Democratic Underground Latest Greatest Lobby Journals Search Options Help Login
Google

Know your BFEE: Homeland Czar & Petro-Turd Bernie Kerik

Printer-friendly format Printer-friendly format
Printer-friendly format Email this thread to a friend
Printer-friendly format Bookmark this thread
This topic is archived.
Home » Discuss » Archives » General Discussion (Through 2005) Donate to DU
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-04-04 10:42 PM
Original message
Know your BFEE: Homeland Czar & Petro-Turd Bernie Kerik
Not to belabor the point, this guy is little more than a shill for the Rudy the Wife-swapping Turd Giuliani and the Bush Organized Crime Family, Saudi Division. Campaigning for the drunken coke-whore AWOL psychotic moron, Kerrick had the cheek to say if Kerry were elected, Osama would strike again.

How interesting. Does he know something we don't know? How many dots did Smirko miss? Well, the Bushes and the bin Ladens have been business partners for years. Hey, Kerrick! Buy a clue, uh? -- before it's too late for Metropolis.

The following article from Newsday, which should know a bum when they see one, says this turd was in over his bald head as a narc and police commissioner of Gotham. It also spells out areas of interest where he and the BFEE can make money in the future -- Carlyle, Trireme Partnerships and whatever else the Big Money War Boys have going. So, as head of Homeland Security, we can be certain he won't mind doing whatever he's ordered to do by satan's monkey.


Kerik nomination is a ticking time bomb

Ellis Henican
December 3, 2004

Campaign bodyguard to Rudy Giuliani.

Errand boy for the Saudi royal family.

Energetic exploiter of Sept. 11th tragedy.

Tough-talking publicity-hound vowing to bring law and order to Iraq - then hightailing it out of there after a disastrous 14 weeks, leaving the place far less safe than he found it.

Oh, the bullet points on Bernie Kerik's real-life resume just go on and on. But is this really the guy we want standing between us and the terrorists?

CONTINUED...

http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nyhen034063947dec03%2C0%2C1568495%2Cprint.column?coll=ny-news-columnists



You think I LIKE posting this stuff? People in jail use cigarettes as currency.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-04-04 10:54 PM
Response to Original message
1. Kerik talks a good game ... Iraq's got lots of cops now.
In his own words, a Nutjob:

AFTER THE WAR

Baghdad City Cop

We beat crime in New York. We can do it in Baghdad.


BY BERNARD B. KERIK
Sunday, September 28, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT

"Welcome to a free Iraq" is what Jerry Bremer, administrator for the Coalition Provisional Authority, said to me as he reached out to shake my hand when I arrived in Baghdad four months ago. I'm still moved by those words as I say them myself, "Welcome to a free Iraq," just as I was moved last week by President Bush--under pressure at home and abroad--standing firmly by our nation-building project in his U.N. speech.

As I toured Baghdad for the first time, I saw a city ravaged by war, looting and lawlessness. Or so I thought. What I didn't know then, and didn't learn until later, was that most of the damage to the infrastructure was caused by three decades of rule by a tyrant, who used his country's natural wealth not to enhance its power plants and sewage and water systems, but to aggrandize himself. These systems will now have to be built or rebuilt over the next several years and can't be fixed with a Band-Aid.

In my four months in Iraq, spent living with, working with, and learning from Iraqi police, I've seen things that would sicken the worst of minds. In our hunt for the Fedayeen Saddam, Saddam Hussein's trained assassins, I watched video after video of interrogations of Iraqis whose lives ended with the detonation of a grenade that was tied to the neck or stuffed in the shirt pocket of the victim. I watched the living bodies disintegrate at the pull of the pin. And if that's not enough, there's a tape of Saddam sitting and watching one of his military generals being eaten alive by Dobermans because the general's loyalty was in question.

But Iraq is now a different country. The rebuilding of the infrastructure has begun and the streets are full of life, with bustling markets and shops. But reconstruction isn't just about bricks and mortar: Iraq's civic structures were in tatters, too, especially its Baathist police force, an organization that had, in any case, no credibility with the Iraqi people. My job was to assist in setting up this force again, with proper training, new values, a respect for human rights. The latter phrase--"human rights"--has been absent from Iraq's vocabulary for decades. Certainly, no one has heard it uttered, until now, within the four walls of a police station. The magnitude of our task can be measured from the fact that we had to teach cops that when you pull a man suspected of a crime into the station, you can't just hang him upside-down and beat him with an iron bar.

SNIP...

History has taught us that there's always a cost for freedom. On 9/11 we learned that we'll pay now or we'll pay later. As one who stood beneath the twin towers and watched people jump from the burning buildings, and also witnessed first-hand the fall of Saddam, I more than most have an understanding of the threat of radical Islam. Let's not forget that this is a war. So for now, the war should continue; and as Jerry Bremer would so proudly say, "Welcome to a free Iraq."

CONTINUED...

http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110004077

The guy's a nutjob, just like his boss.

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-04-04 10:58 PM
Response to Original message
2. Kerik "Worked for the Saudis."
That's what he told Oprah, anyway:

Starting His Career

Fresh out of the Army, 21 year old Bernard provided security for the construction of a large military base Saudi Arabia. There he honed his know-how in international police work, investigations and terrorism and also worked for the Royal Saudi family. "I think I left Saudi Arabia with a different sense of internal pride, with a sense of honor and integrity that I didn't know and understand before I got there."


Becoming the Youngest Warden

In 1984, he returned to the U.S. to work as a corrections officer at the Passaic County Jail in New Jersey. One year later, he was appointed warden, the youngest ever to hold that post. "There I learned a lot about management, but most importantly I learned how to lead men, how to lead people, how to be a good manager. To lead by example."

CONTINUED...

http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/tows_past_20011114_d.jhtml

Well. We can see where he's taking the DHS in the coming years. Gitmo, anyone?

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-04-04 11:31 PM
Response to Reply #2
3. Protected the Saudi Royal Family
Hey, that's the Bush's job, protecting the Roils...

...Commissioner Kerik began his professional career as a member of the U.S. Army's Military Police, serving in Korea and in the 18th Airborne Corps where he trained Special Forces personnel. Following his military service, Commissioner Kerik traveled to Saudi Arabia where he assumed various security assignments, including protection for members of the Saudi Royal Family. ...

SOURCE:

http://www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/nycdoc/html/bbkcomplex.html

Here's how the BFEE comes in...

The Bush-Saudi Connection

By Michelle Mairesse

EXCERPT...

"The White House official line is that the Bin Ladens are above suspicion --apart from Osama, the black sheep, who they say hijacked the family name. That's fortunate for the Bush family and the Saudi royal household, whose links with the Bin Ladens could otherwise prove embarrassing. But Newsnight has obtained evidence that the FBI was on the trail of other members of the Bin Laden family for links to terrorist organisations before and after September 11th." (11)

In the Boston Globe, March 11, 20004, Carl Unger, author of House of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties, states that the 9/11 commission should ask who authorized the evacuation of 140 Saudi nationals on at least 8 aircraft making stops in 12 cities immediately following the attacks. “Many of the passengers were high-ranking members of the royal House of Saud. About 24 of them were members of the bin Laden family, which owned the Saudi Binladin Group, a multibillion-dollar construction conglomerate.” Unger obtained passenger lists for 4 of the flights, which are posted on his website:

www.houseofbush.com and includes the name of Prince Ahmed bin Salman.

     “As reported last year by Gerald Posner in 'Why America Slept,' Prince Ahmed not only had alleged ties to Al Qaeda, but may also have known in advance that there would be attacks on 9/11. According to Posner, Abu Zubaydah, an Al Qaeda operative who was part of Osama bin Laden's inner circle and was captured in 2002, made these assertions when he was interrogated by the CIA. The commission should ask Mueller about Zubaydah's interrogation. They should also ask whether the FBI interrogated Prince Ahmed before his departure.

     "But Prince Ahmed will never be able to answer any questions because not long after the CIA interrogation, he died of a heart attack at the age of 43. Yet we do know that he was on one of the flights.”

     Unger believes that this episode “raises particularly sensitive questions for the administration. Never before in history has a president of the United States had such a close relationship with another foreign power as President Bush and his father have had with the Saudi royal family, the House of Saud. I have traced more than $1.4 billion in investments and contracts that went from the House of Saud over the past 20 years to companies in which the Bushes and their allies have had prominent positions -- Harken Energy, Halliburton, and the Carlyle Group among them. Is it possible that President Bush himself played a role in authorizing the evacuation of the Saudis after 9/11? What did he know and when did he know it?”

CONTINUED...

http://www.new-enlightenment.com/index.html

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 12:04 PM
Response to Reply #3
24. Kerik Unfit for Duty
DU's friends at Prison Planet have done a good job of summing up why Kerik is fit to work for the BFEE -- he's a crook.

Kerik Is Not Fit To Serve As Homeland Security Chief

DemWatch | Dec 04 2004

A few reasons why Bernard Kerik is not fit to serve as Secretary of Homeland Security...

1. Kerik has furthered the lie that Iraq was involved with 9/11:

New York Newsday, 10/20/03 (reposted here)

"Saddam didn't do 9/11. But did Saddam fund, and train al-Qaida? The answer is yes. Then ask yourself, who hit the towers?"

SNIP...

4. Kerik has extensive ties to the terrorist-funding Saudi royal family:

BBC, 5/16/03

"Mr Kerik says he speaks a smattering or Arabic - from four years spent in Saudi Arabia training security staff."

Update: As Michael pointed out in the comments, this is kind of weak as criticism goes. To a certain extent, he's right. However, considering both the Saudi royal family's history of funding terrorists and their history of brutal repression of their own people, the fact that Kerik worked for them in security is pretty unattractive. Were Kerik looking at a job heading up security for a major international corporation, I'd shrug it off. But we're talking about the future Secretary of Homeland Security here. The Saudi ties are not something to be taken lightly.

