Bush family conspiracy theory

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The Bush family conspiracy theory is an umbrella term used to describe various conspiracy theory allegations directed towards the family of President George W. Bush, including the President's brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush, their brother Neil Bush, their father and former President George H. W. Bush, grandfather Prescott Bush, and great-grandfather George Herbert Walker.

Some allege criminal conspiracies involving United States or multinational corporations, vested interests, US government organizations, and various dictators. While some attach great importance to suggested links which connect individuals and companies, others dismiss some or all of the conspiracy theories as fantasy and claim that these connections are normal for business families and do not imply wrongdoing or malevolence.

Contents

1 Background 2 Various allegations and conspiracy theories 3 Known history 4 Response to allegations 5 Further reading 6 See also 7 External links 7.1 Investigative Journalism

Background

Proponents of these conspiracy theories sometimes refer to the alleged secret organization with pejorative terms: Bush League, Bush Buddies, Texas Taliban, or Bush family evil empire. The first is a pun on the baseball term "bush league"— minor league amateurs, or an allusion to George W. Bush's experience with the Texas Rangers baseball team. The others are alliterative.

As the Bush family has provided the last two Republican presidents, there may be a confusion of family conspiracy with what is actually normal political maneuvering. (Similarly, the Kennedy family has produced a number of political and public figures.) Additionally, members of the Bush family are politically and economically prominent, so it is natural that they have connections to other major political and business figures, some of whom have inevitably unsavory reputations.

A number of allegations have been made about different members of the Bush family at different times: it is not reasonable to discuss these allegations as a whole. Listed below are assorted allegations and rebuttals, but any serious consideration of these allegations should be made on a strictly individual basis. Some allegations have received considerable mainstream attention and debate; others are generally regarded as specious and unsubstantiated.

Various allegations and conspiracy theories

• Prescott Bush supported the Nazis. These claims stem from investments he held in Nazi Germany.
• The Bush family supports crime and Satanism through the Skull and Bones Society.
• While George H.W. Bush was head of the CIA, he may have been involved in the 1976 assassination of Orlando Letelier. Bush remains silent on this issue, and the CIA refuses to release many of the internal documents which could shed some light on it.
• Ayatollah Khomeini dealt with George Bush and/or his operatives to arrange the Iran-Contra deal and allegedly the October Surprise, on behalf of U.S. Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan.
• While Vice President, George H.W. Bush was responsible for Saddam Hussein's acquisition of weapons and funding during the Iran-Iraq War.
• The Bushes are somehow responsible for John Hinckley's assassination attempt against President Reagan, which would have made George H.W. Bush president.
• Osama bin Laden, then a minor Mujahedeen leader in Afghanistan, is reputed to have been a CIA agent who made use of CIA resources and US-funds to bolster the morale of radical Islamists after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Further, the Bush family, through its ties to the bin Laden family and other connections, otherwise aided bin Laden's rise.
• The Bush family--especially Neil and Jeb Bush--profited from the Savings and loan scandal. [1] (http://www.rationalrevolution.net/bush_family_and_the_s.htm)
• More banking tomfoolery with Riggs by Jonathan Bush.[2] (http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/08/coincidence-theorists-guide-to-911.html)
• There was an organized conspiracy between Jeb Bush, the U.S. Supreme Court, and ChoicePoint to rig the American presidential election in 2000.
• Certain members of the Bush Administration, the Supreme Court, and the Republican Party disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters in the 2000 and 2004 elections via voter purging lists, poll harassments, rigged electronic voting machines, and fake absentee ballots.
• Jeb Bush and George W. Bush smuggled drugs; they were filmed by the DEA doing so, and were being blackmailed because of this. Drug trafficker and CIA agent Barry Seal had proof, but was subsequently assassinated by the CIA.
• The Bushes support the oil industry to enhance their own financial interests in the industry.
• The September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack was planned or sanctioned by the Bush administration, to secure oil pipeline routes through Afghanistan in preparation for Peak Oil. (See 9/11 domestic conspiracy theory)
• The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq was planned by members of the Bush administration following the goals of PNAC, with the stated reasons (the threat of WMDs and terrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks) being political cover.
• Dick Cheney planned and executed the 2003 invasion of Iraq in preparations for the coming crisis of Peak Oil, collapse of the value of the US dollar, and/or other reasons.
• Through legislation and actions which extend executive powers and reduce oversight as justified by the War on Terrorism, the Bush administration is working toward establishing a totalitarian state.
• The assassination of Olof Palme may have been related to his knowledge of Iran-Contra.[3] (http://www.kmf.org/williams/bushbook/bush17.html)
• In the Bush administration's ambitions to expand the Texas Medication Algorithm Project to the entire US, mandating "mental health" screening of every American and possibly forcing treatments on the "ill", is suspected a range of issues from mere pharmochemical-industry collusion[4] (http://www.mindfreedom.org/mindfreedom/bushpsychFAQ.shtml) up to a new version of Hitlerian control, demonisation, or eradication of dissidents and mental defectives (i.e. eugenics).[5] (http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0411b.asp)
• The Bush family is related to Rev. George Bush (biblical scholar) (1796-1859) a leading 19th-century Hebrew scholar, Presbyterian minister and professor who wrote "The Life of Mohammed" [6] (http://www.muhammadanism.org/bush/default.htm) (1830 (Bush geneological chart included in the edition published by The Book Tree)), an anti-Muslim polemic and the first American book on Islam. George W. Bush is openly religious and holds a somewhat antagonistic foreign policy toward Muslim nations such as Iraq, Iran, and Syria, suspecting that we are in a partially religious war.

