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Introduction: At the core of the thesis presented in “For The Record” about the 9/11 attacks is the Underground Reich. With Islamofascist elements attacking from without at the same time as elements of the Bormann group—crystallized in the Bush administration—subvert from within, the Underground Reich is perpetuating the Second World War after a fifty-year hiatus. At stake is nothing less than the survival of the United States, democracy, and civilization as we understand it. FTR#435 highlights Lugano, Switzerland—the crossroads at which the Thyssen-Bornemisza industrial and financial interests (to which the Bush family is beholden) and the Muslim Brotherhood’s Al Taqwa network interesect. It is upon the “Road to Lugano ” that the fate of civilization and humanity will be determined. Beginning with brilliant, vital research by “The New Hampshire Gazette, ” the program documents the fact that the Bush family’s business dealings with the Thyssen interests encompassed the postwar flight capital program that was the foundation of the Bormann organization. This relationship extended up until the time of Prescott Bush Sr.‘s 1952 Senate campaign. The Bush family helped to frustrate Operation Safehaven—directed at interdicting Nazi flight capital. Al Taqwa, too, is escaping successful interdiction due to the international financial conduits upon which it feeds. Al Taqwa’s founders—Youssef Nada and Ahmed Idris Nasreddin—continue to attempt to resurrect their operations.
Program Highlights Include: A U.N. report detailing the continued machinations of Nada and Nasreddin; the pair’s connections to Abdurrahman Alamoudi; the Al Taqwa/Al Qaeda Fifth Column within the military; the Al Taqwa/Al Qaeda Fifth Column within the GOP; the fascist heritage and philosophy of the Muslim Brotherhood.
1. The program begins with a consummately important article about the Bush family’s Nazi business connections. As discussed in FTR#‘s 273, 370, these relationships proceeded into the postwar period and involved Bush family participation in the Nazi flight capital program that evolved into the Bormann organization.
“After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen, Prescott Bush, the grandfather of President George W. Bush, failed to divest himself of more than a dozen ‘enemy national’ relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal. Furthermore, the records show that Bush and his colleagues routinely attempted to conceal their activities from government investigators. Bush’s partners in the secret web of Thyssen-controlled ventures included former New York Governor W. Averell Harriman and his younger brother, E. Roland Harriman. Their quarter-century of Nazi financial transactions, from 1924–1951, were conducted by the New York private banking firm, Brown Brothers Harriman. The White House did not return calls seeking comment. ”
( ” ‘Bush-Nazi Dealings Continued Until 1951’—Federal Documents ” by John Buchanan and Stacey Michael; The New Hampshire Gazette; 11/7/2003 [vol. 248, #3]; p. 1.)
2. Highlighting the postwar Bush/Thyssen/UBC transactions, the broadcast underscores the fact that some of the Bush-connected companies seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act were confiscated after the war.
“Although the additional seizures under the Trading with the Enemy Act did not take place until after the war, documents from The National Archives and Library of Congress confirm that Bush and his partners continued their Nazi dealings unabated. These activities included a financial relationship with the German City of Hanover and several industrial concerns. They went undetected by investigators until after World War II. . . . ”
(Idem.)
3.
” . . . After the war, a total of 18 additional Brown Brothers Harriman and UBC-related client assets were seized under The Trading with the Enemy Act, including several that showed the continuation of a relationship with the Thyssen family after the initial 1942 seizures. The records also show that Bush and the Harrimans conducted business after the war with related concerns doing business in or moving assets into Switzerland, Panama, Argentina and Brazil—all critical outposts for the flight of Nazi capital after Germany’s surrender in 1945. [Italics are Mr. Emory’s]. . . . ”
(Ibid.; p. 2.)
4.
