George H. Walker Bush: The Bush Family and the Mexican Drug Cartel
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
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 Donald
Trump has offered to intervene in Mexico, i.e. “to go after the Drug
Cartels” following “the brutal killing of an American family in Mexico”.
The Mexican president has turned down Trump’s generous offer.
In
a recent interview, President Trump confirmed that his administration
is now considering categorizing “drug cartels” as “terrorists”, akin to
Al Qaeda (with the exception that they are “Catholic terrorists”).
They would henceforth be designated by Washington as “foreign terrorist organizations”.
What is the intent?
Create a justification for US-led “counterterrorism” (military) operations inside Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America?
Extend the “War on Terrorism” to Latin America? “Responsibility to Protect” (R2P). Go after the “Narco-terrorists”.
The unspoken truth is:
1.
Al Qaeda and its related terrorist organizations (including ISIS) in
the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia are creations of the CIA.
2.
The CIA protects the multibillion dollar global drug trade as well as
the Mexican drug cartels. Moreover, it is estimated that 300 billion
dollars (annually) worth of drug money is routinely laundered in casinos
across America including Las Vegas and Atlantic City… As well as in
Macau. Guess who is the World’s richest casino owner.
4. Both American and Latin American politicians are known to have ties to the drug trade.
Flash
back to the 1990s: George H. W. Bush, the dad of Bush Junior had
developed close personal ties with Carlos Salinas de Gortari (former
president of Mexico) and his dad Raul Salinas Lozano who, according to
the Dallas Morning News (February 27, 1997) was “a leading figure in
narcotics dealings that also involved his son, Raul Salinas de Gortari…
And Raul was an intimo amigo of Jeb Bush, (former Governor of Florida)
and the brother of George W, Bush.
The Bush family has ties to the Bin Laden Family as well as ties to the Salinas de Gortiari family. Is it relevant?
The
following text was published in May 2015 under the title Jeb Bush, the
Mexican Drug Cartel and “Free Trade”. The Bush Family and Organized
Crime. It also documents the signing of the North american Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) by a Mexican head state with links to the Drug
Cartels.
Michel Chossudovsky, December 1, 2019
***
Jeb Bush is a presidential candidate. [was in 2015]
But Jeb is not only the brother of George W. and the son of George H. W. Bush.
Jeb Bush also had close personal ties to Raul Salinas de Gortari,
brother of Mexico’s former president Carlos Salinas de Gortari. In the
1990s, Raul the “drug kingpin”, according to Switzerland’s federal
prosecutor Carla del Ponte, was one of the main figures of the Mexican
Drug Cartel.
 Jeb Bush –before becoming Governor of the Sunshine State– was a close friend of Raul Salinas de Gortiari (image right):
“There has also been a great deal of speculation in Mexico about the exact nature of Raul
Salinas’ close friendship with former President George Bush’s son, Jeb.
It is well known here that for many years the two families spent
vacations together — the Salinases at Jeb Bush’s home in Miami, the Bushes at Raul’s ranch, Las Mendocinas, under the volcano in Puebla.
There
are many in Mexico who believe that the relationship became a back
channel for delicate and crucial negotiations between the two
governments, leading up to President Bush’s sponsorship of NAFTA.”
(Prominent intellectual and former foreign Minister of Mexico Jorge G.
Castañeda, The Los Angeles Times. and Houston Chronicle, 9 March 1995, emphasis added)
 The
personal relationship between the Bush and Salinas families was a
matter of public record. Former President George H. W. Bush had
developed close personal ties with Carlos Salinas and his father, Raul Salinas Lozano. (left)
Raul
Salinas Lozano was the family patriarch, father of Carlos and Raul
Junior. According to the former private secretary to Raul Salinas Lozano
(in as statement to US authorities):
“… Mr. Salinas Lozano was a leading figure in narcotics dealings that also involved his son, Raul Salinas de Gortari, his
son-in-law, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu, the No. 2 official in the
governing Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, and other leading
politicians, according to the documents. Mr. Ruiz Massieu was
assassinated in 1994.” (Dallas Morning News, 26 February 1997, emphasis
added).
Former president George H. W. Bush and Raul Salinas Lozano were “intimo amigos”.
