[cia-drugs] Our Own Nuremberg Trials
Our Own Nuremberg Trials In 2007, the 'reality show' of the American rule of law, for the world to see. by Nat Hentoff December 17th, 2006 9:27 PM The new secretary of defense, Robert Gates, warden of the worst of the worst in Guantánamo. photo: www.defenselink.mil/ During the mutual-admiration hearing before the Senate Committee on Armed Services—which led to the unanimous confirmation of former CIA chief Robert Gates to be Donald Rumsfeld's successor—no senator asked Gates if he approves of the Pentagon's extreme . . . emergency insistence on a $125 million appropriation to construct a permanent compound for a war-crimes court at Guantánamo. There, in 2007, war-crimes trials will be held for dozens of Guantánamo detainees. The facilities will accommodate simultaneous proceedings. Unlike the Nuremberg war-crimes trials of the Nazis, there will be no government officials in the dock, but rather—as detailed in my last column—prisoners against whom the United States has itself committed war crimes under the Geneva Conventions and our own War Crimes act. These crimes include their conditions of confinement and a total lack of the due process that the Supreme Court ordered in Rasul v. Bush (2004) and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld (2006). Each of the defendants will have already been designated as an enemy combatant by previous administrative Combatant Status Review Tribunals at Guantánamo. At these sham hearings they were presumed guilty before any of the evidence against them (which they were not permitted to see) was aired. That means the presumption of guilt will continue at the war-crimes trials. The world will watch the total transmogrification of America's much self-praised rule of law. There are objections to this rush for funds to house the American Nuremberg trials. On December 3, Republican congressman James Walsh, chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Quality of Life and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies—which is in charge of military construction projects—refused to authorize the Pentagon's national security appropriation. Walsh is angry at the absence of any public debate on this expenditure and, he cogently adds, The issue of the tribunals is very controversial. For them to move this fast makes me wonder why. Congressman Walsh will no longer chair that crucial committee in January. But in view of the Democratic congressional leadership's enveloping embrace of the new defense secretary, Robert Gates, will lawmakers prevent him from going ahead with the compound at Guantánamo? And if the Democrats hold up the appropriation, will Gates proceed with the trials in more cramped quarters? (On December 10, the Pentagon suddenly postponed its proposal—leaving it to be decided by the next Congress.) Our rampant lawlessness during the past four years at Guantánamo has long been controversial in the international press and among human rights groups. But the extent and depth of our abuse of these prisoners—resulting in a number of desperation suicides—have been illuminated with damning clarity in a series of reports by New Jersey's Seton Hall University School of Law, the most recent of which, No-Hearing Hearings, I reported on last week. The Seton Hall revelations have reached beyond the metropolitan press to, for example, the Anniston Star in Alabama. A December 1 editorial, The Gitmo Games, quotes from the Seton Hall findings, and concludes: The military is holding something less than a kangaroo court that results in putting people away—without charging them with any specific wrongdoing—for an indefinite period of time . . . History will be very unkind to the rulers who constructed this very unjust, un-American system. Those un-American rulers, of course, include George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, a coven of lawyers at the Defense Department and the White House, and Donald Rumsfeld. Will Robert Gates take his place among them? The Anniston Star's indictment-editorial ends: [History] also will be unkind to people who tolerated [this un-American system.] That means us. A Seton Hall Law School report from February 8, which I did not cite last week, by professor Mark Denbeaux and Joshua Denbeaux and law students at this exemplary school, presents the case against the United States in anticipation of the war-crimes trials at Guantánamo next year. A Profile of 517 Detainees Through Analysis of Department of Defense Data provides a window into the Government's detaining only those the President has called 'the worst of the worst.' You can now determine for yourself how dangerous the great majority of the defendants are in the forthcoming American Nuremberg trials: Only 8 percent of the detainees were characterized as al Qaeda fighters. Of the remaining detainees, 40 percent have no definitive connection with al Qaeda at all and 18 percent have no definitive affiliation with either al
[cia-drugs] Akha Journal: Correction
Dear Friends: A correction. Ms. Wongsa is in Prison in Singapore. We hope that her case is publicized and that she is released soon. We also hope that someone arrests the brokers in Hatyai who appear to be protected. Sincerely, Matthew McDaniel The Akha Heritage Foundation. http://www.akha.org Akha Heritage Site. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Akhaweeklyjournal Discussion http://groups.yahoo.com/group/akha Donate Via Credit Card Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=akha%40akha.org PO Box 6073 Salem, OR. 97304 USA. __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
[cia-drugs] eTakeover of Humanity
