Salon.com > Ken Silverstein

Dictators rely on D.C. front men

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 15:48:00 +0000

Last week, the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism published a story about a sting against Bell Pottinger, a major British public relations and lobbying firm. Journalists working for the Bureau approached the firm in the guise of seeking PR help for Uzbekistan, the torture-loving former Soviet republic that has been known to boil prisoners to death. A Bell Pottinger representative told the undercover journalists it could introduce Uzbek officials “into political and media circles,” and help them “get better known by a lot of the key decision makers.”

In the course of their research, the Bureau met with lobbyists and PR agents who boasted of their ability to get think tanks to publish sympathetic reports about clients. They also talked about winning favorable media attention by setting up supposedly independent public events and hyping business opportunities for domestic companies.

How Bahrain works Washington

Thu, 08 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Ever since last February, when security forces in Bahrain brutally cracked down on demonstrators at the Pearl Monument, human rights groups have documented extensive violence by the government against pro-democracy protesters. In late November, an independent commission hired by the country’s king released a report that said 35 people had been killed during the protests, including five detainees who were tortured to death, and that hundreds more had been injured and nearly 3,000 arrested.

But to judge from Tom Squitieri -- the self-described “stargazer, Award winning reporter, communications crafter” who has tweeted and blogged about events in Bahrain for Huffington Post and the Foreign Policy Association -- demonstrators are largely to blame for the violence. In one item he wrote about a girl named Zahra who “was attacked with an iron bar wielded by protestors” and a demonstrator named Ali who was killed “after being hit by a police car.” While Ali’s family claimed “he was deliberately run down” by the cops, Squitieri suggested it was more likely that “the police car swerved out of control after skidding on oil poured on the road by protestors.”

America’s fixer in Cambodia

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 +0000

PHNOM PENH -- Bretton Sciaroni, an American expatriate and former ideologue of Ronald Reagan's White House, makes a most unusual power broker in contemporary Cambodia. The portly Sciaroni is an official advisor to the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, a one-time Khmer Rouge cadre. The Cambodian government has bestowed on Sciaroni the titles Minister Without Portfolio and His Excellency. From his office in an exclusive section of the city -- neighbors include the president of the ruling party -- he runs a consulting firm that brokers business deals on behalf of foreign investors -- deals that often benefit well-connected companies and individuals like Sciaroni himself.

Sciaroni also appears to be a chief intermediary between the U.S. government and Cambodia, which has emerged in recent years as an unlikely American ally. The U.S. cut most assistance to Cambodia in 1997 after Hun Sen staged a coup but resumed aid a decade later. Competition with China for influence in the region and growing trade ties -- the United States buys more than half of Cambodia’s apparel production, its primary export -- are the primary factors behind the political warming. It probably didn’t hurt that Cambodia struck oil and Chevron got a stake in the most promising field. Today Cambodia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. aid in Southeast Asia, after Indonesia and the Philippines. And Brett Sciaroni is, at least politically, the biggest American in the country.

Never mind who paid the bar bill

Thu, 06 Oct 2011 23:30:00 +0000

On Wednesday Salon published my story reporting on the the extensive media contacts between lobbyists at Orion Strategies and Washington journalists who write a lot of favorable stories about the government of Georgia – a big client of Orion's. They also write a lot of unfavorable stories about Russia, Georgia's mortal enemy, and the alleged failure of "reset," the Obama administration's policy to improve ties to Moscow.

Some of the journalists had traveled to Georgia on Orion's tab. Others had meals or drinks picked up by the lobby shop. All of them attended events on Georgia set up by the lobbyists, who also arranged interviews for them with Georgian government officials. Sometimes they wrote stories very soon after being contacted by Orion, which suggested their stories originated with pitches from Georgia's lobbyists. What I was trying to get at was – in the words of reporter Laura Rozen of Yahoo! News, who tweeted about the story – "a creeping culture of soft influence buying where lines are not clear cut, and disclosure often insufficient."

Neoconservatives hype a new Cold War

Wed, 05 Oct 2011 12:30:00 +0000

Over the summer reporter Eli Lake of the Washington Times wrote a series of provocative stories about U.S.-Russia relations and the alleged failure of "reset," the Obama administration's policy to improve ties to Moscow. The most sensational ran on Page One of the Times on July 22 and led to several follow-ups. It alleged that a bomb blast near the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, Georgia, the previous September had been "traced to a plot run by a Russian military intelligence officer, according to an investigation by the Georgian Interior Ministry." The Russia officer was identified as Yevgeny Borisov.

