According to the Bush-Cheney Regime, it is a decade ahead of our own MX missile program. They said that they didn’t expect it to be built until 2010, due to the shortage of hard currency. The Russians announced over the weekend that they had completed the development and had begin to deploy the TOPOL-M missile system that the Bush Cheney Regime was “so concerned” about. They said that they had been able to accelerate and complete the program due to increases in the price of platinum and the explosion in export revenue they had earned from that price increase.

 Then the Bush-Cheney Regime comes out with an announcement expressing extreme surprise, shock and concern, adding that we will now have to spend an additional $58 billion of the American taxpayers’ money to accelerate the development of the ABM missile program. This puts the whole conspiracy into a different light. Of that $58 billion, most of it will go to the Rockwell consortium. In fact, the chairman of Rockwell said on CNBC that in 2004 Rockwell will be increasing its contribution to the Republican Party by $30 million. And that’s the nuts and bolts of the conspiracy.

 (Meanwhile the thousands of employees of Stillwater Mining who were laid off and who were picketing, trying to bring to the attention of the press that the Stillwater sale to Norilsk was illegal -- and not one mainstream media outlet in the United States would cover their demonstration. These employees should sue the US government for the loss of their jobs in that the sale of this company was illegal. The Russian government did not even apply for the necessary waivers in order to get out of the strategic metals and minerals ban. The laid off employees have a cause of action against the United States government.)

 The Bush Cheney Regime is thus deliberately increasing the cost to American consumers in order to help the rearming of Russia and China. People are aware of how this is being done with China. In fact, only six weeks after coming into office, the Bush Cheney Regime granted China Most Favored Nation trade status. This is something the Clinton administration refused to do. Then they also reversed the Clinton position and supported the entrance of China into the World Trade Organization (WTO), without requiring the Chinese to meet WTO or BIS (Bank of International Settlement) mandates, in terms of making the Chinese Yuan convertible.

 This debate goes on every day about how the Bush administration gets pressured even from its own supporters in business and industry, who are always hammering on the Bush Regime to exert pressure on China to make the Yuan free to trade. This is something the Chinese aren’t going to do, because they know if they do, the Chinese Yuan would rise sharply in value. This would then diminish their export capability.

 But this is talked about all the time. What isn’t discussed is how the Bush Cheney Regime has covertly entered into conspiracies with the Putin government in order to increase commodity prices which directly affect American consumers. One of these conspiracies has caused the price of platinum to increase dramatically, the price having doubled over the past two years.

 A secondary conspiracy which has worked between the two regime’s concerns the effort to increase the price of palladium. Palladium is called platinum’s weak sister or little brother, simply because it’s a cheaper metal. Not only is Russia the world’s largest producer of platinum, it is also the largest producer of palladium on the planet.

 Palladium has fewer applications and the market is thus smaller. Thanks to this collusion between the Bush Regime and there Putin Regime, the price of palladium has in fact risen 50% within the last 12 months. At the end of February 2003, for the first time in 20 years, palladium traded above $250 an ounce. This has also profited Russia enormously in that it is the largest producer and exporter of palladium.

 This was the key measure undertaken by the Bush Regime in this conspiracy with the Russian government in order to push palladium prices higher domestically, since the United States is the largest consumer of palladium industrially.

 Over the last twelve months, the Putin government was concerned that General Motors was very close to successfully developing the technology to substitute silver for palladium in catalytic converters. By the way, catalytic converter technology is not only used in cars, trucks and other vehicles, it also spans the entire industrial spectrum. This technology is used to effectively reduce hydrocarbon emissions, specifically sulfur, in any hydrocarbon fueled power generation plants. They are also used in so-called industrial plant scrubber technology.

 After General Motors announced last march that its technical division was very close in working out the science necessary to substitute silver for palladium, which would have reduced the cost of producing catalytic converters by more than 50%. That was one of the big reasons to do it. It wasn’t the hydrocarbon emissions as it was the enormous profit potential for reducing the price of catalytic converters and thus making them more saleable, particularly to the utility industry, which is the biggest market, even larger than the automotive market. There is a hundred times more metal used in one catalytic converter on one smokestack of an old coal burning utility plant than there is building 10,000 cars.

