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Jaded Tasks: Brass Plates, Black Ops & Big Oil, The Blood Politics of George Bush & Co.
The book the Bush Crime Syndicate does not want you to read. Read about the bodies that stacked up in Washington, DC and Texas of those who "knew too much." Discover the neo-con plans for a New World Order run from Washington, DC. Learn how to confront the right-wing about their iconic "heroes."
"Jaded Tasks" available directly from the publisher.
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"Jaded Tasks" Deutsche Ausgabe "Moralischer Bankrott" jetzt erhältlich bei Amazon.de
. . . ". . . ebenfalls erhältlich in Buchhandlungen in Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz."
THE NEWS
December 11, 2006 -- SPECIAL REPORT. Litvinenko poisoning scandal yet another neo-con perverse display of its parallel intelligence structures.
The more confusing the Litvinenko poisoning affair becomes, the more it appears to be yet another example of the dangerous neo-con global network of spies, weapons smugglers, far right-wing politicians, Russian-Israeli mafia businessmen, and Islamic mujaheddin false flag provocateurs. Litvinenko's death from polonium-210 radioactive isotope poisoning has actually helped to cast light on this international network, which has its fingerprints on the false intelligence that propelled the United States into an impending military defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan; the false flag operations of the 9/11 attacks on New York City and Washington; and countless other operations, including political operations in Ukraine, Georgia, and Poland, among other nations.
Litvinenko, far from being some sympathetic figure battling the Kremlin, was a central player in a global crime, disinformation, and terrorism network. He had contacts with a right-wing British political party, the United Kingdom Independence Party (which advocates the UK leaving the European Union, abolition of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly, has links to the fascist British National Front, and wants a strong commitment to NATO); the mujaheddin movements of Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan, including the Georgia Pankisi Gorge-based "Al Qaeda" branch (Al Ansar) led by the Jordanian terrorist Faris Yusef Amirat, aka "Abu Hafs"; the Russian-Israeli criminal syndicate of wanted Russian businessman Boris Berezovsky and his accomplices; and other bad actors involved in a host of illegal and dubious activities around the world. Litvinenko defected to Britain through Turkey, a major hub for the Russian-Israeli Mafia. He has also been linked to Georgia-based Chechen operations in Turkey and Japan. Litvinenko was also reportedly close to the widow of Chechen President Dzhokar Dudayev, killed by an air-to-surface Russian missile attack in 1996. Litvinenko also had close links to exiled and wanted Russian oligarch Leonid Nevzlin, now exiled in Tel Aviv, and Erinsys, Ltd., a British mercenary firm with ties to Iraqi con man Ahmad Chalabi, whose nephew Salem is a business partner of Jerusalem-based Marc Zell, Douglas Feith's former law partner.
One of Litvinenko's associates, who at first claimed to also have been poisoned by polonium but has now been proven to be "Curveball"-grade prevaricator, is Mario Scaramella, a self-styled Italian spy who has charged that Italy's current Prime Minister, Romano Prodi, was a KGB spy. Scaramella has not only been dismissed as a neo-con tool by the Russian and Italian governments, but has been criticized as an insignificant "soap bubble" by Oleg Gordievski, the highest-ranking officer to have ever defected from the KGB. Italians, who witnessed Rome being used as a central location for the disinformation used to promote the invasion of Iraq -- including the infamous Niger "yellow cake" documents (involving another dubious Italian information broker named Rocco Martino), know Scaramella as a swindler and a braggart. Scaramella has also been under investigation by Italian authorities in Naples for weapons smuggling.
So who is Scaramella and what are his connections to the right-wing? Scaramella has been a longtime provocateur who has tried to link European progressive politicians and the Russian government with Cold War misdeeds. He is also linked to the Forza Italiana party of former (and indicted) Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a figure having his own ties to organized crime. Scaramella and Forza Italiana Senator Paolo Guzzanti, coordinated a political attack against Prodi aimed at proving the progressive leftist leader was a KGB spy. Prodi has threatened a lawsuit over the charge. Berlusconi, a major media tycoon, has, like his fellow right-wing media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, used his media holdings to advance a number of right-wing conspiracy theories about leftist and progressive political leaders in Italy and abroad.
The Litvinenko Affair: the usual suspects (Berezovsky, left, Berlusconi, right), both criminal syndicate chiefs, are linked to Scaramella.
Italy has been wracked by an investigation of a 2003 CIA kidnapping and rendition of Abu Omar, a Milan-based imam, via Germany to Egypt for torture. Arrest warrants have been issued for a number of CIA agents suspected of being involved in the kidnapping. Italian authorities are also investigating the assassination by U.S. or U.S.-controlled forces in Baghdad of General Nicola Calipari, the deputy chief of the Italian SISMI intelligence service. Although ruled an "accident" by US authorities, there is increasing evidence that Calipari was a threat to the neo-con network because of what he knew about the CIA kidnappings, the source of the yellowcake documents, and Scaramella's activities. Rather than CIA agents, informed sources now believe the Americans involved with Italian intelligence in secret operations were members of Pentagon intelligence chief Stephen Cambone's parallel intelligence and special operations network, a network that was set up by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to compete with the CIA.
Nicolo Pollari, Calipari's immediate boss, was fired last month as the head of SISMI. An Italian magistrate is now seeking indictments for 26 Americans and five senior Italian intelligence officials, including Pollari and his one-time deputy, Marco Mancini, for the kidnapping of Omar. Mancini was arrested by Italian authorities in the case. Informed Italian intelligence sources have linked Scaramella to the Pollari-Mancini network of neo-cons in SISMI.
Scaramella was a consultant for the Mitrokhin Committee, a body set up by the Italian right-wing-controlled Parliament in 2003 to investigate leftist Italian politicians for their links to the Soviets. The committee was a ruse designed to damage the reputations of Italian progressive leaders. Guzzanti was the committee chairman and another Scaramella friend, Senator Lucio Malan, also of Forza Italiana, served as a member. Italian sources report that Guzzanti told Scaramella that the "Capo," meaning Berlusconi, was going to be pleased with damaging information Litvinenko could pass on about Prodi. Scaramella also reportedly told Italian right-wing politicians of support from a top-level contact in or close to the U.S. government. That has been taken to mean the CIA, but our Italian sources believe it is likely someone associated with the neo-con network in either the Pentagon or National Security Council of the White House. Even more intriguing is a report from a confidential Italian source that Scaramella received funding from a French environmental group "front" activity, a possible link between the Italian agent of influence and a huge neo-con false flag operation involving French Interior Minister and presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy, himself, has been accused of receiving illegal funds through dubious bank accounts in Luxembourg and some of those funds have Russian-Israeli mafia fingerprints written all over them.
The Mitrokhin Committee neo-cons and neo-fascists attempted to link the Italian left to the kidnapping and murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978 and the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II in 1981. We now know from history that Moro was kidnapped and assassinated by Red Brigades in the employment of the Italian fascists, particularly agents associated with the fascist P-2 secret Masonic lodge and the similarly fascist Opus Dei as retaliation for Moro's plans to bring the Communists into a grand coalition. We also now know that Mehmet Ali Agca, the would-be killer of the Pope, was a member of Turkey's far right Gray Wolves and the plot was carried out to lay blame on the Russian KGB and Bulgaria's secret intelligence service.
Sergei Stepashin, former Russian Prime Minister and chief of the Federal Security Service (FSB), said, "It is apparent that those who wanted to tarnish the current Russian authorities, and primarily the president, killed Litvinenko." Two Russian business associates of Litvinenko, Dmitri Kovtun and Andrei Lugovoi (a former agent with the KGB's 9th Directorate, which protected Russian nuclear weapons caches), who met Litvinenko at the Pine Bar of the Millennium Hotel in London, have reportedly been affected by exposure to polonium-210 and seven bartenders who worked at the bar have tested positive for contamination with polonium-210. The Itsu sushi bar in :Picadilly where Litvinenko met Scaramella is now not assumed to be the location where Litvinenko was poisoned. Trace of polonium-210 were found at the restaurant but focus is on the Pine Bar at the Millenium as the scene of the poisoning.
Perhaps not surprisingly, FBI agents have been dispatched to London to investigate the Litvinenko death, even though the United States lacks jurisdiction in the case, since no Americans are involved. However, since even before 9/11, the FBI has covered for the international global mafia of terrorists and smugglers, and agents for this network who have been caught in the United States, including Israeli "art students," office and home furniture "movers," and "tourists" photographing sensitive U.S. installations have merely been deported by the FBI back to Israel. Many of the Israelis also possessed passports from Russia and Ukraine. The FBI's interest in the case may be to cover-up the United States as a source of the polonium-210.
What is now even more intriguing is where traces of polonium have also been detected in the case. The British embassy in Moscow and two British Airways Boeing 767a used on the Moscow-London route have tested positive for polonium-210. Kotvun and Lugovoi met the deputy British ambassador at the British embassy in Moscow prior to their trip to London and Lugovoi is claiming that someone, perhaps the British government, is now involved in trying to frame him. A car used by Kotvun in Hamburg on October 31, the night before he left for London, has also tested positive for polonium-210. However, traces of polonium-210 were also found on a Finnair plane that traveled to Moscow from Berlin via Helsinki.
Litvinenko linked to Al Qaeda/Al Ansar Jordanian chief Abu Hafs, a close confidant of Osama bin Laden, killed by Russian forces in Chechnya. In fact, Litvinenko is but one of many links between the Russian-Israeli Mafia, leading neo-con operatives, and the provocateur organization, "Al Qaeda."
If Britain's intelligence service is involved in the plot to set up Putin by using two unsuspecting Russian businessmen, it means that the Russian-Israeli global mafia has as many links and resources inside British intelligence as it does inside the FBI and U.S. intelligence. And that is a problem that would make James Bond tender his resignation.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has cleared Russia as the source of any illegal radioactive materials shipments. No shipments of polonium have been made by Russia to the UK since 2001.
