THE MERCENARIES!


From Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language, College Edition:

mer-ce-nar-yadj. 1. working or done for payment only; motivated by a desire for money or other gain; venal; greedy. … n. 1. a professional soldier serving in a foreign army for pay. 2. A person paid for his work or services; hireling. . . .

ve-nal adj. 1. that can readily be bribed or corrupted; mercenary: as, a venal judge. 2. capable of being obtained for a price; as, venal services. 3. Characterized by corruption or bribery; as a venal bargain. . . .

greedn. excessive desire for acquiring or having; desire for more than one needs or deserves . . .


Sightings from The Catbird Seat

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From African Business, DECEMBER 1997

Soldier of Fortune-The Mercenary as Corporate Executive

As the danger posed by armed insurgents and criminals increases, so does the number of sophisticated ‘private’ armies. In the old days, these ex-soldiers were simply called mercenaries and their activities were outside the law. Today, they have changed their image and their orientation. The security business is booming. Francois Misser and Anver Versi reveal the scale of this new growth industry.

They hate to be called mercenaries – particularly in Africa where the term conjures up horrific images of blood-crazed dogs of war killing, burning, raping and looting.

“That era, the era of ‘Mad’ Mike Hoare, ‘Black’ Jacques Schramme and Bob Denard, is finished, ” they say. Today, they want to be called contract soldiers. They are businessmen first. They have plush offices replete with works of art. They undertake a variety of specialised services – training, intelligence gathering, personal and site protection and, when necessary, they will go out and out your enemy for you. They sign complex deals – bartering security against mining concessions for example, or acting as arms purchasing agents.

“We are an international business like any other business,” a pin-striped, bespectacled and utterly harmless looking corporate head told us. “We have highly specialised, intensely trained and thoroughly disciplined teams able to deliver a unique service: security. The demand for all sorts of security is increasing. We go where we are wanted and where the people can pay our fees.”

Most of these organisations will only work with legitimate governments and only carry out certain functions. What they now want is respectability.

And large profits.

They seem to be getting both. Organisations based in London and South Africa have to be cleared by the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence respectively. Contracts range from $1m to over $100m. Including perks and spin-offs, earnings can be as high as $400m-$500m. Clients include not only weak or beleaguered regimes but multinational companies and, as seems likely in the near future, the UN and other agencies.

There is little doubt that this is a major growth industry. The only cloud on the horizon is the public and media perception of these contract soldiers as pariah soldiers of fortune. The Geneva Convention bans the use of mercenaries but the distinction between soldiers of fortune and private security firms is blurred.

The fall of the Berlin wall and the general thawing of the Cold War, added to the end of Apartheid and South Africa’s proxy wars in neighbouring states, have led to a significant scaling down of regular armies both in Europe and Africa.

Demobilised soldiers, used to a regulated and cocooned world in barracks, have found it difficult if not impossible to adjust to civilian life. Add to this the loss of a sense of comradarie – ‘the brotherhood of arms,’ a life of adventure and danger and often a genuine love for the profession – and you have a ready made pool of men eager, if not desperate, to be recruited into private armies.

At the same time, the need for military muscle is increasing not only in Africa but around the globe. The major superpower confrontations have been replaced by hundreds of ‘small wars.’

Cuts in African military budgets, failed demobilisation programmes and bad governance have also created new areas of instability as unemployed soldiers find no other solution but to go on the rampage – as has been the case in Zaire, Congo and Sierra Leone. Only disciplined armed forces can bring renegade soldiers to heel.

International armed intervention has not been the answer, witness the fiasco following the intervention of UN peace-making and peace-keeping forces in Somalia, Rwanda and Angola. In addition the huge costs of these operations have made the West increasingly reluctant to send troops to the continent. There is also a growing antipathy towards sending expensively trained Western soldiers to sort out murderous little civil wars in the developing world.

This has been largely behind US thinking as it works to create a pan-African force to deal with conflict resolution. Here again there are mounting problems. Cost and effectiveness are major considerations even if one were to ignore the convoluted political adjustments that will have to be made if the force is to be regarded as neutral. The general failure of ECOMOG, the military arm of the West African Economic Community is a case in point.

Thus the argument for ‘privatising’ security and conflict resolution is now being given a sympathetic ear instead of being rejected out of hand. The day of Mercenary Incorporated as a legitimate, even respectable service organisation may be dawning.

Security has become an obsession for Africa’s big business, especially mining. It is no coincidence that De Beers, Anglo-American and the First National Bank fund research at the Institute for Security Studies.

Among the organisations to first see opportunities in this climate of growing insecurity was Executive Outcomes (EO) – perhaps the best known of the modern ‘mercenary’ corporations.

Clandestine warfare

EO is led by a former Civil Cooperation Bureau officer, Mr Eeben Barlow and specialises in clandestine warfare, combat air patrols, advanced battle handling and sniper training.

Set up as a sophisticated operational unit from the word go, EO was among the first of a new group of security specialist firms to sign important contracts. Under a $40m contract in 1993, followed by a $95m contract in 1994, and additional month-to-month contracts ending in January 1996, an estimated 500 EO personnel were flown to Angola.

In Sierra Leone, EO had deployed 170 men by May 1995. The country’s finance minister, Mr Thiamu Bangura was reported to have said that by September 1996, the government was in debt to the company at a rate of $1.2m per month. But, following pressure from IMF, the monthly payment was cut down to below $1m.

In both countries EO inflicted severe damage to rebel groups – UNITA in Angola and to the Revolutionary United Front (RFU) in Sierra Leone, and drove the rebels out of vital diamond mining areas thus enabling mining companies to keep operational.

The highly professional and disciplined manner in which EO carried out its objectives helped create a new climate of acceptance in some quarters. A symposium on the privatisation of security in sub-Saharan Africa, sponsored by the Pentagon’s Defence Intelligence Agency last June in Washington, invited Mr Barlow and other top guns – like British Colonel Tim Spicer from Sandline International and retired DIA-officer, Lt. General Edward Soyster, who represented the Virginia-based Military Professional Resources Inc.(MPRI).

US oil giants like Texaco and Exxon, the mining company Sierra Rutile, NGOs, the UNHCR and UNICEF were also represented. Interestingly, in contrast to the OAU condemnations of mercenary activities during the 1960s and 70s, African states such as Angola, Guinea-Conakry, Uganda and Zambia sent military attaches to the symposium.

