American Turkish Council -- Panamerikanismus

[canavar]

The American Turkish Council-US Association helps create new world order
02/16/2005 15:14

Operating tax-free and out of the media or watchdog spotlight is the most powerful "non-profit" association in the United States, the American Turkish Council (ATC- americanturkishcouncil.org).

Like the thousands of Associations operating inside the Washington, DC Beltway, the ATC is chartered to provide "legal and ethical" venues for American-Turkish government and business interests to meet face-to-face to improve business, security and cultural relations between the two countries. The ATC, and other Associations, has a dues structure and committee structure that includes a government relations or "educational" committee that lobbies the public and US government representatives on behalf of its members. But that"s where the similarity ends.

While the ATC is an Association in name and in charter, the reality is that it and other affiliated Associations are the US government. Theirs is the voice that matters and is the one that is heard on television and radio networks through the mouths of news-readers, senators, congressmen, presidents and military leaders. It is in and through such Associations that US political, economic and military policy is made and the American public subsequently "educated" to support policies that are not, and could not, be debated in public because of their illegality, audacity, complexity and, arguably, necessity. Instead, the creation of policy and action--or even reaction to events-is hammered out in corporate board rooms, foreign governments, research institutes, and think tanks. It all comes together in Associations like the ATC. If you want to know what"s really going on or about to come down, take a visit via the Net to the world of Associations.

Six Degrees of ATC Leaders/Members

The game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is based on the premise that the famed actor Kevin Bacon is the center of the entertainment universe and that any actor or actress can be linked back to him within six degrees. Replace Kevin Bacon with ATC leaders and/or members, and you are sure to find that any corporation, military leader, government official, former politician, and even actor can be linked back to the ATC within six degrees. The ATC is an extraordinary group of elite and interconnected group of Republicans, Democrats and corporate/military heavyweights who are spearheading one of the most ambitious strategic gambits in US history.

In 2004 the ATC was led by Bush family insider LTG Brent Scowcroft, USAF (Ret.) who served as Chairman of the Board. George Perlman of Lockheed Martin was the Executive Vice President and Marise Stewart of Textron the Vice President. Executives from every major US and Turkish corporation are members. Among them are Mars (candy), Coca Cola, Atlantic Records, Shell Oil, ExxonMobil, Pfizer, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Hyatt and Phillip Morris. Dozens of retired US Flag officers, ex-ambassadors and representatives sit on the ATC Board of Directors.

Counted amongst ATC"s hundreds of members are think tanks like the Eisenhower Institute, CSIS, Brookings, and AEI. Georgetown University, the University of Washington and the University of Chicago are also members of note. If the grand brains with their studies, executive reports, and statistics were not enough to overwhelm the uninitiated, there are members like the Livingston Group (Bob Livingston, ex-Congressman), the Cohen Group (William Cohen ex-SECDEF) and ex-Congressman Stephen Solarz. All three are paid big-bucks by the Turkish interests to work on their behalf in the halls of the US Congress and the Pentagon.

America Gives Birth to New EuroAsia

Now, before you yell Conspiracy! you might want to think Necessity and Stability, particularly in light of the opening to Central Asia, the Caucasus and the new Europe provided by 9-11. Pull up Net maps of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Europe. Once you"ve done that, consider what political, economic and military activities (defined as US national interests) the United States has underway in those regions. It is no less than the development of a US-dominated New EuroAsia that includes the "Stans", Ukraine, Chechnya, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Belarus, Romania, Bulgaria, Czech, Croatia, and Poland. Crazy? Hardly, it is a brilliant gamble. There are many compelling reasons to create a New EuroAsia with the US with a controlling interest.

First, there's the little matter of energy resources. The fact is that the both regions possess an abundance of resources and those countries there that don"t are key transit points for the movement of energy. With the US becoming more reliant on a stable world market for energy it"s imperative to stabilize and exploit available resources.

Second, Americans have all the candy and weapons systems they need. New markets for American products are critical for American economic survival.