WMR was the first to report on why polonium was possibly selected as the radioactive weapon of choice. Polonium was discovered by Marie Curie, a champion of Polish independence. The present neo-con government of Poland is a now a favorite base for the Russian-Israeli mafia. It is governed by two far right twins -- the Kaczynski brothers (Lech Kaczynski, the President, and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the Prime Minister -- and includes a noted neo-con, Radek Sikorksi, formerly of the American Enterprise Institute as Defense Minister. Sikorksi is a vitriolic critic of the Russian-Germany undersea Baltic gas pipeline who has made no secret of his dislike for Putin and Gazprom pipeline consortium chief Gerhard Schroeder, the former Social Democratic Chancellor of Germany who is enjoying a rise in popularity at the expense of Christian Democratic Chancellor Angela Merkel, his successor. Any attempt to smear Putin also affects Schroeder, a close friend.
[Note: It is always interesting how the neo-con Mafia reacts when someone gets close to their sordid actions. A web site that appears to be quite close to the fake progressive web site Democratic Underground had a fit with the exposure of the Litvinenko case}.
Poland's right-wing government, like Italy's under Berlusconi, is now engaged in a major program to "out" leading Polish politicians linked to Poland's Cold War-era Communist regime. The process, called "lustration," has also been used by Czech right-wingers to embarrass and ruin progressive political leaders. Poland's lustration law, pushed through by the Kacynskis, resulted in dirt being cast out on former Polish President Aleksandr Kwasniewski, whose attempt to replace Kofi Annan as UN Secretary General was cleverly derailed as a result of the accusations. South Korea's suspected Sun Myung Moon/Unification Church adherent, Ban Ki-moon, was elected with the strong support of US ambassador to the UN John Bolton, a close friend of Sikorski and his neocon Polish government colleagues, the Kaczynskis. However, one of the "incriminating" documents found on Kwasniewski was a Polish security service document that stated Kwasniewksi, while the Communist government's Sports Minister, was a head security agent on Poland's Olympic team that competed in the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. Kwasniewski would have reported on any attempts to get members of the team to defect by U.S. intelligence officers or agents of the host country, South Korea. At the time of the Olympics, Ban was First Secretary of the South Korean embassy in Washington and maintained close links to the Reagan-Bush intelligence infrastructure, an infrastructure that was promoting a revolt in Eastern Europe using emigre groups that included those affiliated with Sun Myung Moon's organization.
However, Poland's lustration process appears to be more of an attempt to change the subject amid a major political scandal involving one of the Polish right-wing coalition partners -- the League of Polish Families which has the Education Minister portfolio held by Roman Giertych. Photos of a League of Polish Families meeting have surfaced in the Polish press showing swastikas and members giving the "Seig Heil" salute. As with the UK Independence Party, the Italian neo-fascists, and French right-wing parties, the Russian-Israeli Mafia has no problem dealing with Nazis, fascists, or anyone else that can provide it influence. The Russian-Israeli Mafia has also shown itself adept at destroying its political enemies. Out Italian sources also report that Naples, where Scaramella maintained ties to the local Mafia's weapons smuggling operations, is a hotbed of activity for the Russian-Israeli Mafia. It is also a major center for the Mafia to recruit local Italian police and prison guards for various "services." The mysterious death of Litvinenko may yet expose the Mafia's true leadership and aims.
December 11, 2006 -- Rwandan one-party police state. Recent visitors to Rwanda report that the country has become a virtual one-party state, with foreign visitors subject to constant surveillance by President Paul Kagame's intelligence agents. In fact, Kigali taxi drivers, all of whom speak excellent English in an overwhelming French-speaking country, are suspected of serving as Kagame's agents. Kagame is busy trying to turn Rwanda into an English-speaking nation. Its major newspaper, the government-funded "The New Times," is merely a propaganda outlet for the government. The paper is now busy criticizing France and French anti-terrorism Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere for indicting Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) leaders for the terror attack on the Rwandan presidential aircraft in 1994 that killed the Rwandan and Burundian presidents, their senior advisers, and the French crew. Kagame's nation transformation from Francophone to Anglophone was honored last week in London where Kagame was a special guest of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Rwanda's only major newspaper in a French-speaking nation is a propaganda outlet in English. This points to the transformation of Rwanda into a central African colony of the United States and Britain.
December 11, 2006 -- More evidence surfaces of "Al Qaeda's" Western financing. WMR has learned from one of its sources in New York that the Federal Reserve Bank of New York actively covered up massive money laundering by the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) United Arab Emirate branch through its branch in New York. The money laundering consisted of questionable money movements through Dubai that involved individuals linked to "Al Qaeda," including those connected to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States.
Charges that Federal Reserve Bank of New York covered up "Al Qaeda"-linked money laundering between HSBC Dubai to New York.
December 11, 2006 -- Read the editor's "War on Christmas" OP ED at the Houston Chronicle or Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
December 8-10, 2006 -- REPORTING December 9 from Nuremberg, Germany. On December 8, the editor and his publisher of the German edition of Jaded Tasks met in Stuttgart with Baden-Wurttemberg parliamentary officials of the Free Democratic Party, part of the ruling coalition government of Baden-Wurttemberg. Their assistance was requested in supporting the December 7 Declaration of Nuremberg requesting that pressure be brought on the U.S. government to honor America's pledge at the Nuremberg War Crimes trials of 1945-46 to abide by international war crimes laws. To that end, the United States must become a full party to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and assist the court in bringing American war criminals, including top officials of the Bush-Cheney administration, to ultimate justice.
The Dec. 7, 2006 Nuremberg Declaration has five original co-signers who joined the editor in making the call for the United States to ratify the ICC treaty and honor the international treaties it has already ratified, including the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, the Geneva Conventions, and the United Nations Charter. The co-signers are: Dave DeBatto (retired US Army Counterintelligence agent); Louis Vandenberg (2006 Democratic Candidate US House of Representatives, 44th District, California); Ron Fisher (Captain, US Navy, retired); Hans-Werner Kummerow (Captain, Federal German Navy ROTC, journalist, and publisher); and Juhani Saari (IT Security expert and author, Finland).
There are plans to place the Nuremberg Declaration in Room 600 in the Nuremberg Courthouse, site of the post-war tribunal of Nazi leaders, for signatures by visitors and guests. The editor has also spoken to legal officials in Switzerland and German journalists and trade union officials about supporting an international call for political leaders, celebrities, legal authorities, and others in positions of influence to sign and support the Dec. 7 Nuremberg Declaration. So far, we have received encouragement from the Social Democratic Party of Bavaria, the Green Party of Bavaria, and the Free Democratic Party of Baden-Wurttemberg for our efforts. There are also plans to discuss support for the Nuremberg Declaration with officials of the German Christian Democratic Party.
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The editor has been made aware of the extreme low personal esteem many European political leaders have for George W. Bush. European leaders, including the leaders of NATO nations, find meetings with Bush to be exercises in futility and often, embarrassing encounters. Bush's personal quirks and mannerisms and his almost complete lack of knowledge about topics at hand make meetings with him events many European leaders would rather avoid.
Many European leaders would rather avoid meeting the quirky and uninformed Bush, who is almost universally detested throughout Europe.
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Germans are quite upset at the upcoming convocation in Tehran of an international conference on the Holocaust. The event has drawn Holocaust deniers from around the world -- most of them the usual suspects who have been pushing their way out theories for a number of years. Local German authorities responsible for the issuance of passports have denied far right-wing National Democratic Party (NDP) politicians passports for travel to Tehran to attend the conference. Holocaust denial is a severe crime in Germany and is rigorously prosecuted by the authorities.
The intentions of conference host Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, put into office by a minority of the Iranian electorate (a large number of voters boycotted the election), play into the hands of neo-cons in the U.S. and Europe who are looking for any excuse to attack Iran. Religious extremists like Ahmedinejad, George W. Bush, and Israeli Cabinet minister Avigdor Lieberman and their conferences, machinations, and contrivances should be shunned rather than entertained by the international community. The Persians who surround Ahmedinejad are in state of denial about the Holocaust and as long as they remain so, peace in the Middle East will be harder to attain.
December 8-10, 2006 -- REPORTING December 8 from Stuttgart, Germany. Yesterday, the editor introduced a petition at a press conference at the Nuremberg Stadium calling for the United States to honor the 1945 commitment made by Special Prosecutor Robert Jackson that the US would be bound in the future by the same rules of international law it applied to the Nazi party leaders. Accepting the petition was the director of the Documentation Center for the Crimes of the German Reich Party (Dokumentationszentrum Reichsparteitagsgelande) who expressed a willingness to place the petition at Room 600 at the Nuremberg Courthouse where the Nazi leaders were tried and sentenced. As this room is visited by thousands of people from around the world, the editor made a commitment to deliver the signed petition to the leadership of the Judiciary Committees of the US Senate and House of Representatives to stress the importance of the United States becoming a full party to the International Criminal Court (ICC) treaty and, if necessary, cooperate with the court in handing over for trial those American political and military leaders who violated the clause of the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928.
The Kellogg-Briand Pact (also known as the Paris Peace Pact) formally renounced war as an instrument of national policy and its violation by the German Nazis was one of the four main charges in their indictment at Nuremberg, to wit, "crimes against peace (planning, preparation, initiation, or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the forgoing.").
The United States is a party to the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the terms of which remain in force to this day and which remains a U.S. law. The United States is also a party to the United Nations Charter of 1945, which also renounces war unless for reasons of self defense and is also U.S. law as a ratified treaty of the United States.
From this now abandoned and desolate parade and rally stand in Nuremberg, Nazi leaders proclaimed before hundreds of thousands their rejection of international treaties to which Germany was a signatory. Leading neo-con politicians and political operatives (who are linked to Nazi ideology via the close links between neo-con ideologist Leo Strauss and chief Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger) did no less than their Nazi forbearers in conspiring to wage wars of aggression in violation of international law. The same fate that befell the Nazi leaders at the Nuremberg Courthouse in 1945 may soon await their neo-con philosophical children and grandchildren in a courtroom in The Hague.
