President Obama appears to have run out of Non-Neocon candidates to appoint for crucial positions. After one year with no ambassador to fill the position in Azerbaijan, the President reached out to and appointed a young neocon with a tangled web of conflicts. I am talking about a neocon and his wife, a duo who for the last decade and a half have been attached to figures such as Michael Rubin, Barry Rubin, Daniel Pipes, Richard Perle, Robert Novak…We have here a fairly young to-be-ambassador neocon, whose lavish wedding in Turkey could not have been possible without the generosity of those involved in the Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline projects, and corrupt figureheads in Azerbaijan politics…This is about a shady neocon figure with a shadier role in the almost-forgotten Georgia-Russia incident a couple of years ago…We are talking about neocon Matt Bryza and his more-of-a-neocon think-tank damsel Zeyno Baran; President Obama’s choice for  the ambassadorship in Azerbaijan.

Last Thursday Mr. Bryza was on the defensive when he appeared before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. While the general MSM coverage placed its main focus on Bryza’s questionable actions, actually lack of actions, on the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflicts and incidents involving the desecration of ancient Armenian gravesites in the town of Julfa in the Azerbaijani exclave of Naxcivan, very little coverage was given to his even greater baggage and background.  Here is one of those cursory coverages I’m talking about:

Bryza also pledged to not let his personal life affect his work. His wife, Zeyno Baran, is of Turkish origin, which some Armenian critics say leads to an anti-Armenian bias. Baran, who was present at the hearing, has also been cited as a source of potential conflict of interest for Bryza in terms of energy politics. She works for the Hudson Institute, a Washington-based think-tank which receives funding from ExxonMobile and other energy companies. Azerbaijan is a key “southern corridor” country for planned increases in gas shipment from the Caspian region to Europe.

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Bryza’s neocon damsel’s past and present, and her various business and close associations are only the tip of a gigantic iceberg. But rest assured, our media and Congress will not go ‘there’, of course, without being forced to do so, that is.

So who is this quietly conceived hatched Neocon Larva, Matt Bryza?

As before I am going to start with the common pedigree chosen by our shallow MSM journalist friends and the like; the type that doesn’t raise many (if any) flags, at first glance:

Matthew J. Bryza is a diplomat who became Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in June 2005. Two months ago President Obama appointed him as the US Ambassador to Azerbaijan. Here is a canned description of his job as a ‘diplomat’:

In this capacity, he is responsible for policy oversight and management of U.S. relations with countries in the Caucasus and Southern Europe. He also leads U.S. efforts to advance peaceful settlements of the separatist conflicts of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and works with the Special Negotiator for Eurasian Conflicts to advance a settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Additionally, Bryza coordinates U.S. energy policy in the regions surrounding the Black and Caspian Seas. He also works with European countries on issues of tolerance, social integration, and Islam.

In April 2001, Bryza joined the National Security Council as Director for Europe and Eurasia, with responsibility for coordinating U.S. policy on Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Caspian energy.

Bryza served as the deputy to the Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy from July 1998 to March 2001. In this capacity, Bryza coordinated the U.S. Government’s inter-agency effort to develop a network of oil and gas pipelines in the Caspian region.During 1997-1998, Bryza was special advisor to Ambassador Richard Morningstar, coordinating U.S. Government assistance programs on economic reform in the Caucasus and Central Asia.

Bryza served at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow during 1995-1997, first as special assistant to Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering, then as a political officer covering the Russian Duma, the Communist Party, and the Republic of Dagestan in the North Caucasus.

He worked on European and Russian affairs at the State Department during 1991-1995.Bryza served in Poland in 1989-1991 at the U.S. Consulate in Poznań and the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, where he covered the Solidarity movement, reform of Poland’s security services, and regional politics.

At first glance the above description is about a good ole boring tie-wearing State Department bureaucrat who was docile and boring enough to last through four administrations: Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., and now, Obama; that and the fact that the guy has been climbing the ladder steadily and rather quickly. Taking a closer look, if we have enough interest and if we are paying attention, our man’s operational file stands out a bit:

Caucasus, Central Asia, Eurasia, Caspian Sea, Turkey, Russia, Dagestan, Georgia…

Look just a little bit closer and you’ll notice even more important key works associated with key operations falling within the real interest of the key people:

Caspian Basin, Caspian Energy, Energy Diplomacy, Islam, Oil & Gas Pipelines…

You and I know that ‘they’ don’t put just any good ole boring bureaucrat in positions dealing with the above key regions and dealing with the above key operations and issues. Right? Right. So back to the real question: who is this Matt Bryza? How did he get his start? Whose protégé was he to make it this far this fast? Who are his buddies? The answers to some of these questions take time and real effort to discover, since you won’t find them by browsing through MSM news archives or biographical synapses posted here and there…

Let’s start with the key person leading to Bryza’s acceptance and entry as a larva into the nest of the major neocon players, and his speedy ascent thereafter:

Richard Morningstar & His Closeted Neocon Status

From Morningstar’s commonly cited pedigree sheet we know that he and Bryza collected degrees from Stanford University, which later led to their mentor-protégé relationship. In 1997 Bryza  became special advisor to Ambassador Richard Morningstar, coordinating U.S. Government assistance programs on economic reform in the Caucasus and Central Asia during 1997-1998. Digging a little bit more:

In 1998 Bryza was Morningstar’s chief lieutenant in managing U.S. Caspian Sea energy interests as Deputy to the Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State on Caspian Basin Energy Diplomacy, where he remained until March of 2001, and he worked on developing what are now U.S. and Western plans to circumvent Russia and Iran and achieve dominance over the delivery of energy supplies to Europe.

Interestingly, last year, one year before Obama appointed Bryza as an Ambassador to Azerbaijan, on April 20, 2009, Morningstar was appointed to the role of supporting U.S. energy goals in the Eurasian region. Morningstar was special advisor to the Clinton administration on Caspian energy; time to reunite the old mentor and his protégé for the next attempt on the Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline.

Morningstar’s status as one of the power player neocons has been long closeted.. During the 90s he was working with and serving one of the main agendas of Neocon players such as Elliott Abrams, Dick Cheney, Frank Gaffney, Paul Wolfowitz …People tend to pay attention only to the top 25 signatories and contributors of Project for the New American Century-PNAC. Yes, that infamous list also includes the Neocons shining star for Central Asia & the Caucasus, Mr. Richard L. Morningstar.

Conn Halinan’s counterpunch article in 2004 aptly highlights an important fact when it comes to the Haliburtons, Perles and Wumsers and their Project for the New American Century (PNAC) as it relates to Central Asia:

The recent move of oil companies and the U.S. military into Central Asia is a case in point. It was President Bill Clinton, not George W. Bush, who crafted that strategy. It was not the Republicans who brought Halliburton and Cheney into the Caspian region, but Clinton advisor Richard Morningstar, now a John Kerry point man.

Halinan is right on target: Clinton appointee Morningstar paved the way for Dick Cheney’s Halliburton’s positioning in Central Asia, and did darn many other good deeds for the main signatories of the Neocon Wet Dream in that region.

Morningstar is also known as one of those who take their allegiances to Israel above anything else. You may remember the questions surrounding Douglas Feith’s and Rahm Emanuel’s Israel citizenship status. I haven’t seen anyone questioning Mr. Morningstar’s status in Israel; at least not on the record, but Morningstar and his family are known as staunch supporters of Israel with close ties over there. Morningstar’s mother’s, the late Jane Morningstar, obituary in the Boston Globe provides only a little initial glimpse; others with far deeper knowledge of Morningstar’s real Israel connections would currently rather whisper…Time may raise the volume on these closeted facts, or may not.

The latest articles regarding Matt Bryza’s connection to the Neocons are limited to his connection through his wife, Zeyno Baran. Either intentional censorship or ignorance glosses over his close neocon ties which started long before his marriage, going back to his early years under his mentor Morningstar, and accelerating steadily, assisting his speedy career ascent.  Just check out his event calendar to see how his name pairs up with tneocon brand names when it comes to functions, speeches, think-tank gatherings…

Matt Bryza & His Neocon Damsel

In 2007 Matt Bryza married Zeyno Baran, a Turkish-American neocon who’s been working for the Hudson Institute and before that for the Nixon Center. Here are a few of her titles and areas of expertise highly valued and marketed by her current neocon mentors and bosses such as Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Conrad Black, Abram Shulsky…: Director of the Center for Eurasian Policy, Director of International Security and Energy Programs, Director of the Caucasus Project.

Baran and her colleagues and mentors are closely associated with the Turkish Ultra-Nationalist (Ulusalcis) movement and figures, including the military figures involved in the Ergenekon scandal:

The think tanks actively engaging the Turkish Ulusalcıs are AEI, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the Hudson Institute. The institutional relations between the American neo-cons and the Turkish Ulusalcıs are run by the office of Dick Cheney, Richard Perle of AEI and Zeyno Baran of the Hudson Institute on the American side and, on the other side, by Mustafa Süzer, former owner of Kentbank and a close associate of Perle, and İlhan Selçuk, “big brother” of Cumhuriyet. Süzer’s meetings with Dick Cheney were disclosed in the Turkish press and never denied by either side. Selçuk is also reported to have spoken with Cheney’s advisors and established a back-channel with the US vice president’s office through Elçin Poyrazlar, the Washington representative for Cumhuriyet. Writing in the Yeni Şafak daily, Taha Kıvanç claimed that this back-channel had already been established before the American occupation of Iraq and that Selçuk had promised the Americans Turkey’s support in return for American neo-con support for the Turkish Ulusalcıs to come to power in Ankara.

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It was also claimed that State Department diplomat Matthew Bryza, long-time boyfriend and, more recently, husband of Zeyno Baran, was the person who wrote the declaration read by Fried that gave the Turkish military the “green light” by saying that the Americans were not on any side of the discussion. The extent to which Bryza was influenced by his wife is not known, but the similarities in their rhetoric against the AK Party are striking. Baran, who was already a controversial figure due to her involvement in the infamous Hudson Institute meeting, her article in Newsweek that predicted a military coup in 2007 and her involvement with the colored revolutions in Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Ukraine…

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Despite her deranged mother,  who has been calling Turkish reporters, harassing and asking them to write about her daughter’s IQ level (her claim on that went from ‘over 100’ to ‘120,’ and during the Bryza-Baran wedding to ‘158’ IQ points!!), the overly ambitious Zeyno Baran’s idiotic move to preempt Ergenekon by publicly ‘predicting’ the attempted coup backfired, and cast doubt on this Nuevo Neocon’s intelligence and tactfulness. What she wanted: to grab attention and score points among her neocon mentors and colleagues. What happened: she exposed the mutually dependent relationship between her bosses and the ultra-nationalist rogue Turkish generals, and brought into the light the active role played by US neocons in the coup plot in Turkey. This major booboo alone was enough to take 15 points off her average IQ. Later in this article we’ll go over another major Baran booboo on the financial sources of her lavish wedding, leaving her very few remaining IQ points…

The Lavish Wedding, the Wedding Financiers, and the Mafia

In 2007, after several years of a personal and close work relationship, Matt Bryza and Zeyno Baran were married in Turkey. The ultra lavish wedding and its highly interesting list of 400 plus guests made the front-page of many Turkish newspapers and magazines, but that publicity was nothing compared to the subsequent media coverage, and of course, the cost to two brave Azerbaijani journalists who exposed the ‘real financiers’ of Bryza-Baran’s lavish wedding and it’s true implications. Let’s start with the ‘highly costly’ wedding, the ‘special guests,’ the exposed financiers, and those who tried to expose them. Here is a snapshot of the costly wedding:

The location:  In one of the most expensive club houses in Istanbul. To rent the space Bryza-Baran were given a ‘special’ discount by a ‘very special’ Turkish mafia connected friend (the infamous owner of the Galatasaray Soccer Team); Instead of $80K the rent was reduced to around $35K.

