A Future So Bright, Ya Gotta Wear Pork Barrel Shades

Billmon points to this example of our government making your tax dollars work for them.

And providing future employment for the D.o'D. as well. From the Washington Post:

A provision tucked into the 1,724-page energy bill that Congress is poised to enact today would ease export restrictions on bomb-grade uranium, a lucrative victory for a Canadian medical manufacturer and its well-wired Washington lobbyists.

The Burr Amendment -- named for its sponsor, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) -- would reverse a 13-year-old U.S. policy banning exports of weapons-grade uranium unless the recipients agree to start converting their reactors to use less-dangerous uranium. The Senate rejected the measure last month after critics in both parties warned that it would accelerate the worldwide proliferation of nuclear materials, but a House-Senate conference committee agreed this week to include it in the final bill.

The amendment is just one of dozens of obscure special-interest provisions included in the energy bill, which the House passed yesterday and the Senate is expected to pass today. The amendment's supporters say it will ensure a steady supply of medical isotopes, which are used to diagnose and treat 14 million Americans every year, including patients afflicted with cancer, heart disease and epilepsy. But it will also be a boon to the world's leading producer of those isotopes, an Ottawa-based company called MDS Nordion, which would otherwise have to spend millions of dollars to retrofit its reactor for low-grade uranium.

Critics say the Burr Amendment will not only provide special perks for one foreign company but also encourage the proliferation that politicians in both parties have identified as a dire threat to national security in the post-Sept. 11 world...

Since 2003, the Alpine Group's main energy lobbyists -- James D. Massie, Richard C. White and Rhod Shaw -- have contributed more than $25,000 to members of the energy committees, and nuclear medicine trade groups have donated tens of thousands more. They have also drummed up support from doctors; the computer signature on one letter to a senator, purportedly written by a radiologist, was actually White's...

Billmon goes on to say:

...I learned that weapons-grade uranium is the nuclear feedstock, so to speak, for a number of medical isotopes.

I learned that the companies that make those isotopes operate their own private reactors, using uranium purchased from the U.S. government.

And I learned that those reactors are not, repeat not, subject to the same security restrictions as government-owned megadeath factories:

"By contrast, Nordion already has enough highly enriched uranium to make one or two Hiroshima-size bombs, and its factories do not have to meet the same security standards as Energy Department facilities."

Nordion is the Canadian company that purchased the export loophole in the energy bill -- which, under the circumstances, we might reasonably call the "Arm Osama Amendment."...

I realize unbridled corruption in the U.S. Senate is one of those 19th century values the Republicans are determined to restore to our great nation -- no matter what the cost. But even I'm finding it incredible that they could really go this far: auctioning the right to buy weapons-grade uranium from the U.S. government off to the highest bidder. Instead of trying to get the nuclear genie back in his bottle, they want to give him his own PAC.

This really is getting into the hazy area between corruption and treason. To borrow the apocryphal Lenin quotation, Sen. Barr and his colleagues are practically selling Al Qaeda the rope with which to hang us. Or at least making it easier for someone else to do the selling.

It only reinforces something I've suspected for awhile: If Bin Ladin really wanted to destroy America, he'd forget about the terrorist cells and the hijackings and just hire himself an extremely well-connected Washington lobbying firm. If he was willing to spread enough cash around Capitol Hill, I bet he could have us nuking ourselves, Milo Minderbinder style...

Good point, that. But the Saudi Royals know that as much as they detest us, they love the money they can make off of us even more. Besides, they've had lobbyists and continue to lobby.

if the Saudi and Carlyle connections to father and son Bush don’t raise alarms, then the whole history of the Bush Administration’s dealings with the Taliban should. The primary focus of these dealings was the renewal of a planned pipeline from the natural gas rich fields of Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to other Asian markets. Behind this whole operation was the Unocal company. Among the advisors to Unocal was Zalmay Khalilzad, an Afghan-American academic, who in addition to being an advisor to Unocal in the 1990’s was also part of the foreign policy think-tanks that included Frank Carlucci. Khalilzad joined the Taliban’s lobbyist, Laila Helms (a relative of former CIA director, Richard Helms) in direct talks between representatives of the Taliban and the Bush Administration right up through July of 2001. When the Taliban broke off the talks, refusing the pipeline offers, the Bush Administration made known its efforts to strike back at the Taliban as early as August of 2001.

Ostensibly attacking the Taliban for its refusal to hand over Osama bin Laden, the Bush Administration refused any alternatives to the military option. During the whole military operation, the Pentagon has tried to establish security points that reflect the route of the proposed pipeline. Moreover, Harmid Karzai, the hand-picked US leader of Afghanistan, was, at one time, also a consultant for Unocal. Along with Khalilzad, who now is the US representative to Afghanistan’s interim government, Karzai is effectuating plans for the pipeline...

...In the immediate aftermath of 9/11 a number of news stories appeared concerning investments in “put” options in United and American Airlines. Put options are shares that are bets on falling market prices for specific stocks. In the week before September 11 put options in United and American Airlines went through a furious and unprecedented spasm of investment. In addition put options for Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch, two of the biggest occupants of the World Trade Center, also saw abnormal activity. Most of the investments in these put options originated in Germany through the Deutsche Bank. Deutshce Bank had earlier acquired Banker’s Trust, a investment banking firm whose Vice Chairman in charge of “private client relations” in the late 1990’s was A. B. “Buzzy” Krongard. In March of 2001, Krongard was appointed Executive Director of the CIA.

Certainly, the CIA has a history of laundering money and dealings with shady investment characters. What becomes particularly relevant in the lead-up to 9/11 is the August CIA briefing of Bush concerning the potential threat of attacks by bin Laden using hijacked planes on certain sites, such as the Pentagon and World Trade Center, and the fact that the CIA had bugging equipment on bin Laden messages and international banking operations. Although no one has apparently claimed the money from the put options, questions remain about Krongard and the CIA’s involvement...

Now that's free enterprise.