TOP 10 THINGS YOU NEVER KNEW
ABOUT JACK ABRAMOFF
by Daniel Hopsicker
The MadCowMorningNews has learned that the same so-called "war
cabal" being accused of selling a "bill of goods" to justify the
war in Iraq also led earlier efforts to convince the American
people of the necessity of going to war, in support of the
Contras in the mid-1980's, and before the Gulf War under the
first President Bush, and funded through the same methods and
sources being investigated in the Abramoff scandals today.
Evidence surfacing in the widening scandal around Republican
super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff indicates the cabal being lavishly
funding in recent years though his efforts was originally
supported through the infamous "off the books" Enterprise headed
by Marine Lt. Colonel Oliver North, only partially exposed in the
Iran Contra Scandal.
"Bayonets ready? Okay . . . Cue the stunt baby!"
Craig Fuller, the man responsible for the discredited 1991
propaganda about Iraqi soldiers bayoneting babies in Kuwaiti
nurseries, for example, was also part involved in an operation in
1999 which included Abramoff associates in the Republican Party
as well as members of the Sicilian Mafia, a joint push to
establish a Cuban "beachhead" in anticipation of an "opening to
Cuba" after the death of Fidel Castro.
This may explain why, while legal imbroglios consume Karl Rove,
Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, Bill Frist, David Safavian, chief of
staff at the General Services Administration, and
pest-exterminator- turned-"Hammer Tom DeLay, according to
published reports its Abramoff Republican strategists are most
worried about.
"The one (scandal) that people are most worried about is
Abramoff, because it seems to have such long tentacles," former
congressman Vin Weber, a lobbyist with close ties to the White
House, told the Los Angeles Times. "This seems to be something
that could spread almost anywhere. That has a lot of people
worried."
As our contribution to the effort to make the world safe for
democracy, we offer our own "Top Ten Reasons Why the Abramoff
Scandal Could Spread Almost Anywhere."
10. ABRAMOFFS INVOLVED IN SIX CURRENT SCANDALS
Setting some kind of new record, "Casino Jack Abramoff is the
common denominator in at least six current scandals swirling
around the Bush White House.
The first Abramoff scandal to be exposed was the Indian gambling
scandal, a raging river of unregulated cash which provided the
revenue stream for the cabals current bid for power.
A History of Violence . . . GOP-Style
He and the now Headless Hammer Tom DeLay are also being
investigated for trips to the Pacific Marianas Islands,
ostensibly for the purpose of visiting Abramoffs "sweatshop
patrons."
Abramoff is now under indictment, along with henchman Adam Kidan,
for the SunCruz gambling cruise scandal, with a gangland-style
murder attached offering a vivid example of the GOPMOB making
someone an offer they couldn't refuse and then whacking them
before they could squeal.
Abramoff is also the target of the indictment of David Safavian,
and the reason as well for the newest scandal, which leads
directly to George W. Bush, the obstruction of justice of a
federal probe in Guam.
That's five scandals. The sixth scandal involving Abramoff, we
can exclusively report, is . . .
9. ABRAMOFF LINKED TO WHITE HOUSE SPY SCANDAL.
Through his representation in Washington of members of the
political faction on the receiving end of purloined classified
data, Casino Jack Abramoff is linked to the White House Spy
scandal involving former Marine Leandro Aragoncillo, The
MadCowMorningNews has learned.
This began to become clear several months ago in a move which
received little attention at the time, when the federal grand
jury investigating Abramoff subpoenaed Imelda Marcos, the former
first lady of the Philippines. Observers had puzzled over what
she could possibly have to do with Abramoff.
Imelda Marcos is an ally of Abramoffs clients in Manila, one of
two warring Philippine factions competing for ownership of a
Guam-based telecommunications company, which ”if Abramoffs pals
get their way”will be used as a home portal for worldwide
Internet gambling in a venue (Guam) which offers more
opportunities for money laundering than almost anywhere in the
world.
Abramoffs faction was alarmed over reports that the Governor of
the nearby territory of the Marianas was expressing concerns
that Abramoff client (and Tom DeLay host) Willie Tan, one of Hong
Kongs richest tycoons, was behind the telephone-based gambling
and online lottery push in the islands.
We'll have more on this later. But, as you can imagine, intrigue
ensued.
8. FIGURE INVOLVED IN ENTERPRISES "OPENING TO CUBA USED "BILL
OF GOODS TO SELL FIRST IRAQ WAR
Washington-based PR firm Hill & Knowlton, under the leadership of
George Bush Senior's former chief of staff Craig Fuller, devised
a remarkable "hook" for the propaganda campaign which sold the
first Iraq war to the American people: a heartrending story of
invading Iraqi troops tearing newborn infants from hospital
incubators, and leaving them to die.
