Here is a round up with a few noteworthy developments and articles and an absurdity or two. This week Peter B Collins and I will be recording interviews with two special guests. It is going to be lively, interesting and I think rather controversial. Stay tuned.

The Conditional Antiwar Movement- Party Based AntiWar-ism

The following article is based on a new study showing that the antiwar movement in the US demobilized as Democrats, who had been motivated to participate by anti-Republican sentiments, withdrew from antiwar protests when the Democratic Party achieved electoral success. The findings are complementary (unfortunately) to my previous post on partisan & biased media reports. Ignorant & blinded partisanship in action: atrocious wars and major presidential abuses are all okay if committed by X Party, but awful and impeachable offenses if exercised by Y party.

Did Obama’s Election mean the End of the Anti-War Movement? 
By Bernie DeGroat, Spero News

As president, Obama has maintained the occupation of Iraq and escalated the war in Afghanistan,” said Heaney, U-M assistant professor of organizational studies and political science. “The antiwar movement should have been furious at Obama’s ‘betrayal’ and reinvigorated its protest activity.

“Instead, attendance at antiwar rallies declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement have dissipated. The election of Obama appeared to be a demobilizing force on the antiwar movement, even in the face of his pro-war decisions.”

Heaney and Rojas analyzed the demobilization of the antiwar movement by using surveys of 5,400 demonstrators at 27 protests mostly in Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago and San Francisco from January 2007 to December 2009. The surveys asked questions on basic demographics, partisan affiliations, organizational affiliations, reasons for attending the events, histories of political participation, and attitudes toward the movement, war and the political system.

…

A New Memo Reveals: FBI Had Mole Inside ABC News- Why the surprise?!

A recently declassified FBI memo reveals that a senior ABC News journalist acted (and performed) as a confidential informant to the bureau in the 1990s. I know this is significant, but shocking? That’s what I don’t understand. Do you?

Memo Suggests FBI Had Mole Inside ABC News in 1990s 
By John Solomon & Aeron Mehta

A once-classified FBI memo reveals that the bureau treated a senior ABC News journalist as a potential confidential informant in the 1990s, pumping the reporter to ascertain the source of a sensational but uncorroborated tip that the network had obtained during its early coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing.

The journalist, whose name is not disclosed in the document labeled “secret,� not only cooperated but provided the identity of a confidential source, according to the FBI memo — a possible breach of journalistic ethics if he or she did not have the source’s permission.

The ABC employee was even assigned a number in the FBI’s informant database, indicating he or she was still being vetted for suitability as a snitch after providing “highly accurate and reliable information in the past� and then revealing information the network had obtained in the hours just after the 1995 terrorist attack by Timothy McVeigh.

…

More on Biased-Partisan Media & Double Standards

On Friday I published a brief commentary on the Lefts’ Hypocrisy when it comes to investigative reporting on the Obama administration’s atrocities nationally and internationally. Considering the level of controversy accompanied by lots of snarls, spits and insults, it must have struck a chord with ‘some people.’ Suddenly, these people forget my 7-year long battle during the Bush administration-the gag orders I received, polygraphs, being fired, secrecy…you name it. I used to be, back in the Bush days, their heroine, their respected whistleblower. Obama administration comes in, I see what goes on, I write about it and voice my opinion against the same atrocities, and suddenly I become the …hmmmmm, I am not going to use their x-rated and colorful adjectives. If I remember correctly, it started with this piece I wrote during the early Obama days: Two Sides of the Same Coin … Heads-Heads. No worries; I won’t be easily deterred. Here is another commentary on the Left’s double standards when it comes to ‘their’ president of wars-abuses: Read more È

It is not easy to criticize a solid professional journalist. It is much harder to criticize a Pulitzer Prize Winning and well-respected investigative journalist. And, it is extremely hard to criticize a professional multi award winning investigative journalist, who happens to be a friend I respect and like. I rather think of the following observation as raising the question (publicly, that is) rather than an accusatory criticism. This is not due to timidity or the fear of being royally attacked (which I know I will be), nor is it because of letting personal friendship determine the color and the tone of my commentary. I think when you read the following, objectively consider and weigh the hard evidence and undisputable track record presented, and pause enough to critically think about the ramifications and possible conclusions, you’ll agree: Raising the question versus pointing an accusatory finger.