Neo-conservative political operatives who are now trying to distance themselves from the illegal war against Iraq should take notice of the Kellogg-Briand Pact clause referring to those who participate in "conspiracy" to wage a war of aggression. They can run to their villas in the south of France, apartments in Tel Aviv, ranches in Paraguay, or flats in Rome, but they cannot escape ultimate accountability for their participation in a criminal conspiracy of global proportions that has resulted in the deaths of over 630,000 innocent Iraqi civilians, 3,000 U.S. military personnel, and hundreds of thousands of maimed and permanently disabled men, women, and children from military action and torture in Iraq and Afghanistan.
After becoming a party to the ICC, the United States government must bring the full weight of the U.S. law enforcement and the intelligence community, including provisions of the Patriot Act, to bear on these neo-con political conspirators, regardless of where they live or their age, gender, religion, nationality, or ethnicity. If these individuals do not turn themselves into international legal authorities voluntarily, they should be forcibly apprehended, detained, and transported to The Hague or any other venue deemed necessary by the ICC to face justice before an international war crimes tribunal.
Allies of the illegal U.S. war against Iraq should also heed the Kellogg-Briand provision that makes participation in a "common plan" to wage a war of aggression a war crime. Political and military leaders of Britain, Denmark, Australia, Japan, South Korea, Italy, Israel, Spain, El Salvador, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Poland, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Albania, Czech Republic, Romania, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Rwanda, Thailand, and other members of the original so-called "Coalition of the Willing" who sent armed forces and irregular paramilitaries to Iraq to assist the illegal U.S. war of aggression are now subject to prosecution by the ICC as their nations are subject to the ICC and/or the UN Charter (and many, as well, are signatories to the Kellogg-Briand Pact).
December 5-7, 2006 -- WMR reporting today from Nuremberg, Germany -- the site of the 1945-1946 International War Crimes Trial of leading Nazi leaders.
Nazi leaders in Nuremberg were charged with four counts: 1) Conspiracy against world peace; 2) Planning, unleashing, and executing an aggressive war; 3) War crimes and offenses; 4) Crimes against humanity.
The view from the dock at Nuremberg from which Hans Frick (Gov. Gen. of Poland); Hermann Goering (Reich Marshal); Alfred Jodl (Military commander); Ernst Kaltenbrunner (head of Security Police -SD); Wilhelm Keitel (Army Field Marshal); Joachim Von Ribbentrop (Foreign Minister); Alfred Rosenberg (Minister for Occupied Eastern Territories and chief Nazi ideologist (he was colleague of Nazi philosopher Martin Heidegger, who was also a colleague of Leo Strauss, father of the neo-conservative movement at the University of Chicago and political godfather of Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz); Fritz Sauckel (Labor camp mobilizer); Arthur Seyss-Inquart (Gauleiter of Vienna); Julius Streicher (newspaper publisher) heard their death sentences proclaimed by the four judges.
The dock where the Nazi leaders sat during their trial.
The elevator behind the dock at Nuremberg courtroom. States that it cannot be used by anyone unless accompanied by the Fuhrer.
The editor standing in front of the dock in Room 600, Nuremberg Courthouse.
The indicted Nazi war criminals on trial. The International Criminal Court should have the same authority to try U.S. war criminals and honor the commitment of Chief Nuremberg Prosecutor Robert Jackson, appointed by President Harry S Truman. Jackson said "the United States itself will be bound in the future by the rules it is imposing on German war criminals in Nuremberg today."
At a Dec. 7 press conference at the Nuremberg Stadium where the Nazi political rallies of Adolf Hitler were conducted, the editor called for the United States to become a party to the International Criminal Court.
December 5-7, 2006 -- The editor continues a whirlwind book tour through Germany for the German translation of "Jaded Tasks," "Moralischer Bankrott." Yesterday, the editor and German publisher, Hans-Werner Kummerow of HWK Verlag, were invited to speak to the Social Democratic Party faction of the Bavarian Parliament in Munich.
Warmly welcoming us on Dec. 6 was Franz Maget, the Leader of the SPD in the parliament. If the dominant Christian Social Union is swept from its over 50 years of political control of Bavaria in the 2008 election, Maget will be the next Minister President of Bavaria. Maget, known for his honesty and straight talking, is one of the rising stars in the German Social Democratic Party and a win for him in Bavaria will propel him on to the national political stage.
SPD Bavarian leader Franz Maget (l.) and the editor (r.) with copies of "Moralischer Bankrott" and "Jaded Tasks" at Dec. 6 press conference at the Bavarian Parliament in Munich.
The editor and his German publisher also met with the Green Party faction leadership at the Bavarian Parliament and discussed the Dec. 7 call in Nuremberg for the United States to become a party to the International Criminal Court with a view to holding U.S. political leaders accountable for violations of international law.
December 5-7, 2006 -- In response to an overwhelming demand for "Moralischer Bankrott," the German edition of "Jaded Tasks," the German translation has now gone into a third printing. On Dec. 6, the editor and Hans-Werner Kummerow stopped by the German printing house to view the latest editions coming off the press.
Receiving the third printing of "Moralischer Bankrott" off the printing presses in Nordlingen, Germany.
December 4, 2006 -- BREAKING NEWS. Unconfirmed US ambassador to the UN John Bolton tendered his resignation this morning. A GOP plan to confirm Bolton in the lame duck Congress was dead-on-arrival. Bolton is the fourth major neo-con to resign since the election. He follows Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Assistant Defense Secretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman out the door.
Bolton: another neo-con out the door.
December 4, 2006 -- NOTE. The editor will be on the Germany book tour for the German edition of "Jaded Tasks" from today until December 10. We will continue to periodically report from Germany during this time.
December 4, 2006 -- U.S. contractors looted billions in Iraq from overcharging and superfluous fees. According to U.S. contractors who have just returned from Iraq in what appears to be an evacuation of non-essential U.S. civilians from the civil war-ravaged nation, a number of U.S. contractors have pilfered the U.S. and Iraqi treasuries by running up huge bills and charging for unnecessary services.
In addition, American contractor personnel report that when any U.S. contractor is identified as overcharging or being involved in malfeasance, they simply pass the contract (and the same contractor personnel) on to another contractor. One such firm, Custer Battles LLC, a company with close political ties to the Republican Party, was found guilty in March 2006 of defrauding the U.S. government and ordered to pay $10 million for overcharges. A federal judge later overturned the verdict based on the ridiculous contention that the Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority was not a legal part of the U.S. government. Of course, the judge, Thomas Selby Ellis, III, born in Bogota, Colombia, was a Reagan appointee to the infamous "rocket docket" U.S. intelligence-centric U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia in Alexandria. Ellis, known as "Tim" to his friends and a former Navy pilot, is a longtime friend of Senator John Warner, whose close political links to defense contractors, such as the Fairfax, Virginia-based Custer Battles, are legendary. Ellis is one of many GOP- and defense industry-aligned "bought-and-paid for" judges on the federal bench.
German prosecutors in Darmstadt are investigating some $2 million in deposits made in German banks by the wife of Custer Battles co-founder Mike Battles. The deposits were made by Jacqueline Battles under her maiden name Vihernik. Battles' wife has been placed on an electronic monitor by German police and ordered to remain in Germany.
U.S. contractor sources report that much of Custer Battles' work in Iraq has been assumed by Florida-based Cochise Consultancy, which merged in 2003 with RONCO Consulting Corporation, a firm with a dubious human rights record in Rwanda and the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. RONCO maintains operations in Iraq, Uganda, Albania, Armenia, Egypt, Ukraine, Mali, Afghanistan, Kosovo, Angola, Azerbaijan, Chad, Croatia, Costa Rica, Djibouti, Estonia, Eritrea, Georgia, Ethiopia, Guinea, Jordan, Honduras, Laos, Lebanon, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Nicaragua, Oman, Peru, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand, Vietnam, Yemen, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Other private contractors with inter-locking relationships reportedly include Sabre International Security (which has offices and operations in Iraq, Sri Lanka, New York, Germany, Sudan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and the British Virgin Islands), Parsons, Luminescent, and CRG (Control Risks Group). Iraq war contractors also report a close relationship between Blackwater USA and Triple Canopy.
As far as fraud, waste, and abuse are concerned, a contractor insider reported to WMR that Blackwater USA took two female State Department employees from Baghdad's Green Zone to go on an all-day shopping trip to the Army PX (post exchange) at Camp Victory. That round trip trip cost the American taxpayers $120,000.
U.S. consular chief in Baghdad Beth Payne, since transferred to the US Embassy in Dakar, Senegal, was also cited by contractor insiders for abuses of authority in Iraq.
Blackwater USA shopping trip from Green Zone to Camp Victory: $120,000. Having contractors dip into the US Treasury whenever they want: priceless. For everything else, there's Uncle Sam's GSA credit card.
December 4, 2006 -- New wrinkle in Litvinenko murder. It has been reported from London and Chechen sources that ex-KGB and FSB Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko was not only a convert to Islam but a supporter of the Chechen and Caucasus mujaheddin, a movement that has been linked to the so-called "Al Qaeda," an organization that is looking more and more like an contrivance by neo-conservatives and their organized crime friends to bring about a state of constant war in the Middle East, Central Asia, Russia, and beyond to maximize political and financial gain. Litvinenko's conversion to Islam has thrown a new wrinkle into Litvinenko's relationship with Boris Berezovsky and Alex Goldfarb, both Russian Jewish emigres.
The following dispatch came from the Chechenpress.org, a Chechen news web site, on November 24:
The communication from London the day before at night arrived to us of the poisoning and passing away of Aleksandr Litvinenko. A. Litvinenko it was poisoned on 1 November. Doctors struggled for the life of A. Litvinenko, however, it was impossible to save him. Meanwhile, a while back Litvinenko accepted Islam and all Moslem rites were carried out before his death. A specially invited mullah read over the dying Litvinenko the 'Sura Yasin' [key passage from the Koran]. Aleksandr Litvinenko will be buried in a Moslem cemetery, with the observance of all proper rituals. Nearing death, and understanding that his killers are Putin and his criminal clique, Aleksandr Litvinenko requested to transmit to the Mujahadeen of Chechnya and Caucasus that they understand him as their brother in the weapon [emphasis added] and he requested to the Most High Allah for themselves the future of martyr (insha Allah)."
