How much money has GHW Bush stolen over time?

[Mark Gorton]

While reading "The Immaculate Deception, The Bush Crime Family Exposed", by Russell Bowen, I came across an interesting assertion by Chicago journalist and researcher Sherman Skolnick (pages 162-165). Skolnick claims to seen court records which private transactions between GHW Bush and Saddam Hussien involving kickbacks from the entire gulf region. Skolnick claims that oil companies paid kickbacks to Saddam Hussien. These kickbacks were then split with GHW Bush. The money apparently flowed through accounts at BNL (Banco Nazionale del Lavoro) in Chicago. The total amount of these kickbacks were $10 billion, and this amount was supposedly split between Saddam and Bush. So if this is true, GHW Bush received $5 Billion for just this one scheme.

In Defrauding America, Rodney Stitch writes of bank accounts of GHW Bush in BCCI containing $200M. This is the only concrete number of money stolen by Bush that I have seen. But going by the rule of thumb that we only know about 5% of the money stolen, this would give an estimate of GHW Bush stealing $5 Billion over time.

GHW Bush ran a giant drug trafficking operation for years that must have generated hundreds of millions or billions in profits. If a mid-level operative like Barry Seal can make tens of millions, the guy at the top must be making hundreds of millions or billions.

Based on pretty sparse evidence, I estimate that GHW Bush has stolen $10B -$20 B over time. But this is really just an estimate based on little hard evidence.

And it strikes me as likely that the Bush family was able to steal billions during the second Iraq war, but I have not had time to do much research on this topic.

I would be very interested if anyone has other info about the amount of money Bush has stolen over time.

[Len Colby]

I wouldn't be surprised if he stole millions but Skolnick and Stitch are NOT reliable sources.

[Mark Gorton]

Len, Why do you find Skolnick and Stitch to be unreliable?

[Greg Burnham]

The late Sherman Skolnick was a personal friend of mine. His research skills were exemplary; his courage to expose corruption was unparalleled; his dedication to the truth was stellar.

[Len Colby]

Len, Why do you find Skolnick and Stitch to be unreliable?

Len, Why do you find Skolnick and Stitch to be unreliable?

Because of the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” principle; they have/had a habit of making false/far fetched/unreliable claims. Both made all sorts of claims based on nothing but supposed confidential sources. This is questionable when it comes from a MSM journalist who often has an editor who is aware of the source's true identity and cite other evidence but very questionable when it comes from obscure sources. Skolnick spread all sorts of BS regarding the Dorothy Hunt crash and other incidents.

Stich claimed to have tapes recorded by CIA agents of Rockefeller speaking to Hoover in

which they implicated themselves and others in the JFK assassination. Supposedly he gave the tapes to Larry McDonald just before the congressman was killed in the KAL 007 shootdown, but never explained why he failed to make copies of the supposed tapes or gave them to a far-right outcast from another state. Too make a long story short this was pure BS. And apparently it was him who told Russ Baker that the 'other' “George Bush of the CIA” was a “coast and landing-beach analyst” when he said he was a “junior watch officer”.

Nor do we have a rational explanation at to why more former agents confided in an obscure CT rather than journalists like Woodward or Hersh or even a more well known CT like Ruppert, why go through the risk if virtually no one will hear about what you nave say?

I also don't trust former government agents or officials who milk their past service for much longer than they actually served, they tend to give good credible information at first but as with Shayler and Edmonds they almost inevitably start spouting nonsense after a while. I wouldn't be surprised if Stich's claims when he left the FAA in the 1960's were credible.

[Mark Gorton]

Len, Do you have specific examples where either Rodney Stitch's or Sherman Skolnick's claims were proven to be false.

And Stitch never claimed to have the tapes of J. Edgar Hoover discussing the planning of the JFK assassination. Stitch was told (I forget by who) that that person had heard these tapes. The tapes were supposedly then given to Larry McDonald who supposedly was planning to to bring them to the public, but then McDonald's flight was shot down.

