The Myth of Swiss Neutrality

With the widely reported news that the allegedly neutral Swiss government has destroyed documents potentially linking the Bush Administration to the AQ Khan nuclear smuggling network, the myth of Swiss neutrality in matters of war and peace has been completely extinguished.

The documents, crucial in the prosecution of Urs and Marco Tinner for violating Swiss export laws on controlled goods, also effectively ends the Swiss prosecution against the Tinners. The father of Urs and Marco, Friedrich Tinner, has admitted knowing Abdul Qadeer Khan since the 1970's. AQ Khan has been a key figure in Pakistan's nuclear weapons program and his network is believed to have proliferated nuclear arms components to the countries of Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Valerie Plame Wilson, the CIA NOC agent outed by members of the Bush Administration, was deeply involved in monitoring and neutralizing the efforts of AQ Khan's network. Her outing by the Bush Administration formally made her cover company, Brewster Jennings, defunct, and its many contacts likely assassination targets.

The Swiss government alleges that the destruction of these documents was crucial to Switzerland's "national security," but unidentified intelligence sources have made plain that the efforts of the Bush Administration forced the February, 2008 destruction of this evidence.

Rolling up the loose ends before its term in office expires, the Bush Administration and members of the Bush Family have long relied on the cover provided by Switzerland's principle of anonymity in banking matters to funnel pay-offs, bribes, weapons and drug money all over the world. The Swiss, of course, would deny that they provide cover for criminal syndicates; however, requiring proof, rather than suspicion, of criminal activity tends to give criminal syndicates all the cover they need to conduct their business in and through Swiss bank accounts.

Unless and until the Swiss government ceases and desists serving as a global "laundromat" for the transfer of funds precipitated by criminal enterprises – like those of the Bush Crime Family – the world is not safe from the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the shenanigans of drug cartels or the machinations of intelligence operatives claiming to be operating on behalf of "national security."

As long as any nation can claim that its perverse obsession with secrecy is a matter of "national security," the people of the world will have neither nations, nor security.