1) I don't recall the U.S. press mentioning at the time of the U.S.S. Cole bombing that Bin Laden was born in Yemen, or that he was "revered" by many of its citizens.
2) I seem to recall quite a PR campaign after the "aspirin factory bombing" that the Muslim owner had been unfairly maligned, etc. It might be interesting to check the FR archives to look at the specifics.
3)What are we now to make about the "aspirin factory" claims? Maybe it was more of a legitimate target than previously thought. Why the press spin?
4)BCCI again and again and again. I wonder why. (I am having trouble keeping track of all of the names.)
Ciller's Consultant Tamraz May Testify in Congress
Tamraz linked to BCCI scandal
By Ugur Akinci / Turkish Daily News
WASHINGTON -- Roger Tamraz, the CIA-informant oil executive and banker who impressed then Prime Minister Tansu Ciller in 1995 with his promises of making the Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline a reality (for an hefty fee) may soon show up in front of a Congressional committee investigating the allegations surrounding Democratic fund raising practices.Tamraz has contributed $177,000 to Democratic National Committee (DNC) to gain access to President Clinton and Vice President Gore.
Tamraz, who reportedly was very close to the Ciller family, told Los Angeles Times that "I had no trouble with access to Ciller."Tamraz was reportedly paid an undisclosed sum by Turkey in return for his help with the Baku-Ceyhan line.Since then nothing happened with the pipeline which Washington also supported in principle.
What Tamraz might also be questioned by U.S. lawmakers is his close links to the BCCI banking scandal and Ghaith Pharaon, his classmate from Harvard Business School.
In an extensive investigation of Tamraz' questionable links to Saudi money, The American Spectator monthly, in its May 1997 issue, exposed many of the links that Ciller's consultant had with a serious of bank bailout operations that he pulled off with his Arab partners.
The collapse of Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), one of histories most expensive bank failure that cost $12 billion to its shareholders when it was closed down in 1991, shows the active role played by Pharaon.
In 1973, Tamraz forms his own investment bank, First Arabian Corporation backed by such powerful Saudi investors as Sheikh Kamal Adham, also known as "Al-Turki" since he was raised in Istanbul.Adham is the brother of late King Faisal's wife Queen Iffat and known as Saudi Arabia's top intelligence officer with strong links to CIA.
Other shareholders in Tamraz' bank include Prince Abdullah bin Musaid bin Abdul Rahman; Sheikh Salem bin Ladin; and Ghaith Pharaon.The relations between Tamraz and Pharaon grew stronger after Tamraz bailed out Pharaon's Bank of the Commonwealth in Detroit in 1975.
In 1977 Pharaon becomes part-owner of Main Bank of Houston.Co-owners of the bank include John Connally, Governor of Texas who was riding the same car when President Kennedy got shot in Dallas in 1963, and Saudi banker Khaled bin Mahfouz.
Mahfouz' father was the founder of Saudi Arabia's largest privately owned bank, the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia.
"Pharaon's troubles started in late 1977 when he bought the shares in the National bank of Georgia belonging to [then Governor] Jimmy Carter's political confidant, T. Bertram Lance," American Spectator story reads.Attending Pharaon's lavish parties in Georgia were likes of Carter himself and Alexander Haig, the former SACEUR of NATO [and later to become Secretary of State under President Reagan] who is well-known to the Ankara establishment.
It later turned out that National Bank operation was a front for BCCI and Pharaon was acting in fact on behalf of his BCCI backers."BCCI lost money steadily, seeking high profits by providing services to drug lords, arms dealers, spies, and terrorists -- and covering its deficits by fraud," Spectator said.
"BCCI concealed the fraud [to the tune of $12 billion] by dazzling Westerners with lists of wealthy Saudi shareholders, prominent among them Tamraz's partner Kamal [Al Turki] Adham and Main Bank investor Khaled bin Mahfouz.Both Adham and bin Mahfouz later arranged plea bargains with Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, the most aggressive of the BCCI's investigators," said American Spectator.
Bin Mahfouz hired for himself a public relations firm in New York City, Abernathy MacGregor Scanlon (AMS), for "public relations and [facilitation of] media coverage," according to the U.S. Department of Justice records.
Incidentally, the AMS happens to be the same foreign lobby company that Tansu Ciller contracted in 1994 to provide communications counseling to the Turkish Prime Ministry.
Pharaon kept on buying and selling a number of banking ventures, including BCCI-controlled Washington D.C. bank chain First American Bankshares, and Miami's Centrust Savings Bank.Miami bank ended up losing $2 billion, making it one of the most costly S&L failures in American history.
Tamraz, although keeping his distance from Pharaon after the Bank of Commonwealth bailout, organized Paris-based Banque Arab et Internationale d'Investissments (BAII) which said to have provided cover for BCCI.In 1990 BAII was taken over by Banque Nationale de Paris after losing $100 million.
"Tamraz re-entered BCCI's orbit after it was seized in 1991," the Spectator said."He offered to pick up the pieces of the bank and pay depositors 90 cents on the dollar.But his still unidentified backers soon learned how much this offer would really cost, and the deal collapsed."
Pharaon is now a fugitive from federal and New York State bank fraud charges.Federal Reserve Board fined him $37 million for lying over taking over many of the banks he purchased on behalf of his Arab backers.
Tamraz and his links to BCCI and Pharaon were forgotten until Tamraz resurfaced in 1995, contributing vast amounts to the Democratic Party and trying to purchase his way into the Oval Office.This is also the same time when he told then PM Tansu Ciller that he was going to see President Clinton soon and talk to him about Baku-Ceyhan "peace pipeline," leaving the impression that the meeting would be between the two of them.Tamraz denies he ever said so to Ciller.
With his wide ranging links to Nagorno-Karabakh's hardliner self-proclaimed "president" (and now Armenian prime minister) Robert Kocharian, on the one hand, to Chinese state oil company officials who were supposed to bankroll the Baku-Ceyhan line, on the other, Tamraz continues to fascinate American observers as someone who could be holding the key to explain many questions in the scandal brewing around Democratic National Committee.His rumored testimony on Capitol Hill is awaited eagerly by his friends and foes alike.
By the way, how far from the World Trade Center is that investment banking outfit that Jordan went to work for in 1999?
IMO this means that our leadership thinks that we will go back to business as usual after a suitable period of television pyrotechnics has demonstrated to the sheeple that "the job is done". Absent any policy changes (none are on the horizon), their plan appears to be continued exports of boat loads of money to Saudi Arabia and the rest of Islam. Why not? its a system that has made a lot of money for those who back our elected officials.
Dont forget WorldCare.
How about Med-Emerg International?
And my all time fvorite, Hybridon!
It is these goodies that I say form a telemedical-bio-weapon-delivery system designed to kill us all!
These evil ones own some of the best brains and certainly money in the world!
Surely,it's not good when the bad guys own two walk-in emergency clinics at Pearson Toronto Airport!
How wrong to have these people owning huge chunks of Canadas health system?
How about them having computer-telemedicne hookups to hospitals like Johns Hopkins and Cleveland Clinic?
Memeo to Bush:
Round them up!
Deport them !
Close down their poison delivery system!