“The Marriage from Hell: Jane Harman & the Woodrow Wilson Center�

Last year investigative journalist David Boyajian wrote two exposés on Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center, revealing how the center has been violating its Congressional mandate and been up to its neck in tainted corporate cash. You can read Boyajian’s exposés here and here. Many agreed with Boyajian’s damning assessment, including a prominent journalist who called the WWC “a global joke.� I too wrote a follow up article on WWC with a special focus on its ‘oily’ President, Mr. Lee Hamilton. By oily, I mean ‘glisteningly greasy.’ I am sure you recognize his name from his highly publicized position and face as one of the 9/11 Commissioners, but his possibly pay-off position with WWC was not the lone factor for his glistening status in my report. Here are a few excerpts from my piece to illustrate what I mean:

Fortunately one independent reporter researched and reported on one such case, call it ‘chased the egg,’ on one of the 9/11 Commissioners, a Former Representative, Mr. Lee Hamilton, which I happened to come across yesterday. It was truly interesting to see how many ‘honorary’ positions Mr. Hamilton has been given, handed, by our government alone, just check out a few here:

-Co-chair of the Department of Energy Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future with Brent Scowcroft

-Serves on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board & the FBI Director’s Advisory Board,

-Serves on the US Department of Homeland Security Task Force

- Serves on the CIA External Advisory Board

The White House, the CIA, and the FBI must have been extremely well-served by Hamilton’s performance as the commissioner to grant him this many prestigious quasi positions. No? For me, the most interesting aspect which was covered by CounterCurrents.Org had to do with Hamilton’s position with and current salary from the Woodrow Wilson Center, and his questionable corporate ties, particularly with BAE Systems, the main sponsor of his forthcoming gala dinner…

You can read my entire article ‘9/11 Commissioner’s Turkey Baste: Chicken or the Egg?’ here. Now back to the focus of this post.

Read more È

‘US-NATO-Chechen Militia Joint Operations Base’

Here is an exclusive interview I gave to James Corbett on my recent article, “US-NATO-Chechen Militia Joint Operations Base.� We discuss the American financing, funding and protection of Islamic terrorists in Central Asia, the history of Turkish links with the CIA, the heart of my whistleblower story and the State Secrets Privilege, and the real endgame for the competing world powers in the Caucasus.

You can listen to the interview here at Corbett Report.

As you know I am a big fan of my partner James Corbett and his brilliant work. If you are not familiar with him check out his website here for great podcast interviews, video reports and analyses. He now has an extensive collection of his interviews available on DVDs, and you can check them out and purchase them here.

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by subscribing .

Republican Senator Slips During & After her Recent Lavish Trip

Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, returned from Istanbul, Turkey last week. According to my Turkish sources the Senator’s trip was ‘extraordinarily lavish.’
Shortly after her return last Monday, Collins began to make her lavish organizers’ lavish expenditure worthwhile.  She spoke at a conference about the state of America’s relationship with Turkey and how it can be improved. The conference was held by the American-Turkish Council (ATC), and you may want to check here and here to get an idea as to what ATC ‘really’ is and what it is ‘really’ about.

Well, Collins said a bunch of things, and babbled a bit, but somehow she slipped and went on record with a fact that has been kept hush-hush by our government. Was it jet lag? Was it the still-in-effect high Collins got from that ultra lavish trip? Or was it too much wine served at ATC’s lavish luncheon? We don’t know, but we have Collins on record, and we know the White House is not going to be happy with this on record:

“The United States spends an average of $1 million a day to help Turkey fight terrorism.

Now don’t take me wrong, all the moguls of MIC present at that conference knew about this, and all the Turkish dignitaries, businessmen and ‘operatives’ have known about this. The thing is, Americans were left out of this mindboggling and outrageous fact. It is sort of classified for the purpose of inflammation prevention reasons…You catch my drift? Read more È

I’ve been meaning to write about this for weeks, and just got around doing it. Maybe the subconscious procrastination was due to the conscious sanitization of this news by venues like this. Maybe it was the dread of having to tackle one of the quasi media phony darlings like this guy. Or maybe it was the repressed exhaustion-frustration I went through a couple of years back with this. Okay, allow me to start with the fairly recent development reported ‘incompletely and badly’ by the New York Times:

Representative Jean Schmidt, Republican of Ohio, has been ordered by the House Ethics Committee to repay a Turkish-American group $500,000 for legal services it improperly paid for to help her pursue a defamation lawsuit and other legal proceedings against a Democratic opponent in the 2008 election.