I admit that the story of these tapes is a bit thin. It sounds plausible to me that the CIA would be tapping Hoover's phone, and the conversation that is described matches a very sophisticated and advanced understanding the JFK assassination. But why would they not make copies of these tapes? That does not make sense to me.

In any event, Stitch does not present the story of the tapes as being gospel. He presents it as a data point that is not corroborated by anything else, but that is quite interesting and the reader should consider it. Even if the story of the tapes turns out to be a lie, it would not impugn Stitches credibility.

[Len Colby]

My bad a poorly formatted post on this forum made it appear that Stich claimed to have heard the tapes. The rest of my previous posts stands. Why would these guys go through the risk and hassle of revealing such deep secrets but doing so though such obscure characters? False claims from Skolnick? He made a few regarding the Dorothy Hunt crash, they were discussed here a few years ago And what about his claim of a on going British plot dating back to 1812 to recolonize the US?

Let's turn this around can you point to any claims they made that were confirmed later?

[Mark Gorton]

Len, My knowledge of Rodney Stitch is just from reading "Defrauding America" and looking a bit at his website. Defrauding America has lots of stuff in it. The first part is Rodney Stitch's own story. I assume that most of this story can be checked out through court records, but his story sounds plausible to me. And other than the fact that an honest American can be thrown into jail for being too honest, nothing about Rodney's own story is particularly unbelievable to me.

The vast majority of "Defrauding America" is a compilation of scandals that are well documented elsewhere: BCCI, Inslaw, SNL fraud, the October Surprise, CIA drug running, etc. Rodney does have interviews with people who add information to these scandals, but even without the new interviews he does, there is lots of evidence of these scandals.

What makes "Defrauding America" different is Rodney Stitch's access to a number of deep cover black ops guys who tell him their story. He meets some of these guys in jail and wins their trust due to their common backgrounds and experiences. These guys risk their lives because they are honest, patriotic Americans. They trust Rodney because they know him and he is willing to take them seriously. Some of their claims are breathtaking, and the mainstream media would not be very receptive to their claims. It is the story of these black ops guys who were involved in some of the most dirty stuff out there that make up the bulk of new revelations in the book. Many of these revelations have only one source, so it is hard to know if they are telling the truth.

So a big question becomes, can you trust the stories of these black ops guys? A lot of what they say is shocking, but I am inclined to credit most of these stories as true. Here is my logic for trusting them;

1) We know that there is a secret cabal who is doing a lot of nasty stuff.

2) Many crimes of the cabal have come to light over time and are documented by the mainstream press and sometimes even government investigation

3) It stands to reason that only a small fraction of the actual crimes are ever brought to light and documented, so the existence of other crimes is very reasonable.

4) Most of the crimes by the cabal/secret govt are run in highly compartmentalized ways, so only a small number of people would know the details

5) The guys telling these stories are exactly the sort of black ops people who know what is really going on

6) Many of these guys have no incentive to make up crimes that don't exist. They have no reason to lie about this stuff.

7) A large number of people are killed to keep these stories quiet, so although we don't know the details of what the dead people would have said, we can infer that something really, really nasty was going on. And the stories from Defrauding America align with the evidence provided by the bodies.

Have you read "Defrauding America"? It is worth reading to evaluate its claims for yourself.

I know a lot less about Skolnick. I have read only a tiny bit of stuff from him, so I can't really say. I just ordered a collection of his writings, so I can take a look myself. This now goes on the reading list. My quick feeling about Skolnick is that he has done some great research at times in his life. He was able to perceive the incredible corruption of the American government, and this perception frames his writings. He writes about a very broad range of stuff, and I doubt he can be really expert about it all. Some of his stuff is well documented, so some of his work can be tested for its validity. I think he is an honest person who does not make stuff up, but I do think he has a tendency to speculate based on incomplete information. You certainly can't take everything he says a gospel, but he is more right about these things than the New York Times, etc. (Not that that is saying very much).

