Here’s what we know:

The Bush Administration has entered into a unilateral secret deal with United Arab Emirates-based Dubai Ports World, in which DPW would be in charge of all day-to-day operations of up to twenty-one ports in the United States.

This deal, apparently, is so super-top-hush-hush-Cone-Of-Silence-secret, that the Administration’s own top man, George W. Bush, claims he didn’t know about it.

This, of course, is a lie.

Oops. Guess the NSA is now tuned in to this edition of the blog, so I’m committed now.

Hi, guys. Nice to have you on board.

As I said, this is what we know – that the deal has been cast. Congressional Republicans and other Neocons at first pitched a nutty, decrying the deal and backpedaling from the White House as fast as their little white feet could pump. North Carolina Congressperson Sue Myrick even went so far as to say “Hell, no!” to the deal.

Now, though, after a weekend to think it over, and a chance to consider how their palms may be greased by such an arrangement, the White House’s GOP Henchmen on the Hill have begun to warm to the deal. Why, I ask, should we be surprised? After all, for Neocons it’s all about the bottom line.

There is more to this tale, however. Behind the ports deal is a tale of such monstrously incestuous nature that it can’t be read during the Family Hour, and it goes something like this:

On September 11, 2001, four airplanes were hijacked by nineteen terrorists. You may recall this event. It was in all the papers. Two planes took out the World Trade Center in New York, one put a huge hole in a wing of the Pentagon, and one – during a struggle for control initiated by the passengers – augured into a hillside in Pennsylvania.

While George W. grilled his inner circle as to the connection between this attack and Saddam Hussein, the world slowly became aware of the true origin of the terrorists.

According to Wikipedia’s condensation of the 9/11 Commission’s findings, thirteen of the nineteen hijackers entered the USA by way of the – you guessed it – United Arab Emirates. Fifteen were Saudis. Two were from the UAE, and the remaining two were from Lebanon and Egypt.

In a Los Angeles Times article in 2003, Josh Meyer revealed much about the funding sources for the 9/11 terrorists. According to Meyer, U.S. officials who had access to the twenty-seven classified pages of the Congressional Report on 9/11 stated that it was clear that there were “very specific, very direct” links between the hijackers and the Saudi government – meaning, of course, the Saudi Royal Family.

I have previously pointed out in this blog the links between the Bush family and the Bin Ladens. The Bin Ladens, like the Bushes, have a long-standing close relationship with the Saudi Royal Family. In fact, the Clinton Administration tracked Osama Bin Laden down in Afghanistan in February 1999, but had to halt its planned attack because – as it happens – Bin Laden was hosting the Saudi Royal Family at a banquet, and the Administration decided that it would be bad PR to take out an entire sitting government of a “friendly power” in the process of icing a single bad dude.

Okay, so we know that the Saudis supported the 9/11 terrorists, 79% of which were Saudi nationals. We also know that the 9/11 terrorists entered this country with the assistance of the United Arab Emirates. Two of the hijackers were, themselves, Emirati.

In February 2003, Charlotte (N.C.) – based CSX Corporation was bought by The Carlyle Group, referred to as “a global private equity firm”. CSX owned CSX Lines, a rail and shipping concern. The Carlyle Group reportedly paid about $300 million for the company, which they promptly renamed Horizon Lines, LLC.

Just a month earlier, George W. Bush had named John Snow as Secretary of the Treasury. Snow was confirmed by Bush’s rubberstamp Senate in only fourteen days, and was sworn in just three weeks after his nomination. From whence, you may ask, had W plucked this Cabinet talent? Why, as it happens, John Snow had been the Chairman and CEO of CSX Corporation!

What’s the connection? I’m glad you asked. The answer is in the makeup of the Carlyle Group, who bought CSX mere days after its Chairman and CEO was elevated to almost the right-hand seat of the Doofus-In-Chief.

Here is a rundown of the prime players in The Carlyle Group at the time of the CSX deal:

James Baker, former United States Secretary of State.
Frank Carlucci, Former Secretary of Defense and Deputy Director of the CIA
John Major, Former Prime Minister of Great Britain
George H.W. Bush, Former President of the United States.

Whoa.

Let me get this right. George W. Bush hires John Snow as his Secretary of Treasury mere days before The Carlyle Group, which includes his own father, buys Snow’s company?

Snow, of course, claimed loud and long that he had no knowledge of the deal, which was – after all – completed after he left his post at CSX. For a moment, we are tempted to believe him. That is, until we note that it was only the ANNOUNCEMENT of the sale that took place in February 2003. In fact, it has been documented that the deal itself was completed in December 2002 – almost a month BEFORE Snow was nominated to the Treasury post.

It gets better, campers.

In December, 2004, Dubai Ports World (remember them?) announced that it had purchased the rights from CSX Corporation to acquire the international terminal business conducted by CSX World Terminals.

