July 30 -August 1, 2010 -- Bush's ambassador to eastern Caribbean protected Stanford operations

Mary K. Ourisman, the Texas-born socialite wife of Maryland car dealer Mandy Ourisman, helped provide diplomatic and legal cover for jailed former Stanford International Bank chief Allen Stanford, according to Stanford insiders who spoke to WMR. Mary Ourisman was George W. Bush's ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean States, which include Antigua and Barbuda, the headquarters for Stanford's one-time global banking and financial services empire that collapsed in 2009 after it was discovered to be a Ponzi scheme. Stanford is in prison in Texas and has been refused bail as a flight risk -- Stanford is also a citizen of Antigua and Barbuda. He is scheduled to go on trial in January 2011, conveniently two months after the congressional election in November. Stanford's campaign contributions fell into the coffers of congressional members of both Democrats and Republicans.

However, as WMR previously reported, Stanford International Bank also became a replacement for the collapsed Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) as a vehicle for drug money laundering and other covert operations on behalf of the CIA and other intelligence agencies.

Mary Ourisman, a political fundraiser for Bush and other GOP candidates and a close friend of former First Lady Laura Bush, became U.S. ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean States in 2006. In her job, Ourisman ensured that Stanford's financial operations in Antigua and Barbuda, as well as in two other Caribbean nations where she was credentialed as ambassador, St. Kitts-Nevis and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, were protected from federal regulators.

To provide even more protection for Stanford's money laundering ans other covert operations, Stanford showered GOP and Democratic senators with large campaign contributions, including $83,000 for John Cornyn of Texas and $950,000 for the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and particularly, Bob Menendez of New Jersey. Menendez, who maintains close connections to the Cuban exile community in Florida and new Jersey and its CIA veteran operatives, has refused to investigate the Stanford fraud on behalf of its victims and has tried to block any Senate investigation of Stanford's links to the CIA and top government officials, Democratic and Republican.

It is also noteworthy that Texas was the only U.S. state to have entered into a financial regulatory agreement with Antigua. The Texas Department Banking and the Antigua and Barbuda International Financial Sector Regulatory authority signed the agreement on July 26, 2001. More amazingly, the agreement was signed while Antigua was subject to a U.S. Treasury advisory warning of potential fraud.

Ourisman sat idly in Bridgetown, Barbados as Antigua's Attorney General, Errol Cort, who had also been Stanford's personal attorney on the island, changed the island nation's money laundering laws to the benefit of Stanford and his CIA overseers, without a peep from any of the regulatory agencies in Washington. Cort, who is now the National Security Minister of Antigua and has used his position to make things uncomfortable for Stanford fraud investigators traveling to the island, also served on the board of the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, which took over Stanford's Bank of Antigua after Stanford empire collapsed in 2009. Stanford had become a political kingpin in Antigua, exercising influence over the previous Lester Bird government and its successor, the present Baldwin Spencer government -- without any interference from Ourisman in Barbados or the State Department.

Even today, Antigua's ambassador to the United States, Debra-Mae Lovell, the wife of Antigua's corruption-tainted Finance Minister Harold Lovell, spends most of her time in Washington acting as a public relations flack for Antigua and ridiculing the former Stanford investors who were defrauded by the Ponzi scheme -- a scheme facilitated by a corrupt Antiguan government. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, more concerned about the continuation of U.S. military basing rights on Antigua, has warmly embraced Ambassador Lovell and members of her government and has lavished hundreds of millions of dollars of aid on Antigua.

The bodies have piled up among those who were most familiar with Stanford's operations. On February 25, 2009, WMR reported, "No one will ever know just how Charlesworth Shelley Hewlett, who ran CAS Hewlett & Company out of a small office sandwiched between fish and chips shops on South Bury Road in Enfield in north London, came to be the accountant for Allen Stanford's $50 billion financial empire that included Stanford International Bank (SIB). That is because Mr. Hewlett, known as a quiet gray-haired man to those who had offices in his north London office block, died 'peacefully' a few weeks before the Stanford scandal hit the front pages. Hewlett was 73 but no one knows the reason for Hewlett's death." Hewlett also maintained an office on St. John's Street, in St. John's, the capital of Antigua.

Stogniew, who headed a one-man company in Florida, Stogniew and Associates, provided risk analysis services for Stanford. Stoniew produced a flimsy three-page risk analysis report for Stanford in 2003. It mostly consisted of disclaimers. Gerry Stogniew, who founded his company in 1980 and resided in Seminole, Florida, died in July 2008. The firm was taken over Stogniew's daughter. Oddly, the professional staff for Stogniew and Associates are only listed by their initials. Federal Election Commission records indicate Stogniew donated to the campaigns of George H. W. Bush in 1987 and Florida Republicans Bill McCollum in 1999 and Katherine Harris in 2005.