It all started with an article I was reading at AntiWar.Com by Justin Raimondo. In his to-the-point and well-articulated commentary piece Raimondo criticizes the blinded partisanship of the Obama cult when it comes to their reaction and response- whether the pretense of naivety or out-right groundless defense of Obama’s ‘Libya War’:

Now that President Barack Obama has intervened in Libya, his army of apologists is mobilizing to defend his “humanitarianism,� declaring that his war isn’t at all like Bush’s wars. It’s something new, and different – and admirable.I’m not at all surprised. Are you? The anti-interventionist veneer of most American liberals and assorted “progressives� peels off quite readily when a little “humanitarian� lotion is applied – especially if it’s poured on thick by a liberal Democratic President with a domestic agenda they can endorse.

…

Yes, and you’ll note the Obama-ites went to the Council, not the Congress, to ask permission to strike: and just to show we’re not the Top Dog, they let the Brits and the Frenchies take the lead. What generosity.

The “argument� presented here is the one progressives have salved their perpetually guilty consciences with ever since this manifestly unqualified ex-“community organizer� took up residence in the White House: he’s not Bush! That’s why they remained silent when he extended our perpetual “war on terrorism� into Pakistan, why they kept mum as the PATRIOT Act was reauthorized at the behest of the administration, and why they put the covers over their heads and stuck their fingers in their ears as George Bush’s torture regime continued, unabated and even expanded, under Obama. It’s why they ignored our failure to withdraw from Iraq, as promised by candidate Obama, and why they smiled politely and changed the subject whenever anyone had the poor taste to mention these unpleasant subjects.

Corn supplements the Not Bush argument with a new variation, an ideological rationale for knee-jerk defenders of the Obama regime: the we’re-not-neocons meme. Obama’s war in Libya is an example of what Corn actually dubs “the Anti-Bush Doctrine,� which is “precisely the opposite of how the neocons of the Bush-Cheney crowd viewed the world.�

…

…Back in the 1990s, the neocons lent their names to innumerable “open letters� urging Bill Clinton to strike at the Serbs, with prominent progressives such as Susan Sontag leading the charge. George Soros financed a “grassroots� pro-war campaign, and the neocons were more than happy to jump on board the bandwagon – just as they are today.

Pushed into war by a coven of relentlessly nagging neo-liberal Amazons, and a cabal of round-shouldered flabby-faced neocons, President Obama has been captured by ideologues just as surely as was his predecessor – and, I’ll predict right here and now, with equally disastrous results.

…

The article got me thinking: The previous hawkish administration with its Iraq-Afghanistan wars, PATRIOT ACT, Guantanamo, Kidnap & Torture, Assassins, NSA Illegal Wiretapping of All Americans …

It got me thinking about the present Obama administration: Iraq-Occupation, Afghanistan-Pakistan Wars, Bombing Yemen, Libya War, Extension & Reauthorization of the PATRIOT ACT, Jailing & Torture of Government Whistleblowers, Guantanamo, Bagram Prison Torture & Fiasco, NSA Illegal Wiretapping of All Americans …

Then, it made me jump out of my chair while asking out loud: Where the heck is Sy Hersh?! Where has he been during the last two years plus?! We are talking about issues, scandals, wars, abuses of power …basically, all those topics that are, and have been, right up his alley!! So where is he?! Why haven’t I, we, heard much of him in the last two and a half years?! I am sure we haven’t missed it since when he writes on these issues we get to (justifiably, that is) hear the thunder, post-thunder, and echoes of his exposés. He couldn’t have run out of ‘thunder topics’ with the Obama administration’s relentless and nonstop assaults internationally and domestically!

