Friday, October 21, 2005

Billionaire bandit new US ambassador in The Netherlands?

by Henk Ruyssenaars

Amsterdam - Oct. 21st - 2005 - It is of course symptomatic that Google News only offers (right now - http://tinyurl.com/7hqye) three items on this disaster in diplomacy: the ill famous US neocon usurer Arnall, 66, a Hungarian-Jewish refugee who is named by Bush as the new ambassador to The Netherlands. The Dutch themselves in their US/Israeli colony have apparently no say in this scandal, about which the following was published earlier: ''The Netherlands: billionaire 'Shylock' as new US ambassador?''

Last February 'The Los Angeles Times' started a series of articles after researching Arnall and his methods
of working.* The articles show that this man apparently is 'unfit as a human being', but according to Bush
and his collaborators in Holland he's OK as an ambassador?

DOING WHAT?

FPF - Amsterdam - Aug. 2nd 2005 - The Dutch Foreign office in the Hague, many of the people and the 'corps diplomatique' do have a problem: the American regime has nominated a person who even in the US papers is depicted as a criminal and greedy loan shark - as the neocon's new Ambassador to the Netherlands: billionaire and infamous businessman Roland Arnall.*

Arnall also was and is a big spender/briber concerning support for the Bush, the election campaign and Republican party, as well as an avid supporter of the Wiesenthal Center of which Arnall is an Executive Board member, even visiting the Pope in Rome for some PR and a photo-op. [http://tinyurl.com/57xds]

Not only were millions given to Bush, also the infamous groper and 'Terminator' Schwarzenegger as governor was given some money as well, even by Dawn Arnall, the wife of Ameriquest founder Roland Arnall; last time she gave $250,000. The Arnalls and Ameriquest have given the Terminator/governor and his causes $1.54 million since 2003.

Since 2002 Arnall and his wife have been regarded as some of the biggest financial supporters of Bush's election campaigns, which now pays off in the form of a lucrative post as 'ambassador' in Holland, an 'Israeli colony' and #6 on the list of richest countries on earth. [end quote] - Read the rest pls, because it's quite a shame - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/donpc

SNAG IN BID FOR AMBASSADORSHIP

In an article in the Los Angeles Times - which really often nails and nailed Arnall and his malignant practices - they now write that "Ameriquest Founder Hits Snag in Bid for Ambassadorship" in a story written by Johnathan Peterson, who is a Los Angeles Times Staff Writer:

WASHINGTON - October 20, 2005 - The nomination of Roland Arnall for ambassador to the Netherlands hit rough water on Capitol Hill today as some lawmakers advised the founder of Ameriquest to resolve his Orange County mortgage firm's problems with U.S. regulators before turning to international diplomacy.

Comments by Sens. Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.) and Barack Obama (D-Ill.) at a hearing of the Foreign Relations Committee underscored the political sensitivities that surround Arnall and Ameriquest, which has been accused of unfair practices in its business of lending to borrowers with weak credit.

THE ORANGE, CALIF.-BASED LENDER IS IN SETTLEMENT NEGOTIATIONS WITH ABOUT 30 STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL AND BANKING REGULATORS.

"I'm pressing here this morning to try to get this matter fully resolved and settled," said Sarbanes, hinting that he might move more forcefully to block Arnall's nomination in the future. "I want you to understand what the concerns are. It seems to me the ability to resolve it is essentially in your hands."

Arnall defended Ameriquest as a "great company," and said he took full responsibility for past missteps. "Some of our employees did not do the right thing. When we found out, they were let go and action was taken so it wouldn't happen again," he said.

Arnall said he was not personally involved in the settlement talks, but believed with "total candor and from the bottom of my heart" that his management team was well qualified to finalize an accord with the state regulators.

ARNALL, 66, A HUNGARIAN-JEWISH REFUGEE

The Senate grilling was an unusual moment for Arnall, 66, a Hungarian-Jewish refugee from World War II who migrated to Montreal and Los Angeles, where he launched the biggest subprime lending company in the United States and gained a personal fortune estimated at about $2 billion.

Arnall has long cultivated friends in both political parties and until now has been able to conduct most of his professional affairs out of the public spotlight. While a committee vote on his nomination could come next week, the pointed questions suggested that the process is about to slow down.

Arnall and his wife, Dawn, have emerged in recent years as among the leading financial backers of President Bush, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Republican causes. The president nominated Roland Arnall on July 28 for the Dutch ambassadorship, which requires confirmation by the Senate. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has not yet scheduled a hearing.