Allen Stanford and Mary Ourisman shared more than an interest in protecting Stanford International Bank from nosy regulators: they were both born in the small Texas town of Mexia, Ourisman in 1946 and Stanford in 1950. The town's other "famous" celebrity: the late Anna Nicole Smith, who died from a suspected lethal drug overdose in Hollywood, Florida in 2007.

Sir Josiah Stamp quotes:

Banking was conceived in iniquity and was born in sin. The Bankers own the earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen they will create enough deposits to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But, if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits.

"It's Fun to Shoot Some People"

Psychotic Morons

By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY

The recently sacked US commander in Afghanistan, McChrystal, was a special forces freak who was complicit in or actually caused the cloak-and-dagger deaths of an unknown number of people. He and his knuckle-dragging rabble were and are unaccountable to either man or morality. They kill at will.

McChrystal came to recent notice because his juvenile bar-room insults about his superiors were made public. This was one thing McChrystal couldn’t slime his way out of, but in the past he proved himself genius quality when defending himself after being deceitful.

Mary Tillman, the mother of Corporal Pat Tillman who was killed in what was eventually called a ‘friendly fire’ tragedy in Afghanistan, wrote a book called ‘Boots on the Ground by Dusk’ which provides insight as to how some members of the US military covered up unpalatable truth and cast aside all principle. McChrystal figured big in this sordid saga.

At the time of Pat Tillman’s death on April 24, 2004, McChrystal was the head of Special Operations in Afghanistan. He approved the award of a Silver Star to Tillman for heroism.

There was no doubt that Pat Tillman, a mega-tough football star and a really great guy, was a hero. He stood up in a hail of machine gun fire from a bunch of panic-stricken, ill-trained, incompetent US soldiers and bellowed at them to stop shooting at their own comrades. But they carried on firing and shot him dead.

Rumsfeld’s Pentagon needed a national hero in 2004. It wanted a story to deflect domestic and world attention from the Abu Ghraib torture revelations that were hitting the media. Some of the hideous treatment of scores of Iraqis by a bunch of slavering US psychotics had been recorded for posterity (although we haven’t seen half the repulsive pictures because politicians, including Hillary Clinton, forbade release of the worst ones), and Washington was desperate to deflect attention from the horrible disclosures.

The cock-and-bull story about special forces’ gallantry in the so-called ‘rescue’ of Jessica Lynch in Iraq was a squalid invention conjured up to grab headlines, in which it succeeded, and the death of Pat Tillman presented a similar opportunity. His Silver Star citation read in part that “Corporal Tillman put himself in the line of devastating enemy fire,” which was a trumped-up yarn concerning an own-forces’ clash that everyone involved knew had happened. And McChrystal was promoted major general nine days after his Corporal was killed.

Eventually, when it was no longer possible to maintain deceit, there had to be an inquiry, so McChrystal appeared in front of the usual smug and supportive bunch of politicians who hung on his words and didn’t give him the tongue-lashing he deserved. Senator McCain asked him about the falsified award recommendation and McChrystal replied that

“Now, what happens, in retrospect, is – and I would do this differently if I had the chance again – in retrospect they look contradictory, because we sent a Silver Star that was not well-written. And although I went through the process, I will tell you now I didn't review the citation well enough to capture – or I didn't catch that if you read it you could imply that it was not friendly fire.”

This was insolently confusing nonsense. Apart from the fact that in his ignorance he meant ‘infer’ rather than ‘imply’, the statement that the citation was “not well-written” was devious and intended to draw attention from the fact that it was a lie from beginning to end.

The Silver Star is awarded to a member of the US Army who has displayed gallantry “in action against an enemy of the United States while engaged in military operations involving conflict with an opposing foreign force.”

Was McChrystal unaware of the terms of the award recommendation that he signed? Is it possible he didn’t know that the American victim of killing by US soldiers, however gallant he had been, did not meet the criterion of being involved in “conflict with an opposing foreign force”?

The man is a lying charlatan, unlike an unfortunately honest senior officer in the US army in recent times, one Major General Mario Taguba, who was tasked to investigate the sadistic atrocities at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

General Taguba was ordered to head the investigation because his senior officers and the Pentagon thought he would be compliant. He wasn’t one of the Club. He was of Philippines origin (his father fought at Bataan, survived the ensuing Death March, and escaped captivity to fight again; a true hero), and achieved general rank by displaying great competence. But competence isn’t enough in the US military system. Or in any country’s military system.