Number of Guests: around 450; many power-players from the Caspian energy field, including political figureheads from Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Georgia, and of course the USA.

Wedding Security: 250 policemen were hired and put in place for protection; several K-9 police dogs were brought in for search purposes. In addition to all this Bryza-Baran hired 20 additional private bodyguards.

The Groom’s Best Men & Witnesses: One of the three best men and witnesses for Matt Bryza was none other than Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.

The Designer Gown & Suit: The couple purchased their gown & tuxedo from the famous designer Vakko; the total cost for this is said to be over $10K

The famous quote of the wedding: This couplehood was formed by the Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline Project- – - Turkish Energy Minister, Hilmi Guler.

This is just a snapshot of the ultra lavish wedding, which nearly 300 state and private security personnel were hired to serve. The estimated cost for Mr. Bryza’s lavish story-book wedding in Turkey ranges from $150,000 to $250,000. Customarily this amount would have been paid by the bride’s parents. However, neither Mrs. Baran-Bryza’s mother, father, or step-father could or would dish out this amount. Of course, a bill in this amount paid by Matt Bryza would have raised way too many eyebrows here in the US. So what happened? Who did finance this wedding extravaganza?

Be careful. Be very careful. Because when two journalists tried to answer these same questions they ended up being attacked, beaten up, stabbed,  arrested, tortured…and one of them  had to escape the country. That’s right. In Turkey, between Bryza-Baran’s rouge powerful general friends and of even more powerful mafia babas, they made sure no journalist dared venture into these questions. Here in the United States no real bodily force or threat was necessary, since the State Department’s stenographers in the MSM censored the entire episode. However, in Azerbaijan two brave journalists dared, and this is what happened to them:

Did a high-level Azeri official pay for Matthew Bryza’s 2007 wedding to Turkish author Zayna Baran? A swift crackdown on two journalists who reported at the time that the wedding ceremony for President Obama’s current nominee for the US ambassadorship to Baku was funded by Azerbaijan’s Economic Development minister suggests some misconduct.

In 2007, the editor of opposition newspaper Azatliq, Genimet Zahid and correspondent Adil Khalil were sued over an article entitled “Azerbaijanis Paid for Matthew Bryza’s Wedding.” The article alleges that Azeri Economic Development minister Haydar Babayev paid for a significant portion of Bryza’s wedding, which took place in Istanbul the same year. At the time, Bryza was the US co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group, the body tasked with mediating a peace deal for the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

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During the appellate process, both of which were ruled in favor of the minister, Khalil was severely beaten and stabbed. Reportedly he fled to France. Meanwhile, Zahid was sentenced to four years in jail on a separate charge of “hooliganism.”Zahid’s lawyers last fall appealed to the International Court of Human Rights, arguing that charges against their client was a violation of Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects freedom of expression. The appeal to the court also charges that the journalists were not granted a fair trial.

The swift action by Minister Babayev signals that the Azadliq article had merit. The editor’s unwillingness to retract, coupled with the swift court rulings and the subsequent attacks on the journalists, suggest that there was more to Bryza’s Istanbul nuptials than a mere wedding ceremony.

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Think about it for a second. The exposé written by the Azerbaijani journalist duo was most damaging to whom? In a country ruled by despots, father Aliyev and now Aliyev the son, riddled by corruption and atrocities, this piece of information does nothing in terms of touching, even coming close to touching, those in power; has no effect – one scandal among thousands. But how about Bryza-Baran? A neocon operator ready to be appointed as Ambassador to Azerbaijan; not wanting anything to interfere with his confirmation. A mini neocon woman working under a powerful group of Neocons whose eyes have been set on the region; getting ready to make their pipeline dreams come true-fruits of which will be collected by their upper echelon bosses.  How did it go? Did Bryza call his wedding financiers, his best man, his government official guests of honor in Azerbaijan, and ask them to shut these journalists up before the ‘facts’ reach here and get distributed? Or was it Bryza’s mentors and colleagues making the request?

Don’t wait for any new developments to reach here from Azerbaijan: With one of the journalists sitting in jail, the other one hiding in fear somewhere in France (where Turkish ultra-nationalist operators have quite a reach), and of course, the rest of the journalist community getting the message loud and clear, thus not willing to touch upon the scandal…well, it won’t happen. How about here in the US? Not a single reporter is going to follow up on this massive scandal and it’s far reaching implications. When it comes to State Department operatives: ‘can’t touch this.’

Matt Bryza: Highly Criticized Role in Russia-Georgia Conflict

Let me first provide a little bit of background on Bryza’s role in the region, especially in Georgia and Azerbaijan:

During his four-year stint as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs he has focused on the South Caucasus, and during that period Georgia’s war budget has ballooned from $30 million a year when U.S.-educated Mikheil Saakashvili took power after the nation’s “Rose Revolution” in 2004 to $1 billion last year, a more than thirty fold increase. In the same year, 2008, Azerbaijan’s military spending had grown from $163 million the preceding year to $1,850,000,000, more than a 1000% increase. Much of the money expended for both unprecedented build-ups came from revenues derived from oil sales and transit fees connected with the BTC pipeline Bryza was instrumental in setting up.

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Regarding neighboring Georgia, a German press report on the second day of last August’s war between that nation and Russia stated that “US Special Forces troops, and later US Marines replacing them, have for the last half decade been systematically training selected Georgian units to NATO standards” and “First-line Georgian soldiers wear NATO uniforms, kevlar helmets and body armour matching US issue, and carry the US-manufactured M-16 automatic rifle….” On the first day of the war the Chairman of the Russia’s State Duma Security Committee, Vladimir Vasilyev, denounced the fact that the Georgian President Saakashvili “undertook consistent steps to increase [Georgia's] military budget from $US 30 million to $US 1 billion – Georgia was preparing for a military action.”

And here is how Turkey ties into this:

An Armenian news source the same day detailed that “Most of Georgia’s officers were trained in the U.S. or Turkey. The country’s military expenses increased by 30 times during past four years, making up 9-10 per cent of the GDP. The defense budget has reached $1 billion.”U.S. military grants to Georgia total $40.6 million. NATO member states, including Turkey and Bulgaria, supplied Georgia with 175 tanks, 126 armored carriers, 67 artillery pieces, 4 warplanes, 12 helicopters, 8 ships and boats. 100 armored carriers, 14 jets (including 4 Mirazh-2000) fighters, 15 Black Hawk helicopters and 10 various ships are expected to be conveyed soon.”

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Bryza’s assistance to the Saakashvili government has also extended to backing it in its armed conflicts with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which in the second case escalated into all-out war a year ago.

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The following appeared in the Wall Street Journal in August 2008, albeit with an attempt to portray Bryza’s role more positively:

When Russian tanks rolled out of South Ossetia and into Georgia proper Monday, triggering fears of a full-scale invasion, a man began furiously shoving U.S. diplomat Matthew J. Bryza around the lobby of the Marriott Tbilisi, the capital’s fanciest hotel. “It’s your fault too,” shouted Georgy Khaindrava, a former Georgian minister for conflict resolution. “If you hadn’t propped up Misha Magariya [Misha the strong], we wouldn’t have tanks here now,” he said, referring to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

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The affable Mr. Bryza has developed a reputation as a hard-liner on Russia’s actions towards the former states of the Soviet Union and a staunch defender of both Georgia and the 40-year-old Mr. Saakashvili, with whom he has a close personal relationship.Critics say that has complicated the U.S.-Georgian relationship, possibly diluting State Department warnings to Tbilisi against engaging in a military confrontation with Russia. Some say there were signs for months that Russia was laying a trap for Mr. Saakashvili.

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Do you remember the short-lived justified frenzy over Randy Scheunemann, John McCain’s top foreign policy advisor, and his role involving Georgia? Guess who was one of Scheunemann’s points of ‘frequent’ contact at the State Department?

So let’s take a look at what Scheuneman was actually doing in that role — which helped earn his firm nearly $900,000 since 2004. Lobbying for a foreign government is a vaguely defined task that involves cultivating contacts, trying to shape perception and influence key decisions. For Georgia, the goal was clear — to get on track for NATO membership and secure western backing against Russian influence and aggression. Schuenemann’s dual role of paid foreign agent (as recently as March) and key adviser to a presidential candidate is unusual, especially since McCain has not indicated that Scheunemann will recuse himself from Georgia issues.

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As a paid foreign agent, Scheunemann and his lobbying firm, Orion Strategies, filed disclosure reports with the Department of Justice, which offer some insight into the process of exercising influence in Washington. Scheunemann spent a lot of time working the phones, talking to key Bush Administration officials about Georgia’s efforts to join NATO. He often spoke to Ambassador John Tefft who heads the U.S. embassy in Georgia, as well as Dan Fried and Matt Bryza at the State Department…

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Now let’s hear from the people on the ground on Bryza; the people of Georgia and what they think of Matthew Bryza:

People filed into the Boris Paichadze National Stadium from all over Tbilisi. Unlike the sour grapes that had been standing on Rustavli Avenue for the past month, these people were smiling and light-hearted, at first. One man in his 50s walked by and gave me the wooden eye treatment, stopped, deliberated for a moment, came back and let me have it.

“Where are you from?”

“America.”

“Bandits,” he said. “A nation of criminals. Bryza has support of only two percent, two percent of the people. He’s a faggot and a liar. And Saakashvili, the faggot; he’s got to go.”

It was the first time I had heard Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Matthew Bryza’s name mentioned on the streets of Tbilisi and had no idea what 2 % the gentleman was talking about.

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Back in 2005, Shalva said Bryza’s biased reporting on Georgia and support of the Saakashvili administration undermined both the promotion of democracy in the region and ties between the U.S. and Georgia. He called on the US State dept. to sack him. When he failed to get a visa to Great Britian in February this year, he said UK Ambassador Denis Keefe had conspired against him with Saakashvili, and also demanded Keefe’s dismissal.

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Bryza’s Car Accident, His Victim in a Coma & Never-Answered Questions

In August 1997 Matthew Bryza caused yet another major scandal for the US government when he hit and seriously injured a pedestrian while driving under highly questionable circumstances:

The U.S. State Department on 20 August announced plans to recall Matthew Bryza, a second secretary of the U.S. embassy in Moscow, who two days earlier had been driving a car that hit and critically injured a Moscow pedestrian. Nesterushkin said the criminal case against Bryza will remain open as police continue investigating the accident. Bryza cannot be prosecuted unless the U.S. lifts his immunity. In February, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze lifted the immunity of a Georgian diplomat who caused a car accident in Washington that killed one woman. That diplomat is currently in pre-trial detention in the U.S.

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A U.S. diplomat has seriously injured a woman in a car accident in Moscow, the City Law Enforcement Department told Interfax Tuesday. The car, an Isuzu Trooper driven by Second Secretary of the U.S. Embassy Matthew Bryza, 33, hit an unidentified woman near house 13 Ul. Panferova, the Southwestern precinct, at 10:00 p.m. Moscow time Monday, police have reported. The woman, about 30 years old, was taken to hospital with a serious head injury. She is in a coma.

