PLAME= IRAN/CONTRA REDUX - Planted WMD from Ghorbanifar & Ledeen.

[robertpaulsen]

I posted this earlier and it should not have dropped. This is A VERY IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENT!

Spurious attempt to tie Iran, Iraq to nuclear arms plot bypassed U.S. intelligence channels

Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: January 11, 2006

SNIP

The story that was peddled -- which detailed how an Iranian intelligence team infiltrated Iraq prior to the start of the war in March of 2003, and stole enriched uranium to use in their own nuclear weapons program -- was part of an attempt to implicate both countries in a WMD plot. It later emerged that the Iranian exile was trying to collect money for his tales, sources say.

snip

Intelligence sources and a source close to the UN security counsel tell RAW STORY Murray took Ali (either Ghorbanifar or his agent) to Iraq in order to retrace the footsteps of the alleged mission in which the uranium was stolen from Saddam's own stockpile and taken back to Iran. In the end, sources say, the entire event proved a wild goose chase because Ali's earlier clarity all but evaporated.

snip

Ghorbanifahr has strong ties to Michael Ledeen, and both of them were involved in a controversial meeting in Rome of 2001. That meeting, whose purpose is unknown, included high level officials in Italian intelligence, Iranian nationals and Larry Franklin, a former Defense Department analyst who current pled guilty to charges of passing classified information to Israel and Iran. Also in attendance was Middle East expert Harold Rhode, also under investigation for charges of passing classified information to Israel and Iran. Both Rhode and Franklin worked for Feith in the Office of Special plans.

snip

Who arranged the meetings and their ultimate purpose remains unclear. One intelligence official, however, described the series of events and the market of intelligence trafficking as follows: "If you were going to launder intel to make up a war, you could easily send some fool on an errand."

more...

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Backchannels_used_to_bypass_U.S._government_0111.html

KEEP THIS UP! This article is pointing us in the direction to the genesis of the whole damn scandal: Plame, AIPAC, DSM, everything!

[ewagner]

1. k & r

That meeting between Ghorbanifahr and Ledeen in 2001 has NEVER been satisfactorily explained. Given Ghorbanifahr's past dealings (between Iran and the Contras) this should be fully exposed.

[blm]

2. ABSOLUTELY. Hard to believe that some people think IranContra and BCCI

are old stories that don't matter today.

EVERYTHING key to today is rooted in those two enormous matters of government corruption.

[Joanne98]

58. BCCI! Still a big story!

[Mme. Defarge]

91. Don't forget Iraqgate

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/nsa/publications/iraqgate/iraqgate.html

[blm]

99. Lone wolf bank manager, my ass.

And we're supposed to believe a healthy 35yo man went to prison for Bush's crimes and then DIED OF NATURAL CAUSES a few years later.

[happydreams]

152. delete

[happydreams]

150. Few people know that articles of impeachment were filed against

Poppy by Congressman Gonzales of Texas.

[Supersedeas]

124. wonders what % of Americans have a clue about BCCI - is the Corp Media

keeping the public informed?

[robertpaulsen]

125. What I wrote about BCCI on American Judas

I wrote this in the context of Plame and the Machiavellian characters like A.Q. Khan connected with her blown cover:

3. B.C.C.I. - BCCI was the largest criminal corporate enterprise ever, the biggest Ponzi scheme, the most pervasive money-laundering operation in history, the only bank - so far as anyone knows - that ran a brisk sideline business in both conventional and nuclear weapons, gold, drugs, turnkey mercenary armies, intelligence and counterintelligence, shipping, and commodities from cement in the Middle East to Honduran coffee to Vietnamese beans.

Though it was fundamentally a financial fraud, BCCI itself was not a bank in any conventional sense. Or, more precisely, banking was only a part of the global organism, the ingeniously constructed platform from which its other lines of business were launched....

This "bank" possessed its very own diplomatic corps, intelligence network, and private army, its own shipping and commodities trading companies. And BCCI itself was so thoroughly enmeshed in the official affairs of Pakistan that it was often impossible to separate the two.

BCCI was bigger even than that: It was the unsettling next-stage evolution of the multinational corporation, the one the theorists had been predicting for years but which never seemed to be able to shed its sovereign boundaries. (General Motors and Mitsubishi are both good examples of this - huge companies with holdings and operations all over the world that nonetheless persist in being fundamentally American and Japanese entities.) In taking that step, BCCI became truly stateless and very nearly invisible to the authorities in each country where it did business.

{BCCI founder} Abedi had money to spare to underwrite the protocol department: In 1981 Ghulam Ishaq Khan granted BCCI a special tax-free status allowing Abedi to avoid tens of millions of dollars in taxes and to pour his huge Pakistan profits into one of his front companies and into Pakistan's atomic bomb project. Most of the millions that flowed through the foundation went to two uses: first, to investments - patently noncharitable - in a company called Attock Cement, owned by Abedi's associate and U.S. front man Ghaith Pharaon. The second beneficiary was something called the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology. According to its brochures, the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute trains young scientists and engineers. The reality is a little more ominous . . .

The director of the institute is Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man most closely linked with Pakistan's efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Khan, a German-trained metallurgist, once worked as a classified enrichment plant in the Netherlands, where he gained access to key plans. So important is he to the Pakistani national interest that even his whereabouts are considered a national secret.(http://www.the-catbird-seat.net/BCCI.htm )

Right from its inception, the clandestine nuclear and missile projects in Pakistan were treated as a top secret intel op of the ISI to ensure deniability. All payments to the foreign suppliers were made not from the accounts of the Govt of Pakistan, but from private accounts in the BCCI, which collapsed in 1991, and other Dubai and Geneva based banks. These accounts were opened by the Gokul brothers of Geneva, one of whom was jailed for cheating in the UK after the collapse of the BCCI; Shaukat Aziz, Pakistan’s present Finance Minister, who was working in the Gulf for the Citibank in the 1990s; Dawood Ibrahim, the mafia leader who was designated by the US as an intl terrorist in Oct; Dubai-based Pakistani smugglers, and AQ Khan and other trusted Pakistani scientists.(http://www.kashmirherald.com/featuredarticle/nuclearjihad.html)Given that A.Q. Khan began his network from such sinister and corrupt beginnings, this next relationship should come as no surprise.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=66773

[stop the bleeding]

131. I went and read your paper

I have learned more from that than probably everything else here at DU combined. Simply astounding...

I remember reading from Rawstory that Cheney profited something a Brazillion $$$ off of his stock from Halliburton.

Also even though the Nuclear WalMart has been shaken up - what are the possibilities that the Taliban and Al Queada are able to produce a weapon? I just saw a report on TV in the last 24 hrs questioning Osama's where abouts and it mentioned that he could be broke.

You speak of Dumsfeld and Darth Cheney always profiting from both sides of the fence.

Well let's look at Iraq.

The WHIG swore up and down they knew Saddam had WMD's in fact they knew where there were at ect..

Why were they so confident?

Your boy Khan's (the Pakistani Nuclear Father of the Bomb) program wasn't discovered until August 2003 as stated in your paper.

Plame was outed earlier in the year, and even earlier her Husband wrote the article but also at around the same time * declared end of combat, and as pointed out in another part of this thread I think there was a meeting between Ledeen or one of his cohorts and some Saudi's? if I remember correctly(I will go back and see if I can verify from this thread).

Anyway what does all of this have to do with Darth and Dumbsfeld making money off of Iraq. Well the first side is the obvious and that is the War profiteering that Halliburton has enjoyed from the no bid contracts. And as detailed in your paper Dumbsfeld is connected in that Web of companies with H'burton, it's contacts and investors.

What do you think about Peace Patriot's theory(I am assuming it his) that B/J Plame / David Kelley may have stumbled onto a plot to "plant" WMD's in Iraq. These WMD's could have been easily gathered from the Nuclear WalMart that you detailed especially given some of the direct contact that companies would have had to Iraq through either the general chaos of the place or the fact people could have been told to look the other way about shipments. This is the second side of the fence that Darth and Dumbsfeld would have made money on.

Think about it, "we know where Saddam's WMD's are they are in around Tikrit" according to Dumbsfeld.

Let's go start a war make money off of that, but even better let's make money off of reason's for going to war. Downright evil genius if you ask me.

But if it wasn't for that pesky CIA which BTW as you know has gone through quite "house cleaning" since Goss took over. Anyway this the same CIA Plame's B/J uncovers the planting of WMD's and coincidentally her husband laughs off the Niger Forgeries which was a stepping stone to getting into Iraq to find the WMD's that we knew were there. Also I was a bit unclear if the CIA investigation that uncovered Khan was related/part of B/J or was that a completely separate investigation?

Sorry to ramble on but I just had to kind of think out loud.

I will either edit this or reply to it for amendmended or added information.

[robertpaulsen]

156. Thanks! If you like that, you'll love the Waterman Paper.

This link has both:

Plame twofer - The Waterman Paper and American Judas
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4390395

Yeah, I think Peace Patriot is right. I was actually exploring this idea back in July 2004, but I didn't know how to prove the theory, or tie it to the neo-cons. Thanks to Larisa, now I can:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=60048#60643

[Christophera]

186. Just Before Congressional Hearings On BCCI, OJ Simpson Hit The Tv

And now if you ask people if they remember BCCI, they do not. Ask them if they remember OJ, they do.

[leftchick]

3. this is huge!

k&r!!

[sabra]

4. wow, good stuff!

reco'd

[robertpaulsen]

5. Who is Michael Ledeen?

Some good info here:

Who is Michael Ledeen?

By William O. Beeman, Pacific News Service. Posted May 8, 2003.

From "creative destruction" to "total war," the guiding beliefs of the most aggressive foreign policymakers in the Bush administration may originate in the works of an influential yet rarely seen neoconservative.

Most Americans have never heard of Michael Ledeen, but if the United States ends up in an extended shooting war throughout the Middle East, it will be largely due to his inspiration.

A fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Ledeen holds a Ph.D. in History and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin. He is a former employee of the Pentagon, the State Department and the National Security Council. As a consultant working with NSC head Robert McFarlane, he was involved in the transfer of arms to Iran during the Iran-Contra affair -- an adventure that he documented in the book "Perilous Statecraft: An Insider's Account of the Iran-Contra Affair." His most influential book is last year's "The War Against the Terror Masters: Why It Happened. Where We Are Now. How We'll Win."

snip

Quotes from Ledeen's works reveal a peculiar set of beliefs about American attitudes toward violence. "Change -- above all violent change -- is the essence of human history," he proclaims in his book, "Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago." In an influential essay in the National Review Online he asserts, "Creative destruction is our middle name. We do it automatically ... it is time once again to export the democratic revolution."

more...

http://www.alternet.org/story/15860/

[robertpaulsen]

6. Machiavellian Ledeen is the author of Universal Fascist

Earlier in his career, Ledeen authored Universal Fascism: The Theory and Practice of the Fascist International, 1928-1936, published in 1972 and now out of print. The book critiqued European fascism, particularly Italian fascism; Ledeen attempted to differentiate between an ideal, revolutionary "fascist movement," which he views in a positive light, and the failed, under-reaching "fascist regime."

Ledeen was a major figure in the biggest foreign policy scandal of the Ronald Reagan administration. As a secret agent of National Security Adviser Robert C. McFarlane, Ledeen vouched for Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar, and along with Oliver North, met with Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, and officers of Mossad and the CIA to arrange the illegal weapons-for-hostages deal with Iran that would become known as the Iran-Contra scandal.1


Regime change advocacy

Regarding regime change in the Middle East, in 2002 Ledeen criticized the views of former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, writing:

He fears that if we attack Iraq "I think we could have an explosion in the Middle East. It could turn the whole region into a caldron and destroy the War on Terror." One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today. If we wage the war effectively, we will bring down the terror regimes in Iraq, Iran, and Syria, and either bring down the Saudi monarchy or force it to abandon its global assembly line to indoctrinate young terrorists. That's our mission in the war against terror.2

Ledeen's phrase, "faster, please" has become a signature meme in Ledeen's writings and is often referenced by neoconservative writers advocating a more forceful and broader war on terror.

more...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ledeen

[robertpaulsen]

9. We need to start asking some hard questions about this treasonous bastard.

We know Michael Ledeen is a fascist.

We know he was involved with Ghorbanifar since the October Surprise that got Reagan elected, as well as Iran/Contra.

And then, there is this:

So it should have come as no surprise that Newsweek reported that :

Ghorbanifar, a former Iranian spy who helped launch the Iran-contra affair, says one of the things he discussed with Defense officials Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin at meetings in Rome in December 2001 (and in Paris last June with only Rhode) was regime change in Iran....The Pentagon cut off contact with Ghorbanifar, whom the CIA years ago labeled as a
fabricator, after news about the talks broke last summer....But Ghorbanifar says he continued to communicate with Rhode, and sometimes Franklin, by phone and fax five or six times a week until shortly after the Paris meeting last summer (June 2002).

The important points to note in the Newsweek article were this:

1: The two Americans at the meeting were

a) Harold Rhode, a member of the Office of Special Plans, protege of Michael Ledeen and the liason between the administration and Ahmed Chalabi and
b) Larry Franklin, formerly of the Office of Special Plans, whom the FBI arrested for giving away secrets to Israel through the organization AIPAC.

2: The two Italian men present were

a) SISMI (Italian Intelligence) Chief Nicolo Pollari.
b) Italian Minister of Defense Antonio Martino.

3: The meetings were in Rome in Dec. 2001.

What Newsweek doesn't tell us is that a third American was present at that first meeting and that he was the man who organized the meeting: Michael Ledeen.

more...

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/19/145557/54


Knowing this, I've got a couple of questions:

1. What was the purpose of Italian military intelligence being involved in a meeting with Middle East neo-con warhawks?

2. What would the motive be for them to meet with Ledeen?

[stop the bleeding]

16. answer to questions 1 and 2 is:

the Niger(sorry if this is spelled wrong) Forgeries, but I don't need to tell you that. All of the people mentioned in Larisa's article and the articles she sourced in her story have this common link of the Forgeries/OSP/WHIG and eventually Plame.


Who is behind the meeting(s)?


I need to look this over when I get later this evening to better digest what the rest of your reponse is saying.

Right now I just did a quick peek to see what was going on with this.

Peace!

[lala_rawraw]

20. Just to note, my article does not say

That that Pollari and Martino was present, just SISMI folk. Could it be Pollari and Antonio Martino? Yes. Is it proved it was them? No. Just to be clear.

But you might want to note that Martino's wife is an American and Martino and Ledeen are both members of JINSA.

[robertpaulsen]

37. Good note. Newsweek doesn't say what dailykos does either.

I just doublechecked the article and I can't find it in the story. But I know I've read it on other sites. It needs to be verified.

[Emit]

177. Here's an article that notes who was at the meeting

~snip~
The first meeting occurred in Rome in December, 2001. It included Franklin, Rhode, and another American, the neoconservative writer and operative Michael Ledeen, who organized the meeting. (According to UPI, Ledeen was then working for Feith as a consultant.) Also in attendance was Ghorbanifar and a number of other Iranians. One of the Iranians, according to two sources familiar with the meeting, was a former senior member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard who claimed to have information about dissident ranks within the Iranian security services. The Washington Monthly has also learned from U.S. government sources that Nicolo Pollari, the head of Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI, attended the meetings, as did the Italian Minister of Defense Antonio Martino, who is well-known in neoconservative circles in Washington.

Alarm bells about the December 2001 meeting began going off in U.S. government channels only days after it occurred. On December 12th 2001, at the U.S. Embassy in Rome, America's newly-installed Ambassador, Mel Sembler, sat down for a private dinner with Ledeen, an old friend of his from Republican Party politics, and Martino, the Italian defense minister. The conversation quickly turned to the meeting. The problem was that this was the first that Ambassador Sembler had heard about it.

According to U.S. government sources, Sembler immediately set about trying to determine what he could about the meeting and how it had happened. Since U.S. government contact with foreign government intelligence agencies is supposed to be overseen by the CIA, Sembler first spoke to the CIA station chief in Rome to find out what if anything he knew about the meeting with the Iranians. But that only raised more questions because the station chief had been left in the dark as well. Soon both Sembler and the Rome station chief were sending anxious queries back to the State Department and CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, respectively, raising alarms on both sides of the Potomac.~snip~

http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:x6WuoB2vSP0J:www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0410.marshall.html+italy+iran&hl=en

[Name removed]

29. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AntiFascist]

35. Enemies of Israel and anti-Zionists

In addition to being concerned about being labelled anti-Semitic I would also be very careful of the use of the word "Zionism" which seems to me to be something of a trick word. On the one hand the state of Israel itself (together with the ongoing dispute with Palestine) would seem to encapsulate the end result of Zionism. On the other hand many Arabs, and the leader of Iran, seem to fear greater Israeli expansionism where redrawn maps of the ME with areas of Jordan, Saudi Arabia or Iraq are included in the new boundaries. Taken to the extreme, there are some who envision the entire planet ruled under Talmudic law. Unfortunately confusing all of the various definitions leads to much anger and angst, which can only play into the hands of neoconservatives.

[Me.]

45. Sadly, That Very Tactic Has Clearly Been Put To Use

It almost derailed the AIPAC investigation.

[robertpaulsen]

48. Second link shows neo-con relationship to the military-industrial complex

This paragraph stood out for me:

The now famous Douglas Feith along with Richard Perle and David Wurmser wrote “A Clean Break : A New strategy for securing the Realm (1996) under the auspice of the (Israeli) IASPS, that was addressed to Netanyahu (then prime minister) and which virtually advocated the most hawkish policies that would make the “road map” blush. Some of the proposals did eventually materialize and to the sole benefit of Israel : the paper included a call “for ousting Saddam Hussein as a means to transform the balance of power in the Middle East in such a way that Israel could ignore pressure to trade ’’land for peace’’ with the Palestinians or Syria”. Douglas Feith is described as an “ideologue with an extreme anti-Arab bias” remarking that “during the Clington year, Feith continued to oppose any agreement negotiated between the Palestinians : Oslo, Hebron and Wye.” Feith “defined Oslo as, “one-sided Israeli concessions, inflated Palestinians expectations, broken Palestinian solemn understandings, Palestinian violence... and American rewards for Palestinian recalcitrance”. Well, rhetoric is not as important as business connections one would say. Before joining the administration as Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Feith was founding member of the CSP (who’s founder is Frank Gaffney), and chairman of JINSA (in 1992) and between these two organizations lays the nexus of the Military-Industrial complex of the US. JINSA’s mission is to educate American leadership figures on the vital strategic relationship between the US & Israel, and invite with the assistance of the Pentagon and the US Department of State, retired US senior military officers to Israel and Jordan, to assist in seminars, conferences, training, etc. JINSA advocates (and this if from their website) : National ballistic missile defense systems for the US, the curbing of regional ballistic missile development and production worldwide, supporting joint US-Israeli training and weapons development programs and a rejection of any peace process with the Palestinians that is not prefaced by a full ‘renunciation of terrorism’. The CSP in a similar vein tries to dismantle all arms treaties that pose restrictions on American hegemony. As the journalist Jason Vest observes : “Gaffney and CSP’s prescriptions for national security have been fairly simple : gut all arms control treaties, push ahead with weapons systems virtually everyone agrees should be killed... give no quarter to the Palestinians and, most important, go full steam ahead on just about every national missile defense program”. The CSP and JINSA are inextricably linked thanks to the military interests they commonly represent and Israel is the prefect ally when ideology and business interests meet. JINSA and the CSP have a lot of past military industry CEO and retired Generals and Lieutenants on their respective boards. Vest has done a terrific job by clarifying this link. To take one example, military industrial companies such as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin (to name but a few) have both traded and worked with Israel to produce the majority of their defense apparatus thanks to JINSA’s efforts. Last but not least, Feith seems to have something to do with the Iraqi prison abuses of Abu Ghraib. A part from being behind the phony “intelligence” gathered on the alleged WMD of Saddam, and behind the supporting of Ahmad Chalabi, it was Feith’s office who “housed the future undersecretary for intelligence, Stephen Cambone, who facilitated the transfer of Maj Gen Geoffrey Miller, the commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp that houses suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners, to Abu Ghraib prison in the interests of extracting more intelligence from detainees” .

