A. Q. Khan? Did you really go there Dick?

One of the thugs on the loose we needed to keep an eye on? Wasn't he one of the dudes that Brewster Jennings was keeping an eye on right before you leaked Valerie Plame's identity as an agent and dismantled that asset?

Was that a boast or a dig, Dick? You fucking traitor. I will see you in jail.

Edit to add the money quote:


I mean he really went there.


-Hoot

I mean he really went there.

-Hoot

the icing on the cake.

Nominated.

Thanks, I always know I'm on a reasonable path when you reply.

-Hoot

that anyone in the corporate media is allowed to notice this .... not in the sense of being able to point it out and discuss it honestly. Thank goodness for the internet, and people such as our friend Robert P., who did DU proud documenting that connection.

:shrug:

-Hoot

"Calling RP!"

Luke Ryland is still doing great research on this subject:


Thursday, May 21, 2009
CIA and the Nuclear Black Market

In June 2008, I wrote about the destruction of evidence in a nuclear black market case involving A.Q. Khan, the CIA, and the Swiss government. Now we have some more interesting news.

Background
One of AQ Khan's key suppliers to his nuclear black market (as well as the Pakistani bomb) was a Swiss family - Urs, Marco and Friedrik Tinner. Urs Tinner was under investigation by the French authorities and the CIA told Tinner that they could make his French problems, and any other problems, go away if Tinner became an agent for the CIA.

Tinner agreed to inform for the CIA, and fed them some information when he was working for AQ Khan in Malaysia, building Libya's nuclear weapons program, but when the CIA eventually exposed the AQ Khan network, Tinner kept a digital copy of the 'nuclear blueprints' which he could then sell on the nuclear black market for his personal profit.

In 2004, Tinner was arrested in Germany, along with his brother and father, and extradited to Switzerland. In May 2008, while Urs Tinner was in jail awaiting prosecution, the Swiss President announced that, six months earlier, he had destroyed ALL files related to the Tinners case. These files included not just the nuclear blueprints, but also any evidence that the Tinners had been working with the CIA. This caused an uproar in Switzerland, with the Swiss courts and Swiss parliament outraged that the President apparently made this decision unilaterally. The President claimed that he destroyed the documents so that they didn't fall into the hands of terrorists, a patently nonsensical claim. Most observers agreed that the Swiss President was actually doing the bidding of the CIA.

more...

http://lukery.blogspot.com/2009/05/cia-and-nuclear-black-market.html


And continued ...


Thursday, May 21, 2009
Douglas Frantz and Nuclear Black Market

A couple of extra notes regarding my earlier post, CIA and the Nuclear Black Market. I was going to post them in that piece, but didn't want to cover too many issues at once.

Well Regarded
By all accounts, the SFRC's Douglas Frantz is a good investigator and well-regarded. His 2007 book (co-written with his wife) on AQ Khan, The Man from Pakistan: The True Story of the World's Most Dangerous Nuclear Smuggler, was well-received (also see Adrian Levy's Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons, and William Langewiesche's The Atomic Bazaar: Dispatches from the Underground World of Nuclear Trafficking).

From memory, Frantz' book did a reasonable job covering Turkey's role in the nuclear black market in terms of publicly-available facts, noting the role of Selim Alquadis and Gunes Cires in supplying Libya, Iran and Pakistan. He also noted that some of the equipment from Turkey that was supposed to be on the ship, BBC China, when it was intercepted in 2003 on the way to Libya, went missing.

Some Questions
On the other hand, Frantz did not mention some important information regarding Zeki Bilmen and his New Jersey-based company, Giza Technologies. Former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds overheard Zeki Bilmen on wiretaps, apparently organizing the sale and/or delivery of nuclear hardware with the Turkish embassy in Washington DC. Bilmen and Giza were finally exposed in 2003 , years after Sibel overheard them, when they were caught sending illegal nuclear hardware to the AQ Khan network.

more...

http://lukery.blogspot.com/2009/05/douglas-frantz-and-nuclear-black-market.html

when it was news to begin with... doubt they will now.

You always make me smile when you pop my bubble :D

:hug:

-Hoot

I don't mean to:( I am sorry. I just call it like i see it.