According to the organisers, the aim is not to stop mercenary activities but “to make private forces effective, efficient and loyal” and avoid “unlicensed firms or rogue states” from creating havoc. (However, the deadlines of the profession, masked behind business suites and glass-fronted offices, was soberingly exposed when Colonel Tim Spicer was later to come to grief in Papua New Guinea).

Pentagon database

Although EO is better known than other organisations, it is by no means the biggest player world-wide or even on the continent. MPRI, for instance, had a turnover of $24m in 1996. It has nearly 300 employees on its pay-roll and about 2,000 ex-Pentagon officers available on database. In 1995, it won a contract to train the Angolan police Rapid Intervention Force in, and is likely to extend its operations to, West Africa or the Horn.

Probably the largest private security transnational is Vinnell Corporation (Fairfax, Virginia), a subsidiary of BDM International Inc. Since 1993, it has been controlled by the Carlyle Group with former ex-CIA’s vice-director Mr Frank Carlucci and US Secretary of State Mr James Baker among the shareholders.

In 1995, BDM had a total turnover of $890m, of which 54% came from arms sales. Last May Vinnell was awarded a three-year contract worth $163m for the Saudi Arabian National Guard modernisation programme. It also has a training contract for military systems in Egypt, according to the Antwerp-based International Peace Information Service (IPIS).

Another US group, Armor Holdings Inc., is indirectly becoming a major force on the African market. Last April, it pooled interests with Defence Systems Ltd. (DSL), with headquarters in Buckingham Gate, London, whose net revenues for 1996 amounted to $33.1m.

DSL, founded in 1981 by ex-SAS officers, has a world-wide staff of 4,000 people and many clients in Africa. They include the Angolan parastatals Sonangol (oil) and Endiama (diamonds), a cement factory, four embassies (including the American) in Luanda and the main hotels. According to ex-DSL-security advisers, the company also has an arrangement to train the Angolan police.

In Congo-Kinshasa, DSL’s subsidiaries USDS and Sapelli SARL, whose soldiers carry Uzi rifles, are protecting the installations belonging to the SOCIR oil refinery of Congo-SEP (the Belgian oil company Petrofina’s subsidiary), and the US embassy.

Other DSL clients include De Beers, Shell, Mobil, Amoco, BP and Chevron; NGOs (CARE and GOAL), UNICEF, UNDP, UNHCR, UNAVEM and ONUMOZ.

DSL claims also to have experience in Algeria, Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan and Uganda. Its French subsidiary, CIAS, is now trying to get a contract to protect the projected 1,100km pipe-line between the Southern Chad oil fields and the port of Kribi in Cameroon.

The French connection

Although EO is no doubt the leading South African company, it is not the only one. One competitor is Omega Support Ltd., led by the ex-SA military attache in Angola, Mr John Smith.

According to The Guardian, Omega is closely tied to Strategic Concepts, created by the former Military Intelligence officer Mr Sean Cleary, a staunch supporter of Jonas Savimbi. South Africa’s National Intelligence Service is convinced that Omega was involved in supplying and training Laurent Kabila’s Banyamulenge fighters during their campaign against General Mobutu’s army.

French companies, mostly run by ex-gendarmes, also have a presence. Secrets, created by a former captain of the French gendarmerie intervention group, Mr Paul Barril, signed, in 1992, its first three month contract to train Cameroonian President Paul Biya’s presidential guard.

Another ex-gendarme, Mr Robert Montoya, set up a company in Lome, called Service and Security. It provides training to the Togolese anti-riot forces and equips them with electric bludgeons, according to Le Monde.

Mr Jean-Louis Chanas, an ex-member of the French equivalent of the M16, the Direction de la Securite Exterieure, has his own company, Eric SA, which competes with DSL to win oil installations security contracts in Algeria.

The Israelis are also aggressive competitors. In 1994, according to the daily, Yedioth Aharonoth a company called Levadan led by the retired General Ze’ev Zachrin, signed a $50m contract with the government of Congo-Brazzaville, to train the local army and former President Pascal Lissouba’s “zulu” militia.

Another Isreali daily, Ha’aretz revealed that Silver Shadow, a security company led by retired Lt. Colonel, Mr Amos Golan, recently made an offer to President Kabila of the DRC to build up a special protection unit. But the Israeli government ordered the company to stop the negotiations, since it is now prohibiting any security assistance in countries with “unstable regimes.”

Over the years, the services have become more specialised. Some firms focus on providing protection, security, military training and sometimes participating in actual combat. Others, tied to mining interests, are building business empires.

For example, EO is involved not only in military-related activities but undertakes to provide functioning hospitals, reconstruction of devastated areas and de-mining operations. In Sierra Leone, when the government faced difficulties in paying EO, its sister company Branch Energy, which also belongs to the Strategic Resources Corporation holding, obtained diamond concessions in the Kono region.

EO’s boss, Mr Eeben Barlow has stakes in Diamond Works, a company registered on the Vancouver stock exchange which owns concessions in Angola.

IDAS Resources, a Belgo-Dutch company with Israeli connections, based in the Dutch West-Indies, has a joint venture agreement with American Mineral Fields International on diamond concessions in the Lunda Norte province.

And the Israeli firm Levadan is a subsidiary of Kardan Investment, an import-export company active in the diamond trade.

Despite the corporate-executive image that these groups are at pains to provide, difficult ethical, moral and even pragmatic questions remain unanswered. For example, although Mr Barlow claims that EO only works in coordination with governments, last August, two Canadian papers, the Vancouver Sun and the Toronto Globe and Mail, revealed that an Indian banker, Mr Rakesh Saxena, who owns a bauxite mine in Sierra Leone, paid $70,000 to EO’s parent company, Sandline to prepare a counter-coup there. The disclosure of these plans jeopardised the entire operation.

Nobody can ignore the high human cost of these operations. It even remains to be seen whether it really is cost-effective in the long run for a company or for a government to buy private protection if the social causes of instability are not being addressed.

The DIA symposium concluded anyway that the issue will not go away and called for some sort of code of conduct. But who sets the criteria? To whom will these companies be accountable? Some African intellectuals complain that these firms only secure the areas which are profitable, and protest against their disguised “recolonisation” strategy.