CONTINUED...

http://www.infowars.net/Pages/Dec_04/041204_kerick.html

I'll say. "Bandar Bush."
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
seemslikeadream Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-04-04 11:33 PM
Original message
US looking to train local Iraqi policemen to replace troops
Edited on Sat Dec-04-04 11:40 PM by seemslikeadream
The Future of Iraq

US looking to train local Iraqi policemen to replace troops
PM - Monday, 25 August , 2003
Reporter: Rafael Epstein
MARK COLVIN: With its army under daily attack in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States wants to rush through funding to train tens of thousands of local policemen. The US has secured permission from Hungary to train 28,000 Iraqis at a former Soviet base there. The US is also preparing to double its reconstruction aid to the new Afghan Government, with a major aim to have 20,000 new policemen ready to patrol by next March.

Rafael Epstein reports.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Former New York City Police Commissioner, Bernard Kerik, is just about to finish a five-month tour in Iraq as adviser to the nascent Interior Ministry. He says the 40,000 Iraqi police now back on the streets are already taking over the work of western troops.

BERNARD KERIK: They're working extremely hard. They're very aggressive, the ones we have out there now, and that's what's going to begin the transition in disengagement of the military. And that has to continue to take the people out that are fighting against freedom in Iraq.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Iraqis who work with Americans are targets for attacks. A bombing in early July, near the graduation ceremony for the first class of police recruits killed seven of them.

But another 30,000 police are needed. Most will be trained at an old Soviet base in Hungary, near the city of Tazsar. It was used before the war to train expatiate Iraqis who worked alongside the US army.

Mr Kerik says existing police academies in Iraq are not big enough and training in Hungary – if the US congress approves – is the only way to quickly handover to locals, who may be seen as more acceptable peacekeepers.

BERNARD KERIK: We have to hire another 25,000 to 30,000 over the next 18 months to 2 years. We have to get them trained – that's an enormous project. In the NYPD, on average I trained between 3,000 and 5,000 a year. We've got to do 30,000 to 35,000 over the next 18 months to 2 years. And it's going to be a difficult and tasking project but it can be done.

RAFAEL EPSTEIN: Mr Kerik told American television 3,000 Iraqi officers have been knocked back because of their role in the old regime. Many of the officers who used to be policemen, have now been through an American-devised training course. But in some towns many of them have to share weapons, with one gun between every two officers, in a country where automatic rifles are readily available.

BERNARD KERIK: Well, I think, honestly, I think, they're doing a lot better than I anticipated. We have weeded out an enormous amount of the Baath Party members. We also have to teach them methods and principles of policing in a democratic society. We have to teach them that torture is not a part of an interrogation or an interview.

So, all of that is going on. It's going to take time to get there. It can work, it can happen and I have to say, they're taking out the Baath members out of the police department and off the streets.
more
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2003/s931813.htm

Interview with Bernard Kerick

Aired June 25, 2003 - 20:41 ET

ZAHN: Let's talk about the recent escalation of violence against U.S. soldiers, British Soldiers.

What do you think is the root cause of it?

KERIK: The root cause is the loss of power to these people. Power is money. They've taken a heavy loss. As freedom grows throughout Iraq you're going to see continued resistance for a while, until we weed these people out. There's been an enormous amount of actionable intelligence where we're going in to take out members of the Ba'ath party, members -- Saddam loyalist. That's going to continue. But as freedom continues to agree -- grow, the people that have taken the heaviest losses, all of these loyalists to Saddam they are going to continue to fight until the end.

ZAHN: And how do you view their opposition?

As organized, as guerrilla warfare, how would you characterize it?

KERIK: Maybe guerrilla warfare. It's not as organized as people might think. Where there is organization, we've been sort of knocking it out. You know, are they talking perhaps, Yes. But, you know, this isn't going to go away overnight. They're not giving up as easily as people would think. They have taken a tremendous loss, and it's going to continue for a while.
more
http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0306/25/se.10.html

Black Coffee Briefing
Start: Tuesday, December 2, 2003 9:30 AM
End: Tuesday, December 2, 2003 11:45 AM

Location: Wohlstetter Conference Center, Twelfth Floor, AEI
1150 Seventeenth Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036
Directions to AEI

AEI’s next Black Coffee Briefing will take place on Tuesday, December 2. Bernard Kerik-former interim interior minister of Iraq and senior policy adviser to L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. presidential envoy and administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq-will deliver a keynote address. Mr. Kerik will speak about his experiences leading the reconstitution and development of the Iraqi police, border control, and emergency management services.

http://www.aei.org/events/filter.,eventID.680/event_detail.asp

United States Embassy
Tokyo, Japan
Bush Discusses Progress on Iraqi Police Force with Kerik
White House Report, October 3: Iraq, nominations
President Bush met in the Oval Office October 3 with former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who spent more than four months in Iraq helping to build an Iraqi police force, to discuss progress on improving the security situation in Iraq.

In remarks on the South Lawn afterwards, the president praised Commissioner Kerik for his efforts, saying that "because of his leadership, his knowledge and his experience" the police force in Baghdad was created very quickly.
more
http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20031006a1.html


August 30, 2004
Bernard Kerik

It is an honor to stand before you this evening, not only because of this Convention but because of the history that Madison Square Garden holds for me.
In 1986, I stood in this very arena, raised my right hand and was sworn in as a New York City Police Officer.
Fourteen years later, Mayor Giuliani appointed me as Police Commissioner of this great city and it was a great day in a great time. Crime was down; the city was prospering like never before, and then the unthinkable: America was under attack.
In the attacks of September 11th, we witnessed the worst and the best in humanity.
Through the devastation created by 19 evil men, we witnessed heroics by our first responders that were unparalleled.
We witnessed strong and decisive leadership on that day and those that followed in Mayor Giuliani, Governor Pataki and most importantly, our Commander in Chief, President Bush.
We didn't ask for this war, but faced with an evil whose only mission is to destroy our country we had to respond.
We had to fight this war abroad. And we had to fight the war here at home.
The President responded by creating the Department of Homeland Security, he enacted the PATRIOT Act and he has tripled our homeland security funding since 2001.
And today in Afghanistan, the Taliban has been unseated from power and the Al Queda leadership is on the run.
In Iraq, Saddam Hussein will finally be held accountable.
Today, we live in a much safer world as a result of this President's strong leadership.
As I think about his leadership, I think of the courage it took for our Commander in Chief to land on an airstrip in the dark of night, a world away, to be with our troops on Thanksgiving.
He was there for them as he was for us right here in New York City, inspiring a nation as he stood on hallowed ground, supporting the first responders.
This fight against terrorism takes decisiveness, not contradiction.
It takes continued support for our troops and first responders, not votes against our military, our intelligence and law enforcement spending.
Most importantly, it takes courage and inspirational leadership in the White House.
There are two candidates in this race, but only one fills those needs.
George W. Bush has my vote and for the future and safety of this country, I pray to God he has yours as well.

God bless you and God bless America
http://www.gopconvention.com/cgi-data/speeches/files/a60kfm0u7k92h9a3fly6xj51z9sb9210.shtml

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-04-04 11:43 PM
Response to Original message
5. He may be a thug, but he's a stupid thug.
Gee. If I didn't know better, this guy's never read a book besides "Mein Kampf." Not that it's any more difficult to comprehend than "My Pet Goat," but Smirkelgrüber likes to surround himself with dumb loyalists...just like Schickelgrüber used to. Dumbass didn't even know the turkey was plastic.

From seemslikeadream's above:

"Well, I think, honestly, I think, they're doing a lot better than I anticipated. We have weeded out an enormous amount of the Baath Party members. We also have to teach them methods and principles of policing in a democratic society. We have to teach them that torture is not a part of an interrogation or an interview."

...

"We didn't ask for this war, but faced with an evil whose only mission is to destroy our country we had to respond.
We had to fight this war abroad. And we had to fight the war here at home."

...

"As I think about his leadership, I think of the courage it took for our Commander in Chief to land on an airstrip in the dark of night, a world away, to be with our troops on Thanksgiving."

...


Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 02:05 AM
Response to Reply #5
16. Sounds like Bushie-wooshie's got his own Pooty-toot.
Czar is right.

Mr. Kerik spent nearly four years in various security assignments in Saudi Arabia training Saudi and other nationls in physical security and police patrol operations. Prior to that, he served as an MP for three years in the US Army, assigned to Korea and the 18th Airborne orps where he trained Special Forces personnel at the John F. Kennedy Unconvetional Warfare Center, Fort Bragg. He was also a member of an all-Army martial arts team.

SOURCE:

http://www.ineoa.org/kerik.htm
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 09:21 AM
Response to Reply #16
21. Wonder if Bush thinks Kerik's "Prettier" than Putin...
Bush Prefers Our Pretty Boy
To His Pretty Boy


By Jane Taber
Globe & Mail - Canada
1-18-4
 
OTTAWA -- This is the tale of the two Scotts -- one American, the other Canadian. One is dark-haired, the other blond. Both are 35 and both work for the most powerful men in their respective countries.
 
SNIP...
 
Mr. Bush wandered over during Mr. Reid's chat with the Prime Minister. Mr. Reid introduced himself and shook hands with Mr. Bush.
 
"Well, what do you do for this guy?" the President asked as he pointed to the Prime Minister.
 
"Well, you know, sir, I can't really say," Mr. Reid said. "It's not that I don't want to. It's just that, you know, I don't really know from day to day."
 
This is true. Mr. Reid handles a number of files and performs a number of different duties, depending on the issue and the day.
 
The President chuckled. "Well, you got a pretty face," he told the surprised Mr. Reid. He wasn't done. "You got a pretty face," he said again. "You're a good-looking guy. Better looking than my Scott anyway."