As you can see, very consciously the Times avoids naming ‘that Democratic opponent.’ Because naming him, David Krikorian, would require some fact citing and more context-background on the case; the case they together with the rest of the mainstream media went out of their way to black out. And doing ‘that’ would God forbid bring up the long-blacked-out state secrets privilege in my case. And ‘that’ my dear friends, is something that has been forbidden to these stenographers in the media circus.

So let’s continue the no-coverage coverage of a very significant case involving Congresswoman Jean Schmidt and the twisted and rechanneled Turkish Foreign Lobby dollars:

The action by the House committee, disclosed Friday, did not come with a formal punishment, because ethics investigators concluded that Ms. Schmidt had been misled by her own lawyers from the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund about who was paying the legal bills.

Ms. Schmidt was ordered to amend her annual personal financial disclosure reports to acknowledge the gift from the Turkish Coalition of America, which actually paid the bills, and then reimburse the lawyers.

 The report above casually, and very quickly, glosses over one of the implicated, that is, directly implicated, parties in this case: Schmidt’s lawyer- the lawyer who supposedly, and intentionally, misled his client, and did so with a dollar amount not in the thousands, but actually half a million dollars. Ordinarily this slip by a government garbage disposal facility like the Times would not raise big flags. However, this lawyer is no ordinary lawyer. The lawyer in question here happens to be a famous, very public, high-profile and very deviously and shrewdly marketed man. The lawyer in this case is none other than deceivingly perceived Bruce Fein.  A man who has gotten very wealthy thanks to the foreign lobby, in this case the Turkish lobby in need of a man who knows the maze that gets the cheese to the congressional mice:

In 2007, Ayasli transferred $30 million in stock to fund a new endeavor, the nonprofit Turkish Coalition of America. The organization is headquartered in a Washington suite that has also been listed as the address for the Turkish Coalition USA PAC, the lobbying firm of Lydia Borland (who has represented the Turkish government), and the law firm of Bruce Fein and Associates (Fein comprises half of the Turkish American Legal Defense Fund).

…

In addition to the advocacy done through the ATC (which also funds trips to Turkey for congressional staff), a handful of its members–Citigroup, BAE Systems, Northrop Grumman, Chevron, Textron, United Technologies, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, which spent a combined $80 million lobbying Washington last year lobbied Congress directly on the genocide resolution and other issues important to Turkey; the Aerospace Industries Association, a trade group, helped coordinate the effort.

…

Oh wait, Bruce Fein is married to Mattie Fein, the Republican candidate who ran against Jane Harman in 2010. Had she won, how would one go about calculating and deducting her campaign-donation  ‘gifts’ from her husbands million-dollar foreign lobby gifts? Isn’t it interesting? And as far as Turkey’s former partner lobby, the Israeli Lobby, this is where Bruce & his voluptuous wife stand when given the Zionism litmus test:

7. Would you support Israel taking military action to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons? Under what circumstances?

The United States should support whatever Israel believes is justified by national security worries over Iran.