“One of the final seizures, in October 1950, concerned the U.S. assets of a Nazi baroness named Theresia Maria Ida Beneditka Huberta Stanislava Martina von Schwarzenberg, who also used two shorter aliases. Brown Brothers Harriman, where Prescott Bush and the Harrimans were partners, attempted to convince government investigators that the baroness had been a victim of Nazi persecution and therefore should be allowed to maintain her assets. ‘It appears, rather, that the subject was a member of the Nazi party,’ government investigators concluded. At the same the last Brown Brothers Harriman client assets were seized, Prescott Bush announced his Senate campaign that led to his election in 1952. ”
(Ibid.; pp. 2–3.)
5. Note that in Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile, Paul Manning—excerpting a captured German document from Treasury Department files—emphasizes that “New York addresses ” were to be used by the assembled Third Reich economic kingpins assembled at Bormann’s behest and addressed by SS general Dr. Scheid. The Hamburg-Amerika line was also one of the Bush family’s Nazi-connected businesses.
” . . . Dr. Scheid also affirmed, ‘The ground must now be laid on the financial level for borrowing considerable sums from foreign countries after the war.’ As an example of the kind of support that had been most useful to Germany in the past, Dr. Scheid cited the fact that ‘patents for stainless steel belonged to the Chemical Foundation, Inc. New York, and the Krupp Company of Germany, jointly, and that of the United States Steel Corporation, Carnegie, Illinois, American Steel & Wire, National Tube, etc., were thereby under an obligation to work with the Krupp concern.’ He also cited the Zeiss Company, the Leica Company, and the Hamburg-Amerika line as typical firms that had been especially effective in protecting German interests abroad. He gave New York addresses to the twelve men. ”
(Martin Bormann: Nazi in Exile; Paul Manning; Copyright 1981 [HC]; Lyle Stuart Inc.; ISBN 0–8184-0309–8; p. 25.)
6. Emphasizing the significance of the heroic New Hampshire Gazette stories, the broadcast excerpts an interview of John Loftus (author of The Secret War Against the Jews), conducted by John Buchanan, co-author of the Gazette articles.
“BUCHANAN: What do you think is the true significance of the story in The New Hampshire Gazette? LOFTUS: Your Story, the first in a ‘reputable’ US newspaper in 60 years, redeemed my two decades of work that only resulted in the mainstream media slamming doors in my face, despite my credentials as a Justice Department Nazi war crimes prosecutor. I give a lot of credit to the courage of The New Hampshire Gazette as well, for practicing journalism as it should be practiced—tell the truth and let the facts speak for themselves. LOFTUS: It’s a complex story and the media hate that now in the age of the sound bite headline. It’s also unpopular and frightening to most people, understandably. But the truth about this period of our history as a nation must come out and be dealt with. You and The Gazette have helped to accomplish that. It will come out now, I think. ”
( “Interview with a Prosecutor ” by John Buchanan; The New Hampshire Gazette; 10/24/2003 [Vol. 248, #2]; p. 1.)
7.
“BUCHANAN: What is the importance of it coming out, in your view? LOFTUS: Your stories will be the crack in the dam and it will come flooding out. For 60 years, it has been a huge cover-up of the activities of some of the people who brought us the worst grief in the history of the world—the Holocaust. This country needs to understand which of its most prominent families supported Hitler, even after the US went to war with Germany. . . . ”
(Idem.)
8.
” . . . BUCHANAN: How do you account for the failure of the media to break this story before The Gazette did? LOFTUS: My feeling is that about 15 years ago, when big corporations started taking over media companies that had been privately owned by families or individuals, we ended up with an over-worked but well-intentioned media without the staff or resources, in light of all the corporate cost-cutting that was done, to look into the really big stories. The real enemy is the multinational corporations who are only interested in profits and choose profits over truth. . . . BUCHANAN: Should Prescott Bush, George Herbert Walker and the Harrimans have been tried for treason? LOFTUS: Yes, they should have been tried for treason, because they continued to support Hitler after the US entered the war. As a former prosecutor, I could have made that case. . . . ”
(Ibid.; p. 2.)
9.
