Robert Calvi, again.

* howie:

"In seeking to answer the question of who will be the next government official making a federal penitentiary home, VANITY FAIR offers Lewis, Bush political CIA-appointee Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, Virgil Goode, Jr., and Katherine Harris. Nothing really new there; all 4 will no doubt be in prison sooner or later. But the beauty of the story lies in the eye-popping details and that's why I urge you to read it."

* Dreyfuss:

"During the U.S.-Taliban era of cooperation from 1994 to 1998 … a key Unocal consultant was a University of Nebraska academic named Thomas Gouttierre, director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies there. During and after the Afghan jihad, Gouttierre’s center secured more than $60 million in federal grants for “educational” programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Although the funding for Gouttierre’s work was funneled through the State Department’s Agency for International Development, the CIA was its sponsor. And it turned out that Gouttierre’s education program consisted of blatant Islamist propaganda, including the creation of children’s textbooks in which young Afghanis were taught to count by enumerating dead Russian soldiers and adding up Kalashnikov rifles, all of it imbued with Islamic fundamentalist rhetoric. The Taliban liked Gouttierre’s work so much that they continued to use the textbooks he created"

i always wondered why those books were made in america.

* scott:

"Everyone knows Hamas hates Israel for their Freedom."

* 5 min vid: True Lies By Taalam Acey (thnx rimone)

* i think there's something new in the water in italy. The Economist:

"WHO provided the early finance for Fininvest, the parent company of Silvio Berlusconi's business empire? Prosecutors hope to find an answer during appeal proceedings that have just begun in Palermo, in a case involving Marcello Dell'Utri, a close associate of Mr Berlusconi and one of the founders of his Forza Italia political party. Mr Dell'Utri, who was returned to parliament again in April's election, is appealing against a nine-year prison sentence for association with the Mafia...
[]
Part of that new evidence is testimony given in 2004 and 2005 during inquiries in Rome into the murder in June 1982 of Roberto Calvi, Banco Ambrosiano's chairman, just before the bank's collapse."

imagine if we got to the bottom of that scandal.

* there has always been (in my mind) some confusion about the '$100k' transfer to Atta by General Mahmoud of the ISI. the BaltSun says:

"A U.N. report on terrorist financing released in May 2002 noted that a "suspicious transaction report" had been filed with the U.S. government over a $69,985 wire transfer that Mohamed Atta, leader of the hijackers, received from the United Arab Emirates."

does anyone know if this is the same transaction?

update: damien from the comments:

Recall Makram Chams, the Lebanese national, who helped Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi. He owned a mini mart in Venice Fl where the terrorists received a $70,000 money transfer from the UAE. The money transfer receipt was provided to the 9/11 Commission and included the minimart address as a detail. After 9/11 Chams then went missing, abandoning his mini mart, but later re-surfaced in Saudi Arabia, as a contractor for US defense firm Titan Corp. This is all detailed by Hopsicker.

I am sure that $70,000 is the same item. It's still not clear about the $100,000 transfer to Atta's Florida bank account. Apparantly such a transaction occurred with Saeed Sheikh as the middle man, but confirming it all is a bit difficult.

Some accounts have it that Daniel Perle might have come across details of the transaction, but again, it's all murky and unconfirmed.

thnx D.

update again from the comments downstairs:

i asked:

"btw - i recently read somewhere (i think) that the mahmoud/atta payment was $350k. Is that another theory? another transaction? bullshit?"

damien:

I heard that figure too. The $100,000 payment into Atta's Florida bank account is real. The only question is the source. It was covered in the UK press late in 2001 and there were articles contesting who made the deposit. Really, I need to google like hell and go back to the original articles. The Pakistan payment(s) are one of those topics that have been spun and airbrushed out of existence. How easy is it for the US government to say "we've investigated all that and found nothing in it"?

A couple of points here:

(1) Sen.Bob Graham's statement on the Lehrer Hour make it clear that a "sovereign foreign government" had been involved in supporting the 9/11 terrorists - "not just in financing - although that was part of it". When you add the documented bribes paid by Pakistan to keep their name out of the 911 Report it's a fair bet that Pakistan is a strong candidate for the nation he's referring to. We might also add that while most of the 9/11 terrorists were Saudi's, most of them commenced their travel to the US from Pakistan.

(2) There is the 28 redacted pages from the Joint Congressional Report outlining Saudi finance connections, so they had some involvement [think Ambassador Bandar's wife and her 'charity donations'].

(3) On May 13, 2003, John Ashcroft and Tom Ridge signed a "Memorandum of Agreement between the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security", giving the FBI "unprecedented unilateral control of all terrorist-financing investigations and operations."

...."all appropriate DHS leads relating to money laundering and financial crimes will be checked with the FBI".

With that kind of memorandum we'll never get any straight answers (unless Sibel kept back a few documents!)

It certainly needs a lot more HW. But it seems $100,000 was deposited in Atta's account and the earliest reports of it pointing to the ISI are probably correct.

I must say I like the Makran Chams bit. You would have thought - given the 'war on terra' - that the US would have dragged Chams back from Saudi Arabia to ask a few pointed questions about the $70,000 payment and the fact that he leased a room above his mini mart to Atta and Al-Shehhi and appeared to be on familiar terms with them.

But I think it's been well established by now that the 'war on terra' is more a marketing project than anything else. What I don't get is what every marketer knows: "You never introduce a new product in September."

thanks D.

actually, the product rollout seems to have worked reasonably well.