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Now, interestingly and mysteriously, the reports and results of the criminal investigations into this accident never came to light, and later quietly disappeared. By the way, the United States government never lifted Bryza’s immunity! Based on the buzz circulating at the time ‘they didn’t want anything out there regarding Bryza’s alcohol & narcotics status…’ The rumors included dependency on cocaine and alcohol, but again, a tight lid was put on any media follow-up on this in the US. Considering the grave consequences:

On Thursday, Matthew Bryza will face a Senate panel to begin the confirmation process for his nomination as US Ambassador to Azerbaijan. Will senators question Bryza for his role in a 1997 car accident, which left a woman in a coma? Or, will Bryza avoid responsibility?

The Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and other press sources at the time reported that on August 18, 1997, Bryza hit a woman, who was taken to the hospital with serious head injuries. The US response to this incident was to recall Bryza back to the States and express “regret” for the victim. James Rubin, the official spokesman for the State Department at the time said that the decision to recall Bryza from Moscow was made in connection with the fact that the diplomat “is no longer able to work efficiently in Moscow because of this incident.”

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Again, you’d think with the location being set in Russia in the mid 90s, the fairly high-level government status of the perpetrator, the serious injuries of the victim who was put in a coma, the efforts to keep the name of the victim out of the press, the buzz regarding drug and alcohol…all that would make front-page news here in the US; no? Well, it didn’t. And, here is how Bryza was promoted later, after his scandalous recall from his position:

At the time of the incident, none other than Richard Hoagland, a press spokesman for the US Embassy in Moscow at the time had this to say about Bryza: “I also want to say something about Matt Bryza who comes across in the press reports about this incident as all but a monster. Matt was one of the brightest, most polite, most promising young diplomats at the American Embassy in Moscow. While we have to have compassion for the woman who was injured in this accident, I think it’s important we have compassion for Matt, too, who has suffered the double trauma of having been involved in a traffic accident and of having had his diplomatic career in Moscow abruptly yanked out from under him.”

Hoagland was President George W. Bush’s nominee for the US ambassadorial post in Armenia. His nomination was blocked by Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey, due to Hoagland’s continued insistence to deny the Armenian Genocide. Bush subsequently pulled Hoagland’s nomination.

Bryza was then appointed to be the US co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group and developed close ties with Azeri elite in Baku. News of a high-ranking Azeri minister allegedly paying for Bryza’s wedding to Turkish scholar Zeyno Baran was reported by the Azeri press, after which the editor and reporter of the newspaper were jailed and attacked.

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Here is another good question: What did we give the Russians to not raise a diplomatic incident; to make them make ‘it’ go away?!

We all know what close ties Bryza developed with the corrupt ruling elites, including the Aliyev clan! So is there any wonder how those two brave journalists who exposed the ‘real financing’ of Bryza’s wedding ended up beaten up by elite hired guns, and later tortured and jailed? Hmmmm.

I could triple this article’s length to cover the Father & Son Aliyevs, the Kingdom we’ve groomed and planted in Azerbaijan, the nation we’ve helped turn into one of the top 30 corrupt countries in the world, the embezzlement and corruption cases we’ve helped create there… and, I will; it  will be another lengthy piece similar to those on Kyrgyzstan’s Bakiyev Clan, Pakistan’s Bhutto-Zardari Duo, and Turkey’s Ciller. Needless to say, the cozy ties between Bryza and corrupt Azeri officials, the ‘contributions’ he’s been receiving from them – including making his lavish wedding dreams come true, his ‘pure luck’ in getting the Azeri journalists…certainly come together nicely, forming a picture that makes complete sense!
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Bryza testified before  the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 22. His grilling, while not comprehensive and tough enough, rattled him enough to come across as unconvincing:

Citing Congressional Research Service (CRS), Sen. Boxer also asked why U.S. aid programs in Karabakh were limited to an average of $2 million a year, even though Congress allocated about $8 million annually.Bryza confirmed lower than allocated spending but did not explain it. Instead he said that he supported disbursal of all allocated funds, noting that they have gone for de-mining, housing, schools and water supply projects. In response to the senator’s request, Bryza promised a detailed report on the aid program.

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So the guy doesn’t know what happened to the remaining $6,000,000! Interesting! Is this related to being out of touch with the areas falling under his direct responsibility? Is it related to ‘whatever’ influences he was under in 1997 when he hit a woman and put her in coma? Maybe we’ll find out more later, that is if the media here follows up on this.

Speaking in references to his comments on territorial integrity, Bryza claimed that he was only following the policy language used by Vice President Richard Cheney in September 2008. (In fact, Bryza first made similar comments in August, shortly after the Georgia war and before Cheney.)

There he goes again; this time blaming it on his old boss, yet forgetting his on-the-record record! Is he treating the members of this particular committee as morons? Maybe. Or is this again related to his ‘conditions’ which were never followed-up on by the press?

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who chaired the hearing, referred to The Washington Times report that cited close ties between Bryza and senior Azerbaijani officials and allegations of potential conflict of interest. She also raised the issue of Azerbaijani regime’s crackdown on its opponents.Bryza responded that his finances have been thoroughly investigated as part of the nomination process and no improprieties were found. He also denied an Azerbaijani media report that claimed that his wedding expenses were covered by Azerbaijani officials. (Azerbaijani journalist who originally made the claim was subsequently violently assaulted and has since fled abroad.)

Can you believe how unconvincing a supposed savvy diplomat can be! Who investigated his finances? What was submitted? How about his wife’s long-list of assets in Turkey where they will be protected due to her Turkish citizenship status and mafia backing? The financing of his wedding is a slam-dunk obvious, the question is who in the US media will dare to investigate, or at least translate those reports produced by other nations’ gutsy reporters! And, how about his role in insuring the ultimate punishment for journalists in Azerbaijan who happened to ‘expose’ him and his neocon damsel?!

We have another month or so before Bryza appears before the Congress again, and hopefully much more will come to light between now and then. By this I mean mainly the ‘foreign press’;-) But the real issue here is this newly hatched Neocon’s nomination by the current President in the first place. Is President Obama that keen and committed to keeping and or bringing back known neocons? Is it that this President is unable to find any clean non-Neocon candidates for strategically very important positions like this? Is this President (and his advisors) simply too  ignorant to disregard tons of alarming,  improper, eye-brow raising, embarrassing …background and current facts about the candidate he nominated for this ambassadorship?!

Well, you be the judge, but please do more than that. You may want to call or write your representative and make sure that he or she gets all these facts on Mr. Matthew Bryza and his infamous spouse Zeyno Baran. You never know; with enough people talking, writing, and calling, some right decision may find its way into this upcoming confirmation.
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Kyrgyzstan’s Wanted Fugitive: Maksim Bakiyev. The story is more or less the same – the one that has been repeating itself for many decades.  The one based on a script written by the very same conductors who wrote the ones before, and who will probably be writing the ones to come (yes, they’re blessed with longevity; a curse for the rest of us). The location – always a resource rich country or one strategically crucial to resource rich countries. A viable candidate (sometimes candidates) chosen based on the exact same set of criteria – such as degree of corruptibility, and degree of atrocity or criminal tendencies. The grooming and training locations also are the same: the United States of America or the proxy brother, The United Kingdom. The supporting actors are a combination of old timers, think World Bank or IMF, and newer ones with even fancier names, such as XYZ Democratization and Development Fund, posing as well-intentioned NGOs. Okay, enough with the details, since we are very familiar with this repeating script and its consistent execution – collectively known and referred to as United States Foreign Policy.

The Bakiyev ‘Groom & Plant’ script, like almost all its predecessors, contains the same good ole classical elements: strategically important Central Asian nation, vital US fuel supply artery to keep the war machines humming and destroying in Afghanistan, major artery for transportation of heroin, puppet NATO partnership & the same-o-same-o big bad Russians to compete with, dozens of US NGO’s planted to serve you-know-who’s interests (here is a hint: not the people of Kyrgyzstan nor the American people), a staged and orchestrated revolution by our State Department – named after a innocently beautiful flower – to overthrow the guy who was closer to China & Russia, planting a new corrupt despot clan all carrying the same last name-Bakiyev. Then taking the son, the prince, Maksim Bakiyev, under ‘the mighty’ wings and starting his grooming and training here in the United States, helping the new groomed prince set up companies to corrupt & embezzle, and actually having our CIA operator(s) and politicians partner up with him in these enterprises – allocating  US financial experts, politicians,  and operators to execute a massive embezzlement scheme by the ‘groomed & planted’ prince, later to become a wanted fugitive ‘groomed but no longer planted’ prince with at least $70 million to be rescued and brought under protection…

Basically, with the Bakiyev story we have another all too familiar foreign policy and practices abroad scenario repeating itself. Before I get into that way too familiar story I want to revisit a couple of old ‘groom & plant’ examples I have covered here at Boiling Frogs post, starting with a ‘groomed & planted, and later protected’ Former Prime Minister of Turkey, Ms. Tansu Ciller as a perfect example of a Middle Eastern leader who was selected, declared ‘viable,’ supported, promoted, installed, and protected by our foreign policy script writers:

1. Ms. Ciller completed her advanced degrees in the United States – M.S. from the University of New Hampshire and PhD from the University of Connecticut. During this extended period while she resided in the US we had ample time and opportunity to train and mold her for the leadership position in Turkey.

2. Ms. Ciller was granted citizenship in the United States. In order to keep this fact from tarnishing her image during her candidacy campaign in Turkey and afterwards, we designated her US citizenship status ‘Classified and Top Secret’ on the grounds of Sensitive Diplomatic Relations. To this date, despite all attempts, Turkish authorities have been unable to have these files opened.

3. Ms. Ciller and her husband Ozer Ciller were closely involved with certain CIA operations prior to and after her return to Turkey, and their intimate relationship continued throughout her tenure as Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey. In fact, the CIA’s Roger Tamraz (see BCCI) was their partner in two front companies: ‘Emperyal’, which acquired and operated six (6) Casinos in Turkmenistan, and, ‘Lapis,’ involved with the oil pipeline project.

4. Ms. Ciller and her husband, before being considered ‘viable’ by us, already had an established shady financial past, including involvement in an embezzlement scandal connected to the collapse of ‘Istanbul Bankasi’, one of Turkey’s largest private banks. This along with involvements fortified Ms. Ciller’s qualification criteria when compared to competing applicants.

5. Ms. Ciller understood and participated in Turkey’s important strategic and operational role in the supply and transportation of heroin. She skillfully and very aggressively combined and furthered the marriage between the state military-police-intelligence and the underground heroin industry. Her notoriety even reached the German Courts, where she was accused of supporting and protecting the drug mafia – active not only in Turkey but elsewhere, including Europe and Central Asia.

6. Ms. Ciller played a direct role in scandals involving corruption, embezzlement, and state sponsored terrorism and narcotics operations. The best known scandal, one of her masterpieces, is known as ‘Susurluk’. Ciller and her husband – who is known for his mafia links and dealings, were directly implicated in Susurluk. The high profile kept by Ms. And Mr. Ciller during these scandals and their handling of them afterwards significantly bolstered their ‘value’ and ‘viability’ for us.

7. Ms. Ciller’s ‘known’ wealth is confirmed to be over $50 million, all of which was gained after she became a ‘’viable’ candidate supported directly by the US. A large portion of her investments and accounts are in the United States.

And here is our second example with the almost exact same script, a ‘groomed & planted, and many times rescued’ puppet(s) in Pakistan. I am making that ‘puppet’ plural since the same script happens to extend to the spouse who currently rules, kinda! And here is the list for the Former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Ms. Benazir Bhutto:

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1. Ms. Bhutto obtained her bachelor degree in the United States – BA from Radcliffe College at Harvard University. Later she attended Oxford University in the UK where she pursued International Law and Diplomacy. She spent a total of eight years in the US and UK – 1969-1977. Again, this time spent ‘abroad’ was ideal for the satisfactory grooming of Ms. Bhutto for ‘installment.’