I know Mr. Fein has many pro-liberties fans out there who are mistaking him for ‘real;’ some consider him a real constitutionalist who stands for liberties and against secrecy. That’s very similar to those who fell for Obama the constitutionalist. Remember, Obama the author of a very constitutional book? Recall the beautiful words spoken and sold as pro liberties, pro change, anti secrecy and beyond? Well, you have a similar situation with Mr. Fein: he talks a good talk, and writes well. As for who Mr. Fein is: you are looking at a man long succumbed to foreign lobby and military industrial complex lobby dollars. You are looking at a man far more loyal to Israel and its lobby than to our nation. You actually have a man who believes any war would be justified for the sake of Israel. And in the latest Schmidt case you are looking at a man who helped funnel half a million dollar foreign ‘Bakshish’ to his congresswoman friend, and even indicted by the lame Congressional Ethics Committee as an attorney who intentionally misled his client. Read more È

Yesterday this made the headlines in UK:

Britain Held Secret War Talks With US Generals 11 Months Before Iraq Invasion

America’s most senior general flew into Britain for top secret talks on the invasion of Iraq 11 months before the attack on Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Details of the classified meeting, held at RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, suggest Tony Blair’s Government was involved in detailed discussions about toppling the Iraqi dictator earlier than previously disclosed.American General Tommy Franks flew in to the base in April 2002 to attend a summit meeting called by the then Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon.

…

No kidding? And not bothering to cite previous reports on this, hmmmmm, more than a year ago?
 

This is what I’m referring to:

Who’s Afraid of Sibel Edmonds?
The American Conservative, November 2009

The monitoring of the Turks picked up contacts with Feith, Wolfowitz, and Perle in the summer of 2001, four months before 9/11. They were discussing with the Turkish ambassador in Washington an arrangement whereby the U.S. would invade Iraq and divide the country. The UK would take the south, the rest would go to the U.S. They were negotiating what Turkey required in exchange for allowing an attack from Turkish soil. The Turks were very supportive, but wanted a three-part division of Iraq to include their own occupation of the Kurdish region. The three Defense Department officials said that would be more than they could agree to, but they continued daily communications to the ambassador and his defense attaché in an attempt to convince them to help.

Meanwhile Scowcroft, who was also the chairman of the American Turkish Council, Baker, Richard Armitage, and Grossman began negotiating separately for a possible Turkish protectorate. Nothing was decided, and then 9/11 took place.

Scowcroft was all for invading Iraq in 2001 and even wrote a paper for the Pentagon explaining why the Turkish northern front would be essential. I know Scowcroft came off as a hero to some for saying he was against the war, but he was very much for it until his client’s conditions were not met by the Bush administration.

…

So, what’s the deal? Report only when all is considered safe and sound; sanctioned and blessed by the high & mighty above? Or is it pure ignorance and lack of research in this age and time, and despite their research and search engines? Or maybe it is their superiority complex act surfacing as an inferiority complex when a smaller publication beats them to a story?
 

You tell me. What’s the deal?

We all know the relevance and importance of a solid and sound background check when it comes to our elected and appointed officials and commissioners. Of course we all want to know about that big ‘conflict of interest’ factor. Okay, not all of us, especially not our MSM stenographers, but a few independent researchers and journalists here and there, and the rest of us among the ‘active and inquiring’ crowd. So let’s call this ‘chasing the chicken’ for now.’ Are you with me so far? Just hang in there and you’ll find out what I’m talking about, or at least I hope you will

Equally or even more significant is the need to follow up into post facto profiteering and connections of those assigned or elected for particular official posts. As in business, there is more than one method of payment and reimbursement for public figures serving interests other than the public, and in some cases interests totally in conflict with those of the public. Think of Former Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, and his post official position as a registered foreign agent for Turkey and his $35,000 a month payment. Or think about Former Defense Secretary, William Cohen, who went from heavily in debt and with negative net worth to multi millionaire in less than two years after leaving his public post. Unfortunately even fewer people, reporters and researchers, bother to cover and report on these important cases. Now, let’s call this ‘chasing the egg’ for the sake of what’s coming next.