Ambitious military officers have to display conformity and compliance if they want to succeed and go onwards and upwards. Adherence to shifting political thinking is essential for advancement, and in this they are helped by bands of sycophantic toadies whom they handpick for their staffs. The McChrystal mob of lickspittle flunkies were typical of the breed and told their boss what he wanted to hear, which, by chance of inverse intention, helped cause his well-deserved disgrace.

When the political spin doctors of Washington – or Berlin, London, Delhi, Moscow, Beijing, or any capital, indeed – dictate that a particular line is to be adopted by the military, then that Line is Law. It isn’t Constitutional legal law, of course; but it’s much more easily enforceable. And the penalties for ignoring the political party line are harsher than those awarded for what the rest of us might imagine to be graver crimes.

In May 2004 Major General Taguba produced his findings on the Abu Ghraib outrages, writing that “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees.” He apportioned blame. So he was immediately posted to the Office of Reserve Affairs, which in any army is a professional graveyard.

He was then insulted face-to-face by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and humiliated by senior officers who jumped on the official bandwagon of Taguba-denigration, and told that he and his Report would be “investigated.” His treatment was proclamation to the entire military system that any officer who wants to rise to senior rank in the Profession of Arms should not upset the cradle of promotion by revealing uncomfortable truth. The cradle might rock (who remembers that great Broadway Show?), and truth can be manipulated.

In 2006 General Taguba was ordered to retire, and the army lost a loyal, decent, honorable and truthful officer. But the Pentagon doesn’t seem to want too many truthful officers who are loyal to the Constitution. It favors officers who are loyal to the Pentagon. Which brings us to General James Mattis, a Marine described by Defense Secretary Gates as “one of our military’s outstanding combat leaders and strategic thinkers.”

He was speaking of a man who in 2001 boasted that “The Marines have landed, and we now own a piece of Afghanistan,” which is one of the most stupid comments made by any general in recent years. If Mattis, the supposed “strategic thinker”, believed his words about “owning” a part of the country would be a positive contribution to US policy as regards Afghanistan, then he is a fool. If he spoke without thinking, then he is a fool. But being a fool doesn’t affect promotion, so long as you go the Pentagon way ; and Mattis went onwards and upwards.

Then in 2005, when the Afghanistan quagmire was becoming deeper, Mattis spoke in San Diego about the war and how it should be fought. His words were recorded by CNN as

Actually it's quite fun to fight them, you know. It's a hell of a hoot. It's fun to shoot some people. I'll be right up there with you. I like brawling . . . You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway. So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them.

This stupid man has been placed in command of all troops in Afghanistan. His troops know he believes it is “fun to shoot some people” and who could blame them for acting accordingly, given such guidance? The stage is set for more of a “hell of a fun to shoot them”.

The insurgents’ propagandists know about Mattis, too. And they will spread the word that the new foreign occupation general thinks they have “no manhood”, which is the ultimate insult to a tribesman of any persuasion.

Although the consequences of the words of General Mattis can never be measured, it is obvious they are unbalanced to the point of being psychopathic. The man’s crass and barbaric tirade is not only alarming from the aspect of animal rabble-rousing, it demonstrates that the Pentagon appoints some extremely peculiar people to senior rank and command.

A person who believes that it is “a hell of a hoot” to kill people is seriously demented. The fact that such a person has been appointed to a major US military command is alarming, to put it mildly. But a country gets the military leaders it deserves. It’s a pity that some are psychotic morons.

Brian Cloughley’s website is www.beecluff.com

Marilyn Monroe and

the Homeless Man

(a true story)

by Jack Kara, M.D.

In February 2009 we vacationed in Palm Springs, California and visited our daughters who live nearby. While there, my wife showed me an advertisement for a showing of Marilyn Monroe’s dresses. The advertisement was the famous picture of Marilyn’s dress blowing up from a street grate. Quickly I agreed to go. But when we got to the exhibit, I learned that there were no pictures of Marilyn wearing the dresses. It was only the dresses. Disappointed, I decided to skip the exhibit and waited for my wife outside on a bench in the sun.

The upscale view from the bench reaffirmed that this was one of the two very affluent, entertainment towns in California. Here, even the streets are named for show business stars. Next I observed the tourists who enjoy coming to this exhibit to admire and perhaps even fantasize about a woman who had everything—extraordinary beauty, fame, wealth, famous friends and famous boyfriends, and an expensive home. I then noticed that sitting quietly on a nearby bench was a man with a beard, wearing a black western hat, a brightly colored poncho, no socks, and tennis shoes. He appeared to be homeless, owning nothing but the small sleeping roll beside him.