The European media is now reporting that Litvinenko was involved in smuggling nuclear materials from Russia to Zurich in 2000 and that he may have continued his involvement in nuclear smuggling. Some reports, including recent comments to the BBC by Litvinenko's friend, Italian "security expert" Mario Scaramella, suggest that Litvinenko was involved in the smuggling on radioactive materials. An accident involved in the smuggling of nuclear materials may have resulted in Litvinenko's poisoning from radioactive polonium-210. Litvinenko's involvement with the Chechen Mujaheddin, said to be allied with the so-called "Al Qaeda," his links to the same European organized crime smuggling networks that were the subject of surveillance by outed CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson and her Brewster Jennings & Associates covert CIA front company, and his links to Israel-based Russian gangsters all add to a mounting pile of evidence of "Al Qaeda" links to the Russian-Israeli Mafia.
Litvinenko now linked to syndicate nuclear smuggling, Islamic Mujaheddin, and Russian-Israeli Mafia, a dangerous troika on which WMR has been reporting for some time.
The Chechen press release reference to "the weapon" may have been hinting at a project to build a radioactive "dirty bomb" by Litvinenko. London's Observer surmised as much in a December 3 report: "Among the theories that remain open is that the poisonings were an accident that happened while Litvinenko tried to assemble a dirty bomb for Chechen rebels. Those who know him believe he was crazy enough to attempt such a thing and, in the past week, some have implicated him in the smuggling of nuclear materials from Russia."
Also of interest is Litvinenko's visit to the London office of the British private military contractor Erinsys, Ltd., which has been linked to Iraqi National Congress neo-con agent of influence Ahmad Chalabi. Erinsys has operations in Britain; Iraq; South Africa; the Nigerian Delta region, and Houston, Texas.
A recent report in the Muckrakerreport.com reveals that an Israeli Defense Force veteran overheard a three-way conversation in Hebrew at a Newark, New Jersey Jewish cemetery in October 2000 in which it was stated that "the twins" would be attacked by planes the following September and then the Americans would "learn what it is to live with terrorists." The Israeli military veteran conveyed his concerns to the FBI, was visited by Newark Field Office Special Agents Robyn Gritz and Andrew Stengel, and provided supporting documentation to the above web site.
December 4, 2006 -- In yet another attempt by the neo-cons to use the increasingly phony-looking "Al Qaeda" as a political weapon, British Home Secretary John Reid, a leading neo-con who would like to replace Tony Blair as Prime Minister, said that any move by Scotland towards independence would benefit "Al Qaeda." Reid also suggested that the Scottish National Party (SNP), which favors independence, was playing into the hands of "Al Qaeda." The Arab "bogeyman" terrorist contrivance is being used by Reid and his neo-con supporters to suggest that the Scottish people would be vulnerable to "Al Qaeda" terrorist attacks if they choose to separate from England.
Latest proof that "Al Qaeda" is a phony organization concocted by the neo-cons. Now Scottish Nationalists (l. to r.: Alex Salmond, Sean Connery, and Nicola Sturgeon) are linked by British neo-con to "Al Qaeda" grand plan to separate Scotland from England and bring about terrorism on the Scottish moorlands.
The late British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, a Scotland native, wrote as much about Al Qaeda being a fake organization just before his untimely death. Cook wrote in The Guardian, "Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians." Cook, as Foreign Secretary, was also the head of the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and was privy to most of the files on the origins of Al Qaeda and its links to the CIA and the Reagan-Bush I administrations.
December 1-3, 2006 -- World's largest coat track dominates Washington, DC skyline.
The new US Air Force Memorial, located next to the Navy Annex in Arlington, Virginia and largely built with donations from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, United Technologies, and even the United Arab Emirates Air Force (the UAE was a major financial hub for Al Qaeda and was from where money for the 9-11 hijackers was transferred. The Air Force Memorial sits right on the Pentagon crash flight path of American Airlines Flight 77) looks like a giant coat track jutting into the sky and dominating the Washington, Dc skyline. Although it is designed to look like an Air Force "bomb burst" formation, many Washington area residents see it as an unwelcome eyesore, more reminiscent of something Nikita Khrushchev would have built honoring the Soviet space program in a Soviet Potemkin city than a military service memorial. Casting its bizarre shadow over Arlington National Cemetery, the $30 million gaudy stainless steel memorial was the brainchild of the Air Force Memorial Foundation, headed by Ross Perot, Jr., but it also had the personal support of then-Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers of the US Air Force.
Some more religious people have commented that the three spires of the memorial look somewhat "Satanic" in nature because the spires resemble "horns." The New American Bible, Book of Daniel, Chapter 7, verse 7, contains this passage: "After this, in the visions of the night I saw the fourth beast, different from all the others, terrifying, horrible, and of extraordinary strength; it had great iron teeth with which it devoured and crushed, and what was left it trampled with its feet. I was considering the ten horns it had, when suddenly another, a little horn, sprang out of their midst, and three of the previous horns were torn away to make room for it. This horn had eyes like a man, and a mouth that spoke arrogantly." Well, for the more evangelical readers of WMR, the three "horns" springing out of the ground in Arlington are directly west of a mouth that speaks "arrogantly" and it is located in the White House.
Stainless steel trident fork-like structure (or coat rack) now dominates Washington skyline.
The three "horns" lie directly west of the Washington Monument and, beyond, the White House.
December 1-3, 2006 -- In our November 30 report, thanks to our contacts in the "community," we were the first to cite a possible Polish connection to the polonium poisoning of Russian KGB and FSB defector Alexander Litvinenko. WMR has received further information on the Polish connection to the case.
Poland's neo-con government has been threatening to use its European Union veto power to block the Baltic Sea gas pipeline deal between Russia and Germany. The Polish company that has been blocked by the Baltic Sea route was formerly owned by Yukos at the time Boris Berezovsky's now jailed tycoon friend, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, led the firm.
It has now been revealed that the waitress who served Litvinenko at the Itsu sushi restaurant is from Poland. Ella Malek fears that she, too, may have been poisoned by the same radioactive polonium that was used to kill Litvinenko. Malek said the sashimi served to Litvinenko could have only been contaminated after she served it to Litvinenko because the serving boxes are covered with plastic and sealed in the kitchen prior to being served to customers. Malek and another waitress are now complaining of a persistent skin rash. Both served Litvinenko at the sushi restaurant.
It should also be noted that bismuth-209 is the precursor to
polonium-210. When neutrons are fired into the bismuth nucleus, it becomes
bismuth-210, which then decays into polonium-210. Bismuth is extracted from
waste ores at Poland's Gierczyn tin mine.
Since 1974, Poland has been using Russian-built reactors and cyclotrons.
This may account for similarities with Russian isotopes.
The Institute of Nuclear Physics (Polish Academy of Sciences) maintains a
cyclotron that produces heavy radioactive isotopes like polonium. A great
deal of research work on isotopes, focusing on medical uses, is conducted in
Lublin at Marie Curie-Sklodowska University. Research work with bismuth and
polonium also takes place at the Gdansk Institute of Technology. (Gdansk is
Defense Minister Radek Sikorski's home base).
Some media sources have incorrectly reported that dangerous dosages of polonium-210 can be bought fairly easily on the open market. For example, United Nuclear Scientific Supplies of Sandia Park, New Mexico sells "exempted" polonium-210 to U.S. addresses only from a licensed Nuclear Regulatory Commission reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, but in amounts too small to be dangerous.
There have also been press reports casting light on the activities of one of Litvinenko's contacts, an Italian security specialist named Mario Scaramella, who met Litvinenko in London the day the former Russian spy became ill. Although some media speculated that Scaramella was a suspect, it is reported that he, too, has been contaminated with polonium-210 but that it is not life threatening. One intelligence expert observed that the Russian-Israeli mob seems to be trying to eliminate all incriminating witnesses, one by one.
December 1-3, 2006 -- In our Nov. 17/18/19 report, we reported that incoming Defense Secretary Robert Gates would eliminate Donald Rumsfeld's pet creation, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence -- widely seen as a competitor to the CIA. The man who sits in that job -- Stephen Cambone -- has just announced he will resign from it on December 31.
Stephen Cambone: Another neo-con purged from Pentagon.
December 1-3, 2006 -- WMR editor comments on Leonardo diCaprio's new film, "Blood Diamond," to New York Post Page Six.
December 1-3, 2006 -- While the Department of Homeland Security has placed the name of every air passenger traveling into and out of the United States on a secret terrorist rating list based on the mining of various types of personal data and is today hyping a phony "Al Qaeda" cyber attack alert directed at stock and commodities exchanges and other financial houses in the United States, the same department, headed by Michael Chertoff, is ignoring a major breakdown in U.S. national security.
On November 27, WMR reported on the case of Israeli Hazki Hen who was arrested for attempting to smuggle as much as $100 million in counterfeit $100 bills from the semi-independent enclave of South Ossetia via middlemen in Georgia and Israel. We can now report that a similar ring connected to the Russian-Israeli Mafia, involving some key participants in the Iran-Contra scandal and illegal U.S. wars in Central America in the 1980s, is traveling into and out of the United States on cleverly forged U.S. passports.
While Homeland Security Department under Michael Chertoff hypes secret terrorist rating list and phony cyber-attacks on Wall Street, it permits Russian-Israeli gangsters tied to the same elements who poisoned Alexander Litvinenko to freely travel on forged US passports in and out of the United States.
Although the U.S. passport numbers are clearly out of sequence and should be flagged by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials, higher-ups at the Homeland Security Department are looking the other way as unsavory characters transit in and out of the United States on the fake passports.