[Russ Baker]

Len, Why do you find Skolnick and Stitch to be unreliable?

Len, Why do you find Skolnick and Stitch to be unreliable?

Because of the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” principle; they have/had a habit of making false/far fetched/unreliable claims. Both made all sorts of claims based on nothing but supposed confidential sources. This is questionable when it comes from a MSM journalist who often has an editor who is aware of the source's true identity and cite other evidence but very questionable when it comes from obscure sources. Skolnick spread all sorts of BS regarding the Dorothy Hunt crash and other incidents.

Stich claimed to have tapes recorded by CIA agents of Rockefeller speaking to Hoover in

which they implicated themselves and others in the JFK assassination. Supposedly he gave the tapes to Larry McDonald just before the congressman was killed in the KAL 007 shootdown, but never explained why he failed to make copies of the supposed tapes or gave them to a far-right outcast from another state. Too make a long story short this was pure BS. And apparently it was him who told Russ Baker that the 'other' “George Bush of the CIA” was a “coast and landing-beach analyst” when he said he was a “junior watch officer”.

Nor do we have a rational explanation at to why more former agents confided in an obscure CT rather than journalists like Woodward or Hersh or even a more well known CT like Ruppert, why go through the risk if virtually no one will hear about what you nave say?

I also don't trust former government agents or officials who milk their past service for much longer than they actually served, they tend to give good credible information at first but as with Shayler and Edmonds they almost inevitably start spouting nonsense after a while. I wouldn't be surprised if Stich's claims when he left the FAA in the 1960's were credible.

The problem of people posting claims that certain things are BS is that they themselves may be guilty of ladling on more BS. For example, I don't know Stich and have never had any communication with him. He absolutely did NOT tell me anything about "the other George Bush" or about any subject, period. Beware of things that "apparently" or "supposedly" happened.

[Len Colby]

What makes "Defrauding America" different is Rodney Stitch's access to a number of deep cover black ops guys who tell him their story. He meets some of these guys in jail and wins their trust due to their common backgrounds and experiences. These guys risk their lives because they are honest, patriotic Americans. They trust Rodney because they know him and he is willing to take them seriously. Some of their claims are breathtaking, and the mainstream media would not be very receptive to their claims. It is the story of these black ops guys who were involved in some of the most dirty stuff out there that make up the bulk of new revelations in the book. Many of these revelations have only one source, so it is hard to know if they are telling the truth.

From what I've read of his writings his sources are normally unnamed or dead, so you have to take his word for it he was told these things. How "common" were their "backgrounds and experiences" wasn't his career path, navy pilot, airline pilot, FAA inspector, professional CT?

1) We know that there is a secret cabal who is doing a lot of nasty stuff.

I don't share that assumption.

Some of his stuff is well documented, so some of his work can be tested for its validity.

Cite some examples

I think he is an honest person who does not make stuff up, but I do think he has a tendency to speculate based on incomplete information. You certainly can't take everything he says a gospel, but he is more right about these things than the New York Times, etc. (Not that that is saying very much).

Have you read his rantings about an ongoing plot British plot dating back to 1812 to recolonize the US?

[Len Colby]

The problem of people posting claims that certain things are BS is that they themselves may be guilty of ladling on more BS. For example, I don't know Stich and have never had any communication with him. He absolutely did NOT tell me anything about "the other George Bush" or about any subject, period. Beware of things that "apparently" or "supposedly" happened.

Apologies, my bad.

PS did you ever reply to Jim DiEugenio's review of your book?

http://www.ctka.net/reviews/family_secrets.html

[Mark Gorton]

Len,

Most of Rodney Stitches sources are names. Some are alive or at least lived long enough to make similar statements/videos that at least document that Rodney was quoting them correctly. A bunch of the people who talked to him are ex-military pilots (Chip Tatum, etc.) So their common background, flying in WWII, working for the govt after the war, unjustly imprisoned by a corrupt system is pretty similar. I gave my copy of Defrauding America to my mother, so I am doing this from memory, so I have a hard time with some names and details.