The lesson? Torture pays!

[Me.]

64. We Shouldn't Forget That The Worm's Wife Meyrav

Was an important contributor to that document. She is very influential in the neo agenda.

[Emit]

172. This doesn't answer your questions, but it's interesting nonetheless

Yup. Ledeen has a lot of connections dating way back through Gladio that he could draw upon, seems like. Funny how so many of these things lead back to the Reagan/Bush Sr./Iran Contra era folks.

This link says Gladio was disbanded in 1990, but 1990 wasn't that long ago.
http://users.westnet.gr/~cgian/gladio.htm

Also from that link:

... Furthermore Mr Brenneke
claimed that, not only does the CIA continue to secretly finance a revived
P2, but that it was involved in the 1986 killing of the Swedish Prime
Minister, Mr Olaf Palme. According to Mr Brenneke, P2, under the guidance
of its Grand master, Mr Licio Gelli, used some of the finance made
available by the CIA to set up agencies in West Germany, Austria and
Switzerland. These agencies in turn were used by P2 to set up the
assassination of Mr Palme, on the orders of the CIA. Finally, and perhaps
most sensationally, Mr Brenneke alleged that President Bush, then director
of the CIA, not only knew about these CIA activities in Italy (during the
late 1970s and early 1980s) but was in fact one of the masterminds behind
them. In the 1976 general election, the huge success of the Communist
Party...encouraged some to believe that Italy might be close to voting in
its first ever Communist government. In order to forestall this
possibility, the CIA allegedly sponsored a series of right wing terrorist
attacks, via Mr Gelli's P2...The CIA denied the charges and said Mr
Branneke had never worked for the agency." (Paddy Agnew, Irish Times,
24/7/90)

So Ledeen worked for Haig in 1981. Haig had been introduced to Gelli (Head of Operation Gladio) in the 1970's:

1974-79 P2 and US involvement with Gladio?

"Declassified secret service papers reveal that Ted Shackleton, deputy
chief of the CIA station in Rome in the 1970's introduced the notorious
Licio Gelli - head of the neo-fascist P2 masonic lodge and for years a
fugitive in Argentina - to General Alexander Haig, then Nixon's chief of
staff, and later, from 1974 to 79, Nato Supreme Commander. P2 was a
right-wing shadow government, ready to take over Italy, that included four
Cabinet Ministers, all three intelligence chiefs, 48 MPs, 160 military
officers, bankers, industrialists, top diplomats and the Army Chief of
Staff. After meetings between Gelli, Italian military brass and CIA men
in the embassy, Gladio was given renewed blessing - and more money - by
Haig and the then head of the National Security Council, Henry Kissinger.
Just how those and later funds were spent is a key point in the
investigation." (William Scobie, Observer, 18/11/90)

http://users.westnet.gr/~cgian/gladio.htm

Ledeen was Haig's anti-terrorism advisor in '91:
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:P_5SXLtC3s0J:www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EF26Ak03.html+Ledeen+Haig&hl=en

And, Ledeen was a conduit b/w Haig and the head of SISMI sometime in early 1980's:

... Ledeen further aggravated the CIA by becoming an unofficial conduit between Haig and General Giuseppe Santovito, head of the Italian Military Service (SISMI).

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Michael_Ledeen

And then, in 1980, SISMI takes over Gladio:

1980 Sismi takes control of Gladio

And Gladio was passed from NATO to SISMI around that same time.

"Operational management of Gladio was passed from Nato to Sismi in 1980."
(John Wyles, Financial Times, 9/11/90)

http://users.westnet.gr/~cgian/gladio.htm


Insight into Gladio is very telling of Ledeen's modus operandi:

tompaine.com writes: ...terrorism has been Ledeen's bread and butter since at least the late 1970s.

More:

Now, do you know of Italy's "Strategy of Tension"? It was a campaign of false-flag terror in the late 1970s, waged by outright fascists who enjoyed the patronage of the CIA, the Mafia and far right elements of the Italian State. These were the Gladio Brigades and Licio Gelli's P2 Lodge, and they intended to discredit the increasingly popular Communist Party, and to ensure it would not take power, by staging terrorist acts in the name of the Left. Their campaign culminated in the Bologna train station bombing of 1980.

~snip~

An excerpt from Herman and O'Sullivan's The "Terrorism" Industry:

In 1980 entered into a collaboration with Francesco Pazienza, an agent of the Italian secret service (SISMI) and a member of Rome's extreme right-wing Masonic Lodge, P2 (Propaganda Due), headed by the fascist Licio Gelli. In an Italian criminal court in 1985, Pazienza was judged guilty of political manipulation, forgery, and the protection of criminals and terrorists, among other offenses. Indeed, according to the findings of the court, Pazienza falsified information about the Bologna bombing in order to divert attention away from the real (right-wing) terrorists who had staged the attack.

From Barbara Honegger's October Surprise:

When the Italian police raided (P2 Lodge founder) Gelli's home in March 1981, it was Michael Ledeen who, at the instigation of Alexander Haig and Henry Kissinger, offered to buy the list of 953 P2 members in an apparent attempt to keep it from becoming public. Henry Kissinger had also reportedly sent Ledeen to Italy to try to squash an investigation into his and Haig's involvement in the founding of P2.

On the morning of August 2, 1980, a massive bomb since linked to Gelli...exploded in the waiting room of the central train station in Bologna, killing 81 people and injuring 200 others. General Santorito, the chief of Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI, who was also reportedly a member of P2, testified in the wake of the bombing that it had been planned by the British-Swiss-American Montecarlo Comite, P2's "sister" organization based in Monaco. When P2 had come under increasing scrutiny in 1979, grandmaster Licio Gelli had reportedly made his base of operations the Montecarlo Comite.... Not surprisingly, reported members of the Montecarlo Comite are Gelli, Henry Kissinger, Alexander Haig and Michael Ledeen.

~snip~

Cont'd:
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/08/yellow-cake-and-black-shirts.html

[stop the bleeding]

175. Emit I have been doing a lot of research on Gladio / P2 and their

connections to other groups like the Vatican, and Opus Dei(which hates communism). It is funny that when you also look at the CIA, SISMI, and other powerful groups you get a feeling of who is in charge for any given situation. Some of the information that you highlighted is what I feel is heading in the right direction but then again I could be wrong.:shrug:

This is an awesome amount of research and sourcing. I will be spending time on this response and the links for the next few days and will post here when done.

This Plame/Redux thread is becoming a library of information and links, if people would just take the time to goto all of the links provided they may stumble onto something overlooked by others. DU is an army of researchers.

Thanks again.

stb

[Emit]

176. Actually

I see now that you might have already read some of this info that I posted, as some of it is contained in this thread here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x118064#123616

Part of the info I posted contains the Rigorous Intuition blog link that robertpaulsen pointed out to you in post #18 on this other thread. Sorry for the duplication.

I happened to find the history of Operation Gladio in relation to the players and groups involved here very interesting. I think looking at the history of these guys is an essential key to the present situation.

Fascinating info on these threads. Thanks for your insight and input on these threads.

___________________________________________________

On a lighter but equally interesting note, I came across an analysis of some of Ledeen's more recent work as it relates to his involvement in current events. I had been reading some of Ledeen's essays to gain insight into his character, having read some of his books this past summer. He really seems like an arrogant guy, and the fact that, while this is all happening (Plame, Niger forgeries, etc.), he continues to blithely write about it and himself is really weird and speaks to his personality. Seems kinda' narcissistic. I feel that way about William Kristol, too -- when I read his work or see that he's an 'analyst' on FOX, I just cringe because they're all up to their eyeballs in this and can't be objective in the least. I mean, Ledeen is Rove's foreign policy advisor and he's writing op-eds? And Kristol spouts his stuff on FOX and is the chairman of PNAC?

Likely, Ledeen has thrown out several red herrings, and this analysis of his writings is interesting for that reason. Seems he's almost playing a cat and mouse game, or, at the least, something akin to that:

December 15, 2005
Michael Ledeen's "Wilderness of Mirrors"
by emptywheel

Summary: In this post, I look at a series of columns Michael Ledeen has written using former Counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton (JJA) as a literary foil. In the earliest of these JJA columns, Ledeen basically uses the character of the noted paranoid JJA as an excuse to formulate his own baseless conspiracy theories. But of late, Ledeen has been using the device to excuse intelligence breaches he--or his very close allies--have been involved in. In this new formulation, Ledeen seems to be alluding to JJA as a way to boast of his own conspiracies to those in the know, while setting up straw man arguments to otherwise deny the conspiracy.


Michael Ledeen is regularly haunted by a crazy old ghost. Not just any ghost. He's visited by the longtime head of US Counterintelligence, James Jesus Angleton (JJA), conjured up through an old ouija board he bought in New Orleans. Or at least that's what Ledeen contrives in a series of columns.

He first used this device, I think, to give himself cover for exploiting current events to make great paranoid claims. Want to turn the Chandra Levy murder into a case of international espionage? Conjure JJA to tell you that Gary Condit was a double agent--blackmailed into trading intelligence in exchange for silence about his multiple affairs. When Levy threatened to expose her affair, she threatened to ruin the double agent arrangement. Want to use the DC Sniper case to drum up fear about Islamic terrorists? Have JJA explain to you that Mohammed's attacks were done at the behest of an Islamic terrorist group who was actually probing US defenses. Want to exploit the anthrax attacks in your attempts to launch a war against Iraq? Make JJA explain how, contrary to all the evidence, the attacks were obviously a plot of Saddam's.


You see, by the end of his life, JJA was absolutely fricking nuts. He had spent his life hunting double agents--heck, he even was a close friend of Kim Philby. And by the end, he had been seeing double for so long he had by most accounts become certifiably paranoid. By invoking JJA, Ledeen allows himself to posit all manner of wacky plots without damaging his (in some crowds, anyway) considerable credibility.

But Ledeen's use of the JJA device has changed in recent years, in ways that I think merit some attention.

Cont'd here:

http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:uetqz4bFCaYJ:thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2005/12/michael_ledeens.html+Curt+Weldon+Michael+Ledeen&hl=en

[phoebe]

119. Will be interesting to see how Peres and Netanyahu handle the

Israel elections...

[leftchick]

13. I Know, I know!!

This biggest, most evil piece of shit in the whole of the BFEE!

[AntiFascist]

24. Don't forget his "universal fascism"....

he has been a student of fascism for many years, extracting out his own multi-national version based on "creative destruction" which obivously has had a profound effect on both PNAC and the DLC. He claims that Bush Jr. latched onto his ideas quickly.

[robertpaulsen]

42. I don't doubt * latched onto his ideas. Guess what Ledeen does for Rove?

Michael Ledeen is Karl Rove's main foreign affairs advisor:

Notes on Michael Ledeen


Michael Ledeen is at the center of the AIPAC Spy Scandal. There is speculation that he is one of the top Mossad agents in the US. This is nothing new for Ledeen even as far back as the early 1980 it is alleged that the CIA listed Ledeen as an agent of influence of Israel (http:/www.counterpunch.org/green02282004.html). By looking at at Ledeen's close associations we can see the spider's web of Mossad. Ledeen is a protégé of Richard Perle a man who has long been suspected of being a Mossad agent. That speculation gained acceptance starting with the time a 1970 wiretap recorded Perle giving classified information to Israel. Ledeen colluded with another Mossad operative Manucher Ghorbanifar to lure America into the scandal that came to be called Iran Contra. Ledeen and Ghorbanifar again surface to use Larry Franklin and Harold Rhode to manipulate American foreign policy. Perhaps most dangerously Ledeen is the main foreign policy advisor to Karl Rove.

more...

http://www.sw-asia.com/People/Bio906.htm

Another dot to connect. Pretty scary, isn't it?

[Name removed]

47. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[robertpaulsen]

51. Very important! AntiFascist, you just answered the question of motive!

On post 9 of this thread, I asked two questions:

1. What was the purpose of Italian military intelligence being involved in a meeting with Middle East neo-con warhawks?

2. What would the motive be for them to meet with Ledeen?

Obviously, the reason why SISMI attended a meeting organized by Ledeen is because he is a trusted ally of not just Italian military intelligence, but the most renegade aspects of it.

Great find, AntiFascist!

[robertpaulsen]

54. More from Me's second link on post 29.

Ledeen thoughts are deep and sometimes disturbing : “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show we mean business” . In brief, Ledeen is an advocator of “total war” as he states it : “Total war not only destroys the enemy’s military forces, but also brings the enemy society to an extremely personal point of decision, so that they are willing to accept a reversal of the cultural trends”, Ledeen writes. “The sparing of civilian lives cannot be the total war’s first priority ... The purpose of total war is to permanently force your will onto another people”. Ledeen was allegedly tied to the Italian P2 Masonic Lodge, a violent right wing group that was involved in a number of terrorists attacks in Italy in the 1970s. In the late 1970s, while P2 was doing its dirty work, Ledeen was working as a consultant to Italian intelligence on terrorism issues. More recently, Ledeen worked with Pentagon staffers to redevelop the channel to arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar (the medium between Oliver North and Iran in the Iran-Contra affair) in support of resistance efforts in Iran . In addition to his work with the American Enterprise Institute, Ledeen has supported or co-founded a number of advocacy groups pushing for a radical transformation of the Middle East, including the Coalition for Democracy in Iran, JINSA, and of course, Ziad Abdelnour’s U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon.

http://www.tribune-libanaise.com/tribune/article.php3?id_article=9

There's your motive: They met with Ledeen because he's one of them!

[Me.]

66. Can You Say Iraq

“Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show we mean business” . In brief, Ledeen is an advocator of “total war” as he states it : “Total war not only destroys the enemy’s military forces, but also brings the enemy society to an extremely personal point of decision, so that they are willing to accept a reversal of the cultural trends”, Ledeen writes. “The sparing of civilian lives cannot be the total war’s first priority ... The purpose of total war is to permanently force your will onto another people”.

This says it all, the mad, insane raison d'etre that drives these people. At least the diehards. As for Rummy and Cheney, I believe they are opportunists dining at the neo's table. This was a sure way for their huge appetite for power and control to be sated.

[AntiFascist]

79. I ran across this discussion on FrontPageMag.com....

of a discussion about a coming Iranian Revolution. This included the high profile neocon Daniel Pipes who's thinking parallels that of Ledeen. His true anti-Islamic colors show in his response to the question of What should U.S. policy be toward Iran?

Pipes: No, we need to avoid the "Espositan eagerness" that discerns and then trumpets specious differences among Islamists. Whether they work on the front lines of jihad, its logistics train, or in the back-offices of its bureaucracy, all Islamists are part of the same effort to build a totalitarian regime world-wide. Whether they engage in immediate violence or hold off until later, they all must be fought, using appropriate responses to the case in hand. (Just as the U.S. government, for example, used different tools against Italian and Soviet communists).

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=3158

[Me.]

132. Heard An Interesting Theory On Hardball Tonight

Yes, Hardball. Imagine. Anyway, it will be several years before it's fully nuclearized, but they have will act as a deterrent. Stopping the rest of the world from interfering with Iran's version of Tienanmen Square. It seems the people of Iran don't like and are increasingly fed up with mullahs and extremists. They are ready to revolt and the leaders know it so they are planning a crackdown, and their nuke threat is their insurance policy against other countries butting in. Between the threats from Ledeen and company and their leaders, I'd say the [people of Iran are between a rock and a hard place.

[AntiFascist]

140. Wow, Tweety and I must be on the same wavelength....

I was just thinking of posting about that yesterday: that the best way to insure a true democratic revolution within Iran would be to keep the U.S. and others from interfering by way of becoming a nuclear power. (Doesn't Iran have some oil fields that Bushco could desparately utilize?) Also, Ledeen had an interesting article posted at National Review Online a couple of days ago hinting at the notion that plans for accelerating nuclear warhead development could have been slipped to the Iranians by means of sabotaged plans containing disinformation that was meant to have them develop a bomb that wouldn't work. The thinking is that they have plenty of expertise to separate the disinformation from the good stuff. I think Ledeen's purpose is to stir up fear so that we will invade faster, you know, the "strategy of tension" approach.

[Me.]

147. Oh The Leaders Of Iran Don't Want Democratic Reform

And it's them making nuke threats. They want to scare everyone away so that when they crack down on their people there is no recourse, no calvary to help rescue them. Just like B*** 1 didn't do anything during the Chinese incident.

[AntiFascist]

154. I understand...

but I've read that the mullahs are getting tired. The problem with "doing something" is that our involvement has to be cost effective (short-term to keep costs down or else have a huge oil payoff) and driven by presidential terms in office. Our involvement will look like another Iraq or worse.

My fear is that the Saudis are the "financial pivot" in all of this. Indian gaming money laundering is child's play compared to what they're capable of.

[Emit]

171. Ledeen has talked and written about 'liberating' Iran

Here's a piece I ran across a while back when looking into Ledeen:

May 6, 2003
Time to Focus on Iran - The Mother of Modern Terrorism
Dr. Michael Ledeen Addresses the Policy Forum

The focus of the global fight against terrorism should be placed squarely on Iran - "the mother of modern terrorism" - announced Dr. Michael Ledeen, a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research. Addressing the JINSA Policy Forum in Washington on April 30, 2003, Ledeen argued that now is the time for Iranian liberation. "I have never seen a country more ready for democracy than Iran."

Drawing attention to the likelihood that Tehran will test nuclear devices by the end of this summer, Ledeen stressed that terrorism is not the only concern regarding Iran. He posited that Iranian leaders learned from North Korea that "if you have nuclear weapons, then you are untouchable." Ledeen argued that Iran might use nuclear weapons against Israel based on the rationale that "half of the Jewish population in the world would be killed after the attack versus a minute fraction of Muslim people killed in retaliation. It would be worth the lives of Iranians to destroy Israel." Ledeen also reminded the audience that both Syria and Iran sent tens of thousands of men into Iraq to aid the Iraqi Republican Guard against U.S. and allied troops.

~snip~

Ledeen applauded President Bush's vision of promoting the development of representative governments in the Middle East. The region, he believes, is on the verge of drastic change. As of now, the U.S. is withdrawing troops from Saudi Arabia while Qatar is experiencing democratic elections. All these developments are hopeful signs for the region. Ledeen concluded his remarks by declaring, "the time for diplomacy is at the end; it is time for a free Iran, free Syria and free Lebanon."

http://www.jinsa.org/articles/articles.html/function/view/categoryid/1930/documentid/2012/history/3,648,1930,2012

[RazzleDazzle]

76. P2 is pure fascism, as befits someone like Ledeen

Comes out of Operation Gladio, IIRC. Someone ought to google it.

[robertpaulsen]

128. I googled Operation Gladio, Antonio Martino

I got the whole P2 list:

Licio Gelli's list of P2 members found in 1981

* Over 900 names; it has been said that at least a thousand names are still secret. It included 30 generals, 38 members of parliament, 4 cabinet ministers, former prime ministers, intelligence chiefs, newspaper editors, TV executives, businessmen, bankers, 19 judges, and 58 university professors.