On the other hand, there is no denying that armed insecurity is on the increase. With weapons becoming cheaper, what is to stop bands of armed thugs terrorising and paralysing countries or businesses under one political pretext or another?

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November 18, 2002

More Than 90 Arrested in Fort Benning Protest

The Courier-Journal

COLUMBUS, GA. – More than 90 people, including at least six nuns, were arrested after marching onto Fort Benning yesterday during an annual protest of a program that trains Latin American soldiers.

“I feel anger at the deliberate teaching of violence,” Caryl Hartjes, a nun from Fond du Lac, Wis., said as she entered the compound, where she was arrested.

About 6,000 protesters gathered for the 13th annual demonstration by the School of the Americas Watch, which continues to protest the Nov. 19, 1989, killings of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador.

Protesters say people responsible for the killings were trained at the School of the Americas, a Fort Benning program that was replaced last year by a new institute.

Protesters say the change was only cosmetic.


From Al Martin Raw, 08/26/01 by Al Martin:

US State Department Sponsors Training of Would-Be Terrorists

Huntsville, Alabama – The US State Department sponsors the training of would-be terrorists at the Redstone Arsenal’s Hazardous Devices School, which offers “explosive ordinance disposal training.”

This is the most exclusive explosives school in the United States. It’s where firemen, policemen, and municipal bomb squads are trained. It also provides training for the US armed forces, FBI, CIA, as well as foreign army and intelligence personnel. This is the most elite of the munitions schools in the United States and it’s part of the Redstone Arsenal complex.

This facility is not run by the US Army or by the military. It is technically run by US State Department employee Ray Funderberg, who’s been covertly in charge of it for about twenty years. An added note — although Funderberg works for the State Department, he dresses in a US Army Colonel’s uniform. Official records indicate that he supposedly works for the FBI.

According to a reliable source, one of the Iranians involved in the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, took training courses at the Redstone Arsenal’s school of explosives. He enrolled in this course under the guise of a Pakistani military officer with Pakistani uniform and credentials.

This is important to note because Al Martin Raw has previously reported that many hostile nations have a visible presence at the US Redstone Arsenal. Evidently “terrorists,” as well as regular armed forces and intelligence officers, are also being “trained” at the Redstone Arsenal.

In other news, five new shipments of “marshmallows” (anti-personnel land mines) have left the Redstone Arsenal. And this week the Friendly Colonel is once again doing business under the “Gulf Coast Trucking and Receiving” moniker.

An inside source wants the Friendly Colonel to provide the State Department employment forms necessary to bring more people in. One of the arms merchants has a deal with the Russians to bring Palestinians into this explosives training program.

For instance, Palestinians would be brought in — technically as members of the Chinese (Taiwan) Army, even though they are Palestinians. They would hardly pass as “Chinese,” but since nobody cares, it’s a done deal. Al Martin Raw readers should understand that no one asks any questions about any thing at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.

In fact, there are two Palestinians being trained there now in “explosives.” As mentioned before, none of them are who they appear to be. It’s all just convenience for paperwork. In case the Redstone Arsenal gets investigated, they will claim, “No, these people are legitimate; here’s the paperwork.”

Suddenly an Afghani guy named Mohammed Habib winds up being a Colonel Sven Larssen in the Swedish Army. This is an actual case. And it shows just how ridiculous it is.

This deception at the Hazardous Devices School is really another School of Americas story. The Friendly Colonel is being offered a $12,000 fee per person to fill out the appropriate State department documents to allow people into the United States on green cards for short stays – 30, 60, 90 day stays – and to enlist foreign nationals into this program. What they’re doing is using this program as a cover to bring people in to be trained at the explosives school. The US State Department is actually conspiring with foreign arms merchants and the governments they represent to allow hostile foreign nationals to come to the United States using false documents to be trained at this facility.

They’re asking the Friendly Colonel if he would “hire” these people as “trucking agents.” … To make this offer even more appealing, the Colonel is guaranteed that “there will be no heat” – because the US State Department is complicit. This is a standing offer to him from the State Department – to provide false documents for these foreign nationals for $12,000 each.

Aiding in this enormous illegal covert operation of the United States Government, the Colonel expects to make a million dollars by this time next year.

It is our opinion that these illicit operations at the Redstone Arsenal and adjoining facilities – US Missile Command etc – now exceed the volumes of money and egregious conduct of Iran-Contra itself. Now there are thousands of people involved making millions of dollars.

At lunch, the brigadier general and others involved were all licking their chops at the new F-22 Raptor program. They can’t wait for that to get scaled up. There will be many Chinese arms merchants who will supply fraudulent spare parts that don’t work as usual. They’re looking at this program as “a fresh source to defraud more billions with the Department of Defense with the complicity of senior officers through a complex offshore network of arms dealers, not only foreign arms dealers, but cutouts for American corporations that are producing components and systems for this aircraft.

The bottom line is that we are training individuals and foreign military personnel who are hostile to the United States.

Al Martin Raw readers should also understand how the fraud is systemic, how the fraud is all inter-connected, and how conspiratorial the fraud is, namely that it’s all being controlled by an elite group that runs through foreign governments, the Department of Defense, and defense contractors.

Their agenda is clear – terrorism is good for business.

Terrorism pumps up everybody’s budgets, especially defense, law enforcement, interdiction, etc.

As long as we can keep “foreign terrorism” alive, everyone benefits — the Department of Defense, the CIA, Department of State, the National Security Agency and many others. They can all ask for more money in their budgets by pointing to the “terrorists.” We are in effect augmenting that threat, making sure it stays alive and healthy, so that federal agencies can be funded with ever-increasing amounts of money, especially those agencies that do not have to account for the expenditures of those monies.

They don’t have to account for the missing monies because even if they’re nominally supposed to account for their budgets they don’t. Witness the missing $1.1 trillion from the Department of Defense.

The brigadier general who’s in charge was actually concerned because he and his associates (higher-ranking generals in the Department of Defense, who are committing these frauds) have been notified by the foreign banks where they have deposits that their deposits have grown to such enormous amounts of money that they are unmanageable. They are being asked to transfer their money into other offshore illicit accounts. Some of the banks they’re doing business with are very small and obscure offshore banks that simply can not handle such enormous flows of money.