Major destinations for the U.S.-transiting Russian-Israeli Mafia travelers are Mexico, including the troubled states of Oaxaca and Chiapas; Nicaragua; Panama; Venezuela; Guatemala; Honduras; Costa Rica; Colombia; Ecuador; Venezuela; Paraguay; Argentina; Brazil' Chile; and Bolivia.
There is clear evidence that the Russian-Israeli criminals are involved in smuggling drugs and weapons and are engaged in money laundering and bank fraud.
Favored transit airports for the organized crime mobsters and couriers include Houston's George H. W. International Airport and Miami International Airport.
December 1-3, 2006 -- WMR's Capitol Hill sources report that a combination of GOP members of Congress, their senior staffs, and pro-GOP lobbyists have cooperated to cover up the scandal known as "PageGate." Although the story about former Rep. Mark Foley's on-line dalliances with underage male pages engulfed a number of other senior GOP House leaders, including the office of Speaker Dennis Hastert, and was the subject of a House Ethics Committee inquiry, an FBI investigation, and a Florida law enforcement probe, the support given by GOP lobbyists to legal defense funds for key staffers, in order to defray legal expenses, has resulted in a mutual cover-up of major proportions.
GOP PageGate buried by GOP House members, staffers, and lobbyists.
The cover-up could not have been possible without the assistance of a number of Washington mainstream journalists, according to our Hill sources. Some of the journalists were worried that their own involvement with the GOP perpetrators may have become known in a thorough investigation and had every reason to help tamp down the scandal.
December 1-3, 2006 -- House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi has bypassed ranking House Intelligence Committee Democrat Jane Harman and the next senior congressman, Alcee Hastings, and selected Texas Rep. Sylvestre Reyes to be the next Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
Moderate Reyes to chair HPSCI.
There was an effort by some Democrats to advance New Jersey Rep. and former State Department intelligence analyst Rush Holt, the chairman of the House Subcommittee on Intelligence Policy, to be the chairman of the full committee, but Holt's Quaker beliefs and ties to Princeton University's peace community likely resulted in a push back by Democratic moderates and conservatives associated with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), clinching the chairmanship for Reyes who is considered to be a moderate more attuned to the pro-defense and intelligence industry manifesto of the DLC.
November 30, 2006 -- Was the use of polonium to kill Litvinenko a clue to the identity of the killer or killers?
There is increasing evidence that the radioactive poisoning assassination of ex-KGB and FSB agent and Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko was the result of a plot by anti-Vladimir Putin criminal syndicates based in Britain, Israel, Ukraine, and Poland to embarrass the Russian government.
Suspicions about the role of the exiled Russian-Israeli criminal syndicates in the poisoning of Litvinenko, including that headed by Litvinenko's friend, wanted oligarch Boris Berezovsky, re-surfaced after former Russian Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar became violently ill after eating breakfast at a conference he was attending in Dublin, Ireland. Ireland's banking secrecy laws has made it a favorite location for the Russian-Israeli Mafia.
Gaidar's sudden illness occurred a day after Litvinenko died in a London hospital from poisoning from polonium-210, a deadly radioactive isotope when ingested. Radioactive traces were later discovered at sites around London, including Berezovsky's offices in the West End.
Gaidar was moved from a Dublin hospital to a Moscow hospital where he received a telephone call from Putin wishing him a speedy recovery. Putin's Mafiosi critics in Britain, Israel, Moscow, and other countries have accused the Russian leader of poisoning Litvinenko and attempting to kill Gaidar.
However, Russian officials are claiming that the attacks were carried out by Putin's criminal opponents who want to create tension between Moscow and the West.
Their arguments appear to have merit when the choice of radioactive isotope used to kill Litvinenko is considered. Intelligence experts point out that polonium was discovered by Marie Curie (nee Maria Sklodowska) in 1897 and named after her native homeland Poland (Polonia in Latin) to express her support for Polish independence against its partition by Russia, Prussia and Austria.
Was someone allied to Russian-Israeli mob sending a message by killing Litvinenko with radioactive substance named in honor of Polish independence by native Polish nationalist Marie Curie?
Before Putin moved in to take over Yukos Oil from the Russian criminal syndicates, there were plans to build a Russian-German gas pipeline through Poland. After Poland was taken over by a neo-con team of identical twins Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, who serve as President and Prime Minister, respectively, Poland not only began to conduct a witch hunt against ex-Communists but also became a base of operations for the anti-Putin Russian-Israeli exiled gangsters and oligarchs. Named as Defense Minister was former American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Radek Sikorski, who also happens to be married to Washington Post editorial board member and leading neo-con journalist Anne Applebaum, also a leading critic of Putin (along with a number of so-called "liberals," including Clinton ambassador to the UN Richard Holbrooke).
After Putin decided, along with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, to bypass Poland and build the Russo-German pipeline under the Baltic Sea, Sikorski unleashed a barrage against Russia and Germany. He likened the pipeline deal to the 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Agreement that carved up Eastern Europe, including Poland, between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. Sikorski asked German Chancellor Angela Merkel to cancel the pipeline deal but she refused.
We now know that Litvinenko was working on unspecified "energy issues" in London. We also know he has been described as a Russian-Israeli "double agent" and was reported to have transferred classified Russian documents in Yukos to a Russian-Israeli exiled oligarch in Tel Aviv. Double agents are always in danger from the party they are working against. Litvinenko's killers' use of polonium, named by Marie Curie in support of Polish independence, may mean that the assassins are more likely found in Warsaw's Russian-Israeli mob infested intelligence apparatus than in the Kremlin.
November 30, 2006 -- Morale in Army and Marines plummets as Iraq situation reaches calamity stage and top commanders retire.
Amid plummeting morale among U.S. troops in Iraq comes word that two of the troops' most admired commanders have just announced their retirements. Lt. Gen. John R. Vines, the commander of Fort Bragg and the 18th Airborne Corps, who was so highly thought of by his troops in Iraq, they has "Vines" listed as their religion on their dog tags, has announced his retirement. Vines said health reasons did not make him confident that he could successfully "lead from the front" again in Iraq. Vines chose a Fayetteville, North Carolina City Council meeting on Nov. 27 to announce his retirement. He was at the meeting to accept a key to the city. Vines commanded the 82nd Airborne Division, NATO forces in Afghanistan, and coalition forces in Iraq.
Amid plummeting U.S. military morale over Iraq debacle: Lt. Gen. John Vines and his special assistant both retire.
Perhaps no coincidentally, Vines' special assistant, Brig. Gen. James Cerrone, who lost his First Lieutenant son, Michael Cerrone, in Samarra, Iraq last month in a car bombing, also announced his retirement after 29 years of service.
Vines has been an outspoken critic of the failure of the Bush administration to provide adequate support for the military and civilian infrastructure improvement effort in Iraq.
November 30, 2006 -- A number of Washington observers who are familiar with the psychotic nature of George W. Bush reckon that what triggered Sen.-elect Jim Webb's anger at Bush's question about Webb's son's service in Iraq was the tone of Bush's question and not the question itself. Webb' son, Jimmy Webb, is a 24-year old Marine Lance Corporal serving in Iraq.
The interchange between Bush and Webb was at a White House reception for newly elected members of Congress:
Bush to Webb: "How's your boy?"
Webb to Bush: "I'd like to get them out of Iraq."
Bush to Webb: "That's not what I asked. How's your boy?"
Webb to Bush: "that is between my boy and me."
Webb, according to Washington sources, may have taken Bush's question about his son's welfare as some sort of veiled threat to Webb's son if Webb had any thoughts of becoming an anti-Bush firebrand in the Senate over the Iraq war. Based on what happened to NFL star Pat Tillman in Afghanistan, Col. Ted Westhusing in Iraq, and others in uniform who questioned Bush's war, including death or injury from pre-planned "friendly fire," Bush's question may have been more of a reminder to Webb rather than a heartfelt question.
Bush's tone probably irritated Webb more than his question.
November 29, 2006 -- Like father, like son. The Presidents Bush do not seem to appreciate White House receptions for newly-elected incoming Democrats who trounced Republicans for whom the incumbent Bushes campaigned.
The Hill newspaper is reporting that at a post-election White House reception welcoming newly-elected members of Congress, there was a nasty exchange between George W. Bush and Virginia Senator-elect Jim Webb, who has a son serving with the Marines in Iraq.
In the reception line, Bush asked Webb how his son was doing in Iraq, Webb responded by saying he wanted to see his son come back home. Bush responded, "I didn’t ask you that, I asked how he’s doing." Webb said he was so angered by Bush's response he wanted to slug him.
Bush campaigned for Webb's defeated incumbent opponent, the neo-Confederate poltroon, George Allen.
In 1991, when the late Minnesota Democratic Senator Paul Wellstone met George H. W. Bush in a similar White House pro forma reception line for newly-elected legislators, Wellstone used the occasion to urge Bush on three different occasions to spend more time on issues like education and cautioning him against the Persian Gulf War. Of course, Bush was more concerned about fighting the war against Iraq (sound familiar?) and could care less about Wellstone's issues.
Wellstone and Webb both received the Bush White House reception line "treatment."
After Wellstone challenged the president at the White House reception, Poppy Bush was overheard saying, "Who is this chicken shit?"
Wellstone had defeated incumbent Republican Senator Rudy Boschwitz, a supporter of Bush 41's foreign and domestic policies. Boschwitz, like Allen, engaged in a dirty campaign against Wellstone. Boschwitz's campaign claimed that because Wellstone, who was Jewish, and his Southern Baptist wife Sheila raised their children as Christians, Wellstone was somehow "anti-Semitic." Boschwitz's religion card failed as miserably as Allen's racial one.
Boschwitz co-chaired George W. Bush's Minnesota campaign and was a top "Pioneer" fundraiser (to the tune of $388,000) for George W. Bush in 2000.
November 29, 2006 -- Boris Berezovsky's other friend. While much attention is being paid by the corporate media on Russian-Israeli criminal chieftain Boris Berezovsky (aka Platon Elenin) and his dubious involvement with the recently murdered former Russian FSB and KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko, little attention is being paid to Berezovksy's other business partner -- Neil Bush, the brother of George W. Bush and Silverado Savings & Loan crook.