From: Vicky Davis Smart Borders, Smart Highways, Smart ID's, Verichip, NAIS Animal Tracking, National database for Medical Records, Total Information Awareness, National Human Resources Management System (integrated school workforce development systems - probably eventually connected to state birth records systems), GPS tracking your movements, Equifax - financial transactions, on and on. CSPP Broadband Vision As with the advent of the railroads, the creation of our interstate highway system, and the roll out of universal electrical service, the Computer systems Policy Project (CSPP) believes the promise of the Networked World--where everything and everyone is connected at all times through computer and communications technology--will engender one of the greatest paradigm shifts of the 21st Century. http://www.patrickweb.com/pdf/cspp_broadband_vision.pdf At the time this one was written, Lou Gerstner (CEO and Chairman of IBM) was the CEO of the Computer Systems Policy Project. Gerstner is now the CEO of the Carlyle Group. Living in the Networked World http://www.cspp.org/documents/Living_in_the_Networked_World.pdf What is the networked world? The Networked World--where everyone and everything is connected at all times--is the future. http://www.cspp.org/documents/Living_in_the_Networked_World.pdf Make no mistake about this in their version of the world, you (your children) are just number- and entity in a database to be tracked, monitored and controlled. It will include measurements of your life's productivity - and if you don't produce more than you use, you will be flagged for 'retirement'. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4040930009676933149 http://www.cspp.org/ Vicky Davis I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do. What I can do, I should do. And what I should do, by the grace of God, I will do ~~ Edward Everett Hale
[cia-drugs] Bush is About to Wish He Was Not Such a Crook
Each and every one reading this should write,call or see a Congressman and Senator ,DEMAND that this happens, I have already,you should too. Also pass to as many as you know.. Bugs - Original Message - From: NT Bush is About to Wish He Was Not Such a Crook I predict that in the next 6 months one of three things is going to happen, One Bush is going to resign and like a world class coward, flee to Paraguay. Two he is going to tell Congress to stick it when they start subpoenaing his ass, and they will be forced to impeach him, but he will be a no show, because he fled to Paraguay. Or my last prediction is that Dick Cheney will ask him to go hunting, to save his own ass. U.S.News World Report Evidence continues to mount that the new Democratic majority plans to investigate the war, energy policy, and other Bush policies, as key committees have begun hiring lawyer-investigators whose job will be to probe the administration. In the House, for example, the Appropriations Committee under Rep. John Murtha's direction is hiring investigators who will be charged with looking into the administration's war policies and spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. Also, Rep. Henry Waxman, the incoming chairman of the House Government Reform Committee who's been dogging the vice president's energy task force, is also hiring lawyers. A Democratic leadership official said that the planned hearings and investigations into the war and other issues the lawyer-investigators are being hired to look into will be very focused. In the Senate, officials said similar hirings were underway in a speeded up effort to have people in place for the start of the new Congress, especially the planned early January hearings into the war and military spending that are set to begin January 8. http://speciousreasoning.com/node/1633 The Americans have all the watches - the Taliban has all the time. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ImpeachBushNOW
[cia-drugs] ARGENTINE QUOTE OF THE DAY-- FROM 1647, BUT IT COULD BE FROM ANYWHERE AND FROM ANY TIME
http://downwithtyranny.blogspot.com/2006/12/argentine-quote-of-day-from-1647-but.html Sunday, December 24, 2006 ARGENTINE QUOTE OF THE DAY-- FROM 1647, BUT IT COULD BE FROM ANYWHERE AND FROM ANY TIME I've been so taken with Argentina that I found a bookstore that sells English language books above and beyond cheap airplane ride novels. Ateneo on Florida is the place (places; there are a couple of 'em)-- and I found a thoroughly engaging volume by one of Argentina's most popular contemporary writers, Felipe Pigna. Although I was searching for a book on Argentine history that would give me more information about the very substantial Argentine cooperation with the Nazis during World War II and/or about the Chaco War-- I still can't figure out how impoverished little Paraguay somehow thought it was prudent to simultaneously take on Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay (and maybe Bolivia) and then kept fighting until it had lost 80% of its male population-- but I found something completely different. The book I'm halfway through is called The Myths of Argentine History and, basically, it seeks to show the roots of Argentine current events in the earliest incarnations ofthe nation. I came across a quote from Juan De Solorzano Pereyra (1647) which rings pretty universal in terms of both time and space: The corrupt are greater and more insolent sinners than thieves, as these steal in fear, while the former do it openly and securely. The thief fears the law's whip, while they want to turn their deeds, no matter how noxious, into the pillars of the law. The thief might cower under the threats of the law and refrain from doing what is forbidden; but corrupt rulers shape the laws to whatever illicit advantages their malice and cowardice might lead them to.