” . . . BUCHANAN: If there is information like that to be uncovered still, what do you proposed? LOFTUS: I want a full Congressional investigation and I think your reporting in The Gazette certainly justifies one. I want the cover-up itself investigated, and I want the long-concealed Nazi histories of these families brought out to the public. BUCHANAN: Who should investigate? LOFTUS: Now that this information has finally come out, I am calling for full investigations by both the house and Senate Judiciary committees. We’ll see where it goes from there. But I want the cover-up fully and aggressively investigated. The American people and Congress have a right to find out how this happened, to make sure it never happens again. It’s too late for justice, but it’s never too late for the truth. The American people and survivors of the Holocaust and veterans of the war are entitled to the truth. BUCHANAN: Why hasn’t it come out before? LOFTUS: President Clinton wanted all the Nazi files declassified, but it didn’t happen fast enough. Some of the documents you saw on I.G. Farben were only declassified a few days before you walked into the archives. You were very lucky, I’d say. . . . ”
(Ibid.; pp. 2–3.)
10. As emphasized in numerous programs (particularly FTR#370), the Swiss City of Lugano is the epicenter of the Thyssen-Bornemisza operations, dating to the post-World War I period. Thyssen-Bornemisza is the parent firm of the Thyssen empire, the largest component of which is Thyssen-Krupp (the largest heavy industrial firm in Western Europe). “Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza runs his private Dutch-based investment group from Lugano, Switzerland, and his cousin Count Federico Zichy-Thyssen, grandson of old Fritz Thyssen, exercises control over Thyssen A.G. from his base in Buenos Aires. ”
11. Reprising a point of information from FTR#370, the broadcast presents the untimely deaths of the former Dutch manager of the Bush/Harriman/Thyssen bank in Rotterdam, as well as that of Dutch journalist Eddy Roever in 1996. Roever’s demise underscores the fact that the Bush family/Nazi industrial connections are not “old news. ”
“In 1945, the former Dutch manager of the Rotterdam bank resumed control only to discover that he was sitting on a huge pile of hidden Nazi assets. In 1947, the manager threatened to inform Dutch authorities, and was immediately fired by the Thyssens. The somewhat naïve bank manager then fled to New York City where he intended to talk to Union Bank director Prescott Bush. As Gowen’s Dutch source recalled, the manager intended ‘to reveal [to Prescott Bush] the truth about Baron Heinrich and the Rotterdam Bank, [in order that] some or all of the Thyssen interests in the Thyssen Group might be seized and confiscated as German enemy property.’ The manager’s body was found in New York two weeks later. ”
( “How the Bush Family Made its Fortune from the Nazis ” by John Loftus; p. 4.)
12.
“Similarly, in 1996, a Dutch journalist Eddy Roever went to London to interview the Baron, who was neighbors with Margaret Thatcher. Roever’s body was discovered two days later. Perhaps, Gowen remarked dryly, it was only a coincidence that both healthy men had died of heart attacks immediately after trying to uncover the truth about the Thyssens. ”
(Idem.)
13. Just as the Bush/Dulles/Harriman/Thyssen connection was used to help undermine Operation Safehaven, so, too, the international financial conduits associated withy the Al Taqwa network have frustrated Operation Green Quest. It is significant under the circumstances that both Green Quest and Safehaven were Treasury-department intelligence operations directed at elements associated with the finances of the Third Reich—Safehaven in the late World War II period and Green Quest after the Underground Reich’s attack on the US of 9/11.
“The international system designed to curb the flow of financial resources to al-Qaeda is being dangerously undermined by inadequate co-operation, legislative loopholes and a lack of political determination, the United Nations has warned. A new UN report, obtained by the Financial Times, reveals that despite ‘considerable progress’ in combating terrorist financing, al-Qaeda-related businesses and charities continue to operate across the globe. It highlights the activities of Youssef Nada and Idris Nasreddin, directors of al-Taqwa, a financial group the US believes was the most important fund-raising operation for al-Qaeda. The report says the two men continue to maintain commercial interests and property in Italy and Switzerland, despite their designation as terrorist financiers. It says Mr. Nada traveled to Liechtenstein in January 2003 and tried to re-register two al-Taqwa-related companies under new names. By doing so he violated a UN-sanctioned travel ban. . . . ”
( “Loopholes Undermining Crackdown on Terror Financing ” by Mark Turner and Edward Alden; Financial Times; 11/14/2003; p. 1.)