Third, with WWII having ended a mere 60 years ago, US foreign policy is still very much in the hands of America"s anti-Soviet/Chinese Cold Warriors. Hence, Russia-China encirclement remains part and parcel of US policy. US military outposts close to the Russia and China"s borders dot the landscape in the New EuroAsia. As Space Daily reported, US mobile missile defense batteries are likely to appear at these bases since CONUS based systems are doomed to failure. US military outposts will also allow quick jump off points for covert operations into Russia and China, interdiction of black market WMD and their components, and drug interdiction.

Fourth, to compete against the combined economic forces of the European Union (EU), it is necessary to have a leveraging position in the New EuroAsia. For example, the EU"s Inogate Program (inogate.org/html/maps/mapsoil.htm) is a source of concern for the US as Europe has been busy for years laying the groundwork for new energy sources and transit points. The US was late to that game and is still playing catch-up.

Fifth, isolating and destabilization Iran remains paramount. Such has been the policy since the 1980"s. As recently reported, US Unmanned Aerial Vehicles have been launched from bases in Iraq to spy on Iran"s military infrastructure and nuclear reactor sites. In all likelihood such activity has been underway at least since the beginning of the 21st Century"s US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The Guiding Light

ATC's is joined in the creation of the New EuroAsia by the American Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (AACC). AACC"s Honorary Council of Advisors just happens to have Scowcroft and the following persons of significance: Henry Kissinger, Zibigniew Brezinski, Lloyd Benston, John Sununu and James Baker III. Former Council members include Dick Cheney and Richard Armitage, former Undersecretary of State. Board of Trustee members include media-overkill subject Richard Perle of AEI, Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas, and Frank Verrastro of CSIS.

The US Kazakhstan Business Association (UKBA) features, among others, benefactors and members ChevronTexaco, ConocoPhillips, Lockheed Martin, and Halliburton. Richard Armitage was honored last year by the UKBA and indicated in his remarks that stable economies and representative government were essential for the future of Central Asia. No argument there. He opined that "many of the nations in the region still have a long way to go toward that destination [democracy], and Kazakhstan can and should, in my view, serve as a guiding light in that journey." Yet according to Human Rights Watch, the US State Department, Armitage"s former employer, indicated in February 2004 that "The [Kazak] Government"s human rights record remained poor, and it continued to commit numerous abuses." In its annual report on the Kazakh government's rights record, the State Department noted that the government of Kazakhstan "severely limited citizens" right to change their government and democratic institutions remained weak.[and that it] .restricted freedom of assembly and association and limited democratic expression by imposing restrictions on the registration of political parties." It further stated that, "Corruption was evident at every stage and level of the judicial process."

Friends in Odd and High Places

"It is a place of total lawlessness, where men with guns rule and human life carries little value. There are no human rights, one resident told me. "We don't know if we'll be alive tomorrow or even five minutes from now." It is inconceivable that a fair election can take place in this climate of fear, where shooting and forced disappearances happen on a daily basis. Civilians continue to be the main victims of this conflict. It is possible that as many as 200,000 people have been killed in the two wars combined. Many I speak with say they see the election as little more than window dressing for the West. All the while, military operations continue. "Not a single night goes by without someone disappearing. Masked men come into homes and take people away." A handful of buildings associated with oil companies are undergoing renovation. The only building in good shape is the presidential palace.

There is no running water for residents. People must buy water daily. They depend on generator power for electricity. I walked around the market, which was full of shoppers buying fruits and vegetables. This same market was attacked by missiles at the beginning of the current war, killing more than 100 people. For the first time in my life I felt what it is like to be utterly without rights, at the mercy of men with guns."

Baghdad Burning (riverbendblog.blogspot.com) writing from Iraq, you say? Nope, it"s a former American Committee for Peace in Chechnya Committee (ACPC) staffer writing about her trip to Chechnya. Chechnya? But not to worry, our men and women of the ACPC, separated by only six degrees from their cohorts at ATC and AACC have things under control. ACPC was founded in 1999 and is chaired by former National Security Advisor Zibigniew Brezinski, former Secretary of State Alexander M. Haig, Jr., and former Congressman Stephen J. Solarz. ACPC, according to its website, is composed of more than one hundred distinguished Americans representing both major political parties and nearly every walk of life. And who are those 100 Americans?