CONTINUED with more links and lurid details outing Bushler...

http://www.rense.com/general47/bushsmitten.htm

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
bobthedrummer Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-04-04 11:33 PM
Response to Original message
4. He made millions pimping "non-lethals" like stun guns and shields
which he heartily endorsed using in correctional institutions.

Non-Lethal Arsenal link
http://www.datafilter.com/mc/nonlethalWeapons.html
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-04-04 11:50 PM
Response to Reply #4
6. Money to be made workin' for the BFEE.


As for the rest of us... Our next-to next-to-final destination.

Homeland Defense and Security Investment Conference Updates Growing List of Speakers and Presenters

EXCERPT...

Dan Inbar, Chairman and CTO of Homeland Security Research Corporation -- The World's Leading Source for Homeland Security Industry, Market and Product Research.

SNIP...

Jack Mallon, Senior Managing Director, Mallon Associates, a division of C.E. Unterberg, Towbin (CEUT) The firm initiates, structures and advises on mergers & acquisitions, raises capital, performs strategic consulting services and publishes Mallon's Security Report.

Homelanddefensestocks.com will track the performance of the participating companies in the conference for a year, noting changes on a monthly basis. What are some of the new technologies in the sector? The diverse group of participating companies is an indicator:

SNIP...

Additional Presenters:

Roaming Messenger (OTC BB:RMSG.OB - News) is a breakthrough wireless solution for delivering real-time actionable information with applications in homeland security, emergency response, military and enterprise automation, Cenuco Inc (OTC BB:CNUO.OB - News) has developed Mobile Video Transmitter™ for Corporations / Government / Homeland Security. The product line allows for remote connectivity to video surveillance systems at critical infrastructure sites via dual compressed and encrypted live video streams onto wireless Pocket PC 2003 devices. Cenuco recently shipped the first order to the United States Air Force, in support of operations in the Iraqi theatre.

CONTINUED...

http://biz.yahoo.com/iw/040312/064337.html

Isn't Cressey pals with Richard Clarke? Probably a beard for the rest of the money-making going on.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
seemslikeadream Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Dec-04-04 11:51 PM
Response to Original message
7. Kerik dashes about Baghdad with the South African bodyguards
2.21.2004


In his N.Y. Times article dated February 22, “By Selling Very Public Image, the Private Giuliani Prospers”, Eric Lipton presents what looks like a thorough examination of Giuliani Partners, the firm started by Rudy Giuliani after leaving office as the mayor of New York. I was surprised that he neglected to mention Bernard Kerik’s role as the "Baghdad Terminator" the Bush administration's top security adviser in Iraq. The piece mentions Kerik only in relation to his work for Perdue Pharma:

"Purdue Pharma has hired some of the most experienced experts on drug enforcement and drug monitoring in the country," Mr. Giuliani said, referring to his own law enforcement experience, as well as that of his partner Bernard B. Kerik, the former police commissioner who once specialized in drug enforcement cases at the Police Department.

Mr. Kerik was dispatched with other former Police Department aides to evaluate security practices at Purdue's OxyContin manufacturing plant in Totowa, N.J., where two Purdue employees were arrested in 2001 for trying to steal thousands of pills.
Needlenose noted Kerik’s sudden departure from Iraq back in September of last year and linked to a CBS news report containing a sentence that caught my eye.
Kerik dashes about Baghdad with the South African bodyguards he inherited from retired Gen. Jay Garner, the first chief of Iraq's interim administration.
Billmon looks at South African participation in Iraq in more detail.

In its effort to relieve overstretched U.S. troops in Iraq, the Bush administration has hired a private security company staffed with former henchmen of South Africa's apartheid regime.

The reliance on apartheid enforcers was highlighted by an attack in Iraq last month that killed one South African security officer and wounded another who worked for the subsidiary of a firm called Erinys International. Both men once served in South African paramilitary units dedicated to the violent repression of apartheid opponents.

http://enduringfriedman.blogspot.com/2004_02_15_enduringfriedman_archive.html
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 12:01 AM
Response to Reply #7
8. South Africa, where Rev. Moon mates with Rev. Robertson.
...and the rest of the world's anti-communist fascist turds. From DeepBlackLies: Bringing in-depth reporting of crime and corruption in high places:

THE SPOILS OF WAR

The Secret Story of WWII Japanese & Nazi Gold


By David Guyatt
copyright 2002 for

The use of suspect gold to launder drug profits is well established.  One example of such laundering activities concerns a rogue airline that had the reputation of flying anything to anywhere.  Over a two-year period between 1989-91, the airline made four flights carrying gold bullion weighing 160 tonnes with a market value of two billion dollars.  Each of the four flights carried boxes with twelve bars of gold to a box that overall weighed 41 tonnes per flight.  All the boxes were palletised for easy loading and accompanied by a guard.  The flights originated from Medellin, Columbia, and were airlifted to London and apparently cleared both ends without customs inspection. <1>  

 The amount of gold shipped was more than the gold reserves of most central banks.  The question then arises: where did this gold originate?  The likelihood is that it was part of the vast amounts of gold plundered in WWII by the Axis powers.  

The story about what really happened to the loot plundered by the Nazis and Japanese during WWII remains one of the best-kept secrets of the last fifty years.  Few outside of the charmed circle of initiated insiders possess any knowledge whatsoever of the true dimensions of what can be described as the biggest cover-up of all time.  

But it is not just public awareness of what exactly “happened” to this plunder in the post war years that is the cause of supreme unease amongst the powers that be.  It is the sheer magnitude of treasure forcibly confiscated by the Axis powers that causes trepidation.  Were the actual dollar numbers involved to be revealed, it would lay bare an even more sensitive secret – one that has endured for a hundred or more years.   

SNIP...

THE PRINCE OF PLUNDER  

History should have recorded him as the world’s most ruthless and avaricious bandit of all time.  Instead, it has passed him by virtually unnoticed, thanks to the onset of the cold war and the well-laid designs of western elites.   

CONTINUED...

http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/the_spoils_of_war.htm
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
seemslikeadream Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 12:15 AM
Response to Reply #8
9. Iraq Victim Was Top-Secret Apartheid Killer
April 19, 2004
Julian Rademeyer
Johannesburg
A security contractor killed in Iraq last week was once one of South Africa's most secret covert agents, his identity guarded so closely that even the Truth and Reconciliation Commission did not discover the extent of his involvement in apartheid's silent wars.
http://allafrica.com/stories/200404190944.html

Johannesburg - The family of the South African who was shot dead in Iraq last week are upset by reports that Gray Branfield, 55, was decapitated and then hanged by his feet.
Branfield, 55, from Helderkruin, Roodepoort, was doing security work in Kut, 185 km south east of Baghdad. He was shot and killed on Tuesday when fighting between the coalition forces and Iraqi rebels flared up again.
http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/News/0,,2-7-1442_1511018,00.html

Many of the mercenaries fighting in Iraq learned their trade while propping up vicious dictatorships, serving in the Chilean army under General Pinochet or protecting the apartheid regime in South Africa. Mercenaries are allowed to carry small arms and are now demanding the right to carry larger weapons. There is no figure for the number of Iraqis they have killed.
Campaigning journalist Paul Foot, writing in Private Eye, has exposed some of the thugs hired by one company, Erinys: "In January two South Africans working for Erinys suffered a bomb attack. Deon Gouws was a former member of Valkplaas, a notorious 'hit squad' implicated in many murders. South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission granted him amnesty after he admitted involvement in more than 40 petrol bombings of political activists' homes. Francois Strydom was a former member of Koevoet, a South African counter-insurgency unit in Namibia with a reputation for murder and torture."
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/1898/sw189806.htm


Julian Rademeyer
Johannesburg

A security contractor killed in Iraq last week was once one of South Africa's most secret covert agents, his identity guarded so closely that even the Truth and Reconciliation Commission did not discover the extent of his involvement in apartheid's silent wars.

Gray Branfield, 55, admitted to being part of a death squad which gunned down Joe Gqabi, the ANC's chief representative and Umkhonto weSizwe operational head in Zimbabwe on July 31 1981. Gqabi was shot 19 times when three assassins ambushed him as he reversed down the driveway of his Harare home.


Author Peter Stiff this week confirmed information that Branfield was an operative identified in his books, The Silent War, Warfare By Other Means and Cry Zimbabwe as "Major Brian". He said Branfield, a former detective inspector in the Rhodesian police force specialising in covert operations against guerrilla organisations, came to South Africa after Zanu-PF came to power in 1980.

In South Africa he joined the SA Defence Force's secret Project Barnacle, a precursor to the notorious Civil Co-operation Bureau (CCB) death squad.

Given the rank of major, Branfield was put in charge of operations in the urban centres of Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia.

Said Stiff: "In Rhodesia even his enemies respected him. They called him Mhlatini, 'the one of the bush'. His colleagues nicknamed him 'Hound Dog' because of his innate ability to sniff things out."

Stiff recalled that Branfield led a daring operation in 1981 to rescue a South African Special Forces agent, Patrick Gericke, who had been detained in Harare and was under interrogation by the CID.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200404190944.html


Another SA citizen becomes a victim of Iraqi conflict
April 14, 2004

By Graeme Hosken

A third South African has been killed in Iraq.

Roodepoort resident Hendrik "Vis" Visagie (29), a former member of the Pretoria Task Force, died on Monday after being critically injured during an ambush last week.

Visagie, along with a number of other South Africans, had been in Iraq since January working on a contract with Erinys Iraq, a British-based security company.

Visagie is the second South African working for Erinys Iraq to be killed in Iraq since January.

Erinys Iraq provides security services to the occupation authority and to multinational corporations involved in reconstruction projects in Iraq.

At the end of January, former policeman Francois Strydom was blown up by a suicide bomber while guarding an Iraqi minister in Baghdad.

Visagie had been escorting a convoy of Iraqi diplomats and ministers from Amman, Jordan, to Baghdad when they were ambushed.


