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Nukes and Missiles and Bombs, Oh My!


Mike Malloy
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You may have missed this when it was first made public, so here it is again: Former Bush Crime Family capo and U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld sat on the board of a company which sold two light water nuclear reactors to North Korea -- a country which is now (still) causing many heart palpitations and much hand fluttering in official Washington.

Rumsfeld was a director of ABB, a European engineering giant based in Zurich, when it won a $200 million contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors. He sat on the board from 1990 to 2001, earning $190,000 a year. He left to join the Bush administration, and shortly after taking over the planning and eventual execution of two attacks against countries that had done nothing to warrant U.S. carpet bombing, joined with President Chucklenutz in declaring North Korea part of the phantasmagoric in Bush's pretend "axis of eeeeeeevil."

Newsweek article (by Christopher Dickey and Evan Thomas) written in 2002, reported on a visit by Rumsfeld to Baghdad on Dec. 20, 1983, that launched U.S. support for Saddam Hussein in his war of attrition against Iran. The Iran/Iraq war claimed the lives of millions and was notable for its savagery, including Iraq's use of poison gas against Iranian troops as well as against Kurds in northern Iraq who were seen by Saddam as being a "fifth column."  Rumsfeld claimed he made the visit in an effort to "curb terrorism" in Lebanon. During this time, Rumsfeld was President Reagan's Special Envoy to the Middle East (1983-1984).

A Senate report from 1994 confirms that disease-producing and poisonous materials were exported, under U.S. government license, to Iraq from 1985 to 1988 during the Iran-Iraq war. Furthermore, the report adds, the American-exported materials were identical to microorganisms destroyed by United Nations inspectors after the first attack against Iraq in 1991.  The shipments were approved despite allegations that Saddam used biological weapons against Kurdish rebels and (according to the official U.S. position) initiated the war with Iran.

Rumsfeld has always denied he had any connection whatsoever to the sale of "disease-producing" or "poisonous materials" being sold to Iraq or any other country.  In 1985 (five years after the Iraq-Iran war started) and in succeeding years, said the report, "pathogenic (meaning "disease producing"), toxigenic (meaning "poisonous") and other biological research materials were exported to Iraq, pursuant to application and licensing by the U.S. Department of Commerce." The Senate report added:

"These exported biological materials were not attenuated or weakened and were capable of reproduction." The report then details 70 shipments (including anthrax bacillus) from the United States to Iraqi government agencies over three years, concluding, "It was later learned that these microorganisms exported by the United States were identical to those the United Nations inspectors found and recovered from the Iraqi biological warfare program."

According to Wikipedia,  from 1977 to 1985 Rumsfeld served as Chief Executive Officer, President, and then Chairman of G. D. Searle & Company, a worldwide pharmaceutical company based in Skokie, Illinois. During his tenure at Searle, Rumsfeld led the company's financial turnaround, thereby earning awards as the Outstanding Chief Executive Officer in the Pharmaceutical Industry from the Wall Street Transcript (1980) and Financial World (1981). It was during Rumsfeld's tenure with Searle that he was Reagan's Middle East Special Envoy.  In 1985, Searle was sold to Monsanto. Rumsfeld is believed to have earned around $12 million from this sale.

Okay. So what?

Just this: No matter the man-made global horror -- war, torture prisons, nuclear weapons proliferation, mega-death -- the ruling elite will make trillions of dollars. The soldiers' lives ended, the blood spilled, the civilians blown into red mist, the psychological destruction carried home by combat-weary men and women, none of it matters to the business and government elite who are the benefactors of all this fear and death and destruction, who are made wealthy by this chaos and horror.

So . . . give all this a thought the next time you see a television news report regarding the current spook show which is, at least for today, North Korea's sudden nuclear "threat."

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Mike Malloy is a former writer and producer for CNN (1984-87) and CNN-International (2000). His professional experience includes newspaper columnist and editor, writer, rock concert producer and actor. He is the only radio talk show host in America to have received the A.I.R (Achievement in Radio) Award in both (more...)
 
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