I had always wanted to talk with a homeless person, but it was awkward trying to start a conversation. I tried this: “I’m waiting on this bench for my wife, but it is too hot over here in the sun. Can I sit on your bench in the shade?” He motioned me over. I sat down and started talking rapidly, so he would soon know I was not the police or someone to move him on. He quickly opened up and told me his name was Robert and some of his life story. Robert said he had been an “extra” in 52 movies but was now homeless. Then he said something that moved me from just being curious, to sympathy for him. He related that his parents divorced when he was three, and he never saw his father again. He said the only memory of his father was that he had painted the whole house green. At that time the family lived near the Marine Base at Quantico, Virginia. He said he used to have a picture of the family standing in front of a sign of the town’s name, but one could not see the first part of the town’s name. I asked him the last part of the town’s name. He said, “fries.” I told him: “Well, your family lived at Dumfries, VA.” He laughed and joked, “So that’s why we covered up the first part of the town’s name.”

I wondered why he hadn’t tried to find his father, but probably Robert thought the only way to find him would be to call telephone information, but that wouldn’t work because he did not know the city where his father now lived. I thoughtlessly suggested that he get on a computer and locate his father. Of course he had no computer or access to one. I was embarrassed that I had made this suggestion beyond his means. Then I had an idea. I told him I would search on my computer that evening and if I found his father, I’d come back to this same bench at 10 am tomorrow.

I did a computer search for his father and found two Edward James LaMoore’s. One was in Tampa, Florida and was 80 years old, which was about his father’s age. But the search site wanted a fee and my credit card information before they would supply the man’s telephone number. I tried a second internet phone service and they also wanted my credit card information. I was fearful of a credit card scam and reluctantly gave up on locating his father. Giving up so easily bothered me because I wanted to give Robert his father’s phone number, and he deserved to have it. I awoke in the middle of the night thinking of Robert and suddenly realized how to get his father’s telephone number without paying a fee or giving my credit card information. I could simply call 411 for Tampa, Florida on my cell phone and get his number.

The first thing the next morning I got the man’s telephone number using my cell phone and then called him. “What do you want?” the man said in a rough tone. I identified myself and said, “I’m looking for the Edward James LaMoore who was a Marine Supply Sergeant at Quantico Marine Base near Dumfrees, Virginia. “Yeh, that’s me,” he replied. I told him, “I met this nice man in Palm Springs who is your son, and Robert would like to say ‘hello’ to his father. Could Robert call you in an hour?” He answered, “No problem.”

So I drove into town arriving a little before 10 am. Robert was sitting on the same bench, but I parked half a block away from him. At that point I was afraid Robert might, because of resentment for being abandoned at age three, swear or yell at his father and ruin this once in a lifetime opportunity to reunite. So I hid in my car and wrote out a few suggestions for Robert to ask or tell his father. Then I walked to Robert and said: “I have located your father in Tampa, Florida, and I talked to him an hour ago.’ Robert’s eyes widened. “Your father said it is okay for you to call him.” I also showed him my talking points and said he could use or not use them. I suggested that he look them over a minute and then we’d call him.”

I dialed his father on my cell phone and handed the phone to Robert (picture above). He stayed with my script, asking about his father’s health, his work, did he remarry, have other children, etc. His father said his health was okay but he walked slowly; he had made a career out of the Marine Corps; he had never remarried; there were no other children; and he lived with just his old dog. Then Robert abandoned my script. I was standing about 15 feet away looking away from Robert but I could hear him talking on my cell phone. Robert said, “I was only 3 years old when you and Mom divorced and you left, but I remembered you painted the whole house, right?” His father must have asked what color because Robert laughed mightily and said “Green!” When the conversation was about over, Robert touchingly asked if his father minded if he called him again sometime. Robert said he might have to call collect because he was homeless. His father said calling was okay. Richard hung up happy, and said, “Thanks, Jack.” I had told him my name the day before and he had remembered it! Before leaving I gave Robert a long distance telephone card that had about 15 minutes remaining on it so he could call his father a couple more times.

A few days later the life-lesson of my first encounter with a homeless came to me. The lesson was--a few moments of kindness given to those who have so little from those who have so much can have a lasting impact on their life--and also an impact on the giver. I absorbed the lesson of this unique encounter, and it propelled me to attend a church meeting the next month on Affordable Housing. There I learned that the town where I had practiced medicine for 40 years had a homeless shelter. At that meeting I signed up to become a volunteer at that shelter.

I told this encounter with a homeless man to my daughter who lives in Hollywood, the other show business city in California. She also took to heart the lesson of the story and now does volunteer work for the homeless in Hollywood--where Marilyn Monroe enjoyed having a home and--wore the dresses in the display.

BP, LIBYA SIDESHOW.