DECEPTIVE LENDING PRACTICES

Ameriquest maintains that it adheres to a series of "best practices" to ensure fair treatment of customers, but it has repeatedly been the target of lawsuits involving charges of deceptive lending practices.

Without admitting wrongdoing, Ameriquest recently agreed to pay as much as $50 million to settle a class-action lawsuit representing borrowers in California and three other states, and it has earmarked $325 million to settle concerns raised by a task force of regulators from 30 states.

[enditem] - Story LATimes - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/bz7k9

FPF: ARNALL AND HIS BUSH ADVISING AND WARMONGERING ILK GLOBALLY ALREADY HAVE DESTROYED ENOUGH: THEY MUST BE STOPPED AT ANY PRICE, AND CERTAINLY NOT BE AMBASSADORS OF THE PRESENT EVIL EMPIRE; THE UNITED STATES OF ISRAEL STEERING BUSH's DEADLY REGIME.

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/66dmo
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

MAIN$TREAM MEDIA MAKE MORONS!

* *The Dutch author this far has worked abroad for international media for more than 4 decades, as a fully independent foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East. Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism.

* The Nuremberg principles: "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment." - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/byurp

* MSNBC - Poll: Ninety-four (94) percent believes that George Bush and the neocon media mislead the nation to go to war with Iraq - Url.: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8248969/

* ''The Lancet'' and the ''Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health'' report: ''Over 100.000 killed in the illegal Iraq war''-Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5gys7

* Bush interview. ABC: No WMD's but many killed: "It was worth it" - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6bal9

* Former Secr. of State Madeleine Albright in her comment on half a million dead children in Iraq: "We think it's worth it" On CBS 60' Minutes - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/2vmc8

* The must-see three-part BBC Documentary, "The Power of Nightmares," puts it bluntly: "Al-Qaeda is a (neocon) myth." - See Url.: http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1327904,00.html

* In Indonesia they steal millions, making and 'fighting' their own terror - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cq36f

* Wayne Madsen: ''What has Israel to do with 9/11?'' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/bj754 - 'American neocons' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/b5vsb - The US Federal Reserve and the private banks owning it - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/d3ntq

* Are their Corporate News Media Incompetent, Criminally Negligent or Complicit? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cqpfe

* Brainwashed? - Take the free 'Gullibility Factor' test to find out if you're really a mind slave, or not - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cbgnc

* Colin Powell: 'It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the policies of the state of Israel' - Url.:http://tinyurl.com/22p6c

* Neoconservatism as a Jewish Movement - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5k7vx

* American car magnate Henry Ford investigated 85 years ago the global problem - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/2xz35

* Help all the troops of whatever nationality to come back from abroad! We need them badly at home in many countries - AND WITH ALL THEIR WEAPONS, WHICH WE PAID FOR BY TAXES - to fight with us against our so called 'governments' and their malignant managers - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

* The World Can't Wait! - Drive out the neocons and their 'Bush Regime' - Mobilize for November 2, 2005! - Url.: http://www.worldcantwait.org/

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

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English Secret service says torture works.

As Britain's outspoken Ambassador to the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan, Craig Murray helped expose vicious human rights abuses by the US-funded regime of Islam Karimov. He is now a prominent critic of Western policy in the region.


THE SECURITY SERVICES SUPPORT TORTURE:
THAT IS WHY WE HAVE A JUDICIARY

by Craig Murray

October 21, 2005 - Before the House of Lords this week the government has been arguing for the right to act on intelligence obtained by torture abroad. Channel 4 has obtained the statement to the Law Lords by the head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Butler. In effect she argues that torture works. It foiled the famous ricin plot.

She omits to mention that no more ricin was found than is the naturally occurring base level in your house or mine – or indeed that no poison of any kind was found. Nor does she recall that there has never been a successful large scale poisoning with ricin. But let us leave that for now.

She argues, in effect, that we need to get intelligence from foreign security services, to fight terrorism. And if they torture, so what? Her chief falsehood is our pretence that we don’t know what happens in their dungeons. We do. And it is a dreadful story. Manningham-Butler is so fastidious she even avoids using the word “Torture” at all in her evidence. Let alone the reality to which she turns such a carefully blind eye.