I didn’t want to rely on my thoroughness in keeping track of Hersh’ long-winded and detailed investigative pieces in the New Yorker. Instead, I went to the New Yorker’s website and ran a search, and what I got was the following:

3 articles. Three articles. Only three articles since Mr. Obama’s presidential victory. That’s it. None of them on the scandals, issues and abuses of the Obama administration. None of them on Obama’s drone-mania. None of them on bombing and killing civilians in Afghanistan and Pakistan. None of them on the dubious brief assault in Yemen. None of them on Bagram torture-abuse-secret imprisonment. None of them on Libya. None of them on jailing Manning-DOD whistleblower or bringing criminal charges against other government whistleblowers. Instead of listing the long list of ‘Nones,’ I’ll give you the only three articles written by Hersh at the New Yorker:

Syria Calling: The Obama Administration’s Chance to Engage in a Middle East Peace- Published in April 2009.

Defending the Arsenal: In an Unstable Pakistan, can Nuclear Warheads be Kept Safe? – Published in November 2009.

The Online Threat: Should we be Worry about a Cyber War? - Published in November 2010.

That is it. None of them on Mr. Obama, his hawkish administration, his military blunders or evil exercises, his continuation of prisons and torture, his ‘generals’ problems …No.

I went a bit further in this research venture. I started checking Hersh-New Yorker coverage of the Bush administration abuses during its first three years. In fact, I documented the exact time frame of existence (Bush first 2.5+ years). And, this is what I got:

13 articles. Thirteen hard-hitting well-written, thoroughly investigated, and unabashedly presented articles. Thirteen articles on abuses involving war(s), military, ‘generals’ games, prison and torture … You want to check it for yourself:

Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here. Point made, no?

Then I picked the last 2.5 years of the Bush administration, and here is the number of articles written by Mr. Hersh:

10 articles. Ten articles. Ten slamming, thunder-making, hard-hitting investigative articles. Here they are:

Here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here.

Finally, I did my best to exclude factors such as death, being laid-off, major illness, etc. I could not find any of those factors. I also took into consideration the ‘writing book(s)’ factor, and when I compared the status on that factor for the same time period during the Bush-Cheney administration and Obama’s presidency, I found them to be pretty equal.

With all this, I raise the question: Is this a case of the left’s hypocrisy? Why have we been getting no dial tone when we dial Seymour Hersh-New Yorker? Is this a pure & simple case of blinded and biased partisanship that says: If Obama (A Democrat) Does ‘it’ we simply won’t cover it?! And, what do ‘you’ say?

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The Obama Campaign team has finalized its core message and marketing platform for the 2012 presidential elections. After several months of intense debate and ‘market research,’ the Obama Presidency ‘marketing executives’ have put together yet another simple and short ‘market catch phrase’ which may be proved brilliant, depending upon the degree of IQ decline and level of backbone reduction among its Democratic Base. And, no; the catch phrase is not ‘change.’ The new marketing makeover will be centered on the ‘They made me do it!’ message.

According to one of my inside sources, who did not wish to be named in this article for the fear of losing her/his ‘insider’ title and becoming a total outsider, an absolute ‘no no’ inside the Capital Beltway;

‘We must give credit where credit is due, and in this case credit for the platform message goes to the President’s die hard supporters, who have refused to give up on their president, and this despite the fact that everything changed on changes promised to them. We never expected this level of blind loyalty, and I must tell you, the president is riveted and hopeful…counting on this core base to hand him his next term. In a way, the bond between the two, the president and his die hard supporters, is like the marriage vow ‘in good days and in bad…’ except in this case it is even stronger ‘in bad days and in more bad days… and in even worse days…’

During the first year of the Obama presidency his marketing executives were seriously considering a different platform based on a completely different message. Based on their research, all the president’s drastic changes on his promised changes were being justified and excused by the ‘too soon and not enough time to make real changes,’ argument. They rationalized; why not use that as a platform during the next presidential campaign?!