July 27, 2010 -- Release of Megrahi for BP oil concession in Libya was wrong reason for release: Megrahi had nothing to do with PanAm 103 bombing

Washington is yet to experience another "theater of the absurd" as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, chaired by Senator John Kerry (D-MA) prrpares to hold hearings on Scotland's decision to release Abdel Baset al-Megrahi from a Scottish prison where he was serving a life sentence after being the sole person convicted of planting a bomb on board PanAm 103 in 1988, resulting in the crash of the plane over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Kerry's committee, under pressure from Israel's leading allies in the Senate, is trying to pressure Britain and Scotland to come clean on 2007 negotiations between Tony Blair's government and BP over which Megrahi's release from Scotland to Libya was discussed as a way to improve the oil giant's chances of landing lucrative oil deals with Colonel Qaddafi's government.

President Obama feigned anger on more than one occasion over Megrahi's release last August but a recent letter that surfaced from the U.S. embassy in London indicates that the Obama administration was quietly backing Megrahi's release with BP being the ultimate winner. The letter is further proof of BP's influence over the Obama administration, which was painfully obvious to the residents of the U.S. Gulf coast when Obama allowed BP to run the show in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig catastrophe.

Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond has charged that Blair was and continues to be involved in secret negotiations with Libya and BP on the consummation of oil deals. Salmond has told the Senate committee to call Blair to testify about the former prime minister's secret dealings with Colonel Qaddafi's government. The Scottish govenrment denies having any contact with BP over Megrahi's release.

However, it appears that Obama had more than a passing interest in Megrahi's prison sentence in Scotland. On August 12, 2009, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. embassy in London, Richard LeBaron, sent a letter to Salmond stating that while the U.S. was opposed to Megrahi's transfer to Libya, the United States would not be opposed to his conditional release on compassionate grounds to live in Scotland. LeBaron is a career Foreign Service officer who has mainly served in the Middle East, including a 2001 to 2004 stint as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv. In 1988, when PanAm 103 was bombed over Scotland, LeBaron served at the U.S. embassy in Tunis, a stone's throw from Malta, where Megrahi and his Libyan intelligence colleague were said to have arranged for a suitcase bomb destined for PanAm 103 to be placed on a feeder flight to Frankfurt and on to Heathrow in London for transfer to theill-fated Boeing 747 heading for New York. LeBaron would have been privy to classified U.S. embassy cables from Valletta concerning the investigation of Libya's intelligence operations in Malta, including the alleged Libyan involvement in the PanAm bombing.

Megrahi was reported to have been suffering from terminal cancer when he was released but his condition has reportedly improved since he has been in Libya. The Obama administration contends that it favored a release of Megrahi in Scotland so that he would not receive a "hero's welcome" in his native Libya, which, of course, he did upon his return last August. But, as the late columnist Jack Anderson reported, Britain's Tory government and Obama have reasons to insist on pushing the discredited story that Qaddafi was involved in PanAm 103's bombing.

On January 11, 1990, Anderson reported from Washington that "President Bush and British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher secretly agreed last spring to play down the truth about who blew up PanAm Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. After both leaders had intelligence reports pointing the finger at a terrorist hired by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Thatcher called Bush. In that comversation, they agreed that neither could stand the political heat of making the evidence public because both were impotent to retaliate."

Anderson's column continued, "Highly placed White House sources told us that the phone call took place about mid-March. By that time, both the British and U.S. intelligence services had followed the trail of evidence to terrorist Ahmed Jibril as the hit man who was paid by Iran to blow up the plane. The intelligence services had evidence that Khomeini and his successor, Ali Akbar Rafsanjani, had approved the bombing."

It should be noted that Rafsanjani became a key backer of Mir-Hosein Mousavi, the failed presidential candidate who failed to unseat Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad last year. Ironically, Rafsanjani, a backer of the failed "Green Revolution," is now seen as a moderate by Washington and London. It is yet another reason to keep the Lockerbie heat on Libya.

Anderson's report stated, "The intelligence reports told Bush and Thatcher that Jibril went to Iran in July 1988 and struck the deal with Khomeini and Rafsanjani to blow up an American plane in retaliation for the accidental U.S. downing of an Iranian airliner earlier that month. When the intelligence reports began to leak last March, Thatcher called Bush to discuss their problem. She said no purpose would be served by making public the evidence against Iran because neither the United States or Britain could respond." Thatcher's knowledge that it was Iran that brought down PanAm 103 would cause trouble for her Tory heir, Prime Minister David Cameron, who, in 1989, was a young Conservative Party operative serving Thatcher. For Obama, the knowledge that the CIA was cognizant of Iran's role in PanAm 103 could spell trouble as more details emerge about Obama's own past with the CIA.