[cia-drugs] viedo: Secret Rulers of the World
http://www.islamictorrents.net/details.php?id=8358 Secret Rulers of the World Episodes 45 Channel 4 Aired: April 2001 Secret Rulers of the World was a five part series of documentary films written, directed by and featuring British journalist Jon Ronson. Both the series and book detail Ronson's encounters following theorists and activists residing on the fringes of the political, religious, and sociological spectrum. Episode 4 of 5-Bohemian Grove-In The Satanic Shadowy Elite? Jon Ronson follows theorist and radio host Alex Jones as he attempts to infiltrate the annual gathering of dignitaries and business leaders (reportedly including George Bush and Henry Kissenger) at Bohemian Grove, California. Whilst Jones implements a series of dramatic covert plans to access the camp, Ronson strolls in unimpeded. The film includes footage of attendees dressed in robes and burning an effigy at the foot of a giant stone owl. Jones believes that the ceremony is related to occult secret societies. Episode 5 of 5-The Bilderberg Group Ronson teams up with reporter James P. Tucker, Jr., who has been investigating the Bilderberg Group, an annual invitation-only conference, for over thirty years. According to Tucker, around 130 guests, most of whom are persons of influence in business, academic, or political circles, meet annually in secret. The duo encounter unwelcoming suited security men and a car chase. Technical Specs For Episode 5 of 5 Total Size: 136.21 MB Total Streams: 2 Stream(s) Length: 00:46:57 Video Bitrate: 244 KB/s Video Codec: Windows Media Video V9 Resolution: 320 x 240 Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Framerate: 29.97 FPS (84422 Frames) Quality Factor: 0.106 B/px Audio Bitrate: 161 KB/s (VBR) Audio Codec: MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3) Channels: 2 Ch @ Sampling Rate: 44100 Hz
[cia-drugs] Thai central bank admits currency control error
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific_business/view/249041/1/.html Thai central bank admits currency control error Posted: 25 December 2006 1333 hrs BANGKOK: The Bank of Thailand said on Monday it has underestimated the impact of its draconian currency controls on the stock market, which is reeling from last week's record losses. We anticipated a certain impact for the (stock) market. But we didn't expect it to be this much, central bank governor Tarisa Watanagase said in an interview with the English-daily Bangkok Post published on Monday. The Thai stock market nosedived 15 percent, the biggest one-day drop by value in the 31-year history of the bourse, on Tuesday due to panic selling over the currency rules imposed to curb the Thai baht's rise. Facing the stock losses amounting to a staggering 23 billion dollars on the day, Finance Minister Pridiyathorn Devakula backtracked on the capital measures, which only took effect on Tuesday, in an embarrassing policy U-turn. The lesson that we have learned is that market panics occur more than we thought, that the herd mentality of investors is strong, said Tarisa, the first woman to head the central bank. We will need to consider investor psychology more, said the governor, who took the helm of the Bank of Thailand in October after Pridiyathorn left the top job to join the military-backed government as finance minister. - AFP/so
[cia-drugs] Chomsky: It Doesn't Matter Even If There Was a Conspiracy about 9/11
- Original Message - From: Rosalee Grable [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 25, 2006 11:15 AM Subject: [political-research] Chomsky: It Doesn't Matter Even If There Was a Conspiracy about 9/11 Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 13:46:54 -0800 From: Jeffrey Blankfort [EMAIL PROTECTED] I don't usually send videos to my list but this short clip of Noam Chomsky being interviewed re 9-11 is very revealing in which he says, referring to what critics of the official narrative allege, what does it matter even if it was true, it wouldn't be significant? He then refers back to the assassination of JFK in which he still insists that the assassin was Oswald, with the nonsensical comment that people get killed all the time. Add to this his routine dismissal of the role of the Jewish lobby in shaping US Middle East policy and it is easy to understand why he is known as the Chief Gatekeeper. Will he debate anyone on these issues? Of course not. He prefers opponents like Alan Dershowitz who is guaranteed not to raise any important issues that Chomsky cannot counter. In this 4 minute clip, he speaks about coincidences that can't be explained but it would be nice if he would explain how it was that the 8000 page Patriot Act was already written, printed, and ready to be sent to Congress immediately after 9-11 when, before the event, there would have been no chance of its passage. Another coincidence? http://youtube.com/watch?v=LoDqDvbgeXM
[cia-drugs] Brief History of the 20th Century