.
George W. Bush's visit to Riga was not the first by a Bush to the Latvian capital. Neil Bush met wanted Russian oligarch/gangster Boris Berezovsky in Riga in 2005.
Berezovsky is a major investor in Ignite! -- an educational software company. Berezovsky's co-investors include Barbara and George H. W. Bush -- Neil's parents -- Berezovsky's business partner Badri Patarkatsishvili, a former Georgian Communist Komsomol youth leader, chairman of the Georgian Olympic Committee, media mogul, and major investor in soccer clubs in Britain, Georgia, and Brazil; Kuwaiti financier Mohammed al Saddah; and Chinese computer tycoon Winston Wong. Patarkatsishvili is also wanted by Russian authorities but his Georgian citizenship and citizenship rights in Israel have prevented his extradition.
Suspiciously, other investors in Ignite! hail from one of the notorious homes of secret corporations -- the British Virgin Islands -- and the always questionable Dubai and Russian-Israeli Mafia-connected Ukraine. Because of Neil Bush's frequent trips to the Philippines and Taiwan to appear at events (between romps with Asian prostitutes) with Unification Church head Sun Myung Moon, there are rumors that Moon is also a silent partner in Ignite!
Boris Berezovsky's (right) other business partner -- Neil Bush (left).
Neil Bush has been a business partner of Berezovsky -- who is wanted for various crimes in Russia -- since at least 2003. Neil Bush and the wanted Russian fugitive met in September 2005 in Riga, Latvia (where Neil's brother met with NATO leaders recently and in a delusional state-of-mind yammered on about an "Al Qaeda" threat in Iraq and a booming economy (opium?) in Afghanistan. Neil was also seen in Berezovsky's private box at a British soccer match.
November 29, 2006 -- Guest Column:
The Highjacking of a Nation
Part 2: The Auctioning of Former Statesmen & Dime a Dozen Generals
By Sibel Edmonds
“The real rulers in Washington are invisible and exercise power from behind
the scenes.”- - Justice Felix Frankfurter
It used to be the three branches - congress, the executive, and the courts -
that we considered the make-up of our nation’s federal government. And some
would point to the press as a possible fourth branch, due to the virtue of
its influence in shaping our policies. Today, more and more people have come
to view corporate and foreign lobby firms, with their preponderant clout and
enormous power, as the official fourth branch of our nation’s government.
Not only do I agree with them, I would even take it a step further and give
it a higher status it certainly deserves.
Operating invisibly under the radar of media and public scrutiny, lobby
groups and foreign agents have become the ‘epicenter’ of our government,
where former statesmen and ‘dime a dozen generals’ cash in on their
connections and peddle their enormous influence to the highest bidders
turned clients. These groups’ activities shape our nation’s policies and
determine the direction of the flow of its taxpayer driven wealth, while to
them the interests of the majority are considered irrelevant, and the
security of the nation is perceived as inconsequential.
In Part1 of this series I used Saudi influence via its lobby and foreign
agents by default as a case to illustrate how certain foreign interests,
combined with their U.S. agents and benefactors, override the interests and
security of the entire nation. This illustrative model case involved three
major elements: the purchasing of a few ‘dime a dozen generals,’ bidding
high in the auctioning of ‘former statesmen,’ and buying one or two
ex-congressmen turned lobbyists. In addition, the piece emphasized the
importance of the “Military Industrial Complex (MIC),” which became a de
facto ‘foreign agent’ by the universally recognized principle of ‘mutual
benefit.’
This article will attempt to illustrate the functioning of the above model
in the case of another country, the Republic of Turkey, and its set of
agents and operators in the U.S. In doing so, I want to emphasize the
importance of separating the populace of example nations - Saudi Arabia,
Israel, Turkey, Pakistan… - from their regimes and select key participating
actors. As is the case with our nation, they too suffer the consequences of
their regime’s self-serving policies and conduct. Not only that, they also
have to endure what they consider ‘U.S. imposed policies’ that further the
interests of only a few. Think of it this way, the majority of us in the
States do not see the infamous and powerful neocon cabal as the chosen and
accepted representatives of our nation’s values and objectives. We do not
want to be perceived and judged based on the actions of a few at Abu Ghraib
or Guantanamo. The same is valid for these nations’ citizenry; so let not
their corrupt and criminal regimes be the basis of our judgment of them.
Moreover, as we all know, those subject to criticism in these articles have
mastered the art of spinning when it comes to the media and propaganda. The
Israeli lobby is quick to stamp all factually backed criticism as
‘anti-Semitic’ and attack it as such. The Turkish lobby, in this regard, as
with everything else, follows its Israeli mentors; they label all dissent
and criticism as anti-Turkey, or, Kurdish or Armenian propaganda; while the
Saudi lobby goes around kicking and screaming ‘anti-Muslim propaganda.’ I am
not known to be ‘politically correct’ and am often criticized for it. I
readily accept that and all responsibilities associated with it. I am not
seeking a position as a diplomat, neither am I serving any business,
organization, or media channel furthering a particular ideology. This is me,
saying it as I see it; no more, no less. By the end of this series it should
be obvious, at least for many, that the selection of the nations encompasses
varied sides and affiliations. Moreover, the main purpose, and the target of
these commentaries, goes to the heart of our own government and its
epicenter; lobbyists and the MIC.
* * * *
Many Americans, due to the effective propaganda and spin machine of Turkey’s
agents in the U.S., and relentless efforts by high-level officials and
lobbying groups on Turkish networks’ payroll, do not know much about Turkey;
its position and importance in the areas of terrorism, money laundering,
illegal arms sales, industrial and military espionage, and the nuclear
black-market. Not many people in the States would name Turkey among those
nations that threaten global security, the fight against terrorism, nuclear
proliferation, or the war on drugs. For the purpose of this article it is
necessary to have at least a rudimentary knowledge of Turkey, its strategic
location within global criminal networks, its various networks and entities
operating behind seemingly legitimate fronts, and its connection to the
military and political machine in the U.S.
For many Americans Turkey is one of the closest allies of the United States;
a most important member of NATO; a candidate for EU membership; and the only
Middle-Eastern close ally and partner of Israel. Some acknowledge Turkey’s
highly prized status in the United States due to its location as the artery
connecting Europe to Asia, its cross borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria to
its East and South, with the Balkan states to its west, and with the Central
Asian nations to its north and northeast. Others may recognize the country
as one of the top U.S. customers for military technology and weapons.
Interestingly enough, these same qualities and
characteristics which make Turkey an important ally and strategic partner
for the nation states, make it extremely crucial and attractive to global
criminal networks active in transferring illegal arms and nuclear technology
to rogue states; in transporting Eastern Narcotics, mainly from Afghanistan
through the Central Asian states into Turkey, where it is processed, and
then through the Balkan states into Western Europe and the U.S.; and in
laundering the proceeds of these illegal operations via its banks and those
on the neighboring island of Cyprus.
The Real Lords of the Poppy Fields
It is a known fact that there often is a nexus between terrorism and
organized crime. Terrorists use Narco-traficking and international crime to
support their activities. Frequently, the same criminal gangs involved in
narcotics smuggling have links to other criminal activities, such as illegal
arms sales, and to terrorist groups. The Taliban's link to the drug trade is
irrefutable. In 2001, a report by the U.N. Committee of Experts on
Resolution 1333 for sanctions against the Taliban stated that “funds raised
from the production and trade of opium and heroin are used by the Taliban to
buy arms and war materials and to finance the training of terrorists and
support the operation of extremists in neighboring countries and beyond.”
Afghanistan supplies almost 90% of the world's heroin, which is the
country’s main cash crop, contributing over $3 billion a year in illegal
revenues to the Afghan economy, which equals 50% of the gross national
product. In 2004, according to the U.S. state department, 206,000 hectares
were cultivated, a half a million acres, producing 4,000 tons of opium. “It
is not only the largest heroin producer in the world, 206,000 hectares is
the largest amount of heroin or of any drug that I think has ever been
produced by any one country in any given year,” says Robert Charles, former
assistant secretary of state for International Narcotics and Law
Enforcement, overseeing anti-drug operations in Afghanistan.
Heroin trafficking is also the main source of funding for the al-Qaeda
terrorists. A Time Magazine article in August 2004 reported that al-Qaeda
has established a smuggling network that is peddling Afghan heroin to buyers
across the Middle East, Asia, and Europe, and in turn is using the drug
revenues to purchase weapons and explosives. The article states: “…al-Qaeda
and its Taliban allies are increasingly financing operations with opium
sales. Anti-drug officials in Afghanistan have no hard figures on how much
al-Qaeda and the Taliban are earning from drugs, but conservative estimates
run into tens of millions of dollars.” Anti-drug officials say the only way
to cut off al-Qaeda's pipeline is to attack it at the source: by destroying
the poppy farms themselves. This year, Afghanistan's opium harvest is
expected to exceed 3,600 tons—enough to produce street heroin worth $36
billion.
Key congressional leaders have been pressing the Pentagon to crack down on
the major drug traffickers in Afghanistan upon learning that Al Qaeda is
relying more than ever on illicit proceeds from the heroin trade.
Congressional investigators who returned from the region in 2004 found that
traffickers are providing Osama bin Laden and other terrorists with heroin
as funds from Saudi Arabia and other sources dry up. "We now know Al Qaeda's
dominant source of funding is the illegal sale of narcotics," said Rep.
Kirk-IL, a member of the House Appropriations foreign operations
subcommittee, as reported by Washington Times. Rep. Kirk added that Bin
Laden's Al Qaeda terror organization is reaping $28 million a year in
illicit heroin sales.
It is puzzling to observe that in reporting this major artery of terrorists’
funding, the U.S. mainstream media and political machine do not dare to go
beyond the poppy fields of Afghanistan and the fairly insignificant low
level Afghan warlords overseeing the crops. Think about it; we are talking
about nearly $40 billion worth of products in the final stage. Do you
believe that those primitive Afghan warlords, clad in shalvars, sporting
long ragged beards, and walking with long sticks handle transportation, lab
processing, more transportation, distribution, and sophisticated laundering
of the proceeds? If yes, then think again. This multi billion-dollar
industry requires highly sophisticated networks and people. So, who are the
real lords of Afghanistan’s poppy fields?