"I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital," asserted a 15-year-old
Kuwaiti girl identified only as "Nayirah" during a meeting of the
Congressional Human Rights Caucus on October 10, 1990.
"While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the
hospital with guns, and go into the room where babies were in
incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the
incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die."
Other "witnesses" coached by Hill & Knowlton offered similar
accounts before the UN Security Council, and a video produced by
the PR agency was shown to the Council.
The result was an Article Seven resolution against Iraq “ the
world bodys equivalent of a declaration of war, used by
President Bush as the authority to attack Iraq.
Fuller, when he's not conjuring dead infants left on cold floors
to die, participated in other "cabal ops" as well . . .
Several weeks ago we reported that Abramoff associate Adam Kidan
was in business with a capo in the the Sicilian Mafia.
Republican "fund-raiser" Adam Kidan was a partner and general
counsel for a hotel in the Caribbean owned by a member of the
Sicilian Mafia, a man recently taken into custody in Italy as
part of a major investigation into international arms
trafficking.
"St. Maarten hotel owner arrested, linked to Mafia" was the
headline of an Associated Press story about Kidans partner in St
Maarten, Rosario Spadaro, 72.
Spadaro had other interests as well, according to a Miami Herald
story on May 17, 1999 headlined "MAFIA HAS EYES ON CUBA," which
detailed his efforts on behalf of the Sicilian Mafia to set up
shop in Cuba once President Fidel Castro had been removed from
the scene, presumably through natural causes.
Odd, the secretive Naples, FL financier who owned the Venice FL
flight school attended by terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta was
also engaged in an "opening to Cuba" at the same time the Miami
Herald says the Sicilian Mafia was seeking to re-enter Cuba,
passing out Presidential Rolexes (see photo) to top comandantes.
"Highly Unusual Coalition Has Eyes on Cuba" was the droll
headline in a National Journal article.
The coalition is chaired by Craig Fuller of the U. S.-Cuba
Trade Association, which seeks to strengthen contacts between
U.S. companies and Cuba. "Economic sanctions applied for
political reasons, simply, do not work," said Craig Fuller,
former chief of staff under President Bush, and member of
Americans For Humanitarian Trade With Cuba.
At the very same time, as if acting in concert, terror flight
school owner Hilliard, the Sicilian Mafia, and the former chief
of staff to the elder President Bush, Craig Fuller, were all
looking to cut themselves into Cuba in anticipation of the
resumption of normal diplomatic relations between Cuba and the
United States.
Prosecuting attorneys get criminal conspiracy convictions on less
all day long.
Fuller's group included David Rockefeller and Archer Daniels
Midland Chairman Dwayne Andreas. The Sicilian Mafia, Mohamed
Attas U.S. contact, and David Rockefeller . . . just a case of
"great minds run in similar channels?"
You make the call.
7.ABRAMOFF INDICTMENT FOR BOULIS MURDER LIKELY
When three Gambino Mob associates were charged in the Gus Boulis
murder three weeks ago, authorities in Fort Lauderdale wouldn’t
say what led investigators to the suspects.
What they did say was further arrests are anticipated.
"There are facts that will eventually come out publicly; I just
can't talk about them at the moment," said assistant state
attorney Brian Cavanaugh, who heads the prosecution team. "It is
possible, as well as plausible that others were involved."
When the first murder indictments were handed down, lawyers
representing Abramoff and his henchman Adam Kidan hurried to
insist their that clients, both free on bail on fraud charges
involving their purchase of SunCruz, had nothing at all to do
with Mr. Bouliss unfortunate demise.
Abramoff's Miami attorney, Neal Sonnett, told the Los Angeles
Times, "Jack Abramoff has no knowledge of the facts of the
murder," adding that his client has no connections to the
underworld.
Adam Kidan's lawyer Martin Jaffe said there's no connection
between the SunCruz fraud case and the Boulis murder allegations.
Alas for both men (not to mention the unfortunate Boulis) . . .
nothing could be further from the truth.
As we've already reported, Boulis knew he was about to be "hit."
Murmurs that Abramoff has 'exposure' in the assassination of
Boulis have been growing. They will grow louder if, as expected,
henchman Adam Kidan is indicted for murder.
His defense”a gambit pioneered by terror flight school owner and
secretive Republican financier Wally Hilliard”will be that he was
the innocent victim of unscrupulous employees.
Given that famous Republican attorney Roy Cohn is (at least
reportedly) still dead, the chances of this defense flying before
jurors hover somewhere between 'slim and none.'