But you can understand the enormity of the fraud, when you’re talking about trillions of dollars. This fraud is deep and systemic and involves a conspiracy of thousands of high ranking military officers, high ranking State Department officials, Department of Justice officials, CIA, National Security Agency officials, etc. and their “foreign counterparts.”

This is the “Very Real Vast Right Wing Conspiracy,” which has never been called to accounting.

Now the Russians are coming on board with the ABM missile treaty. It can be predicted that the Russians will drop their objections to our development of an ABM system in exchange for advanced US military technology, with which, by the way, we are already supplying the Russians and covertly rearming them. That was just an offer on the table, yet we are already supplying the Russians with US highly advanced technology.

Like the notorious School of the Americas which trained foreign nationals in American torture, interrogation and warfare techniques, the US State Department trains “terrorists”.

In the final analysis, though, nothing is new.

The United States Government has covertly sponsored these activities in the past, especially during “Iran-Contra” and “Iraq-Gate”. We virtually built the Iraqi military and there are many past correlations. For instance, the US did not stop supplying Iraq with illegal weapons systems until three days before the beginning of the Gulf War.

During “Iran-Contra,” the US allowed the Sandinista regime to deal in narcotics so they could generate revenues to purchase more East Bloc weapons in order to become a greater threat to the US, so we could counter that threat by building the Contra Army in which all sorts of fraud against the American taxpayers, corporations, security firms, and banks could be hidden.

It is interesting to note that the Sandinista regime used two of the same companies to purchase weapons for the Contras as well as the Sandinistas. These companies were TransWorld Armaments Corp, based in Quebec City and owned by the infamous Immanuel von Weigensburg and Defcon Industries of Lisbon, Portugal, a CIA-controlled arms merchant cutout also controlled by Major General Richard V. Secord, as noted in the famous Lake Resources lawsuit (United States v. Richard Secord, cv 1202-A 1991 Eastern District Court of Virginia) . [See “The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider”]

Iraq Gate and Iran Contra are perfect examples of how similar these two operations are compared to what’s going on now.

We are creating an enemy and we are also supporting existing enemies for the purpose of enriching a small clique of defense contractors, senior military and intelligence officers, and politicians on the right. We are financing terrorism against us as well as attempting to rebuild Russia and then build China into a new power under the concept that covert wars are very profitable.

The “Fight Against Terrorism” has done an awful lot for the Republican Party. And it has enriched a lot of people and corporations.

The drumbeat against “terrorism” continues full speed ahead….

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AL MARTIN is America’s foremost whistle-blower on government fraud and corruption. A retired US Navy Lt. Commander and former officer in the Office of Naval Intelligence, he has testified before Congress (the Kerry Committee and the Alexander Committee) regarding Iran-Contra. Al Martin is the author of “The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider” (2001, National Liberty Press, $19.95; order line: 1-866-317-1390.) He lives at an undisclosed location, since the criminals named in his book have been returned to national power and prominence. His column “Behind the Scenes in the Beltway” is published regularly on Al Martin Raw: Criminal Govt Conspiracy (www.almartinraw.com).


January 24, 2000:

German Inquiry Hints at Old Boy Network

By Joseph Fitchett, International Herald Tribune

PARIS – Germany’s political funding scandal shows signs of bringing to light a political culture that has grown up outside the public eye and runs counter to Germany’s reputation for transparency in its governing practices.

The parliamentary inquiry that gets into full swing this week will investigate not only former Chancellor Helmut Kohl but also a wider cast of prominent Germans, according to officials close to the process. If the investigation reveals influence peddling with the slush funds, and not just a practice of topping up campaign war chests, the dimensions of the scandal could escalate and lead to a crisis of confidence in the system of political parties in Germany.

So far, allegations have surfaced about at least one insider, Walter Leisler Kiep, a well-known international figure in the German and U.S. power elite, who is under investigation in connection with the transfer of a suitcase of cash from an arms dealer in 1991 – the incident that led to the discovery of the slush funds.

Often described simply as a former treasurer of the Christian Democrats, a description suggesting an obscure party bureaucrat, Mr. Kiep is in reality a much larger figure. A successful businessman, he has also been an international go-between with wide connections throughout the German and U.S. establishments.

For decades, he has enjoyed access to top corporate management and academic institutions in both countries, chairing the international advisory board at Marsh & McLennan, the giant U.S. brokerage, until the end of last year. He has been a pillar in the sophisticated institutional world of private trans-Atlantic exchanges via the organization he headed, Atlantik-Brucke.

The investigation surrounding Mr. Kiep involves a possible charge of tax evasion in connection with a suitcase of money handed over in a parking lot in Switzerland by Karlheinz Schreiber, an arms dealer who is now in detention in Canada. Mr. Kiep has maintained that he passed along the funds to the Christian Democrats as a contribution for which other party officials were responsible. . . .

But the still murky transaction in Switzerland – which Mr. Kiep insisted involved payment not to himself but to the Christian Democrats under Mr. Kohl – has been widely portrayed in the German and international media as linked to an arms sale to Saudi Arabia that required Kohl government approval. Mr. Kohl has denied that he was influenced by any payment over the arms sale or any other political decision.

Mr. Kiep has denied any knowledge of improprieties in connection with the payment he passed on or any close acquaintance with the contributor who turned out to be an arms dealer. But Mr. Schreiber told a German newspaper, Bild, that he subsequently met Mr. Kiep again at an event sponsored by Atlantik-Brucke.

No suggestion has surfaced that Mr. Kiep used his position at Atlantik-Brucke or corporate access to facilitate bribes from the United States – which has had tough anti-corruption laws since a rash of arms-related scandals in the 1970s – or any wrongdoing of the sort that has led to Mr. Kohl’s embarrassing discrediting.

But Americans and Germans closely acquainted with Mr. Kiep say that his role – simultaneously fund-raiser for a political party, prominent corporate leader and philanthropic promoter of international cooperation – runs counter to perceptions about the separation of politics and business in Germany and points up the existence of an extensive ”old boy network” among Bonn politicians that was never apparent to voters.

Beyond the Schreiber incident, the current inquiry is expected to investigate alleged kickbacks, perhaps running to millions of dollars, during the privatization of the oil industry in former East Germany. French and German intermediaries under investigation by Swiss magistrates were quoted by Le Monde in Paris as saying that Mr. Kohl’s demand for payments was pressed on French officials by a company run by Mr. Kiep.

