http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2007/03/84517.html

VOX Pop
1022 Cortelyou Rd.
Brooklyn, NY 11218
Telephone: 718 940 2084

At Sander Hicks' VOX Pop bookstore/cafe this Saturday, impeccable BCCI researcher Lucy Komisar will be promoting the new book, "A Game as Old As Empire" in which she has a chapter;

Saturday 3/31 @ Vox Pop, 5-9 PM, FREE:

Dinner special for only $9! Your choice of Turkey/Bison/Veggie Burger with Beer or Wine, voxpopnet.net/food.html, voxpopnet.net/beerwine.html

5-7 PM: James Henry and Lucy Komisar present A Game As Old As Empire

John Perkins's controversial exposé, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, came out of nowhere in late 2004 to become an international word-of-mouth sensation. Now Perkins is joined by a dozen contributors-journalists, investigators, activists, and even other economic hit men in A Game As Old As Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption.

In chapters covering countries all across the globe the authors tell how multinational corporations, governments, powerful individuals, banks, other financial institutions, and quasi-governmental agencies operate to enrich small elites and corporate coffers while often impoverishing masses of people and creating debt and dependency that economically enslave countries for generations.

A Game As Old As Empire provides the first full inside look at how this dark and dirty world functions. It concludes with a call to action offering ordinary citizens as well as activists advice about what they can do to confront and change this destructive web of control.

5 PM: James S. Henry is a leading investigative journalist, economist, and lawyer who has written extensively about economic issues, developing countries, corruption, and money laundering. He is the author of several books and a newsblog that tracks developing countries and features contributing journalists from around the globe (SubmergingMarkets.com). James's chapter is called "The Mirage of Debt Relief."

6 PM: Lucy Komisar is a New York-based journalist who traveled in the developing world in the 1980s and 1990s writing about movements to overthrow the despots who were running many of the countries she visited. Beginning in 1997, she shifted her focus to reportage about offshore banking (TheKomisarScoop.com).

Here are some highlights from Lucy’s chapter, “BCCI’s Double Game: Banking on America, Banking on Jihad”:

“George Bush repeatedly said that there was a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. There was one, but not the one he wanted people to know about. Saddam and Osama had the same banker, BCCI. Bush didn't want people to know, because BCCI also funneled money to W. And because his father had protected it and its leaders from serious prosecution in the 90s. Because it was the bank of the CIA and because it was tightly connected to the Saudis. And because some of the disappeared billion$ followed a path that leads to al Qaeda…

BCCI enriched the entourage of the Bushes and other Washington influentials. Its biggest shareholders were Saudy and United Arab Emirates sheiks. The money it stole—somewhere between $9.5 billion and $15 billion—made its 20-year heist the biggest bank fraud in history…The CIA used Islamabad and other BCCI branches in Pakistan to funnel some of the $2 billion that Washington sent to Osama bin Laden’s Mujaheddin to help fight the Soviets in Afghanistan…BCCI also helped Saddam Hussein, again with the complicity of his Washington friends…Not content with aiding Saddam Hussein, the Reaganites decided to arm Iran as well…in the years after the collapse of BCCI, Khalid bin Mahfouz was still flush with cash, and the former financier of George W. Bush became a financier of Osama bin Laden…”

http://GameAsOldAsEmpire.com/

http://VoxPopNet.net/

It'll be interesting to see how Komisar depicts the Bin Mahfouz tapestry. There is value in examining how financiers shuffle money around, sometimes in tandem with intelligence agencies, (like with BCCI), in complex shell games designed to blur the trail of responsibility.

We'll know in a few months if Komisar has the goods on Mahfouz, because if she doesn't, he'll probably drag her and her publisher into a libel court in London:
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18781