HE WAS IMMERSED TO HIS ARMPITS IN BOILING LIQUID

Uzbekistan is one of those security services from whose “friendly liaison” services we obtained information. And I will tell you what torture means. It means the woman who was raped with a broken bottle in both vagina and anus, and who died after ten days of agony. It means the old man suspended by wrist shackles from the ceiling while his children were beaten to a pulp before his eyes. It means the man whose fingernails were pulled before his face was beaten and he was immersed to his armpits in boiling liquid. It means the eighteen year old whose knees and elbows were smashed, his hand immersed in boiling liquid until the skin came away and the flesh started to peel from the bone, before the back of his skull was stove in.

These are all real cases from the Uzbek security services which we viewed as friendly liaison, and from which we obtained regular intelligence, in the Uzbek case via the CIA. A month ago that liaison relationship was stopped – not by us, but by the Uzbeks. But as Manningham-Buller sets out, we continue to maintain our position as customer to torturers in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Algeria, Jordan, Morocco and many other places.

NONE OF THE VICTIMS WERE TERRORISTS

The key point is that none of the above Uzbek victims were terrorists at all. The great majority of those who suffer torture at the hands of these regimes are not terrorists, but political opponents. And the scale of this torture is vast. In Uzbekistan alone thousands, not hundreds, of innocent men, women and children suffer torture every year. Across Manningham-Buller’s web of friendly intelligence agencies, the number may reach tens of thousands. Can our security really be based on such widespread inhumanity, or is that not part of the grievance that feeds terrorism? Every year the Uzbek government kills many times more innocent people than would realistically have died, even if someone had been able to scrape ricin out of their saucepan. Do those deaths not matter?

HOW MANY FOREIGN MUSLIM LIVES IS ONE BRITISH LIFE WORTH?

These other governments know that our security services lap up information from their torture chambers. This practical condoning more than cancels out any weasel words on human rights which the Foreign Office may issue.

In fact, the case for the efficacy of torture intelligence is not nearly as clear-cut as Manningham-Buller makes out. Much dross comes out of the torture chambers. History should tell us that under torture people would choke out an admission that they had joined their neighbours in flying on broomsticks with cats. The narrative we get is the precise narrative that the foreign intelligence agency wishes us to hear. They often have their own agenda to plug.

A final thought. Manningham-Buller is arguing from the efficiency of torture in preventing a terrorist plot. If that argument is accepted, then in logic there is no reason to rely on foreign intermediaries. Why don’t we do our own torturing at home? James VI and I abolished torture – New Labour are making the first attempt in English courts to justify Government use of torture information. Why stop there? Why can’t the agencies work over terrorist suspects?

I seem to recall that we tried that approach with the Birmingham 6 and the Guildford 4, and look where that got us.

THE SECURITY SERVICES WANT US TO BE ABLE TO USE INFORMATION FROM TORTURE.

That should come as no surprise. From Sir Thomas Walsingham on, the profession attracts people not squeamish about the smell of seared flesh from the branding iron.

That is why we have a judiciary to protect us.

I pray that they do.


CRAIG MURRAY


Web log - Url.: http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/weblog.html

Google Craig Murray - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/984yb

Fwd. by:

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/66dmo
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

* *The Dutch author this far has worked abroad for international media for more than 4 decades, as a fully independent foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East. Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism.

* The Nuremberg principles: "Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefor and liable to punishment." - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/byurp

* ''The Lancet'' and the ''Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health'' report: ''Over 100.000 killed in the illegal Iraq war''-Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5gys7

* Bush interview. ABC: No WMD's but many killed: "It was worth it" - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6bal9

* Former Secr. of State Madeleine Albright in her comment on half a million dead children in Iraq: "We think it's worth it" On CBS 60' Minutes - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/2vmc8

* The must-see three-part BBC Documentary, "The Power of Nightmares," puts it bluntly: "Al-Qaeda is a (neocon) myth." - See Url.: http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1327904,00.html

* Are their Corporate News Media Incompetent, Criminally Negligent or Complicit? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cqpfe

* Brainwashed? - Take the free 'Gullibility Factor' test to find out if you're really a mind slave, or not - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cbgnc

* Help all the troops of whatever nationality to come back from abroad! We need them badly at home in many countries - AND WITH ALL THEIR WEAPONS, WHICH WE PAID FOR BY TAXES - to fight with us against our so called 'governments' and their malignant managers - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

* The World Can't Wait! - Drive out the neocons and their 'Bush Regime' - Mobilize for November 2, 2005! - Url.: http://www.worldcantwait.org/

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

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