Sunday, October 15, 2006

The Bush family buys into...PARAGUAY? (Update)

This report claims that George Bush Sr. has purchased a 98,842-acre farm in northern Paraguay, between Brazil and Bolivia.

A source privately tells me that the elder Bush appears to have made the purchase through an organization called FundaciĆ³n Patria, a group based in the Dominican Republic which claims as its goal the improvement of life for impoverished students in the third world. The same correspondent says that the ranch will be administered by W's former abassador to Paraguay, Timothy Towell.

I cannot verify this information at this time, so apply a strong note of caution to all of the above.

Jenna Bush -- of all people! -- is in Paraguay at this writing "to take part in a UNICEF program for young professionals volunteers." Just as one cannot easily visualize Poppy as a Paraguayan farmer, one does not easily visualize his air-head grandchild as someone who takes a genuine interest in charity. My source tells me that Jenna has been tasked to scout out Poppy's new purchase.

Presuming that this information has a basis in fact, what could be the aim? If we allow ourselves to speculate, all sorts of "Dr. No" scenarios suggest themselves:

Do the Bushes hope to create a new Colonia Dignidad? Will the ranch serve to train an irregular army, as occurred on so many American-owned private "ranches" in Honduras during the contra war? Does the region hide mineral wealth? Could the Bushes be -- O, unthinkable thought! -- in the drug trade?

Perhaps the Bush family is simply plotting an escape, given the possibility of real reform in D.C.

Or perhaps they hope to rule from this region, once nuclear war destroys much of the rest of the world.

UPDATE: As doc elsewhere reminds us, this area is home to the world's largest aquifer, which will play an important role in the water-starved world to come. And as this piece points out, Bolivia's vast gas fields are nearby.

Right-wing blogs have long reported an Al Qaeda "presence" near the area now allegedly under Bush ownership. (Rancho Poppy is supposedly in northern Paraguay, while the "tri-border" area associated with Osama's lads is in the south.) See here and here and here, as well as this 2002 CNN piece. Although the reports of suspicious Middle Easterners travelling to Paraguay seem persuasive enough, some cynics believe that the "Islamic terror goes south" meme is disinfo.

You'll also want to read this 2005 piece on the heavy U.S. military presence in Paraguay -- a very bizarre allocation of resources, given the need for personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan:
A statement issued from the U.S. embassy in Paraguay explained that the military exercises in question involve humanitarian and medical assistance to poor communities as well as military training. The embassy maintained that the U.S. has “absolutely no intention of establishing a military base anywhere in Paraguay” and “has no intention to station soldiers for a lengthy period in Paraguay.” (3)

The Pentagon used this same rhetoric when describing its actions in Manta, Ecuador, now the home of an $80 million U.S. military base.
Finally, of course, we must note the Bush family's undeniable relationship with the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, who also owns vast holdings in Paraguay. Something's going on here, people...

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

ah. this is not that surprising.

that area, joe, is the site of the world's largest aquifer, the guarani, larger than texas and california combined.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/08/060828-guarani.html

moreover, much of that area is owned by ... wait for it...
sun myung moon.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=2497387

and we know how tight moon is with poppy.

water; the new oil.

Anonymous said...

Jenna purportedly in PANAMA for UNICEF
http://tinyurl.com/y3avsn

Anonymous said...

It's probably a combination of factors, but I'd guess that the foremost one is that the Bush family won't be welcome here in the US, after the extent of the coming Depression becomes clear. They will flee just like the nobles had to flee France and Russia during their revolutions. Pappy knows what's coming even if Junior hasn't got a clue.

I doubt they are the only ones designing exit strategies to South America. Argentina is of course a perennial favorite...

Anonymous said...

Excellent work, Joseph and dr. e! We may not yet be able to confirm quite all the information you've discussed here, but I'd say this entry's conclusions are more or less dead on target. And on that note--YIKES. Water, the New Oil, indeed.

Anonymous said...

don't recall where i read this info, but heard quite some time ago that W had purchased an estate in costa rica.

then again, i have a dear friend who lives there who knows nothing about it.

make of that what you will.

Anonymous said...

Hey Joe, how have you been? I had a heads up on this last week too-my instincts told me the Moonies were working covertly on this with Bushco intelligence-so that's the first thing I looked into.
In any case- the Rev. Moon bought up the Banco de Credito in 1996. Much more going on than cultic converstions. And yep--the property bought by Bush is the over the very same Aquifer that the Moonie's set up camp-all very suspect- read on:

Moonies accused of involvement in drugs

Investment firms snatching up power plants, plus three more industry trends explained by Hoover's Editors. Read more or download a free report.

Europe Intelligence Wire/October 14, 2004

Paraguay -- The Reverend Moon has carved out a section of Paraguay that is twice the size of Luxembourg. Seamus Mirodan went to see it

Reverend Sun Myung Moon, spiritual leader of the Unification Church, self-proclaimed Messiah, multimillionaire and a generous contributor to the US Republican Party, has been showing a strong interest over the last five years in little-known Paraguay at the centre of the South American continent.

Since 1999, Rev Moon has built his personal empire which begins on the marshy banks of the River Paraguay and stretches beyond the hazy, level horizon through 600,000 hectares of arid land - equivalent to more than two Luxembourgs - punctuated by solitary clusters of withered trees and sad bushes which struggle desperately for air.

The scorching sun beats relentlessly on one of Latin America's most desolate zones. It is here in the northern province of Chaco, directly above the GuaranI aquifer, the largest resource of fresh drinking water in the world, where Moon's associates claim he wishes to build an ecological paradise.

Anonymous said...

oops excuse those darn typos--but more importantly here's the link-:

http://www.rickross.com/reference/unif/unif240.html

the moonies and bush have a history that should not be dismissed-there's far more going on than passing favors around.
This is one powerful cult organization with peculiar covert connections.