For Al Qaeda’s network Turkey is a haven for its sources of funding. Turkish
networks, along with Russians’, are the main players in these fields; they
purchase the opium from Afghanistan and transport it through several Turkic
speaking Central Asian states into Turkey, where the raw opium is processed
into popular byproducts; then the network transports the final product into
Western European and American markets via their partner networks in Albania.
The networks’ banking arrangements in Turkey, Cyprus and Dubai are used to
launder and recycle the proceeds, and various Turkish companies in Turkey
and Central Asia are used to make this possible and seem legitimate. The Al
Qaeda network also uses Turkey to obtain and transfer arms to its Central
Asian bases, including Chechnya.
Since the 1950s Turkey has played a key role in channeling into Europe and
the U.S. heroin produced in the "Golden Triangle" comprised of Afghanistan,
Pakistan and Iran. These operations are run by mafia groups closely
controlled by the MIT (Turkish Intelligence Agency) and the military.
According to statistics compiled in 1998, Turkey’s heroin trafficking
brought in $25 billion in 1995 and $37.5 billion in 1996. That amount makes
up nearly a quarter of Turkey’s GDP. Only criminal networks working in close
cooperation with the police and the army could possibly organize trafficking
on such a scale. The Turkish government, MIT and the Turkish military, not
only sanctions, but also actively participates in and oversees the narcotics
activities and networks.
In July 1998, Le Monde Diplomatique reported that in an explosive document
made public at a press conference in Istanbul, the MIT, Turkish Intelligence
Agency, accused Turkey’s national police, of having “provided police
identity cards and diplomatic passports to members of a group which, in the
guise of anti-terrorist activities, traveled to Germany, the Netherlands,
Belgium, Hungary and Azerbaijan to engage in drug trafficking”. MIT provided
a list of names of some of the traffickers operating under the protection of
the police. The Turkish police returned the compliment and handed over a
list of named drug traffickers employed by the MIT!
In January 1997, Tom Sackville, minister of state at the British Home
Office, stated that 80% of the heroin seized in Britain came from Turkey,
and that his government was concerned by reports that members of the Turkish
police, and even of the Turkish government, were involved in drug
trafficking.
In an article published in Drug Link Magazine, Adrian Gatton cites the case
of Huseyin Baybasin, the famous Turkish heroin kingpin now in jail in
Holland. Baybasin explains: “I handled the drugs which came through the
channel of the Turkish Consulate in England,” and he adds: “I was with the
Mafia but I was carrying this out with the same Mafia group in which the
rulers of Turkey were part.” The article also cites a witness statement
given to a UK immigration case involving Baybasin’s clan, and states that
Huseyin Baybasin had agreed to provide investigators with information about
what he knew of the role of Turkish politicians and officials in the heroin
trade. The article quotes Mark Galeotti, a former UK intelligence officer
and expert on the Turkish mafia, “Since the 1970s, Turkey has accounted for
between 75 and 90 per cent of all heroin in the UK. The key traffickers are
Turks or criminals who operate along that route using Turkish contacts.” In
2001, Chris Harrison, a senior UK Customs officer in Manchester, told
veteran crime reporter Martin Short that Customs could not get at the
Turkish kingpins because they are “protected” at a high level.
In 1998, the highly official International Narcotics Control Strategy Report
(INCSR) of the U.S. State Department, revealed that “about 75% of the heroin
seized in Europe is either produced in, or derives from, Turkey”, that “4 to
6 tons of heroin arrive from there every month, heading for Western Europe”
and that “a number of laboratories for the purification of the opium used in
transforming the basic morphine into heroin are located on Turkish soil".
The report stresses that Turkey is one of the countries most affected by
money-laundering, which takes place particularly via the countries of the
ex-Soviet Union, such as Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan, through
the medium of casinos, the construction industry, and tourism. INCSR’s 2006
report cites Turkey as a major transshipment point and base of operations
for international narcotics traffickers and associates trafficking in opium,
morphine base, heroin, precursor chemicals and other drugs.
We know that Al Qaeda and Taliban’s main source of funding is the illegal
sale of narcotics. Based on all the reports, facts, and expert statements,
we know that Turkey is a major, if not the top, player in the
transportation, processing, and distribution of all the narcotics derived
from the Afghan poppies, and as a result, it is the major contributing
country to Al Qaeda. Yet, to date, more than five years into our over
exhaustive ‘war on terror propaganda’, have we heard any mentioning of, any
tough message to, any sanction against, or any threat that was issued and
targeted at Turkey?
We all know of our president’s ‘selective evilization’ of countries that
have been ‘chosen’ to be on our hit list. But how many of us know of our
government’s ‘selective go free cards’ that have been issued to those ‘ally
countries’ that directly fund and support the terrorist networks? In fact,
our government would rather move heaven and earth, gag ‘whistleblowers’ with
direct knowledge of these facts, classify congressional and other
investigative reports, create a media black-out on these ‘allies’ terrorist
supporting activities, than do the right thing; do what it really takes to
counter terrorism.
…and the WMDs we actually located & have known about
In his 2002 State of the Union address, President Bush declared he would
keep “the world's most destructive weapons" from Al Qaeda and its allies by
keeping those weapons from evil governments. Later he told a campaign
audience in Pennsylvania, “We had to take a hard look at every place where
terrorists might get those weapons and one regime stood out: the
dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.” Well, the Iraqi WMD that never was!
Here is what CIA Director Porter Goss said bluntly before the Senate
Intelligence Committee in February 2004, “It may be only a matter of time
before Al Qaeda or other groups attempt to use chemical, biological,
radiological, or nuclear weapons. We must focus on that.” And we know that
he knows; has known for the longest time!
Seymour Hersh in his March 2003 article quotes Robert Gallucci, a former
United Nations weapons inspector who is now dean of the Georgetown
University School of Foreign Service, “Bad as it is with Iran, North Korea,
and Libya having nuclear-weapons material, the worst part is that they could
transfer it to a non-state group. That’s the biggest concern, and the
scariest thing about all this. There’s nothing more important than stopping
terrorist groups from getting nuclear weapons.”
Although numerous prestigious reports by agencies and organizations such as
IAEA, and news articles in the European media, have clearly established
Turkey, and various international networks operating in and out of Turkey,
as major players within the global nuclear black-market and illegal arms
sales, the relevant agencies and main media in the U.S. have maintained a
completely silent and hands off position.
Nuclear black-market related activities depend on Turkey for manufacturing
nuclear components, and on its strategic location as a transit point to move
goods and technology to nations such as Iran, Pakistan, and others. Not only
that, Turkey’s status and close relationship with the U.S. enables it to
obtain (steal) technology and information from the U.S.
Lying at the crossroads not only between Europe and Asia, but also between
the former Soviet Union and the Middle East, Turkey is already a
well-established transit zone for illicit goods, including nuclear material
and illegal weapons sales. According to a report by Turkish Atomic Energy
Authority (TAEA), at least 104 nuclear smuggling incidents had occurred in
the past eight years in Turkey. For instance, in September 1999, 5 Kilograms
of Uranium enriched to 4.6 percent were confiscated from an international
smuggling ring in Turkey, which included four Turkish, one Azerbaijani, and
three Kazakhstani citizens. The report cites over one hundred incidents like
this, and these are only cases that have been intercepted and reported.
Turkey played a major role in Pakistan and Libya’s illicit activities in
obtaining nuclear technologies. In June 2004, Stephen Fidler, a reporter for
Financial Times reported that in 2003, Turkish centrifuge motors and
converters destined for Libya's nuclear weapons program turned up in Tripoli
aboard a ship that had sailed from Dubai. One of those detained individuals
in this incident, a ‘respected and successful’ Turkish Businessman, Selim
Alguadis, was cited in a public report from the Malaysian inspector-general
of police into the Malaysian end of a Pakistani-led clandestine network that
supplied Libya, Iran and North Korea with nuclear weapons technologies,
designs and expertise. According to the report, “he supplied these materials
to Libya." Mr. Alguadis also confessed that he had on several occasions met
A Q Khan, the disgraced Pakistani scientist who has admitted transmitting
nuclear expertise to the three countries. Selim Alguadis remains a
successful businessman in Turkey with companies in several other countries.
He was released immediately after being turned over to Turkish authorities.
His partner, another well-known and internationally recognized wealthy
businessman, Gunes Cire, also actively participated in transferring nuclear
technology and parts to Iran, Pakistan and North Korea. Although under
investigation by several international communities, Alguadis and his
partners continued to roam free in Turkey and conduct their illegitimate
operations via their ‘legit international business’ front companies.
David Albright and Corey Hinderstein of the Institute for Science and
International Security (ISIS) identify Turkey’s major role in the nuclear
black-market. According to their report, workshops in Turkey made the
centrifuge motor and frequency converters used to drive the motor and spin
the rotor to high speeds. These workshops imported subcomponents from
Europe, and they assembled these centrifuge items in Turkey. Under false
end-user certificates, these components were shipped from Turkey to Dubai
for repackaging and shipment to Libya.
Turkey’s illegal arms smuggling activities are not limited to Europe and the
Middle East; many of these activities reach U.S. soil. According to a report
published by the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, in April
2004 the Italian police searched a container destined for the port of New
York onboard a Turkish ship at the port of Tauro during a routine customs
inspection, sparked by discrepancies between the various customs
declarations. Inside the container more than 8,000 AK47 assault rifles, 11
submachine guns, and magazines worth over seven million dollars were
discovered.