A few Obama team marketing executives gave this proposal serious consideration, while others voiced their doubt on its marketability. The question was – would it be that easy to sell Americans on a core message that said: ‘It always has to get worse before it gets better, and the worst part took four years. I smell the change nearing and I promise you the best four years…if you only elect me again.’

The proponents of the ‘Four Years Is Not Enough to Judge My Presidency’ platform argued that based on history it indeed would sell. After all, the same ‘wanna-be-believers’ had totally disregarded Obama’s actual record prior to his candidacy, and despite all contradictions they‘d fallen for him, so why not this time? The opponents found the notion to be a bit too risky to gamble on, and they pointed to unpredictable factors such as an ‘increase in fatty fish consumption during the next four years, thus a significant increase in brain activity and logical reasoning ability among voters.’  In the end no decision was reached, and the proposal was placed in a ‘possible’ marketing platform folder.

The inspiration for now the finalized 2012 Presidency Platform came from the hard-core Obama supporters who have been consistent in shifting the blame from Obama, their choice of candidate and president, to various figureheads.

By 2010 the ‘too soon to judge him now’ crowd began switching to a new position based on ‘blame transfer & whine’. Die-hard supporters started to portray their president as a ‘victim.’ They chose the miserably failing war policies of Obama as a battle ground, where Obama the victim was constantly beaten by the big bad generals who kept making him do all the bad things based on even worse strategies. The evil generals were behind all Obama’s failed strategies and policies when it came to Afghanistan. So what if those generals were handpicked by Obama and kept in position by him? So what if Obama happened to be Commander in Chief and these evil generals’ ultimate boss? Inconvenient realities and details like that were discarded and poo pooed by these supporters; and with the mainstream media and the Woodward(s) of the propaganda machine as collaborators why would logical points like that matter anyway?

The brilliant Obama marketing team knew it the moment this ‘blame & whine’ shift started. They had found their magic potion for 2012. They would take it from here and turn this into a major campaign blitz. They would make Obama’s disastrous presidential record irrelevant, since none of it had anything to do with him. ‘They made him do it; all of it!’

The ‘They Made Me Do It!’ campaign preparation and packaging has now neared completion.  Of course, with two more years to go, it is still a work in progress and there will be additional points and complementary strategies. However, for a man famous for reinventing himself frequently and possessing a salesmanship knack that has been the envy of accomplished snake oil salesmen everywhere, it is never too early to start. He has already begun working with his bosses on the base speech to be used and modified for selected communities and audience groups.

The following is believed to be President Obama’s draft speech for his 2012 campaign platform – its authenticity is left to the readers: Read more È

As 2009 has given way to 2010, chants of ‘Yes, we can’ have given away to groans of “What the hell?�  There is no question the turn of events in the last month or two has dealt a severe blow to American liberalism.  The Democratic Party, which thought itself on the verge of creating a new, lasting coalition after eight years of Republican misrule and the near collapse of the U.S. economy in 2008 propelled them to power, now find themselves with their backs against the wall.  Barack Obama simultaneously managed to dishearten his base while mobilizing his conservative opposition.  This has led to a perfect political storm in which nothing of real substance has changed from the Bush years, yet somehow the fans of Rush Limbaugh believe Socialism has been imposed on the nation.  