Well, to name a few, there"s Geraldine Ferraro, former Democratic candidate for vice president; Frank Gaffney, CEO of the Center for Security Policy whose Board members include Doug Feith, Gordon Sullivan, CEO of the Army Association of the USA and Bob Livingston of the Livingston Group; Elliot Abrams and Mike Leeden; and, who would have guessed that Richard Gere and PJ O"Rourke would be members of the ACPC.

And the story gets routine and boring as it moves on. The Honorary Chair of the American Georgia Business Council (AGBC) is James Baker III. Its members include ExxonMobil, Northrop Grumman and Ernst and Young. President of the AGBC is S. Enders Wimbush, a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and former SAIC and Booz Allen Hamilton employee. A trustee of note on the Hudson Institute is Al Haig. The same connections, whether through individuals or organizations, can be found for Ukraine and Belarus, as well as Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Six Degrees of Zibigniew Brezinski

No one argued and schemed more forcibly or convincingly for a New EuroAsia than Zibigniew Brezinski, Jimmy Carter's National Security Advisor, and a candidate for the role of Waldo in Where's Waldo, The Movie (tough competition coming from James Baker III).

As Wikipedia puts it of Brezinski, "In the 1990's he formulated the strategic case for buttressing the independent statehood of Ukraine, partially as a means to ending a resurgence of the Russian Empire, and to drive Russia toward integration with the West, promoting instead "geopolitical pluralism" in the space of the former Soviet Union. He developed "a plan for Europe" urging the expansion of NATO, making the case for the expansion of NATO to the Baltic Republics. He also served as U.S. Presidential emissary to Azerbaijan in order to promote the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline. Further, he led the effort to increase the endowment for the U.S.-sponsored Polish-American Freedom Foundation from the proposed $112 million to an eventual total of well over $200 million."

All that accomplished through the power of Associations. Association ideas rubber stamped by the US Congress and backed by US military force. It"s no surprise that it was in the decade of the 1990"s, long out of the US government and working through private sector Associations, that Brezinski"s and corporate America's EuroAsia creation would be formalized and ultimately be realized. It all happened far sooner than expected thanks to an opportune breakdown in US security on September 11, 2001. Nonetheless, the center of gravity for it all has been the ATC and its affiliates in the Association world.

The individuals and organizations in the ATC, AGBC, ACPC, UKBA, and similarly populated groups, are in control of the design and action plans to secure America"s national interests in the New EuroAsia. It's the same story for other regions of the world-Africa, Indonesia, etc.-and even here on America"s domestic front. Does a Congressman or woman have a bright idea? Does the President have a special agenda? If they do, you can be sure it came from an Association.

Perhaps this is part of the American Republic's maturation process: more intelligent and visionary governance by Association rather than through the messy process of millions voting by the ballot box or e-voting. In such a scheme, the US Congress and the Presidency would be relegated to a symbolic role, sort of like that played by the King and Queen of England. The US security establishment would be called into action based on the voting results of a Congress of Associations. Then again, when you cast your vote, you are in essence voting the Association platform. Sound bizarre? Such is today"s world. When Richard Armitage can say with a straight face that Kazakhstan should be the guiding light of democracy in Central Asia, it"s time to swallow the bitter pill of reality and recognize that how America governs itself, and designs and implements policy, is changing. Whether the US and the world will be better off remains to be seen.

Teddy Roosevelt once said that "Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of the statesmanship of the day."

That was a smart thing to say in 1906 when business and politics were still trying to figure each other out. In 2005, he"d be dismissed as an opponent of America"s national interests as there is no difference between the two.