Whatever the outcome of the investigation, the mingling of business and politics at the top of the Christian Democratic party has already jolted perceptions in Germany. The notion that their country has a clear separation of government and business is part of the reason most Germans have prided themselves on thinking that they have cleaner politics than other European countries.

In practice, German political life and corporate business have overlapped via an elite that includes Mr. Kiep. . . .

Trim and patrician at 73, Mr. Kiep has been an influential figure for decades in the rarefied world of elite trans-Atlantic contacts. In 1984, he took charge of Atlantik-Brucke, a privately funded body designed to promote closer ties, in meetings largely out of the public eye, among government officials and business and financial communities in the United States and West Germany.

In the course of a business career that took him to the top of a German insurance company, he always worked closely with American companies, including a stint as an executive in West Germany for Marsh & McLennan. The American company took over a German brokerage in which Mr. Kiep was a senior partner in 1990 until his retirement in 1996.

On the U.S. side of Marsh & McLennan, Mr. Kiep was chairman of the company’s international advisory board – a group of dozen influential people from outside the United States – before his term ended on schedule in December.

He has served on similar bodies at Columbia University and other American and German academic institutions. He kept all of these positions during a criminal trial that ended last year – with his discharge – over alleged financial malfeasance when he was party treasurer for the Christian Democrats….

For more on Marsh & McLennan, GO TO > > > The Marsh Birds


From the net:

What Happens in Congress May Not Be As Important As What Happens With CIA, The Military and The Private Contractors Leading Us To War in Colombia . . .

WHEN THE CHILDREN OF THE BULL MARKET BEGIN TO DIE

By Michael C. Ruppert

[Bill Clinton arrives in Cartagena Colombia on August 30, 2000 on the heels of three unpublicized massacres by right wing paramilitaries designed to inflame FARC guerillas. The real shooting and the American publicity machine churning out war fever will start on the same day. This was the lead story in the June issue of “From The Wilderness.”]

While attention is being increasingly focused on a billion dollar military aid package for Colombia that is nearing Bill Clinton’s desk for signature, experience – especially that taken so painfully from Vietnam – tells us that the real determinants of how deeply involved we will become in Colombia are not in Washington, but already down there stirring the pot.

As in Vietnam, and unlike the Contra War, Congress may just be playing “catch-up” with events created by various interests serving more than one master. And experts are becoming increasingly persuaded that our current Colombian experience is more like Vietnam than anything since.

The likelihood of direct involvement of U.S. forces in a dense hostile terrain, controlled by experienced, organized, well-armed, indigenous forces, toughened by three decades of civil war is growing daily. And indicators of the imminence of conflict are not to be found in whether the Senate or the House chops or adds a few dollars or helicopters which can all be restored without fanfare to the Foreign Aid Bill in Conference Committee at the last minute.

They are to be found in the movements and actions of money, the U.S. military and some CIA/DoD connected corporations, possibly using “sheep-dipped” CIA and military personnel disguised as employees of private companies in roles that can only expand the conflict.

The money flow in and around Colombia, both as connected to the drug trade, to vast oil reserves and to the other abundant resources accessible through the “back door” to the Amazon, only hints at the financial and economic power accumulated in the country.

As FTW observed a year ago, the wealth accumulated by the FARC guerrillas, largely through the “taxation” of the drug trade, was sufficient to induce Richard Grasso, Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, to travel to Colombia seeking investment funds for Wall Street. . . .

To understand the significance of this trade it must be noted that, in spite of the continuing expansion of violence between the three dominant factions (government, right wing paramilitaries and rebels), all of which deal prodigiously in drugs, Colombia has been able to steadily expand its drug production every year for the past ten years.

Now the largest drug producing nation in the world, according to DEA and DoJ sources, Colombia produces almost all of the world’s cocaine and almost two thirds of all the heroin entering the United States.

If one imagines three rivals locked in a raging gun battle, one wonders how or why they could all simultaneously increase drug production at rates that would make major corporations jealous. Clearly something else is operating here and that is the hand guiding the huge accumulation of wealth resulting from decades of narco-expansion.

That hand, we believe, is the CIA. . . .

The Private Contractors

As noted by highly credible writers such as Peter Dale Scott, Col. Fletcher Prouty and even the legendary “retired” CIA executive Ted Shackley in his book The Third Option, the use of private corporations, whether directly owned by CIA as “proprietaries” or not, is a common practice for the extension of U.S. military and diplomatic power. Examples of the former in Vietnam include Civil Air Transport or Air America while examples of the later include large multi-nationals such as Bechtel, Brown and Root, AT&T or any of the major oil companies.

In regions where overt commitment of U.S. military forces is impolitic these private corporations, as they have evolved in the last few decades, can accomplish a multitude of objectives essential to inflaming regional conflicts to the point where U.S. military forces must be called in to save the day.

The use of these companies, which serve as actual profit centers for their private investors, their intelligence agency owners, or both, has evolved to the point where the corporations offer off-the-shelf war making capabilities from infantry fighters, to aerial reconnaissance, to general officers capable of setting up or commanding division sized maneuvers in client countries. The survivability of these companies is a priori tied to the creation of conflict and regional destabilization with the blessings of CIA so that there will always be customers. Peace becomes the enemy.

One such corporation, heavily involved in both Colombia and in Kosovo is the Virginia based DynCorp.

DynCorp, according to Alex Cockburn and Jeff St. Clair, is the nation’s twenty-second largest defense contractor with 1998 U.S. Government contract revenues of $475 million. DynCorp, which currently has between 300-600 contracted employees in Colombia, is performing functions like crop eradication (using defoliants – like Vietnam), to sophisticated aerial reconnaissance, to combat advisory roles training military and possibly even paramilitary forces.

When the history of the Colombian War is written it may well be noted that the first U.S. casualties were actually three DynCorp employees killed when their reconnaissance aircraft crashed on a mountaintop in the drug growing regions last summer. DynCorp employees have been described as being arrogant and more than willing to get “wet” by going out on combat missions and engaging in firefights.

A British source reminded us recently that DynCorp Chairman, Pug Winokur, begged out of Commerce Secretary Ron Brown’s ill fated last flight in the Balkans.