Even though many progressives knew little about then-Senator Barack Obama, we were so disgusted with the Bush Administration and nearly thirty years of Republican domination (in one form or another) we were willing to give Obama a chance to bring his “change� to America.   As it turned out, those of us who were so excited about the historic moment of electing America’s first African American President had seriously deluded ourselves.  Nothing in Obama’s brief voting record as a U.S. Senator indicated he was a politician with any cojones whatsoever.  Obama did not wait long to disappoint.  Even before taking office, he began choosing for his staff and cabinet the same kind of people Hillary Clinton would have chosen.  Then there was, of course, the Rod Blagojevich scandal, which reminded us all of the corrupt political culture that has pervaded the city from whence Obama cut his political teeth.  Citing all the betrayals Obama, in my view, has made since taking office would take up too much space:  From the choice of Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary to Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff to the decision to conduct a surge in Afghanistan, Obama has really bent over backward to piss liberal voters off.

Republicans have a different view.  Somehow, they think Obama’s stimulus plan constituted ‘socialism’, even though it was composed of only slightly more money spent than Bush’s bank bailout in 2008.  The conservatives then screamed about a “government takeover of health care�, even though the health care plan proposed had far more input from insurance and drug companies than it did from followers of Marx or Lenin.  The one issue the Republicans are correct about is that all the additional social spending has driven up the federal deficit, but it is quite odd the chronic deficits never bothered conservatives much when they were being run up by the previous Administration.    Nevertheless, as little evidence as there is to support the conservative standpoint, their views have held out, especially amongst independents, who are flocking back to Republicans.  The proof of the independent defection to the GOP was demonstrated by the political earthquake that occurred recently when the Massachusetts Senate seat left open by the death of Ted Kennedy went to a Republican, Scott Brown, effectively killing health care reform and putting Obama’s Presidency on life support.  The loss signals a virtual slaughter of Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections.  If Obama goes by Bill Clinton’s playbook, he’ll soon choose a Dick Morris-style sleazebag political consultant and bend over backwards to Corporate America (as if he could bend anymore than he already has) in order to amass a war chest meant to destroy any serious competition.   In the meantime, he’ll sign legislation further moving him and his Party from any pretense of progressive ideals.  In other words, Obama will continue to sell us all down the river, only at a faster rate.  Thus, the Democratic base that organized so well to help win Obama the election will be even further marginalized.

Adding insult to injury, the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that corporations and unions can spend unlimited amounts of cash to support or defeat candidates in elections.  This means that, soon, politicians in the Democratic Party are to become even less likely to fight for real reform (if such a thing is possible), as they become cowed by the prospect of multimillion-dollar smear campaigns to defeat them, the likes of which happened to John Kerry in the 2004 election, only worse.  Liberals will be implored to stay on board:  We will be warned that America has turned rightward and more bellicose and we must support the Democrats as the most progressive choice that is politically possible. Read more È

The real face of our two-party but one-establishment system of politics seems to have made a rare appearance again with Obama’s speech last Tuesday. That is, to those among the wannabe gullible majority, since a small fraction have known this true face for a while. The good news is that finally we are seeing a significant number of apologists who are coming to the realization of being taken for a ride during this last election. The not so good news has to do with the depth of this new realization, thus the extreme vulnerability of being misdirected and exploited again, over and over, as has been done for decades.

Last May I put forth a discussion topic on the issue of casting votes based on the ‘lesser of two evils’ decision-making process. Here are the questions I posed back then, which I am posing again now that we have more people waking up to smell their new Whitehouse Roses:

“Don’t you consider this, at least to a degree, to be acceptance of ‘no hope for real change’ when it matters the most, during elections? First, to readily accept that we are limited to only choices that have been declared as viable by the same MSM and establishment we seek to change. Second, to helplessly adopt a mindset that says evilness is an inevitable prerequisite for viable candidates.�

Then this on the fallacy of justifying one’s choice-making process based on the ‘degree of evilness’:

“When it comes to ‘evilness,’ there is no reliable standard of measurement. Let’s say, for example, that the pre-selected options are: Senator Obama, Senator Clinton, and Senator McCain. How do you measure their degree of ‘evilness?’ For arguments sake, let’s say there is a ‘standard of evilness’ measurement, and when applied to these candidates you get the following data: on a scale of ‘0 to 100’ on the evilness measurement index (‘100’ being absolute evil, ‘0’ being no evil qualities), McCain ranks 98, Clinton 96, and Obama 94. Based on this do people feel justified in voting for the lesser of the given three, even though that candidate still ranks extremely high in ‘evilness’? I’m just asking. I really want to get your take on this.�

Many referred to the previous administration’s figureheads as evil; many of us would find that aptly put and easily justified. After all, they sanctioned torture practices, extraordinary rendition, and world-wide assassinations; they took away civil liberties and put in place police practices ironically named the Patriot Act; they increased secrecy and decreased (ceased) accountability; they established untouchability and granted themselves immunity fit for kings, such as the State Secrets Privilege invocations; they spied on and illegally wiretapped Americans with no cause or oversight; they lied and engaged in preemptive wars … Read more È

Just Asking

Last week Jeremy Scahill covered a very interesting story over at his blog titled ‘Paramilitary Thug with Long History with Top US Democrats Arrested for War Crimes.’ The story is about Agim Ceku who commanded the ethnic cleansing operations in Yugoslavia in 90s, and then headed KLA, an organization labeled ‘terrorist’ by the US government. I briefly covered the issues related to KLA and it’s tainted and biased coverage by the US MSM in ‘The Forbidden Apple of the US Press, and talked about their burial of the dark side of KLA and our government’s partnership with them as just another example of our hypocrisy-ridden foreign policy.

Back to Scahill’s nicely-done piece, and a summary of the case provided in the introduction paragraph:

“A US-trained paramilitary figure from the Balkans with a lengthy history with leading Clinton-era Democrats, including some now in the Obama administration, has been arrestedin Europe on an Interpol warrant for war crimes. Agim Ceku, an Albanian from Kosovo, is a former Croatian Army General who was trained by the private US security firm Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI) during the Clinton Administration. Ceku, backed by the US, would go on to become the “prime minister� of Kosovo despite the fact that he was responsible for some of the worst acts of “ethnic cleansing� in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and was the leader of a paramilitary organization with drug trade ties, which Clinton’s top envoy to Kosovo called a “terrorist� organization.�

For the purpose of my coverage please put your own emphasis on “…the leader of a paramilitary organization with drug trade ties.� Now a bit more on Ceku as the darling of the US government and its extension, NATO:

“Gen. Wesley Clark, the former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, worked with Ceku when Clark led the bombing of Kosovo. “[Ceku] could have been in anybody’s army and done well,� saidClark in 2007.�

And two important excerpts for my purposes with emphasis added:

“Despite US intelligence that indicatedthat the KLA was a terrorist organization with ties to narco-trafficking and networks connected to Osama bin Laden, the Clinton Administration embraced the organization as its proxy armed force on the ground in Kosovo in 1998-1999.�
…

“This is not the first time Ceku has been arrested. In 2003, he was detained in an airport in Slovenia and in 2004 at the airport in Budapest. In May 2009, he was deported from Columbia.�

Since the story’s main focus is on Ceku’s role in ethnic cleansing and our shameful diplomatic relations – based on even more shameful objectives and foreign policy, there is no explanation for Ceku’s trip to and stay in Colombia. We already know he is connected to Narco-Trafficking, and we know the importance of the Balkan Route to the heroin industry. But what the hell was Ceku doing in Colombia? Is there some sort of a barter system, heroin-for cocaine and vice versa within the industry? Again, keep this thought for what’s to follow. Reported as an update by Scahill, interestingly but expectedly, due to “international interventionâ€� Ceku was ordered released the next day, on Thursday, June 25.

Hmmmm, international intervention? That makes it NATO-US.

I do follow Scahill’s reports and editorial pieces regularly, and he is one of very few journalists out there whom I respect. This piece got my attention especially, and brought back memories of another story I followed personally for over a year: Jan Willem Matser, another NATO Thug.