He was driving the lead escort vehicle when a rocket-propelled grenade struck his vehicle, critically injuring him.

He is believed to have been killed in the same fighting in which another South African, Gray Branfield, was killed.

Branfield was shot dead during a skirmish between Shi'ite radicals and Ukrainian forces in Al-Kut, 185km south-east of Baghdad.

The chief of staff for Erinys Iraq, Michael Hutchings, confirmed that Visagie had died from wounds sustained during the attack.

The Department of Foreign Affairs said arrangements were being made to have the bodies of Branfield and Visagie flown back to South Africa.
more
http://www.star.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=129&fArticleId=402789

The Guardian has obtained details of a firefight in the town of Kut, 100 miles south-east of Baghdad, between Iraqi insurgents and five security personnel of the Hart Group, a Bermuda-registered security consultancy run by former SAS and Scots Guards officer Richard Bethell, the son of Lord Westbury.

Gray Branfield, a South African, was killed during the battle after coalition forces from Ukraine failed to respond to repeated pleas for assistance from the small group of besieged guards.

Under an agreement with the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) private security guards are only allowed to carry small personal protection weapons. But a source at Hart Group told the Guardian this week that discussions were under way with the authorities governing Iraq to allow bodyguards to increase their firepower.

"All of the security companies assumed that if you got into a tight corner they would come and help you out," the source said. "I cannot really answer for other security companies, but there is a feeling among many that we should be asking some questions and if we are not going to be supported then we need to be able to carry heavier weaponry."

There are an estimated 15,000 private bodyguards operating inside Iraq, of which about 6,000 are armed, making them the second biggest contributor to coalition forces after the Pentagon. The number is set to increase even further after the proposed handover of sovereignty to an Iraqi administration on June 30.
more
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1193871,00.html

This memoriam listing is yet to be completed and represents those former regular members of the force who have passed on this year and in the previoustwo years. The listings are in date sequence. Please advise the Webmaster of any additions to these listings or of any corrections you think appropriate. There is a form you may complete, if you wish to update of include more information - see below, "Building a Database"

2004 BSA Police Memorial Roll

15-Jan-2004 Marriott(Became Davies), Sheila Wynn (Wp042)(
22-Jan-2004 Shawyer, John Richard(Dick) (4721)
23-Jan-2004 Newton, Donovan Anderson(Don) (3180)
06-Feb-2004 Taunton, Stephen Russell("Steve") (8261)
10-Feb-2004 Morgan, John Edwin (4743)
07-Apr-2004 Branfield, Gordon Gray (7695/8843)

http://www.bsap.org/In_Memoriam.htm

Don't Cry for Me, Fallujah
Hesiod has tracked down the unsavory C.V. of South African national Gray Branfield, a "civilian security contractor" killed (and reportedly decapitated) in Iraq last week.

It's reassuring to know that the forces of liberation have placed their security in such, shall we say, "reliable" hands.


Link posted by Simbaud @ 3:51 PM

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:sr5Cdq0haA8J:simbaud.blogspot.com/+%22Gray+Branfield%22&hl=en

BACKSTORY: It turns out that one of the "security contractors" killed last week in Iraq had a very interesting history as a covert operative/commando for South Africa in the 1980's.

It included being part of a death squad targetting members of the ANC.

And his death is one of those justifying that we put Fallujah under siege?!?

How many Marines died to revenge this guy?


Hesiod // 4/20/2004 10:03:15 AM
Kvetch (0) | Trackback (1)
http://counterspin.blogspot.com/2004_04_18_counterspin_...

François Strydom, a former apartheid-era policeman who worked as a security officer for Erinys Iraq, was blown up by a suicide bomber while on a four-month contract guarding oil lines in Iraq. - Sapa and Staff Reporter
http://capeargus.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=397564

Branfields lose family member in Iraq conflict
The brother-in-law of Toti’s Bobbi
Bear activist, Jackie Branfield, was
killed in bloody fighting in Iraq last
weekend.
55-year-old Gray Branfield, the
brother of Jackie’s husband, Alan,
was doing security work in Kut,
185km south east of Baghdad, when
he was caught up in fierce fighting
between local resistance movements
and the coalition forces in the warravaged
country.
He worked for a security firm
protecting power lines.
Reports have been conflicting and
sketchy but indications are that Gray
shared a house with four other people
who all escaped when Shi'ite Muslims
attacked the house and killed
him.
He lived in Helderkruin, Roodepoort,
and is survived by his wife
and children.
Gray had joined the former Rhodesian
security forces after school and
later joined the South African security
forces.
According to Eureka van der
Mescht, the family were due back in
the country by the weekend for the
funeral. She said Alan had also been
in Iraq, on unrelated business at the
time of Gray’s death.
Jackie, who has been in the UK
campaigning on the Bobbi Bear
front, was returning for the funeral.

http://www.totinews.co.za/news/18april20042.htm


Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 12:26 AM
Response to Reply #9
11. Thanks for putting it in words America can understand, 'dreamie.
From seemslikeadream's post above:

It included being part of a death squad targetting members of the ANC.

And his death is one of those justifying that we put Fallujah under siege?!?

How many Marines died to revenge this guy?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
seemslikeadream Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 12:58 AM
Response to Reply #11
12. Erinys is an international Security Services


Erinys is an international Security Services and Risk consultancy. We provide clients with a range of services and capabilities to reduce the impact of operating in volatile, uncertain or complex environments such as sub-saharan Africa and the Middle East.

Formed in 2001 by senior managers and executives of the security & risk management industry our combination of skills and experience has enabled Erinys to rapidly establish a pre-eminent reputation in its field. A reputation exemplified by a client list representative of some of the world's largest and most important corporations.

Apartheid Enforcers Guard Iraq For the U.S.
By Marc Perelman

02/21/04: (The Forward) In its effort to relieve overstretched U.S. troops in Iraq, the Bush administration has hired a private security company staffed with former henchmen of South Africa’s apartheid regime.

The reliance on apartheid enforcers was highlighted by an attack in Iraq last month that killed one South African security officer and wounded another who worked for the subsidiary of a firm called Erinys International. Both men once served in South African paramilitary units dedicated to the violent repression of apartheid opponents.

François Strydom, who was killed in the January 28 bombing of a hotel in Baghdad, was a former member of the Koevoet, a notoriously brutal counterinsurgency arm of the South African military that operated in Namibia during the neighboring state’s fight for independence in the 1980s. His colleague Deon Gouws, who was injured in the attack, is a former officer of the Vlakplaas, a secret police unit in South Africa.

“It is just a horrible thought that such people are working for the Americans in Iraq,” said Richard Goldstone, a recently retired justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and former chief prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

The Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and the Pentagon did not return requests for comment.
In Iraq, the U.S. government has tapped into the ever-growing pool of private security companies to provide a variety of defense services, including protecting oil sites and training Iraqi forces. Observers worry that a reliance on these companies and the resulting lack of accountability is a recipe for further problems in a volatile region.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5723.htm


Guarding a Vital Asset
Are Iraqis ready to protect their valuable, vulnerable oil?By Joe Cochrane
Newsweek InternationalFeb. 16 issue - It might be a stretch to call Ali and Muhammad the guardians of Iraq's future. Pulling guard duty recently in the rain-soaked northern town of Kirkuk, home of one of the world's largest oilfields, the two men sport mismatched uniforms and clutch rusty AK-47s. But looks are deceiving. Faced with continuing attacks by anti-U.S. insurgents and, according to some, insufficient ground troops to stop them, the U.S. military is counting on Ali and Muhammad (not their real names) and thousands of other private guards to protect Iraq's vast oil infrastructure. The task is daunting: dozens of oilfields, refineries and pumping stations, along with thousands of kilometers of pipeline that crisscross Iraq, are prime targets for insurgents bent on denying the U.S.-led occupying force money for long-term reconstruction. They also hope to exacerbate ongoing fuel shortages in hopes of further enraging a population already angered by long queues for petrol and kerosene. "Production at the refineries is already down 40 to 50 percent," says Asim Jihad, a spokesman for Iraq's Oil Ministry, "so any attacks seriously affect the flow of oil for export and our ability to provide things for the people."

The vast majority of the attacks around the country each day are directed at U.S. troops and the Iraqis who support them, including the Feb. 1 bombing in Arbil that killed 100 Kurds and wounded 247 more. Similar strikes at targets like the Kirkuk fields or Daura oil refinery in Baghdad could seriously disrupt production and oil exports, and have major implications for Iraq's recovery. "One attack could be catastrophic to the oil industry," says Col. Tom O'Donnell, commander of Task Force Shield, which oversees the security of Iraq's oil infrastructure. Anti-U.S. fighters have launched at least 100 attacks against the oil infrastructure since Baghdad fell, including two last fall on a northern pipeline route that halted crude-oil exports to Turkey. The Coalition has been forced to buy oil products from neighboring countries to meet domestic needs.