"If true, a Russian-sponsored attack on a U.S. Embassy would constitute the most serious crisis in U.S.-Russian relations since the Cold War and put to lie any 'reset' in bilateral relations," Lake quoted GOP Sen. Mark Kirk as saying of his story. A few days later, Lake reported, Kirk and four other senators -- Jon Kyl, Lindsey Graham, Joe Lieberman and John McCain -- sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding intelligence community briefings on the incident.

Gadhafi’s Hollywood ending

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 12:01:00 +0000

Poor Moammar Gadhafi. Libya’s longtime leader, dubbed "the Mad Dog of the Middle East" by President Ronald Reagan over his support for terrorism, came in from the cold after Sept. 11 by collaborating with the CIA in the fight against al-Qaida and offering American firms access to his oil fields. Look what he got for his good behavior: the enmity of his people and uninvited strangers visiting his seaside villa.

Gadhafi had warmed American hearts in 2004 by normalizing relations with George W. Bush's administration and falling hard for Condoleezza Rice. The colonel was still an SOB, but now he was our SOB.

The return of Neil Bush

Sun, 28 Aug 2011 14:01:00 +0000

As the global economy has tanked in recent years, international companies have sought every advantage they can muster in seeking to score business deals abroad. One tactic, especially favored by big energy firms, is to retain the services of a middleman or "fixer." These obscure but vital players use clout, brains and wiles to broker deals between industry and third-world leaders, and to generally grease the gears of the global oil and gas trade.

Which on the surface makes it hard to understand why U.S. and foreign firms continue to seek the services of Neil Bush. The son of one president and brother of another, Neil's political clout has declined since Barack Obama replaced George W. Bush in 2009, and neither brains nor wiles is Neil's strong suit. Two decades ago, the Washington Post observed that his business ventures had "a history of crashing and burning in spectacular fashion," and time, alas, seems not to have improved his record.

Neil claims to have 30 years in the energy industry, though at least 10 people from the Texas oil patch I spoke with said they had never heard of him playing any notable role in the energy business. Of the former first sibling, one international oil executive and consultant said, "I can't imagine anything he could bring to the table."

Our new favorite despot

Mon, 29 Apr 2002 21:39:00 +0000

As U.S. politics becomes increasingly dominated by the country's dependence on foreign oil -- and the Bush administration's cozy ties with oil money -- it's only a matter of time before our gaze should finally fall upon the grim little despotic regime of Equatorial Guinea.

Not because the Bush administration, or major oil companies like ExxonMobil, want you to, however.

A recent monthlong crackdown, in which the 23-year-old regime of Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo rounded up about 100 people it alleged were plotting a coup, didn't merit a single column inch in the biggest U.S. newspapers. Not even an urgent Amnesty International press release ("Detainees held incommunicado risk being tortured to death") drew any attention. Partly that could be because the United States does not -- yet -- rely on the deep, newly discovered oil reserves in Equatorial Guinea, as it does in Venezuela and the Middle East.

But that's about to change. The Bush administration, lobbied by the oil industry, has quietly authorized the reopening of the American Embassy in Equatorial Guinea, which had been shut down since 1996 when the Obiang regime threatened to kill then-U.S. Ambassador John Bennett for complaining about human rights conditions. Now that we've become friends again with Equatorial Guinea, there's evidence the country's violent past is resurfacing. The administration, meanwhile, remains mum.

Our scary new best friends

Tue, 25 Sep 2001 23:05:00 +0000

As the United States gears up for a seemingly inevitable military conflict in Afghanistan, the Bush administration speaks with great excitement about the support it expects to receive from an anti-Taliban group called the Northern Alliance. Though it only holds about 10 percent of Afghanistan, Congress is discussing sending the Alliance money and weapons, and the Pentagon reportedly has tentative plans to train it with the help of Special Forces units.

Last Friday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the rebels "know the lay of the land" and "can be a lot of help" in a campaign against the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. The press has dutifully followed the lead. The New York Times, in its lead Monday story, pointed out that the Northern Alliance has enjoyed the support of Iran and Russia, and supporting it would therefore "help the United States balance the interest of its outside partners." The Washington Post noted that the "rebels have been fighting the Taliban since the mid-1990s, and no one knows the territory better than they do." The Post quoted an Alliance leader as saying that there is "a unique opportunity on the horizon" to topple the Taliban and that his group is more than willing to "fight against terrorism." On the Fox News Channel, a defense analyst named David Isby called the rebels the "on-the-ground alternative to the Taliban."