Jan Willem Matser, a Dutch Lieutenant Colonel in Staff to NATO Secretary General George Robertson in charge of Eastern Europe, whose job gave him access to classified NATO material, was arrested on February 2003 in Wemmel, Belgium, and charged with trying to launder at least $200 million for an international drug cartel from his office at the alliance’s HQ in Brussels. Other criminals involved in Matser’s case were Mohammed Kadem, a Moroccan, and Pietro Fedino, a wealthy Sicilian with a previous conviction for cocaine smuggling.

Here is some background as reported by Times UK :

“According to documents seen by The Sunday Times, the investigation began last September after customs police at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam received a tip-off about a FedEx parcel sent from Colombia [Emphasis Added] to an address in the Netherlands. The parcel was found to contain a receipt for a £120m deposit at a bank in Bogotá [Emphasis Added] and a fake document authorising the transfer of the same amount of money to Tender SA, a company registered in the Romanian town of Timisoara. The company is not suspected of any wrongdoing.�

And here some more background on the investigations from the same report by Times UK:

“The information was passed to a police unit working for the Dutch finance ministry that specializes in combating organised crime. The package was fitted with a bug and resealed. It was allegedly received by Fedino, who is suspected by the Dutch police of being an Italian mafia boss. Five agents monitored him around the clock and listened to his telephone calls. It was this surveillance that led police to Matser. In a call taped on September 7, a man later identified as Matser said he was “going to be leaving NATO in half an hour�.�

And more,

“In a further conversation, on December 27, Matser allegedly said: “I’ll make false documents for the entire transaction . . . It’s no problem; my computer’s very patient and I can even recreate the official notary seals from old documents.� Matser also held several meetings with his alleged accomplices. One meeting with Kadem on Christmas Eve at the Airport hotel in Rotterdam was filmed by the surveillance team. Kadem was already the focus of four international drug investigations and had been sought by Interpol since 1996.�Investigators believe Matser helped to set up the scheme when Nato sent him to Romania last year to instruct central European intelligence chiefs on how to raise standards.�

Here comes another very interesting connection:

“Matser — an assistant to Chris Donnelly, Robertson’s special adviser for central and eastern Europe — is believed to have used his contacts in Romania’s domestic secret service to arrange meetings with senior members of the government. He is thought to have told them of plans to launch a fund, backed by wealthy individuals and middle-ranking investors that would invest £1.8 billion in Romania. This was to begin with the purchase of Petrom, oil refining company, and Libra Bank [Emphasis Added]�

Interestingly Dick Cheney’s Halliburton happened to be another contender for control of Romania’s Petrom. Here is the ‘Interesting’ Connection:

“Matser and Tender are further connected by their failed attempt to gain control of PETROM National Society (SNP), a soon-to-be privatized Romanian oil-company, which produces 10% of the Romanian GDP. Tender, Matser and Halliburton formed a consortium in an effort to gain controlling stakes – 51% estimated to be worth approx. US$ 1 billion. A few days following the announcement of this trio’s interest, Matser was arrested. Subsequently, Romania’s Economy Ministry has made it known that the consortium had not met its criteria and was no longer being considered.â€�

Sanders Research has one of the very few analyses of Matser’s case, here are a few excerpts:

“Matser had a suspiciously large amount of money to invest, as the Dutch police found out. They discovered in Matser’s apartment papers from a Romanian holding company, Tender SA, owned by the tycoon Ovidiu Tender. Matser said that he had frequently carried out such money transfers with Tender, whom he had met at a NATO-related conference in the Romanian mountain resort of Sinaia in April 2002, [2] and who is often described as being “close� to the Romanian president, Ion Iliescu. Tender was interviewed by the Dutch investigators, and he told them that he had attended a meeting between Matser and the Romanian prime minister, Adrian Nastase, at which Matser had announced that he had no less than $2 – 3 billion to invest. In the latter half of 2002, Matser nearly concluded the purchase of a Libra Bank in Romania. [3] And it seems that he may have been interested in using his money to buy a stake in the Romanian oil giant, Petrom, in which Tender also has an interest. (Oddly enough, another contender for control of Romania’s petro-chemical industry was none other than Hallburton, the company which used to be headed by Vice-President Dick Cheney[Emphasis Added].�

Do you want to get a good chuckle? Here is how Matser tried to explain the source of his fortune:

“Matser claimed that he had such gigantic sums at his disposal because he ran a sort of freelance brokerage business in the short-term money markets. He claimed that he operated on a 40% commission for companies seeking short-term loans, and that with this business he had amassed a fortune which he wanted to invest. Specialists consulted during the trial said this was simply impossible. But because he was friendly with numerous notorious criminals, his activities started to arouse suspicion, in particular that he was involved in laundering money for drug dealers. Although Matser was in fact acquitted of complicity in organised crime, his two co-defendants had previous convictions for drug dealing and fraud. And he was friendly with Mohammed Kadem, a Moroccan who is alleged to be one of the biggest drug dealers in the Netherlands.�

And here is how NATO tried to wiggle its way out of this (well, as you will see later, in the end it did!):

“What is clear is that Matser not only had connections with numerous very powerful criminals – the phone number of his co-defendant, Pietro Fedino, the notorious Italian Mafioso [5], was in his mobile – but also that he had astonishingly high-level political contacts too. On his arrest and conviction, NATO insisted that he was merely a junior employee of the association, and thus tried to dissociate itself from his conviction. But if he was so junior, how did he manage to hold meetings with the Romanian prime minister, or to meet the most powerful men in the country? And how was it that he saw Lord Robertson, Secretary-General of the Atlantic Alliance, nearly every day? Matser even used to use the headed paper of the Secretary-General for his own personal notes.�

NATO or its defendants never answered the following question that arose from the Matser Case, I guess they didn’t have to; after all, they are ‘NATO’:

“The silence has been deafening which has greeted the revelation that NATO officials consort with some of the biggest gangsters in organised crime. Yet it is obvious what questions Matser’s convictions throws up. What did Matser’s bosses at NATO, including the Secretary-General, know about his criminal activities? How can a NATO official, with all the security controls which such a post implies, entertain friendship and business contacts with well-known gangsters and criminals? How can he amass such stupendous sums of money while holding down a full-time office job?�

Guess what? As with Scahill’s Agim Ceku, despite serious charges supported by tons of evidence Matser was mysteriously acquitted.

“A Dutch court on 27 January acquitted former NATO official Jan Willem Matser of charges he attempted to launder $200 million by channeling money from a Colombian bank account to Belgium via Romania, AP and AFP reported (see “RFE/RL Newsline,” 14 January 2004). The judge said prosecutors had failed to support the money-laundering charges. Matser was found guilty of forgery and fraud on two other accounts and was sentenced to 14 months in prison, but was ordered released because he has already served two-thirds of the sentence in pretrial detention. He was given three years’ probation.â€�

No ‘real’ explanation has ever been provided for his acquittal. Matser was convicted of forgery but acquitted of other charges, including belonging to a criminal organization. Yap, that’s the kind of immunity you get if you are a NATO man directly or indirectly. The organization seems to work like a network set up to advance large scale criminal operations.

And finally, even more interestingly, this story which became the front page news for days, even weeks, in Dutch and Romanian media, received ‘0,’ that is ‘zero,’ as in ‘zilch’ coverage in the USA media. Go check it for yourself. Enter Matser’s name in any news search engine of your choice and wait for the results. Seriously, go and do it. You’ll see 3 or 4 pieces in English, in UK papers, and NOTHING here in the United States of America. I don’t have to wonder why. Do you?

Cartoon by Paul Jamiol