http://peon.gnn.tv/blogs/20643/Brief_History_of_the_20th_Century Brief History of the 20th Century B20643 / Mon, 25 Dec 2006 00:56:19 / Government World War One (the Great War) 1907-1920 By 1907 the U.K has laid clam to her empire and settled with Russia and France. The U.K had a powerful navy unmatched by any other. With over sea matters handled, the lands at home fall under the prying eyes of the monarchs of Europe. Austria-Hungry negotiate for land in Serbia, Russia laying clam to the Balkans despite her humiliating defeat at the hands of Japan; France is thirsty for revenge due to her loss of Alsace-Lorraine to the Germans. Tensions began to swelter with each great power wanting more land at the expense of lesser developed nations. A system was put in place with the goal of preventing a war caused by Imperialism. The Triple Alliance composed of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, stood opposed to the Triple Entente composed of Britain, France, and Russia. With each country ready to act if the other was invaded. If this was the seed of World War one the root would be the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the nephew of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary and heir to the Austrian throne by a Serbian revolutionary. This enacted Austria-Hungry to demand certain conditions from Serbia. When all were not meet Austria-Hungry invaded Serbia with the backing of Germany on July 28, 1914. Italy hesitant to show support despite the Triple Alliance due to Austria-Hungary's out right goal of acquiring new lands. Russia begins to mobilize its forces against German contradiction. With no positive answer Germany declares war on august 1st. On the third of August, the Germans declare war on France. The U.K then declares war on Germany, the next day the World will enter a new age. Imperialism once again; like in all of history, the wealthy fought over land and used the masses to fight horrific wars in the names of colonialism, later to become free markets. Neither sides expected a drawn out war nor did they issue the amount of lives it would cost. World War one was the first modern war. It was the last war that used cavalry as a fighting force and the first to use aircraft, long distance projectiles and was fought inefficiently and with disregarded for human life. The war was divided into two fronts the west and the east. The western front ran from the Belgian coast to the Swiss boarder. Both sides fought in trenches, a trench is a long zing zaged hole in the ground. Most attempts at advancement were cut down by machine gun fire. Little land was gained on either front. The USA declared war on Germany on the 6th of April, 1917 .Russia resigned from the war due to the czar losing power in 1917. Finally, Germany unable to keep its citizens feed due to blockades and losses at the front; did she accept defeat at Versailles. Only then did the U.K end German starvation. The Germans were forced to give up most of her colonies and pay reparations for the war. This caused inflation and poverty for most of its people. The people often transported money in wheel barrels due to the worthlessness of the mark. The lone dollar was worth 4 trillion marks. The Ottoman Empire was divided into modern day Iraq, Iran, Turkey and Kuwait to name a few. In the end the war was pointless. Many died for no good reason and people will suffer until the end of the seconded World War. Both sides' worst off then when the war began, the people of Europe rebuild their lives only to be torn apart 20 years later. 1917 to 1929 The Czar of Russia lost power to Lenin and Trotsky in a communist revolt on Nov. 6, 1917. After the death of Lenin in 1924, Joseph Stalin rose to power and drove Trotsky out of the government by 1927. In 1919 Benito Mussolini formed his first military group that would eventually become the Fascist party in 1922. In 1919, China protested the failure of the Versailles conference to return the former German concession of Shantung; that instead went to Japan, and then the creation of the Chinese Communist Party. The German workers party was created in 1919, later to become the Nazis in 1920. Later that year the League of Nations had its first meeting. The U.S didn't join but played an important role in its creation. Also in 1920 The Treaty of Sevres on August 10; Britain and France divided the former Ottoman Empire into new mandates; Syria, Transjordan, Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine. The Ottoman Empire was replaced by the new Republic of Turkey on October, 29 1923. The U.S followed a policy of Isolationism. Which they traded with Europe but stayed out of their affairs. That didn't mean the U.S didn't get involved economically and aid wise, they also lowered the interest on war debt and lowered the money to be played by Germany. By the end of the 20's Japan invaded Manchuria with out sanctions from the League of Nations and the world when into a great depression.