Known history

The following are the parts of known history which have led people (see references) to make further unproven claims (see allegations above).

• Businesses associated with Prescott Bush, such as the Union Banking Corporation, were confiscated just prior to World War II under the Trading With the Enemy Act.
• George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush were members of the Skull and Bones secret society, along with John Kerry. (Bush's membership in the Skull and Bones society was the subject of several Doonesbury cartoons.
• George H.W. Bush was head of the Central Intelligence Agency in 1976-77.
• Ronald Reagan's would-be assassin John Hinckley Jr is the son of one of George H.W. Bush's better supporters in his campaign against Reagan; the Hinckleys' Vanderbilt Energy was threatened with a $2-million fine the morning of the assassination attempt; Scott Hinckley and Neil Bush had a dinner appointment for the next day.[7] (http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a38432f49307d.htm) Lastly, the Secret Service were inordinately slow in delivering Reagan to a hospital, claiming they got lost in their own capital.
• George W. Bush has sealed the presidential records of both himself and his father.
• Saddam Hussein, was provided with weapons and funding during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, during the Reagan administration, in which George H.W. Bush was Vice President. In addition, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush was the Special Envoy to the Middle East in this period, appointed by President Ronald Reagan and met personally with Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war.
• Dick Cheney was G.H.W. Bush's Defense Secretary, and G.W. Bush's Vice-President. Cheney is the former President and CEO of Halliburton Company which has been given, by George W. Bush, an exclusive (and unbidded) contract in postwar Iraq. In addition, Halliburton's accounting firm was Arthur Andersen. This latter firm was convicted of obstruction of justice and, allegedly, committed fraud.
• The Carlyle Group is an investment group which includes members of the Bush family and the bin Laden family (one of the richest in Saudi Arabia). George H. W. Bush and bin Ladens were at a Carlyle meeting in a DC hotel the morning of 9/11. While private flights were grounded after 9/11, permission was granted to fly several bin Ladens to a gathering location. They left the US after air traffic resumed. [8] (http://www.sptimes.com/2004/06/09/Tampabay/TIA_now_verifies_flig.shtml)
• George W. Bush and Salem bin Laden were coinvestors/business partners in Arbusto Energy.
• The 2000 Presidential Election was won by George W. Bush in Florida, whose governor was his brother, Jeb Bush, after a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
• During Election Night of the 2000 Presidential Election, John Prescott Ellis, a full cousin of George W. Bush, was a consultant to Fox News, analyzing data from the Voter News Service. He regularly contacted Jeb and George Bush by phone that evening.
• The Project for the New American Century, which in 1990s advocated the invasion of Iraq for reasons of geopolitical strategy, included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle, all of whom subsequently held influential positions in the Bush administration.
• The George W. Bush administration pushed for the USA PATRIOT Act and has used the new powers in a variety of cases.
• The Bush administration does not accept the International Criminal Court's authority over American citizens, and members of the administration have questioned the usefulness of the United Nations.
• George W. Bush, during the 2003 State of the Union Address, said that British intelligence had learned Iraq had been attempting to purchase uranium from Africa. That claim was based on information which the CIA said it could not verify, and CIA head George Tenet accepted responsibility for failing to remove the assertion from the speech in the fact-checking stage. An earlier document specifically documenting a supposed buy from Niger was known to be a forgery and was not referred to in any Bush speech.
• Bush, as governor of Texas, presided over the execution of hundreds of condemned criminals, and joked about some of them prior to and after their executions.
• George W. Bush has made remarks suggesting that he saw footage of the first 9/11 impact on network television, even though that crash was not broadcast until hours later[9] (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011204-17.html).
• Bush plans to have nuclear waste stored at the volcanic Yucca Mountain facility.
• Bush has made the following statements:
  • "I told all four [congressional leaders] that there were going to be some times where we don't agree with each other. But that's OK. If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." December 18, 2000, [10] (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec00/trans_12-18.htm) [11] (http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0012/18/nd.01.html)
  • Answering a repeated reporter question about the anti-Bush gwbush.com, "But how far should these guys go?", Bush replied "There ought to be limits to freedom. We're aware of the site, and this guy is just a garbage man, that's all he is. Of course I don't appreciate it. And you wouldn't, either." May 21, 1999 [12] (http://www.rtmark.com/more/bushap.html) [13] (http://www.gwbush.com/multimedia.shtml)
• When the White House had released a copy of a National Guard Bureau document, Aeronautical Orders Number 87, September 29, 1972, they inked out James R. Bath's name (which was revealed by comparing it to a 2000 release of the same document, Bath's name uncensored). The allegation is that the White House was afraid of drawing attention to George W. Bush's relationship with James R. Bath, who managed funds for members of the Bin Laden family, and was the Director of BCCI.