14.
“Two men at the center of what US investigators believe was the most important financing network for al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups continue to operate businesses in several European countries, according to an investigation by the United Nations group monitoring international sanctions on al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The report, obtained by the Financial Times, traces the recent activities of Youssef Nada and Ahmed Idris Nasreddin, who were directors of a financial group known as al-Taqwa. Mr. Nada was named as a terrorist financier by the US on November 7, 2001 in action by Washington to crack down on funding for terrorists after the September 11, attacks. ”
( “Al Qaeda ‘Financiers’ Active in Europe ” Edward Alden, Mark Huband and Mark Turner; Financial Times; 11/24/2003; p. 5.)
15.
“Mr. Nasreddin was listed by the US on April 18, 2002, on allegations that he headed a network of companies that provided direct support for Mr. Nada and Bank al-Taqwa. The UN has also designated both men, requiring all UN countries to shut down their financial commercial operations. ”
(Idem.)
16.
“But the UN report says that, while the bank accounts of both men and of the al-Taqwa entities have been frozen, ‘nothing has been done with respect to any of their other physical or business assets’. The report adds that both continue to have commercial property interests in Italy and possibly Switzerland, as well as residences in Lugano and Italy. Mr. Nada also defied a UN travel ban to go to Liechtenstein in January 2003, where most of al-Taqwa’s offshore companies were registered. While there, he applied to change the names of two of his companies and to name himself as liquidator of both companies. After the UN monitoring groups raised questions, the Liechtenstein government removed Mr. Nada as the liquidator. ”
(Idem.)
17.
“But because of Liechtenstein’s lax registration requirements for offshore shell companies, the government has no information regarding Mr. Nada’s companies the report said. Jonathan Winer, a former senior State Department official and expert on terror financing, called it ‘shocking to think that any element of al-Taqwa is still functioning. Their business activities are supposed to be shut down. It’s cut and dried.’ ”
(Idem.)
18.
“US and European investigators believe that Bank al-Taqwa, originally set up in 1988 with significant backing from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, was at the middle of an international network of charities and companies used to funnel money to al-Qaeda and to other groups, including Hamas. ‘US terrorism finance investigators view al-Taqwa as the spine on which other terrorist finance operations were built,’ says Mr. Winer. In just one year, 1997, the US believes that $60m collected for Hamas was funneled through Bank al-Taqwa. ”
(Idem.)
19. Some of the links between Operation Green Quest, Al Taqwa and Abdurrahman Alamoudi are detailed in the Financial Times article. (For more about Alamoudi, see below.)
“US investigations of Islamic business and charities in northern Virginia known as the Safa Group—which the US believes funneled millions of dollars to terrorist groups—have turned up several links to al-Taqwa. In addition, the names of Mr. Nada and Ghaleb Himmat, both of whom founded Bank al-Taqwa, were discovered on the electronic organizer of Abdurrahman Alamoudi, who was charged last month with violating US sanctions against Libya and is alleged by Washington to be part of a larger US-based terror financing network. . . . ”
(Idem.)
20. The program reviews an item from FTR#433 about an Al-Taqwa-connected Fifth Column within the US political and military infrastructures. This Fifth Column is fundamentally connected to the Republican Party and the Bush administration.
” . . . OLBERMANN; NBC’s Lisa Myers on this extraordinary story in Washington. Joining us now, with more on the purported double life of this prominent Muslim-American is John Loftus, host of ‘The Loftus Report’ and frequent guest on this show. John, good evening. ”
( ” ‘Countdown with Keith Olberman’ for Oct. 23 “; MSNBC News; 10/23/2003.)