If you will recall, The Carlyle Group had purchased the CSX Corporation a little over a year and a half earlier for about three hundred mil. They then turned around and sold their World Terminal operations to Dubai Ports World for – get this: 1.15 billion dollars.

Who is Dubai Ports World? DPW is a corporation owned lock, stock, and two smoking barrels by the government of the United Arab Emirates. According to Lou Dobbs of CNN, the money sent to the 9/11 hijackers was sent through the United Arab Emirates’ own banking system.

In an interesting twist, The Carlyle Group’s James Baker watched the attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 at the Washington D.C. Ritz-Carlton Hotel, with – wait for it – the Bin Laden family, with whom he had been meeting on behalf of The Carlyle Group. Former President Bush is also reported to have been at this meeting, but left shortly after the attacks.

Later, he defended the Saudi Royal Family against a TRILLION dollar lawsuit brought by the families of the 9/11 victims. So, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that, last year, Dubai International Capital, a UAE government-backed buyout firm, invested heavily in an eight billion dollar Carlyle Group fund.

The ties between The Carlyle Group, which continues to pay former President George H.W. Bush by way of dividends on investments he made while a member of the Carlyle Board, and United Arab Emirates is unmistakable. In other words, what’s good for Carlyle is good for the former president. The United States ports deal is good for The Carlyle Group. Very good.

Lest you think the Bush connection with Dubai, the UAE and the Saudi Royal Family ends with The Carlyle Group, you should take note of the fact that The Forgotten Bush Brother, Neil, received significant funding for his educational software firm from – where, class? - that’s right. The United Arab Emirates. This is the same software firm that produces electronic study guides for the very tests required of school students by George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind legislature!

Finally, President Bush chose David Sanborn, the former Director of Dubai Ports World’s European and Latin American Operations, to be his head of the U.S. Maritime Administration.

But he didn’t know the deal with DPW to run the U.S. ports was in the works.

Well, of course not. To think otherwise would serve to question the very trustworthiness of the Commander and Thief, who lied to get us into a war that enriched his father and other Carlyle Group cronies (did we mention that the Carlyle Group is now one of America’s largest defense contractors?).

Here’s one more point. George W. Bush himself is a former Carlyle Group Board Member. In 1990, he was brought onto the Board of The Carlyle Group as the CEO of Caterair, a company specializing in airline food.

Caterair was a cute piece of work. It was created by the Carlyle Group, who bought out Marriott’s interests in airline catering through a leveraged buyout funded by junk bonds. The Carlyle Group paid about $570 million for Marriott’s In-Flight Services Division. The originator of that deal, Frederick Malek (that’s right, Nixon’s famous “Jew-Hunter”, who compiled lists of Jewish employees at the Bureau of Labor Statistics at Nixon’s direction, and later presided over the 1988 Republican National Convention that named George H.W. Bush as the Presidential Candidate), tapped George W. Bush for a seat on the board at Caterair.

Of course, it would be completely ridiculous to presume that this choice had anything at all to do with the fact that W’s daddy was POTUS at the time. Who would even question that?

In any case, this also placed George W. Bush on the Board of Directors at The Carlyle Group. As has been documented in many business ventures involving George W., Caterair soon faced soaring debt loads, eventually totaling $263 million. George W. jumped ship, leaving the other directors to go down with the sinking Caterair ship.

David Rubinstein, a co-founder and Managing Director of the Carlyle Group, was recorded in a speech to the Los Angeles County Employees’ Retirement Association, which has invested $95 million with Carlyle. He didn’t know the speech was being recorded, and probably would have tempered his words had he been told so.

Here is what he said about W:

“We put him on the board and [he] spent three years. Came to all the meetings. Told a lot of jokes. Not that many clean ones. And after a while I kind of said to him, after about three years - you know, I'm not sure this is really for you. Maybe you should do something else. Because I don't think you're adding that much value to the board. You don't know that much about the company.

“He said, well I think I'm getting out of this business anyway. And I don't really like it that much. So I'm probably going to resign from the board.

“And I said, thanks - didn't think I'd ever see him again. His name is George W. Bush. He became President of the United States. So you know if you said to me, name 25 million people who would maybe be President of the United States, he wouldn't have been in that category. So you never know. Anyway, I haven't been invited to the White House for any things.”

What’s good for The Carlyle Group is good for George H.W. Bush, whose investments grow like Topsy any time Carlyle Group makes a buck.

George H.W. Bush is mortal. Someday, like all mortals, he will come to his last breaths. When he does, his immense fortune will fall to his children.

Do you think for one second that George W. Bush doesn’t know this?

Do you believe, for one-tenth of a thousandth of a second, that the President is clueless as to the relationship between The Carlyle Group and Dubai Ports World, whom his administration has tapped to control every shred of ports operations in the United States?

Does he care that Dubai Ports World is wholly owned by the United Arab Emirates who, with their Middle East butt buddies the Saudi Royal Family, financed the attacks on America on 9/11?

Nope.

There’s a buck to be made. Everything else is collateral damage.