According to former DEA official Michael Levine, the
Mexican drug Cartel was a “family affair”. Both Carlos and Raul were
prominent members of the Cartel. And this was known to then US Attorney
General Edward Meese in 1987 one year prior to Carlos Salinas’
inauguration as the country’s president.
When
Carlos Salinas was inaugurated as President, the entire Mexican State
apparatus became criminalised with key government positions occupied by
members of the Cartel. The Minister of Commerce in charge of trade
negotiations leading up to the signing of NAFTA was Raul Salinas Lozano,
father of Raul Junior the Drug kingpin and of Carlos the president.
And
it is precisely during this period that the Salinas government launched
a sweeping privatisation program under advice from the IMF.
The
privatisation program subsequently evolved into a multibillion dollar
money laundering operation. Narco-dollars were channelled towards the
acquisition of State property and public utilities.
Richard Barnet of the Institute for Policy Studies, testified to the US Congress (April 14, 1994) that
“billions of dollars in state assets have gone to supporters and cronies” (Dallas Morning News, 11 August 1994).
These
included the sale of Telefonos de Mexico, valued at $ 3.9 billion and
purchased by a Salinas crony for $ 400 million.(Ibid).
Raul
Salinas was behind the privatisation programme. He was known as ”El
Señor 10 por Ciento” [Mr. 10 Percent] “for the slice of bid money he
allegedly demanded in exchange for helping acquaintances acquire
companies, concessions and contracts [under the IMF sponsored
privatisation program]”(The News, InfoLatina, .Mexico, October 10,
1997).
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
 Raul
Salinas de Gortari is the brother of former president Carlos Salinas
de Gortiari, who signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
in December 1992 alongside US President George H. W. Bush and Canada’s
Prime Minister Brian Mulroney.(image left)
In
a bitter irony, it was only after this historical event, that Carlos
Salinas’ family links to the drug trade through his brother Raul were
revealed.
The
George H. W. Bush Senior administration was fully aware of the links of
the Salinas presidency to organized crime. Public opinion in the US and
Canada was never informed so as not to jeopardize the signing of NAFTA:
“Other former officials say they were pressured to keep mum because Washington was obsessed with approving NAFTA”.
“The
intelligence on corruption, especially by drug traffickers, has always
been there,” said Phil Jordan, who headed DEA’s Dallas office from 1984
to 1994. But “we were under instructions not to say anything negative
about Mexico. It was a no-no since NAFTA was a hot political
football.” (Dallas Morning News, 26 February 1997)
In
other words, at the time the NAFTA Agreement was signed, both Bush
Senior and Mulroney were aware that one of the signatories of NAFTA,
namely president Salinas de Gortiari had links to the Mexican Drug
Cartel.
 In
1995 in the wake of the scandal and the arrest of his brother Raul for
murder, Carlos Salinas left Mexico to take up residence in Dublin. His
alleged links to the Drug Cartel did not prevent him from being
appointed to the Board of the Dow Jones Company on Wall Street, a
position which he held until 1997:
Salinas,
who left Mexico in March 1995 after his brother, Raul, was charged with
masterminding the murder of a political opponent, has served on the
company’s board for two years. He was questioned last year in Dublin by a
Mexican prosecutor investigating the murder in March 1994 of Luis
Donaldo Colosio, who wanted to succeed Salinas as president. A Dow Jones
spokesman last week denied that Salinas had been forced out of an
election for the new board, which will take place at the company’s
annual meeting on April 16… Salinas, who negotiated Mexico’s entry into
the free trade agreement with the United States and Canada, was
appointed to the board because of his international experience. He was
unavailable for comment at his Dublin home last week.” (Sunday Times,
London, 30 March 1997).
Washington
has consistently denied Carlos Salinas’ involvement. “it was his
brother Raul”, Carlos Salinas “did not know”, the American media
continued to uphold Salinas as a model statesman, architect of free
trade in the Americas and a friend of the Bush family.