[cia-drugs] War Profits Trump the Rule of Law
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122206A.shtml War Profits Trump the Rule of Law By Chris Floyd t r u t h o u t | UK Correspondent Friday 22 December 2006 I. The Wings of the Dove Slush funds, oil sheiks, prostitutes, Swiss banks, kickbacks, blackmail, bagmen, arms deals, war plans, climbdowns, big lies and Dick Cheney - it's a scandal that has it all, corruption and cowardice at the highest levels, a festering canker at the very heart of world politics, where the War on Terror meets the slaughter in Iraq. Yet chances are you've never heard about it - even though it happened just a few days ago. The fog of war profiteering, it seems, is just as thick as the fog of war. But here's how the deal went down. On December 14, the UK attorney general, Lord Goldsmith (Pete Goldsmith as was, before his longtime crony Tony Blair raised him to the peerage), peremptorily shut down a two-year investigation by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into a massive corruption case involving Britain's biggest military contractor and members of the Saudi royal family. SFO bulldogs had just forced their way into the holy of holies of the great global back room - Swiss bank accounts - when Pete pulled the plug. Continuing with the investigation, said His Lordship, would not be in the national interest. It certainly wasn't in the interest of BAE Systems, the British arms merchant that has become one of the top 10 US military firms as well, through its voracious acquisitions during the profitable War on Terror - including some juicy hook-ups with the Carlyle Group, the former corporate crib of George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush and still current home of the family fixer, James Baker. BAE director Phillip Carroll is also quite at home in the White House inner circle: a former chairman of Shell Oil, he was tapped by George II to be the first Senior Adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Oil in those heady Mission Accomplished days of 2003. BAE has allegedly managed to disappear approximately $2 billion in shavings from one of the largest and longest-running arms deals in history - the UK-Saudi warplane program known as al-Yamanah (Arabic for The Dove). Al-Yamanah has been flying for 18 years now, with periodic augmentations, pumping almost $80 billion into BAE's coffers, with negotiations for $12 billion in additional planes now nearing completion. SFO investigators had followed the missing money from the deal into a network of Swiss bank accounts and the usual Enronian web of offshore front companies. Nor was continuing the investigation in the interest of the Saudi royals, whose princely principals in the arms deal were embarrassed by allegations that a BAE-administered slush fund had supplied the fiercely ascetic fundamentalists with wine, women and song - not to mention lush apartments, ritzy holidays, cold hard cash, Jags, Ferraris and at least one gold-plated Rolls-Royce, as The Times reported. One scam - uncovered by the Guardian in a batch of accidentally released government documents - involved inflating the price of the warplanes by 32 percent. The rakeoff was then presumably siphoned into BAE's secret accounts, with some of it kicking back to the Saudi royals and their retainers. The Saudis were said to be incensed by the continuing revelations spinning out of the investigation, which had begun in 2004 after the Guardian first got wind of the alleged slush fund. Last month, with talks on the new $12 billion extension in the final stages, the Saudis lowered the boom, threatening to ashcan al-Yamanah and buy their warplanes from - gasp! - the French instead. For a week or two, the Blair government played chicken with the Saudis, hoping the threat was just a hardball bluff for better terms (or maybe bigger slush). Then came a curious intervention. Last month, Dick Cheney traveled to Riyadh for talks with Saudi King Abdullah. There he beseeched the king to step in and help pull America's fat out of the wildfire of Iraq by using Saudi influence on Iraq's volatile Sunni minority, the Scotland Sunday Herald reported. It's also thought that Cheney asked the Saudis to stump up more cash to replace some of the billions of dollars in missing reconstruction money that White House cronies and local operators have somehow misplaced into their own pockets during the war. It is widely believed in top UK political circles that among the many considerations the Saudis asked for in return for the possibility of helping out in Iraq was the application of White House pressure on Tony Blair to quash the BAE investigation. The king apparently put this more in the form of a demand than a request: senior sources in the Blair government told the Observer that the Saudis threatened to stop sharing its extensive intelligence on terrorism and kick all British intelligence and military personnel out of the kingdom if Blair didn't kill the probe.