John Stanton

John Stanton is a Virginia based writer specializing in political and security matters. His most recent book is America 2004: A Power But Not Super. He is working on an article discussing Sibel Edmonds and the ATC, along with a book on America"s Defense Related Non-Profits. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com


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[deryatulga]

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July 25, 2006 -- Guest Column:

The Secrets Behind ‘State Secrets’: How Turkey's Mafia-like 'Deep State' (and its Neocon Friends) Penetrated the American Government

By Mike Mejia

French filmmaker Mathieu Verboud is set to release a new documentary for European television this fall, which will reveal important new insights into the case of former FBI translator and president of the National Security Whistleblower’s Coalition Sibel Edmonds. Edmonds, a Turkish-American whose wrongful termination lawsuit was suppressed by the government’s invocation of the all-too-common “state secrets privilege”, reported to her superiors espionage and deliberate mistranslations on the part of fellow Turkish translator, Melek Can Dickerson. It seems Ms. Dickerson had relationships with targets of FBI investigation working at the Turkish Embassy and the American Turkish Council, a fact which meant that anything she translated was likely to be false. However, instead of receiving a promotion for bringing Ms. Dickerson’s’ espionage to the attention of her bosses, Edmonds was fired after she went in frustration to the U.S. Senate. The FBI refused to investigate Edmonds’ claims, at least in part, because the contract linguist had discovered quite a messy scandal: the content of the mistranslated documents revealed that some very powerful people in the U.S. government, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, were connected to foreign organized crime. Even worse, these foreign criminals connected to the high and mighty in the U.S. were also connected internationally, through the heroin trade and associated money laundering, to international terrorist organizations like al Qaeda.

Okay, take a deep breath and take a step back: it’s not a pretty picture. According to what we know so far from Sibel Edmonds’ many interviews and from the groundbreaking story on her case from Vanity Fair, “An Inconvenient Patriot” , Edmonds found that within the U.S. a nest of Turkish spies, some working at the Turkish embassy, others affiliated with namely the Assembly of Turkish American Associations (ATAA), the American Turkish Associations (ATA) and the American Turkish Council (ATC), were involved in espionage, bribery, illegal lobbying, drug trafficking and the infiltration of U.S nuclear research labs. Separately, from a former CIA Counterterrorism official, Phillip Giraldi, who himself was once based in Turkey, we know that some arms sales meant for Turkey and Israel were actually meant for resale to countries like China and India- and perhaps even to international terrorists- using fake end-user certificates. So we have Turkish nationals at the Embassy and NGOs stealing U.S. secrets for sale to the highest bidder, re-selling arms meant for Turkey, bringing in drugs from Europe, and pouring money into bribes and lobbying activities.

To understand how these activities fit together- Americans must first understand what Europeans call the Turkish ‘deep state’. In 1996, a car crash in a town called Susurluk revealed “link between politics, organized crime and the bureaucracy” in Turkey. As it turns out, its crippled economy in the 1990s meant Turkey had become the European equivalent of Colombia- a state almost completely dependent on the Turkish mafia and by extension, the Southwest Asian Heroin trade. Which is where the Turkish ‘deep state’ comes in- it becomes very difficult to determine where the ‘government’ ends and the ‘mafia’ begins. What we do know from Sibel Edmonds and other sources is this: Turkey’s secular establishment, including the Turkish military and intelligence services (MIT), as well as political parties associated with former Prime Minister Tansu Ciller, appear to have been more connected to the Turkish mafia than the Turkish Islamic Parties that Washington abhors. Furthermore, it appears from reading into some of Edmonds’ statements that the Turkish mafia was partnered with Osama Bin Laden’s al Qaeda network in the drug trade- meaning Turkey’s secular establishment was more connected to al Qaeda- pre/9-11- than were the Islamists in Turkey. Which is quite ironic, to say the least.

If you think this story sounds too convoluted to be true, and you feel the instinct to dismiss Edmonds’ claims, think again. Every investigation into the whistleblower’s charges- from the Senate Judiciary Committee to the Department of Justice’s Inspector General Report, has found that Edmonds’ story is corroborated within the FBI, which means her translations, not those of Melek Can Dickerson, were the correct ones. This also means that the aforementioned Turkish organizations, and certain Turkish diplomats, were indeed under FBI investigation. And all this put together means that people like Dennis Hastert probably were- and perhaps still are- on the payroll of Turkish ‘deep state’ interests.