According to Anderson, "Bush knew that Khomeini had proved the undoing of Jimmy Carter and had nearly proved the undoing of Ronald Reagan. Carter lost an election because he couldn't get American hostages back from Iran, and Reagan suffered the biggest blow of his presidency when he tried to trade arms to Iran for American hostages." However, it was Bush, himself, who helped arrange to keep American hostages in Iran until after the November 1980 election, in return for secret weapons, and who also helped arrange the weapons-for-hostages in Lebanon deals that ultimately ended up as the "Iran-contra" scandal. In 1990, Bush, who was known to have designs on Saddam Hussein's Iraq, had to ensure there were no fingers pointing at Iran, who Bush had to keep neutral in a U.S.-Iraqi military confrontation over Kuwait. Bush could not afford to alienate Syria, Jibril's main backer, since Bush needed Syria in the coalition that would later attack Iraq.

WMR previously published a formerly SECRET Air Intelligence Agency message describing Iran's role in the attack on PanAm 103.

Anderson continued, "So Bush didn't argue when Thatcher suggested that they 'low-key' the findings -- say that the investigation was inconclusive and long-term. After the call, word was quickly passed to top officials conducting the PanAm investigation that they were not to make any off-the-record remarks implicating Jibril or Iran. In Britain, when the press speculated about possible perpetrators, investigators called the speculation 'wild' and 'irresponsible.'

U.S. intelligence sources who told us about the call said the decision was political cowardice. Thatcher, the 'Iron Lady,' earned her reputation in a war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands. But by last March, her popularity was on the wane and she didn't need to be embarrassed by Khomeini. Bush, still fighting his 'wimp' image, didn't want to face the ultimate calls for retribution."

And Cameron, inheriting the Tory leadership, doesn't want Thatcher to be shown as a liar and Obama, who has bent over backwards trying to placate the intelligence community, doesn't want to have to admit that the American people were subjected to yet another fraud courtesy of the boys at Langley.

July 28, 2010 -- The top secret Israeli-US program to establish "Al Qaeda"

July 28, 2010 -- The top secret Israeli-US program to establish "Al Qaeda"

Press clips gathered by the CIA and discovered in the National Archives' stored CIA files point to an agency keenly interested in any leaks about the highly-classified CIA-Mossad program to establish Osama Bin Laden and the most radical elements of the Afghan Mujaheddin as the primary leaders of the anti-Soviet rebels in the 1980s.

WMR has pored through the CIA files and a complicated picture emerges of America's and Israel's top intelligence agencies, in cahoots with Saudi Arabia, establishing financial links and carve out intelligence programs to provide manpower and financial support to Bin Laden and his allies in Afghanistan. It was these very elements that later created the so-called "Al Qaeda," which the late British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook described as nothing more than a "database" of CIA front organizations, financial supporters, and field operatives. However, one component omitted by Cook in the Al Qaeda construct is the Israeli participation.

Thanks largely to the CIA station chief in Riyadh in 1986-87, millions of dollars from the Saudi government, particularly then-deputy Prime Minister Prince Abdullah, now King Abdullah, and wealthy Saudi businessmen were funneled to the most radical leader of the Afghan rebels, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, for whom militant southern Philippines Muslim rebels named their organization, the Abu Sayyaf group.

Accounting for only two percent of the mujaheddin guerrillas in the field in Afghanistan, Sayyaf's group began receiving hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of recruits from other countries, more than other six major mujaheddin groups fighting the Soviets. The tilt to Sayyaf was a result of the intercession of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Saudi intelligence, the CIA, and Mossad. Another key Saudi intermediary was Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who the Bush family has dubbed "Bandar Bush" because of his close links to the Bushes, and who was the Saudi ambassador to the United States on 9/11.

The Reagan White House's intermediary with Sayyaf's group during 1986 and 1987 was Michael Pillsbury, the Assistant Undersecretary of Defense for Policy who continues to serve as a Pentagon consultant. Eventually, with the urging of Salem Bin Laden, and his older brother Osama, the CIA gave the green light for Sayyaf to bring into Afghanistan a dedicated group of Arab fighters, recruited from countries such as Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab countries. Some of the Syrian volunteers were refugee survivors of Syrian President Hafez Assad's massacre of Sunni Muslims in Hama in 1982. Ironically, the first Arab training camp was established in eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistani border and was known as Maasada, or the "Lion's Den." Masada is the site of the Roman siege of Jewish forces in 72 where the Jews committed suicide rather than surrender to the Romans. Masada is Hebrew for "fortress."

Although the roles of Oliver North, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, Iranian Jewish interlocutor and con-artist Manucher Ghorbanifar in using the Israelis as a pass-through for weapons transfers to the Iranians are well-known, not much has been reported on Israel's role in providing financial and military assistance to Bin Laden's and Sayyaf's mujaheddin forces at Maasada in Afghanistan during the war with the Soviets.

