"It
is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often
bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes."
-
Andrew Jackson
During
George H. W. Bush's presidency, G.W.'s Harken Energy, which
had no international oil experience, trounced Amaco and
Chevron to land an exclusive contract with the government
of Bahrain. Neil and Marvin Bush struck up sweet post-Gulf
War deals and Junior's insider trading charges were kindly
swept aside.
Today,
Poppy Bush
and former Secretary of State James Baker benefit "from
acts of government" through the Carlyle Group.While
serving as Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney vilified Saddam
as "Hitler revisited," but later conducted $73
million worth of business with him as CEO of Halliburton.
Halliburton currently has contracts for building Gitmo cells
and military bases and is certain to benefit from the projected
$2 billion cost of rebuilding Iraq's oil infrastructure.
And
now that the GAO has dropped its law suit, we the people
will never find out the role Enron played in dictating policy.
Because with 300 rollbacks in the Freedom of Information
Act, we can only speculate on which way the government bends.
