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Thread ID: 5786 | Posts: 6 | Started: 2003-03-24
2003-03-24 14:14 | User Profile
[url=http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/EC25Ad04.html]http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/EC25Ad04.html[/url]
China
Perle: 'Prince of Darkness' in the spotlight By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Is civil war about to break out among the neo-conservatives who have championed the imperial trajectory of the Bush administration's foreign policy?
It's still too early to tell, but analysts are raising eyebrows over news that Richard Perle, the single most powerful hawk outside the administration, has been retained by Global Crossing to help ensure that Hutchison Whampoa, widely regarded by his fellow hawks as a front for China's People's Liberation Army, can buy a majority share in the bankrupt telecommunications company.
It's the latest in a series of revelations of Perle's business dealings that, at the very least, make clear why he decided against taking an official position in the administration of President George W Bush. It seems that Perle, for all his hawkishness, wants to get rich in ways that government service may not permit.
Those business dealings, which include interests in companies selling advanced computer eavesdropping systems and other "homeland security"-related systems to foreign intelligence and security agencies, have raised ethical questions about whether he is using his unpaid position as chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board (DPB) for personal gain. While the latest disclosure about his relationship with Global Crossing also raises ethical issues, the fact that China is involved - Beijing being considered by most neo-cons the power most likely to challenge US regional dominance in Asia - makes the case even more remarkable.
According to a notice submitted by Global Crossing, Perle would be paid US$726,000 by the company, including $600,000 if the sale goes through. Whether it will remains unclear, however. Both the Defense Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have raised some "national security" problems with the deal because it would put Global Crossing's global fiber-optics network, which is used by the Pentagon itself, under Hutchison Whampoa's control.
What is particularly remarkable - not to say mind-boggling - is that one of Perle's closest neo-conservatives proteges, soulmates and veteran collaborators, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy (CSP), has been screaming about the dangers posed by the Hong Kong-based company to US national security ever since Panama awarded it a 25-year renewable contract to lease and operate the ports at both ends of the Panama Canal Zone in 1997.
Gaffney began working for Perle way back in the 1970s when they were both on the staff of Washington state senator Henry M "Scoop" Jackson, the "Senator from Boeing", devoted to derailing detente with the Soviet Union. Their bureaucratic machinations with then defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and another Perle protege, Paul Wolfowitz, to frustrate a new arms-control agreement negotiated with Moscow by secretary of state Henry Kissinger earned Perle his famous nickname, the Prince of Darkness.
Under president Ronald Reagan, Perle became an assistant secretary of defense and named Gaffney as his deputy. In the 1990s, they worked hand-in-glove - Perle at the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and Gaffney at CSP. Perle serves on CSP's board of advisors; they serve together on the boards of the US Committee for a Free Lebanon and the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, and several other neo-conservative-dominated interest and lobby groups.
Gaffney, who warned that the Panama leases would put Beijing in a position to cut off the canal to US warships, if not take control of the strategic waterway altogether, led a bizarre campaign backed by extreme right-wingers in Congress and former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger to force the Panamanians to cancel the deal before the canal reverted to Panamanian sovereignty on January 1, 2000.
As recently as last August, Gaffney was insisting that Hutchison, which is owned by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, is simply a cat's paw for China to further its strategic designs against Washington. In addition to the Panama Canal leases, he wrote in the Washington Times, Hutchison "is currently hard at work acquiring a presence for China at other strategic 'choke points' around the world, including notably the Caribbean's Bahamas, the Mediterranean's Malta, and the Persian Gulf's Straits of Hormuz. At a moment inconvenient to the United States, such access could translate into physical or other obstacles to our use of such waterways."
But while these geostrategic maneuvers were worrisome enough, the main point of Gaffney's article last October was precisely to point out the threat posed by Hutchison's purchase of a 61.5 percent majority interest in Global Crossing, the winner of a 10-year, $450 million contract to operate a high-speed classified research network for Pentagon scientists.
Gaffney had a message for those who would support the deal going through. "Trade uber alles means, by definition, subordinating national-security considerations to the ambitions of those who seek profits through commerce. In a time of war like the present," he warned, "we simply cannot afford to pursue such a policy to its illogical, and potentially highly destructive conclusion."
Yet it appears that Perle has been retained to achieve precisely that result.