The CIA kept articles, mainly written by Jack Anderson and Andrew Cockburn, on the highly-classified but leaked CIA-Mossad-Saudi operation. Two CIA front companies, Associate Traders of Vienna, Virginia and Baltimore, Maryland, and Sherwood International Export Company, a license State Department arms broker with offices in Washington, DC, Los Angeles, Miami, and London, arranged for 60,000 rifles, bought for $3.6 million from the Indian Defense Ministry in September 1983, to be shipped with a false end-user certificate for Portugal, to be shipped to "Any UK Port." In fact, the rifles were actually delivered to Saudi- and Pakistani-controlled mujaheddin forces in Afghanistan, including those controlled by Bin Laden and Sayyaf.

Sherwood also used what was believed to be a Mossad front, Shimon Ltd., registered in the Cayman Islands, to ship $1.8 million worth of Brazilian rifles to Nicaraguan contras in Honduras and Costa Rica. Again, a false end-user certificate was used, one that stated the ultimate destination of the Brazilian rifles was Baltimore. Another Israeli firm, Tahal Consulting, and the Israeli ambassador in San Jose, Costa Rica, David Tourgeman, were involved in providing further military logistics support to the contras in Costa Rica and Honduras.

Sherwood's Cayman Islands subsidiary Cromwell, Ltd., used the same registration agent in the Caymans that was used by Shimon Ltd. Shimon was discovered to have shipped $9.4 million in military equipment to Lagos, Nigeria, a shipment that was actually destined to Jonas Savimbi's UNITA guerrillas in Angola. Joint CIA-Mossad operations to send weapons to guerrilla groups in Asia, Latin America, and Africa was code-named KK MOUNTAIN by the CIA. The specific CIA-Mossad operation to transfer weapons to the Nicaraguan contras and other forces around the world during the 1980s was called Operation Tipped Kettle by the CIA. Among the recipients of Israeli expertise and weapons in Tipped Kettle were the Medellin drug cartel's death squads and Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega. Tipped Kettle also involved the secret transfer of arms by Israel to Iran. Some of the key Israeli players in Tipped Kettle were Lt. Col. Amatzia Shuali; Noriega adviser Michael Harari; Amiram Nir, counterterrorism adviser to then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres; and former Mossad deputy director general David Kimche.

The money laundering for the arms shipments was conducted through the First National Bank of Maryland in Baltimore, which initiated the money transfers through off-shore banks in the Cayman Islands and Panama. The ultimate destination of the funds was Switzerland, from where the weapons purchases were made without either the CIA's or Mossad's fingerprints. Tipped Kettle also involved the laudering of Saudi proceeds for the radical Sayyaf and Bin Laden mujaheddin groups through Swiss bank accounts.

Another firm used in Tipped Kettle was Bophuthatswana International Ltd., a joint CIA-Mossad front, with a "do business as" [DBA] name of B International, operating from an office on Madison Avenue in New York. The firm was listed by the Justice Department as a registered agent of the apartheid-era self-proclaimed Republic of Bophuthatswana, an entity only recognized by South Africa. Mossad also used other apartheid republics in South Africa, including Ciskei and Transkei, to mask their illegal weapons smuggling operations. Tipped Kettle also involved the apartheid regime of South Africa and the military dictatorship of Argentina. The network was also used to smuggle arms to Argentina during that nation's Falklands war with Britain.

CIA's Operation Tipped Kettle: The trinity of CIA, Mossad, and Saudi Arabia provided weapons and cash to Osama bin Laden and Rasul Sayyaf in Afghanistan during 1980s.

Now, some 25 years later, there appears to be another Mossad weapons smuggling operation, operating with a wink-and-a-nod from Langley, that has appeared in the Pacific Northwest.

An individual named Oliver King was arrested May 19 in Washington state. King, charged with weapons smuggling, was reported to be an Iranian-born citizen of Canada. However, King, 35, is a veteran of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) and has alleged links to the CIA, the Department of Defense, and the National Security Agency, according to published press reports. According to a July 15 report in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, King's McMinnville, Oregon gun shop partner said King told him he was an agent of Mossad. King earlier told an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives that he was a veteran of the IDF.

The Post-Intelligencer reported that INTERPOL records consist of a rap sheet for King that includes convictions for fraud, assault, and weapons charges while living in Denmark. INTERPOL files also reveal that King has claimed phony degrees from the Danish Technical Institution. Seattle-based Assistant U.S. Attorney Susan Roe has insisted that King was born in Iran, although his reported service in the IDF and Mossad would negate such a claim, unless King is an Iranian Jew. King is said to have been born Hamid Malekpour in Tehran.

