Syria is but the latest place for U.S. global tampering on behalf of the moneyed class. An interesting exchange occurred between Columbia University Professor Jeffrey Sachs and Admiral James Stavridis, a Dean at Tufts University. Sachs was remarkably frank, open and honest about President Obama's serial defecating on his Nobel Peace Prize. Admiral Stavridis ignored Sach's evidence based observations in favor of perpetual war for economic gain.
Before Syria there was Libya, a Western based intervention run by Stavridis.
Stavridis retired in 2013 and later received a number of corporate board appointments. SEC filings show his publicly traded board slots.
Six of the seven board seats are related to investment firm Neuberger Berman, once part of Lehman Brothers. Lehman's failure nearly shattered the financial globe in fall 2008. President George W. Bush chose not to save Lehman which employed brother Jeb and cousin George Walker in the very same Neuberger Berman unit.
Private equity firm Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman bought Neuberger Berman from an imploded Lehman. Neuberger Berman recently purchased a stake of private equity underwriter (PEU) Vector Capital
Institutional Investor reported:
Perhaps the most surprising success at Neuberger is the globalization effort. Under Lehman the firm had $4.15 billion in assets from non-U.S. institutional clients. At the end of September 2013, it had $47.6 billion.Admiral Stavridis joined the various Neuberger boards on 12-16-2015, after the firm had grown its international investment over ten times.
Also, Neuberger filings show three private company board appointments for Stavridis since his military service ended. They include BMC Software Federal, Vertical Knowledge and Utilidata.
Private equity underwriters Bain Capital and Golden Gate Capital bought BMC in 2013 for $6.9 billion. Rumors have them flipping BMC for over $10 billion in an IPO.
Bain and its PEU partners invested $1.25 billion in equity for the buyout. They pulled $750 million from BMC in April 2014 in a classic PEU debt for dividend move. That took leverage up to 8x, according to Moody's. As a board member Stavridis would know when Bain et al hit the free money point and how much they would make in a successful IPO.
Vertical Knowledge's Glassdoor site indicates the firm is also PEU backed:
Vertical Knowledge is a leading provider of open source data, information services and analytics. The company operates in the national defense, intelligence and financial services verticals and is backed by Providence Equity and Marker, LLC.Open source data, analytics...has a Cambridge Analytica sound.
Last up for Stavridis is Utilidata.
Utilidata is about making the grid smarter and cyber secure. Syria will need a new power grid, at least in parts of the country. PEHubNetwork reported:
Utilidata’s backers include Formation 8 Partners, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, Braemar Energy Ventures and American Electric PowerThe greed and leverage boys sponsor all three of Stavridis' private board seats. Greed is insatiable and that's who the bombing Admiral serves.
It's interesting how problems that rise from war seem to require more war. Al Qaeda arose from American tampering in Afghanistan to counter Russian influence. That gave us 9-11 and a series of wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, and Syria.
President Obama sought regime change in Syria by assisting rebels via operation Timber Sycamore:
Classified October 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency report revealed that the shipment in late August 2012 had included 500 sniper rifles, 100 RPG (rocket propelled grenade launchers) along with 300 RPG rounds and 400 howitzers. Each arms shipment encompassed as many as ten shipping containers, it reported, each of which held about 48,000 pounds of cargo. That suggests a total payload of up to 250 tons of weapons per shipment. Even if the CIA had organized only one shipment per month, the arms shipments would have totaled 2,750 tons of arms bound ultimately for Syria from October 2011 through August 2012. More likely it was a multiple of that figure.It;s not clear if Admiral Stavridis was aware of this strategy but one might expect the NATO commander to be informed.
Libya had a population of over 6.1 million people in 2010. Stavridis said the intervention was on behalf of "hundreds of thousands of civilians rebelling against an oppressive regime." This ignores the West's catering to Gadhafi, beginning in 2006. Senator John McCain tweeted from the Gadhafi ranch in 2009. McCain wrote "interesting meeting with interesting man." Politicians can flip on a dime.
A different Admiral shared NATO's strategy in the Libyan intervention:
At the same time, we are conducting the mission over Libya with our Arab partners. So, this is a tremendous engagement, but it also demonstrates the potential of having a network of relationships with global actors. This is what the Strategic Concept calls “global partnerships,” because global partnerships are something which help you prevent situations like Libya from happening, or when they happen, to intervene on behalf of the people, in the case of Libya together with our partners. So it is a key, I would say, the most important, probably the most innovative element of the new Strategic Concept, and it is a political concept, not a military one, the military helps and the military engages, but politics lead.A Libyan poll from October 2017 showed:
"43 percent of Libyans, or at least those in the west of the country, think the 2011 revolution was due to outside influence, compared to 46 percent saying it was a wholly Libyan revolt.'Jeffrey Sachs likely knew the man he briefly debated on MSNBC foisted Western violence on behalf of America's government corporate monstrosity (GCM). That's my term for Einsenhower's Military-Industrial Complex on trillions ($) in federal steroids.
'A massive 91 percent say that all governments since the revolution have failed to deliver to aims of the revolution and 92 percent say that corruption has increased since the overthrow of the Qaddafi regime."
MSNBC's reporters looked like they had no clue or are loyal servants to the GCM. Comedian Jimmy Dore wondered how Admiral Stavridis profits from dropping yet more bombs. This post sheds some light on his question.
Admiral Stavridis serves his economic. political masters by pushing violence.