I'm a big boy, I can take it hon ;)

-Hoot

But I don't know how many of our vaunted press corps really keep up on this stuff. However, I'm certainly going to use it when I encounter a repuke bigmouth talking about how Cheney kept us safe...

He's a pragmatic realist who understands that dirty work has to be done, "sometimes you have to work the dark side, a little". He is only coming out and saying these things because he just loves his country so so much. Obama is forcing him to come out, with his dangerous policies. Yes, he may have 'stretched the truth' in the past, but I'm sure he's not doing that now. And besides, if he did, it was for our own good. There are just some things we shouldn't ever have to know.



I know all these things are true because my TEEVEE told me.

For me the jaw dropper was when he called Abu Ghraib a crime, ignoring the fact that he ordered it.

statements that exposed the internal fears -- which he wants to infect the public with -- that I was at times amazed. It was really the ranting of a disturbed individual.

a possible "Truth Commission," as well as the possibility of criminal prosecution. It is obvious that these are thoughts that bother him. Good.

Disturbed and scared 'shitless'.

more concerned that he will eventually become a target of a legal investigation than I thought he would be. I suspect that he has sources of information telling him that he is not in the clear.

The line I found most telling today was:
Those are the basic facts on enhanced interrogation. And to call this a program of torture is to libel the dedicated professionals who have saved American lives and to cast terrorists and murderers as innocent victims. What's more, to completely rule out enhanced interrogation in the future is unwise in the extreme. It is recklessness cloaked in righteousness and would make the American people less safe.

Cheney is only concerned with 'the dedicated professional' Cheney.

I remembered how he had been scheduled to testify at his buddy Scooter's trial. He could have helped his friend. But, instead, when he realized the possible consequences, he sat the trial out on the sidelines. You may recall that he had his limo speed past the court, after the jury verdict was read.

Now, the guy is out in front, on various television shows, and giving the speech today. He isn't chattering to save anyone else. Just himself.

bore the responsibility for bearing the blame Obama was dishing out so fearlessly.

Like blaming Abu Ghraib on the soldiers. Cheney is a coward. He is still seeking deferments.

And that is the whole point of this media tour. Don't taze me, America!

He'll die a coward. As H2O man points out he left Scooter to fall because he was scared he'd be found guilty. Then he blamed Bush for not pardoning him.
No wonder he's so afraid. Poppy and W are dead quiet and Poppy will help take down Cheney if it sanitizes his idiot son's legacy.

a Rumsfeld. I've been wondering if Rummy may have positioned himself so that Cheney would have to take the fire if all this shit hit the fan.

And I agree that Poppy would sacrifice Cheney if it would rehabilitate one iota of W's reputation. Just as Rummy will sacrifice Cheney to preserve his own hide.

I've never seen him so visibly nervous, defensive, and even fearful. The swagger and condescension were replaced by something almost like a mixture of pleading and scolding.

Nothing that fat fuck does should surprise us, but, because we're not sociopaths, we are always surprised. And baffled. And warned.

He lies. That's all he does - he lies.

This thought just occurred to me (I'm rather slow) - if torture works so well, how come we didn't torture every detainee and just get all the information we wanted and needed?

I've now confused myself.......................

why do you have to do it 83 times? With this psychopath in charge, after the first one didn't work, the next 82 of them were probably just for sport.

Unless the timer kept saying 00:02 for a month or so.

False choice alert!



Begging the question, Dick, where was this desire to protect the US on September 10th?



Sorry ass legal defense alert!



Lawyers! You don't need no stinking lawyers!



(ed note: Love the like many critics of interrogations bit; nice touch.)

I'm only half way through, and I'm not really even trying to put all the pieces together, but this whole speech reads like a confession of a Bond villain right before his hideout is destroyed.

And, hearing the speech adds another dimension.

And your point about it reading like a Bond villain's final confession is eminently worthy of its own post, incorporating your other observations.

There's way too much evil in there for a little girl to read right before bedtime.

p.s. Best response on an MSNBC message board about the speech:

some background on A. Q. Kahn

Cheney was trading with Iraq when he was head of Haliburton....why isn't this treasonous, war profiteering bastard in jail?

and that is an understatement.

at Ford's funeral.