U.S. war planners gave high priority to seizing Iraq's northern and southern oilfields before Saddam Hussein could sabotage them. But after major combat operations ended, manpower was shifted elsewhere, leaving the oil industry dangerously exposed. To protect its infrastructure, last September the Pentagon awarded a $40 million contract to Erinys International, a private, Britain-based security firm. In only four months Erinys has trained, armed and deployed more than 9,000 Iraqi guards across the country, and plans to expand its force to nearly 15,000 in the coming months. The U.S. military also struck deals with tribal leaders to provide an additional 5,000 guards in their areas.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4208603


South African mercenary question in Iraq

Is Iraq a zone of conflict? A war zone? Or is it a peace-building situation? On the answer to these questions rests the fate of more than 1,500 South Africans now working in Iraq.
Among them are some of the known assassins and torturers from the apartheid era. Most have been recruited as bodyguards, security consultants or security guards at salaries ranging up to $10,000 a month.
The issue came to a head after the bombing of the Shaheen hotel in Baghdad earlier this month, which South African Frans Strydom died and another South African, Deon Gouws, was seriously injured.
Gouws, a former policeman, was linked to the notorious South African Vlakplaas death squad.
The murderous activities of Vlakplaas were exposed when its commander, Colonel
Eugene de Kock, gave full details of the unit. Gouws and others associated with it were exposed and applied for amnesty to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
The TRC granted amnesty to Gouws for at least 15 murders and the petrol bombings of the homes of between 40 and 60 anti-apartheid activists. He was discharged from the police force in 1996 as medically unfit and apparently had difficulty finding or settling down to another job.
Strydom was a former warrant officer in the Koevoet (‘Crowbar’) counterinsurgency unit that achieved notoriety for being paid bounties for the bodies of ‘terrorists’ in Namibia. They conducted a reign of terror in the northern parts of that country in the years before independence.
The backgrounds of these men are not yet widely known in Iraq, let alone the wider region. But those officials who have become aware expressed shock and anger that such ‘mercenaries’ could have been recruited.
As this information spreads and undoubtedly becomes embellished, there is likely to be a backlash against private security companies operating in Iraq.
more
http://www.muslimnews.co.uk/paper/index.php?article=1497

Johannesburg - Francois Strydom learnt about killing in the Koevoet, the apartheid-era paramilitary police unit, notorious for violence, torture and murder.

In Iraq, Strydom found his skills were in demand.

Employed by US-based firm SAS International, Strydom was one of a number of South Africans in Iraq working as private "security experts" before a January 28 bomb outside the Shaheen Hotel prematurely terminated his contract.

The aftermath of the blast sent shockwaves through the media, as Strydom"s death revealed an embarrassing situation. It was estimated that 1 500 former soldiers and policemen were operating in Iraq, in defiance of stringent legislation forbidding the practice.

It emerged that the men make up along with US and British personnel the largest contingent of commercial "military service providers" on the ground in Iraq.

Most are said to be members of former elite units, disbanded following the end of apartheid, their members suddenly finding themselves unemployed, their skills no longer required.

http://www.africancrisis.org/ZZZ/ZZZ_News_2085.ASP
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 01:16 AM
Response to Reply #12
13. Republicans assail Kerry on convention's opening day
Yes, Virginia. There really is a vast right-wing conspiracy.

Republicans assail Kerry on convention's opening day

By DAVID ESPO | Associated Press
August 30, 2004

NEW YORK - Republicans belittled Democratic Sen. John Kerry as a shift-in-the-wind campaigner unworthy of the White House on Monday at the opening of their national convention, lavishing praise on President George W. Bush as a steady, decisive leader in an age of terrorism.

SNIP...

"Kerry is weak on war and wrong on taxes," added House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois.

SNIP...

"This fight against terrorism takes decisiveness, not contradiction," said Bernard Kerik, a former New York police commissioner who worked for the Bush administration helping to rebuild the Iraqi police force.

"Most importantly, it takes courage and inspirational leadership in the White House. There are two candidates in this race, but only one fills those needs," Kerik added.

SOURCE:

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/3713.html



Outside. Inside.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
seemslikeadream Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 04:48 PM
Response to Reply #13
25. New US Homeland Chief Fathered Daughter in Korea
By Reuben Staines
Staff Reporter
Bernard Kerik, the man tasked with protecting the United States from the threat of terrorist attacks, fathered a daughter with a South Korean woman while serving on the peninsula in the mid-1970s, U.S. media reported over the weekend.

Kerik, who was selected to replace Tom Ridge as secretary of the Homeland Security Department on Thursday, had the baby with a woman identified as Sun-ja after arriving in South Korea as a 19-year-old military policeman in December 1974, according to several reports.

The baby, named Lisa, was born in 1975. But Kerik deserted her and her mother when he left the country in February 1976.

In his 2001 autobiography, titled ``The Lost Son: A Life in Pursuit of Justice,¡¯¡¯ Kerik called the decision ``a mistake I will always regret, and I pray to God that one day I can make it right.¡¯¡¯

He said Sun-ja, who later married another U.S. soldier, had not allowed him to meet his daughter until seeing him on The Oprah Winfrey Show following his Sept. 11 heroics.

http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200412/kt2004120521494711990.htm
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 07:32 PM
Response to Reply #25
27. Abandoning his Daughter Sounds IRRESPONSIBLE.
Sociopathy is not at all one of the moral values every talking head is spouting. Then again, it's not hypocrisy when a puke hurts someone.



A couple of nutjob NAZI crooks.


Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 12:22 AM
Response to Reply #8
10. BFEE is The OCTOPUS
Perhaps a PhotoShop savvy DUer could substitute: "Gold," "Diamonds," "Petroleum," "Weaponry," "Narcotics," "Phony Stocks and Paper," "Terror" and "Murder" and you get a picture of the Bush Family Evil Empire...



THE OCTOPUS 

The Criminal Cabal of Guns & Drugs


By David Guyatt

It is one of those stories that even the wildest novelists can’t properly imagine.  A group of  well placed government bureaucrats and politicians, plus numerous CIA spooks and military covert ops types shake hands with the Mafia and agree to do business on the QT.  This involves shaking-down very wealthy figures, dealing guns on the black market, money laundering and trafficking drugs on a world-wide scale.  Along the way they bleed the assets of numerous banks, bankrupting many of them in the process.  They also involve themselves in Masonic secret societies and pull unseen strings deep inside the Vatican.  And, of course, they organise a few political assassinations, invoke some random murders and set alight the fuse on dozens of major bombing events - just to add zest and confusion. 

 Everything is done in the name of “anti-communism,” and is conducted under the umbrella of “national security” – a designation that is sure to stifle any irksome police investigation that could otherwise lead to arrest and imprisonment.  It also ensures their now decades old “business enterprise” will continue to prosper without any kind of oversight.  Welcome then, to the national security “untouchables” - a group of shadowy puppet-masters who practice organised crime on a global scale in the name of freedom and democracy – and who often possess marked Nazi sympathies.

SNIP...

 But Marshall and Casolaro may well have been a few years out in their reckoning on the founding of the Octopus.  There is persuasive evidence that the roots of this group date back to the war or immediate post-war years.  There was certainly an accommodation reached between the Mafia and the US military by the time of the US led invasion of Sicily.  In exchange for Mafia help for the Sicily landing, Mafia kingpin, Lucky Luciano, was released from prison in the US for exile in Italy. 

 But the relationship between the US military and intelligence community and senior members of organised crime was far more deep-seated.  Lt. Colonel Lucien Conein, a high-ranking CIA officer stationed in Saigon before and during the Vietnam war, also belonged to the Corsican underworld, the Union Corse.  This crime clan was responsible for the so called “French Connection” heroin shipments from Southeast Asia to Marseilles and then on to the United States during the Vietnam War era.  Conein was so well connected to leaders of the Corsican underworld that when he left Vietnam, he was presented with a gold medallion embossed with the Napoleonic eagle and the Corsican crest.  The medallion is traditionally worn by Corsican crime bosses to signify their seniority.   Conein is believed by some to have been the inspiration for the principal character in William Herrernan’s best selling novel, The Corsican.  Meanwhile, earlier in his career, Conein had been an OSS liaison officer with the French resistance during WW11.  

SNIP...

 Bu the Octopus does not limit itself to just guns and drugs – even though these two do generate spectacular profits.  According to Carol Marshall, there is evidence of an old and deep involvement in chemical and biological (CB) weapons that may date back to WW11 and the secret Japanese Unit 731 that developed CB weapons in Manchuria.  This connection also revealed, Marshall discovered, the Octopus connection to the Yakuza – Japan’s notorious underworld – in the form of Robert Booth Nichols.

CONTINUED...

http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/the_octopus.htm

This Guyat feller is a pretty good writer.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Swamp Rat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 01:22 AM
Response to Original message
14. Welcome to the USSA... a government of unelected officials.
Bernie Kerik - Homeland Czar

Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 01:48 AM
Response to Reply #14
15. What Rudy said on 9-11
"I will always remember that moment as we escaped the building we were trapped in at 75 Barclay Street and realized that things outside might be even worse than they were inside the building.

Spontaneously, I grabbed the arm of then Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and said to Bernie, "Thank God George Bush is our President."

When Giuliani was saying that to the Police Commissioner, here was Bush"



SOURCE:

The Nattering Nabob

http://ignatz.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_ignatz_archive.html
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Swamp Rat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 02:24 AM
Response to Reply #15
17. Thank God George Bush is God


Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 08:20 AM
Response to Reply #17
19. When in Rome, have the Romans do...
Not that there is any truth to the Rise of the Fourth Reich, Amerikan-style, but a typically astute DUer indicated "Now Bush has his Heydrich." If so, our nation finds itself in some deep doo-doo. From Wikipedia...

Reinhard Heydrich

EXCERPT...

1931 was to be a turning point for Heydrich in another, far more important way. Himmler wished to set up a counter-intelligence division of the SS. Acting on a friend's advice, he interviewed Heydrich, and after a twenty minute test whereby Heydrich had to outline plans for the new division, Himmler hired him on the spot. In doing so Himmler also effectively recruited Heydrich into the Nazi Party.

For a while his was but a small, insignificant role within the Nazi Intelligence, for although he headed the Sicherheitsdienst, he was still relatively powerless, and he and his staff spent their time building up a card-file system on all persons who were considered a threat to the Party, including, often, party officials themselves. Heydrich supported his family on a meagre salary and worked in a tiny office. However, this was soon to change.

Heydrich soon built up a fearsome reputation within the party, and in July 1932 his division took on the title of Sicherheitsdienst (SD). Heydrich soon built up a mutually beneficial partnership with Himmler, with each benefiting politically. Later he became the boss of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) of which the SD, the Gestapo and the Einsatzgruppen were parts.