* Michele Sindona, banker linked to the Mafia
* Roberto Calvi, "banker of God"
* Antonio D’Alì, owner of Banca Sicula (his son, Antonio D'Ali Jr., is senator of Trapani, elected on Forza Italia's list)
* Silvio Berlusconi, businessman & nowadays prime minister of Italy
* Victor Emmanuel, Prince of Naples
* Antonio Amato, Cagliari
* General Vito Miceli, chief of the SIOS (Servizio Informazioni), Italian Army Intelligence's Service from 1969 and SID's head from October 18, 1970 to 1974. Arrested in 1975 on charges of "conspiration against the state" concerning investigations about Rosa dei venti, a state-infiltrated group involved in the strategy of tension, he later became an MSI member.
* Aldo Alasia, Buenos Aires
* Luis Alberto Betti, Buenos Aires
* Antonio Calvino, Buenos Aires
* Cesar De la Vega, Argentina
* Raúl Alberto Lastiri, Argentina's interim president from July 13, 1973 until October 12, 1973.
* Emilio Massera, with Orlando Ramón Agostipart, he was part from 1976 to 1978 of the military junta in Buenos Aires, led by Jorge Rafael Videla
* José López Rega, argentinian minister of Social Welfare in Peron's government, founder of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance ("Triple A")
* Alberto Vignes, argentinian minister
* Argentinian amiral Carlos Alberto Corti
* Maurizio Costanzo, Italian television anchorman
* Franco Di Bella, director of Corriere della Sera
* Angelo Rizzoli, owner of Corriere della Sera, today cinema productor.
* Tassan Din, general director of Corriere della Sera
* Massimo Donelli, director of TV Sole 24 hours
* Paolo Mosca, former director of "Domenica del Corriere"
* Gino Nebiolo, at the time director of Tg1, has been now sent to direct RAI in Montevideo
* Franco Colombo, ex-correspondent of RAI in Paris, aspirant to P2, now vice-president of the society in charge of the Montblanc Tunnel
* Alberto Sensini, aspirant to P2.
* Roberto Memmo, who did a lot to help Michele Sindona, is now director of the Fondazione Memmo per l'arte e la cultura, based in Palazzo Ruspoli in Roma
* Rolando Picchioni, ex-Democrazia Cristiana deputy, now secretary of the Salone del libro di Torino
* Giancarlo Elia Varoli, sole member of P2 who has been expulsed (because of making shade to Licio Gelli), is now president of the Associazione industriali di Roma
* Roberto Gervaso
* Paolo Mosca
* Italo Poggiolini
* Giovambattista Palumbo
* Pietro Musumeci
* Twll Dydindi Pharoh
* Giuseppe Siracusano
* Giovanni Allavena
* Franco Picchioni
* Giulio Grassini
* Colonel Antonio Labruna
* Colonel Manlio Del Gaudio
* General Giuseppe Santovito
* Judge Giuseppe Renato Croce
* Judge Giovanni Palai
* Walter Pelosi
* Gustavo Selva, journalist & National Alliance deputy
* Pietro Longo, secretary of the Social-democrat party
* Publio Fiori, Democrazia Cristiana deputy, transfered to National Alliance in 1994, minister under Berlusconi's government
* Antonio Martino, minister under Berlusconi's government (aspirant to P2)
* Duilio Poggiolini, ex Democrazia Cristiana Health minister
* Massimo De Carolis, Democrazia Cristiana in the 1970s, now member of Forza Italia, ex-president of Milan's municipal council thanks to Berlusconi's help
* Angelo De Carolis, politician
* Mario Tedeschi, politician
* Enrico Manca, politician
* Pierluigi Accornero, businessman
* Mario Lebole, businessman
* Jorge de Souza, Brazil
* Pedro Dos Santos, Brazil
* Claudio Perez Barruna, Costa Rica
* Osvaldo Brama, Dakar
* Guido Ruta, United States
* Randolph K. Stone, Los Angeles, USA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_Due

I guess Ledeen is one of the "secret" names. There's also a good Operation Gladio link on wikipedia with this revealing paragraph:

Gladio had as central axe the Gehlen Org, using many ex-Nazis, and P2 masonic lodge has allegedly worked with it (the headmaster, Licio Gelli, was a Gladio member). CIA founder Allen Dulles was one of the key people in instituting Operation Gladio, and most of Gladio’s operations were financed by the CIA. ‘‘Democraziana Cristiana’’ leader Aldo Moro (assassinated by the Red Brigades in 1978) also has sometimes been said part of Gladio. However, his murder put an end to the “historic compromise” between the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the Christian Democracy (DC), which seem to be one of the objective of the strategy of tension followed by Gladio.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio

[RazzleDazzle]

130. Yep. That's an amazing cast of characters, isn't it?

And yes, the Dulles brothers were instrumental in bringing all those fascists into the U.S. as well. You probably knew that.

[Emit]

170. Yup

In an Italian criminal court in 1985, Pazienza was judged guilty of
political manipulation, forgery, and the protection of criminals and
terrorists, among other offenses. Indeed, according to the findings of
the court, Pazienza falsified information about the Bologna bombing in
order to divert attention away from the real (right-wing) terrorists
who had staged the attack. Ledeen is identified in the court documents
as an agent of SISMI, possibly placed on their payroll by Pazienza
himself. Ledeen collected money for his services to SISMI, which
included "risk assessment," the training of Italian intelligence
agents, and providing reports on terrorism to the Italian government...

Cont'd at link (from post #169 down thread)
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:AL2P3MMen-QJ:www.eyeranian.net/2003/05/07,54.shtml+Claire+Sterling+Michael+Ledeen&hl=en

[Wordie]

59. From what I've read, Ledeen is Rove's ONLY foreign policy advisor.

Recommended!

[TheGunslinger]

46. Here are some great articles to shed even more light on these cockroaches!

Serving Two Flags
Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Administration
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5788.htm

Michael Ledeen, Consultant on Chaos

If Stephen Bryen is the military technology guru in the neo-con pantheon, Michael Ledeen is currently its leading theorist, historian, scholar and writer. It states in the website of his consulting firm, Benador Associates, that he is "...one of the world's leading authorities on intelligence, contemporary history and international affairs" and that...."As Ted Koppel puts it, 'Michael Ledeen is a Renaissance man....in the tradition of Machiavelli.'" Perhaps the following will add some color and texture to this description.

In 1983, on the recommendation of Richard Perle, Ledeen was hired at the Department of Defense as a consultant on terrorism. His immediate supervisor was the Principle Assistant Secretary for International Security Affairs, Noel Koch. Early in their work together, Koch noticed with concern Ledeen's habit of stopping by in his (Koch's) outer office to read classified materials. When the two of them took a trip to Italy, Koch learned from the CIA station there that when Ledeen had lived in Rome previously, as correspondent for The New Republic, he'd been carried in Agency files as an agent of influence of a foreign government: Israel.

Some time after their return from the trip, Ledeen approached his boss with a request for his assistance in obtaining two highly classified CIA reports which he said were held by the FBI. He'd hand written on a piece of paper the identifying "alpha numeric designators". These identifiers were as highly classified as the reports themselves....which raised in Koch's mind the question of who had provided them to Ledeen if he hadn't the clearances to obtain them himself. Koch immediately told his executive assistant that Ledeen was to have no further access to classified materials in the office, and Ledeen just ceased coming to "work".

In early 1986, however, Koch learned that Ledeen had joined NSC as a consultant, and sufficiently concerned about the internal security implications of the behavior of his former aide, arranged to be interviewed by two FBI agents on the matter. After a two hour debriefing, Koch was told that it was only Soviet military intelligence penetration that interested the Bureau. The follow-on interviews that were promised by the agents just never occurred.

Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski's The New Pentagon Papers:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/03/10/osp_moveon/index.html

Before the Iraq invasion, many of these same players labored together for literally decades to push a defense strategy that favored military intervention and confrontation with enemies, secret and unconstitutional if need be. Some former officials, such as Richard Perle (an assistant secretary of defense under Reagan) and James Woolsey (CIA director under Clinton), were granted a new lease on life, a renewed gravitas, with positions on President Bush's Defense Policy Board. Others, like Elliott Abrams and Paul Wolfowitz, had apparently overcome previous negative associations from an Iran-Contra conviction for lying to the Congress and for utterly miscalculating the strength of the Soviet Union in a politically driven report to the CIA.

Neoconservatives march as one phalanx in parallel opposition to those they hate. In the early winter of 2002, a co-worker U.S. Navy captain and I were discussing the service being rendered by Colin Powell at the time, and we were told by the neoconservative political appointee David Schenker that "the best service Powell could offer would be to quit right now." I was present at a staff meeting when Bill Luti called Marine Gen. and former Chief of Central Command Anthony Zinni a "traitor," because Zinni had publicly expressed reservations about the rush to war.

...

I shared some of my concerns with a civilian who had been remotely acquainted with the Luti-Feith-Perle political clan in his previous work for one of the senior Pentagon witnesses during the Iran-Contra hearings. He told me these guys were engaged in something worse than Iran-Contra. I was curious but he wouldn't tell me anything more. I figured he knew what he was talking about. I thought of him when I read much later about the 2002 and 2003 meetings between Michael Ledeen, Reuel Marc Gerecht and Iranian arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar -- all Iran-Contra figures.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/6/15/12176/9231

According to recent reports, the focus of the case against accused Pentagon spy Larry Franklin is not merely a conventional spy case involving the passing of documents to a foreign agent. Instead, it appears that the OSP-AIPAC espionage conspiracy is also about efforts by Israel to "cook the books" on Iranian WMDs, much as occurred earlier with planted false documents that led the Bush Administration to justify the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Details about the still sealed indictment against Franklin show that the FBI busted up a plot by an Israeli intelligence officer and two AIPAC lobbyists to advance the career of Franklin, get him "by the elbow of the President", and to plant misleading information in Pentagon documents about Iran.

[robertpaulsen]

63. Thanks for spotlighting Karen Kwiatkowski, an important whistleblower.

Great links all, but she has done so much to blow the lid off of OSP, so thanks for reminding me of her contributions.

[TheGunslinger]

78. Wish that liberal media wouldn't show her on TV so much though

:eyes:

[stop the bleeding]

61. Great article the last paragraph kind of sums it all up..

Clearly a final decision has not been made on whether the United States will continue military action in Iran, Syria and Lebanon. But Ledeen has a notable track record. He was calling for attacks against Iraq throughout the 1990s, and the U.S. invasion on March 19 was a total fulfillment of his proposals. His attacks against the CIA and the State Department have contributed to the exclusion of these intelligence bodies from any effective decision making on Iraq. His attacks on Iran, even when Iran was assisting the United States, helped keep the Bush administration from seeking any rapprochement with Tehran. Were it in Ledeen's hands, we would invade Iran today.

I wonder what we will find with Syria???

[Emit]

169. Thought I'd add this

about Ledeen. Excerpted from Edward Herman / Gerry O'Sullivan, The "Terrorism"
Industry (Pantheon, 1989), p. 161 ff.
via: http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:AL2P3MMen-QJ:www.eyeranian.net/2003/05/07,54.shtml+Claire+Sterling+Michael+Ledeen&hl=en

Michael Ledeen has long been associated with CSIS (Center for
Strategic and International Studies) and was one of the founding
organizers of JINSA (The Jewish Institute for National Security
Affairs).

~snip~

Ledeen's academic career came to an end when he was denied tenure at
Washington University in St. Louis in 1972 for, among other reasons,
plagiarism <1>. During the 1970s, he worked as a journalist in Italy
with Il Giornale Nuovo, a right-wing newspaper reputedly controlled by
the CIA <2>. During this Italian stint he collaborated regularly with
Claire Sterling in anticommunist propaganda closely tied to ongoing
U.S. interventionist strategies <3>. In 1980 he entered into a
collaboration with Francesco Pazienza, an agent of the Italian secret
service (SISMI) and a member of Rome's extreme right-wing Masonic
Lodge, P2 (Propaganda Due), headed by the fascist Licio Gelli. In an
Italian criminal court in 1985, Pazienza was judged guilty of
political manipulation, forgery, and the protection of criminals and
terrorists, among other offenses. Indeed, according to the findings of
the court, Pazienza falsified information about the Bologna bombing in
order to divert attention away from the real (right-wing) terrorists
who had staged the attack. Ledeen is identified in the court documents
as an agent of SISMI, possibly placed on their payroll by Pazienza
himself. Ledeen collected money for his services to SISMI, which
included "risk assessment," the training of Italian intelligence
agents, and providing reports on terrorism to the Italian government
<4>.

Pazienza and Ledeen worked together in the so-called Billygate affair
during the 1980 presidential campaign, luring Jimmy Carter's brother
into a compromising relationship with Qaddafi (this according to
prosecuting Judge Domenico Sica). During the Reagan transition, to
quote Italian police official Umberto d'Amato, "there was an
interregnum during which relations between Italy and the United States
were carried on in the persons of the duo Pazienza-Ledeen" <5>.
Later, the pair were important participants in the creation of the
Bulgarian plot to kill the pope, a story that succeeded in gulling
most of the major media in the West.

~snip~

...Although serving as a loyal agent of the U.S. state in Italy in the
1970s, his service in the Billygate affair was to the Republican
Party. He was on the payroll of the Italian secret service agency
SISMI in the early 1980s, but his manipulations in Italy caused the
new head of SISMI to declare before Parliament in 1984 that Ledeen was
an "intriguer" and unwelcome in Italy <6>. His attachment to Israel,
reflected in his JINSA connection, may have influenced his pursuit of
the hostage deal with Iran (Israel favored such a transaction), and
his former boss in the Pentagon, Noel Koch, asserts that while Ledeen
was in Italy the CIA station chief there took him to be "an agent of
influence of a foreign government" <7>.

[Me.]

7. You're Right, This Is Very Important

Now am I remembering correctly when I say that there has been much speculation that the group who met in Italy had a hand in the Niger forgeries? Nothing definitive, but always the whiff that they may have done so to push the case for war with Iraq. I would love to know who arranged the meeting.

[robertpaulsen]

15. Michael Ledeen arranged it. Read post 9 for details.

I'm curious what you think the answer might be to the questions I have in that post.

[leveymg]

19. Perhaps Ledeen and this guy. Naor Gilon. See post #14

www.sw-asia.com/People/Bio917.htm

[stop the bleeding]

8. lol! - we have to communicate a little better, I guess more is better

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x108152

I just came across your thread even though I check the GD every 10-20 minutes it is amazing how many threads go up and down the board.

Larisa did a good job on this one

I also put a thread in LBN and it is virtually going un-noticed, which I find hard to believe because if people were to put the pieces together they would be crapping their pants.

When this story broke today I was wondering what your, H2Oman and Peace Patriot takes on this are.


OSP / WHIG???

[robertpaulsen]

11. I'll be sure to respond to your thread.

This is all incredibly exciting, I don't understand why more here don't share our excitement.

Yeah, this is definitely some "cooking the books" involved, as Kelly would say if he were alive today. See my posts above on what a devil Ledeen is.

[H2O Man]

26. Nominated !!!

Many of the things that have been suggested over the course of the past few years on DU are now becoming more apparent to a wider range of people. Impressive advances are being made by Raw Story, etc, documenting the connections between the dots.

We are at a very strange time now. "Strange days, indeed," as Beatle John said.

[stop the bleeding]

27. here is a big piece from Peace Patriot from the LBN thread

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2035128#2035448


I have not even had a chance to look over yet since I am still at work, but I will later tonight.

Peace!



Who is behind the meeting(s)?

[blm]

69. That's why we need more posters to be aware of the larger picture

and recognize what pieces are part of the puzzle.

That's what DU does best, imo.

WHERE'S OCTAFISH?????

[happydreams]

10. Khashoggi, another Iran-Contra go between and Florida 2004

go here:
http://www.umsl.edu/~skthoma/khashoggi.htm
to see a picture of him and Ghorbanifar and some info about the death of investigative reporter Danny Casaloro.

On August 5, Casolaro had called Texas oil engineer Bob Bickel,
who at one time worked as a Customs Bureau informant, apparently
to talk about Robert Booth Nichols and his association with a
former Justice official named Michael Abbell and Columbian drug
lord Gilberto Rodriquez, both of whom were being investigated for
their connections to the Cali drug cartel. Bickel previously had
aspired to blow the whistle on CIA chief Robert Gates' role in
shipping weapons to Iraq in the late 1980s. He had given Danny
photocopies of one million and four million dollar checks drawn
on the BCCI accounts of Iran-contra go-betweens Adnan Khashoggi
and Manucher Ghorbanifar. He also gave him the passport
photograph of Hassan Ali Ibrahim Ali, a front man for Iraqi
weapons sales. (Doug Vaughan traced these papers back to Richard
Brenneke.) The check photocopies had circulated among researchers
for years but when matched with the passport it seemed to
represent a great breakthrough to Danny. Was Hassan Ali Ibrahim
Ali the "maybe Arab or Iranian" man that a waitress saw Casolaro
with at the Sheridan that night?


I forget the woman's name who was working on Bush's campaign 2000, but she was an important official. It was discovered she worked on Khashoggi's plane as a waitress. It's a stretch, but this may be something to link all of the above to Abrahmof, Ney and election tampering.

[leveymg]

18. Is Hassan Ali Ibrahim Ali the "Ali" in LaLa's story? n/t

[DoYouEverWonder]

21. The Butterfly Queen - Teresa LaPore

The Supervisor of Elections for WPB, FL.

[happydreams]

22. Yea, that's her. Thanks!

I'm out of time here will get back later

[leveymg]

25. If LaPone was part of Khashoggi's aircrew, this is a major find

I believe that aircrew rosters are public information. What date would this have been, what airport, and what is the source for this?

Wow.

[happydreams]

30. GOT IT!!

This is some serious stuff if somebody wants to pursue it. Google LaPore+Khashoggi and BLAM!

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2005/01/does-adnan-khashoggi-own-triad.html


....One thing Hopsicker does not mention is that this is not the first time Adnan Khoshoggi's name has cropped in connection with a dubious Dubya election. Back in the year 2000, Slate published a piece by Timothy Noah titled "Did Adnan Khashoggi Throw the Election to Dubya?" Noah's piece, written for Slate's "Chatterbox" column, is, for the most part, written in a humorous and even snide vein. Still, he does note the verifiable fact that Theresa LaPore -- remember her? -- was a Khashoggi employee before she played a role in the Florida election scandal.

"And not just Triad," says Hopsicker -- who goes on to make a few further points that I cannot help quoting:


Election.com should be examined for the invisible hand of the Saudi financier and CIA “fixer.”

News reports stated Election.com was owned by an offshore Saudi front company in Bermuda consisting of five unnamed Saudi billionaires, until scrutiny forced a sale to Accenture, the remnants of the disgraced and disbanded Arthur Anderson, the accounting firm which made Enron possible.
Many have expressed mixed feelings about Hopsicker's work in the past, but the Khashoggi-Triad connection is one that we should be able to firm up. And once we do -- well, the election controversy rockets to a whole new level.

[leveymg]

34. Here's a Newsday article on the Saudis at Election.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REPOSTED AT:
www.ecotalk.org/Election.com.htm

Election.com Sold To Group Tied To Saudi Nationals
By Mark Harrington
Staff Writer, Newsday http://www.newsday.com/business/ny-bzelec0227.story

February 27, 2003

Election.com, a struggling Garden City start-up scheduled to provide
online absentee ballots for U.S.
military personnel in the 2004 federal election, has quietly sold
controlling power to an investment group with ties to unnamed Saudi
nationals, according to company correspondence.