In terms of examples of stuff that Rodney writes about that are well documented: BCCI, Inslaw, October Surprise, SNL Fraud, etc. Only a small fraction of what he writes about (Operation Whalewatch, Operation Mount Rushmore, etc.) are not documented elsewhere (to the best of my knowledge).

I don't know much about Sherman Skolnick. I have just been looking at his website, and he certainly does claim a lot of stuff without documentation. And some of his stuff strikes me as false. I would not look at him as a solid source, but I have found that there can be use in having guys who are not afraid to be out there. Some of their speculation later proves to be valid, so I consider Skolnick more an interesting source of ideas to be tested rather than a solid researcher.

However, it seems the biggest difference in our perception is that you don't agree about the existence of the secret cabal. This is a very big point. There have always been groups of powerful people who have operated behind the scenes. But the criminal cabal that I refer to was solidified/quickened during the JFK assassination/Coup of 63. These guys were bonded together by a need to keep the secret of the assassination hidden.

Imagine yourself one of the gang that was responsible for the Coup. These guys spend the rest of their lives afraid of getting caught. What they did was treason and people get hung for treason. They can never rest, and they are bonded in a common mission to keep the dark secrets hidden. These are guys who form a network that transcends their tenor in govt. This network operates with the compartmentalized confines of intelligence organizations. Due to the nature of the places they work, these guys can do pretty much whatever they want and very few people will ever know about it.

One of the secrets of success of the cabal is its ability to control/influence the presidency. Controlling the presidency gives anyone a lot of power, including the power to stop most legal investigations. LBJ is a founding father of the cabal. Ford is one of their boys, and GHW Bush first as VP then as president is heir to LBJ's throne. Clinton gets invited in as a hard partying junior member.

The cabal over time is responsible for a huge amount of crime: RFK's killing, dozens and dozens of other deaths to cover-up the Coup of 63, Watergate, MLK's killing, shooting George Wallace, October Surprise, and on and on.

I believe that all of the stuff I have just said is not particularly new or shocking. I would be curious to see where your thinking diverges from mine. Do you think the JFK assassination was a full scale coup d'etat?

Mark

[Len Colby]

Chip Tatum is not at all credible, and his imprisonment seems to have fully justified*. When was Stich “unjustly imprisoned”?

* http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=18784&hl=tatum

You didn't understand or are avoiding my question. Yes “BCCI, Inslaw, October Surprise, SNL [sic] Fraud” are “well documented” but this stories all broke before he published his book. Can you you point to any revelations he made about them or other issues that you think were reliably confirmed later?

He seems to put faith in sources who aren't credible such as Tatum. The following comes from a rave review of his book:

According to Stich's informant Robert L. Freeman, an all black assassination team was trained by the U.S. military for an ultra secret operation intended to destabilize Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia -- prior to the Vietnam War.

"Freeman was one of 45 blacks trained by the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy and CIA for the sole purpose of killing anyone, including U.S. service men and advisors," writes Stich. "He described in great detail how his group was mentally brainwashed, trained and armed, engaged in random and indiscriminate killings to destabilize the region and justify U.S. intervention... Freeman was the head of a five man assassination team ordered by the team's CIA handlers to kill anyone they encountered and leave evidence that another faction had done the killings. Freeman said that for several years his team went on a killing spree, sometimes wiping out an entire small village."

In the book, Stich includes Top Secret U.S. documents from 1963 and 1964 confirming the assassination of South Vietnam's President Ngo Dinh Diem by Freeman's team. And that's history. The CIA sets up puppet rulers, then murders them when it becomes expedient.

There are all sorts of problems with this account. For example

• 
  The US military was integrated by Truman in 1948. An all black unit would have been very conspicuous and thus would have been a very poor choice for such a covert op..
  
• 
  I am unaware of any accounts of an all black unit in Vietnam or at any time much after 1948, see if you can find any.
  
• 
  If there were many more Mai Lai like atrocities I'm sure the (Communist) Vietnamese government would have brought attention to them.
  