2. Ms. Bhutto was granted British Citizenship and maintained her dual citizenship throughout her career as a candidate and later as the Prime Minister of Pakistan. Her husband, the current President of Pakistan, also received British citizenship and has maintained his dual citizenship to date. The perceived conflict of interest back in her home country did not prove to be an obstacle for ‘us’ or the Bhuttos, thanks to our PR and global image projection activities.

3. Ms. Bhutto and her husband maintained intimate relationships with the underground economy and high level players of the heroin pipeline. Ms. Bhutto was a close ally, protector, and intimate friend of convicted Pakistani Drug Baron and Former Parliamentarian, Ayub Afridi, who like Bhutto, was given protection and safe haven in Dubai, one of our closest allies. These relationships and direct connections, some of which were directly inherited from her father, significantly bolstered Ms. Bhutto’s value for us and our British counterparts.

4. Ms. Bhutto and her husband proved to be desirably ambitious and admirably skilled in using their power, position, and connections, together with our protection, to misuse their proceeds of corruption and embezzlements to accumulate great wealth. Today her husband, who inherited this wealth, is the fifth richest man in Pakistan with a net worth of nearly $2 billion. As confirmation of their successful accumulation of wealth, in the 90s Ms. Bhutto and her husband purchased a 20-bedroom mansion in Surrey, England. They were known for their proficiency in receiving ‘kickbacks.’ Just the kickbacks they received from Swiss Cargo Inspection Companies alone were worth $12 million, which they stashed wisely in offshore companies in Swiss bank accounts.

5. Ms. Bhutto’s Bill of Mental Health was not of much interest. However, she was permitted to transfer credits from her husband, Mr. Ali Asif Zardari. His is a far more interesting mental health record, made all the more interesting since she pledged to place him in an official position of power. He and his ‘mental health’ conditions proved to be extremely useful in ‘necessary’ operations involving murder, drug smuggling, corruption, and embezzlement, thus our making an exception for Ms. Bhutto was justified in this particular case.

6. Ms. Bhutto exhibited great skills in ‘Multiple Image Projection’. With our direct backing and promotion she quickly sold her image as a needed progressive, democratic, and pro humanitarian leader for Pakistan. Just as quickly, at home in Pakistan, she was able to establishherself as equal to if not better than her dictatorial predecessors by sanctioning and carrying out extrajudicial killings, torture, persecution of religious minorities, and arbitrary detention. She also determinedly took extraordinary measures to muzzle the independent media. These skills were also applied to her utilization and exploitation of feministic support. At the same time she was portraying herself as a progressive and feminist example for ‘that’ part of the world, she was making deals and establishing close ties with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, notorious for their abuse of women…

Maksim Bakiyev: A Brief & MSM-Preferred Case Background

Let’s start with the commonly known, easily retrievable Wikipedia and mainstream media based background on Maksim Bakiyev and related recent news.

Who is Maksim Bakiyev? He is the 33 year old, fugitive, Kyrgyz businessman, the younger son of Kyrgyzstan’s former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev. Maksim currently lives in the United Kingdom – where he’s been granted residency and provided with protection (including for his embezzled millions). He studied legal law in Kyrgyzstan. According to his Wikipedia bio:

He received additional education on legal issues in Britain and the US. As a student, Maksim worked in a consultation firm, specializing in investment into emerging markets in Central Asia and the Middle East. Maksim was widely believed to be the richest man in Kyrgyzstan.

Hmmmmmm. What are the major information points missing here? What the heck did he really study in the US and Britain? Which universities? Was it Langley Campus? Where did he reside? McLean, Virginia? What was the name of this mysterious consulting firm specializing in investment into emerging markets in Central Asia & the Middle East? Was it one of James Baker’s firms? Or was it Henry Kissinger’s? Or, was it Carlyle? And, how did he become the richest man in Kyrgyzstan, from having nothing, in less than 5 years?

After skipping over all these important ‘missing links,’ we are fast forwarded to the latest presented by the media and here at Wikipedia:

Maksim was in charge of delivering fuel to the Manas International Airport, which also hosts a US airbase,^[2] through Mina Corp. Maksim was appointed the head of Central Agency for Development in October of 2009. Since the 2010 overthrow he has been charged with embezzlement and abuse of power by the interim government. It is suspected that transferred about $35 million of a $300 million loan from Russia into his private bank accounts.^[3] Prosecutors also allege that companies he owned almost $80 million in taxes on aviation fuel.

And finally, his latest and current status has been summed up below:

When the 2010 uprising took place, Bakiyev was headed to the US for a series of meetings in Washington.^[5] However, he never showed up, and it is believed he spent his time in Latvia. In May Interpol posted Maxim Bakiyev as wanted on its website.

On June 13, 2010 Maksim was arrested in the UK when he landed at Farnborough Airport in Hampshire in a privately hired jet.^[6] He is seeking asylum there, but the interim Kyrgyz government is demanding his extradition. A senior Kyrgyz official warned that the interim government would consider shutting down the Manas US airbase if Britain refuses to hand him over. ^[7] However, this was later denounced by president of Kyrgyzstan, Otunbaeva.

On June 18, 2010, it was reported that Bakiyev was granted temporary asylum in the UK, but this was later refuted by the UK Border Agency. ^[8] He does however have permission to stay pending consideration of request for asylum.

As you can see above, I highlighted another important missing link – a major point that has been so far glossed-over: This fugitive was initially headed to the US for a series of meetings in Washington. And these meetings were set up during and after the scandals involving him coming into the surface. Okay, at The State Department, CIA, and of course the not-so-visible agenda-setters at their companies, think tanks, and front NGOs? Then what happened? I guess  it was decided that he was too hot of a potato in too hot of an environment, so our State Department put a request to their counterparts in Britain to kindly ‘receive and harbor’ their ‘groomed & planted’ Kyrgyz prince…and they did.

So the above information is the sketch, the general story line on the ‘Bakiyev Story.’ Then, there are some additional juicy details and tidbits provided by a few, although still highly sanitized and consciously refrained from posing ‘the real’ questions. Let’s take a look at these and pose logical questions as we go.

Maksim Bakiyev & ‘Foreign’ Facilitated Embezzlement Schemes

So how did Maksim Bakiyev’s meager personal business grow into a major empire encompassing banking, oil, and telecommunication industries? We don’t have the complete answer to this question; not yet. Not with so much information still buried and ‘protected,’ and with only little sketchy details here and there.

Interestingly the following selective pieces of information happen to come from the Wall Street Journal.

The career of Maksim Bakiyev was watched closely in Kyrgyzstan, because nepotism among leaders has been a problem in the past. During the five-year reign of his father, the younger Mr. Bakiyev’s financial interests grew from a modest import business of cash-and-carry goods into an empire spanning banking, oil and telecommunications, said Edil Baisalov, until recently the chief of staff for Ms. Otunbayeva. Mr. Baisalov said U.S. business ties with Maksim Bakiyev were part of a larger pattern of the U.S. turning its back on human rights in the region, dialing back its criticism of authoritarian regimes so it could win their support for the war in Afghanistan.

…

And this on one of Bakiyev’s embezzlement schemes:

While details of the charges are sketchy, one involves the younger Mr. Bakiyev’s relationship with Asia Universal Bank, a Kyrgyz bank that was advised by U.S. consultants APCO Worldwide and Kroll Associates and whose board members included three former U.S. senators. Prosecutors allege that the younger Mr. Bakiyev steered to AUB part of a $300 million Russian state loan to Kyrgyzstan, and personally benefitted from it, the spokesman said.

Critics of the Kyrgyz government were suspicious of Maksim Bakiyev’s relationship with AUB, which under his father’s rule grew from a little-known bank to the country’s most influential financial institution. AUB shuffled a large amount of money out of the country when the government collapsed. On the night of the coup, April 7, officials at AUB approved international wire transfers that they say were requested by AUB clients totaling about $170 million, or more than 10% of the country’s banking assets, according to central bank officials.

Okay, let’s stick with WSJ’s storytelling and their lame coverage of another Bakiyev scandal involving shady fuel supply deals with the US:

The new government has also accused the U.S. of enriching Maksim Bakiyev through fuel supply deals. It says a fuel-supply contractor, Mina Corp., a privately-owned company based in Gibraltar, had lucrative U.S. government contracts to supply fuel to the U.S. base. The government says Mina, which is operated by a former U.S. military attaché, used smaller delivery companies that were allegedly controlled by Maksim Bakiyev, and funneled as much as $70 million a year to them.

The Kyrgyz government has produced no evidence of the alleged payoffs, saying the case is under investigation. Mina denies the accusation, and its operations manager, Chuck Squires, says he never even met the president’s son.

…

Of course, since this story came out on June 15, some of us who’ve been paying attention have learned much more about the infamous Mina Corp. and this Chucky guy who was easily let off the hook by WSJ;-) Back to the WSJ narrative and another culprit who happens to be a US citizen:

U.S. financial advisors around AUB and Maksim have decamped from Kyrgyzstan. One of AUB’s former board members and minority shareholders, U.S. citizen Eugene Gourevitch, is a fugitive from Kyrgyz fraud charges filed by the interim government. Contacted by email, Mr. Gourevitch denied any wrongdoing, saying that his recent work in Kyrgyzstan was “based entirely on perhaps my overly idealistic beliefs and aspirations” for development of Kyrgyzstan.

And here is another culprit who happens to reside comfortably in UK:

AUB’s former chairman and chief shareholder, Mikhail Nadel, now in London, says he won’t be returning anytime soon to Kyrgyzstan, whose new leaders he accused of “banditry” and who he said were now plundering his bank. Mr. Nadel confirms there was a surge in transfers at the time of the government collapse, but they were only clients rescuing their funds from a coup.

Now comes the juicier part minus real details involving our famous APCO and three US senators:

In 2005 the Central Bank of Russia launched an investigation of AUB, and later issued a statement reviewed by the Wall Street Journal saying it suspected the bank of “suspicious operations” to help companies evade taxes. Mr. Sarbanov said that when he tried to help the Russian bank investigate, he was forced out of his job by President Bakiyev.

The following year, the bank hired APCO Worldwide and Kroll as advisors. Kroll published a report in early 2007 saying the bank had a “solid foundation” to enact controls against money laundering. Former U.S. Senators Bob Dole (R., Kan.) and J. Bennett Johnston (D., La.) joined its board. Earlier this year, Mr. Dole resigned and his seat was filled by former Democratic Sen. Donald W. Riegle, Jr. from Michigan.

In April 2007, Mr. Dole and Mr. Johnston visited Bishkek on AUB’s invitation. Mr. Dole also visited the U.S. air base, and had an audience with President Bakiyev.Mr. Dole declined to comment for this article. Mr. Johnston denied ever meeting with Mr. Bakiyev “or any of his family or anyone who spoke for him.”

…

APCO said its staff and independent board members worked with AUB to improve governance and compliance procedures at the bank. Kroll said it advised AUB on helping the bank install anti-money laundering mechanisms, and raise the bank’s overall standards. Mr. Riegle said he agreed with the APCO statement.

Western diplomats said they got visits from a Kroll representative, who gave them briefings on AUB’s anti-money-laundering efforts and due diligence on its shareholders.

…

I guess we now have a general idea as to how Maksim Bakiyev made it rich in the oil and banking industries in less than five years. After all, he had  backing and direct support from APCO- Kroll and three US senators to make his banking embezzlement scheme work, and he had a former attaché and ex-CIA’s ‘management skills’ to make his US airbase supply scheme execute smoothly!