In a letter sent to a select group of well-heeled Election.com investors
Jan. 21, the online voting and voter registration company disclosed that
the investment group Osan Ltd. paid $1.2 million to acquire 20 million
preferred shares to control 51.6 percent of the voting power.

In a Newsday interview in October, Charles Smith, a representative of
Osan who sits on Election.com's
board, declined to name the Saudi Arabian investors with a stake in the
company, other than to say they were "passive" and part of a larger
group that included Americans and Europeans. Smith didn't return phone
calls Wednesday.

SNIP

[robertpaulsen]

43. I just want to give you a big thumbs up, happydreams.

I haven't had a chance to read all the links, but from what I've read so far, you're doing so excellent research. What you're exploring are some very important pieces of the puzzle.

Thanks for the great work!

[happydreams]

148. Thank You very much. Same to you friend.

:hi:

[lala_rawraw]

50. Holy christ!!!!

wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now if only I had money to start a research center, good lord!!!!

[leveymg]

82. Sign me up. Will work for by-lines.

;)

[lala_rawraw]

108. Not for research:(

I wish:)

[AntiFascist]

53. Be careful with "Triad"....

Remember the flak we got about this over a year ago.

Interesting that Khashoggi apparently met with Pearl to invest $100 million in Trireme? I've heard through the grapevine that Trireme may be part of Fitz investigation?

[happydreams]

149. Notice how these topics keep coming back up

I saw Enron go through a number of cycles. This stuff is going to come and be hot in the MSM sometime soon I think.

[stop the bleeding]

57. Holy WOW - didn't Madsen publish an article last year after the election

debacle that involved Triad, Accenture, a phony check and even some dude who committed suicide out of Michigan during an FBI investigation. I know a lot of people don't place a lot of weight in Wayne M's articles but this sounds way too familiar.

I have tried to locate these articles but I am having no luck. I will check back here in a little bit. I just got home and have yet read up on everyone's posts.

Let me know if I am reaching too much with the tinfoil.

[AntiFascist]

60. Here's the thread from my post a year ago...

proceed with caution, Madsen's reputation suffered because the check turned out not to be legitimate:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=203&topic_id=297594

[AntiFascist]

65. My post 51 on that thread is a little embarassing...

I had been surfing a lot of Illuminati crap.

Ledeen is much more interesting, and his affiliation with P2 is much more interesting.

[stop the bleeding]

67. Yes - Check aside here is the interesting part

The NASA connection to the money trail that is linked to the development of the vote switching program is of particular note. When the first sketchy details of the vote switching operation emerged, a Houston-controlled money tranche (editor's note def. of tranche: a portion of money) associated with an offshore entity called Five Star Trust, registered in the Isle of Man, was reported by high-level intelligence sources familiar with past Bush-related covert activities to be behind the operation. Five Star has been connected by these informed sources to have originated in 1983, when deposed Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, and then-Vice President George H. W. Bush were allegedly looking for a repository for an estimated $3 billion in looted Philippine gold and gems. Since that time, Five Star's accounts are said to funnel more funds from Saudi Arabia as well as cash reserves hidden away in offshore artificial shells by Enron before it collapsed. What is not yet certain is whether Sean O'Keefe, the NASA administrator and close Cheney friend who supported Feeney's and Yang's activities in Florida, facilitated the transfer of Five Star funds from Houston to Cape Canaveral using contract vehicles of both the Johnson and Kennedy Space Centers to disburse the funds to the principal players. A NASA insider in Texas said he has long suspected large amounts of money have been moved into the United States and that these transfers involved NASA and Saudi and Chinese money sources.

<and more here>

The connection of Enron money and Nigerian scammers to Five Star is intriguing because of a September 23, 2004, Houston Chronicle report that said Enron was involved in an off-the-books deal to invest in Nigerian power generation barges. Tina Trinkle, a former Merrill Lynch banker, said she was asked not to do the normal background checks for such a business deal.

A former Justice Department prosecutor who investigated the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) said that the bogus check and those responsible for it are typical "feints" used to mask actual clandestine money movements from law enforcement investigators. In addition, the former prosecutor said the purported check lacked the necessary SWIFT codes in the numbers found at the bottom of the check to facilitate the movement of money through international financial networks. He said that in his experience as a prosecutor, the name "Five Star Trust" came up in relation to the covert activities of the Nugan Hand Bank, a CIA-connected activity that was involved in covert activities in Australia and South East Asia.

Five Star entities, active and dissolved, have been discovered in the Isle of Man, the island of Nevis, the Bahamas, Florida, Kentucky, and Texas. Other Five Star-related entities stored large sums of money in the Cook Islands, according to U.S. intelligence sources, and these funds were directly linked to Khashoggi and BCCI. Khashoggi also approached top Nigerian leaders in 1982 to set up a company there that would deal exclusively in minerals. According to knowledgeable insiders, Khashoggi used a company called Triad to hammer out lucrative international deals on precious minerals. In 1994, Five Star Investments, Ltd., the entity tied to Horn, attempted to buy International Standards Group ISG), Ltd., a consulting company based in Boca Raton, Florida. According to the Palm Beach Post, Horn was the person who proposed the acquisition. ISG was also the target of a bid by UMI, Inc., a mortgage banker based in Coral Gables, Florida. The Palm Beach Post was never able to determine the source of UMI's cash.

[Peace Patriot]

102. I'd sure like to see California recover the $9 billion that Enron stole...

"Five Star's accounts are said to funnel more funds from Saudi Arabia as well as cash reserves hidden away in offshore artificial shells by Enron before it collapsed." --quoted from the above

That has always bothered the hell out of me. Little things ($9 billion!) sometimes get under my skin. We had no more built up a $10 billion surplus under Gov. Davis, than Texas sharks focused in, and stole it all. It's like these Bush-bred thieves are out to destroy, loot, pillage all civic strength, our commonly held ability to take action for the common good. I hated this so much. I hated it from the depths of my soul. And the Bush junta has done the same to the USA--all the rainy day money that Clinton built up, gone.

I would much rather see us get our money back, than to have any of these criminals in jail. (--if I were to ever have that choice)

[Peace Patriot]

111. I've always felt that Madsen was onto Plan C for the 2004 election theft,

got hold of one of its tails, and possibly suffered from a planned misdirection.

Plan A, covert electronic fraud, Plan B, overt Ohio vote suppression (and other similar activities), Plan C, a "terrorist alert" shutdown of the vote probably on the west coast, if Plans A and B could not handle Kerry's victory. Plans A and B were able to overcome Kerry's 5% margin of victory, but could not have handled, say, a 10% margin. (My deduction, the tabulators had to be pre-programmed to certain percentages and could not be easily or safely changed on election day.) Plan C, the "terrorist alert" shutdown, was well prepped in the newsstream prior to the election, with all those phony "terrorist alerts" leading up to it, including even a "terrorist alert" about a California grade school (totally bogus), and I may have been the only person on planet Earth who noticed that Dick Cheney took off for Hawaii two days before the election, dropping newsturds into the newsstream about Hawaii trending to Bush--Hawaii!--and he was going there to pump for votes. I suspect he was going there to have his plane out over the Pacific if they needed to shut down the west coast vote with a "terrorist alert."

We should be wary of dumping on investigators who come up short, and/or who may have gotten deliberately misdirected. (CBS, RawStory, Madsen and BBV all come to mind.) Impatient DUers (or DUers with personal or other agendas) sometimes pile on the vituperation to an excessive degree. I think we should keep cooler heads, evaluate things as they come up, and not get so pissy about investigations that don't pan out. We're dealing with major evildoers here, with infinite resources to fuddle our minds and stymie discovery of their criminal activities. This is not to say we shouldn't vet sources, and be on constant alert for the reliability and political or personal agendas of sources. It's just to say that the REASON for an investigation not panning out may harder to see than we think, and we shouldn't jump to conclusions about the investigator's ability or sincerity. We should also keep in mind that, a) people are often mixed bags of motives and abilities--doesn't mean they aren't good for the truth on some particular item; and b) investigators of the Bush junta may be under a lot of pressure.

[AntiFascist]

116. The other problem is that....

when this information leaks out it's often almost too incredible to be believable, and if it comes from intelligence insiders, how could much of it be very easily verified? It could be 100% true, but if it is too incredible to believe and not verifiable, then there it sits. There's also the problem of truth mixed with disinformation in order to protect the sources, or disinformation being dispersed for the purpose of misleading investigators.

[stop the bleeding]

117. So then our fate rests in McNulty and Fitz working together

to squeeze people over this namely Cheney/Rove, unless someone else comes forward with more information and is will to share.

[leveymg]

44. Found this at several sites from 2004 - WSJ reported LaPore-Adnan

relationship. Was not able to find a link to the original Journal article, but a lot of people have reposted this story. The post linked below also gives some additional info on "Madame Butterfly": http://www.jimpivonka.com/weblogs/weblog020920.html

:00 PM CT (GMT-6:00)
I surely hate people who send me "information" with original sources not included! Now I am advised that Theresa LePore, the woman who ran Miami-Dade's voting, was only a "nominal" Democrat, and actually has a personal history as a Republican. Changed her party registration to get elected Elections Commissioner. After the election she left the Democratic Party and declared her independence. In a prior career she was an occasional "personal flight attendant" to Adnan Kashoggi, the MidEast arms dealer up to his neck in the Iran Arms -Contragate scandal during the Reagan administration. Sounds like a plant to me.
The quote: "Wall Street Journal December 1st, 2000 page 1: " 'Madame Butterfly' Theresa Le Pore wasn't always an embattled Palm Beach ballots chief. In the 1980s she moonlighted as a flight attendant on private planes owned by Saudi weapons dealer Adnan Khashoggi, a middleman in Reagan administration arms sales to Iran."

[Jose Diablo]

12. Don't overlook Sheldon Lady

This guy is a shadow government type with a long history in Central America and around New Orleans (I wonder if he was somehow tied to those Cuban guys that had a assassins training camp the FBI was ordered by Kennedy to close down, in Sept 63). Also in Italy.

I think Lady is part of the path that got the forged Niger document into intelligence channels to eventually come back to the CIA as a 'reliable' information.

You know, Lady is now on the run, nobody can find him. Italy is interested in him for that stuff about the CIA snatching people for rendition. He's probably holed up back in Central America someplace, in some wealthy guy's hacienda.

[leveymg]

14. Here's another side of the story. The Mossad-OSP pipeline.

There's another side to this. Read the indictment in the Larry Franklin case. Particularly, see pp. 23-24, para. 6 - http://www.physics911.net/franklinpdf2.pdf

Franklin pleaded guilty to charges that he had been, among other things, salting Pentagon files with phoney IRAN WMD data. His source for that, according to the charging papers, was the Mossad Chief of Station at the Israeli Embassy in DC.. Mr. Gilon (FO-3 in the indictment) fled the country shortly after the FBI investigation of the OSP-AIPAC case was leaked. See, http://www.dailykos.com/admin/story/2005/6/15/12176/9231

Seems the bizarre tale told by Ghorbanifar to Rep. Weldon is another facet of the disinformation work that Mr. Ledeen and Mr. Ghorbanifar have been carrying out on behalf of their client.

[stop the bleeding]

28. WOW - Great find

As stated in other responses to this thread - I need to get home and take all of this in

Peace!


Who is behind the meeting(s)?

[leveymg]

31. For those who are really interested, here's the Rozen-Marshall-Cole

string at the Agonist back on August 27, 2004 right after the leak of the FBI investigation into the Franklin-OSP-AIPAC scandal. http://scoop.agonist.org/story/2004/8/27/155048/098

Indispensible reading.

[JohnyCanuck]

32. Kos link doesn't work I get a permission denied. k&r

[leveymg]

36. Try This One

http://www.dailykos.com/admin/story/2005/6/15/12176/9231

[JohnyCanuck]

39. Sorry I still get the same permission denied message

I also tried right clicking the links and copying and pasting the full links into the browser window (tried both Firefox and IE) and I still get to a page that says permission denied.

[leveymg]

41. Thanks for letting me know that. Article below.

OSP-AIPAC SPY CASE REVEALS ISRAELI PLOT TO PLANT IRAN WMD DATA
by leveymg
Wed Jun 15, 2005 at 10:17:06 AM PDT
According to recent reports, the focus of the case against accused Pentagon spy Larry Franklin is not merely a conventional spy case involving the passing of documents to a foreign agent. Instead, it appears that the OSP-AIPAC espionage conspiracy is also about efforts by Israel to "cook the books" on Iranian WMDs, much as occurred earlier with planted false documents that led the Bush Administration to justify the March 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Details about the still sealed indictment against Franklin show that the FBI busted up a plot by an Israeli intelligence officer and two AIPAC lobbyists to advance the career of Franklin, get him "by the elbow of the President", and to plant misleading information in Pentagon documents about Iran.


leveymg's diary :: ::
The following article in the New York Sun was linked yesterday in Laura Rozen's blog, WarandPiececom. Rozen is probably the best-informed spectator on the emerging spy case linking Bush neocons with the Israeli Embassy.

Details of a Plot Unveiled in Case Against Franklin

BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 14, 2005
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/15374

WASHINGTON - An analyst for the Pentagon, Lawrence Franklin, conspired to funnel classified information to Israel during a series of meetings with two lobbyists for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and a top diplomat from the Israeli Embassy, according to a grand jury indictment that was unsealed yesterday.

The indictment says Mr. Franklin sought the help of a senior lobbyist for Aipac in getting a job at the National Security Council; that he enlisted the Israeli diplomat to write a letter for his daughter to ease her travels in the Middle East, and that he discussed with that diplomat weapons tests for a Middle Eastern country. Coffees were sipped, sandwiches purchased, and at one point the Israeli diplomat gave Mr. Franklin a gift card.

The grand jury's indictment charges Mr. Franklin, who has served as a desk officer on Iran at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, with six counts, including mishandling classified information, communicating defense information to individuals not authorized to receive it, and, most serious, "a conspiracy to communicate classified information to agent and representative of a foreign government, without specific authorization."

<SNIP>

The FBI probe into Mr. Franklin and two Aipac lobbyists, Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman, has attracted considerable press attention since the story was leaked in August last year. In April, Aipac terminated the employment of Mr. Rosen, who served as the organization's director of foreign policy, and Mr. Weissman, who was one of Aipac's top Iran policy analysts.

<SNIP>

The 20-page indictment filed initially on May 26, 2005, in the U.S. district court of Alexandria, Va., details meetings Mr. Franklin had with two unindicted co-conspirators, not named in the court document but widely known to be Messrs. Rosen and Weissman. The indictment also describes a series of meetings with a foreign official, also widely known to be the
Israeli Embassy's chief political officer, Naor Gilon. Mr. Gilon remains to this day the embassy's point of contact with the Bush administration on Iran policy.

<SNIP>

Despite a wealth of fresh details on the dates, times, and locations of those conversations, the indictment is vague on exactly what Mr. Franklin is alleged to have passed on to the Israelis and the lobbyists. For example, it refers to conversations about a "certain Middle Eastern country," widely known to be Iran. The indictment says that Mr. Franklin faxed one of the lobbyists a "classified appendix to the classified draft internal policy document defendant had previously discussed" with the two
lobbyists.

One source familiar with the document described it as a "list of horribles about Iran. The sorts of things most people knew already, such as Iran's sponsorship of Hezbollah." Mr. Franklin's attorney last month said the document did not contain classified material.

<SNIP>

The indictment states that Mr. Franklin tried to enlist Mr. Rosen's help in getting him a job at the National Security Council. Mr. Rosen, referred to as co-conspirator 1, said on February 14, 2003, that he would see what he could do to get Mr. Franklin a job "by the elbow of the president."

That incident stands out because Mr. Franklin's defenders have said that Mr. Franklin sought out the two Aipac lobbyists in order to get threat information to the White House.

The indictment also alleges that Mr. Gilon may have influenced Mr. Franklin's work. In a meeting on May 23, 2003, at the Pentagon Officer's Athletic Club, Messrs. Franklin and Gilon, who was referred to in the indictment as "FO," for foreign official, discussed European views on Iran - referred to as the "Middle Eastern country" - and its nuclear program.

Following the meeting, the indictment says Mr. Franklin drafted an action memo to his superiors "incorporating suggestions made by the FO during the meeting."

All told, the indictment lists 14 times between August 15, 2002, and June 23, 2004, that Mr. Franklin met with Mr. Gilon. The frequency of the meetings and phone calls suggests that Mr. Franklin did not need Messrs. Rosen and Weissman to reach the government of Israel.

<SNIP>

- Mark

[stop the bleeding]

71. Why does Israel have so much influence over America? Is it

because we have an ally to help so we can wage war like Ledeen dreams about or is it something more complicated?

Also DC, Britain and other places were fairly busy around this time with D. Kelley getting killed, Wilson article. Seems like some people may have been a little agitated or crapping their pants.

[bobbieinok]

115. IMO part of reason for Israel support is guilt that US govt and churches

did not take reports of Holocaust seriously and did not help save Jews

[Emit]

173. I read your question earlier

And a while later, I read this article here. This part stood out in light of your question:

For the traditional U.S. foreign policy elite, Israel was a means to an end -- protecting our oil and our Arab regimes. A 1958 National Security Council memorandum stated, "if we choose to combat radical Arab nationalism and to hold Persian Gulf oil by force if necessary, a logical corollary would be to support Israel, as the only strong pro-West power left in the Near East."

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:SCT2H8OflzoJ:www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue39/brodkin39.htm+The+%22Terrorism%22+Industry+Edward+Herman+Gerry+O%27Sullivan&hl=en

[AntiFascist]

178. This seems like an incredible find to me....

It would mean that one of the primary reasons for establishing the state of Israel was to secure American oil interests. No wonder right-wingers think that America plays such an important role in the bible, and that we have somehow been "blessed" with the divine right to act like oil-consuming pigs.

I hope this isn't a stupid question but why hasn't the U.S. ever established a large military base in Israel before now?

http://www.ariannaonline.com/forums/printthread.php?t=26273

Another point, does the fear of the loss of Israeli sovereignty point to the possible interests of multi-national fascisti in the region?

[robertpaulsen]

52. Great find, leveymg!

What's important is that McNulty has already squeezed Franklin enough to get him to plead. Hopefully, the complete truth about Naor Gilon will come out in the trial of the other two.

Sure hope McNulty reads Raw Story and this thread!

[leveymg]

81. Notice how the MSM has virually ignored this.

The indictment already says it all. Israel was the source for misleading Iran WMD data that neocons planted in Pentagon files - that's the same M.O. as the Niger Yellowcake incident. One would reasonably conclude that the source may be same, particularly as the same OSP desk officer -- Larry Franklin -- appears to have been involved in both incidents.

McNulty already has all he needs to indict Naor as the source for both the OSP-AIPAC Iran documents and Ledeen and Ghobanifar for conveying the Niger Yellowcake forgeries.

[stop the bleeding]

83. Could McNulty and Fitz be working together to squeeze people over this?

Seems like Ledeen's and Ghobanifar's client(s) is Rove/Cheney. We also know based on reports that Fitz has been taking his investigation back to the time on the Yellocakes.

Could their be some collaborating between McNulty and Fitz on this?

Seems like the road is starting to "V" into one place with some of these scandals.

Am I :tinfoilhat:ing too much?

Also lets say it is Rove/Cheney - what would happen next with those 2 crooks?


McNulty already has all he needs to indict Naor as the source for both the OSP-AIPAC Iran documents and Ledeen and Ghobanifar for conveying the Niger Yellowcake forgeries.



