Among the top oil-producing countries in the world are
- Saudi Arabia
- Iran
- United Arab Emirates
- Kuwait
- Iraq
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Syria is a small country; it’s not in the top 10 or 11 producers, but it produces oil.
Unimaginable wealth in those countries. . . . which is a big part of why ISIS exists and specifically in the Middle East.
The analysis is right: to stop ISIS you have to stop their access to money and to weapons. (Many of their fighters are paid.)
That might be unlikely to happen.
You do not hear debate about how ISIS’ access to money and weapons will be stopped.
And why is there no debate? . . .
you are getting into the economy of the ultra rich and the ultra corrupt.
In that economy, it does not matter whether you are
- ISIS (a terrorist or freedom fighter)
- a drug runner
- an Arab Prince
- an Executive of a Western Arms manufacturer
- a wealthy client of KPMG Vancouver, or indeed
- a member of the Bush enclave.
The common denominator is lots of money.
Offshore banking ensures that the money will not enter the economy of the commoners, silly fools who pay taxes in support of public goods and programs.
To more fully understand the significance of offshore banking and ISIS, I think you have to start with American/British/European Imperialism.
Use this one little example: Mohammad Mosaddegh https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh
Think – 1951. Six years after the end of World War II, an era in which many countries were reclaiming their countries from imperialist forces. (India, Ceylon, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Ghana, Algeria, Nigeria, Uganda, many more … In the words of Nelson Mandela, Imperialism has been weighed and found wanting. It has been fought and defeated by the united and concerted action of the common people.)
But back to Mossadegh as an example:
Mossaddegh was the democratically elected[1][2][3] Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 until 1953, when his government was overthrown in a coup d’état orchestrated by the American Central Intelligence Agency and the British Secret Intelligence Service.[4][5]
An author, administrator, lawyer, and prominent parliamentarian, his administration introduced a range of progressive social and political reforms such as social security, rent control, and land reforms.[6] His government’s most notable policy, however, was the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry, which had been under British control since 1913 through the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC / AIOC) (later British Petroleum and BP).[7]
Many Iranians regard Mosaddegh as the leading champion of secular democracy and resistance to foreign domination in Iran’s modern history. Mosaddegh was removed from power in a coup on 19 August 1953, organised and carried out by the CIA (Kermit Roosevelt) at the request of MI6.
(In the interests of the oil companies. The U.S. had a large stake, too.)
In another posting I’ll provide a compendium of precisely the same stories – – only the country, the name of the democratically-elected leader, and the year are different. The resource being protected for exploitation by Western Corporate is usually, but not always oil.
The stories vary in their degree of brutality. The popular leader who was determined that his countrymen will be the beneficiaries of their resources, might be beheaded or “removed”. Bloody civil war might be fomented.
Universally, the outcomes are corruption of governance, the siphoning off of resource revenues, impoverishment of local people, poisoning of their environments, mobilization of local freedom fighters determined to protect their families and their land, growth of military – – “terrorism”.
Mossadegh’s fate is sufficient to set the stage. If you have any doubts that it is representative of Imperialism in the world since WW2, the compendium (to come) will remove the doubts. Now, on to the offshore
OFFSHORE BANKING (includes Tax Havens)
It’s worth the time to try and understand a bit of the huge role played by offshore banking. It is estimated that half of the world’s GDP flows through tax-sheltered secret bank accounts and trusts – – trillions of dollars.
Maybe you think it’s not a big deal, you live in Canada and it’s not all that bad here. (??)
- 2014-05-02 Canadians’ use of tax havens grows to $170B Growing amounts of money are going “offshore”.
The connection to ISIS and a sea of refugees make it worth your while to know a bit about how these things work. And if you think the same factors applied to Canada will not result in the same outcomes, the propaganda of Imperialism has been successful, alas!
The institutions, the bankers, consultants, accountants, auditors and lawyers are the same,
whether you are
ISIS, the CIA, a Bush crony or B.C. resident Marshall Cooper.
(Cooper is the fellow who used KPMG Vancouver’s
plan that would “target” wealthy Canadian residents worth at least $10 million. It offered them “confidentiality,” … and the ability to receive money “free of tax.”
In return, KPMG would take a 15 per cent cut of the taxes dodged….”
There’s more than one relationship between “offshore banking” and ISIS.