Upon the establishment of the Third Reich, Heydrich helped Adolf Hitler 'dig up dirt' on many political opponents, keeping an impressive filing system listing individuals and organizations opposing the party and the regime. Heydrich was also instrumental in establishing the false 'attack' by Poland on German national radio at Gleiwitz, which was to be the beginning of World War II.

CONTINUED...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Heydrich

Ya know, Rove reminds me of Himmler. A lot.


Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Swamp Rat Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 09:21 AM
Response to Reply #19
22. Speaking of "when in Rome do as Romans do..."
Did you see Michael Moore on Jay Leno's show a few days ago, dressed up like Dennis Hastert? A lot of DUers were panicking that he "sold out" or something, while I saw him as a shape-shifter maneuvering to pounce on his prey.





Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 11:52 AM
Response to Reply #22
23. Sorry to report: "Yes, I did not sin that."
The vision of Moore appearing as Hastert, though, is a most interesting one that would convert many were the forces not so strong.

Most of today's GOP "leadership," for which Hastert beards, are Satan's Swarm.



satan's monkey.
lower caste.


Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
radfringe Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 05:57 AM
Response to Original message
18. While Ridge was a ineffective limp carrot
Kerick is going to be the stick...

Many of us gave a cautious sigh of relief at the resignation of Ashcroft -- hoping against hope that we would see an end to reich-wing repression and the eroding of civil liberties

Doesn't look like it now -- Kerick is going to take over where Ashcroft left off -- watch the inJustice Department and Homeland inSecurity departments work even more hand in glove over the next two years -- and it won't be to increase security around ports, nuke/chmeical plants, airports, borders etc. It will be to silence dissenters and any who dare oppose bush*
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 08:48 AM
Response to Reply #18
20. DO inJ & inS
Kerik's well-trained himself. The guy was "Interim Iraqi Interior Minister" for a few happy months there. From News Hounds:

The Talented Mr. Kerik

EXCERPT...

When Gibson asks him whether or not the Republicans are wrapping themselves in the mantle of 9/11, Kerik responds: "I think it should be embraced. I think it should be talked about. I think one-half of the problem in this country is that people have forgotten a lot about 9/11. They've gotten complacent and they have to realize that the threat exists as much today as it did on September 10th. So we have a President with enormous leadership in the area of combatting terrorism. He's had major changes over the last three years. Those changes have to continue. This war has to continue and, if it doesn't, we'll be back where we were on Septemer 10th of 2001, an imminent threat a day away...."

(Later) "I want to talk about it as much as possible because people in this country hafta realize each and every day going forward we have to consider there's an imminent threat against us. As long as we have Al Qaeda out there, as long as we have bin Laden out there, as long as we have Zarqawi out there and people like them, we have to take those people out and this is going to take a long time."

Comment:

On October 4, 2003 the NY Times reported the following:

"Last month the Iraqi Governing Council questioned why the American occupation authority had issued a $20 million contract to buy new revolvers and Kalashnikov rifles for the Iraqi police when the United States military was confiscating tens of thousands of weapons every month from Saddam Hussein's abandoned arsenals. On Wednesday the Iraqi council, in a testy exchange with the occupation administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, challenged an American decision to spend $1.2 billion to train 35,000 Iraqi police officers in Jordan when such training could be done in Iraq for a fraction of the cost. Germany and France have offered to provide such training free."

(later) 'The lack of transparency and competition, Governing Council members said in interviews, may be encouraging corruption. They said they believed that many contracts had been inflated beyond the reasonable cost for the work, creating opportunities for kickbacks between prime contractors and subcontractors. One council member, Naseer K. Chadirji, said: 'As the Governing Council we are in a very weak legal position. We don't have the right to investigate these contracts.' He added, 'I don't have the evidence, but I think there is corruption. This is a common grievance that people tell me.' An Iraqi executive, who made millions of dollars as an insider under the Hussein government and would not allow his name to be used, said a relative outside Iraq had asserted that a Bechtel executive was looking to become a silent partner in an Iraqi company that would be favored with subcontracts from Bechtel."

CONTINUED...

http://www.newshounds.us/2004/09/02/the_talented_mr_kerik.php

Any bets on when the "disappearances" begin in the former USA?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
jmowreader Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 06:16 PM
Response to Original message
26. He assaulted a guy in Fayetteville
Our local conservative paper has been fawning over this idiot for days--he was a Fort Bragg MP and a Cumberland County sheriff's deputy.

http://www.fayettevillenc.com/story.php?Template=local&Story=6721623

When he was an MP, a troop flipped him off. What would any good cop do? Not what Kerik did; Kerik broke the guy's middle finger. As punishment for assault, he agreed to be late to formation one day so that his company commander could give him an Article 15 for being late to formation.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Dec-05-04 07:39 PM
Response to Reply #26
28. The nutjob is a PSYCHO.
He broke the guy's finger because he could. Wonder how many Americans are going to die because he can kill?

Remember, one of the provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act is that Smirko McCokestroke can name anyone he pleases an "Enemy Combatant. " Thus, policiticans may get the permanent ziggy and the average American truly becomes cannon fodder. Should PATRIOT ACT II pass, the number could be astronomical.

http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=9395

http://www.alternet.org/story/15541

Thanks, jmowreader, for the heads-up on the busted finger. It shows the new Homeland Security Czar really is the NAZI people feared he would be.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
seemslikeadream Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-07-04 06:51 PM
Response to Reply #28
29. The nutjob is a PSYCHO DEADBEAT


Homeland Security nominee was once bankrupt NYPD cop

DECEMBER 7--While a recent stock windfall has left Bernard Kerik sitting on $6 million, President Bush's nominee to head the Homeland Security department hasn't always been so flush. In fact, Kerik was once a deadbeat who declared bankruptcy when he couldn't handle his credit card bills, loan repayments, or Sears and J.C. Penney tabs. Kerik filed for Chapter 7 protection in October 1987, when he was a 32-year-old New York Police Department officer living in Greenwich Village, according to federal court records. As detailed in Kerik's bankruptcy petition, a copy of which you'll find below, he listed debts totaling about $12,000, the largest of which was a $2089.52 Visa bill. He also claimed an inability to pay a $174 Sunoco tab. According to Kerik's filing, his expenses exceeded his income by about $200 per month. Along with costs like rent ($700), food $200), and "alimony, maintenance, or support payments" ($280), Kerik typed in "Barber" on the line calling for other expenses to be listed. Those tonsorial treatments set him back $20 a month.

more…
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/1207041kerik1.html


Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-09-04 12:44 AM
Response to Reply #29
33. The nutjob is a PSYCHO DEADBEAT DO-NOTHING
Questions for Kerik
Is he qualified to run the Department of Homeland Security?


By Fred Kaplan
Posted Friday, Dec. 3, 2004, at 10:58 AM PT

EXCERPT...

The second question—Kerik's time in Baghdad—is a more mysterious matter, but from what's known about it, still more dismaying. In mid-May 2003, the Defense Department gave Kerik a $140,000-a-year contract to go train the new Iraqi police force. He told reporters, "I will be there at least six months—until the job is done." He came back to New York in early September, a little more than three months later, just as the insurgency began to grow, saying, "Everything that had to be done that I could possibly do, it was done."

Whatever Kerik did, it wasn't much. The Iraqi police forces were—and still are—notoriously ill-trained and ill-equipped for the gigantic challenges they face. It's not clear why Kerik left earlier than scheduled. By all accounts, he was a wash-out. One Pentagon official who was in Baghdad at the time calls Kerik's tenure "notably unspectacular." His tenure did produce some grist for scandal. Members of Iraq's interim governing council expressed loud dismay that Kerik spent $1.2 billion to train 35,000 Iraqi police in Jordan. More annoying still was his decision to buy from Jordan 20,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 50,000 revolvers, and 10 million rounds of ammunition, when he could have rounded up all those weapons far more cheaply—if not for free—from the disbanded Iraqi army.

CONTINUED...

http://slate.msn.com/id/2110638

Here's Nutjob...



(Martial Arts) Success: What role can martial arts instructors play in our country's willingness and ability to protect itself from those who would destroy us?

 Kerik: Fight for what is right and always deny evil. Understand why we were attacked by these cowards -- because of freedom! Where that freedom comes from and why these extremists are so afraid of our country and the democracy in which we live. 

Martial arts instructors are people that are usually looked up to, people that others will follow. Don't be afraid to stand up for this country and all the things that have made it so great. 

CONTINUED NUTJOBISHNESS...

http://www.battleofatlanta.com/Test/kerik1.htm
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
seemslikeadream Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 01:19 PM
Response to Reply #33
35. nutjob is a PSYCHO DEADBEAT DO-NOTHING SON OF A PROSTITUTE


Copy of suit follows article

By John Byrne | RAW STORY Editor

Bernard Kerik is no stranger to controversy. The son of a prostitute who fathered and abandoned a child in South Korea in the 1970s, Kerik climbed the ranks of power after being a driver for New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who subsequently promoted him quickly through the police force.

...

In a scantily reported civil suit filed in 2003 and settled for $325,000, New York City Deputy Warden Lionel Lorquet alleged that Kerik "instituted a practice of threats and retaliation if they were deemed to be 'disloyal'" to the commissioner. RAW STORY acquired a copy of the suit Thursday.

...

The practice, which appears to have continued under the two subsequent commissioners, is detailed in heavy detail in the court filing and may presage a painfully partisan future for Homeland Security. Supporters of Kerik note, however, that much of the retaliation against Lorquet came under his successors' watch.

...