The deal adds to the growing perception that Perle is using his position as DPB chairman, and possibly his longtime friendship and influence with Rumsfeld, to further his own financial interests. Rumsfeld appointed him to the post within a few months of the administration's inauguration, and he has used it as a platform for almost continuous public exhortation for Washington to invade Iraq as a first step in transforming the entire Arab Middle East.
Perle's private interests first came to light in a controversial New Yorker article this month by veteran investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. He reported that Perle met with Saudi businessmen, including Adnan Khashoggi, in Marseilles two months ago as part of an effort to raise investment cash for Perle's Trireme Partners LP, a company specializing in homeland security and defense. Perle denied that the conversation had anything to do with Trireme and called Hersh a "terrorist".
Last week, The Guardian of London reported that Perle was also a director of a UK-based company, Autonomy Corp, with an option on 75,000 of the company's shares. The company, according to the Guardian account, is selling advanced computer eavesdropping systems to intelligence agencies around the world. Perle told the newspaper that he advises the company on market opportunities but that he has no input into specific procurement by US agencies, a point he also made with respect to the Global Crossing arrangement, which was reported by the New York Times on Friday.
The Times also reported that Perle participated last Wednesday in a conference call sponsored by Goldman Sachs on the subject of "Implications of an Imminent War: Iraq Now. North Korea Next?" which apparently discussed investment opportunities. It did not disclose whether Perle was paid for his participation or made specific recommendations about companies in which he has an interest.
As DPB chairman, Perle is not formally part of the US administration, and is thus not required to divest himself of commercial interests. But his influence and power with the administration are well known. Not only does he have a long-standing relationship with Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, but he also has worked closely as a lobbyist for Turkey and the Israeli arms industry with Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's Undersecretary for Policy, as well as other senior Pentagon officials.
Perle himself has strongly denied that he was using his influence as DPB chairman to help Global Crossing. He told the Financial Times that he was only advising the company on the approval process and not lobbying on its behalf.
But a number of analysts say the contract's fee contingency, which is unusual in the Washington legal community, suggests that lobbying is precisely what Global Crossing had in mind. "The fee structure is especially smelly because $600,000 of the windfall is contingent on government approval of the sale," wrote the Times' Maureen Dowd on Sunday.
"This is a conflict of interest," Larry Noble, director of the Center for Responsible Politics, told the Financial Times. "He's using his position on the board to win business."
But to Gaffney, who has yet to be heard from on the issue, and his fellow members of the anti-China "Blue Team", Perle's role in expediting the sale of Global Crossing to Hutchison must come as a major disappointment, to put it mildly.
After all, it was only three years ago that Perle joined with Gaffney and 15 other anti-China hawks from the Project for the New American Century in calling for unequivocal support for Taiwan in the event of a Chinese attack.
And in another public statement that could have been written by Gaffney, Perle charged that Beijing "is laying the foundations for an aggressive claim to preeminence in the Pacific. It ought to be very clear that this is a catastrophe for all of us, and could foreshadow a Cold War as bad as the last."
Of course, this is the same Richard Perle who recently called for Washington to pursue a strategy of "containment" against France but has no intention of giving up his summer home there.
========================================================== If America should fall fighting Israel's enemies, I've long suspected China will become Israel's new champion. Pearle's double-dealing deepens my suspicion.
-Z-
2003-03-24 22:40 | User Profile
What's the target readership of Asia Times? American and Aussie expats?
At any rate, the goods on Perle are getting out all over the world now...
2003-03-25 00:36 | User Profile
Originally posted by Centinel@Mar 24 2003, 22:40 ** What's the target readership of Asia Times? American and Aussie expats?
At any rate, the goods on Perle are getting out all over the world now... **
Maureen Dowd had roughly the same kind of piece out today: "Perle's Plunder Blunder." I believe it appeared in the NY Times. I first saw it in antiwar.com, and it was also posted at Liberty Forum.
2003-03-26 01:57 | User Profile
**Conyers Requests Perle Be Removed From Pentagon Jews Who Tricked President Into War May Be Purged In Near Future **
3/25/03 2:26:47 PM "/messageboards/post.asp" Reuters
Washington, DC --
[LSN: The only thing that surprises us here is that Conyers is the front man. Expect more Jews in Defense, State, and Justice to be targeted as this war goes sour.]
[url=http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=2446538]http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?t...storyID=2446538[/url] Lawmaker Seeks Probe of Pentagon Adviser Perle
Tue March 25, 2003 01:51 PM ET By Jeremy Pelofsky
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior Democrat called for an investigation of Richard Perle, an influential architect of the war on Iraq, for possible conflicts of interest in his roles as corporate adviser and Pentagon consultant.