• 
  The circumstances of the murders of Diem and his brother are well know, they were killed by the Vietnamese troops who held them in custody. There was no need to involve Americans.
  

I doubt there would be an extensive on going conspiracy to cover up the assassination be” cause this would vastly increase the number of people in the know it would be self defeating. I believe JFK died as a result of a conspiracy, I think it possible, though not probable that the same was true regarding his brother. I believe Watergate, the shooting of Wallace and the MLK assassination happened pretty much as advertised except that I think Ray might well have had help from white supremacists and it seems highly unlikely any of those crimes served to prevent the truth about the JFK assassination from being revealed.

[Mark Gorton]

Len,

I am not an expert on what stories were know at the time that Rodney Stich published them and what has come out in the following 15 years, so it is hard for me to answer your question. Many of the stories that Rodney relates fit in with larger scandals that are well known (as I mentioned BCCI, Inslaw, October Surprise, S&L fraud, etc.), so the new evidence that he provides fits in with much other evidence. I do not know if anyone has spent the time to run down the leads that Rodney generated and see if they can be verified. It would take a huge amount of work, but it would be a worthwhile project for a researcher.

It seems like the stories he relates differ from you worldview to a large enough extent that you completely discount them. I am not saying that everything he published is 100% accurate, but I see no reason to discount these stories out of hand as you do. From my research, many of the shocking stories that Rodney Stitch relates are consistent with other shocking tales.

However, if you doubt the existence of an evil cabal that was quickened by the JFK assassination, then you have a much more serious divergence from my point of view. I agree that Rodney Stitch relays several stories that are not backed up by independent accounts, and as such are not as reliable as stories with multiple points of back up. However, the JFK assassination has been shown to be a massive conspiracy and this has been established many times over.

When I first started looking at the JFK assassination, I too assumed it had to be small to keep it quiet. But as I learned more, I realized that the secret to hiding the truth of the JFK assassination was not having it be tiny but almost the opposite. Hundred of people have given testimony that demonstrates pieces of the conspiracy behind the JFK assassination. And their stories are available for anyone willing to look for them and pay attention.

However, the forces behind the JFK assassination were extremely powerful and they understood how to use power to control public perception. The Dallas police department, FBI, CIA, LBJ, CFR, elements of the military and others all conspired to hide the truth, and it has taken years for the research community to be able to show all these hidden machinations. All of this has been proved many times over by this point.

Have you read JFK and the Unspeakable and LBJ Mastermind of the JFK Assassination? Together both of those books do a decent job of showing the scope of the conspiracy and also documenting the scale of the conspiracy over and over. For someone who spends as much time as you do focused on these issues, I would suggest that you would be well served to read these books and study up on the topic. It really is the gateway to understanding the hidden history of the United States for the last 50 years.

I see you have over 7000 posts on the education forum, so you must have spent a lot of time on this stuff. May I ask what draws you to the education forum? I have a hard time understanding your perspective. Is there something you are trying to accomplish? Is there some truth or answers you are seeking?

Thanks,

Mark

[Len Colby]

Yes Mark our world views differ but I have learned from people on this forum whose views differed from mine. For example I used to to think it was unclear if JFK was going to pull out from Vietnam but Jim DiEugenio convinced me that it was true.

I've read the Douglass book but not the Nelson one. Overall I thought it was very good but at times his claims were at varience with what his sources actually said. This is a problem when an author has an agenda. I first came here to debate Fetzer over his Wellstone book and he gave a very distorted view of what his sources said. I don't think he did this intentionally, he was just too wedded to his theory to be objective. Stich I imagine suffers from similar problems. If his book depends on the likes Parker, Freeman and Tatum and the 'documents' they produce it is too full of bunk to be worthwhile.

If you are interested in the scandals he covers it would be of value to you to compare his versions of what happened to better documented ones and discover what new 'information' he brought to the table and then to evaluate if there is anything else to back them up or at least give credence to his claims.