I will check back in a bit to see if there is something added.

[leveymg]

92. Yes, they no doubt talk to each other.

I would say that Ledeen and Ghorbanifar have multiple, overlapping clients on this one.

The separation of the OSP-AIPAC and Plame investigations is artificial. The FBI has been investigating Mossad's operations in Washington for decades. Remember Jonathan Pollard? If one believes the official story, the Feds first became aware of Franklin when he walked into an ongoing FBI surveillance of AIPAC and the embassy guys having lunch. I'm not so sure that Franklin hasn't been a cooperating witness all along.

The problem with Cheney and Dubya is that they can't just be arrested, although they could have been right after 9/11. There has to be an agreement on an orderly transition of power, and the public has to be prepared. The political cards are only now coming into place for that. My prediction - Cheney resigns for health reasons (a la Old Politburo practice), Bush appoints McCain as Veep, and Dubya rides off into the sunset. This cements McCain's cred as "reformer" and positions him for the '08 election. Mission Accomplished.

[stop the bleeding]

93. New development this morning here on DU see here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=117625&mesg_id=117625

Biden tells Couric 2X's that Bush and his lawyers have argued that they have the authority to delare war on Iran without telling Congress. That should be alarming enough.

He quoted this 2X's and sounded like this has been on going argument between the WH and the Seanate/House

"This administration's Lawyers argue that president has the right to goto war in Iran, tomorrow without even telling the US Congress, that is what they argue Katie" this was said the second time.



The "tomorrow" part was hypothetical.

War authority & Iran... not so hypothetical.

BTW, you can watch the video. I can't link to it, but go to the Today Show/MSNBC page here: http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm?, enter "Biden" in the MSNBC Video Search box & it'll be the first one.


This fact that the administration has argued this and Biden has used this interview to state it 2X's is super alarming to anyone with a pulse.

We all know they want regime change in the Iran and the Middle East and it is not a question of when -

The question is how and under who's authority.

Congress is the voice of the people.

[robertpaulsen]

113. Collaboration? You bet! That's why I call it PLAME/AIPACGATE.

Not too :tinfoilhat: at all, stopthebleeding, you're right on top of things!

Read this thread, lots of good info here:

I think it's officially no longer PLAMEGATE. It's PLAME/AIPACGATE!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5116540

Or the Plame/AIPAC scandal, depending on your preference, but like Iran/Contra this case is definitely worthy of a hyphenate. Just read between the lines of this great article:

The Most Important Criminal Case in American History
by James Moore

snip

We may stand witness to a definitive American moment of democracy. The son of a New York doorman probably has in his hands, in many ways, the fate of the republic. Because far too many of us know and are aware of the crimes committed by our government in our name, we are unlikely to settle for a handful of minor indictments of bureaucrats. The last thing most of us believe in is the rule of law. We do not trust our government or the people we have elected but our constitution is still very much alive and we choose to believe that destiny has placed Patrick Fitzgerald at this time and this place in our history to save us from the people we elected. If the law cannot get to the truth of what has happened to the American people under the Bush administration, then we all may begin to hear the early death rattles of history’s greatest democracy.

Fortunately, there are good signs. Fitzgerald has reportedly asked for a copy of the Italian government’s investigation into the break-in of the Niger embassy in Rome and the source of the forged documents. The blatantly fake papers, which purported to show that Saddam Hussein had cut a deal to get yellowcake uranium from Niger, turned up after a December 2001 meeting in Rome involving neo-con Michael Ledeen, Larry Franklin, Harold Rhodes, and Niccolo Pollari, the head of Italy’s intelligence agency SISMI, and Antonio Martino, the Italian defense minister.

snip

The other American attendees at Ledeen’s Roman Holiday are also worthy of scrutiny. Larry Franklin was recently arrested for leaking classified US government information to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Ledeen sprang quickly to his defense but Franklin faces prosecution next year and is most probably cooperating with prosecutor Fitzgerald. Harold Rhode, the other American actor in this tragicomic affair, worked the Office of Special Plans (OSP) at the Department of Defense for Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Characterized as a “counter-intelligence shop,” OSP simply interpreted intelligence in a manner that fit the need for evidence that Iraq had WMD. If the CIA gathered data that said otherwise, OSP analyzed it differently or ignored the facts and then reported to the vice president precisely what he wanted to hear. Rhode also was the liaison between Ahmed Chalabi, the convicted embezzler the Bush administration was using to feed information to them and Judy Miller about the distortions and lies required to fuel the rush to war.

more...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/the-most-important-crimin_b_9183.html

[JohnyCanuck]

87. Do I notice how the MSM has ignored this?

I would expect nothing less from the corporate media hoes, although some of us had long suspected that the Israelis who came to visit the OSP (without having to follow the Pentagon's sign in procedures) were there for something more than a friendly visit over tea and crumpets to discuss vacation plans and chat about the weather.

The spies who pushed for war

Julian Borger reports on the shadow rightwing intelligence network set up in Washington to second-guess the CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force

Thursday July 17, 2003
The Guardian

<snip>

The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House not only for the Iraqi opposition. It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon's office in Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam's Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorise.

"None of the Israelis who came were cleared into the Pentagon through normal channels," said one source familiar with the visits. Instead, they were waved in on Mr Feith's authority without having to fill in the usual forms.

The exchange of information continued a long-standing relationship Mr Feith and other Washington neo-conservatives had with Israel's Likud party.

In 1996, he and Richard Perle - now an influential Pentagon figure - served as advisers to the then Likud leader, Binyamin Netanyahu. In a policy paper they wrote, entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, the two advisers said that Saddam would have to be destroyed, and Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran would have to be overthrown or destabilised, for Israel to be truly safe.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html

[leveymg]

88. Yes, except I'm not sure about Mossad being cut out on this.

"a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon's office in Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam's Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorise."

There may well have been such a a parallel network linking OSP (the GOP CIA) and Likud. But, Mr. Gilon has been around Washington a long time, and everyone acknowledged that he was Chief of Station. Thus, at least as far as contacts with Franklin are concerned, Mossad appears to have been right in the loop, and this was no rogue, back-channels operation.

By the way, Judy was quite friendly with Naor, and she also appears to have been referenced in the Franklin Indictment.

[JohnyCanuck]

100. Good point, I agree. n/t

[Peace Patriot]

106. "...for Israel to be truly safe." Perle's idea of "safety" being...

...Armageddon in the Middle East.

Israel could not be in more peril than she is now, as an armed medieval fortress surrounded by hostile, fearful, paranoid neighbors--with all hostility, fear and paranoia having been jacked up by orders of magnituate with the Bush junta's slaughter of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis--and no one really able to topple all these other governments except by nuclear holocaust or "shock and awe" conventional bombing. There is simply not enough US cannon fodder to accomplish topplings or maintain further occupations, and the US gov't is already bankrupt. What Bush/Likud has done is the create a tinderbox in the Middle East, which they cannot un-ignite. There is no going back from the slaugther of tens of thousands of innocent people, and the torture of many more. Perhaps new leadership (US, Israel) could pull the fuse out of this lit magazine. A big perhaps. The only real security is--and always was--patient diplomacy, great wisdom, generosity and a genuine concern for the welfare of all the peoples of the Middle East. Israel as a hunkered-down and increasingly mean, snarling old dragon, is NOT tenable. The only conceivable END to these policies is a bloodbath that could--if it goes nuclear--end all life on earth.

[phoebe]

123. notice how they also play down the connections to Cheney who was

working behind the scenes and bypassing the CIA and making up his own mind about which reports were valid; about who in the CIA went where, met who and why..

[chelaque liberal]

17. Kick

[oblivious]

23. Kick and recommended. Wow!

[robertpaulsen]

33. Read Gary Leupp weighing in on the future of Iran.

Neocons Considered Planting WMD Evidence in Iraq?
by Gary Leupp
www.dissidentvoice.org
January 9, 2006

The Senate Select Intelligence Committee, which is supposed to at some point investigate the OSP, has asked the Pentagon’s Inspector-General to probe the office and Douglas Feith’s role in it. Feith and the other neocons have shown themselves shameless purveyors of disinformation again and again. Somebody among or close to them must have fabricated the Niger uranium documents. Jacques Chirac, as I recall, once opined that if the U.S. didn’t find WMD in Iraq it would probably stage a discovery. But the report that they actually considered doing just that to justify their war, to further hoodwink the American people and the world, beats everything I’ve heard so far. Talk about chutzpah.

snip

Last month, CIA director Porter Goss visited Ankara, Turkey where he argued to Turkish officials that “Iran has nuclear weapons and this situation was creating a huge threat for both Turkey and other states in the region.” This is the former Representative Goss who has cooperated with the administration’s efforts to depict the neocon lies leading up to the Iraq War as honest “intelligence failures” and to scapegoat the CIA as somehow incompetent. Once again the experts like ElBaradei, Gordon Prather, Scott Ritter and others say there is no evidence that Iran is anywhere near producing nukes. But those guys are in the “reality mode” so despised by the empire-mode neocons, and as a high official once lectured David Suskind, “We create our own reality.” Have the latter planned better this time? Have they prepared the evidence to plant in the Bushehr rubble?

snip

“I don’t have any doubt that at the right time, a time of our choosing, we’re going to go to the Security Council if the Iranians are not prepared to do what they say they want to do, which is to pursue peaceful nuclear energy,” Condoleezza Rice tells the Washington Post, adding confidently, “When it’s clear that negotiations are exhausted, we have the votes. There is a resolution sitting there for referral. We’ll vote it.”

With equal confidence, Jephraim P Gundzik of Asia Times states that, “Facing almost certain veto by Russia and China, any US-EU attempt to impose sanctions on Iran in the Security Council will fail -- a situation both Washington and the EU-3 are aware of.”

These aren’t contradictory statements. Rice is confident that the U.S. will be able to get a slim majority on the IAEA board of 35 members to agree, that since Iran is in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (even though it’s not), to refer Iran to the UNSC for punitive action. The UK, France and the U.S. will vote for sanctions; Russia and China will veto the resolution. U.S. UN Ambassador Bolton will pronounce that the UN has become “irrelevant” while President Bush will emphasize to the American people that our freedom-loving allies (including France) are with us this time in a clear-cut confrontation between good and evil. “The regime of President Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map,” he’ll fume. “Iran poses a threat to its neighbors,” he’ll warn, even though Iran has friendly relations with Afghanistan, Pakistan, the current Iraqi U.S.-client government, Syria, Turkey, etc. “Iran hid a secret nuclear weapons program for 18 years!” he’ll preach, failing to note that it came clean on clandestine aspects of its nuclear program, started in the 1970s with U.S. support, in 2003. Since then, it has signed IAEA protocols allowing extraordinary monitoring of a program it says is for purely peaceful purposes, and which IAEA chief and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei says he finds no evidence is a military program.

The point is not to necessarily get a UNSC resolution that would validate new measures against Iran, but to stage a show for the American public. The French were deeply skeptical about U.S. reasons to attack Iraq; so now have Americans become skeptical. But if both the French and Germans on the Security Council are willing to stand with John Bolton in pressing for anti-Iranian action, such action might be more marketable to the American people. Once again the distortion of facts and some allied arm-twisting will pave the way for a criminal attack. Or maybe an awakened American people, outraged at all the uncovered deceit to date (torture, “special renditions,” illegal domestic spying, vindictive moves against opponents) makes it politically impossible for the warmongers to proceed.

more...

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Jan06/Leupp09.htm

Bold print is mine. Just pointing out dots to connect.

[leveymg]

38. "The point is . . .to stage a show for the American public" Yes.

After OSP was closed down, Franklin was busted, and Feith and the others got booted, there's ZERO support at the Pentagon for military action against Iran. ZERO.

As I've said hereabouts before, the Iran war drums we've been hearing lately are a covering operation -- a deception campaign -- to keep the Iranians somewhat off balance while US forces are withdrawn from Iraq.

It also operates as a domestic distraction campaign.

Meanwhile, various investigations are beginning to pick up momentum and coming together, so that the public is now gaining a better picture of who the common players are and how they've worked together to subvert the United States Government and drag the country into an illegal war for private profit and foreign advantage.

[JohnyCanuck]

40. I hope you are right n/t

[Peace Patriot]

70. I hope you're right, Leveymg! That's the first hopeful post I've seen on

...this situation--that it might be all a show. Sometimes I have hoped that it might be--because attacking Iran seems like such madness, and so very unjust (after we destroyed their democracy in 1953 and gave them the Shah torture chambers for 25 years). We don't have the troops to invade. If we invade or bomb, the troops in Iraq will be a shooting gallery. The Shias will join the Sunnis and that will be that. And if we bomb nuke facilities, I would think there would be a danger of nuke meltdowns and other kinds of nuke disasters, a horrible bloody mess, and possible poisoning of the entire Middle East, not to mention anyone in their wind currents (Israel, Turkey, No. Africa, Greece, Europe!).

THAT kind of madness. End of our planet madness.

But I hadn't really believed that it was a show, because it is so closely paralleling the Iraq scenario, and because of Libby's "aspens" letter (which I read as saying that this plot is "deeply rooted" and will go on to Iran) (my own effort at decryption), and also because the Bush junta is accountable to no one.

They have repeatedly shown that they don't give a crap what the American people think. 58% of the American people opposed the Iraq war, before the invasion, even before all the lies were exposed and the full horror and cost of it were known. Feb. 03. 58%! Did that stop them? I guess they were counting on Diebold and ES&S, and Kenneth Blackwell.

On the other hand, the tweak that Diebold and ES&S can do (a 5% to 10% advantage to Republicans and other warmongers) can't be so easily and safely implemented in a lopsided anti-Republican election. The Repubs have to get SOME votes, and have SOME support, for the election to be Diebolded. So there's that. The OTHER Repubs (aside from White House toadies and lapdogs) may be a bit worried about that under-40% Bush approval rating all year long (and Cheney at 18%! last I looked).

But then, on the third hand (??!), BushCo's got a heap of trouble hanging over it--gathering up like a mushroom cloud over the Republican Party (thank you, Condaleeza Rice)--and it may be time to put the fear of Violent Jesus back into them, with some awful thing happening here, or there (and one can only recoil in horror at what these criminals might be capable of).

There are some things I don't understand...

--France and German's position on Iran.

--How China fits in. (They are being just a bit inscrutable right now.) (Would they prefer to deal with the Bush junta in Iran, rather than with the Iranians? Or are they the ones stopping this horror?)

--How Israelis can hook up with Nazis like Ladeen, and the rest of that bunch of Neo-Con ghouls. Israelis of all people! You'd think they would realize what fascist ideas like that could lead to, in the hands of people like Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush. I don't understand it. I really don't. Is Israeli policy just war profiteer driven, like it is here?*

*(It seems to be that Israel couldn't be in a worse, more untenable position right now, in every way--an armed medieval fortress in the midst of hostile, paranoid, fearful neighbors; dependent on a bully US big brother; and utterly lacking in the wisdom, diplomacy, honesty and generosity of spirit that make for real security, and which they are capable of, but seem to have abandoned in favor of violence. And they are suffering for it here as well, in American public opinion. I think the Likud's policies have been catastrophic for Israel, just as the Bush junta's have been for us.)

There's so much info in this thread, I'll come back later and parse it more closely.

[stop the bleeding]

73. this part is a great question in your post

--How Israelis can hook up with Nazis like Ladeen, and the rest of that bunch of Neo-Con ghouls. Israelis of all people! You'd think they would realize what fascist ideas like that could lead to, in the hands of people like Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush. I don't understand it. I really don't. Is Israeli policy just war profiteer driven, like it is here?*

So like I was asking in post #70 America is only in this for the War profiteering and nothing more?

It just seems like we are so far up their butts.

I don't know.....

[AntiFascist]

112. I've recently been wondering if....

W and much of DC may be compromised by the Saudis. This is confirmed by some of the statements of Bill White, a former business partner of a business partner of W going back to the Iran-Contra period:

Well Bath explained to me that he had been tapped by George Senior to set up a quasi private aircraft firm that would basically engage in CIA-sponsored activities funded by the Saudi Royal Family. He explained that the Saudis had basically entered into a quid pro quo relationship with Bush and that Bush when he was CIA Director worked with the Head of Saudi Intelligence and they trained the Palace Guard to protect the Saudi Royal Family who was concerned about a fundamentalist revolution.
And it was at that point I think that this thing got kicked into high gear and the Saudis agreed to provide surreptitious funding to the United States to fight secret wars in Afghanistan and Nicaragua on the one hand and Bush as Vice President then sent AWACS and F-Fifteen Fighter Jets to Saudi Arabia to support Saddam Hussein under the psyche that the enemy is my friend. We had the Iran-Iraq War at the time. And so that's, that's really how it evolved.

<snip>

I don't believe that Bush as President can be an objective arbitrator of the war on terrorism. The Bin Ladens and the Saudis are obviously involved, fifteen of the nineteen terrorists were Saudis. The Saudis are known to have been funding these Islamic charities that have funded the Terrorists including the National Commercial Bank. The same people that were dealing business with Bath at Bush's request and funding Bush's business interests. Bush moved heaven and earth obviously calling in chips with Houston Judges to keep this information kept quiet and the Saudis are in an ideal position basically to blackmail the President of the United States and to quash any investigation into their activities, funding of Islamic charities because of the fact that they've had Bush on the payroll back in the late seventies and early eighties. I can tell you in the Military that if you know any potential conflict of interest you won't get a security clearance because you're subject to that type of blackmail. We have somebody in the Oval Office who's subject to blackmail. That disturbs me. And that's why it's relevant.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/11/6/61854/9150

[Catrina]

165. I hope he's right also, and I too feel relieved that there might be some

hope that is all show. I just read through some of the links on this thread and although I did follow all of these scandals, Valerie Plame, Pentagon Spies, Chalabi accused of leaking info to Iran ,The Niger Documents over the past two years, this thread and the various links, has tied them together like a jigsaw puzzle.

Had the media covered all this, their ratings would be sky high, because the whole tangled web of intrique that is unfolding is more suspenseful and incredible than any spy novel.

So many things I can't understand. Eg, that Michael Ledeen (who I have concluded is completely certifiable and delusional at times) and Perle, both of whom had come under suspicion in the past of being 'agents of a foreign government' could get the security clearance to operate at the very top of this government in foreign policy decision making, is astounding to say the least. How could this happen?

What emerges to me so far, is nothing short of a coup d'etat, from the 2000 election to the hi-jacking of the Intelligence Agencies, to the lies cooked up in the OSP that led to the disaster in Iraq. And despite the trouble they now appear to be in, with Feith, Ledeen, Franklin et all under investigation and in Franklin's case, convicted (although I'm not sure about Franklin yet. There's something about his role that doesn't fit) they are forging ahead with their plans to attack Iran, Bush today delivering a speech eerily similar to the pre-Iraq war speeches he gave.

And that's what puzzles me. In some of the links above, there seems to be the suggestion that Bush and neocons were at odds regarding Iran. In fact the neocons were very disturbed by his lack of interest in attacking Iran, yet now he seems to be 'on board' with them.

Michael Ledeen, eg, said regarding Scowcroft's reluctance to attack Iraq 'he's afraid it will ignite and become a couldron! I say ~ hurry up! There is no place on earth that deserves to be a couldron more than the ME'. A Nazi indeed and yes, how could Israel of all places align itself with him, whose rabid hatred for all Arabs is so blatant. He doesn't even try to hide it. You get the feeling that such hatred would lead to the use of nuclear weapons to wipe out the entire ME. I think he's crazy enough to do that. And this was one of Bush's closest advisors?