King was arrested by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents after he was tracked from the Canadian border to his associate's gun shop in McMinnville, called McMinnville Hunting and Police Supplies, and then to a rented storage unit in Ferndale, Washington, south of Blaine. The gun shop, located at 1000 Office Plaza on Highway 99 West, turned out to be an empty office. The Yamhill Valley News Register reported on May 24 that the gun store serves customers by appointment only. Local McMinnville and Yamhill County law enforcement officials were not aware of the federal investigation of the gun shop, which had failed to re-file for its Oregon state corporate license in February. The situation is reminiscent of local law enforcement seeing local criminal cases against Israeli art students and movers pre-empted by the FBI and other federal agencies before and after 9/11.

From the storage unit, ICE agents seized a sniper rifle, semi-automatic weapons, high-powered scopes, and ammunition from King's storage unit and car. King is said to have been a resident of Canada since 2003 but his firearm's dealers license was revoked by Canadian authorities because of suspicions he was smuggling weapons. King's firearms license in Canada was issued under the name Hamid Malekpour. ICE's arrest of King capped an investigation that lasted for over a year. A previous search of King's car at the Blaine, Washington border crossing in February 2009, yielded a resume that claimed King operated businesses in Switzerland, Denmark, and the United States.

An Iranian visa issued this year and two issued last year were found in King's passport, which was not due to expire until 2013. Subsequently, the passport was revoked for unknown reasons. King gave ICE agents conflicting stories on the reason for his last visit to Iran: consulting for an unnamed company, a hunting trip, and to visit relatives. After the questioning, King returned to his stated home in Vancouver, Canada. The similarities between King's operations and Operation Tipped Kettle are striking. In the subsequent months, King crossed the border to the U.S. 18 times and said he was visiting a post office in Blaine.

In March of this year, ICE agents witnessed King stop on the shoulder of Interstate 5 and witnessed him performing "counter-surveillance" tactics. On May 19, at the Blaine crossing, King produced a newly-issued Canadian passport, without the Iranian visas that appeared in his original passport. In fact, the new Canadian passport bore the issue date of May 19, the same day King was arrested. King was then arrested at a storage unit in Ferndale after he picked up several boxes from the McMinnville "gun shop." King claimed he was a "consultant" and that the guns did not belong to him but the owner of the McMinnville gun shop, a man named Amir Zarandi. When arrested, King denied being a Canadian citizen and said that he lived in Seattle. An BATF agent said King told him that he was a veteran of the Israeli army and that he was born in Israel.

King paid the rent for the gun shop with Canadian cashier's checks and no required federal firearms license logbooks or export licenses for weapons were found when federal agents searched the premises. Agents found no office equipment except for a single stool. Empty boxes from established weapons manufacturers and distributors were found in the shop. McMinnville Hunting and Police Supplies' actual owner said he met King at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam and said King told him how he got around export controls to move ammunition from Iran to Israel. King also said he knew how to ship guns and ammunition via the Netherlands and Israel to Chile because Israel has no requirement for tracking such shipments. The owner reiterated that King told him that he worked for Mossad.

The Seattle PI also reported that Danish officials had a record of King being born in Germany, not Iran or Israel but also a huge rap sheet, including forgery, violence, assault, offenses against public authorities, fraud, extortion, and violations of Denmark's weapons laws. King's attorney, who recently withdrew from the case, said King had official contacts within the CIA, NSA, and Department of Defense prior to his arrest. Roe admitted that a search of King's computer turned up evidence on "foreign parties" operating in foreign countries. King has been indicted on charges of being an alien in illegal possession of firearms and ammunition and making false statements to federal officers. King remains in federal custody.

Aside from the Seattle P.I., most main stream media has been downplaying King's Israeli nationality, with KOMO-TV in Seattle reporting on May 26 that King was an Iranian with three Iranian visas in his Canadian passport. No mention was made of Israel. A recent report in the Seattle Times also made no mention of Israel or Mossad. However, Roe has convinced a federal judge to postpone King's trial, originally scheduled for August 9, because the government is seeking an additional indictment against King and others. Roe says the investigation is complex and involves witnesses in several other countries, including Iran, Denmark, and Canada. But curiusly, Roe did not mention Israel. King fits the profile of an Israeli Unit 269 or Sayeret Matkal agent, a special commando assigned by the IDF to agencies like Mossad to carry out special missions deep within foreign locations.

The King case has all the markings of a renewed Operation Tipped Kettle, with the govermnent dragging its feet on prosecution and the Israeli connection being buried by everyone, save the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. As with the Israeli movers and "art students" detained before and after 9/11, a covert Israeli intelligence operation, involving Iran and U.S. security agencies is being swept under the carpet.