Rep. John Conyers, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, asked the Pentagon's inspector general to probe Perle's work as a paid adviser to bankrupt telecommunications company Global Crossing Ltd. and guide to companies on investment opportunities resulting from the Iraq conflict.
[url=http://www.overthrow.com/lsn/news.asp?articleID=4209]http://www.overthrow.com/lsn/news.asp?articleID=4209[/url]
2003-03-26 04:59 | User Profile
It should tell us something that John Conyers, a black man, is the only member of Congress with the courage to go after ZOG. Us white folks better get with it while we still have a country. American will be neither free nor safe until Perle and his kind are exposed and brought to justice.
-Z-
2003-03-26 05:27 | User Profile
[url=http://www.antiwar.com/orig/deliso70.html]http://www.antiwar.com/orig/deliso70.html[/url]
Suing in England, Vacationing in France: the Misplaced Patriotism of Richard Perle by Christopher Deliso March 25, 2003
According to Richard Perle, there exists a "cozy relationship" between French president Jacques Chirac and Saddam Hussein. In fact, they're even friends. Of course, such silly accusations represent nothing new. In the Neocons' ongoing campaign against all things French, apparently not even the lowly French fry is safe.
Yet the riposte was rather surreal. After all, Washington's warmonger-in-chief does enjoy frolicking at his vacation chateau ââ¬â in the balmy south of France.
A Brazen Misuse of Power: the Hersh Exposé
This amusing discrepancy came to light in a recent investigation by veteran muckraker Seymour Hersh, in the New Yorker. Yet the French connection, while embarrassing enough, was merely symbolic in comparison to other conflicting involvements mentioned, regarding Richard Perle's financial and political motivations for demanding war on Iraq.
Hersh questioned whether Perle has abused his prominent position as chief of the Defense Policy Review Board, not only for financial gain, but also for advancing an unpopular war with Iraq at the behest of Israel.
In November 2001, says Hersh, Mr. Perle set up a company called Trireme Partners, to cater to the fast-growing "homeland security" market. His board members included other Defense Department advisors, as well as close associate Gerald Hillman and even Henry Kissinger. Shortly before bloviating against Chirac, Perle was (on 3 January) in Marseilles trying to shake down potential Saudi investors in Trireme, alleges Hersh. Apparently, Perle "peddled influence" in an attempt to win $100 million in investments for Trireme. The Saudis, who allegedly were hoping to trade the investment for a peaceful solution to Iraq, are well aware that Perle has expressed continuous and unrelenting hatred for their country, its government and its Wahabbist branch of Islam. That a US anti-Saudi campaign should be executed more, er, robustly has been a central theme for Perle and some of his appointed lackeys.
As Hersh recalls, Perle himself arranged for a Defense Policy Board briefing (on 10 July 2002) from a Rand Corporation analyst named Laurent Murawiec, who:
"ââ¬Â¦depicted Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States, and recommended that the Bush Administration give the Saudi government an ultimatum to stop backing terrorism or face seizure of its financial assets in the United States and its oil fields."
Although the government hurriedly moved to disavow this as not representing its official policy, Hersh believes that the Administration's failure to at least discipline Perle unnerved the Saudis. Although no Saudi investments have yet been made in Trireme, and the whole case is fraught with vigorous denials and counter-accusations, serious ethical questions about Mr. Perle have been raised.
J'accuse!
The New Yorker piece caused an immediate retaliation from Richard Perle. He defamed Seymour Hersh as "the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist" on CNN, and again through the medium of the Neocon-controlled New York Sun (Perle invests in this rag through his directorship of a company called Hollinger International).
In the Sun, Perle declared he would sue ââ¬â in an English court. Apparently, American liberty and justice just aren't good enough for him. Or, perhaps, he fears that Hersh's well-researched, carefully written article is legally unassailable.
Indeed, the story has less to do with patriotism than pragmatism. Perle wants to sue in England because libel suits are easier to win there. This pecuniary proclivity is probably the same motive that led him to register Trireme in tax-lenient Delaware ââ¬â a state that, as members of the gilded East Coast aristocracy have long known, is a great place to register one's yacht.