A recent article published in the U.K. Guardian about the well-connected Kurdish Baybasin clan also gives important backing to the former translator’s story. The article details how Europe’s “Pablo Escobar”, Huseyin Baybasin, has “alleged that he had received the assistance of Turkish embassies and consulates while moving huge consignments of drugs around Europe, and that Turkish army officers serving with NATO in Belgium were also involved." This information, of course, dovetails most precisely with what Sibel Edmonds has been hinting at for over 3 years now; that targets of FBI investigations linked with the Turkish embassy and Turkish organizations were involved in narcotics trafficking. It is clear the Baybasin gang and the secular factions in Turkey had a seemingly symbiotic relationship, with the government providing the traffickers diplomatic passports and thus free reign to travel around the world without fear of prosecution. Also involved in the scandalous Turkish drug running are the very notorious, Pope-killing Grey Wolves, a fascist organization connected to human rights abuses in Turkey.

As for who else besides Hastert might have been on the payroll of Mr. Baybasin and friends- we turn next to the Executive Branch. In an interview with Chris Deliso of antiwar.com, Edmonds hinted at key roles played by some powerful unelected officials-important Neoconservatives like Marc Grossman of the State Department, and Richard Perle and Douglas Feith, formerly of the Defense Department. If we hit the rewind button and go back to a CBS 60 Minutes’ interview in October, 2002, we remember the ex-contract linguist stated that Turkish targets of FBI investigation had spies inside the U.S. State Department and at the Pentagon in order to “obtain the United States military and intelligence secrets.” It doesn’t take a genius to conclude that Grossman, Feith and Perle might have been the persons to whom she was referring in 2002. Furthermore, the language specialist has repeatedly stated in past interviews that investigations into pre-9/11 terrorist financing activities were blocked “per State Department request”, leaving open the question whether it was Mr. Grossman, then Undersecretary of State for European Affairs, who actively hindered investigations into the Turkey-Bin Laden link.

Perle and Feith are an interesting case in this hidden scandal. Their consultancy, International Advisors (IA), has done extensive work for the Republic of Turkey, though it is questionable who is paying the invoices. Ms. Edmonds rhetorically asked the question of Phoenix radio personality Charles Goyette in January 2006, “For what [were they paid]? One could imagine, hypothetically, that passing state secrets might be one “service” provided to the Turkish mafia/government by IA. But would Perle and Feith have gone beyond that? Would they have introduced the Turkish mafia types to Denny Hastert, and counseled “deep state” interests in how to skirt U.S. campaign finance laws? After all, the Turks were reported to have made their initial payments from 1996-1998 through “unitemized (less than $200) contributions”, after which they allegedly delivered suitcases of cash to the Speaker’s front door. Someone had to teach them the intricacies of campaign finance law: was it IA? What we do know is that Perle was a key architect of the Israeli/Turkish alliance forged in the late 90s, and that Edmonds case also is connected to the AIPAC spy scandal- leaving lots of room for speculation on how the rest of the story pans out.

As messy and ugly as this, for lack of a better phrase, “Turkish DeepState Gate” scandal appears, the consequences of continuing to do nothing about it- of allowing the government’s outrageous use of ‘state secrets’ to insure Dennis Hastert, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, Marc Grossman and others are never investigated, could be horrific. Ms. Edmonds plans to take petitions to the Senate Judiciary Committee in the coming months to finally force full and open hearings on her case. She will try to do the type of lobbying that does not involve foreign bribery or ill-gotten gains. This will be the simple type of petitioning guaranteed of every citizen in the Constitution under the First Amendment, a long forgotten portion of the Bill of Rights. Americans aware of the situation can only hope, and do everything in their power to insure, that Ms. Edmonds’ type of lobbying prevails.

Mike Mejia is a freelance writer with a Master’s in International Policy Studies from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, where he specialized in International Trade and Arms Proliferation. He currently resides in an undisclosed location in the American Heartland and can be contacted at lenlarga@yahoo.com .

[mika]

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