Blogger makes Lockheed Martin Nervous

Chris Deliso has the story - along with all the context.

You know how Sibel Edmonds points to the American Turkish Council as a hotbed of criminal activity and corruption - well, one of the key players in the ATC is a lobbying company called The Cohen Group, which is run by former Secretary of Defence, William Cohen.

Two of the key Vice Chairmen at The Cohen Group are Marc Grossman (who Sibel specifically accuses of various crimes) and General Joseph Ralston. Ralston is also on the advisory board of the ATC, and also on the board of Lockheed Martin, which is a client of The Cohen Group.

Ralston was recently appointed by the State Department as "Special Envoy for Countering the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK)" - where his role was ostensibly to help Turkey 'deal with' the Kurds. He went to Turkey a couple of weeks ago just as the Kurds entered a unilateral ceasefire with Turkey - but Ralston's main role appears to be ensuring that the conflict continues, and ensuring that the his company, Lockheed Martin, continues to make money. As luck would have it, when Ralston was in Turkey, Lockheed managed to sign two deals for Lockheed fighter jets worth $13 billion.

Blogger Mizgin at Rastî has been following the Ralston/Lockheed/Turkey story for the last month and trying to bring some attention to Ralston's conflict-of-interest. It appears as she finally attracted some interest. I'll let Chris Deliso tell the rest of the story

On 26 October, the Kurdish National Congress of North America issued a press release demanding “the immediate resignation” of the former USAF General Ralston as the Bush administration’s point man on the Turkish campaign against Kurdish guerrillas in the country’s southeast.
[...]
The Kurdish lobby group’s press release has captured the attention of the relevant damage-control companies. Mizgin Yilmaz, a Kurdish activist who carried the press release on her blog, Rastî provided Balkanalysis.com with the following tidbit: “we had a forty-minute visit from a company called Public Strategies, Inc, first for five minutes and another twenty minutes later, for a little over thirty minutes.” PSI did not immediately respond to our request for information regarding its current relationship with Ralston or Lockheed Martin.

According to Source Watch, “Public Strategies has helped many corporations involved in high-profile crises successfully weather the storm and better prepare for the possibility of future turbulence.” The company proudly maintains that is that many corporations’ first phone call for crisis response.” The PSI website states:

“with significant shareholder value at stake, forward-thinking companies know that the best defense against crisis is a good offense: be prepared… companies also call on us when they get blindsided. In any crisis, the first 48 hours are critical. Our experts help clients mobilize a rapid, centralized response aimed first at stabilizing the situation and then at managing through it.”

The question is, who made the call to PSI after the press release on General Ralston and his escapades in Turkey?

Although it is not stated, strong suspicions point to Lockheed Martin as the entity whose “significant shareholder value” was at stake.

Mizgin also tells me that other visitors to her site in the last couple of days include a bunch of people from Boeing and also from their advertising company.

Again, Chris Deliso has the full story

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