- The obvious relationship is to the movement of oil money and illicit activity related to weapons and the corruption of regimes. ISIS uses all that machinery, too (the same secret banking).
- The not-so-obvious connection: Corrupt Westerners, working with their Corrupted Counterparts, use the offshore banking to siphon off the money.
The oceans of oil that have been exported from the Middle East should have resulted in peoples who are wealthier than Americans (who ran through their oil supply and went into declining domestic production of conventional stocks by the 1970s. Jed Clampett and the Beverly Hillbillies are bygones of history. We forget that the U.S. had, at one time, large domestic conventional oil stocks.).
From P. 135, A Game as Old as Empire, edited by Steven Hiatt:
“Iraq is a rich country, but its people are poor,” … 2006 … one fifth of the population – 2 million families – live below the poverty line, defined as having income of less than a dollar a day. “
(That’s just one of the Middle Eastern countries, one of the world’s top-producers of oil.)
There is poverty in the Middle East. And it’s not because they are Muslim, or incompetent, or dishonest or barbaric.
There is poverty and violence in the Middle East because Imperialist Powers stop at nothing to assert control over resources, for their own benefit. Mossadegh is one in a long line of tragic casualties through the years since WW2 – – the potential for great good overcome by forces of evil, repeatedly. This is “us”, not “them”.
I was curious whether tax havens, an election plank, are explicit in new Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s letter of Mandate to the Minister for Revenue Canada. Good news – – they are!
Invest additional resources to help the CRA crack down on tax evaders and work with international partners to adopt strategies to combat tax avoidance.
See more at: http://pm.gc.ca/eng/minister-national-revenue-mandate-letter#sthash.PTkgj0lA.dpuf
I know this: Prime Minister Trudeau’s intentions are a threat to the big and corrupt players in that economy that exists in a layer above ours. It will be a David vs Goliath. I want David to win.
For David to win, we had all better start talking and explaining to our fellow citizens about offshore banking. Without us behind him, Trudeau will be shred to ribbons by propagandists and who knows what. Trudeau’s potential for great good will be snuffed just like Mossadegh, Lumumba, Torrijos, the list is long. The bad guys are psychopaths. They are “us” (the West), not “them” (Muslims).
The story of BCCI, one of the offshore banks, is telling. When action in the U.S. against BCCI commenced, just imagine how those with power, money, influence and no conscience, rallied around to make sure that part of their infrastructure would not get damaged, or Heaven forbid, shut down!
More on that later. (I’d like to acknowledge Lucy Komisar, author of BCCI’s Double Game: Banking on America, Banking on Jihad, published in A Game as Old as Empire, P. 69.)
The flow of money and weapons to ISIS is unlikely to be stopped because it would mean shutting down the offshore banking of the elites.
It’s important way beyond us, and beyond ISIS that J Trudeau and his Cabinet succeed on tax evasion and money laundering through offshore banking.
/Sandra
This posting follows: 2015-11-18 I’d blow our heads off, too. A poem in word Graphs.
Consider, if you will, how Hunter Harrison, American citizen, the CEO of Canadian Pacific and formerly Canadian National keeps wanting to rig the sale, or ‘mergers’, with stateside railways so that he can ‘overpay’ the corporate world there. Thereby siphoning money, much money out of Canada into corporate hands. Neat trick is it not? Lamprey eels and leeches work much the same way.
Now, take Hydro One’s sale to the corporate world, by premier Kathleen Wynne, the most controlled , infiltrated premier in Canada’s history. Do try, for fun, to reach her to tell her of all the scams, lies, conflicts of interest happening. It ain’t goin’ to happen baby! Her ‘advisor’, corpo money man Ed Clark, shilling for Bay Street to reap profits, has a son, Bert Clark, who is the CEO of Infrastructure Ontario! He’s the first one, of course, since government was not meant to be incorporated (it is a conflict of interest). Anyone who can get Ed Clark’s contact number so we can tell him we know what is going on, please let me know.
Mayo Schmidt, Ceo of Hydro One, from Kansas, makes a habit of going around turning over public (people’s) assets to the corporate world, Saskatchewan Wheat Pool Co-operative to Viterra Inc., (etc., etc.)
Why are these games so obvious? See if you can figure out the divide and conquer ploy involved!
Rene Moreau (416-489-8347)