“LOFTUS: Well, you know, it’s a funny story. About a year-and‑a half ago, people in the intelligence community came and said-guys like Alamoudi and Sami al-Arian and other terrorists weren’t being touched because they’d been ordered not to investigate the cases, not to prosecute them, because they were being funded by the Saudis and a political decision was being made at the highest levels, don’t do anything that would embarrass the Saudi government. So, of course I immediately volunteered to do it and I filed a lawsuit, against al-Arian charging him with being a major terrorist for Islamic Jihad; most of his money came from Saudi charities in Virginia. ”
(Idem.)
22.
“Now, Alamoudi’s headquarters were in the same place, he was raided the same day, on March 20. An hour after I filed my lawsuit, the U.S. government finally got off its butt and they raided these offices. And, the stuff that they’re taking out of there now is absolutely horrendous. Al-Arian has now, finally been indicted, along with Alamoudi, today. But, who ws it that fixed the cases? How could these guys operate for more than a decade immune from prosecution? And, the answer is coming out in a very strange place. What Alamoudi and al-Arian have in common is a guy named Grover Norquist. He’s the super lobbyist. Newt Gingrich’s guy, the one the NRA calls on, head of American taxpayers. He is the guy that was hired by Alamoudi to head up the Islamic institute and he’s the registered agent for Alamoudi, personally, and for the Islamic Institute. ”
(Idem.)
23.
“Grover Norquist’s best friend is Karl Rove, the White House chief of staff, and apparently Norquist was able to fix things. He got extreme right wing Muslim people to be the gatekeepers in the White House. That’s why moderate [Muslim] Americans couldn’t speak out after 9/11. Moderate Muslims couldn’t get into the White House because Norquist’s friends were blocking their access. ”
(Idem.)
24.
“OLBERMANN: How does this tie back into the thing that apparently pulled the stopper out of the drain, if you will-The developments at Guantanamo Bay? How rotten is the system of the interpreters and the chaplains-the Muslim chaplains that Alamoudi was involved in setting up? ”
(Idem.)
25. As theorized in FTR#‘s 356, 386, 405, Islamist elements of this Underground Reich milieu appears to have successfully infiltrated the US military.
“LOFTUS: It’s as rotten as it gets. Think of the Muslim chaplain’s program that he set up as a spy service for al-Qaeda. The damage that’s been done is extreme. It wasn’t just sending home mom and dad messages. From the prisoners. These guys, this network in Guantanamo, stole the CIA’s briefing books. Everything that the CIA knew about al-Qaeda is now back in al-Qaeda’s hands. That’s about as bad an intelligence setback as you can get. ”
(Idem.)
26.
“OLBERMANN: John, how does this end up? How far will the investigation into this necessarily have to go to get to the bottom of it? ”
(Idem.)
27.
“LOFTUS: There’s a lot more to go. Norquist had a lot of other clients. There’s a whole alphabet soup of Saudi agencies that funded terrorism in this country. They had an awful lot of protection. And one of the things we may find about 9/11 is that people out in the field weren’t allowed to connect the dots and questions will be asked whether guys like Grover Norquist were part of the problem? ”
(Idem.)
28.
“While establishing its headquarters in a tax haven, the Brothers’ bank opened a branch, Al Taqwa Management Organization S.A., in Italian Switzerland, in Lugano. Lugano, a discreet frontier banking locale, is a stone’s throw from Milan, a major financial center, and above all the Islamist groups’ entry point to Europe.”
29. The balance of the program recapitulates information about Al Taqwa, the Muslim Brotherhood and its fascist heritage. Note that Al Taqwa is based in Lugano, Switzerland—as is Thyssen-Bornemisza. In turn, both Thyssen-Bornemisza and Al Taqwa intersect the milieu of the Bush family. Nada has been less than forthcoming about the true nature of his organization. It should be noted in this context that the Underground Reich/Bormann Organization also maintains a rigorous, and secretive infrastructure.
“Al Taqwa is situated on the top floor of a small glass building, right in the center of Lugano, in the banking district, a district where overly curious journalists are immediately denounced to the police, who then conduct American-style identity checks in the middle of the street . . . In Lugano, bank secrecy is no laughing matter. Several times we tried to meet Mr. Nada, who eventually responded by mail, ‘We allow neither you nor any other journalist, nor publication, to speak about us—positively or negatively—without our written permission.’ Signed, Yussef Nada. ”
(Ibid.; p. 140.)