The same Pug Winokur is on the board of Harvard Endowments which had a behind the scenes hand in destroying the economic research conducted by former Assistant Secretary of Housing, Catherine Austin Fitts in 1996. That research was beginning to illuminate how the drug trade generates profits for Wall Street through the subsidized HUD housing market where Harvard is a heavy investor. . . . (For more on this connection, GO TO > > > HUD)

The parallels between Colombia and Vietnam are inescapable and unavoidable. After twenty-five years, the passing of an entire generation, the forces that govern us behind the scenes are poised to unleash another “floating crap game” of profits, corporate expansion, re-colonization and even genocide. The one glaring and hope-giving difference is that this time the war will be justified on the basis of fighting not Communists, but drug traffickers – and only one gang of drug traffickers at that.

We will see the American people’s willingness to accept this ploy when the children of the bull market begin to die. . . .

(For more on the Wall Street Connection, GO TO > > > Wall Street)


RICO Used in Wrongful-Termination Suit

by Mary Alice Robbins, Texas Lawyer

April 2, 2001

Depositions are under way in a suit pending in Fort Worth, Texas’ 17th District Court that alleges a Lubbock man was fired by an American defense contractor in Bosnia because he blew the whistle on supervisors and co-workers who bought illegal firearms and engaged in buying and selling underage girls as domestic help and sex slaves.

Ben Johnston alleges in Johnston v. DynCorp Inc., et al. that his former employer breached his three-year contract when he was fired without cause last June. . . .

Johnston worked as a civilian aircraft mechanic for DynCorp, which has a contract with the U.S. Army to maintain military helicopters on the Comanche Base at Tuzla, Bosnia. He accepted the contract with DynCorp in November 1998 and was earning about $120,000 a year, according to the suit.

DynCorp, a Delaware corporation, oversees its international operations from its offices in Fort Worth.

The suit filed last August by Lubbock lawyer Kevin Glasheen alleges that DynCorp engaged in racketeering activities in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and that Johnston was terminated because he refused to commit an illegal act. If Johnston had not reported his fellow employees’ alleged unlawful activities, he could have been charged under federal law with misprision of a felony, says Glasheen, a shareholder in Fadduol, Glasheen & Valles in Lubbock.

Glasheen says the issues addressed in the case involve “leading-edge stuff” in employment law. “This is going to be a case of first impression,” he says.

Among the allegations in the suit are that the corporation and its employees engaged in peonage and slavery, sexually exploiting children, dealing in obscene material and procuring fraudulent identification documents.

The suit alleges that DynCorp employees purchased the passports of women and girls from Serbian Mafia members who brought them into Bosnia from other Eastern European countries. The corporation’s employees sometimes resold the passports, alleges Richard Hardy, an associate with Fadduol, Glasheen who also represents Johnston.

As alleged in the suit, Johnston told his DynCorp supervisor that co-workers were buying women from the Mafia and was told “to mind his own business.” According to the suit, Johnston reported the alleged activities to the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command in March 2000 and his whistle-blowing allegedly led to his termination and forced him and his Bosnian wife, Denisa, to flee the country.

Johnston and his wife were forced into protective custody by the CID for fear that they would face retaliation by the Serbian Mafia and DynCorp employees, the suit alleges.

A plaintiff who brings a civil RICO conspiracy claim must show that he was injured by an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year in Beck v. Prupis that a plaintiff must prove the overt act that injured him was an “act of racketeering.”

“In our situation, we’re claiming tampering with a witness,” Glasheen says.

“Mr. Johnston was terminated in order to preserve the status quo of DynCorp in Bosnia, the sanctioned buying and selling of women, minor girls, firearms, forged passports and frequent trips to whorehouses,” the suit alleges.

NOVEL QUESTION

Glasheen says the suit raises the question of whether the termination of an employee can be considered obstruction of justice under RICO. It also raises the question of whether reporting fellow workers’ alleged illegal activities to law enforcement constitutes refusal to commit an illegal act, he says.

Johnston alleges that the corporation’s conduct toward him was willful or malicious, entitling him to recover punitive damages. . . .

Charlene Wheeless, DynCorp’s vice president of communications, says the corporation adheres to the strictest of ethical standards. “The idea that we, DynCorp, would violate any law is incredible,” Wheeless says.

A DynCorp internal e-mail memo that the company turned over to Glasheen during discovery alleges that a CID raid in June 2000 uncovered a videotape of th DynCorp –


From The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran-Contra Insider, by Al Martin:

THE NATIONAL PROGRAMS OFFICE AND OPERATION SLEDGEHAMMER

In October 1983, Operation Black Eagle was reformulated from Operation Eagle. It began with the appointment of Oliver North as Chairman of the powerful and then still secret National Programs Office (NPO).

CIA Director William Casey thought this was necessary since the NPO had extremely secure storage, transportation and air routes within the United States as well as in the Caribbean and the Central and South American theaters. Such secure facilities would be necessary for the envisioned trafficking in the quantities of cocaine and weapons that Casey felt would be necessary.

These sites included such renowned places as Iron Mountain, Texas, the airfields outside of Medford, Oregon, the airfields in Joplin, Missouri, etc. . . .

In terms of policy management, Casey formed a series of inter-governmental agency Restricted Access Groups (RAGS). Ultimately three such groups were formed. The top Restricted Access Group 1 was Vice President George Bush – as it was decided that all narcotics, weapons and money operations vis-a-vis Iran Contra, would be considered under the office of the Vice President.

Also included in these Restricted Access Groups were then Vice Presidential National Security Advisor, Col. Donald Gregg, then Deputy Secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger and Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, who was in charge of the Inter-American Affairs Office (an office which served in no other capacity except being a propaganda tool for the Nicaraguan Contras), Richard Armitage, and Assistant Secretary of State, Bernie Aronson.

In the Department of Defense, the RAG group included Assistant Secretary of Defense, Frank Carlucci, Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Stilwell, and Casper Weinberger himself.

In the CIA, besides Casey, there was the infamous Deputy Director of Operations, Clair George and Assistant Deputy Director of Operations, Alan Fiers.

Later in Restricted Access Group 3, in terms of CIA involvement, there would be included various CIA Station Chiefs, such as the infamous and sinister Joseph P. Fernandez, the Costa Rican Station Chief.

The names involved in the Restricted Access Group would change as these men changed positions in government – from 1983 through 1986.

When Frank Carlucci left the Defense Department to become Presidential National Security Advisor and Bobby Gates became Deputy Director of the CIA, Gates supplanted Carlucci within Restricted Access Group 2.