Our tough talking president works very hard to sound convincing when he says
‘we have to take a hard look at every place where terrorists might get those
weapons;’ in fact, he has succeeded in fooling many into believing those
words. However, while he was determined to move heaven and earth to get our
nation into a war and a quagmire with a country that did NOT possess ‘those
weapons,’ he refused and continues to refuse to look at his own
‘allies-packed backyard’ where he would find a few that not only do possess
‘those weapons,’ but also distribute and sell them to the highest bidders no
matter what their affiliation.
* * * *
Curiously enough, despite these highly publicized reports and
acknowledgements of Turkey’s role in these activities, Turkey continues to
receive billions of dollars of aid and assistance annually from the United
States. With its highly placed co-conspirators and connections within the
Pentagon, State Department and U.S. Congress, Turkey never has to fear
potential sanctions or meaningful scrutiny; just like Saudi Arabia and
Pakistan. The criminal Turkish networks continue their global criminal
activities right under the nose of their protector, the United States, and
neither the catastrophe falling upon the U.S. on September Eleven, nor their
direct and indirect role and ties to this terrorist attack, diminish their
role and participation in the shady worlds of narcotics, money laundering
and illegal arms transfer.
The ‘respectable’ Turkish companies established and operate bases in
Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan and other similar former soviet states. Many of these
front companies, disguised under construction and tourism entities, have
received millions of dollars in grants from the U.S. government, allocated
to them by the U.S. congress, to establish and operate criminal networks
throughout the region; among their networking partners are Al Qaeda, the
Taliban, and the Albanian Mafia. While the U.S. government painted Islamic
charity organizations as the main financial source for Al Qaeda terrorists,
it was hard at work trying to cover up the terrorists’ main financial
source: narcotics and illegal arms sales. Why?
For years and years, information and evidence being collected by the
counterintelligence operations of certain U.S. intelligence and law
enforcement agencies has been prevented from being transferred to criminal
and narcotics divisions, and from being shared with the Drug Enforcement
Agency and others with prosecutorial power. Those with direct knowledge have
been prevented from making this information available and public by various
gag orders and invocation of the State Secrets Privilege. Why?
Is this due to the fact that the existence and survival of many U.S. allies;
Turkey, almost all Central Asian nations, and after the September Eleven
attack, Afghanistan; greatly depend on cultivating, processing,
transporting, and distributing these illegal substances? Is it caused by the
fact that a major source of income for those who procure U.S. weapons and
technology, our military industrial complex’s bread and butter, is being
generated from this illegal production and illegal dealings? Or, is it the
fear of exposing our own financial institutions, lobbying firms, and certain
elected and appointed officials, as beneficiaries?
When it comes to criminal and shady global networks most people envision
either Mafiosi like entities who keep to themselves and are separated from
society, or, street level gangster-like criminals. Contrary to these
expectations, the top tier Turkish criminal networks consist mainly of
respectable looking businessmen, some of whom are among the top
international businessmen, diplomats, politicians, and scholarly
individuals. Their U.S. counterparts are equally respected and recognizable;
some of whom are high-level appointed bureaucrats within the State
Department and the Pentagon; some are elected officials, and others consist
of the combination of the two who have now set up their own companies and
lobbying groups.
The American Turkish Council (ATC)
Operating tax-free and under the radar is one of the most powerful
“non-profit” associations in the U.S., the American Turkish Council (ATC).
Some who are familiar with its operations and players describe it as ‘Mini
AIPAC;’ this description aces it. ATC followed the AIPAC model; with the
direct help of AIPAC & JINSA, it created a base out of which to stretch its
tentacles, reaching the highest echelons of our government. While the ATC is
an association in name and in charter, the reality is that it and other
affiliated associations are the U.S. government, lobbyists, foreign agents,
and MIC. Investigative journalist, John Stanton, correctly describes the ATC
as an extraordinary group of elite and interconnected Republicans, Democrats
and corporate and military heavyweights who are spearheading one of the most
ambitious strategic gambits in U.S. history.
Included in ATC’s management, board of directors, and advisors; in addition
to Turkish individuals of ‘interest;’ is a dizzying array of U.S.
individuals. The ATC is led by Ret. General Brent Scowcroft, who serves as
Chairman of the Board; George Perlman of Lockheed Martin, the Executive Vice
President; other board members include: Former National Security Advisor
Sandy Berger, Ret. General Elmer Pendleton, Ret. General Joseph Ralston,
Ret. Col. Preston Hughes, Alan Colegrove of Northrop Grumman, Frank Carlucci
of Carlyle Group, Christine Vick of Cohen Group, Representative Robert
Wexler, Former Rep. Ed Whitfield…Basically many formers; statesmen, ‘dime a
dozen generals,’ and representatives.
On the members - paying clients – side; their list includes all the MIC’s
who’s who, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman; the Washington
Lobby scene’s who’s who; The Cohen Group, The Livingston Group, Washington
Group International…
Of course, there are also many Turkish companies that are members of the ATC.
Most of these companies have branches and operations in Libya, Dubai,
Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan. Although
the official listings of their businesses are cited as ‘construction,’ ‘real
estate’, ‘manufacturing,’ and ‘tourism’; the main activities of these
businesses are known to be related to global illegal arms sales and narcotic
processing and trafficking. These companies provide necessary fronts and
channels to launder proceeds. Curiously enough, hundreds of millions of
dollars have been granted by the United States government, approved by the
congress, to these Turkish companies under the guise of various ‘U.S.
Central Asian development programs;’ and ‘Iraq & Afghanistan reconstruction
programs.’
Stanton notes: ‘ATC is joined in the creation of the New EuroAsia by the
American Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (AACC). AACC’s Honorary Council of
Advisors just happens to have General Scowcroft and the following persons of
significance: Henry Kissinger and James Baker III. Former Council members
include Dick Cheney and Richard Armitage, and Board of Trustee members
include media-overkill subject Richard Perle of AEI, and Senator Sam
Brownback of Kansas.’
The MIC Factor
In part1 we discussed the MIC as ‘agents by default;’ marriages and
loyalties based on ‘mutual benefit;’ our previous example was Saudi Arabia,
top customer of U.S. weaponry. Well, Turkey only tails the Saudis slightly
in that category; between 1992 and 1996, Turkey was the second largest
importer of weaponry, spending more than $7 billion in four years. A report
by the World Policy Institute shows that Turkey is the third largest
recipient of U.S. military aid, behind Israel and Egypt. Between 1994 and
2003, Turkey took delivery of more than $6.8 billion in U.S. weaponry and
services.
In fiscal year 1989, U.S. aid to Turkey was $563,500,000. According to a
Multi National Monitor Report, in 1991, Turkey received more than $800
million in U.S. aid, “an exceptional return” on its $3.8 million investment
in Washington lobbyists. At the time, International Advisors, INC. (Douglas
Feith & Richard Perle lobbying firm as registered agents for Turkey) was
paid more than $1 million for representing Turkey in the U.S. for the
purpose of securing these types of deals. In 2003, Turkey received a $1
billion aid package. During this period their registered and known lobbyists
were the Livingston Group, headed by the former Speaker of the House Bob
Livingston, and Solarz Associates, headed by a formerly powerful
Representative, Stephen Solarz. Turkey, from 2000 to 2004, for only four
years, paid Livingston $9 million for his lobbying services. What did the
Republic of Turkey get for its $2 million per year investment in
Ex-Congressman Livingston’s services?
A Joint Report by the Federation of American Scientists and the World Policy
Institute found that the vast majority of U.S. arms transfers to Turkey were
subsidized by U.S. taxpayers. In many cases, these taxpayer funds are
supporting military production and employment in Turkey, not in the United
States. Of the $10.5 billion in U.S. weaponry delivered to Turkey since
1984, $8 billion in all has been directly or indirectly financed by grants
and subsidized loans provided by the U.S. government. Many of the largest
deals - such as Lockheed Martin's sale of 240 F-16s to the Turkish air force
and the FMC Corporation's provision of 1,698 armored vehicles to the Turkish
army - involve co-production and offset provisions which steer investments,
jobs, and production to Turkey as a condition of the sale. For example,
Turkey's F-16 assembly plant in Ankara - a joint venture of Lockheed Martin
and Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) - employs 2,000 production workers,
almost entirely paid for with U.S. tax dollars.
Let’s recap the above data: Not only does our government, actually, our
taxpayers, subsidize $8 billion of Turkey’s $10 billion weapons purchases;
the production of this weaponry and the associated employment occurs not in
the U.S., but overseas, in Turkey. We, the taxpayers, are subsidizing these
purchases; our nation readily transfers its technology to a country that
ranks high in global narcotics, terrorist and WMD related activities; while
a select few MIC related firms such as Lockheed and the pimping middlemen,
the lobbyists, get fatter and richer.
One Stop Shop: The Cohen Group
Like many other former statesmen, William Cohen, former Secretary of
Defense, dived into the business of lobbying and consulting, and created his
own Washington firm, The Cohen Group, which works for some of the largest
companies in the defense industry, such as Lockheed Martin, and serves
numerous foreign players. The Cohen Group is one of the primary and most
active members of the American Turkish Council (ATC). Cohen’s client,
Lockheed Martin, happens to be on the board of ATC, in addition to being
listed as ATC’s top paying client.
The group claims on its Website that its principals have "a century and a
half of combined experience in the Congress, the Defense Department, the
State Department, the White House, and state and local governments" and that
they “have developed extensive expertise and relationships with key
international political, economic, and business leaders and acquired
invaluable experiences with the individuals and institutions that affect our
clients' success abroad.” Abroad indeed. With a few ‘dime a dozen generals’
and former statesmen, the firm owes its phenomenal speedy success to
interests ‘abroad’ and of course, the MIC! Let’s look, with great amazement,
I hope, at how this ingenious lobby venture serves as foreign agent for
several influences without having to register as such; with complete
immunity against any scrutiny.
According to Intelligence Online, in its March 27, 2006 issue, Cohen
accompanied Bush on his trip to India and Pakistan in March 2006. The Cohen
Group is very active in India; Joseph Ralston, Cohen’s Vice Chairman, led
two delegations of U.S. Defense Chiefs to India the previous year. The trips
were organized in conjunction with the U.S. India Business Council; among
the parti