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by James P. Tucker Jr.
from
American Free Press
2004 - June
Stresa, Italy
At this year’s secret Bilderberg meeting, some of the world’s most powerful elite focused
on U.S. taxes and foreign giveaways, as well as the increasingly
violent Iraq occupation and the role the United Nations should play
in all future similar outbreaks of violence.
Prior to the meeting, a Bilderberg memo promised that its members
would deal mainly with European-American relations and in that
context, with U.S politics, Iraq, the Middle East, European
geopolitics, NATO, China, energy and economic problems.
During the conference, Britain came in for harsh criticism for
supporting the invasion of Iraq. It was also lambasted for failing
to embrace the euro, despite Prime Minister Tony Blair’s promise to
do so at a Bilderberg meeting some years ago in the Scottish resort
of Turnberry.
Bilderberg members also expressed frustration with the rising clamor
in Britain to quit the European Union.
As expected, the United States was heavily criticized for the fact
that its foreign aid was a smaller percentage of gross domestic
product than that of other nations. That marked the third straight
meeting at which Bilderbergers’ decades of almost total congeniality
was marred by hostility among the Americans, Britons and continental
Europeans.
The first evidence of division in the ranks was apparent in 2002
when Bilderbergers met at Chantilly, Va., near Washington. Then,
Europeans were angry that the United Sates was preparing for an
invasion of Iraq. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld tried to
placate them with a promise not to invade "this year." Instead, the
war began in March 2003.
Bilderbergers, however, remain united in their long-term goal
to
strengthen the role the UN plays in regulating global relations.
Aside from that objective, other matters on this year’s conference
agenda included the following:
British elites are to press on with membership in the
European Union
despite growing domestic opposition.
The Free Trade Area of the Americas should be enacted and include
the entire Western Hemisphere except for Cuba until Fidel Castro is
gone. It should then evolve into the "American Union" as a carbon
copy of the European Union.
An "Asian-Pacific Union" is to emerge as the third great superstate,
neatly dividing the world into three great regions for the
administrative convenience of banking and corporate elites. The
United States and other international financial institutions should
facilitate and administrate these global trade pacts.
Bilderbergers have, for some time, argued for three global
currencies,
One Bilderberger, Kenneth Clarke, a former chancellor of the British
exchequer, saw the consolidation of currencies as an ideal strategy
when he spoke to this reporter several years ago in Portugal. At
that time, Clarke told me that "dollarization" would dominate the
globe and "our children will laugh at all the petty currencies we
have now."
Another much-discussed subject at this year’s conference was the
concept of imposing a direct UN tax on people worldwide. In order to
achieve it, some Bilderbergers presented two proposals:
Bilderberg leaders tilted strongly toward the oil tax because
everyone who drives a car, rides public transportation or flies in a
plane will end up paying the tax. That will represent more people
than those engaged in international financial transactions across
the globe.
On the issue of Iraq, European Bilderbergers were more upset that
the United States invaded without the UN’s blessing than the fact
that over 800 American soldiers have died and thousands of innocent
Iraqi citizens have been killed.
[Note that American Free Press is a
fanatical left wing propaganda outfit - the author says American
soldiers "died" but Iraqi citizens "have been killed", whereas of
course many of those American soldiers were killed - many by booby
traps. -AMPP Ed.]
Word reached the conference from Rumsfeld, who was unable to attend
this year’s meeting, that the U.S. military would assume a more
defensive stance in Iraq, rather than the more provocative
operations of door-to-door searches and widespread detention.
Rumsfeld was, however, represented in Stresa by Douglas Feith, his
undersecretary for policy, and William Luti, deputy undersecretary
for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs. Former Pentagon advisor
Richard Perle, one of the major architects of the war in Iraq, was
also present. It had been Perle, Feith and Paul Wolfowitz who, from
the mid 1990s, had fashioned the Middle East policy later adopted by
Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld.
European Bilderbergers also protested the fact that
the Pentagon was
considering reducing troop levels in Germany and tried hard to
convince their American counterparts to resist the move. They argued
it would "undermine unity" and, irrespective of the military
implications, the German economy benefited annually from the
millions of dollars spent by U.S. servicemen there.
Resistance in Britain to the euro, and to membership in the European
Union, caused much concern and was deemed an obstacle to the
solidification of the superstate.
It was noted that many Europeans were unaware of the European
Parliament elections scheduled for June 10 and should there be a low
turnout, it could be attributed to a protest boycott of the
elections by EU opposition groups.
Four former Conservative members of Parliament have endorsed the
United Kingdom Independence Party, which demands British withdrawal
from the European Union. And, if allowed to vote in a referendum, it
has been reported that Britons would reject membership in the
European Union by strong proportions. A YouGov survey, taken at the
end of May, showed 48 percent would vote to get out of the European
Union and 36 percent would vote to stay in.
As it stands, Europeans can only select members for the European
Parliament but not the EU Commission, the bureaucratic powerhouse of
the union.
Bilderberg participants ended their secret sessions on an upbeat
note with a ferry ride to a luxury island on Lake Maggiore, where
John Elkman, the latest vice president of the Fiat motor company,
will marry his new bride in September.
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