When Gate’s nomination to become Director later failed, Gates was put back into Restricted Access Group 1, when he took over from Carlucci as Presidential National Security Advisor.

At the peak of Iran-Contra operations in the spring of 1986, there were approximately 1,000 direct Government employees involved – from Cabinet Secretaries all the way down to Special Envoys. . . .

During the Iran Contra years (specifically from 1983 to 1986), a wide variety of contingency operations were developed.

The most sinister of these, in my opinion, was Operation Sledgehammer.

I heard North discuss it extensively during one of the FDL meetings in Miami in the fall of 1984. . . .

Sledgehammer was essentially a contingency operation to institute a putsch against the United States Government (with tacit support of said Government) should knowledge of Iran-Contra operations become publicly disseminated.

The feeling was that if people were to know the quantities of narcotics and weapons being dealt and the enormity of State-sanctioned fraud against US banks (and other financial institutions which taxpayers ultimately guarantee), there would be such a reaction among the people that in order to divert public attention, it might become necessary to institute a putsch having the tacit agreement of the Reagan Administration. . . .

These NPO facilities were used as storage sites for advanced communication equipment, for instance, that would be necessary for the control of cities by US armed forces. . . .

There were some speculative media pieces done on Operation Sledgehammer in the late ’80s and early ’90s, but it was nothing substantial. The few documents regarding Sledgehammer that had leaked out in late 1986 and early 1987 would up in the hands of attorney Paul Wilcher, for example.

And we all know what happened to Wilcher. . .

As a matter of fact, Danny Casolaro actually wound up with some of them, but unfortunately he was liquidated before he could do anything with them.

Bill Moyle from Jane’s Defense Weekly also obtained some of these materials. Three days later he was found hanged by his own necktie inside a closet in his hotel room in Santiago, Chile, while investigating the famous Chilean arms dealer, Carlos Cardoen.

Another well-known journalist I knew at the time who had received some genuine information regarding Operation Sledgehammer was Keith Wickenham.

Keith received certain materials from a certain party about ten in the morning. He drove his automobile home to take a shower and get cleaned up and go back to his office.

About an hour later, when he was done, he got back into his automobile. When he turned on his ignition, it blew up – with him in it.

The police ruled his death, or the car explosion, to be an “accidental vapor explosion.”

The local investigation was quickly closed and a few months later, all the files were shredded.

Another well-known journalist who obtained materials about this operation was Steve Perry. He got them in Washington, secreted them in a safe deposit box in the First National Bank of Washington and took a holiday. It was a little holiday he had scheduled to go ice fishing in upstate New York.

The second day there, Mr. Perry fell through the ice and promptly drowned.

When the executor of his estate opened up the safe deposit box, there was nothing there.

I apologize when I said we all know what happened to Paul Wilcher.

Wilcher was a famous liberal attorney in Arlington, Virginia. Actually he lived in Manassas, but he practiced in Arlington and had a condo there.

His firm represented many people like me who had been on the short end of the Iran-Contra stick when everything fell apart.

In the event that you’re not familiar with the story, Wilcher was simply murdered.

His beaten and naked body was found sitting on his own toilet seat in his own condominium.

The police – a man and woman police officer, arrived at the scene very early – when in fact his killer was exiting the building. But they didn’t make the connection at the time.

A few days later, they did make the connection.

And when they made the connection through an artist rendering as to who it was, the CIA saw a copy of that artist rendering too.

The two police officers were quickly put on paid leave and they used up all their vacation and benefits. Then they were allowed to retire early with enhanced pensions.

Suddenly a few weeks later, bank accounts appeared for both of them at the Nassau, Bahamas branch of the Royal Trust Company of Canada.

The two police officers are now comfortably retired in the Caribbean living under assumed names.

(When Bill Casey headed the Agency, he would remark privately that his sense of honor was such that “American police officers should not be liquidated unless absolutely necessary.”)

Regarding Operation Sledgehammer – all those who ever attempted to publicly disseminate any genuine documents or information have now been liquidated, some 36 people in all.

Wilcher, by the way, was murdered by a guy named Eddy Castille, who is employed by Department 4 (Domestic Wet Operations, or DWO) of the Agency. He’s one of their shooters. . . .

The well-known Iran-Contra attorney in Texas, Dave Parker, is a notable example of what happens to people who ever mention Castille’s name.

Former Army CID investigator Bill McCoy told Parker to keep his mouth shut when Parker was disseminating information about this guy.

After Parker’s office was bombed, after his house burned down, after his car was blown up and after he was beaten up three or four times – he got the message.

He has never mentioned the guy’s name publicly again.

Another interesting transaction was the famous KGB document purchase of 1991, which was arranged by none other than Dick Armitage and Frank Carlucci.

When Frank and Dickie left the Government, they immediately went to Moscow and opened up an office of the Blackstone Investment Group.

Although it was supposed to be an investment office, it was essentially a conduit for money coming out of Washington to purchase KGB documents.

In 1991, an enormous sale from the KGB files was consummated for $36 million.

It always struck me as somewhat humorous that the sheer volume of documents purchased was so large that it took the entire cargo bay of a Southern Air Transport C-130, which was used to fly the stuff out of Moscow.

The purchased documents were a real grab bag of what would have been very politically damaging documents, especially for Republicans in the United States – had they ever been made public. . . .

It’s interesting to note that the only general in the KGB who objected to the sale (now chief of the North American Desk) was the very loyal and patriotic General Alexander Karpov.

Included in the deal, by the way, was a package (let’s call it a travel package) wherein over 300 KGB generals and colonels were allowed to enter the United States and were provided with very comfortable homes, mostly in northern Virginia.

Most KGB generals now get a check for $12,000 a month from the Agency.

KGB colonels get $8,000 a month plus a panoply of favors.

Most of these guys are now in the import-export business. The have offices in and around McLean, Virginia.

It’s also interesting to note that four former KGB generals have import-export offices in the same building in McLean where Oliver North has his office.

How easy it is to purchase the silence of others with the appropriate-sized slice of the American Pie.

The reason I mention this? It’s an interesting case study in the way things work and the decisions men make.

For his loyalty to the Soviet Union, General Karpov will soon retire a broken – and financially broke – man in the run-down dacha he owns in the Crimea.