Otoh, I also believe that there are elements working to stop the madness and that the Larry Franklin affair is part of that effort.

As far as Lewis Libby's letter to Judy, I thought he was referring to the guilty plea and the news that Larry Franklin was going to cooperate with the prosectution, when he said 'the Aspens are turning'. Because it was right after that news that Libby wrote to Judy in jail. But your interpretation is very interesting.

If they go into Iran, I agree with the scenario you paint. Even a nuclear strike would not stop the Iranians (and possibly the Syrians who have already said they will join with Iran if either is attacked by the US) from pouring into Iraq and targeting the troops there. But the neocons don't care about the troops at all. They are nothing but fodder to them.

I no longer have any doubt that the Niger documents were the work of Michael Ledeen, and it seems more believable than ever, that the Valerie Plame affair was not about an op ed written by her husband, but about the planting of WMD, which was foiled by Brewster Jennings. Or am I becoming a conspiracy theorist?

I hope Patrick Fitzgerald pursues the Niger Documents case, or that he recommends a new prosecutor take over that investigation. These people are dangerous. They need to be stopped before they do any more harm. I don't think this country has ever been in more danger than it is now. It is frightening to read how easily it got to this point.

There is so much to read in this thread ~ so many great links. I will read them and come back later.

[stop the bleeding]

134. I have been thinking about this part all day and one question.

It looks like Iraq may be falling into Civil War and since Civil War usually means more chaos doesn't that equate to the troops having to stay there longer? Hence having to play this "keeping Iran off balance" game for possibly quite a while. I think a lot of what you say as well as other people on DU make a lot of sense, and that is why I am asking these types of questions so that I can make some sense for my own peace of mind.

Yeah the UN would be a little effective but as stated up thread I believe by Gary Leupp in RP's post is this prophetic statement that looks like it is playing out as I am typing:

These aren’t contradictory statements. Rice is confident that the U.S. will be able to get a slim majority on the IAEA board of 35 members to agree, that since Iran is in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (even though it’s not), to refer Iran to the UNSC for punitive action. The UK, France and the U.S. will vote for sanctions; Russia and China will veto the resolution. U.S. UN Ambassador Bolton will pronounce that the UN has become “irrelevant” while President Bush will emphasize to the American people that our freedom-loving allies (including France) are with us this time in a clear-cut confrontation between good and evil. “The regime of President Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map,” he’ll fume. “Iran poses a threat to its neighbors,” he’ll warn, even though Iran has friendly relations with Afghanistan, Pakistan, the current Iraqi U.S.-client government, Syria, Turkey, etc. “Iran hid a secret nuclear weapons program for 18 years!” he’ll preach, failing to note that it came clean on clandestine aspects of its nuclear program, started in the 1970s with U.S. support, in 2003. Since then, it has signed IAEA protocols allowing extraordinary monitoring of a program it says is for purely peaceful purposes, and which IAEA chief and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei says he finds no evidence is a military program.

The point is not to necessarily get a UNSC resolution that would validate new measures against Iran, but to stage a show for the American public. The French were deeply skeptical about U.S. reasons to attack Iraq; so now have Americans become skeptical. But if both the French and Germans on the Security Council are willing to stand with John Bolton in pressing for anti-Iranian action, such action might be more marketable to the American people. Once again the distortion of facts and some allied arm-twisting will pave the way for a criminal attack. Or maybe an awakened American people, outraged at all the uncovered deceit to date (torture, “special renditions,” illegal domestic spying, vindictive moves against opponents) makes it politically impossible for the warmongers to proceed.

[cantstandbush]

49. Are they the same people who planted the radio device inside Libya

during the Reagan years?

[Clara T]

55. Ledeen-Ledeen-Ledeen

Look there and you'll find the yellowcake.

okay, the imitation yellowcake.

Okay the invisible- imitation- not quite yellowcake but we need a war to destabilize the mideast and shhhh, say no more....

Cui Bono?

[upi402]

75. LOL

:rofl:

[welshTerrier2]

56. did Ledeen forge the Niger documents???

source: http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/21704

Do we know who produced those documents? Because there’s some suspicion ...

I think I do, but I'd rather not speak about it right now, because I don’t think it’s a proven case ...

If I said "Michael Ledeen" ?

You'd be very close . . .

[blm]

62. He was my first guess as soon as I heard the words forged and Italy.

Ledeen also spent time in Italy a few years ago working on IRAN connections. Guess those documents have to find another route, now that he's under suspicion for these.

[samhsarah]

68. important development indeed. n/t

[Name removed]

72. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[stop the bleeding]

135. It is funny how Able Danger pops up here in your post with google

and Weldon has been hammering this for months.

[upi402]

74. k/r

:patriot:

[Octafish]

77. Know your BFEE: John Hull

Mr. Hull, for those new to the subject, happened to own a farm that was handy for its airfield and burial plots.

CIA Drugs: The Record Ignored

- by Joe Horman , October 22, 1996

In their rush to mask the crimes of government and CIA officials, the LA Times and Washington Post predictably omitted salient and persuasive evidence that clearly supports the findings of the San Jose Mercury News that the CIA's contra army smuggled tons of cocaine into the United States. What follows are some of the published reports, congressional findings and testimony all of which, when taken in their entirety, amount to a preponderance of both direct and circumstantial evidence that persuasively support the central contentions.

UNITED STATES SENATE SUBCOMMITTEE FINDINGS.

That investigation, directed by Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., established that the administration gave contra-supply contracts to four companies that were either under indictment for drug trafficking or listed as suspected smugglers in law enforcement computers. Kerry's probe also confirmed that pilots used for contra arms flights carried cocaine into the United States as well as guns to Central America. And Kerry found that drug kingpins had contributed heavily to the contra cause, in hopes of gaining favor with Washington.

IRAN CONTRA SWORN TESTIMONY

The Iran-contra testimony of CIA officer Alan Fiers, "with respect to the Resistance Forces it is not a couple of people. It is a lot of people." Friers was the CIA's Central-American Station Chief and contra coordinator.

OFFICIAL FINDINGS OF COSTA RICA CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION

In July 1989, North and other major contragate figures were barred from Costa Rica. The order was issued by none other than Costa Rican President Oscar Arias acting on recommendations from a Costa Rican congressional commission investigating drug trafficking. The commission concluded that the contra resupply network in Costa Rica that North coordinated from the White House doubled as a drug smuggling operation.

The narcotics commission started probing the contra network centered around the northern Costa Rican ranch of U.S.-born rancher John Hull because of the "quantity and frequency of the shipment of drugs that passed through the zone." North's personal notebook mentioned "the necessity of giving Mr. Hull protection."

CONTINUED...

http://nick.assumption.edu/WebVAX/Mena/Horman22Oct96.html

Sorry if this is OT, in that Mr. Hull no longer is with us, reportedly.

However, the point to be made is these turds will do anything for money.

Anything.

Create a war and sell guns to both sides.

Loot the U.S. Treasury.

Penure the middle class.

Deal drugs to children.

Pollute the planet and sell the rapture.

After nuking it.

Which brings me back to the subject.

Great article from Alexandrovna, there, robertthompsen! Will digest and report tomorrow...

[H2O Man]

84. Hey, Octafish ! A question:

On another thread, friend RP asked me if I could recommend a good book on Iran-Contra. I'm guessing that most DUers are going to be able to find the well known "best books," and Robert P will find the lesser known on his own .... so I'm going to try to come up with some almost unknown ones, and want to run one by you, too.

In 1985, Christopher Dickey wrote "With the Contras," his account of traveling with the US-created and backed insurgents in Nicaragua and surrounding territories. Dickey had been the Washington Post's bureau chief for Central America (including Mexico and the Caribbean, both important in the context of the contras), and was then "promoted" to the Middle East.

There are, of course, layer upon layer of criminal involvement in Washington .... the Bush1 years (1980-92) saw the old Goss-type forces in Central America, doing the bidding of the same villians that are associated with the Bush2 administration. Dickey's book, which was overlooked in '85 and forgotten by almost everyone but John Kerry by 1988, has a few gems worthy of our consideration today.

Dickey documents the appointment book of Major Roberto d'Aubuisson, which he calls the "Rosetta stone for deciphering the Salvadorean death squads," including the payments made in room 305 of the El Dorado American in Guatemala City on March 27, 1980, that resulted in a bullet for Archbishop Oscar Romero as he raised a chalice during mass ..... certainly an act that showed a "Christian" investment of our tax dollars.

But of particular interest may be "the Manual" .... formally known as "Psychological Operations in Guerrilla Warfare" .... authored by a person officially known as "John Kirkpatrick," the CIA contract agent infamous for his black outfits. The manual told, in detail, how to run an insurgency that employs terrorism and advocates assassinations.

A week before Mondale debated Reagan, the manual would become public knowledge in the USA. The fact that it absolutely violated US law forced even the cowed congress to take note. It would help the progressive forces in this country, who had been organized in a grass-roots anti-war effort, to have the Constitutional issues addressed, although the final result was eventually derailed by the Bush pardons.

I'm curious if you are familiar with that book, as well as your thoughts on the manual, and other related issues of interest for DUers? Thanks.

[Octafish]

103. Some light reading...

As today, there were so many scandals exploding during Iran-Contra, it's difficult to find one book that encapsulates the era.

For example, the October Surprise operation gave rise to Iran-Contra. During IC, BCCI was exposed. In turn, that opened up the Iraq-gate can of treason. It is absolutely stunning.

Works by Gary Sick ("The October Surprise") and Rober Parry ("Trick or Treason") spring immediately to mind. The one that started it all by Barbara Honegger ("The October Surprise") had few readers, no index, garbled writing and is absolutely packed with the nuts and bolts of the BFEE.

For me, the roots of the madness lies in the War Party. They're the ones who played both sides in the Civil War, WWI and WWII. Since then, they've controlled the MI-Complex. As an example, Vietnam made "Them" a lot of money. The book that best explained what that conflict means to people is the description provided by a front-line surgeon: "365 Days."

Of course, making it even more difficult to get a true overview is how the bad guys get ahead. Consider what happened to Pete Brewton (The Mafia, George Bush and the CIA). The guy’s publisher pulled out as the book was readied for the press.

Gee. Whatever happened to freedom of speech or of the press? However, it does tell the story.

These days, because of the need for speed, I love the Internets…

http://www.ncs.pvt.k12.va.us/ryerbury/aaron/aaron.htm

http://www.oilempire.us/octobersurprise.html


Walsh Report:

http://www.fas.org/irp/offdocs/walsh/

Boring Details http://www.copi.com/articles/boring_access.html


Judge Walsh’s “Firewall” in particular:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/story34.html


In fact, anything by Robert Parry is outstanding:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/books.html


Sorry this is so convoluted, DU Friend! The Rabbit calls…

[robertpaulsen]

114. Thanks for the recommendations & links!

The Robert Parry books sound especially good. Anyone who looks at how interconnected these devious people are is looking in the right direction.

[Octafish]

133. Here's what Iran-Contra was all about...

An example:

Why I Didn't Salute...

When Ollie North Came to Hot Springs

By JOHN BOMAR
December 16, 2005

"They took out their knives and stuck them under his fingernails. After they took his fingernails off, then they broke his elbows. Afterwards they gouged out his eyes. Then they took their bayonets and made all sorts of slices in his skin all around his chest, arms, and legs. They then took his hair off and the skin of his scalp. When they saw there was nothing left to do with him, they threw gasoline on him and burned him. The next day they started the same thing with a 13 year old girl. They did more or less the same, but they did other things to her too. First, she was utilized, raped by all the officers. They stripped her and threw her in a small room, they went in one by one. Afterwards they took her out tied and blindfolded. Then they began the same mutilating, pulling her fingernails out and cutting off her fingers, breaking her arms, gouging out her eyes and all they did to the other fellow. They cut her legs and stuck an iron rod into her womb."

SNIP...

These are but two of the hundreds of documented eyewitness accounts of the kind of brutal and sadistic rapes, sodomies, kidnappings, tortures and murders committed by the Contra forces in Nicaragua in the 1980's -- Contras that were clothed, fed and armed by the illegal efforts of Oliver North.

I guess it is no wonder that his recent visit to Hot Springs gave me waking nightmares. It was as if the spirits of those brutalized, tortured and murdered by the Contra "freedom fighters" were calling out to me. Perhaps it was my working knowledge of Spanish and my thirty years of travel to Latin America that brought these souls to my door. The images haunted and shamed me. The most horrible aspect of these tales is that the atrocities were commonly committed on the most vulnerable; young boys and girls, their pregnant mothers and their grandparents. Many times the families were forced to watch as these abominations were carried out. Terror, you see, is most effective and intimidating when viewed publicly. In all, over 30,000 civilians were killed in Nicaragua by the Contras, mostly peasants, rural doctors and health care workers, teachers, clergy, and civil administrators trying to afford social services to the poorest in the land. This is our government's most recent legacy in Central America.

The Sandanistas had been freely and fairly elected among seven active political parties, with 75% voter turn out. It was declared a just election by all international observers and monitors. After leading the rebellion to oust one of Latin America's most infamously brutal and greedy military dictators Anastacio Samoza, the new government chose a more socialized model that quickly garnered international acclaim for its efforts at providing health care, food, education, literacy and land reform for its population. It also brought on the wrath of the U.S. government and the CIA who financed the ex-national guardsmen: Samoza's former henchmen, who formed the core of the Contra forces. Eventually, the U.S. congress was so repulsed by the stories of horror and butchery coming out of the villages in northern Nicaragua, and lobbied strongly by ecumenical church organizations representing millions of church goers, they forbade any further financing of the effort or any further U.S. involvement. A congressional intelligence committee at the time confirmed that the Contras "raped, tortured and killed unarmed civilians, including children" and that "groups of civilians, including pregnant women and children were burned, dismembered, blinded and beheaded."

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/bomar12162005.html

The New York Times helped bury these people.

I mean "story."

[robertpaulsen]

109. Sounds like a great book!

I had not heard of it before, so I will definitely check for availability.

I have heard of Major Roberto d'Aubuisson though. I believe he was the inspiration for "Major Max" in Oliver Stone's movie Salvador. I don't know if he ever met Ledeen, I'm sure they would have become soulmates.

[blm]

98. Why does media not notice any of this?

Suicided journalists.

[Octafish]

104. DEA Agents Agree: CIA Means 'Cocaine Importation Agency'

Three of them are on record:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4061234

Too bad the press corpse didn't listen to them, otherwise Mr. Webb would be regarded a living hero.

BTW: Most journalists are good people who know their job is vital for the survival of democracy. Unfortunately, money blinds too many, including the corporations running their shows and outfits.

[ngGale]

80. Excellent article...

KICK!

:donut:

[Name removed]

85. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[robertpaulsen]

120. SLaD, your research is topnotch. Now see what dots Minstrel Boy connects!

Now, do you know of Italy's "Strategy of Tension"? It was a campaign of false-flag terror in the late 1970s, waged by outright fascists who enjoyed the patronage of the CIA, the Mafia and far right elements of the Italian State. These were the Gladio Brigades and Licio Gelli's P2 Lodge, and they intended to discredit the increasingly popular Communist Party, and to ensure it would not take power, by staging terrorist acts in the name of the Left. Their campaign culminated in the Bologna train station bombing of 1980.

Now, do you know where Michael Ledeen was during these years, what he was doing, and with whom he was doing it?

From tompaine.com:

...terrorism has been Ledeen's bread and butter since at least the late 1970s, when he consulted for Italian military intelligence.

From Asia Times:

Ledeen's right-wing Italian connections - including alleged ties to the P2 Masonic Lodge that rocked Italy in the early 1980s - have long been a source of speculation and intrigue, but he returned to Washington in 1981 as "anti-terrorism" advisor to the new secretary of state, Al Haig.

Over the next several years, Ledeen used his position as consultant to Haig, the Pentagon and the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan to boost the notion of a global terrorist conspiracy based in the Kremlin, whose KGB pulled the strings of all of the world's key terrorist groups, especially in the Middle East.

snip

The resemblance between the recent mass murder in Madrid and the Bologna bombing extends, I suspect, well beyond the scale of carnage.

Why do some insist on calling these people neo-fascists? I see nothing new here.

more...

http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/08/yellow-cake-and-black-shirts.html

Connect the dots. Do you see a pattern with this fascist?

[seemslikeadream]

127. Oh no! Now don't you tell MB that I forgot to post his link!

I won't forget again.

Thanks for the thread robertpaulsen :hi:

[Peace Patriot]

121. SeemsLikeADream, wow! What a trove!

This will require considerable study. I've read some of this trove before, but I want to review it, and stuff I haven't seen before, in light of the WMD-planting theory of Treasongate (that the "Rome Group" was up to more than forgeries; and also, that it was working at the BEHEST of the Bush junta, rather than the impression that some articles give that Ladeen and the Italians were somehow pestering the Bushites with disinformation). But, just for now, I want to address the following....

"...the lies used to hoodwink the American people into supporting a criminal war on Iraq..." --Gary Leupp, CounterPunch

The thing is that the American people were NOT hoodwinked, and it is a common error in leftist articles that we were. 58% of the American people OPPOSED the Iraq war, way back in Feb. '03, before the invasion, and that number has hardly changed over the years, except to go up.

The American people are a lot savvier than anyone gives them credit for. They have consistently and adamantly opposed every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, across the board in all polls--way up in the 60% to 70% range--for several years now. You name it. The Iraq war. Torture policy. The deficit. Social Security. Women's rights. There is a great progressive majority in the United States that is not being heard, and has been made almost invisible.

What some leftist writers don't seem to want to realize is the plain fact that the American people have been DISENFRANCHISED! It could not be clearer. During the 2001-2004 period, BUSHITE corporations gained control of the tabulation of all of our votes using 'TRADE SECRET', PROPRIETARY programming code in the new electronic voting systems, with virtually no audit/recount controls, funded by a $4 billion boondoggle from Bush's "pod people" in Congress, which, along with lavish lobbying, was used to corrupt state/local election officials on a bipartisan basis. We now have Democratic election officials, such as Connie McCormack in Los Angeles, ADVOCATING paperless voting on BUSHITE corporate machinery (manufactured and controlled by Diebold, ES&S and others--which are run by major contributors to, and political operatives of, the Bush junta, and supporters of far right wing causes).

There are two things upon which this great American majority has been understandably slow to grasp the truth:

1. That they ARE the majority.

The war profiteering corporate news monopolies give a BIG TRUMPET to the rightwing, way out of proportion to its numbers, thus creating the ILLUSION of a majority viewpoint. The members of the real majority--leftists and progressives--are thus made to feel isolated and alone ("I must be the only one who things my country has gone bonkers"), and become depressed and disempowered. They may realize that the rightwing commentators and ranters are telling lies, and that the "news" is slanted in favor of war, injustice and Bush, but they are fed an unconscious (brainwashing) IMPRESSION of rightwing hegemony, and THAT's what gets them (disempowers them), not the lies and slant themselves. In this sense--and in this sense only--Americans have been "hookwinked" about the war--that they think a lot of OTHER Americans approve of it! It is not true, and never has been true!

2. That the Democratic Party leadership PERMITTED Bushite corporations to take over the election system WITHOUT OBJECTION.