30. Discussing the diaspora of the Brotherhood following its expulsion from Egypt, the program discusses the establishment of Munich as a primary base of operations.
” ‘Why Munich, why Germany?’ I asked Rifaat Said. ‘Because there, one finds old complicities that go back to the late 1930’s, when the Muslim Brothers collaborated with the agents of Nazi Germany. . . By soaking up the savings of these Muslim workers, Yussef Nada, like Said Ramadan, took advantage of an extremely favorable context and used it as a springboard for the Muslim Brothers’ economic activities.’ ”
(Ibid.; p. 153.)
31. Nada himself is alleged to have been agent of the Abwehr, the military intelligence service of the Third Reich. (See FTR#416.)
“But Yussef Nada is even better-known to the Egyptian [intelligence] services, who have evidence of his membership in the armed branch of the fraternity of the Muslim Brothers in the 1940’s. At that time, according to the same sources, he was working for the Abwehr under Admiral Canaris and took part in a plot against King Farouk. This was not the first time that the path of the Muslim Brothers crossed that of the servants of the Third Reich. ”
(Ibid.; 140–141.)
32. Highlighting the political inclinations of the “Fraternity ” (Labaviere’s nickname for the Muslim Brotherhood), the program sets forth the fascist orientation of this organization.
“The history of the Fraternity makes the Brothers’ concept of the Islamic State clear: a theocratic State of fascistic inspiration. . . . Some of them were fellow travelers of the Nazis, and are still trying today to resuscitate the old alliance of Islamism and the swastika. ”
(Ibid.; p. 121.)
33.
“Muhammad Said al-Ashmawy continued: ‘All my research always brings me back to the same point: at the beginning of this process of the perversion of Islam are the Muslim Brothers, an extreme Right cult.’.. . An extreme Right cult? ‘The history of the Muslim Brothers is infused and fascinated by fascistic ideology,’ Said al-Ashmawy adds. ‘Their doctrines, their total (if not totalitarian) way of life, takes as a starting point the same obsession with a perfect city on earth, in conformity with the celestial city whose organization and distribution of powers they can discern through the lens of their fantastical reading of the Koran.’ This ‘Fascistic affiliation’ would crop up in the analyses of several of our interlocutors, in particular that of the journalist Eric Rouleau, who is a specialist in the Middle East, former French ambassador to Tunisia and Turkey. ”
(Ibid.; p. 124.)
34. As noted in FTR#332 and FTR#340, the fascists used anti-colonial sentiment in the Third World to recruit confederates against Britain and France. The Muslim Brotherhood was utilized in this fashion.
“Lastly, the emergence and the rise to power of Fascism, hostile to French and British colonialism, gave rise to many analogies with corporatist propaganda and the methods of mobilization of Mussolini’s gangs. ”
(Ibid.; p. 126.)
35. The theocratic fascism of the Brotherhood was enunciated by the organization’s founder Hassan al-Banna.
” ‘Islam is doctrine, divine worship, the fatherland, the nation, religion, spirituality, the Koran and the sword.’ ”
(Idem.)
36. Further highlighting the comparisons between the Brotherhood’s program and those of Mussolini and Hitler, the broadcast continues.
“Taking Italy’s choices under Mussolini for inspiration, the economic program set three priorities . . . The social policy foresaw a new law on labor, founded on corporations. This economic program would more directly reveal its relationship to totalitarian ideologies a few years later, with the works of Mohamed Ghazali . . . . Mohamed Ghazali recommended ‘an economic regimen similar to that which existed in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.’ . . .The moral code is also an important component in this program, which is intended to create the ‘new Muslim man.’ . . . The notion of the equality of the sexes is inherently negated by the concept of the supremacy of male social responsibilities . . .the ‘natural’ place of the woman is in the home. ”
(Ibid.; p. 127.)
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