Lorquet says the situation grew so dire that two corrections officers even paid a visit to his home with a video camera when it was discovered that he planned to hold a fundraising function for Green at his home in August 2001.


http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=485

Lawsuit (.pdf) http://rawstory.com/images/pdfs/Lorquet_v_NYC_et_al.pdf
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Karenina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 02:48 PM
Response to Reply #35
36. Here come anudda one
jes' like da udda one...
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 04:44 PM
Response to Reply #36
39. Nutjob PSYCHO DEADBEAT DO-NOTHING SON OF A PROSTITUTE CROOK
Security Post Would Put Kerik Atop Field That Enriched Him

By ERIC LIPTON
The New York Times
December 10, 2004

WASHINGTON, Dec. 9 - Just five years ago, Bernard B. Kerik was facing lawsuits from a condominium association and bank over delinquent payments owed on a modest New Jersey condo he owned. Today, he is a multimillionaire as a result of a lucrative partnership with former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani and an even more profitable relationship with a stun-gun manufacturer.

If he is confirmed to the post of homeland security secretary, to which President Bush nominated him last week, he will oversee an enormous department that does business with some of the companies that helped make him wealthy.

The list of income sources that transformed Mr. Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner, into a wealthy man is a diverse one, including a best-selling autobiography, speeches around the United States and service on corporate boards. Mr. Kerik, who now lives in a large house in the decidedly more upscale New Jersey town of Franklin Lakes and drives a BMW sedan, even sold the right to make a feature film about his rags-to-riches life to Miramax, the film production company.

But it is the relationship Mr. Kerik has had since the spring of 2002 with Taser International, a Scottsdale, Ariz., manufacturer of stun guns, that has by far been the biggest source of his newfound wealth. That relationship has earned him more than $6.2 million in pretax profits through stock options he was granted and then sold, mostly in the last month. A White House spokesman said Mr. Kerik would resign from Taser's board and sell his remaining stock if confirmed.

Mr. Kerik benefited largely because the company's stock has surged extraordinarily. Stock options that were worth little when they were granted became extremely valuable, in part because of the sales pitch that Mr. Kerik made on the company's behalf to other police departments.

CONTINUED...

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/10/politics/10kerik.html?oref=login&oref=login&pagewanted=print&position=
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Karenina Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 05:29 PM
Response to Reply #39
40. See how it works in Amiland?
A true Horatio Algier, Ragged Dick, pullimself up by da bootstraps LEGEND!
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 10:51 PM
Response to Reply #40
42. Now, who can satan's monkey find who's worse?
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
seemslikeadream Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 10:39 PM
Response to Reply #39
41.  "Nutjob PSYCHO DEADBEAT DO-NOTHING SON OF A PROSTITUTE CROOK"
Edited on Fri Dec-10-04 10:40 PM by seemslikeadream
WHO WILL NOT BE THE HEAD OF HOMELAND SECURITY

:smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke:
:toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce::toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce::toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast: :bounce: :toast:
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 10:55 PM
Response to Reply #41
43. Take a virtual tour of NPC
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
imax2268 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Tue Dec-07-04 06:55 PM
Response to Original message
30. I posted that article...
on another website the other day and the repubs on there blasted the author for being biased and totally ignored the content of the article...

don't you just love how they hate facts...!!!
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-04 09:13 AM
Response to Reply #30
32. The truth hurts the BFEE like nothing else.
Like vampires and sunshine, they know it will kill them.

Did you read what Masden wrote regarding 22 November 1963?

22 November: Remembering JFK
Another Insult From Bush


http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD411C.html
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Wed Dec-08-04 09:08 AM
Response to Original message
31. Kerik's conduct in Saudi Arabia questioned
Seems Herr Kerik was a bit of a secret policeman, even then.

Heil Bush!

Kerik's conduct in Saudi Arabia questioned

By John Mintz and Lucy Shackelford
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — The autobiography of Bernard Kerik, President Bush's nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, recounts a difficult time 20 years ago when he was expelled from Saudi Arabia amid a power struggle involving the head of a hospital complex where Kerik helped command a security staff.

In the book, Kerik described his discomfort at having to investigate employees' private lives but said it was necessary because of the Saudis' laws prohibiting drinking and mingling of the sexes in public. "It was challenging, negotiating such a closed, rigid system and trying to find justice in laws that, to an American, were unjust," he wrote. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1984, the book said, after an altercation with a Saudi secret-police official who was interrogating him.

Since he was nominated last week to be homeland security secretary, however, nine former employees of the hospital have said that Kerik and his colleagues were carrying out the private agenda of the hospital's administrator, Nizar Feteih, and that the surveillance was intended to control people's private affairs.

Feteih became embroiled in a scandal that centered in part on his use of the institution's security staff to track the private lives of several women with whom he was romantically involved, and men who came in contact with them, the former employees said.

Kerik, who as chief of investigations was considered third in command of the security staff, surveilled some employees and at times confronted them with the results, several former employees said. He also was a lead investigator in the controversial arrest, for drinking, of a physician who was detained and deported from Saudi Arabia for the crime.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002112642_kerik08.html
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
seemslikeadream Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Dec-09-04 01:05 PM
Response to Original message
34. Homeland Security nominee made millions on Taser options
Kerik has played a key security consultant's role for a number of Kerik and Giuliani clients. Among them:

-Purdue Pharma, the company that makes the narcotic painkiller OxyContin. Kerik helped the company improve security at two manufacturing plants after it experienced employee theft and found that additional security measurers were needed for the highly regulated drug. Kerik worked to improve the capacity of safes to secure the product, upgrade camera surveillance and install other security measures.

-The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the drug industry association that opposes importation of medicine from Canada and elsewhere. Kerik visited ports, reviewed prescription drug Internet sites and helped prepare a report for the industry on dangers of importation. He told a government task force in April that allowing imports could invite terrorists to purchase drugs legally and use them in a biological attack

-Entergy Nuclear Northeast, operator of five nuclear power plants. Kerik and others helped ensure the plants were operated with state-of-the-art security.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1209Kerik-Stock-ON.html
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 04:36 PM
Response to Reply #34
37. Like Smirko, Kerik is a CROOK!
Thanks, seemslikeadream! Seems the security field has made great strides thanks to 9-11, er, "since" 9-11.

Gee. There's no place like DU!

And here's something I discovered thanks to nostamj:

HOMELAND SECURITY

Who Is Bernard Kerik?


Over the last several years, former NYC police commissioner Bernard B. Kerik, President Bush's nominee to be the next Secretary of Homeland Security, has become "a multimillionaire as a result of a lucrative partnership with former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani." Indeed, the New York Daily News suggests, Kerik's selection was less based on merit than it was on Giuliani's "pull within the White House" and "Kerik's work on the campaign trail" for Bush. Kerik's record, however, raises serious question about his motives, ethics and ability to defend America. Kerik abruptly quit a critical job in Iraq, mismanaged rescue efforts in the aftermath of 9/11, used his official posts for personal enrichment and has been plagued by serious scandals. Here is a detailed look behind the mustache:

KERIK ABANDONS CRITICAL POST IN IRAQ TO TAKE A VACATION: The Washington Post reports that Kerik's track record on issues of national security is "spotty." Appointed by President Bush to train a new Iraqi police force in 2003, "Kerik came under criticism for inadequate screening of recruits as U.S. authorities rushed to deploy the force. It has been plagued by desertions and by allegations that insurgents have infiltrated the ranks." Worse, Kerik "quit four months into his six-month tenure in Iraq, telling New York reporters later that he needed a vacation."

KERIK CRITICIZED BY CONSERVATIVES FOR POST-9/11 OPERATIONS: A prominent Republican member of the Sept. 11 commission, former Navy secretary John F. Lehman, sharply criticized Kerik "for failures of leadership during the terrorist attacks" of 9/11. Lehman said that Kerik allowed turf battles with the Fire Department to "hamper rescue efforts" and called Kerik's leadership at the time "not worthy of the Boy Scouts."

KERIK SENT COPS OUT OF NYC TO RESEARCH HIS PERSONAL MEMOIRS: As police commissioner of NYC, Kerik used city police officers – who could have been protecting the people of New York – to help him write a book he would sell for personal profit. The Washington Post reports that the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board fined Kerik $2,500 for "sending two police officers to Ohio to help research his best-selling 2001 memoir, 'The Lost Son.'"

KERIK'S STUNNING CONFLICT OF INTEREST: Kerik has made $6.2 million dollars in profits from his relationship "with Taser International, a Scottsdale, Ariz., manufacturer of stun guns." Kerik was appointed as a director of the company immediately after he had the NYPD purchase the guns as police chief. Since 2002, Kerik has hawked Taser's products to police departments around the country. Recently the company has made an "aggressive push to enter markets either regulated or controlled by the federal government, most notably the Department of Homeland Security." Thomas Smith, the company president, said the company would "continue to go after that business" at the Department of Homeland Security should Kerik be confirmed.

KERIK'S DIRTY DOOR DEAL: Failing to follow proper bidding procedures, Kerik spent $50,000 on four security doors for the NYC police headquarters. The doors were all too heavy for the floors of the police headquarters and three are now in storage. Shortly after leaving his post as commissioner, "Kerik became an adviser to a company distributing the doors." He later renounced the post after "the door-maker's president was indicted for defrauding the city."

KERIK SHILLS FOR THE DRUG INDUSTRY: In April, the Washington Post reported that Kerik opened a high-priced consulting firm to sell his New York City police credentials to wealthy corporate bidders. The firm was promptly hired by the pharmaceutical industry's chief lobbying group to build opposition to letting American seniors purchase lower-priced, FDA-approved medicines from Canada. Without any evidence, Kerik claimed reimportation could "invite terrorists to launch a biological attack under the guise of a legal purchase."

KERIK ACCUSED OF FORCING GUARDS TO DO POLITICAL WORK: Newsweek reports that in 1999, Kerik "was named in a civil lawsuit as the architect of a system to force prison guards to work for Republicans in their off-hours." The suit, brought by a warden, claimed that Kerik would "hunt down" anyone deemed "disloyal." The suit was settled, with the warden winning $300,000 and a promotion, while Kerik's protégé was indicted in connection the scandal.