On the other hand, a KGB general who cooperated by keeping his mouth shut is already retired in a very comfortable brick colonial home in Silver Springs, Maryland. He also has a Mercedes Benz and a golf course membership.

Back to Iran-Contra. Let us take a look at the Department of Justice role in Iran-Contra. More specifically, let us examine its political liabilities control and suppression function.

In a effort to insulate Ed Meese from the more tawdry affair of liability control and suppression, the S-1 (Suppression-1) function of the Department of Justice was put in the hands of his subordinate, Deputy Attorney General George W. Terwilliger.

This Terwilliger is a real piece of work. His equally sinister and dreaded henchman, Lowell Jensen, is now a federal district judge in California.

Terwilliger, by the way, is now a senior partner in the Washington, DC law firm of Woods, McGuire, one of the repositories for nasty right-wingers in waiting (the ultimate repository being the Heritage Foundation).

Included in the Suppression Control Unit of the Department of Justice (which, of course, is a secret unit of the Department) were what I used to call the Sinister Bobbsey Twins – Associate Attorney General David Margolis, then Chief of Domestic Criminal Operations, and the equally sinister Mark Richards, then Chief of the International Crime Section.

The function of these people was to prosecute those who had talked too much – or who might talk too much in the future – such as the way I was prosecuted in 1986, although unsuccessfully.

The Suppression Unit in the Department of Justice is so powerful it reaches into all agencies.

The Unit maintains control features into all politically sensitive US Attorneys’ offices that were involved in Iran-Contra – Miami, Tampa, New Orleans, Atlanta, etc.

In Miami, for instance, the Control Unit’s hand-picked boy was the powerful, infamous, dreaded and sinister William Richard Scruggs, who is still an Assistant US Attorney there.

In West Palm Beach, it was Jay Lewis, who would prosecute politically sensitive narcotics cases, such as the Jack DeVoe case.

These were cases where people had actually trafficked in narcotics on behalf of, with the complicity of, or at least with the acquiescence of the Agency.

The people had now become politically expendable. And there was a whole route maintained for people like me who got prosecuted in the aftermath of Iran-Contra. Tremendous resources were devoted to these prosecutions too.

The people who were rather mid-level in the Department of Justice within the Suppression Group at the time are now senior officials.

A good example is Lee Radek, an Associate Attorney General and also the head of Justice’s Public Integrity Section.

Public Integrity? What a joke that is.

The Public Integrity Section of the Department of Justice, by the way, is full of ex-CIA players.

At the time, Lee Radek’s assistant was Deputy Associate Attorney General Bobby Muller. Bobby was forced out of the Department in 1992 for having a big mouth. He was an alcoholic and he fancied himself a Republican cocktail circuit dandy.

The problem was is that in the Beltway, Bobby would get half in the bag – and in an effort to be humorous – would run his mouth off about what people had said. He would do it when there were members of the press around.

It was a riot the stuff that Bobby would say.

Bobby was the one who forced that comment out in June 1992, the public comment George Bush made to Sarah McClendon about Iran-Contra.

When McClendon asked George about Iran Contra, George Bush said, “Sarah, if people ever knew what we had done, we’d be chased down in the streets and lynched.”

It was also Bobby who reiterated what Bob Dole had said when Bob Dole was half in the bag.

I myself was not ten feet from Bob Dole during the Reagan re-inauguration dinner in January 1985, which was held inside the Watergate Hotel because it was so freezing outside. . . .

Bob Dole was half smashed.

Frank Carlucci was there. Armitage was there. The whole gang, the whole cabal was there.

And Bob Dole said, “America. Land of the Naive and Home of the Provincial. Thank God.” . . .

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Recommended web site: www.almartinraw.com

For more on Frank Carlucci, GO TO > > > Part I – The Birds

For more on the Carlyle Group, GO TO > > > A Connecticut Yankee in King Kamehameha’s Court; The Sinking of the Ehime Maru


September 20, 2001

Bin Laden is a monster partly ‘Made by USA’

By Mort Rosenblum, The Associated Press

PARIS – Osama bin Laden, now America’s public enemy No. 1, was the type of Soviet-hating freedom fighter that US officials applauded when the world looked a little different.

Though not singled out specifically for Washington’s praise, Western and Middle Eastern sources say, bin Laden received US support to fight Soviet troops in Afghanistan as he was shaping his al-Qaida terrorist network.

“I warned the CIA about getting involved with this sort of Muslim extremist,” said Pierre Lacoste, the admiral who headed French intelligence at the time. “This business of ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ can be very dangerous.”

During the 1980s the United States supported several ragtag rebel groups eager to fight the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Americans provided funds and arms, including Stinger surface-to-air missiles.

“Bin Laden was just emerging as a leader, but he was already an Islamic idealist, clearly with no love for the West,” Lacoste said in an interview, one of several veterans of that period who sketch a similar picture.

Although bin Laden insists he never took any CIA funds directly, he was heavily funded by Saudi interests and received American logistical and political support, Lacoste said.

US officials at the time say aid was given first under President Carter and then under President Reagan. Reagan once praised the Afghans and Arab guerrillas who helped them as “freedom fighters.”

Herman Cohen, who in the 1980s was deputy assistant secretary of state for intelligence and then on the National Security Council, said aid was channeled through Pakistan and given to groups selected by Pakistanis.

“We didn’t understand at that point what was happening,” Cohen said. . . .

Some of the Pakistanis involved were themselves Islamic fundamentalists, he added. Cohen is now a private consultant in African affairs….

Bin Laden made ample use of the American equipment lavished on rebel groups during the Soviet resistance, Girardet said. When Moscow retreated in 1989, CIA operatives departed, leaving splintered factions to fight for supremacy.

Bin Laden was lionized when he returned to Saudi Arabia but soon ran afoul of the kingdom’s ruling family. He moved to Sudan, building up his organization, and then to Afghanistan in 1996. . . .

# # #




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Global Crossing

Nests in the Pentagon

Rand Corporation

Stealing Your Nest Eggs

The American Red Double-Cross

The Eagle Awakes

The Eagle Hooded

The Indonesian Connection

The Marsh Birds

The Nests of Osama bin Laden

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The Secret Nests

The Sinking of the Ehime Maru

The Stephen Friedman Flock

The Story of Enron

The Strange Saga of BCCI

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Last updated on February 1, 2003, by The Catbird.
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