[cia-drugs] Fwd: [SPY NEWS] Italian Linked to Litvinenko Held in Arms Dealing Probe
Begin forwarded message: From: Mario Profaca [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: December 25, 2006 4:14:22 PM PST To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [SPY NEWS] Italian Linked to Litvinenko Held in Arms Dealing Probe Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.sptimes.ru/index.php?action_id=2story_id=19915 Italian Linked to Litvinenko Held in Arms Dealing Probe By Phil Stewart Reuters ROME — Mario Scaramella, the Italian contact of the dead ex-Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, flew home for Christmas on Sunday but was arrested in connection with an investigation into arms trafficking, a judicial source said. The source said Scaramella was arrested at Naples airport as he arrived on a flight from London, where he was hospitalized this month for treatment for suspected radiation poisoning. He was one of the last people to have met with Litvinenko, who died last month of radiation poisoning. Scaramella, an Italian KGB expert who was a consultant to a parliamentary commission that investigated spying in Europe during the Cold War, was arrested in connection with an investigation into arms trafficking and violating state secrets. Scaramella, whose family lives in the Naples area, was later driven to the Regina Coeli jail in central Rome. Scaramella met Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on Nov. 1, the day the former Russian spy fell ill. Both Russian and British authorities have started murder investigations into Litvinenko's death from poisoning by a lethal dose of polonium-210. The attention surrounding Scaramella has thrown the spotlight onto Italian judicial investigations that involve him, including one into arms trafficking. In a telephone interview with Reuters earlier this month, Scaramella said: I need to come back to Italy as soon as I can and to clarify with authorities, he said. Litvinenko, in a statement released after his death on Nov. 23, accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of masterminding his poisoning. The Kremlin has denied involvement in the case, which has sparked conspiracy theories, revived memories of Cold War spying and strained relations between Russia and Britain. -__ ___ _ ___ __ ___ _ _ _ __ /-_|-0-\-V-/-\|-|-__|-|-|-/-_| \_-\--_/\-/|-\\-|-_||-V-V-\_-\ |__/_|--//-|_|\_|___|\_A_/|__/ SPY NEWS is OSINT newsletter and discussion list associated to Mario's Cyberspace Station - The Global Intelligence News Portal http://mprofaca.cro.net Since you are receiving and reading documents, news stories, comments and opinions not only from so called (or self-proclaimed) reliable sources, but also a lot of possible misinformation collected by Spy News moderator and subscribers and posted to Spy News for OSINT purposes - it should be a serious reason (particularly to journalists and web publishers) to think twice before using it for their story writing, further publishing or forwarding throughout Cyberspace. To unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE: This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Spy News is making it available without profit to SPY NEWS members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We always mention the author and link the original site and page of every article. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml SPY NEWS home page: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/spynews Mario Profaca http://mprofaca.cro.net/profaca.html e-mail: mario.profaca[at]zg.t-com.hr SPY NEWS owner editor Yahoo! Groups Links
[cia-drugs] Fwd: [SPY NEWS] A Lethal Web of Spooks, Oligarchs and Spin