Response to allegations

Critics of the theory allege that its proponents mispresent events as part of the theory.

• That G.H.W. Bush was vice-president during the Reagan Administration does not necessarily link Bush to Saddam's acquisition of weapons and funding during the Iran-Iraq War. Most vice-presidents have little role in the working of an administration and often have little practical influence over policy or decision-making.
• G.H.W. Bush's was head of the CIA from 1976 to 1977. Osama bin Laden's period as an alleged CIA agent occurred a decade later, when Bush was president. Presidents are, because of their workload, not involved in the hiring of CIA agents. Also considering that at any point CIA has thousands of agents acting worldwide, it seems unlikely that USA Presidents are personally associated with all of them. Furthermore, there is no evidence that bin Laden ever was an agent or an associate of or had any relationship at all with the CIA.
• Many people work in a number of administrations. That Dick Cheney worked in the administrations of G.H.W. Bush and G.W. Bush is neither unusual nor does it demonstrate a conspiracy. He also served in the administrations of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford.
• Many people internationally are associated with the Carlyle Group. As it is a large international investment group, it would be surprising if the Bush and bin Laden families were not in it or in some other group together. Former British Prime Minister John Major is also associated with it. The bin Ladens in fact have also disowned Osama bin Laden, who is an opponent of organisations such as the Carlyle Group, which he has accused of embodying international economic imperialism.
• Many presidents have said "The job of the President would be easier, if I were a dictator" or something similar, including Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. In those cases the comment was made tongue-in-cheek. There is no evidence that Bush intended it in any other way. Similar arguments are applied to the "limits on freedom" statement.
• While proponents of the conspiracy link Bush family members to a range of groups, from Nazis to Ayatollah Khomeini, Saddam Hussein to the Carlyle Group and the bin Laden, supporters of Bush argue that there is no connection between Bush, these people, and each other. They further note that although Bush may have had dealings with the bin Ladens, he didn't have such dealings with Osama bin Laden himself.
• Many wealthy Americans and companies became involved with the Nazis, some because of pre-Nazi businesses, most simply because the Nazis were a rare spot of profitability during the Great Depression; but ideological compatibilities such as antipathy to labour unions and Jews could be found. Disengaging from such relationships cannot happen overnight, if disengagement is even attempted--Ford (Henry Ford was a notorious Hitler advocate), General Motors, DuPont (both[14] (http://heritage.dupont.com/touchpoints/tp_1918/overview.shtml) controlled by the Du Pont family, Hitler sympathisers), IBM, Standard Oil-New Jersey (see William Stamps Farish II), and the Union Bank (Bush's link), to name a few, disengaged involuntarily if at all.[15] (http://globalresearch.ca/articles/PAU406A.html).
• Dubious Florida electoral practices go back at least three decades, and is said to involve Democrats such as Janet Reno as well as Republicans.[16] (http://www.votescam.com/chap5.html) Thus, it cannot be described as a "Bush" conspiracy.
• George W. Bush is commonly criticised for his imprecise grammar. In stating "I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on",[17] (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011204-17.html) he may meant that he "saw THAT an airplane hit the tower", not that he watched the actual crash occur in a live broadcast. (On the other hand, he gave similar descriptions on two separate occasions: "I had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV set on."[18] (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020105-3.html))
• James R. Bath's name should have been inked out on the National Guard documents released in 2000 as well. This is standard policy when the military releases personal records.
• Many, many persons of European origin have royal ancestors if one looks back far enough.