However, it remains to be seen whether the case will be allowed, as Slate has pointed out. Avers Jack Shafer:
"ââ¬Â¦as a public figure and government official, Perle would be laughed out of court in the United States. If he got a settlement in the U.K., he could raid the substantial British assets of the New Yorker's parent company, Condé Nast.
British libel law, of course, is completely un-American! 'While both American and British law preclude liability if the statement is true, American law places the burden of proof on the plaintiff to show the statement is false," write media lawyers Laura R. Handman and Robert D. Balin of Davis Wright Tremaine. "By contrast, British law imposes the burden on defendant to prove truth or 'justification' and permits aggravated damages if defendant tries but fails.' Maybe Hersh should be grateful Perle isn't filing where Sharia is observed."
However, concludes Shafer, there is a good chance that Perle will be rebuffed:
"ââ¬Â¦will Perle file against Hersh, or is he just shooting his mouth off? Handman and Balin write that British courts have begun "turning back" blatant cases of venue-shopping by litigants who think the British courts are a soft touch. The two judges who preside over libel cases in London recently rejected a pair of libel suits against Forbes because no discussion of the litigants' English interests could be found in the articles. File your case in the United States, the judges essentially said. They have a wonderful legal system."
Perle: War Profiteering?
The most troubling contention to emerge from the Hersh investigation is that Richard Perle may profit directly from the war on terror and the war on Iraq.
Perle, it seems, struck while the iron was hot, getting into the homeland security "game" soon after September 11th. Aided by mass paranoia, Perle and many others ââ¬â from retailers of goods to crafters of Imperialist prose ââ¬â were happy to help create what is likely to be the 21st century's most potent industry. Since 9/11, shameless opportunists have sprung up across the country and across the Internet, ready to take advantage of the American people's newfound spirit of impending doom. While such exploitation is reprehensible, we can assume that many of these snake-oil salesmen are just hapless, would-be entrepreneurs. Richard Perle, on the other hand, frequently brags about his great influence on the formulation of the White House's foreign affairs and homeland security policies. The bellicose rumblings of Perle and his Neocon peers have caused reverberations of panic around the country (especially whenever they shout about the unlikely "threat" of Iraqi terrorism), reverberations that must in the end sound, to Homeland Security purveyors, something like the ringing of cash registers.
The point here is that Perle and Co. can ratchet up the paranoia level at will, and frequently have done so ââ¬â especially when it comes to elucidating threats to the real homeland.
Israel First ââ¬â and Forever?
However sick it may be to think that Richard Perle is deliberately trying to profit from spreading paranoia, the far worse thing is his allegiance to Israel. His personal profits, after all, do little direct damage to any of us. His primary political allegiances to a foreign country, however, do.
America is a melting pot for people of all colors and creeds. Our problem today is, as George Washington ominously predicted over 200 years ago, that some of them have principle loyalties to foreign causes or countries. Indeed, for every one of the world's regional conflicts, there are right now lobbyists and agitators hard at work on steering American foreign policy in wayward directions. One of the most dangerous (for Europeans, at least) is the Albanian-American lobby, enabled in part by the good Tom Lantos.
Yet right now, most foreign lobbies are relatively unimportant. In the overwhelmingly dominant context of Iraq, there is only one lobby that is threatening the security of the entire world ââ¬â and that is Israel's lobby in Washington.
However, this lobby has a built-in self-defense mechanism, one that bigoted conspiracy theorists ruinously validate with their own paranoid musings. Nobody, excepting racists, sets out to criticize people on the basis of their religion. However, historically exploited sensitivities mean that in today's empathetic, politically correct United States of America, those who put the needs of the state of Israel first and foremost ââ¬â whether they be Jewish or not ââ¬â can instantly immolate any critic as a raving anti-Semite. Almost always, the benefit of the doubt is conceded to the former. However, in criticizing specific lobbyists for a specific foreign state, we have absolutely no interest in, and make no reference to, their religious orientation ââ¬â but merely to the unneeded security dangers that their allegiance brings on the United States.
It is unquestionable that the Israel-first foreign policy advocated by Richard Perle and the Neocon chorus has hijacked the entire foreign policy of the Bush Administration. That it has not already exploded into their long-desired apocalyptic cultural showdown has a lot to do with the diplomatic concerns of Colin Powell, and the Cancerian caution of George Bush. However, far more powerful than these men are the Super-hawks such as Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Cheney and Perle. And their belligerence is firmly rooted in a devotion to the state of Israel and its apparent best interests.