Over at The Washington Post  another reporter has ‘tried’ to cover a bit more. This reporter happens to be a man I respect and like, but have become a bit more cynical and suspicious of lately… Jeff Stein used to be with CQ, and he has done great exposes including the ‘real story’ on the Harman scandal. Well, how in the world did he end up at The Washington Post, albeit it’s blog section??!!! I mean we’re talking about The Washington Post and its dirty parasitic shame-carrying agents such as Pincus and Eggen!! Okay, let me get back to Stein’s coverage instead of venting over the despicable WP:

Stein rightfully focuses on the key figure involved in Bakiyev’s fuel supply scandal; Mr. Chuck Squires, a former US Army Intelligence Colonel:

A former U.S. Army intelligence colonel has emerged as the focus of investigations into corruption in Kyrgyzstan, the Central Asian host to an American air base and hub of fuel supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Lt. Col. Charles “Chuck” Squires is a former defense attaché at the U.S. Embassy in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. Shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Squires formed a company that, despite having no track record in logistics, was awarded a sole-source contract to supply fuel to U.S. aircraft at the Manas base, according to congressional testimony and an investigation by The Nation magazine.

“A graduate of the Russian studies program at Harvard University, Squires appears to enjoy excellent rapport with American diplomats and military officers and good relations with senior figures in Kyrgyzstan, including President Bakiyev’s son Maksim, in whose company I have previously observed Squires at Bishkek’s Hyatt Regency Hotel,” Scott Horton, an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School told a House Oversight subcommittee hearing on Thursday.

…

Now, remember how the WSJ article easily and unquestioningly let Chucky off the hook by simply parroting his denial of having any relationship with Bakiyev.  Not only that, this colorful CIA figure appears to be linked to other related shady enterprises:

Squires’s Red Star Enterprises, and another firm by the name of Mina Corp., share an official London address “in a former public housing complex that now leases office space to a multitude of small-time companies, escort agencies and business advisory services,” according to report by Eurasianet.org.

Later in this piece I will go over Bakiyev clans’ heroin transport and transit enterprises, but business wise  it makes perfect sense to house your office of fraud and embezzlement enterprises with other related business categories such as escort and prostitution, and other smaller enterprises set up to launder the proceeds. No?

Although not named, only cryptically mentioned, other intelligence (aka CIA) figure or figures have also been involved in Bakiyev-related scandals:

“At least one other figure involved in the London management of Red Star,” Horton told the national security subcommittee, “has close ties to the U.S. intelligence community.” He did not elaborate.

Red Star, Horton told the panel, appeared “out of nowhere to administer hundreds of millions of dollars in supply contracts and which appears to have no significant customers besides the Defense Department.”

…

You bet! When you deal with hundreds of millions of unaccounted taxpayers dollars spent ‘over there’ and through the marriages with ‘groomed & installed’ corrupt puppets you bet you’ll have the hands of shady CIA operatives and filthy well-known former or current US elected officials like Senator Dole in that same pot all the way up to their elbows.

And where is this ‘typical’ CIA operative Chucky man now? Probably doing similar things in similar places while protected by his bosses in Washington. Do you remember BCCI & Roger Tamraz. And where is Chucky man now? Aha. Well, Jeff Stain puts it this way:

And where is the mysterious Col. Squires? Not easily found.“Chuck Squires, the director of operations of Red Star/Mina Corp., declined to answer any questions from EurasiaNet.org on April 19 and referred all inquires to a Mina Corp email address.,” the Web site said.

Maybe subcommittee chairman John F. Tierney, D-Mass., will have more luck.

On Apr. 12 he sent letters to Red Star, Mina Corp., the departments of State and Defense, and the FBI asking for details on the contracts.

…

I don’t think Jeff Stein is holding his breath on that front. He may have lost a few things when he joined The Washington Post, but he couldn’t have lost that much common sense, having the experience and the knowledge he has. This is the latest on the status of the so-called outraged congress and their investigations of Mina Corp. and Mr. Chucky Squires, again as reported by WSJ:

KABUL—U.S. congressional investigators have upped the ante in their confrontation with two top Pentagon contractors who have received billions of dollars supplying fuel to troops in Afghanistan but have refused to reveal their owners.A congressional oversight committee has accused the contractors of stonewalling its investigation into the company and issued subpoenas ordering top officials of the companies, Red Star Enterprises Ltd. and Mina Corp., to report for questioning later this month.

…

But the current standoff over fuel contracts to coalition forces involves U.S. officials, not Afghans. Some of the chief officers in the contracting companies, Red Star and Mina, have been retired U.S. military officers who for the past seven years worked closely with the Pentagon to become a near monopoly supplier of aviation fuel to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Since 2003 the Pentagon has disbursed more than $2.2 billion to the companies for fuel deliveries to Bagram air base in Afghanistan and Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan.

Company officials have so far said they need to keep ownership a secret as a matter of security. Chuck Squires, a retired U.S. army colonel who has worked as an operations manager for both companies, said in an interview in April that the owners “are private people who want to stay that way.”

…

Mr. Squires’s attorney, Edward L. Dowd Jr. of St. Louis, said he and his client will cooperate with the investigation “if the subcommittee is reasonable about giving me time to get up to speed on the facts.”Investigators say they need to determine ownership as part of their effort to clear up allegations that company policies helped sow instability in Central Asia, which has become an important conduit for troops and supplies into Afghanistan.

…

Suuurrrrre. This will end up in the same black hole as BCCI and the rest; after all, this is based on the script and implementation of what we call ‘US Foreign Policy,’ written and orchestrated by the real agenda-setters, implemented by the gofers and operators at the CIA and State Department, and suffered by the people of the target nations’ and of course we the people of the United States of America…

Bakiyev Clan: The Lords of Kyrgyzstan Heroin Enterprises

As always the information and the news coverage on all these recent developments involving Kyrgyzstan, the Bakiyev Clan, and the ethnic violence in the south with the Uzbeks, has been presented in bits and pieces, censored here and there, and has left us with incoherent and incomplete sets of information either not digestible or not significant enough to pay attention to. The role of the Bakiyev clan in the drug trade, and thus the implications to the ‘groomers & planters’ is a good example. Here is a bit of coverage on this aspect of the Bakiyev clan, of course, minus the obvious: the US agenda-setters and operators who have been directly involved and partnered up with Bakiyev enterprises, including the billion dollar heroin enterprises:

“The battle for power is also a battle for drug money,” Kyrgyz deputy security service chief Khubat Baibulov told The Associated Press. “The violence of this battle increases when you are talking about big money.”

…

Authorities and analysts have little doubt that Bakiyev and his relatives are at the heart of the drug trade.

“The whole Bakiyev family is involved in drug trafficking,” said Alexander Knyazev, a respected independent political analyst in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital.

“After Kurmanbek Bakiyev came to power, all drug lords were killed, and (his elder brother) Zhanybek Bakiyev consolidated most of the drug trafficking in his hands.”

…

An estimated 20 metric tons of Afghan drugs transit through Kyrgyzstan every year, most destined for Russia, Western Europe and the United States, according to a U.S. State Department report released in March.

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And here are little tidbits at the end of this particular coverage attempting to lighten up (almost wash out) the real implications and those players implicated in US:

The United States has been stung by the accusation that its military campaign in Afghanistan has inadvertently boosted the fortunes of heroin poppy cultivation there. The suggestion that it may have benefited strategically from cooperation with a Kyrgyz government involved in the drug trade is likely to come as a further embarrassment.

Two State Department officials with knowledge of the region, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they are aware of the allegations against the Bakiyevs, but had no independent corroboration. The Drug Enforcement Agency refused to comment.

…

The heroin industry happens to serve our groomed and planted puppets by some divine and mysterious coincidence. The Bakiyev Clan shares the same path to wealth as the Bhutto-Zardari duo and many others; down to where they found refuge for their millions of dollars accumulated through drug and embezzlement schemes once ousted from their own nations.

When we talk about the strategic importance of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and other ‘stans’ we are not talking only about strategic in the sense of traditional resources-oil, we also are talking about  ‘narcotics resources’:

At the moment the stock of pure heroin in Afghanistan is estimated at slightly below 3,000 tons, and the revenues of Afghan drug suppliers reach around $3 bn annually. The international drug mafia earns at least $100 bn annually on heroin from Afghanistan, the money nourishing organized crime not only in Afghanistan but also across Central Asia – in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

And no, the real lords of these resources are not the farmers in Afghanistan or the mules transporting them. The real lords of heroin enterprises happen to be those who’ve been ‘groomed and planted’ to rule the source and transit nations, and the ones who rule those rulers who reside in the United States and other Western countries:

The revenues generated by the drug business are distributed among the criminal groups controlling various segments of the supply chain linking poppy farms to narcotics consumers. While Afghan poppy growers are enduring extreme poverty, the owners of the fields mostly reside in the US, Great Britain, and other Western democracies.

…

Western watchers opine quite reasonably that it is not in the interests of the US to fight the enormously profitable illicit drug production in Afghanistan. It should be also taken into account that the drug business serves as a serious source of income to many companies working with the Western coalition in the country. Heroin production takes massive quantities of acetic anhydride, acetone, and hydrochloric acid which are neither available in Afghanistan domestically nor can be delivered in required quantities by individual go-betweens. Recently the command of the German forces in Afghanistan suspected Ecolog, a Düsseldorf-based company providing laundry and garbage removal services to NATO in Afghanistan, of drug smuggling. The scandal is currently at full swing in Germany.

…

I started this piece on Bakiyev with two cases that may have appeared not related: Turkey’s Ciller & Pakistan’s Bhutto. I could have easily picked half a dozen others, but I think these two sufficed to illustrate our almost-canned foreign policy script and its implementation in countries of interest; the selection criteria and the method to ‘groom & plant’ puppet regimes: The training period in the UK or US, a complete disregard for atrocities and human right abuses, the strong partnerships with  the underground industries fully assisted and supported by our operatives (think Tamraz, think Chucky), the joint efforts in fraud and embezzlement, the unconditional protection from accountability & providing safe haven later when needed (both personal and for embezzled funds)…

Listening to ‘our leaders’ we hear the same repeated words in relation to these target nations and our intentions over there. First, the big, make that capital, D words: Democracy, Democratization, Development…Then, security, countering global threats such as extremism, Islamism, and terrorism…Just take a look at all the scripts, aka foreign policies, we have implemented, and all those in the process of being implemented, and see whether in reality you can find anything but our direct or indirect role in creating and or supporting corruption, drug trafficking, despotism, extremist and criminal factions/groups to be manipulated against our competitors or whatever faction/group we deem the enemy (or enemies) at the time …our script writers and implementers in Washington had another dream candidate. They invested in Bakiyev, trained and groomed him, gave him all the backing and resources necessary to quash dissent, corrupt, embezzle, take over the vast heroin transit industry within the borders of his fiefdom, maintain and use various extremist militia groups when needed … They provided him with top-name US senators to front legitimacy and prestige, they handed him CIA men to guide and help with setting up and running shady operations, they gave him big-name US financial corporations to shield his embezzlement schemes…

They invested in Bakiyev and gave him all that, but he never became the king. Bakiyev will rest and play in one of those $$$$$ castles set up for the exiled ‘groomed & planted’ kings and those who came close but never became a king. As for ‘they,’ well, I’m sure ‘they’ have had enough time to narrow down the list of ‘their’ next potential viable candidates for Kyrgyzstan to two or three; the next round of ‘grooming & planting’ process has already begun and is well on its way.