It's like some kind of Tourette's Syndrome of political villiany.

others who heard this were plenty offended, ya know?

By the way, have you read Russ Baker's book, "Family of Secrets"? It was published earlier this year. If you haven't read it, do. It reads like a good DU thread.

Thanks!

The Bushes make other family dynasties look like amateurs. They had their paws in everything if all is to be believed.

Robert Paulsen deserves a Nobel Prize for Peace.

:blush::blush::blush::blush::blush::blush::blush::blush::blush::blush::blush::blush::blush::blush:

I would gladly share both prizes with you. You need to publish Know Your BFEE: The Novel. I will buy it the first day it hit the book stores!

There is no depth to Cheney's depravity. None. If it was proven that the reason why Cheney was so paranoid in the days after 9/11 taking Cipro and wearing a gas mask was because he actually mailed the damn anthrax spores himself, it would not surprise me in the slightest. He is that evil.

I've had a number of people ask me to join a Facebook group Telling Dick Cheney to Shut the Hell Up. I say the more he talks, hopefully, the bigger the hole he digs for himself. If Obama and Holder are not willing to prosecute him federally, there will be an international day of reckoning. There must, or the very concept of justice is in grave danger.

Thanks for catching the crook, hootinholler! The incompetent prick thinks people won't remember.

Know your BFEE: Cheney & Halliburton Sold Iran Nuke Technology

This should wipe the sneer of his puss:

How Cheney Got His SNEER: The Curse of Dick Cheney

Too bad sociopaths have no conscience. He might regret the life he's been living.

as Rumsfeld sold/gave arms to Saddam, during the war between Iraq and Iran. These people do not have the least bit of goodness in them.

Now it's my turn Der Fishie, Thanks for giving a damn!

-Hoot

Great thread!

One day we'll nail that fucker.

On freeing A.Q. Khan and channeling our inner Cheney

What it means, there are a lot of loose nukes out there, thanks to Sneer.

The phrasing struck me as peculiar as soon as he said it, especially in juxtaposition to the Khan reference.

Summed up for the jury

for example, the fact that so many of the interrogations were done by contractors. Contractors!! There's another whole thread of infamy to follow.

The quote is here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=5696601&mesg_id=5696601

repeating his lies, and being caught on it by Anderson Cooper.

Having her on programs is beyond vulgarity. Never have I seen the child of a politician defend her parent's position, It's sick.

She was very consistent in both her old habit and her new.

she's not a child and she held a political position in her father's administration.

conveniently, turned out to be that dead guy over there.

It's probably made up, too. But it's SCARY. Sounds like an evil Star Trek character. SCARY! OOOOOOHHH. A Q Khan!! Be ascared! Really ascared!

.

I'm actually surprised Bush didn't turn him into a household name. Probably to avoid offending Pakistan, where he's revered as a hero.

Put Khan on the table and it drags a bunch of other names in also. Like Poppy, Denny Hastert, Dick Cheney, possibly Rumsfeld and the whole Dubai gang.

-Hoot

He went there twice.

"We did all of these things and, with bipartisan support, put all of these policies in place. It has resulted in serious blows against enemy operations: the takedown of the A.Q. Khan network and the dismantling of Libya's nuclear program."

K&R

:kick:

ONE else buys into his artificial reality.

I dropped my jaw.

I had the exact same reaction when Cheney said this during the 2004 Vice Presidential debate:



Cheney is a special kind of evil, stuffing the skeletons of history with his lies and covering the body with the skin he sheds twice a year.

That sends a chill up my spine.

stunning chutzpah. . . daring God to strike him dead on the spot.

would even register with most Americans. They didn't gin up enough hysteria about him. That's probably because there are connections that they don't want to see the light of day.
If people think of Kahn, they think "Star Trek." The base probably now thinks Trekkies are terrorists.

He set all of his crimes out there as a big FU to the world.

If everyone runs to the intertubes to clog teh Google, they might get a twee bit disturbed, I'm not sure they would. I think people have "fear fatigue." With the economy, the wars, Swine flu and whatever else, I don't think most people have energy to waste on Dick's trip down memory lane.