corrupt congressmen

i'm running late, as is often the case these days.

in the comments to this sibel post, Mike commented:

"I don't think the elected officials were bribed for nuclear secrets- I believe the bribes to Pentagon officials were for the nuclear secrets.

I think the Congressional reps received bribes for the same type of thing that the Livingston Group lobbied for- approval for arms deals and quashing any human rights criticism of Turkey. (ed. here's my post on Livingston. sibel mentioned him in the alexjones interview today - perhaps for the first time?)

Here is what David Rose (ed: author of the sibel VF article) said during his interview with Amy Goodman:
"AMY GOODMAN: And David Rose, the issue of the Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert, and conversations overheard that link his office with improper dealings with Turkish nationals, can you talk about particular legislation?

DAVID ROSE: Well, there were two things, I understand, which those who were wiretapped, whose conversations were recorded and translated, referred to. One was the controversial deal to sell helicopters, attack helicopters, to Turkey, which was an issue of great controversy in the late 1990s. At that point, Turkey was fighting a pretty hot civil war with the Kurdish separatists in the east of the country. There were allegations of human rights abuses and so forth, and some in America thought it was wrong that Turkey should be sold several billion dollars worth of attack helicopters in those circumstances. So some of the calls allegedly referred to the hope that the Congress would approve that very large weapons sale.

But the second occasion or second event which is allegedly referred to in these wiretaps is the Armenian genocide resolution...""

Mike often makes great points (and often corrects me when i'm wrong), so i'll promote a lot of his comments to the frontpage. This comment is no exception.

I've previously suggested that there were two separate and/or overlapping investigations into the ATC and/or perle and feith - one conducted by the cia (Plame?BJ) and the FBI investigation into government corruption. i'd never understood where the armenian genocide fit the puzzle. i'd generally (murkily) assumed that the genocide bill was somehow connected to Tukey's trading status in terms of getting arms and whatnot, as well as some nebulous impact that it might have on the EU accession (and/or perhaps some reparations that might result from a genocide admission) and that they were somehow related to sibel's general claims.

But maybe they were separate. where did they merge? Hastert was involved in both Livingston case studies - providing military support and the armenian resolution.

Mike is also correct in highlighting that congressmen don't have access to nuclear secrets. d'oh. the campaign contributions are for the arms procurement and the genocide bill. but my point is still valid - these congresscritters will sell their soul for campaign contributions, rather than for (direct) personal enrichment. it's somehow more base than pure greed.