Most Americans don't even know that the election system is now NON-TRANSPARENT and UNVERIFIABLE and controlled by Bushite corporations, let alone the part that some Democratic Party leaders have played in the setting up of this fraudulent election SYSTEM. Americans are reduced almost to word-of-mouth communication on basic truths about our government (supplemented by the Internet--Tom Paine would be proud of us!), so it takes A LONG TIME for word to get around on some important items. (I think, with the war, it was mostly gut instinct--not trusting Bush--that was behind the high numbers against the invasion; few people knew the facts about WMDs, until later.) This is gradually changing--and a grass roots movement to restore transparent elections is well under way. The main reason it has taken such time (from 2002, the H.A.V.A. bill, on) for Americans to grasp what's happened to our election system is the total BLACK HOLE in the news about it, COMBINED with the Dem Party leadership's INSANE silence on this matter (wrought by corruption, complicity, some ignorance maybe).


These are the two things that have been most difficult for Americans to fathom, 1) that their fellow countrymen are not crazy, and are in fact anti-Bush, anti-fascist and anti-war, by a large majority; and 2) the level of deception in the corporate news monopolies, and the level of corruption in some upper Dem circles.

As to the level of deception in the corporate news monopolies, nothing explains this better (and nothing better explains Americans' inability to grasp what has been done to them, psychologically) than what these news monopolies did with their own exit polls on election day, Nov. 2, 2004. They DOCTORED their exit polls (Kerry won) on everybody's TV screens, late on election day, to "fit" the results of Diebold's and ES&S's secret formulae (Bush won). They put FALSE NUMBERS (the doctored exit polls) on everybody's TV screens that evening--thus depriving the American people of major evidence of election fraud, and squelching protests and calls for investigation.

Greatest journalistic crime I've ever witnessed.

The Bush junta, and their war profiteering corporate news monopoly lapdogs, WANTED to deceive the American people about the war. They expended vast resources to do so. The propaganda was relentless. But they did not succeed. And that is a marvelous thing to know, and one that we should never forget. And one of the indications that they did not succeed is all the trouble they had to go to rig the 2004 election.

We are now living with an illegitimate government in an illusory democracy. And the only way back to truth and reality, and legitimate government, is ELECTION REFORM, which should be our absolutely No. 1 PRIORITY.

------------

Note: Lifelong Democrat here (40 years, since my first vote). I am not into Democrat-bashing. But neither will I be silent about the most important issue of our era, and perhaps of our entire history: the LOSS of our right to vote in 2004.

[Me.]

137. Exactly So!

Wonderful perception and certainly the reason so many of us went to bed depressed on that dark night in November. We couldn't see it then because they hadn't begun, but we could feel it coming.

[stop the bleeding]

142. but once we woke up on 11/03/04

A heavy fog of war laid across the election landscape, and it was only people like us that gave a hoot about all of the "inconsistencies" with the races across local, and state levels. It was only us who believe the statisticians and their mind boggling results. It was us who's heart died win Kerry threw in the towel without asking the questions that needed to be asked after promising to stand up and fight.

Yeah I went to bed depressed but when I woke up and went through the coming days my depression changed to downright seething lividness for what was stolen from us. I am a resident of Florida and voted for Gore in the 2000 debacle so you can imagine my feelings in the last 2 months of 2000 and 2004.

We all know these punks in the WH give all kinds of meanings to the word crooks.

Peace.

[stop the bleeding]

122. How could I have missed this???!?!? hitting self in the head right now

I am leaving work and will be home in a couple of hours after training to read this and take it all in, also I will see what RP's response is to this.

Absolutely amazing.

[Name removed]

129. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Me.]

136. BreathTaking SLaD!

I find the following to be so crucially important, for it so totally pinpoints what has been happening to the world. (Another, and a different topic which also involves the B*** cartel would be Asian money.)

“for which Cheney is a frontman, is in fact the project of an international synarchist oligarchy, the direct descendants of those banking families who funded Hitler and Mussolini, and created World War II. Cheney is undoubtedly a fascist thug, eager to carry out whatever wars, torture, and economic genocide are on the agenda of the desperate synarchist bankers”

“and that Fitzgerald had "already found the money trail." This is fascinating. Will he, I wonder, be able to do anything with it?

Not only is Ledeen insane, one would have to make a case for most of them being so, the absolute corruption of power and ideology is melting their brains quite like Dedalus’ wings melted beneath the heat of the sun. Thank God for the Internet, for how else would such massive research be done?

[converted_democrat]

86. Kick & Recommend......... n/t

[stop the bleeding]

89. SOS/HELP! - thread located in another part of GD ties into this - HELP!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=117625&mesg_id=117625

It is not a matter of when we will invade Iran but how and under who's approval.

[leveymg]

94. This was my response to that post.

The Pentagon has a scenario for attacking Iran - it goes like this:
Edited on Thu Jan-12-06 10:58 AM by leveymg

We or the Israelis (doesn't matter which) bomb Iran. The Iranians know it's use'em or lose'em, launch all of their missiles -- many of which are tipped with chem and bio warheards -- at US and Isreali targets. Simultaneusly, the Iraqi Shia population -- millions and millions -- rise up against US forces in Iraq as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, hundreds of thousands, come over the Iran-Iraq border.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Iran can put 17 million troops into uniform. They have lots of anti-shipping missiles. They can and will blockade the Straights of Hormuz.

What are we going to do, then? Occupy Iran? Nuke Iran?

Furthermore, Iran provides the Chinese and Europe with a large percentage of their imported oil and natural gas needs. The Russians, Chinese and Indians have signed mutual aid agreements with Iran. What are we going to do when China dumps our bonds, the Russians cutoff our oil, and the Indians and Pakistanis decide they dislike us more than they dislike each other?

No. The Pentagon is not going to let BushCo bomb Iran. The Iran war drums we've been hearing is a covering operation -- a deception campaign --designed to keep the Iranians off-balance while we withdraw forces from Iraq. It's part of the same package deal as the orderly departure of Cheney and Bush.

Mark

[stop the bleeding]

95. I agree I am just a little alarmed by what Biden said - how much control

do you think we have over Israel?

[leveymg]

96. I'd say our arms are long enough to reach the head of state

Unless the acting leaders of the Israeli Government are really crazy millenialists (which I don't think they are), they will not push things any further than they already have.

[Nothing Without Hope]

90. Kick for this important story and for Lara at Raw Story! n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

97. kick n/t

[Peace Patriot]

101. See my comment/question #2 at See my comment/question #2 at

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=118064&mesg_id=118064

The post is about Ghorbanifar's doings back during the Reagan junta, re Libya (very similar to current activities about Iran). (I didn't know Ghorbanifar was a SAVAK agent. Ye gods.)

Here's my comment/question #2--(which contains a new thought about Ghorbanifar):

2. The crudeness of the Niger forgeries clued me into possible misdirection. (If they were not intended as convincing proof of an Iraq nuke program, what WERE they intended for?) (i.e., The Bush junta could surely have concocted better forgeries than this, if they had wanted to.) Ghorbanifar's story of Iran stealing nuke material from Iraq (easily and early debunked by the CIA) also has a smell of misdirection about it. The story immediately collapsed upon investigation. So what could be the purpose of this easily disprovable story? I'm thinking that Ghorbanifar was engaged in probing the CIA for honest agents and operations. Identifying people for the Bushites to purge. This story ran in March 2003, right at the beginning of other events (invasion of Iraq, efforts to plant WMDs in Iraq, Treasongate). Could it have been an effort to detect who, in the CIA, would be likely to detect and expose the WMD-planting scheme--an effort both to uncover and perhaps to foil/purge/kill members of the Brewster-Jennings network (an extensive CIA worldwide network of covert agents and contacts, keeping track of and countering WMD proliferation, headed by Plame). Such a project would be of benefit to Ghorbanifar, even aside from planting WMDs in Iraq and getting away with it. He is a notorious arms dealer, and having Bush & Co. in the White House gave him the perfect opportunity to clear the way for arms proliferation, since the Bushites had no loyalty to their own CIA and despised honest information and counter-proliferation.

[stop the bleeding]

105. This also makes sense from David Kelley's point of view also I am

assuming that he acted with Rove/Cheney's approval.

[seemslikeadream]

107. Adnan Khashoggi and Manucher Ghorbanifar

http://www.umsl.edu/~skthoma/khashoggi.htm

[robertpaulsen]

126. Great question, Peace Patriot!

As usual you are eloquent and thought-provoking. I'll be sure to read the post on the link. This is definitely worth further exploration.

[Clara T]

110. kick for the truth

[AntiFascist]

118. Dave Lindorff is in Rome and reports on impeachment investigation...

He is reporting on the House special committee to investigate impeachable crimes and how it relates to the Plame investigation. I'm very proud of these 8 congressmembers:

There are now eight members of Congress who have put their names to a bill calling for a special committee of the House to investigate impeachable crimes by the Bush administration. To date, all of them are Democrats.

<snip>

I write these words in Rome, where I am, among other things, looking into one dark corner of the administration's crimes--the forgery of documents designed to make it appear that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program and was trying to buy uranium. An Italian parliamentary committee concluded this past fall that the forgeries were the work of long-time right-wing con-man Michael Ledeen--the guy who helped bring us the criminal Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages-and-stinger-missiles deal during the Reagan administration, along with Dewey Clarridge (another Iran-Contra veteran), convicted bank swindler Ahmed Chalabi and Frank Brookes, a PR man hired by the Pentagon to promote Chalabi's CIA-created Iraqi National Congress. That's another story that we didn't see in most of our corporate media, though, given that all those people are connected tightly to the White House and the Pentagon, it suggests strongly that top White House officials were behind the whole Niger document scam.

http://www.counterpunch.com/lindorff01092006.html

[happydreams]

166. KIck!

[stop the bleeding]

168. Yeah no Doubt kick this part, I have been over this thread a 100 times

and forgot about this part.

[bud E. holly]

138. kick n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

139. ***Related thread: Ledeen & Gorby doing the same thing 25 years ago:

chilling reading - very old treason, and they're still doing it:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x118064
thread title (1-12-06 GD): Ledeen, Ghorbanifar, and the strategy of tension

[Name removed]

141. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[stop the bleeding]

143. Great find on the words coming right of Ledeen's mouth..

"I think we’re going to be obliged to fight a regional war,
whether we want to or not. As soon as we land in Iraq,
we’re going to face the whole terrorist network. It may
turn out to be a war to remake the world."

This guy is seriously NUTZ

[symbolman]

144. This is all in my Film "Rove's War"

which 99 percent of my speculation came true -- I noticed that the DSM and AIPAC, Plame affairs were all Joined at the HIP..

I've got it all in my FILM, a 2 DVD set at Takebackthemedia.com the complete definitive Chronology of the DSM and Plame outing http://www.takebackthemedia.com

Researched this puppy for over a year, and many people are giving it rave reviews, haven't heard from Joe Wilson yet but he donated and received three sets of the film..

Check out the 12 minute preview at my site :) it's all there..

[stop the bleeding]

145. Done - just ordered it - not for me even though there is always more to

learn, but I got it to show other people. Their eyes always seem to glaze over when I start to talk about this kind of stuff, so hopefully this DVD set will make a better connection with them than my constant ramblings.

Thanks and I am looking forward to it.:toast: and hopefully I can get alot of people here in Florida to take a look, and if we're really lucky then maybe some of those people will finally get it.:think:

[lala_rawraw]

146. Dots, Dots, Dots

[symbolman]

157. I've been getting a lot of good reviews on it

many consider it a great Primer so people can GET what's going on through all the media babble that's designed to confuse the issue IMHO..

Plus it's got a lot of FUN clips in it, some Jon Stewart scenes, graphics, etc to break it up here and there so people don't "glaze over".. go into "microchip overload" :)

It covers the downing street minutes as well which to me are connected - the Plame outing and the DSM PROVE EACH OTHER to be true..

Thanks for the support - we're also doing a showing at a coffee house here in Hawaii where I'll be speaking on the subject for those interested - come see it, take a little swim, have a mai tai, watch the whales play :)

[happydreams]

151. Holy jumpin! I'm getting e-mails from "Dr. Michael Leyden"!!

Are they trying to snare me in some web of fraud?

Sure could use some feedback on this. I have recieved a few more communications from this joker.




DR MICHAEL LEYDEN <[e-mail]> wrote:

Good day,

I am a, staff of Private Banking Services at the Bank of
China (BOC). I am contacting you concerning our customer and, an
investment placed under our banks management 3 years ago.

I would
respectfully request that you keep the contents of this mail
confidential and respect the integrity of the information you come by
as a result of this mail. I contacted you independently of our
investigation and no one is informed of this communication. I would
like to intimate you with certain facts that I believe would be of
interest to you.

In 2002, the subject matter; ref: bb/boc/bank/0012
came to our bank to engage in business discussions with our Private
Banking Services Department. He informed us that he had a financial
portfolio of 8.35 million United States Dollars, which he wished to
have us turn over (invest) on his behalf.

I was the officer assigned
to his case; I made numerous suggestions in line with my duties as the
de-facto chief operations officer of the Private Banking Services
Department, especially given the volume of funds he wished to put into
our bank. We met on numerous occasions prior to any investments being
placed. I encouraged him to consider various growth funds with prime
ratings. The favored route in my advice to customers is
to start by
assessing data on 6000 traditional stocks and bond managers and 2000
managers of alternative investments. Based on my advice, we spun the
money around various opportunities and made attractive margins for our
first months of operation, the accrued profit and interest stood at
this point at over 10 million United States Dollars, this margin was
not the full potential of the fund but he desired low risk guaranteed
returns on investments. In mid 2004, he asked that the money be
liquidated because he needed to make an urgent investment requiring
cash payments in Europe. He directed that I liquidate the funds and had
it deposited with a firm. I informed him that the bank would have to
make special arrangements to have this done and in order not to
circumvent due process, the bank would have to make a 9.5 % deduction
from the funds to cater for banking and statutory charges. He
complained about the charges but later came around
when I explained to
him the complexities of the task he was asking of us. Cash movement
across borders has become especially strict since the incidents of
9/11. I contacted my affiliate in and had the funds available. I
undertook all the processes and made sure I followed his precise
instructions to the letter and had the funds deposited in a
security
consultancy firm, the firm is a specialist private firm that accepts
deposits from high net worth individuals and blue chip corporations
that handle valuable products or undertake transactions that need
immediate access to cash. This small and highly private organization is
familiar especially to the highly placed and well-connected
organizations. In line with instructions, the money was deposited. He
told me he wanted the money there in anticipation of his arrival from
Norway later that week. This was the last communication we had, this
transpired around 9th October, 2004.

In April last year, we got a call
from the security firm informing us that the inactivity of that
particular portfolio. This was an astounding position as far as I was
concerned, given the fact that I managed the private banking sector I
was the only one who knew about the deposit , and I could not
understand why he had not come forward to claim his deposit. I made
futile efforts to locate him I immediately passed the task of locating
him to the internal investigations department of the bank of china.
Four days later, information started to trickle in, apparently he was
dead. A person who suited his description was declared dead of a heart
attack in Canne, South of France. We were soon enough able to identify
the body and cause of death was confirmed. The bank immediately
launched an investigation into possible surviving next of kin to alert
about the situation and also to come forward to claim his estate. If
you are familiar with private banking affairs, those who patronize our
services usually prefer anonymity, but also some levels of detachment
from conventional processes. In his bio-data form, he listed no next of
kin. In the field of private banking, opening an account with us means
no one will know of its existence, accounts are rarely held under a
name; depositors use numbers and codes to make the accounts anonymous.
This bank also gives the choice to depositors of having their mail sent
to them or held at the bank itself, ensuring that there are no traces
of the account and as I said, rarely do they nominate next of kin.
Private banking clients apart from not nominating next of kin also
usually in most cases leave wills in our care, in this case; he died
intestate.

In line with our internal processes for account holders who
have passed away, we instituted our own investigations in good faith to
determine who should have right to claim the estate. This investigation
has for the past months been unfruitful. We have scanned every
continent and used our private investigation affiliate companies to get
to the root of the problem. The investigation did not ever yield any
result my official
capacity dictates that I am the only party to
supervise the investigation and the only party to receive the results
of the investigation. This leaves me as the only person with the full
picture of what the prevailing situation is in relation to the deposit
and the late beneficiary of the deposit. According to practice, the
firm will by the end of this financial
year broadcast a request for
statements of claim to BOC, failing to receive viable claims they will
most probably revert the deposit back to BOC. This will result in the
money entering the BOC accounting system and the portfolio will be out
of my hands and out of the Private Banking Services Department. This
will not happen if I have my way.

What I wish to relate to you will
smack of unethical practice but I want you to understand something. It
is only an outsider to the banking world who finds the internal
politics of the banking world aberrational. The world of private
banking especially is fraught with huge rewards for those who occupy
certain offices and oversee certain portfolios. You should have begun
by now to put together the general direction of what I propose.
There
is US$ 8,370,000.00 deposited, I alone have the deposit details and
they will release the deposit to no one unless I instruct them to do
so. I alone know of the existence of this deposit for as far as BOC is
concerned, the transaction with our deceased customer concluded when I
sent the funds to the firm, all outstanding interactions in relation to
the file are just customer services and due process. They are simply
awaiting instructions to release the deposit to any party that comes
forward. This is the situation. This bank has spent great amounts of
money trying to track this man's family; they have investigated for
months and have found no family. The investigation has come to an end.

My proposal; I am prepared to place you in a position to give
instruction for the release of the deposit to you as the closest
surviving relation. Upon receipt of the deposit, I am prepared to share
the money with you in half. That is: I will simply nominate you as the
next of kin and have them release the deposit to you. We share the
proceeds 50/50.

I would have gone ahead to ask the funds be released
to me, but that would have drawn a straight line to me and my
involvement in claiming the deposit. I assure you that I could have the
deposit released to you within a few days. I will simply inform the
bank of the final closing of the file relating to the customer I will
then officially communicate with firm and instruct them to release the
deposit to you. With these two things: all is done. The alternative
would be for us to have firm direct the funds to another bank with you
as account holder. This way there will be no need for you to think of
receiving the money from the firm. We can fine-tune this based on our
interactions.

I am aware of the consequences of this proposal. I ask
that if you find no interest in this project that you should discard
this mail. I ask that you do not be vindictive and destructive. If my
offer is of no appeal to you, delete this message and forget I ever
contacted you. Do not destroy my career because you do not approve of
my proposal. You may not know this but people like me who have made
tidy sums out of comparable situations run the whole private banking
sector. I am not a criminal and
what I do, I do not find against good
conscience, this may be hard for you to understand, but the dynamics of
my industry dictates that I make this move. Such opportunities only
come ones' way once in a lifetime. I cannot let this chance pass me by,
for once I find myself in total control of my destiny. These chances
won't pass me by. I ask that you do not destroy my chance, if you will
not work with me let me know and let me move on with my life but do not
destroy me. I am a family man and this is an opportunity to provide
them with new opportunities. There is a reward for this project and it
is a task well worth undertaking. I have evaluated the risks and the
only risk I have here is from you refusing to work with me and alerting
my bank. I am the only one who knows of this situation, good fortune
has blessed you with a name that has planted you into the center
of
relevance in my life. Let's share the blessing.

If you find yourself
able to work with me, contact me through this same email account. If
you give me positive signals, I will initiate this process towards a
conclusion. I wish to inform you that should you contact me via
official channels; I will deny knowing you and about this project. I
repeat, I do not want you contacting me through my official phone lines
nor do I want you contacting me through my official email account.
Contact me only through this email address. I do not want any direct
link between you and me. My official lines are not secure lines as they
are periodically monitored to assess our level of customer care in line
with our Total Quality Management Policy. Please observe this
instruction religiously. Please, again, note I am a family man; I have
a wife and children. I send you this mail not without a measure of fear
as to what the consequences, but I now within me that nothing ventured
is nothing gained and that success and riches never come easy or on a
platter of gold. This is the one truth I have learned from my private
banking clients. Do not betray my confidence. If we can be of one
accord, we should plan a meeting, soon.