In
October 1998, The Swiss government confirmed that the brother of the
former Mexican president had deposited some 100 million dollars in drug
money in Swiss banks:
“They
[Swiss authorities] are confiscating the money, which they believe was
part of a much larger amount paid to Raul Salinas for helping Mexican
and Colombian drugs cartels during his brother’s six-year term ending in
1994. Mr Salinas’ lawyers have maintained he was legally heading an
investment fund for Mexican businessmen but the Swiss federal
prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, described Salinas’ business dealings as
unsound, incomprehensible and contrary to customary business usage. ( BBC Report)
 A
few months later in January 1999, after a four-year trial, Raúl Salinas
de Gortari (left) was convicted of ordering the murder of his
brother-in-law, Jose Francisco Ruiz Massieu:
“After
[Carlos] Salinas left office in 1994, the Salinas family fell from
grace in a swirl of drug-related corruption and crime scandals. Raúl was
jailed and convicted on charges of money laundering and of
masterminding the assassination of his brother-in-law; after spending 10
years in jail, Raúl was acquitted of both crimes. …
With the scandal unraveling, Jeb’s
friendship with Raúl did not go unnoticed. Jeb has never denied his
friendship with Raúl, who [now] keeps a low profile in Mexico.
Kristy Campbell, spokesperson for Bush, did not respond a request for comment. The Salinas family’s demise caught the Bushes by surprise. “I
have been very disappointed by the allegations about him and his
family. I never had the slightest hint of information that President
Salinas was anything but totally honest,” Bush senior told me in the
1997 interview. (Dolia Estevez, Jeb Bush’s Mexican Connections, Forbes,
April 7, 2015, emphasis added)
“The Salinas family’s demise caught the Bushes by surprise”? (Forbes, April 2015) The Bushes knew who they were all along.
Former DEA official Michael Levine confirmed that Carlos Salinas’ role in the Mexican drug cartel was known to US officials.
US President George H. W. Bush was regularly briefed by officials from the Department of Justice, the CIA and the DEA.
Did
Jeb Bush –who is now [2015] a candidate for the White House under a
Republican ticket– know about Raul’s links to the Drug Cartel?
Was the Bush family in any way complicit?
These
are issues which must be addressed and debated by the American public
across the land prior to the 2016 presidential primary elections.
According to Andres Openheimer writing in the Miami Herald (February 17 1997):
“witnesses
say former Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari, his imprisoned
brother Raul and other members of country’s ruling elite met with drug
lord Juan Garcia Abrego at a Salinas family ranch; Jeb Bush admits he
met with Raul Salinas several times but has never done any business with
him.”
US
authorities waited until after Carlos Salinas finished his presidential
term to arrest Mexican drug lord Juan Garcia Abrego, who was a close
collaborator of the president’s brother Raul. In turn, Raul Salinas was
an “intimo amigo” of Jeb Bush :
Juan
Garcia Abrego, a fugitive on the FBI’s most-wanted list, was flown to
Houston late Monday, following his arrest by Mexican police … Garcia
Abrego, the reputed head of Mexico’s second most powerful drug cartel,
had eluded authorities on both sides of the border for years. His arrest
is an enormous victory for the U.S. and Mexican governments. CNN, January 16, 2015
But
there is more than meets the eye: while the Bushes and the Salinas have
longstanding ties, Wall Street was also involved in the laundering of
drug money:
A U.S. official said the Justice Department has made
significant advances in its money-laundering investigation against Raul
Salinas de Gortari and has identified several people who can testify
that the former first brother received protection money from a major
narcotics cartel.
If
the U.S. were to indict Mr. Salinas, it could have implications for
a Justice Department investigation into possible money laundering by
Citibank, where Mr. Salinas had some of his accounts. Citibank, a unit
of Citicorp, has denied wrongdoing. (WSW, April 23, 2015)
The involvement of Citbank in the money laundering operation is
documented by a Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs Report (US
General Accounting Office “Private Banking: Raul Salinas, Citibank, and Alleged Money Laundering” Washington, 1998).
.
The End Game
Raul Salinas de Gortiari was set free in 2005. All charges were dropped.
The matter involving the Bushes and the Salinas has largely been forgotten.
Meanwhile, American political history has been rewritten…
Not
to mention the 1992 “Free Trade” Agreement (NAFTA), which was signed
by a head of State with links to organized crime. Does that make it an
illegal agreement? The legitimacy of NAFTA has so far not been the
object of a legal procedure of judicial inquiry.
An “illegal NAFTA” sets the stage for the TPP and TTIP “agreements” negotiated behind closed doors.
All is well in the American Republic.
At least until the forthcoming 2016 presidential elections.
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