6. ABRAMOFFS SCANDAL PARTNERS INCLUDE BUSH PIONEERS, THE MOB,
U.S. DEFENSE CONTRACTORS, AND "PROFESSIONAL CHRISTIANS"
The Gus Boulis murder was clearly designed to remove him as an
obstacle. But an obstacle to what? Fortunately, Abramoff "boy
wonder Adam Kidan spilled the beans to reporters in more
innocent times . . .
"Recently, Kidan charted an aggressive, expansionist course
toward exotic ports of call 10,000 miles away in the Pacific
Ocean," the Miami Daily Business Review reported on June 15,
2001.
"Kidan and other . . . SunCruz executives traveled to Saipan in
December, and again in April to discuss with government officials
plans to open a 150-foot casino ship equipped with 165 slot
machines and 25 gaming tables," according to the Saipan Tribune.
"We are continuously deploying floating casinos to areas where
there are good potentials," Kidan was quoted as saying.
SunCruz was in the "final stages" of bringing casino ships to
berths in Hong Kong and to the former Portuguese colony of Macao,
and that SunCruz officials had visited Guam, where they also
intended to start a floating casino, the paper reported.
"The Northern Marianas can be a casino hub in the Pacific region,
especially with its proximity to Asia, where millions play cards
and machines."
The idea was to turn the tiny island of Tinian in the Marianas,
a three-hour flight from most major Asian population centers,
into a Mecca of glittering casinos and gambling cruise ships.
Until now, the island has been a mere footnote in world history:
The Enola Gay took off in August, 1945 from Tinian's airfield to
drop the first atomic bomb.
World almanacs mention that the US military leases northern
Tinian, then refer to "Tinian's attempts to become the Monte
Carlo of Micronesia."
The Monte Carlo of Micronesia?
It must be stated that the major players in Tinians gambling
efforts do not appear to have wandered in off the street . . .
An outfit calling itself The Lone Star Casino Corp., we found,
had been first with a foot in the door.
"Tinian, some three hours flying time from half the world's
population, has been the Lone Star Casino Corp.'s great
adventure," read a company press release in 1995.
"Guam has an annual tourism base of more than a million people .
. . a jaunt to Tinian beats a tiring trip to Las Vegas of
20-plus hours from South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan or Tokyo."
The now-defunct Lone Star Casino Corp. was the first land-based
casino company on Tinian. It had been owned by United Gaming, one
of the nation's largest owners of video poker and other
electronic gaming machines, a company controlled by a Texan named
Richard Rainwater.
Who is Richard Rainwater?
At least 60 percent of George W. Bush's income in the year he
first ran for Texas Governor came from businesses he invested in
with Fort Worth financier Richard E. Rainwater, records show.
Rainwater was the major investor behind George W. Bushs purchase
of the Texas Rangers. He was also one of Bushs biggest campaign
supporters.
This is no doubt just a freak coincidence.
Also involved in Lone Star was South African Lesley Greyling, a
man who was also in business with Iran-Contra middleman Adnan
Khashoggi in a casino in the Bahamas supported by weekly flights
on terror flight school owner Wally Hilliards Lear jets.
"Khashoggi was among a number of prominent Arab businessmen, like
Khalid Mahfouz, who agreed to continue what have been described
by US intelligence officials as "protection payments" to bin
Laden at a meeting in Paris in 1998, said London's Sunday Post
October 7, 2001.
The airline that had been tapped by the group, and approved by
local government officials to serve the islands casinos, was
Texas-based Pacific Island Aviation, a company partially funded
by the Lockheed Martin Corporation.
Pacific Island Aviation was being used in support of some
'sensitive' international assignments. During the recent American
expansion of influence in the oil-rich former Soviet Republics of
Central Asia, for example, the company operated flights into and
out of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and the Azerbaijan capital
Baku.
So we at least know they're discreet.
5.SAFAVIAN INDICTMENT NOT ABOUT HEBREW SCHOOL
Then there's the indictment of White House apparatchik David
Safavian, the first government official in Washington charged in
the corruption inquiry related to Abramoff's activities, which is
most assuredly not about providing "surplus" government property
for a Abramoff-funded Hebrew school.
When a telecommunications company on the tiny Marianas island of
Tinian exchanged hands last year, the Marianas Governor
expressed concern that one of the partners, Abramoff client
Willie Tan, might use it to expand his push into telephone- and
Internet“based gambling on the island.
Described in newspaper reports as the most powerful man in the
Northern Mariana Islands, his Tan Holdings "has a vice-like grip
on the island economy as the biggest garment manufacturer in an
industry that has come under Washington's scrutiny, as well as
the owner of poker machines that stand in seedy dens on nearly
every Saipan corner. Tan was so powerful on the Marianas main
island of Saipan that some joked it should be renamed "Sai-Tan."