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In my last update I covered the recent multi-agenda driven, censored and sanitized media coverage of the Gulen movement. He seems to be back in the news (mainly Turkish media) again with the Flotilla Incident, and again, with unconnected dots, and unmentioned points and facts. Interestingly, the Turkish mainstream media coverage appears to be less sanitized.

Let’s start with a recent piece published by the Wall Street Journal, written by someone we happen to know and like, Joe Lauria. Joe is one of the few, if not only, journalists who was granted access to Gulen for a direct interview (of course via translator(s) since Gulen doesn’t speak a single word of English, and let’s not forget his literacy level does not exceed the 5^th grade!). As you‘ll see below, the fluff article reads like one of Gulen’s bios available on thousands of websites. Knowing Lauria, and his style, it’s not difficult to guess why: WSJ didn’t have enough space? WSJ wanted to limit the piece to a few fluff points related to the current headlines on Flotilla? WSJ doesn’t consider Gulen’s ties to CIA’s Graham Fuller, or Israel’s Abramowitz note or news worthy?…Well, okay, you get my point, right?! I don’t have any ‘real’ inside information on what went on with the WSJ and it’s editors, but I think my guess is as good as any of my informed savvy readers Here is the article and a few excerpts:

SAYLORSBURG, Pa.—Imam Fethullah Gülen, a controversial and reclusive U.S. resident who is considered Turkey’s most influential religious leader, criticized a Turkish-led flotilla for trying to deliver aid without Israel’s consent.

…

Mr. Gülen said organizers’ failure to seek accord with Israel before attempting to deliver aid “is a sign of defying authority, and will not lead to fruitful matters.”

Mr. Gülen’s views and influence within Turkey are under growing scrutiny now, as factions within the country battle to remold a democracy that is a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. The struggle, as many observers characterize it, pits the country’s old-guard secularist and military establishment against Islamist-leaning government workers and ruling politicians who say they seek a more democratic and religiously tolerant Turkey. Mr. Gülen inspires a swath of the latter camp, though the extent of his reach remains hotly disputed.

…

Mr. Gülen has long cut a baffling figure, as critics and adherents have sparred over the nature of his influence in Turkey and the extent of his reach. Leading a visitor on Wednesday past his front corridor—adorned with a map of Turkey, a verse from the Quran and a photograph of a Turkish F-16 jet over the Bosphorus—he portrayed himself an apolitical teacher. “I do not consider myself someone who has followers,” he said.

…

Okay, the rest is history; literally his bio. As you can see, not a word on the real stuff.

On the other hand, the Turkish press was not as audacious, and they couldn’t resist mentioning a few noteworthy points such as:

How Gulen has had the backing of the US-Israel Lobby

Lauria’s interview included the ‘Ergenekon’ topic & Sibel Edmonds’ infamous case

Then, there is this incredibly confused article at Asia Times on Gulen and AKP based on the Flotilla. I read the piece three times, trying to understand what it was trying to convey: simply a focus-less, aimless, pointless, jumble of facts, semi-facts and confused lines. You know I’m a big fan of Asia Times, do imagine my surprise…

Here is a rather bad opening, intended to be attention-grabbing and dramatic, but ending up as a cheesy attempt with worse to follow:

We’ve been had, boys and girls: the international community, the world press, Israeli intelligence, the United Nations, the lot of us. The existential drama off the Gaza coast turns out to be a Turkish farce, the kind of low comedy that in 1782 Wolfgang Mozart set to music in the opera The Abduction from the Seraglio, with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan playing the buffo-villain Osmin and Turkish self-exiled preacher and author Fethullah Gulen as the wise Pasha Selim.

…

Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania

in the United States, was silent as a jinn in a bottle about politics until last Friday, when he told the Wall Street Journal that the Free Gaza flotilla’s attempt to run the Israeli blockage of Gaza “is a sign of defying authority, and will not lead to fruitful matters”.

…

For the secretive Gulen to criticize the Turkish government in the midst of its public rage against Israel is an imam-bites-dog story. Gulen appears to have positioned himself as a mediator with Israel. Turkey does not want to end its longstanding relationship with Israel; it wants Israel to become a Turkish vassal-state in emulation of the old Ottoman model.

…

The star of the comedy, at least for the Turkish media, is Gulen. The 78-year-old imam has lived in self-imposed exile for two decades, due to charges by Turkish prosecutors that he led a conspiracy to subvert the secular state. He presides over Turkey’s largest religious movement, commanding the loyalty of two-thirds of the Turkish police, according to some reports. His movement – a transnational civic society movement inspired by Gulen’s teachings – also controls a network of elite schools that educate a tenth of the high school students in the Turkic world from Baku to Kyrgyzstan. And it reportedly controls businesses with tens of billions of dollars in assets.

His movement has been expelled from the Russian Federation and his followers arrested in Uzbekistan by local authorities who believe his goal is a pan-Turkic union from the Bosporus to China’s western Xinjiang province (”East Turkestan” to Gulen’s movement).

…

I am not going to waste more space for this piece, but please take a look at it and tell me what this hodgepodge is trying to convey; a convoluted, self-interpreted, and highly confused snap shot of Turkish Ottoman History, AKP, Gulen Movement, Flotilla, US Foreign Policy, all in one garbled article…and since I included the awfully cheesy intro, I must finish with this equally corny finale:

Gulen, in short, is a shaman, a relic of pre-history preserved in the cultural amber of eastern Anatolia. Kemalism was sterile, brutal, secular and rational; the “moderate Islam” of Gulen is magical, a mystic’s vision of Ottoman restoration and a pan-Turkic caliphate.

The Erdogan government crafted the Mavi Marmara affair as a piece of theater, preparing the deus ex machina (god from the machine) entrance of Gulen himself, more Pagliaccio than Apollo, to be sure. The trouble is that the Turkish Islamists live in a world of magical realism in which theater and reality, human and jinn, desire and achievement blend into a mystical blur. Gulen explains in his The Essentials of the Islamic Faith that Allah created the jinn out of fire. And that is what the apologists for Turkish Islamism are playing with.

…

No one is mentioning why Gulen has been strongly backed by Israel, or, why he is such a loyal defender and supporter of Israel, especially the US-Israel lobby. No one is daring to mention one of his top backers in the US, another butler of Israel, Mort Abramowitz, or and how Abramowitz vouched for Gulen during his deportation hearing. No one is talking about Gulen’s other CIA bodyguard, Graham Fuller. No ‘real’ questions on Gulen’s ‘real’ sources of multibillion dollar funding…No emphasis on Gulen’s real role for the real US decision-makers’ use, and their strategy for Central Asia since 1997…

Some of these reporters have their hands tied by their MSM editors. Some of the semi- independent journalists have fallen for the creators of the smoke and mirrors. And others are simply guided by ignorance and utter dumbness emboldened by their arrogance. Well, they are just the latest being sold and fed garbage when it comes to Gulen.

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Peter Phillips describes Project Censored, its mission, operational style and funding, then talks about what he has coined as ‘Truth Emergency,’ and provides examples such as the intentional misreporting of the number of civilian deaths in the Iraq war, and government insider media groups such as the Rendon Group. Mr. Phillips talks about the findings of his project’s studies and research of some of the more visible left-leaning alternative media with propaganda patterns similar to the mainstream outlets, especially on issues such as Israel, 9/11, and elections, and discusses the notions of objectivity, partisanship, and conspiracy when it comes to the media today, and more!

Peter Phillips is a Professor of Sociology at Sonoma State University and former Director of Project Censored. He teaches classes in Media Censorship, Investigative Sociology, Sociology of Power, Political Sociology, and Sociology of Media. He has published eleven editions of Censored: Media Democracy in Acton from Seven Stories Press. Phillips earned a B.A. degree in Social Science in 1970 from Santa Clara University, and an M.A. degree in Social Science from California State University at Sacramento in 1974. He earned a second M.A. in Sociology in 1991 and a Ph.D. in Sociology in 1994.

Here is our guest Peter Phillips unplugged!

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This is going to come as a relief to some and as a major disappointment to others: I am alive and almost back! As my long-term readers know I almost never share personal details here, and I am not about to change that, but here is a semi-reasonable albeit a bit vague explanation: despite having very costly health insurance coverage it was far more cost efficient (thus feasible) to take care of certain medical treatments outside the US than back home where the exact same medications (exact same brands) and treatments would have cost almost three times the amount. I am almost done with the two-month medical process, I’m doing well, and I should be back in three weeks or so. Many thanks to those of you who contacted me with your well-wishes and concerns, those of you who made me chuckle (I needed that badly) with some incredibly imaginative conspiracy guesses, and even those with death-wishes since I had the pleasure of disappointing you

While a part of me enjoyed (still does) being away (a break from the sin city where I live) and living in a laidback place, the other part soon began to long for home and now fully qualifies as a true case of ‘homesickness.’ Really. I’ve been trying to keep current, which is very hard to do with the entire medical process, an ultra high-energy 22-mo toddler with me 24 X 7, and a not very reliable (or speedy) internet connection. Yet, the most stimulating conversation I’ve been a part of had to do with ‘Hershey’s vs. Cadbury’ when it comes to chocolate, and, A-Frame Caravan vs. …I have no idea what the other type was or what it entailed… and, they had no idea who Bhutto was and why there was a new report on her assassination…or, what it meant to say ‘the moral dilemma using drones represents’…Yet, I’m still alive; I’m a survivor, ey!

Okay, enough about me. I’ve been saving many interesting stories, reports, and analyses. I won’t cover them all, but here are a few noteworthy notes and stories:

Fethullah Gulen & His Multi-Billion Worth Islamic Entourage

For those of you first-timers, who have never seen or heard this name before, please don’t start with Wikipedia ! I recommend checking out articles and analyses by Mizgin Yilmaz, and Luke Ryland; like this one here. Mizgin has been covering Gulen and significant Gulen related developments for years, and now, recently, all of a sudden, there appears to be these tainted-tilted-falsified-glorified articles in English popping up in the mainstream media and the not-so-mainstream but nonetheless the same outlets. Don’t get me wrong- this guy and the entire operation is very SIGNIFICANT. In fact, significant enough to be censored and blocked by the US mainstream media until recently. So, what’s the deal? What’s the real aim? Who wants what? And why?

As I’ve said, first read Mizgin’s coverage, and some background coverage by Luke Ryland here. Then, let’s take a look at one of the recent mainstream media articles – like this one:

October, 1992. the Soviet Union has disbanded and chaos reigns in its former territories. Three times a week, a rattly Russian charter plane filled with young Muslim devotees flies east from Istanbul across barren, low-lying steppes to the capitals of Central Asia. The men are clean-cut, sharply dressed in dark suits and ties, trim of mustache and purposeful. It is the first foray out of their hometown for most, let alone on a plane, but such is their faith in Fethullah Gulen, the Turkish Muslim imam they revere. “Fly like swallows,” Gulen exhorted, “to these countries that are newly free, as an expression of our brotherhood.”

Fly they did. Hundreds of volunteer teachers fanned out across five Central Asian republics. It was the start of a global movement that is now one of the largest and most powerful competing for the future of Islam around the world. There are an estimated 1,000 Gulen-affiliated schools in 100 countries — from Malawi to the U.S. — offering a blend of religious faith and largely Western curriculum. All are inspired by Gulen, an enigmatic retired preacher who oversees the schools — and a multibillion-dollar business empire — from the unlikeliest of locales: rural Pennsylvania.