As a result, critics of Bush family conspiracy theories see them as a string of unconnected claims which have at most circumstantial evidence but which contains no hard evidence of any longterm conspiracy.

Further reading

• Afternoon of March 30th: a contemporary historical novel Nathaniel Blumberg (1984) ISBN 0961333804 (site (http://www.nathanielblumberg.com/bush.htm))
• Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster, by David Icke (ISBN 0953881024)
• The Best Democracy Money Can Buy by Greg Palast (2002) ISBN 0452283914
• The Biggest Secret: The Book That Will Change the World, by David Icke (ISBN 0952614766)
• Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential by James Moore (2003) ISBN 0471423270
• The Dirty Truth, The Oil and Chemical Dependency of George W. Bush by Rick Abraham (2000) ISBN 0970519001
• Dude, Where's My Country? by Michael Moore (2003) ISBN 0446532231 (site (http://michaelmoore.com/books-films/dudewheresmycountry/))
• Forbidden Truth: U.S.-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy, Saudi Arabia and the Failed Search for bin Laden by Jean-Charles Brisard, Guillaume Dasquie, Wayne Madsen, Lucy Rounds (2002) ISBN 1560254149
• Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the making of an American President J. H. Hatfield et al (2d ed 2001) ISBN 1887128840
• The Franklin Cover-up: child abuse, satanism, and murder in Nebraska John DeCamp (2nd ed 1996) ISBN 0963215809
• George Bush: the unauthorized biography Webster Griffin Tarpley & Anton Chaitkin (c1991) ISBN 0943235057 (site (http://www.tarpley.net/bushb.htm))
• The Immaculate Deception: The Bush Crime Family Exposed by Russell S. Bowen (1991) ISBN 0922356807
• Kiss the Boys Goodbye: how the US betrayed its own POWs in Vietnam Monika Jensen-Stevenson, William Stevenson (1990) ISBN 0-525-24934-6
• The Mafia, CIA and George Bush by Pete Brewton (1992) ISBN 1561712035
• The Secret War Against the Jews: How Western Espionage Betrayed the Jewish People by John Loftus and Mark Aarons (1994) ISBN 0312156480
• Stupid White Men: and other sorry excuses for the state of the nation! Michael Moore ISBN 0060392452
• Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil Michael Ruppert, Catherine Austin Fitts ISBN 0865715408
• The War on Freedom: How and Why America was Attacked, September 11, 2001 'Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, John Leonard ISBN 0930852400
• Behind the War on Terror : Western Secret Strategy and the Struggle for Iraq Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed ISBN 0865715068
• American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush Kevin Phillips ISBN 0670032646
• "The Life of Mohammed" by Rev. George Bush (biblical scholar) (1830); (2002 ed Book Tree) ISBN 1585090956

See also

• 9/11 domestic conspiracy theory

External links

• The Straight Dope: Was President Bush's great-grandfather a Nazi? (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030214.html)
• GWBUSH.COM (http://www.gwbush.com/)
• "What's Behind the Bush-Pinochet Friendship?", by Saul Landau (http://www.tni.org/letelier/tniips/bush.htm)
• Gold Fillings, Auschwitz & George Bush (http://www.spiritone.com/~gdy52150/bushies.htm)
• The Indiscreet Charm of the Bush Nazi Web Conspiranoids (http://www.frankendesign.com/pdf/Web_Conspiranoids.pdf)
• The Windsor-Bush Bloodline (http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/6583/et028.html)
• Coincidence Theorist's Guide to 9/11 (http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/08/coincidence-theorists-guide-to-911.html)
• House of Bush (http://www.houseofbush.com)
• A website by writer Kevin Phillips (http://www.americandynasty.net)
• A detailed chart of connections between the Bush family and various groups (http://www.threetwoone.org/diagrams/Bush%20dynasty.gif)

Investigative Journalism

• Peak Oil and the U.S Response (http://www.oilempire.us/)
• Daily Political Commentary (http://www.counterpunch.com/)
• Another Day In The Empire (http://www.kurtnimmo.com/blog/)
• Center For Global Research by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky (http://www.globalresearch.ca/)
• Daily Peak Oil Related News and U.S Response (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/)
• List of independent daily news (http://www.tvnewslies.org/news/)
• Dissident Voice (http://www.dissidentvoice.org/)
• Prof. Richard Heinberg (http://www.museletter.com/)
• Complete 9-11 Timeline (http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/)
• Greg Palast, Details of the 2000 Election (http://www.gregpalast.com/)