 In order to prevent this from happening, General Motors was using some of the technology developed by a Monsanto consortium. General Motors had actually licensed this technology and developed it further.

 Meanwhile the Bush Cheney Regime, in order to help the Russians and ensure that palladium prices would stay firm and even increase in price, undertook measures of their own

 In March 2003, the Bush Cheney Regime had become aware that GM had made the necessary breakthroughs to make the substitution of silver for palladium in catalytic converters possible

 In April 2003, the Bush Cheney Regime quietly withdrew the tax incentives that were given to the R&D companies for the conversion of palladium to silver. These were the tax incentives that firms were relying on to further their R&D work.

 At the same time the Monsanto consortium which had granted an effective put option on the licensing of the basic technology, went back to General Motors and said you either effectuate this option to buy this technology from us for $35 billion, which happened to be ten times the agreed upon price – or we’ll take the technology back.

 The reason this offer was made was due to the coziness of Monsanto and the Bushonian Cabal. It was done to pressure GM out of it. Like most technology license deals, it was an either-or deal – at the option of the licensor not the licensee. Usually the licensor would get a percentage, a certain number of dollars for every new catalytic converter produced with this new technology. Monsanto however made it clear that they would opt out of that kind of deal. Instead they said you’re going to have to buy the patent-licensing rights from us.

 General Motors had an independent estimate done, what the technology was actually worth, by the National Academy of Sciences, which told them that the technology, in terms of its commercial application was worth $3.5 billion.

 Monsanto meanwhile had told GM that they wanted $35 billion – not $3.5 billion. There was nothing GM could do about it. GM passed.

 Now here’s how the conspiracy kills more than two birds with one stone. Monsanto does not have a big environmental controls business. They had no way to really profit from the technology. They’ve had to get involved with others or sell it. It only cost Monsanto about $240 million to develop it because they just stumbled into it. It cost them hardly anything and they had no real use for it.

 Monsanto then took the technology back and resold for $435 million (not $35 billion) to guess who?

 Halliburton Environmental Controls Corporation, a subsidiary of the Halliburton Corporation.

 After the sale to Halliburton was effectuated in September through its offshore global environmental post office box based division in Vaduz, Liechtenstein for $435 million. Of which they only had to come up with $85 million in cash. The other $350 million was a senior non-subordinated debenture from Monsanto.

 Do you think that other $350 million is going to get paid anytime soon?

 Cue up the laugh track once again.

 Furthermore after the sale was effectuated to a shadowy offshore division of Halliburton in Liechtenstein which isn’t reportable to any US agency, including the Securities and Exchange Commission. Its not reportable to any US agency for anything.

 Then guess what happened? Two days later on September 12,. there was only one paper in the world that reports this sale. It was the Zurich issue of the Journal of Industrial Metals or Commerce or some publication with a similar title. Some incredibly esoteric publication that probably has a subscription of only 3000 people on the entire planet.

 Then on September 14, the Bush Cheney Regime announces that suddenly the tax incentives are back for the conversion technology. But now the conversion technology is a Monsanto Halliburton deal. And get this – as always with the Bush tax incentives, hey you bought it through a shadowy offshore corporation, don’t worry. You still want your tax incentive? The only thing you need to do is have a post office box in Washington DC and a registered agent (not even a corporate counsel of record).

 Halliburton Global Environmental Services Division Ltd opens up a Halliburton Global Environmental Systems (USA), which exists as an office of convenience in the international building in Washington at 1800 I Street NW, where all the offices of convenience are . So a post office box, a drop box and an office elf convenience, then suddenly the Monsanto Halliburton consortium is entitled to a $150 million taxpayer funded tax incentive to produce the technology.

 To make it even sweeter, Halliburton than says to the Russian government, with whom it does much more business than is commonly presumed, since Halliburton is a primary partner in this new Novosibirsk oil field deal - - look when Halliburton develops this technology, we will give you a fixed price put option to sell to us all the palladium you can produce. In other words, don’t worry about it; we’ll protect you.

 These seemingly esoteric transactions accomplish three or four very large items on a macro scale. This series of shadowy transactions were not widely reported because there are so few people who are really interested.

 That’s how it all works (and how it worked during the Reagan-Bush Regime) was by making it all so esoteric, knowing that nobody’s really interested in even reading about it. Can you imagine Wolf Blitzer on CNN trying to explain the intricacies of catalytic converter technology and substitution of metals? Everybody watching it would turn the channels.

