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Hi, endthematrix, (BTW does your screen name mean you didn't like the third movie? :-)

My own two cents: It's certainly true that no ideology or political group has a monopoly on corruption--I agree with you on that general principle. But the specifics of the article are very derivative (from various other sources--LaRouche's unauthorized bio is one, another is Pete Brewton's "The Mafia, the CIA, and George Bush") and superficial, IMO. You can do a "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" hit piece on anybody if you try. (Example: My brother once worked at IBM. IBM has been charged with trading with Germany during World War II. Therefore according to this article's logic my brother is a "hireling" of a company connected with the Nazis.) Making a case that will hold up in court or withstand historical cross-examination of the primary sources is a lot tougher. What does the article actually prove? That people who work for oil companies know people in the intelligence community and the Middle East, basically--which isn't really surprising when you think about it: logically to run an effective intelligence agency in a world driven by an oil-based economy you have to have agents in the Middle East. But where does the article show such associations affecting Bush's policies in a scandalous way? It doesn't, IMO--or at least if it does, someone will have to point it out to me, because I'm not seeing it. The article makes much of saying that members of the Bush family knew people in BCCI. It doesn't mention that BCCI was originally set up for a legitimate purpose: so British and American intelligence could track terrorist money. Nor does it mention that BCCI was penetrated by a double-agent working for Syrian and Soviet intelligence--perhaps there's more to the BCCI story than a simple CIA scandal centered on Bush? IMO there's some information in this article which does point towards genuine scandal, but to determine its significance requires looking beyond "so-and-so knew Bush" to deeper questions about how so-and-so's relationship with Bush functioned in the broader context of their individual motives and relationships with other individuals and organizations and countries. But instead of pursuing these types of questions, the article limits itself to saying things like Bush "worked closely with Kamal Adham, the head of Saudi intelligence, brother-in-law of King Faisal and an early BCCI insider", which doesn't really tell us anything about the nature of their relationship (what exactly does "worked closely with" mean?) other than the not-surprising fact that the head of the CIA had a liaison with the head of Saudi intelligence (along with every other intelligence agency in the world!). Two questions I'd raise which I'd like to see answered in a more penetrating analysis: 1. What intelligence agencies and foreign influences besides the CIA and the Saudis were involved with BCCI?--how do the British, French, Germans, Israelis, Syrians, Iranians, Soviets, Cubans, Chinese, Koreans, etc. fit in? 2. How did the BCCI investigation relate to the partisan conflict between the Reagan administration and its critics, how did that conflict play into John Kerry's decision to take on the BCCI investigation, and how did that influence which suspects he chose to pursue and which he chose to let off?. That last series of questions also raises the question in my mind, why is this article repeating 10-15 year-old information suddenly coming out now?