I await your response.

Michael Leyden.

[stop the bleeding]

153. Who is this joker and why is he contacting you out of the blue with

something like this. Seems like he could elicit the help of a friend to be able to pose as a next of kin.

I need more answers of :

Who is this? I googled and found this: http://www.g6csy.net/spam/419-var_owed.html - don't know if it helps

Also found this his name is in the center of the page looks like he wrote a book:

http://www.jamesbendon.com/bkc.htm

Why is this being sent to you?

How does he know you?

Is it possible you could fill in some blanks for me, is this Michael Leyden mentioned somewhere up thread?

Are you just making a joke about the real Michael Ledeen - destroyer of the free world?


Outside of that it sounds like a scam with the exception that it is not from Nigeria nor is it asking for funds to transfer the monies. However this is interesting

[robertpaulsen]

159. Beyond bizarre.

I'm not aware of Ledeen using Leyden as an alias. Stranger things have happened though.

Let me know if you get anything more like this. Or if you decide to call his bluff and play the game he's inviting you to. Could be a prank or could be one big rabbit hole to slide down.

[happydreams]

161. I've gotten two more replies from him and one from BOC

I played it along just to keep him communicating.
Here is my reply:

So everything is totally legal correct?
I don't want to do anything illegal.
Just tell me what you need from me.




DR MICHAEL LEYDEN <[e-mail]> wrote:
Hello,

Thank you for your prompt response to my proposal, I
appreciate your interest in this transaction. Your
interest to assist me was rather unspecific as a
result of which I am quite skeptical also in believing
that you could be of assistance to me, however I would
like to be sure of your willingness, Trustworthiness
and commitment to execute this transaction with me, I
cannot afford to Compromise these virtues.

Considering the money involved, it is necessary for me
to be sure of the person to whom I will be entrusting
this transaction; my trust is not given out lightly.
Please, let me have a brief biography/resume of your
person.

What I expect from you is trust and commitment; I want
this large sum of money transferred with your
assistance. I want to inform you here that in pursuing
a God fearing partner who can assist me in this
project, I did contact you from my local area chambers
of commerce and industry's directory here in China.
Note that I have not contacted you as a matter of
choice but of necessity knowing fully well the
monetary policy of your country and that of others.
This indeed prompted me to informing you of this
matter.

Furthermore, with regards to the legality of this
transaction, I must let you know that this transaction
is real and risk free, I want to know if you are
willing to follow up this business seriously before I
can give you more details about this transaction,
however I shall be waiting your response and
assurance.

Sincerely,

Michael.

[stop the bleeding]

163. happydreams - this smells like a scam, I work in the background industry

so I know all about identity theft, infact I have a lot of experience in the compliance side of what can and can not be transmitted to protect people's identity.

I got quite chill when he asked you to send a Resume of your person. Did you see my first reply to your first response.

At the end of that response I said this "Outside of that it sounds like a scam with the exception that it is not from Nigeria nor is it asking for funds to transfer the monies. However this is interesting"

If you want to keep playing along then fine but do not exchange anything like an address, DOB, SS#, DL#, License Plate Tag# ect..

I would ask him to send you proof first before going any further.

Also I found this on the internet when I googled this guy.

http://www.g6csy.net/spam/419-var_owed.html

419 scam variant
collect money owed



CHINA METALLURGICAL IMPORT & EXPORT CORPORATION
Con Oil and Gas Ltd
Con Oil Ltd. of HACKNEY, LONDON
FARUKAWA METAL (WUXI) CO. LTD.
Farukawa Metal Copper Strip Manufacturing Co, Chiangus Province, ROC
Farukawa Metal Copper Strip Manufacturing Co, FMCSMC.
Farukawa Metal Copper & Strip Manufacturing Company


c/o Bank of China building, 13 Xing Zhengzhen Boulevard, Shenzhen, PRC



Jun W. Lee
Mr Femi Adeyomi
Mr Kenneth Tyler
Mr Yeo Seng Jin
Dr. Michael Leyden
Mr. Lin-Chow Wu
Mr. Xiang Cho

[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]
[e-mail]





A variation of the 'business men' 419-variant scam on the Internet

Hope this helps - take care!

[happydreams]

167. Thanks for the effort. I don't know what to make of it.

[Ksec]

155. Damn this is confusing

Put this in simple terms . Its too confusing for folks like me and Ill bet lots of others who cant wrap their brains around this.

[Name removed]

158. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[stop the bleeding]

162. Here are some of my bookmarks courtesy of several people/authors

on this thread. These are what I am using for reference right now and I have tried to lay them out in a chronological order, but this story or stories spans several decades and involves several people that pop up over and over again.

Start with first link I gave you it will get you going and lay things out nicely and give a lot of the principle players then proceed to the others.

Plame Research

Plame twofer - The Waterman Paper and American Judas 08/18/2005-By H2O Man & Robert Paulsen - Democraticunderground.com

Who is Michael Ledeen? 01/12/2006-robertpaulsen - Democraticunderground.com Please read posts 5 and 6 that directly follow this one

Ledeen, Ghorbanifar, and the strategy of tension 01/12/2006-starroute - Democraticunderground.com this thread has responses worth exploring

Post #2 on Ledeen, Ghorbanifar, and the strategy of tension thread 01/12/2006-Peace Patriot - Democraticunderground.com

Overview of Peace Patriot's theory - "These may be the teams whose plans to plant WMDs in Iraq were foiled" 01/05/2006-Peace Patriot - Democraticunderground.com

"Creative Destruction" Ledeen with working links 01/12/2006-seemslikeadream - Democraticunderground.com

related reading
PlameGate Is A Smokescreen - "Unanswered Questions" Author MalcontentX 12/02/2005-althecat - Democraticunderground.com

Lastly this thread the: PLAME= IRAN/CONTRA REDUX - Planted WMD from Ghorbanifar & Ledeen. that we are on right now is a wealth of information. Some of the links/threads I provided will have responses and links that crisscross this thread and others. I know it seems like a lot, but when you think how long these crooks have been at this along with the amount of time these DU'ers spent connecting the dots, then it doesn't seem like a big deal. Use this Redux thread as well because as stated before you can go over and over it again read each post with the links and you will get a really good grasp of what is going. BTW that is what I am doing right now is reading everything linked to and talked about in this message.

I know that I have missed some key links and information, but as stated before this should get you going.

Good luck and Peace!

[Wordie]

160. Tweety actually just mentioned Ledeen et al, and their press for Iraq war!

:::too shocked to speak:::

[Clara T]

164. Didn't see this in the NY Times or on CNN

The aim, therefore, is to stifle the discussion and silence the adversaries, an aim that is much more ideological than you would care to think. It also explains perfectly, for example, why the whole of the press often say the same things. The rule is that the people controlling the media have to be totally reliable: they don’t even have to be told what to say. They already know it by heart. They have already internalised the rules of the game. Being reliable is something that requires lengthy training and considerable single-mindedness. On every level of the information hierarchy you have to prove that you have a total disregard for the truth, a complete readiness to deceive and an absolutely impenetrable cynicism. This, as a rule, is the only way of getting up to the next level.

our only true ally to survive is the deep truth

[Emit]

174. kick n/t

[Poll_Blind]

179. Holy crap! Kick! n/t

PB

[ngGale]

180. Kick...

:donut:

[Emit]

181. Why was this thread relocated to the 911 forum? n/t

[pauldp]

182. Because it points to the awful truth.

Welcome to the free speech pen.

[Tim Howells]

189. Good question - this is a disgrace.

This is a great thread which turns up all kinds of
very important info about the current state of affairs
in the United States. DU is trying to suppress this
because, I guess, they realize that the truth threatens
the Democratic party leadership as well as the Republicans.

TimHowells

[Emit]

183. Has anyone read this? Ledeen himself - Iran-Contra Revisited

Iran-Contra Revisited?
Our dangerous Iran policy continues.
Even for August, the media's handling of the latest round of leaks from the usual unnamed sources in State and CIA on the subject of Iran is unusually feckless. The gist of the "story" fed to the press is that some Pentagon officials (and maybe I, as well) met and actually spoke with some Iranians a year or more ago, and then again a month or two ago. These talks were "unauthorized," which apparently means that Colin Powell and George Tenet weren't asked for permission beforehand, and, according to Newsday and the Washington Post, they got in the way of the State Department's own secret talks with members of the Iranian regime. One unnamed deep thinker went so far as to see the dark hand of a neoconservative plot, designed to prod the Iranians into a rigid and uncooperative posture that would defeat State's efforts to arrive at a deal with Tehran.

The story was given sex appeal by the mention of the name of my old friend Manucher Ghorbanifar, unfairly but predictably cast in the role of the Peter Lorre of Iran-Contra, who was allegedly involved in the talks. And so the journalists in Washington ran around chasing their own very short tails for several days until they concluded a) that people talking to people isn't much of a story and b) it seems to be about turf, not anything serious, and c) it really doesn't lead anywhere.

Notice several points, please. First, the implication of the complaint about Pentagon officials' conversations is that it's okay for our diplomats to talk to the official representatives of the murderous mullahcracy in Tehran, with an eye to establishing some form of rapprochement, but it's not okay for midlevel Iran experts at DoD to talk to private Iranians to enhance our understanding about what's going on inside Iran, and what the Iranian regime is going, or planning to do, to Americans and our friends and allies. Why should that be so? One would think that any such conversations should be praised, not leaked to death.

Second, the leakers — and some of the more overzealous scribblers — suggested that somehow the Pentagon was repeating the errors of Iran-Contra by talking to Ghorbanifar. But the shoe is on the wrong foot here, for it's the State Department that has repeated one of Iran-Contra's momentous blunders by believing that there are "moderates" in Tehran with whom the United States can and should work.

http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen081403.asp

[Peace Patriot]

187. What a tidy bit of twistocracy this Ledeen piece is!

"the murderous mullahcracy in Tehran..."

Who, pray, just got done slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis? Who is torturing Iraqi prisoners and other Muslims, 90% of whom are not guilty of anything except their race or religion? Who is "disappearing" prisoners to torture dungeons in eastern Europe?

Murderous, indeed.

------------------

"But the shoe is on the wrong foot here, for it's the State Department that has repeated one of Iran-Contra's momentous blunders by believing that there are 'moderates' in Tehran with whom the United States can and should work."

There ARE moderates in Iran. That's patently obvious to anyone with eyes and ears. But we shouldn't have been illegally selling missiles to ANY Iranians, and illegally using the money to slaughter teachers and mayors in Nicaragua!

Ledeen's moral compass has gone 180 from the truth and from rightful behavior. He can't SEE the bigger wrong of Iran/Contra.

And so what would HE do, to millions of innocent people, IF it could be PROVED that there was not a single moderate in Iran's leadership? Nuke them all?

Jeez.

------------------

The one usefulness of articles like this is that you can assume the exact opposite of what he says--and what he tries to imply by means of exaggeration and ridicule--as the truth of the matter, and thereby know what he and his pals have been guilty of--and be able to guess and surmise what ELSE they might be guilty of, or have in the planning stages.

That this disreputable fascist has any say over US policy is truly mind-boggling.

[Emit]

184. Here's an old DU link that dovetails with this current thread

Remember this one?

Nothing Without Hope
Yglesias: WHO FORGED THE NIGER DOCUMENTS? At the heart of the WMD lies
that led to the Iraq invasion, this question has been strangely overlooked by even the Dems. Identifying the forgers and exposing how such transparently fraudulent documents were officially accepted by the Bush Administration despite warnings is potentially far more important than Rovegate/Plamegate. This Matthew Yglesias article should be a must-read for all of us - and then we need to find ways to find the truth about this vital, central question. Surely it's worth as much attention as the Plame leak.



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1939214

[AntiFascist]

185. There is an interesting link to Madsen articles about P2 related stuff...

Quoting from a Belfast Telegraph article:

ROME AND WASHINGTON, DC July 10, 2005 -- More details are emerging from the scandal surrounding the secret parallel intelligence network in Italy that was tied to both U.S. Special Operations units and leading Fascist figures in Italy. It has also been revealed by the Belfast Telegraph that Gaetano Saya, the co-leader of the Department of Strategic Anti-Terrorism Studies (DSSA), had his own liaison with the Vatican, Gilberto DiBenedetto, who was trying to obtain a security contract to protect Pope Benedict XVI. DSSA now appears to have had official sanction by the Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi. DSSA maintained a link to the internal database within the Italian Interior Ministry.

and earlier:

Washington and Rome, Jul 4, 2005 UPDATED -- Genoa police have arrested the two leaders of a neo-Fascist unofficial intelligence and "anti-terrorism" police network in Italy and have conducted searches of homes throughout the country in a major crackdown on a group that recruited police and intelligence agents to their cause. The two neo-Fascist leaders -- Gaetano Saya and Riccardo Sindoca -- who reportedly have close ties to both the P-2 (Propaganda Due) Masonic lodge and a secret Cold War network known as Gladio, were arrested. Some 25 members of the regular state police, the Carabinieri, the Frontier police, and the Prison police were placed under official investigation. Tens of searches, including two houses in Genoa, were conducted by police in nine Italian regions: Liguria, Piedmont, Lombardy, Emilia Romagna, Tuscany, Lazio, Molise, Sicily and Sardinia. The investigation may soon extend to members of the Italian intelligence service SISMI. In 2004, Saya and Sindoca established the Department of Strategic Anti-Terrorism Studies (DSSA), which reportedly had links to both the Bush administration and Ariel Sharon's Likud government in Israel.

<snip>

Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga has quickly distanced the parallel intelligence network from official intelligence and police networks by claiming the two men arrested are just criminals and not tied to the Italian Gladio, which a number of intelligence experts believe Cossiga once headed. Cossiga also defended the secret U.S. intelligence operation in Italy that is presently under attack by Milan prosecutors. Cossiga said that by not telling the Italian government of the operation, the U.S. avoided having its secret plans spread throughout the Middle East. By mentioning both the Milan and Genoa cases, Cossiga may have unintentionally linked the two. The parallel intelligence network is reportedly the outgrowth of a Gladio network consisting of six divisions that operated in Italy, North Africa, and the Middle East during the Cold War. The P-2 Lodge, headed by fascist leader Licio Gelli, reportedly maintained close links to former Secretary of State Alexander Haig and his one-time foreign affairs adviser Michael Ledeen. Former CIA Osama Bin Laden unit chief Michael Scheuer told Italy's La Repubblica that the kidnaping of Abu Omar was authorized by SISMI chief Nicolo Pollari. A number of SISMI agents and assets have been tied to the group, including Francesco Pazienza, a SISMI agent, and Rocco Martino, who said he was the source of the faked Niger yellowcake uranium documents that were laundered through Rome and used as proof by the Bush White House that Saddam Hussein was shopping for uranium in Niger. That charge prompted the CIA to send Ambasssador Joseph Wilson to Niger resulting in a retaliatory exposure by the White House of the CIA's covert weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation network.

Italian sources report that the Milan case against the Americans and the Genoa case against the private Italian network may be linked in another way. The reported CIA station chief in Milan, Honduran-born Robert Seldon Lady (whose name may be an alias and whose CIA connections may be incorrect or overstated) was, prior to his assignment in Milan, in charge of a covert American unit in Honduras, El Salvador, and Nicaragua charged with penetrating anti-American groups and taking them over. It is now believed that Lady was in charge of a similar operation to turn Abu Omar and others into intelligence assets for the Americans. Abu Omar, according to Albanian intelligence sources, assisted the U.S. with intelligence on Islamic militants in Albania. It is also believed that the late Deputy SISMI chief Nicola Calipari became aware of information in Iraq that linked the control of terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere to a "third level" in "an anti-terrorism country." Calipari was shot to death by U.S. troops while transporting freed Italian hostage and journalist Giuliana Sgrena to Baghdad International Airport. The U.S. ruled the shooting an "accident." Abu Omar may have become a hot potato for the Americans after Calipari discovered links between the Americans and terrorist groups in Iraq and elsewhere -- and a decision was made to conduct a "rendition" of the imam to Egypt to get him out of circulation. Abu Omar, also said to have been a credible intelligence source, may have also become aware of U.S. connections to terrorist groups.

THERE'S MORE (under the diplomatic/foreign directory of the website)

[Ouabache]

188. Ledeen travels to Indiana fairly often -ostensibly to be on AM radio.

He appears IN PERSON on the Greg Garrison show on WIBC radio in Indianpolis. Garrison is a Rush wannabe. Can't quite figure him out. He seems smarter than that. (Garrison was the special prosecutor in Indianapolis for the rape trial and conviction of Mike Tyson)

Ledeen has appeared regularly, but on an intermittent basis over the last 3 or 4 years. Indianapolis is flyover to most of these folks unless he was coming here for shindigs at the Hudson Institute when it was here. Although the Hudson's International Affairs division has now moved to DC. (Closer to Jack....off, I suppose.)

Now there are stories that Plame-Brewster-Jennings intercepted VX nerve gass in Turkey that was heading for planting in Iraq after shock and awe, correct?

Guess what has been in large supply in Indiana for years? Just now (2005-2006) finally be destroyed.

In March 2003, the destruction of it HAD NOT YET begun.


Dots...?? anyone...?



Newport Chemical Depot (NECD) - Newport, Indiana - United States ...
The nerve agent VX stockpiled at the Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana is stored in 1690 steel ton containers commonly ... www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/facility/newport.htm


United States begins testing equipment for demolition of a major ...
The unit consists of a chemical reactor in which the VX will be mixed with water and sodium hydroxide, ... "Newport Chemical Depot (NECD) Newport, Indiana". ...
en.wikinews.org/wiki/United_States_begins_testing_equipment_for_demolition_of_a_major_VX_nerve_gas_stockpile


Online NewsHour: Cache of Nerve Gas Destroyed in Indiana Town ...
... with the army and project manager for the destruction of the VX nerve agent. ... That sped up the timetable to neutralize the VX stored at Newport. ...
www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/terrorism/jan-june05/threat_5-26.html - 21k

[sattahipdeep]

190. How did this stuff get to Turkey?

May 2005

Chemical weapons, including in VX-loaded weapons, still are stored at seven sites in the United States.

http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050510/NEWS01/505100420

The Newport plant, the only place VX was manufactured?

For now, the VX byproduct will be stored in special containers in
Newport until a final decision is made on where it will go.
Army officials want to ship the byproduct to a DuPont Co. plant in
New Jersey, where it would be treated and released into the Delaware
River, but opposition in New Jersey and Delaware has stalled the plan.

Where is the little turd?

[bud E. holly]

191. So this is where this thread ended up

Hmmmm

I obviously don't post much at DU. The demands of my job prevent me from spending as much time here as I would like. What little time I am here, is spent reading, taking in the vast wealth of information & analysis that is presented here. I do disseminate a lot of what I take in to family & friends. It is very important to me that the info from here that I talk about to others is solid & verifiable. What then, should I make of a thread like this one being relegated to the "dungeon" as they call it here? I thought the evidence & info on this thread was important, well researched, and documented. The only venture into "Theory" that I found was Peace Patriot's take on the possible plan to move WMDs into and out of Iraq & Iran. Even that I thought was an entirely plausible & logical progression from observing the player's actions.
I am indebted to all the people here that work hard to research these scandals & the people behind them. I feel this story is so important to the future of this country, that if the MSM were still functioning, it would be in the headlines daily. Am I completely mistaken, and it all amounts to dabbling around in conspiracy theory? Do I need to qualify the statements I've made to people I know regarding this? I'd really like to know.