Richard Perle: Subjugating American Interests to Israel for Four Decades
An indispensable article by Dr. Stephen Sniegoski covers the details and ramifications of this entire issue. Among other things, it brings up the fact that Richard Perle has been putting Israel first for four decades:
"During the 1970s, Perle gained notice as a top aide to Senator Henry 'Scoop' Jackson (Democrat, Washington), who was one of the Senate's most anti-Communist and pro-Israeli members. During the 1980s, Perle served as deputy secretary of defense under Reagan, where his hardline anti-Soviet positions, especially his opposition to any form of arms control, earned him the moniker 'Prince of Darkness' from his enemies.
ââ¬Â¦Perle is not only an exponent of pro-Zionist views, but has had close connections with Israel, being a personal friend of Ariel Sharon's, a board member of the Jerusalem Post, and an ex-employee of the Israeli weapon manufacturer Soltam. According to author Seymour M. Hersh, while Perle was a congressional aide for Jackson, FBI wiretaps had picked up Perle providing classified information from the National Security Council to the Israeli embassy."
The last article came out in 1982. The next year, as Hersh reminds us now, Perle was the subject of a New York Times investigation regarding his recommendation that the Army buy weapons from a certain Israeli company that had paid him a $50,000 fee in 1981. And the list goes on.
There are two very clear indicators that Richard Perle ââ¬â and the Neocons around him ââ¬â have been planning for years to depose Saddam for the sake of Israel, whether or not he poses a threat or is involved with terror, and to hell with all other concerns. First of all was a Perle-endorsed 1996 policy paper called, "A clean break: a new strategy for securing the realm," which advised the incoming Netanyahu government to ignore the Oslo Peace Accords and take over the West Bank and Gaza. The stated greater goal was to overthrow Saddam, and presumably afterwards install pro-Western governments in countries such as Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Second, in an open letter to President Clinton (19 February, 1998), Perle and Co. demanded the opportunity to "bring down" Saddam Hussein. The letter was signed by all of the usual suspects, including Robert Kagan, Bill Kristol and a more than up for it Donald Rumsfeld.
The Rule of Traitors and Thieves
Although in 1998 Clinton deigned to comply, under the Bush Administration it seems the Israel-first militants have finally won. But at what cost? As the uncertainties of war once again grip the world, and the safety of its population remains unknown, it is necessary to realize going in that this is not America's war. When the reckoning comes ââ¬â and it will ââ¬â we should remember who brought it to us. Richard Perle and rest, perhaps, have ceased to be Americans. Their overweening hubris, their overseas allegiances are bound to bring ruin upon the already dying Republic.
But through all that gloom, at least there is a silver lining: we may purchase to our hearts' content, even from the safety of our own homes, Richard Perle's tastefully packaged and soon to be useful homeland security products.
Loose Ends
It looks like Mr. Perle will have a bumpy ride in store for him, however, as new investigations are being made about various other jobs he has acquired through his chairmanship of the Defense Policy Board. The New York Times is looking into Perle's current advisory role to the bankrupt telecommunications company Global Crossing, in the process of being sold to Asian investors. Apparently, the influential Perle is being eyed as someone who can "ââ¬Â¦help overcome Defense Department resistance to its proposed sale." According to the Times, Perle:
"ââ¬Â¦is to be paid $725,000 by the company, including $600,000 if the government approves the sale of the company to a joint venture of Hutchison Whampoa, controlled by the Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, and Singapore Technologies Telemedia, a phone company controlled by the government of Singapore."
This very interesting piece, it should be noted, ends with a remarkable disclosure, one that implies some of our countrymen know more than us regarding where the dust will finally settle:
"Mr. Perle, who as chairman of the Defense Policy Board has been a leading advocate of the United States' invasion of Iraq, spoke on Wednesday in a conference call sponsored by Goldman Sachs, in which he advised participants on possible investment opportunities arising from the war. The conference's title was "Implications of an Imminent War: Iraq Now. North Korea Next?"
Christopher Deliso is a freelance writer and Balkan correspondent for Antiwar.com, UPI, and private European analysis firms. He has lived and traveled widely in the Balkans, southeastern Europe and Turkey, and holds a master's degree with distinction in Byzantine Studies from Oxford University. In the past year, he has reported from many countries, including Serbia, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Hungary, Greece, the Republic of Georgia and the Turkey-Iraq border. Mr. Deliso currently lives in Macedonia, and is involved with projects to generate international interest and tourism there.