Begin forwarded message: From: Mario Profaca [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: December 25, 2006 4:19:41 PM PST To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [SPY NEWS] A Lethal Web of Spooks, Oligarchs and Spin Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.moscowtimes.ru/stories/2006/12/22/003.html Tuesday, December 26, 2006 / Updated Moscow Time A Lethal Web of Spooks, Oligarchs and Spin By Catherine Belton Staff Writer Vasily Djachkov / Reuters Lugovoi, left, and Berezovsky posing for a picture in the North Caucasus winter holiday resort of Dombay in 1998. Editor's note: This is the second of two articles. When former FSB agent Alexander Litvinenko agreed to give two little-known British academics an interview this year, they couldn't quite believe their luck. But the tales told by the emigre, who had once worked in the heart of the Federal Security Service's organized crime division, were often as wild as they were detailed. We thought a lot of it was too extreme, said one of the interviewers, James Heartfield, a researcher at London's University of Westminster. He was always offering us inside information on things that were bizarre. His frame of reference was all based on characters out of the Cold War. Now, however, the agent who worked for tycoon Boris Berezovsky will be remembered as the victim of one of the most bizarre Cold War- style conspiracies of modern history. Litvinenko's poisoning last month in London by polonium-210, the rare radioactive isotope that ravaged his body and left a trail of radioactivity across London, Hamburg and Moscow, could signal a major new chapter in a battle for power between rival factions of the Russian elite. As the drama has unfolded, players long thought to be retired from Cold War-style spy games have re-entered a fray that is severely shaking President Vladimir Putin's standing in the West and could end up changing the course of his presidency. Together with the former KGB agents coming out of the woodwork is a tangled netherworld of information peddlers, spin doctors, organized crime networks and oligarchs that emerged in the chaos of the Soviet Union's collapse. Blanket coverage in the Western media of Litvinenko's deathbed accusation that Putin was responsible for his murder has stoked anti-Russian sentiment in the West. Tension was already flaring up this year over Western concerns that Putin was stamping out democracy and using the country's energy might to blackmail neighbors. For many in Moscow, Litvinenko's death looks like an elaborately orchestrated rebellion by those out-of-favor Western-oriented oligarchs who made vast fortunes out of the Soviet collapse, but are now either in exile or in jail, their Russian assets seized by Putin's government. For some, that group is led by Boris Berezovsky, who has styled himself as Putin's nemesis, publicly vowing to bring down his regime by force. Berezovsky has denied any involvement in Litvinenko's death. Others in the West, however, say Litvinenko's death is revenge against an ally of Berezovsky's. The people who carried this out this are seeking revenge from those who helped cause the collapse of the Soviet Union, said Oleg Kalugin, a former head of KGB foreign counterintelligence whose defection to the United States in the early 1990s led Putin to brand him a traitor. A third theory is that Litvinenko, working recently as a freelance information peddler and slightly lost in London since his Moscow heyday, had stumbled into a tangle of conflicting criminal interests, crossing other powerful oligarchs as he traded information that could have harmed enormous business interests. John Stillwell / APP A man walking past the Itsu sushi restaurant in Piccadilly, London, where Litvinenko met with Scaramella on Nov. 1. One associate of Litvinenko's, Yury Shvets, a former KGB Washington station chief who defected to the United States in the early 1990s, claims he knows the name of the man who ordered the killing. He said Litvinenko had made a key mistake when he shared the contents of an incriminating dossier on a senior Kremlin official as he rushed to earn more cash. He was trying to sell information to everyone, Shvets said by telephone this week. A business partner of Shvets', Karon von Gerhke-Thompson, believes Litvinenko got caught up in a web of double agents and crime that cost him his life. Investigators working on the case say they have never seen so much money being transferred in the intelligence business, she said. No matter who was behind it -- rogue oligarchs, either seeking to tarnish Putin's image or silence Litvinenko, or resurgent secret services now operating with or without Putin's blessing -- the end result is that Putin is facing one of the biggest challenges of his presidency. For now, the Western media seems to be pinning the blame on him. Putin today is at a