"Can we get away with a few discreet poker tables at the Hebrew
School?"
Beginning with Casino Jacks lobbying home run on behalf of the
Internet gambling industry in 2000, when he stopped the Internet
Gambling Prohibition Act in its tracks, Internet gambling has
been a major motif in the Abramoff saga.
Unmentioned in articles about Abramoff's troubles, The Mariana
island chain's main attraction to Abramoffs group is as a
platform from which to run worldwide internet gambling.
While this may violate Federal telecommunications laws, Jack
Abramoffs buddies have been working on it, the real reason
behind the indictment of White House apparatchik David Safavian .
. .
Safavian was also a passionate advocate of Internet gambling. His
clients included the Interactive Gaming Council, a trade
association for online betting houses. In 1999, he founded the
Internet Consumer Choice Coalition, a nonprofit whose sole
purpose was to fight a bill that would have made online gambling
a federal crime.
While Safavian was charged with helping Abramoff try to acquire,
for an Abramoff-sponsored Hebrew school, a plot of federally
owned land managed by the GSA in Silver Spring, Maryland, and
accused of making repeated false statements to government
investigators about a congressional golf trip with Abramoff to
Scotland in 2002,his attorney isn't fooled.
Suspecting something more was afoot, Barbara Van Gelder accused
federal officials of "a creative use of the criminal code to
secure his cooperation."
4. GUAM PROBE INTO FEMA RIP-OFFS OBSTRUCTED BY OVAL OFFICE
Then there's the recent revelation that Abramoff was the subject
of a Guam grand jury probe in 2002, thwarted by George W Bush
his-own self, who intervened to remove the supervising federal
prosecutor.
Abramoff spokesman Andrew Blum said the lobbyist "has no
recollection of his being investigated in Guam in 2002."
Remembering every SINGLE time he's investigated must be like Wilt
Chamberlain trying to remember all of his reported 20,000
dalliances.
Somebody should ask him: does the name "Carl Gutierrez" ring a
bell?
Before President Bush stepped in and put a stop to it, Gutierrez,
Guams Governor, had seen virtually his entire top staff head off
to minimum security prisons, in an orgy of looting, a feeding
frenzy for land-based sharks.
His former chief of staff Gil Shinohara, to cite one of a dozen
examples, was found guilty of conspiracy to commit money
laundering and conspiracy to commit bank fraud.
Corruption was so widespread that even the Parks and Recreation
Director got into it, convicted of bid-rigging, bribery, wire
fraud and money laundering, as well as ripping off large sums of
money from FEMA, and was sentenced to 10 years in jail”the
longest antitrust-related jail sentence ever imposed.
No wonder Guam court officials were upset . . . Even Guams
Governor was charged, with using government material and
personnel to work on his ranch. So they paid Abramoff almost
$400,000”of U.S. taxpayer money!”to get Abramoff to get the U.S.
Attorney off their backs.
Abramoff delivered. Working with Representative Tom DeLay, the
Texas Republican, the two men managed to get the legislation
defeated in the House, using the argument that the Marianas
represented low taxes and free enterprise and should be left
alone.
"Water costs money. Maybe hold off for a while."
And speaking of ripping off FEMA, Abramoff wanted to lease some
of "his" Sun Cruz cruise ships to the Federal Emergency
Management Agency to house rescue workers off New York City after
9.11., and asked noted "professional Christian" Ralph Reed to
find out who at the agency he should contact to make the
proposal.
The White House, oddly enough, had recently-indicted David
Safavian involved in hurricane relief until he was arrested . .
. This may help explain why there wasnt enough money left in
the budget to pass out water to citizens at the Superdome in New
Orleans . . .
Abramoff and DeLay are all about protecting free enterprise. And
underworld gangs engaged in money laundering and drug running in
the Mariana Islands and Guam, apparently. Although a US
government report pleaded for U.S. legal intervention in Guam,
"free market conservatives" Abramoff & DeLay were having none of
it.
The result? Reduced U.S. Government interference in the criminal
activities in the Mariana Islands and Guam of Chinese Triad
gangs, the Japanese Yakuza, and the Russian Mafia.
3. CASINO JACK PART OF OLLIE NORTHS "ENTERPRISE."
Far from being an isolated miscreant blinded by greed, the
proverbial "one bad apple" in an otherwise blameless barrel,
Republican lobbyist "Casino Jack Abramoff is following in the
footsteps of the people who showed the way by successfully
skirting punishment in the unresolved American scandals (Iran
Contra, BCCI, and the Savings and Loan Scandal) of the recent
past.