Fortunately one independent reporter researched and reported on one such case, call it ‘chased the egg,’ on one of the 9/11 Commissioners, a Former Representative, Mr. Lee Hamilton, which I happened to come across yesterday. It was truly interesting to see how many ‘honorary’ positions Mr. Hamilton has been given, handed, by our government alone, just check out a few here:

-Co-chair of the Department of Energy Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future with Brent Scowcroft

-Serves on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board & the FBI Director’s Advisory Board,

-Serves on the US Department of Homeland Security Task Force

- Serves on the CIA External Advisory Board

The White House, the CIA, and the FBI must have been extremely well-served by Hamilton’s performance as the commissioner to grant him this many prestigious quasi positions. No? For me, the most interesting aspect which was covered by CounterCurrents.Org had to do with Hamilton’s position with and current salary from the Woodrow Wilson Center, and his questionable corporate ties, particularly with BAE Systems, the main sponsor of his forthcoming gala dinner. Here are a few excerpts:

Back in May, I was unaware that WWC President Lee Hamilton is a board member of one of the Center’s top corporate donors, BAE Systems Inc. That’s the American division of the largest weapons and defense firm in the world, BAE Systems plc, based in the U.K., with annual sales exceeding $36 billion.

Lee Hamilton’s 34 years as Congressman (D-IN) and his service on the CIA External Advisory Board, FBI Director’s Advisory Board, 9/11 Commission, and elsewhere are cited in his biography on the WWC website.

Nowhere, however, does the WWC mention his simultaneous service to corporate America. Hamilton — whose WWC salary exceeds $410,000 and who qualifies for a hefty Congressional pension — is a member of the boards of not only BAE Systems Inc. (since 2004), but also Carbon Motors (since 2008), and the Albright Stonebridge Group (since 2006).

…

Hold on, it’s getting much worse, and I’m adding my own emphasis to the excerpts:

The latter is a DC-based “global strategy firmâ€� headed by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (co-chaired the so-called “ Genocide Prevention Task Force” with former Defense Secretary William Cohen, whose firm represents Turkish businesses; they both refuse to acknowledge the Armenian genocide) and National Security Advisor Sandy Berger (pled guilty to stealing classified documents needed by the 9/11 Commission).

…

Even aside from Hamilton’s corporate connections, can the WWC serve as a “neutral forumâ€� for, and objectively analyze, the issues facing the American people when companies with mercenary agendas – overseas business interests, deals with sordid foreign governments, genocide denial, Federal contracts, and more – are helping to foot WWC’s budget?

BAE, for example, has lobbied against an Armenian genocide resolution in the U.S. Congress and, like several WWC donors, is a member of the American Turkish Council. The ATC is a business group that has shamelessly labored to defeat the Armenian resolution and that FBI whistle-blower Sibel Edmonds has accused of serious wrongdoing.

…

Here is more on BAE as a major criminal entity: Read more È

Would former icons of the civil rights movement sell out their principles for foreign cash?

A February 13 New York Times article exposed the degree to which the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), a group composed of African Americans in the U.S. House of Representatives, used loopholes in political finance laws to raise $55 million in unregulated corporate money through a network of nonprofits from 2004 to 2008. The money in question is principally channeled through the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, and is ostensibly to be used for scholarships for disadvantaged African American students. However, the analysis of reporters Eric Lipton and Eric Lichtbau demonstrates that the majority of the funds have actually been used for junkets, parties, golf outings and boondoggles; as well as the retirement of the mortgage for a headquarters building on Embassy Row. In regards to the paid off headquarters building of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation (CBCF), Lipton and Lichtbau write:

…in 2008, a jazz band was playing at what amounted to a mortgage-burning party for the $4 million town house.

Curiously, the authors do not mention where exactly this little jazz celebration took place. One might assume it was held in the CBC’s own building, or in the Mississippi Casino Resort that is mentioned further down in the article. Luckily, the reader only has to go to the CBCF’s own website to find where the party took place in April, 2008:

CBCF celebrated the acquisition of its building at the historic residence of the Turkish Ambassador on Embassy Row.

To most casual observers, the Turkish Embassy would seem an odd place for a foundation run by a group of African American legislators to hold a celebration of such historic measure. It turns out, however, that there is some connection between the two communities. One famous Turkish-American, Ahmet Ertegun, founder of Atlantic Records, had a great appreciation for jazz and helped to promote the growth of black music in the United States. However, reporting last year from Washington D.C., freelance reporter Joshua Kucera suggested something a little deeper might be going on between the Turkish lobbyists and CBC members than a simple shared love for soul music: Read more È