 At last count Halliburton itself has 1,734 global subsidiaries. That was actually reported on Cayman Island News, which did a story that followed up on the 60 Minutes piece about Halliburton scams. Of these subsidiaries, 1,558 were offices of convenience and drop boxes, i.e., they were paper front companies, in that they exist nowhere except in an attorney's file drawer.

 This conspiracy between the Bush regime and the Putin Regime then is to help increase commodity prices for which Russia is the largest producer and exporter in order for Russia to gain additional hard currency to devote to military spending, specifically to rebuilding and modernizing their strategic forces.

 The Russian defense minister admitted that it was the dramatic increase in the price of platinum that provided them the additional revenue to develop their new TOPOL-M strategic missile system ahead of schedule. Then the Bush Cheney Regime made a big deal about it because this system is supposed to be more advanced than the anticipated capability of our ABM system to provide an effective strategic deterrence.

 By the way, the current ABM system has been tested and the only flying objects it was able to shoot down thus far was a flock of seagulls, which its targeting systems mistook for a mock incoming Russian missile. (The Patriot Missile scam is another one, also recently covered on the 60 Minutes show.) Rumsfeld then announced that the Russians developed a new system despite our pressure. How disingenuous it is for Rumsfeld to say this – after the Bush Cheney Regime entered into a conspiracy to increase the price of platinum and palladium which gave Russia the revenue not only to speed up the development of the missile system, but to complete it 18 months ahead of schedule. Then Rumsfeld uses the completion of the system as a reason to devote $200 billion to accelerate ultimate deployment of our anti-ballistic missile program. There’s the complete circle.

 By the way, the ABM (Anti-Ballistic Missile) program, which successive regimes since 1979 have attempted to develop, has cost $2.2 trillion of the American taxpayers’ money thus far, according to DoD statistics. This ABM system fraud has been ongoing. It was the same one, which then DARPA head Jack Verona in 1985 attempted to disclose by releasing the report which ultimately cost him his job. They set Verona up and tried to discredit him by saying he was a drunk who slept with a Russian agent – after he leaked out the DARPA report on the ABM system, which said that the technology necessary to perfect the system would not exist until 2012 at the earliest.

 And yet $2.2 trillion of the American taxpayers money has been wasted on it already. It should also be noted that of that total expenditure from 1979 to date, the Department of Defense cannot account for $1.4 trillion, as reported in GAO audits. That ABM weapons fraud has been the greatest single weapons fraud ever perpetrated against American taxpayers in the history of the republic.”

Added to the archives:

SPECIAL BULLETIN (3-17-04)

Re: Al Martin Raw.Com’s column called "Russia: The Best Enemy US Taxpayers Can Buy – Again; The Bush-Putin Conspiracy" (3-15-04)about the unlawful conspiracy by the Bush-Cheney and Putin regimes with the intent being to push the price of platinum higher.

  It has now been “suggested” to Al Martin Raw.com by the US State Department that this story be “corrected” regarding certain pertinent details.

 To wit:

 A. Neither the Bush-Cheney nor the Putin Regime acted to foster an unlawful conspiracy to push the price of platinum higher.

 B. The Norilsk mining corporation is not secretly controlled by the Russian government and indeed has no affiliation with said government

 C. Pursuant to this transaction, no monies were paid into the Bush Family controlled shadowy offshore Panama-registered “Pilgrim Investment Trust,” nor were monies paid into any such shadowy offshore trusts or corporations controlled by any members of the Bush Family

 D. Pursuant to this transaction, no monies were paid into the shadowy Panama-registered DLC Trust, S.A. Ltd (Dick and Lynne Cheney Trust) nor any shadowy offshore trust or coporation controlled by the Vice President or his family

 E. The international consulting firm owned by Neil Bush was not involved in this transaction and hence received no consulting “fees” thereunto.

 F. The Carlyle investment group was not involved in this transaction and hence its European operations general manager Marvin Bush received no special remuneration.

  G. The approximately 1,300 American employees of Stillwater Mining corporation who lost their jobs as a result of this illegal transaction have absolutely no legal recourse against either the American or Russian governments or the Norilsk mining corporation.