…

It’s a fairly lengthy piece, so it continues:

Gulen, the 68-year-old retired imam behind this colossal enterprise has never visited Central Asia. He leads an ascetic life on an estate in Pennsylvania, where he has lived since 1999 for medical reasons, and to avoid facing (recently dropped) charges of seeking to overthrow the secular regime in Turkey. Gulen declined TIME’s request for an interview, citing poor health.

…

Secularist hostility makes the movement secretive. There is no reliable data on the size of Gulen’s following because one doesn’t sign up to join and it has no official legal status. But it is growing in power. Gulen supporters are estimated to number at least 6 million, according to academics researching the phenomenon. (More surprising is a former Interior Minister’s estimate that 70% of Turkey’s national police forces are Gulen devotees.) “If they were a political party, they could post 20 to 25 MPs,” says Nedim Sener, an investigative journalist. “Any movement that wields that much power needs to be transparent, like an NGO. Who belongs to it? How is it funded? What goes on in the schools they run? What are its political goals? These are all issues shrouded in secrecy.”

…

And after more along the same lines here is the ending:

Add a quest for power to that fervor, though, and it gets complicated. In Turkey the movement is insular, growing and seems to harbor a mysterious political agenda. “On one level you have activities like the schools, which are hard not to be impressed by,” says King’s College lecturer Park. “Then there’s the political element, which appears suspicious because it’s rich, secretive and nobody really knows what it’s up to.” Gulen says he is opposed to theocracy, yet his supporters suggest that they would like more space for Islam in public life. But how will that come to pass? The future shape of secularism in Turkey — and around the Islamic world — might rest on that answer.

Of course, while it brings a bit of attention to this operation’s significance and reach targeting Central Asia since the mid 1990s, you’ll find no mention of the joint cooperation between Gulen and the State Department, or not the well-hidden secret of his CIA protectors, including his well-known ex-CIA body guards and backers such as Graham Fuller. Absolutely nothing.

And here is another piece written by a Turkish agent (news? Turkish government? US-Turkish agenda-setters?) published by the Turkish mainstream paper Hurriyet interestingly titled ‘The Gulen Movement Plays Big in Washington’:

It was one of the lavish lounges of the Willard Hotel in Washington where hundreds of Turkic people from all across America with plain name tags gathered to mark the creation of a new umbrella Turkic Assembly last Wednesday. Six Turkish-American federations, which have close proximity to Mr. Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish cleric and the exiled leader of the Turkey-based religious Gülen Movement joined to form the Assembly of Turkic American Federations, or ATAF, a non-profit organization.

Half a dozen U.S. Senators and a few dozens of U.S. Representatives made a strong showing at the reception and the Gülen Movement hinted that its new assembly has some muscles to flex in Washington already.

…

The Gülen Movement accelerated its activities in U.S., especially since the leader of the Movement, Fethullah Gülen settled in Pennsylvania about a decade ago. During the mid ’90s, after almost three decades in the making, it was still operating very much under the radar in Turkey.

The unexpected and sudden decision to combine all of their 180 organizations under one umbrella assembly was a surprising move, at any rate, for those who follow the Gülen movement closely and are aware about its cautious strategies and steps.

Mr. Gülen first decided to go public with a wide ranging interview in early 1995, and in the following years the movement attracted ever-increasing attention. The postmodern-military coup of Feb. 28, 1997 pushed Gülen out of Turkey to find refuge in the U.S. Only more than a decade later, the Gülen Movement gathered enough manpower, recognition and credit to bring dozens of members of Congress to its half-official Washington debut night. The Turkish ambassador to the U.S., Mr. Namık Tan, came to the reception and stayed there almost the entire night, having conversations with the members of the U.S. Congress – alhough not everyone was as joyful about the new kid in town. The Assembly of Turkish-American Associations, or ATAA’s, president, Günay Evinç, was pretty upset about the name of this new assembly because of its similar word selection with their own assembly. Evinç argued that this name similarity has created a big administrative disaster for their organization to explain the difference.

…

Again, no mentioning of why Gulen happened to pick the US to defect to, or why this multi-billion dollar organization’s operation center (headquarters) happens to be in the States, or how the State Department has been backing, protecting, and promoting Gulen in the US and abroad (mainly his activities in Central Asia)…Nothing. Nada. Zip zip zilch. The same Turkish reporter/writer/agent who happens to be based in the US (Washington DC;-) has written other pieces (along the same lines) on his site here.

Let’s go ahead and simplify this a bit, shall we? The Russians hate Gulen. The US agenda-setters, the real policy-setters (Neocons and realists alike) love Gulen and have been supporting/backing/funding/protecting him since the mid 90s; especially (mainly, that is) those operations conducted in Central Asia. This man who doesn’t even have a high-school diploma has been promoted as a major ‘scholar’ by the CIA and the State Department, against multiple operations and investigations conducted by the FBI, and later by the Department of Homeland Security. So now: what’s really up with Gulen? Is he “a man for all seasons” or “a man for all agendas” set by our real agenda-setters? And, why this sudden coverage (long-due but completely distorted, sanitized, and re-formulated) by the mainstream media and the ‘agents’? Please be my guest and chip in with your own analyses and input!

…………………………………….

Another Case of State Department’s Terrorization-Deterrorization Flip

Thanks to our friend Metem for the following example showcasing another classic flip by the State Department on declaring and listing a group as a terrorist group then declaring them as not, and probably soon declaring them again as terrorists…when their current use expires, that is

The State Department’s update of its annual list of official terrorist groups is imminent, but the group that just attacked Moscow won’t be on the list.

The Caucasus Emirate, which has been waging a jihad against the Russian government, is led by Doku Umarov, who calls himself the “emir of the North Caucasus.” He was previously President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, but dissolved that Republic and established the Emirate in its place in 2007 in order to impose sharia law in his territory.

Umarov declared all the way back in 2007 that his group was expanding its struggle to wage war against the United States, Great Britain, and Israel. Last month, he released a video claiming credit for the suicide attacks in Moscow in March that resulted in the deaths of 39 people.

But apparently, the State Department chose not to include Caucasus Emirate in the newest update to its list of foreign terrorist organizations, according to Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-FL, who is calling on the State Department to add the group for the sake of national security and U.S. -Russia relations.

…

And here it gets really funny:

Some experts note that there is internal debate within the Chechen rebel community about whether the group’s declarations of jihad against the West is really such a good idea.

“It seems that the Caucasian rebels themselves are frightened by their own ‘war declaration’ against the West,” Andrei Smirnov wrote in an article for the Jamestown Foundation, “The absurdity of the rebels’ declarations lies in the fact that they declare war against the West, and at the same time beg for aid in their anti-Russian struggle.”

“Whatever the Caucasian rebels say, it is clear that they do not have much in common with the interests of the international Jihadi movement,” Smirnov went on, “This movement has no smaller plans than the Jihadi movement worldwide, but it nonetheless limits itself to activities inside Russia’s borders and has no ambitions to grow into an international problem.”

…

Of course we all remember our flips and then flops and then flips again on KLA, but does anyone here remember our almost recent flip on MEK? So, what’s the latest on that? Did they go back to the list? Are they a part of the Pentagon’s recent souped-up operations inside Iran? Just asking…

……………………………………………..

Okay, this is it for now. I will be back with more, so please don’t give up on me or this site (including our new season of podcast interviews and articles by our contributors!).

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DLA Piper, one of the world’s largest international law firms, is opening for business in Turkey. According to The Lawyer magazine,”DLA Piper has been targeting Turkey after bringing on board (former Under Secretary of State) Marc Grossman.”

Choosing Marc Grossman to front for the Turkish operation is an unusual decision for DLA Piper. Grossman has been credibly accused of serious criminal activity involving the nuclear black market, facilitating terrorism, visa fraud, congressional bribery and blackmail. Former FBI Counterintelligence and Counterespionage Manager, John Cole has confirmed that the FBI investigated Grossman for a decade, and stated that the investigation was “buried and covered up.”

Under normal circumstances, one might expect that these allegations against Marc Grossman would hinder his career until the charges were confronted and dismissed, but the Turkish Lobby appears to applaud and appreciate Grossman’s ability to avoid any accountability.

In a recent court case regarding the Turkish Lobby and their operations in the US, former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds stated under oath (pdf) that she had first-hand knowledge that Marc Grossman has engaged in this serious criminal activities. These activities, these allegations against Grossman, were again highlighted and expanded upon in a November cover story for American Conservative magazine.

Given that the charges against Grossman are well documented and date back to his time as U.S. ambassador to Turkey in the mid-Nineties, and given his subsequent career success, one can only assume that his long rap sheet is not a source of shame or embarrassment, but is actually highlighted on his curriculum vitae. Undoubtedly, Grossman’s employers; DLA Piper, The Cohen Group, and the ‘alleged shady Ihlas Holdings have done their due diligence and know exactly what they are getting when they employ Grossman.

It is still an open question which of Grossman’s clients know exactly which ‘abilities’ they are paying when they pay Grossman to achieve their goals. Surely DLA Piper’s most ‘important’ clients recognized that Grossman’s tongue was firmly planted in his cheek when he recently told Zaman that “the whole purpose of law firms is to promote the rule of law and that the presence of DLA Piper and other international law firms in the Turkish market will add to the legal standards of Turkey.” In fact, this is such transparent nonsense, that it is easy to imagine Grossman’s ‘important’ clients applauding him for being so brazen, as if it were a nod-and-a-wink in their direction.

Of course, Grossman need not have said anything at all in the direction of his ‘important’ clients. The simple fact that one of the leading law firms in the world was willing to even consider Grossman for this position is the most brazen signal of all.

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Professor Francis Boyle discusses the October 2001 anthrax attack, the technology behind the letter to Senator Daschle, and assesses the case based on his years of expertise with
America’s bio-weapons programs, and as an expert who was responsible for drafting the
Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, which was passed unanimously by both houses of Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush. He discusses possible motivations behind the anthrax attacks, including those held by criminal elements within the US government to foment a police state, and the investigation that never was. Professor Boyle talks about Israel war crimes as crimes against humanity, and more.

Francis Boyle is a human rights lawyer and professor of law at the University of Illinois. As an internationally recognized expert, Professor Boyle serves as counsel to Bosnia and Herzegovina, and to the Provisional Government of the State of Palestine. He is the author of several books, including The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence published by Clarity Press. Click here for a more detailed bio.

Here is our guest Professor Francis Boyle unplugged!

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

Boiling Frogs Post presents an exclusive interview with Colonel Larry Wilkerson on the tyrannical presidency and politics of fear, Israel’s interests versus US interests and the question of loyalties, and more:

As a card carrying member of the Likud Party, whose interest did Douglas Feith really serve?

Is our current situation due to incompetent leadership or venal leadership exploiting politics of fear?

*A Special Thanks to Kristina Borjesson & Katrina Rill.

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

Naomi Wolf discusses the fascist shift in the United States, how the state of our liberties has been getting worse under the Obama administration, and how President Obama has assumed the same position as Bush on States Secrets Privilege, unlawful detention and torture, and other similar assaults on our liberties. Ms. Wolf talks about the deplorable state of our two-party system and alternative approaches, the hypocritical silence of liberal antiwar activists, the need for new grassroots institutions and approaches to take back our civil liberties, and more.

Naomi Wolf is an author, activist and political consultant. She is known as an avid advocate of feminist causes and progressive politics, with a more recent emphasis on arguing that there has been a deterioration of democratic institutions in the United States. In The End of America: A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot, Wolf takes a historical look at the rise of Fascism, outlining the 10 steps necessary for a Fascistic group (or government) to destroy the democratic character of a nation-state and subvert the social/political liberty previously exercised by its citizens. The book details how this pattern was implemented in Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and elsewhere, and analyzes its emergence and application in American political affairs since the September 11 attacks.