Blasts from the past

Sat, 22 Sep 2001 22:18:00 +0000

In January of 1980, just weeks after the Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan in support of a puppet government, U.S. intelligence agencies were quietly working with international arms brokers to set up a weapons pipeline to back rebels fighting the government in Kabul.

One top-secret memo sent to the CIA from a team of London-based dealers at the time proposed a worldwide hunt for arms, and the establishment of a "Rear Base Area" outside Afghanistan from where they would be ferried to the insurgents as needed.

"The Sponsor's role must be held in complete confidence and utmost security must be exercised in all aspects of the proposed operation," reads the six-page memo, heretofore unpublished. And this memo marked the start of what would become the biggest covert operation in American history: the arming of the mujahedin guerrillas that drove the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan.

Between 1979 and 1991, the United States and a few foreign collaborators spent some $7 billion on the Afghan program, much of it to buy arms. The money also helped train 80,000 fighters, including radicals from the Middle East who came to join the jihad against the Soviet Union.

Politics and the gas pump

Thu, 08 Jun 2000 19:00:00 +0000

During the past few months, a momentous if mostly discreet debate has been taking place in Washington, which will have enormous implications for air and water quality as well as for the price of gasoline. At issue is what type of fuel additive will be used in gasoline sold in the nation's most smog-afflicted regions: MTBE, which gained widespread use as a result of federal clean air legislation passed by Congress a decade ago, or ethanol, whose principal producer is agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland (ADM).

The debate heated up in March, when Carol Browner of the EPA announced plans to phase out the use of MTBE. The additive currently holds about 80 percent of the $4.5 billion market for so-called "reformulated gas," which is supposed to burn cleaner than normal gasoline. The EPA took action because MTBE (an acronym for methyl tertiary butyl ether) leaking from underground storage tanks has contaminated water supplies in 31 states. The problem is most acute in California. In some Southern California cities such as Santa Monica, 90 percent of the water supply is affected.

In April, water-well owners in 16 states filed a class-action lawsuit against some of the nation's biggest oil companies saying that they have long known that MTBE was an environmental menace.

Our Nazi allies

Wed, 03 May 2000 16:00:00 +0000

Dieter Maier, an amateur investigator working from his home on the outskirts of Frankfurt, Germany, has uncanny luck finding out about U.S. ties to the Nazis.

For the past 20 years, Maier has been filing a steady stream of requests for information to a variety of U.S. government agencies, largely for the existential pleasure of historical inquiry, and also out of a fear of a rebirth of Nazism, fascism and racism in Germany. The more he knows about the past, he says, the better prepared he is to deal with the future and present.

What is most startling about Maier's success, however, is that he appears to have had an easier time finding information on U.S. collaboration with Nazis after World War II than a committee appointed by Congress to extract the same controversial data.

Maier, through Freedom of Information Act requests, has unearthed new information on characters like Karl Heinz-Priester, one of the most prominent postwar neo-Nazi leaders. According to "The Biographical Dictionary of the Extreme Right," Priester, a former Waffen SS liaison officer, helped found the National Democratic Reich Party in 1949. After being expelled for his dictatorial tendencies, Priester set up the equally virulent German Social Movement and became a leading player in the international fascist movement.

From Russia with guns

Mon, 03 Apr 2000 16:00:00 +0000

The most publicized nightmare for U.S. national security planners is Russia's arsenal of 20,000 nuclear weapons -- a threat made known by a classified report President Clinton publicized on Moscow's loose nukes, and made better known when George Clooney and Nicole Kidman stopped a Serbian terrorist from blowing up New York with a stolen Russian atomic bomb in (another bomb) "The Peacemaker."

But U.S. policy makers probably became even more worried last week when they saw soon-to-be Russian president Vladimir Putin trolling about in a Russian MiG. Because while Armageddon-style scenarios capture the imagination, it's Russia's frantic effort to export conventional arms -- big guns, big warplanes, and lots of ammo -- that remains on the top of Russia's defense priority list, including that of Putin.

Desperate for hard currency, and with weapons one of its few quality exports, Moscow is eagerly peddling arms to any and all comers. The country expects to sell $4.3 billion worth of arms this year, Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov has said. That's sharply down from Cold War levels, but up by nearly 75 percent from two years ago and a record since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. That would put Russia at the same general level as France and England, and behind only the United States, which in 1998 (the last year for which figures are fully available) sold $7.1 billion worth of weapons for a 30 percent market share.