Video: David Petraeus on The Problem with Jon Stewart.
The Hill reports: “Comedian and political commentator Jon Stewart pushed back against the U.S. military-industrial complex while speaking with former CIA director and retired Gen. David Petraeus in an interview for Stewart’s Apple TV+ show.”
A 6-minute portion of this show featuring Petraeus can be seen here.
While Stewart later quips about Petraeus wearing a short-sleeve fleece vest, it’s also notable that the vest has the KKR logo on it.
KKR and Coastal GasLink
In December 2019, a TC Energy media release stated: “TC Energy Corporation … announced today that it has entered into an agreement to sell a 65 per cent equity interest in the Coastal GasLink Pipeline Project … to KKR and Alberta Investment Management Corporation (AIMCo) on behalf of certain AIMCo clients.”
The following year, The Narwhal reported: “KKR is an American private equity firm and one of the largest in the world with assets of US$207 billion. Its Coastal GasLink purchase was made in partnership with South Korea’s state-run National Pension Service — the third-largest pension in the world with over US$600 billion in assets.”
That article adds: “In their responsible investment policies, AIMCo and KKR do not indicate whether they consider Indigenous Rights in their investment decisions.”
Since 2017-18, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) “community-industry response group” (C-IRG) has spent more than $27.6 million on their ongoing presence on Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia, Canada to enable the construction of the Coastal GasLink fracked gas pipeline and have arrested more than 74 land defenders, legal observers and members of the media in three militarized raids.
Photo: The militarized RCMP C-IRG raid on Wet’suwet’en territory, February 2020. Photo by Amber Bracken/The Narwhal.
Petraeus and KKR
KKR notes: “General David H. Petraeus (US Army, Ret.) (New York) is a Partner at KKR and Chairman of the KKR Global Institute, which he established in May 2013.”
KKR adds: “The KKR Global Institute (KGI) is an integral part of the KKR investment process — working in partnership with KKR deal teams, portfolio companies, and limited partners to help enable smarter investing through a better understanding of the world.”
It also notes: “To accomplish its mission, KGI integrates expertise and analysis about emerging developments and long-term trends in geopolitics, macroeconomics, demographics, energy and natural resource markets, technology, and trade policy, as well as environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations.”
Petraeus and torture in Iraq
Petraeus served for 37 years in the United States Army, including as the commander of US Forces in Iraq from February 2007 to September 2008 and then in Afghanistan from July 2010 to July 2011.
The Guardian has reported: “The Pentagon sent [Colonel James Steele] a U.S. veteran of the ‘dirty wars’ in Central America [notably El Salvador] to oversee sectarian police commando units in Iraq that set up secret detention and torture centres to get information from insurgents. These units conducted some of the worst acts of torture during the US occupation and accelerated the country’s descent into full-scale civil war.”
The article adds: “A second special adviser, retired Colonel James H Coffman, worked alongside Steele in detention centres that were set up with millions of dollars of US funding.” It then notes: “Coffman reported directly to General David Petraeus, sent to Iraq in June 2004 to organise and train the new Iraqi security forces.”
After the US Army, Petraeus served as the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from September 2011 to November 2012.
You can also watch INVASION, a “film about the Unist’ot’en Camp, Gidimt’en checkpoint and the larger Wet’suwet’en Nation standing up to the Canadian government and corporations who continue colonial violence against Indigenous people.”
Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and land defenders continue to call for RBC and other banks and pension funds to divest from the CGL pipeline.
#DefundCGL