Here is our guest Naomi Wolf unplugged!

This site depends exclusively on readers’ support. Please help us continue by contributing directly and or purchasing Boiling Frogs showcased products.

David Albright, President of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), has a new book out (which I haven’t read) about AQ Khan and the nuclear black market called Peddling Peril: How the Secret Nuclear Trade Arms America’s Enemies.

In the “Acknowledgements” section of the book, Albright writes: “Many former government officials generously provided critical knowledge about the Khan Network, US policy, nuclear terrorism, and illicit nuclear trade. In particular, I would like to thank Richard Barlow, Joseph DeThomas, Robert Einhorn, Mark Fitzpatrick, Robert Galluci, Thomas Graham, Marc Grossman, Khalid Hassan, Fred McGoldrick, Rolf Mowatt-Larssen, Joseph Nye, Howard Shaffer and John Wolf.”

While most of these people are acknowledged experts in nuclear matters, the name Marc Grossman stands out as someone without particular expertise in this area. Since when has Marc Grossman been an informed source on these matters? Why is David Albright talking to Grossman? And why is Grossman talking to David Albright? And for how long has Grossman been plying Albright with ‘information‘?

Albright has been criticized by many in the intelligence community, and if Marc Grossman has always been a source, then it is no wonder that Alright is poorly regarded.

It is true that Grossman was a political officer at the Pakistan Embassy in the early 1970s when AQ Khan was getting started, and Grossman was Ambassador to Turkey from 1994-1997 when Turkish entities were involved in supplying the Khan network, and he was Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs in 2003 when a US-based Turkish company was caught supplying the Khan network – so he could conceivably assist Albright in some of these matters, but as far as I can tell, nobody has ever turned to Grossman for expertise on any of these issues, at least not publicly.

Is it possible that Grossman has been offering himself as a ’source’ to various authors to spin the stories away from the truth?

First, let’s revisit some of the Grossman’s activities according to former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. In an article in the American Conservative by Phil Giraldi, Ms Edmonds describes systemic blackmail operations where Richard Perle and Douglas Feith supplied Grossman with information about specific (sexual, financial etc) vulnerabilities which could be used to blackmail people who had access to secret information, including nuclear secrets. Grossman would then give the information “to foreign agents who exploited the vulnerabilities of these people to recruit them as sources of information.”

In the same article, Ms Edmonds also states that the criminal network also “had a network of Turkish professors in various universities with access to government information.” In order to maintain and expand the network, a key asset, who was a professor of nuclear physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “would place a bunch of Ph.D. or graduate-level students in various nuclear facilities like Sandia or Los Alamos, and some of them were able to work for the Air Force.” Ms Edmonds further stated that “If for some reason they had difficulty getting a security clearance, Grossman would ensure that the State Department would arrange to clear them.”

Under oath (PDF), Ms Edmonds stated that Marc Grossman was on the payroll of various players in the nuclear black market and that he actively hindered efforts by the CIA to penetrate and unravel the nuclear black market. Ms Edmonds said that, in 2001, Grossman alerted his ‘business associates’ that nuclear consulting company, Brewster Jennings, was actually a CIA front company which was investigating the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Grossman’s outing of Brewster Jennings forced the CIA to shutter the company, doing untold damage to the anti-proliferation efforts, and putting many agents and sources in danger.

In short, Marc Grossman was actually a vital player in the so-called ‘AQ Khan network,’ and should be facing criminal charges.

David Albright’s use of Grossman as a credible source in a book about ‘arming America’s enemies’ is beyond ironic, and it undermines everything that Albright says or writes, and yet for some reason Albright is consistently presented as a serious expert on TV and radio, and given a chance to peddle his book.
 

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I am thrilled to announce the addition of a new team member, Luke Ryland, a good friend and a partner whom I have known and worked with since 2006; please welcome Luke and here is his bio:

Luke Ryland is an independent political analyst and online journalist based in Australia. He has been an expert commentator on the Sibel Edmonds case and nuclear black market cases for various progressive radio shows and online publications. Mr. Ryland’s work focuses on the nuclear black market, the Turkish lobby in the US, the energy and geopolitical wars in Central Asia, and the corruption of US Congress. Mr. Ryland has an MBA and a Bachelors degree in Commerce from the University of Melbourne. Visit Luke Ryland’s website.

We recently published Luke Ryland’s expose on FBI documents confirming major criminal investigations of Turkish operatives and their US official friends in Chicago. And here is a link to a recent interview with Mr. Ryland conducted by Scott Horton of AntiWar.Org: Click here.

Starting this coming Wednesday I’ll be on the road for a few weeks, traveling for work and personal matters. I won’t be out of touch. We have three Boiling Frogs interviews, one of which will be posted every other week: Professor Francis Boyle, Naomi Wolf, and Peter Phillips. Meanwhile, Peter B Collins and I will find ways to overcome significant time zone differences and connection difficulties, and continue to conduct additional interviews. We will also have articles and analyses by our contributors, and of course Paul Jamiol’s great editorial cartoons.

Here is my list of noteworthy articles and links from this past week:

Let’s start with our President, since we’ve been keeping tabs on his changes on his promised changes. The following piece is also related to the Obama White House’s 180 degree turn on protection for national security whistleblowers, which we’ve been covering for over a week.

A little secret about Obama’s transparency
Andrew Malcolm, LA Times

The current administration, challenged by the president to be the most open, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than Bush did.

The Democratic administration of Barack Obama, who denounced his predecessor, George W. Bush, as the most secretive in history, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than the Republican did.

Transparency and openness were so important to the new president that on his first full day in office, he dispatched a much-publicized memo saying: “All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA.”
One of the exemptions allowed to deny Freedom of Information requests has been used by the Obama administration 70,779 times in its first year; the same exemption was used 47,395 times in Bush’s final budget year.

An Associated Press examination of 17 major agencies’ handling of FOIA requests found denials 466,872 times, an increase of nearly 50% from the 2008 fiscal year under Bush.
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We’ve been keeping tabs, and our list of ‘Bush-Like’ and ‘Worse-Than-Bush’ points has been expanding continuously. Mr. Obama’s love and usage of State Secrets Privilege, his position against government whistleblowers, his support for illegal domestic wiretapping, his passion for wars and drones, his kind-heartedness towards torturers & other criminals…During his first few months in office, a few of his previously duped supporters were too generous and maybe a bit too naïve to label him ‘Bush-Lite.’ How about now? Is it time to call the President ‘Bush-Dark’? You be the judge; what say you?

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 Karzai talks peace with militant group linked to Taliban
Deb Riechmann, AP

President Hamid Karzai held an unprecedented meeting yesterday with representatives of a major Taliban-linked militant group, boosting his outreach to insurgency leaders to end the eight-year war.

Less certain is whether the talks with the weakened Hizb-i-Islami faction represent a game-changer in the conflict, given its demand to rewrite the Afghan constitution and force a quick exit of foreign forces.

It is the first time that high-ranking representatives of the group, led by warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, have traveled to Kabul to discuss peace. The reconciliation offer from Hekmatyar contrasts with his reputation as a ruthless extremist.

Hekmatyar, who is in his 60s, was a major recipient of US military aid during the war against the Soviets in the 1980s but fell out of favor with Washington because of his role in the civil war that followed the Soviet withdrawal. The US government declared Hekmatyar a “global terrorist’’ in February 2003, saying he participated in and supported terror acts committed by Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Unless that tag is removed, the designation could complicate any move by the United States to sign off on a deal, even though in recent years Hekmatyar has expressed a willingness to negotiate with the Karzai government. A spokesman for Hekmatyar said the delegation had lunch with Karzai at the presidential palace and planned to meet with him again.

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Last January our team member duo, Liz Gould and Paul Fitzgerald, wrote an excellent piece on this opium dealing terrorist, who happened to get his grooming from our very own CIA. If you haven’t read the Gould-Fitzgerald piece titled ‘Apocalypse of the American Mind’, click here. Was he ever off the CIA list of ‘operators’? I for one would certainly doubt it.

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NATO rejects Russia’s demand to destroy Afghan poppy fields
Deutsche Press-Agentur

 Brussels – NATO and Russia clashed on Wednesday over how to tackle the drug problem in Afghanistan, where Western nations have been fighting a Taliban-led insurgency for eight years.

The country is the world’s largest producer of poppy seeds, a key ingredient in the manufacture of heroin. Russia is keen to pursue an aggressive eradication strategy, while Western allies fear that such an approach risks antagonizing the local population, who rely on selling poppy crops to survive.

The different points of view came to a head at a meeting of the NATO-Russia Council attended by the head of Russia’s Federal Drug Control Agency (FSKN), Victor Ivanov and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

‘Afghan opiates led to the death of 1 million people by overdose in the last 10 years, and that is United Nations data. Is that not a threat to world peace and security?’ Ivanov asked journalists after the meeting.

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Russians know very well what this is about. After all, they used to be a major player in ‘this’ particular field, and now a bit grumpy because…their share of this pie has been significantly reduced? Certainly it’s not about a million+ deaths caused by ‘overdose;’ of that much I can assure you. So maybe our guys will let their guys have a bit more; like this maybe:

However, he stressed that there was ‘a very positive mood’ in the talks with Ivanov and said that the two sides agreed to boost an already existing programme that involves joint training of Afghan counter-narcotics police.

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Please bring in your two cents (and more).

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In the last few days there have been numerous articles portraying the White House as tough on Israel, and depicting Israel-US relations as severely strained. Coincidentally, two months ago similar articles were written in Turkey on endangered ties – Turkey-Israel. In Turkey this usually happens when elected officials see the need, that is, fulfilling public expectations, albeit cosmetically, to appear ‘a bit’ tough on Israel. While they do that, the business of kissing up to Israel continues behind the scenes; as always.

Here is how badly strained is the relationship between the White House and the Israeli bosses:

Exclusive / Despite row, U.S. and Israel sign massive arms deal
Amos Harel, Haaretz

As Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in Washington this week absorbing the full wrath of the Obama administration, the Pentagon and Israel’s defense establishment were in the process of sealing a large arms deal.

According to the deal, Israel will purchase three new Hercules C-130J airplanes. The deal for the three aircrafts, designed by Lockheed Martin, is worth roughly a quarter billion dollars. Each aircraft costs $70 million.

The aircrafts were manufactured specifically for Israeli needs, and include a large number of systems produced by Israel’s defense industry.

The deal will be covered by American foreign assistance funds. The Pentagon will issue a formal announcement on the matter on Thursday evening.

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That’s right; that’s how strained things are! And here is another exposé on strained Obama-Israel relations; NOT!

Former Obama Aide New Head of AIPAC
Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, Israel National News

Lee “Rosy” Rosenberg, a jazz recording industry veteran capitalist who accompanied U.S. President Barack Obama on his campaign trip to Israel two years ago, takes over on Sunday as the new president of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Rosenberg also served on the president’s national campaign finance committee.

The new AIPAC president hails from Chicago, the home state of President Obama, and also is on first-name terms with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, President Obama’s senior advisor.

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My advice? Next time you read bologna articles on the Obama White House being tough on Israel, don’t believe it, go do your own bit of research, and determine for yourself who is the ‘servant’ and who is the ‘boss’ in this (Israel Lobby-US President) relationship;-)

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And finally, two well-researched and nicely-written reports by my favorite publication, Asia Times:

‘Strategic depth’ at heart of Taliban arrests
By Shibil Siddiqi, ATimes