Remember Iran Contra? "The "Enterprise?" The Enterprise Lives . .
. Jack Abramoff is Oliver North in a $2000 suit.
The "guided" tours to the Abramoff scandals being conducted by
the major media resemble nothing so much as a trip to a "Potemkin
village," named for Grigori Potemkin, who played Karl Rove to
Russian Czarinas Catherine the Greats George W. Bush by
ordering the creation of elaborate fake villages along her route,
in places where turmoil and poverty reigned, to give her a false
impression of peace and prosperity as she toured her far-flung
empire.
Apparently, we are to believe that Jack Abramoff has carved out a
vast Indian gambling empire and a cozy little Republican slave
state set amid the coral reefs and azure seas of the small island
chain of the Marianas 7,000 miles from the Californian coast . .
. all by himself, with modest assistance from former pest
exterminator Delay.
Whats being hidden from view is a graveyard filled with spirits
from the major unresolved American scandals of the recent past.
The story being retailed to date about Abramoff bears frightening
similarities to the official version of 9.11, a fable of two
separate Dutch nationals”the Magic Dutch Boys”who just happen to
purchase two flight schools in tiny Venice Florida at the same
time which then just happen to begin training Al Qaeda
operatives.
Missing from the official version of 9.11 is that the flight
school where Mohamed Atta learned to fly just happened to be
owned by a man whose planes were just then trafficking in
quantities of heroin rarely seen . . . even in Florida.
Things equally important are being left out of accounts of
Abramoff.
2. "ALL OUR SCANDALS ARE THE SAME."
The SunCruz fraud case and the Boulis murder allegations are
clearly linked, both to each other and to Abramoff and Delays
Indian gambling scandal as well.
Within weeks of closing the original SunCruz sale with Boulis,
Abramoff and Kidan began seeking to refinance the company. They
gave copies of its financial statements to a battery of
investment bankers, bond underwriters, and at least one Native
American tribe with gaming interests”the Oklahoma-based Kiowa
Indians.
They also were discussing possible land-based casino ventures
with a branch of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, and made
inquiries into buying two more Long Island, N.Y.-based gambling
ships.
Plans were afoot to diversify the Republicans Marianas
protectorate from its base in sweat shops, involuntary servitude
and forced prostitution and into casino and internet gambling.
Attempts to decouple the various Abramoff scandals rely on
arguments like the ones made in court by former Mob Boss John
Gottis lawyer Bruce Cutler against the RICO indictments against
his client.
Alleging a continuing criminal enterprise was utterly without
merit because the various rackets engaged in by the Gambino
Family have nothing whatever in common, said Cutler.
Loan sharking and murder, presumably, existed as independent
franchises distinct from the Gambino Familys trade in murder and
mayhem. The argument didnt fly.
Gotti spent the rest of his life in prison.
And, finally . . . The #1 THING YOU NEVER KNEW ABOUT THE ABRAMOFF
SCANDALS:
1. NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS.
Newspapers called Bouliss killing a "gangland-style murder."
But there is another word which more accurately describes it:
"Assassination," says Websters dictionary, is "murder which
changes the world."
What does a scandal involving Indian casinos, gambling boat
"cruises to nowhere" & pay-for-play government officials have to
do with the story of 19 hijackers planning a mass murder in
supposed isolation in Florida?
Over three years ago”within a month of the 9.11 attack”British
Prime Minister Tony Blair had presented the case against Bin
Laden. He sketched out the Cliff Notes version of the evidence.
It wasnt much, but it was the only explanation we ever received.
"Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization with ties to a global
network," Blair said.
When NBC's Dateline did a story recently about sources of
terrorist funding right here in the U.S., they announced "the
emerging threat of a new alliance between al Qaeda and common
criminals."
It was hardly time to stop the presses.
"Some of the same names in the Abramoff scandal also surface in
connection with Mohamed Attas," we reported, in a June 21, 2005
story headlined "THE SECRET WORLD OF 9.11."
"There remains a strong suspicion that Attas terrorist
cadre”supposedly unknown and friendless and burrowing into the
woodwork”was able to call on the assistance, when necessary, of a
friendly global network.
Could it be that this network is the same one being probed so
gingerly today by investigators looking into Jack Abramoff?
Far from being a rogue lobbyist who went just a few tens of
millions of dollars too far, Jack Abramoff is an operative for an
organization which has sold Americans a bill of goods as
justification in at least three recent wars.
There are an amazing number of people described as "financial
whizzes and "boy wonders of business involved in the story of
Jack Abramoff.
But . . . are they really?
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