SOURCE (with a bunch o' links)

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=100480
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 04:42 PM
Response to Reply #34
38. Remember Richard Perle's TRIREME PARTNERS?
It appears there's a whole lot of money to be made off of wars and starting wars and rumormongering wars for warmongers and their pets. Take Richard Perle and Adnan Khashoggi, please:


LUNCH WITH THE CHAIRMAN

Why was Richard Perle meeting with Adnan Khashoggi?


by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2003-03-17
Posted 2003-03-10

At the peak of his deal-making activities, in the nineteen-seventies, the Saudi-born businessman Adnan Khashoggi brokered billions of dollars in arms and aircraft sales for the Saudi royal family, earning hundreds of millions in commissions and fees. Though never convicted of wrongdoing, he was repeatedly involved in disputes with federal prosecutors and with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and in recent years he has been in litigation in Thailand and Los Angeles, among other places, concerning allegations of stock manipulation and fraud. During the Reagan Administration, Khashoggi was one of the middlemen between Oliver North, in the White House, and the mullahs in Iran in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Khashoggi subsequently claimed that he lost ten million dollars that he had put up to obtain embargoed weapons for Iran which were to be bartered (with Presidential approval) for American hostages. The scandals of those times seemed to feed off each other: a congressional investigation revealed that Khashoggi had borrowed much of the money for the weapons from the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (B.C.C.I.), whose collapse, in 1991, defrauded thousands of depositors and led to years of inquiry and litigation.

Khashoggi is still brokering. In January of this year, he arranged a private lunch, in France, to bring together Harb Saleh al-Zuhair, a Saudi industrialist whose family fortune includes extensive holdings in construction, electronics, and engineering companies throughout the Middle East, and Richard N. Perle, the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, who is one of the most outspoken and influential American advocates of war with Iraq.

The Defense Policy Board is a Defense Department advisory group composed primarily of highly respected former government officials, retired military officers, and academics. Its members, who serve without pay, include former national-security advisers, Secretaries of Defense, and heads of the C.I.A. The board meets several times a year at the Pentagon to review and assess the country’s strategic defense policies.

Perle is also a managing partner in a venture-capital company called Trireme Partners L.P., which was registered in November, 2001, in Delaware. Trireme’s main business, according to a two-page letter that one of its representatives sent to Khashoggi last November, is to invest in companies dealing in technology, goods, and services that are of value to homeland security and defense. The letter argued that the fear of terrorism would increase the demand for such products in Europe and in countries like Saudi Arabia and Singapore.

The letter mentioned the firm’s government connections prominently: “Three of Trireme’s Management Group members currently advise the U.S. Secretary of Defense by serving on the U.S. Defense Policy Board, and one of Trireme’s principals, Richard Perle, is chairman of that Board.” The two other policy-board members associated with Trireme are Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State (who is, in fact, only a member of Trireme’s advisory group and is not involved in its management), and Gerald Hillman, an investor and a close business associate of Perle’s who handles matters in Trireme’s New York office. The letter said that forty-five million dollars had already been raised, including twenty million dollars from Boeing; the purpose, clearly, was to attract more investors, such as Khashoggi and Zuhair.

CONTINUED...

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030317fa_fact
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
louis c Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 11:12 PM
Response to Original message
44. Bernie Just Quit
Bernie is out before he is in.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 11:26 PM
Response to Reply #44
46. Bernie, we hardly knew ye.


And what we knew, we didn't like*.

* Except the time NEWSWEEK said Kerik saved another cop's life, under fire. That was greatness and I thank him -- and owe him -- for that.

The NAZI shit, we don't need.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
UTUSN Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 11:15 PM
Response to Original message
45. Kick for We-ve-Won-Another-One
***********QUOTE***********
KERIK as thug: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/media/columns/medi... /

.... Then Judith and Rupert found each other -- and ReganBooks was born. Not only did their commercial instincts mesh, but Judy's what's-the-world-ever-done-for-me politics were highly compatible with the Murdoch view.

And then the sex part. It's a one-woman show.

I have never heard anyone talk about sex the way Judy does. I have never heard anyone talk about their sexual partners the way Judy does. I have never heard anyone analyze individual motivations, the workings of the marketplace, and politics, too, in such precisely sexual terms. The other day, on her show, she kept interrupting her tempered guests on the subject of why women like Bill Clinton, and, voice rising, saying: "They want to have sex with him -- that's why they like him!"

Early in her career at Simon & Schuster, she published a book called The Rogue Warrior and fought tooth and nail for a full-face cover photo of the author. "Don't they understand?" she stormed to me. "Women will buy this because they want to fuck him!" She got the full face and a best-seller.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipea/A0880010.html

Born: 1953
Birthplace: Massachusetts?

Growing up on Long Island, Regan earned a BA in English from Vassar College. In the late 1970s, she studied voice and worked as a secretary before becoming a reporter for the National Enquirer. In 1987 Regan proposed a book on American families and their role models to Simon & Schuster. The editors were impressed, and she joined Simon & Schuster, developing a string of best-selling celebrity “tell-all” books, including those by talk show host Rush Limbaugh and radio personality Howard Stern. Her aggressive, sales-oriented approach was highly successful, but critics charged she was undermining publishing by manufacturing personality-driven books. In 1994 Rupert Murdoch gave Regan her own imprint at HarperCollins, ReganBooks, and a TV show on Fox News. A Manhattan resident, Regan is divorced and has two children.

http://www.amiannoying.com/2002/view.aspx?ID=4537

Published Howard Stern's 'Private Parts' and 'Miss America,' 'Monica Lewinsky's Untold Story: An Amorality Tale,' 'Quivers a Life' and Rush Limbaugh's 'See I Told You So' and 'The Way it Ought to Be'
Hosts Fox News interview show

Why she might be annoying:
Her son was born out of wedlock and she never married the father.
She divorced Robert Kleinschmidt, the father of her daughter, in a very angry divorce. The divorce battle went for over five years and went through dozens of lawyers and many judges, costing more than a million dollars.
When she published rival Rush Limbaugh's book, Howard Stern called her 'Judas Limbaugh.'
She wrote for the National Enquirer for three years.

Why she might not be annoying:
She looks like Isabella Rossellini.
She graduated Vassar College on a scholarship.
She has edited books from the left and right political viewpoint with out censoring ideas.
She ranked #94 in Entertainment Week Power List of 1993.

http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical/newlow.htm

Regan looked straight into the camera and for almost 10 minutes, delivered a pseudo stream-of-consciousness poetry riff mocking Clinton. Referring to his sad boyhood, she mocked his loneliness, then proclaimed that he built himself up and called himself KING, because "I am rich and I can do what I want!" She likened him to the cast out Socks, and envisioned him an old man meeting up with Socks at 125th street, both holding tin cups. ....

It was incredibly vicious. What was especially appalling was how she took the most painful aspects of Bill's background--his truly grievous childhood--and twisted them, using them to mock him. If this wasn't the "politics of personal destruction" I don't know how else you could describe this horrific display. ....

***********UNQUOTE*********
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
Octafish Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Fri Dec-10-04 11:36 PM
Response to Reply #45
47. Birds of a feather.
Part of the VRWC started by...



Prescott Bush and W. Averell Harriman and a couple other fine, I'm sure, fellahs.

http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml/Brown_Brothers_and_Company

CIA's Worst-Kept Secretb

EXCERPT...

"The real winners of the Cold War were Nazi war criminals, many of whom were able to escape justice because the East and West became so rapidly focused after the war on challenging each other," says Eli Rosenbaum, director of the Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations and America's chief Nazi hunter.

SNIP

The Gehlen Org

The key figure on the German side of the CIA-Nazi tryst was General Reinhard Gehlen, who had served as Adolf Hitler's top anti-Soviet spy. During World War II, Gehlen oversaw all German military-intelligence operations in Eastern Europe and the USSR.

As the war drew to a close, Gehlen surmised that the U.S.-Soviet alliance would soon break down. Realizing that the United States did not have a viable cloak-and-dagger apparatus in Eastern Europe, Gehlen surrendered to the Americans and pitched himself as someone who could make a vital contribution to the forthcoming struggle against the Communists.

SNIP...

The image he projected during 10 months of negotiations at Fort Hunt was, to use a bit of espionage parlance, a "legend" – one that hinged on Gehlen's false claim that he was never really a Nazi, but was dedicated, above all, to fighting Communism. Those who bit the bait included future CIA director Allen Dulles, who became Gehlen's biggest supporter among American policy wonks.

Gehlen returned to West Germany in the summer of 1946 with a mandate to rebuild his espionage organization and resume spying on the East at the behest of American intelligence. The date is significant as it preceded the onset of the Cold War, which, according to standard U.S. historical accounts, did not begin until a year later.

CONTINUED...

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2001/051601a.html

This is why that woman and the alien are so vicious. It's the NAZI way.
Printer Friendly | Permalink |  | Top
 
DU AdBot (1000+ posts) Click to send private message to this author Click to view 
this author's profile Click to add 
this author to your buddy list Click to add 
this author to your Ignore list Fri Apr 26th 2024, 02:30 AM
Response to Original message
Advertisements [?]
 Top

Home » Discuss » Archives » General Discussion (Through 2005) Donate to DU

Powered by DCForum+ Version 1.1 Copyright 1997-2002 DCScripts.com
Software has been extensively modified by the DU administrators


Important Notices: By participating on this discussion board, visitors agree to abide by the rules outlined on our Rules page. Messages posted on the Democratic Underground Discussion Forums are the opinions of the individuals who post them, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Democratic Underground, LLC.

Home  |  Discussion Forums  |  Journals |  Store  |  Donate

About DU  |  Contact Us  |  Privacy Policy

Got a message for Democratic Underground? Click here to send us a message.

© 2001 - 2011 Democratic Underground, LLC