-This is a post that was in the 9-11 forum that got locked because of an unacceptable link. I changed the link otherwise it is the same. It has lots of interesting info.
Frederik (1000+ posts) Sun May-08-05 09:57 AM
Original message
Sibel Edmonds, drugs, Azerbaijan and 9/11
I just listened to this interview with Karl Schwarz, a transcript of which can be found here:
http://www.libertyforum.org/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_government&Number=293519074&page=&view=&sb=&o=&vc=1&t=0#Post293519074I think he actually disclosed some information from Sibel Edmond's case that she hasn't disclosed herself. They were supposed to do the interview together but she couldn't make it. This is what he said:
"And the only thing she could confirm for me, you know we are all under the impression that we got attacked by the Saudis, and all these translations were in Arabic. The smoking gun translation is not in Arabic, it is in the Azerbaijani language. She is fluent in Turkish and Azerbaijani because that's where her parents are from. She is very functional in Farsi, which is the Iranian language. About all she can do with Arabic is read. She was not part of the Arabic translation team.
Now, if you go back to about, 92 and, 93, in that range, any of your listeners out there can do a simple research: the Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. Go look for the name "Mega Oil" and look for the name Gary Best. And they will have a whole lot better idea what al Qaeda is and where some of the terrorism is emanating from."
Well, I did a google search and found a couple of interesting things.
First, US Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce:
http://www.usacc.org /
It's a country most Americans probably haven't even heard of, but some Americans are clearly more interested in it than others.
HONORARY COUNCIL OF ADVISORS: James Baker III, Lloyd Bentsen, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft, John Sununu.
FORMER MEMBERS OF THE ADVISORY COUNCIL AND THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
The following individuals of high distinction have previously served on the Advisory Council and the Board of Directors:
Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States of America, Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State.
CO-CHAIRMEN OF THE BOARD: Tim Cejka, President, ExxonMobil Exploration Co., Reza Vaziri, President, R.V. Investment Group
VICE-CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD: James A. Baker, IV, Partner, Baker Botts, L.L.P.
BOARD OF TRUSTEES: (...) Richard Perle etc.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS: (...) Howard Chase, Director, International Affairs, BP. etc.
Isn't that interesting. Imagine such a small country having so many distinguished friends!
Now, Gary Best. He appears to be some character, albeit an elusive one:
"Bob Fletcher owned a toy factory in Marietta, Georgia near Lockheed Dobbins Air Force Base in 1985. In order to expand his business, Fletcher merged with a partner, Gary Best. Later, he found Best was a high-ranking covert intelligence agent who intended to use the toy company for arms dealing. Angola, West Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Ollie North’s Contra dealings were all part of the new connections of Fletcher’s toy company."
(
http://www.newdawnmagazine.com/Articles/Weather%20Contr... )
"GARY BEST WAS but one of a horde of con-men and ruthless operators who made the frightful voyage to Baku on Azerbaijan's state airline, which began the 1990s with quite possibly the oldest and most ill-equipped fleet of airplanes in the world. (...) Gary rubbed shoulders with a lot of important people. You would never guess that every word out of his mouth was a crock of shit. (...) According to Andrew, Best has a warrant out for his arrest in the United
States and is probably traveling under a false passport (Best has had at least one default judgment against him in a lawsuit - he never showed up to contest the charges - but he is not the subject of any federal warrant we could identify.) Like many people who have dealt with Gary Best, Andrew is convinced that he's a CIA agent, or at least a former one who retained some contacts in the intelligence community."
Best apparently brags of being friends with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a notorious Afghan warlord/drug lord who used to be close to Osama Bin Laden.
"Andrew repeated a rumor heard by many former Best associates that their man had been nailed trafficking in nuclear materials in the port of Baku by the Azeri police. It was later covered up, or so the story goes, because Azerbaijan under Aliyev - a repressive, brutal dictator - is an American partner only for his claims to have stabilized aresource-rich country torn apart by war and ready to explode by a revolt of the disenfranchised - in essence, a Shah and a Commissar in one. A Freedom of Information Act request was sent to several departments of the United States government which sought any and all documents relating to Gary Best and MEGA Oil. Surprisingly, a request of a similar nature - including all documents relating to Best and the export of nuclear
materials from the port of Baku - was already on record from the Summer of 2002. It was denied."
(
http://www.16beavergroup.org/mtarchive/archives/000301.... )
_______________________
As for Mega Oil, it sounds like a somewhat suspicious enterprise.
"There is however considerable evidence that all three prime
movers in the company - former Iran-Contra conspirator Richard Secord, legendary Air Force special operations commander Harry "Heinie" Aderholt, and the man known as either a diabolical con-man or a misunderstood patriot, Gary Best - were in the past involved in some of he most infamous activities of in the history of the CIA. In fact, the MEGA Oil debacle followed the model of the Iran-Contra Affair with uncanny accuracy, down to the formation of shell companies and, possibly, the use of private sector companies to contravene both the letter and the intent of American law. Together with Oliver North, Secord had pioneered this model in the 1980s to fund the Nicaraguan Contras and makethemselves millionaires in the bargain. By a remarkable coincidence or a cunning design, the MEGA Oil enterprise would have served the same purpose."
"In fact, providing support of any kind to Azerbaijan was illegal.
Congress passed a law (Section 907 of the "Freedom Support Act")
effectively banning foreign aid - and, needless to say, all military aid - to Azerbaijan. Thus America's top long-term interest in the Caspian was threatened by the promises of Armenian-American retribution at the polls - a very real threat considering Armenian electoral power in the key state of California.
(...)
Mutalibov had requested more than weapons and training - he
wanted real, live bodies to fight a war the Azeris were losing, or to protect himself from a nation that hated him. Aderholt says he refused to participate on the basis of
principles which he had, apparently, developed in the two or three years since the Cold War ended. But when Elchibey's government posed the question, nobody was left at MEGA Oil who would turn them down.
(...)
Best's mysterious international connections once again worked to his advantage. Abdullah was one of an estimated 2,000 Afghan mercenaries hired by MEGA Oil to wear Azeri uniforms and face the Armenians head on. (The Afghans were split between separate parts of the country; Abdullah himself claims to have trained with 200 of his fellow countrymen.)
http://www.16beavergroup.org/mtarchive/archives/000301.... ______________________
And finally, the al-Qaeda connection. From Daily Kos:
"In August 1998, the Azerbaijani branch of the "Islamic Jihad" organization, which by then had merged with Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda, reportedly coordinated the bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people and wounded nearly 4,600. The FBI was able to trace about 60 phone calls made from the satellite phone used by Bin Laden to his associates in Baku and from them to operatives in East Africa. The U.S. Embassy in Azerbaijan also feared an attack, but as a local radical claimed, they did not attack the Embassy so as "not to spoil their good relations in Azerbaijan" (Zerkalo 7/22/00; Bill of Indictment in U.S.A. vs. Bin Laden et. al. 4/01; Washington Post 5/3/01; Ekho 8/28/01)"
"By 1998, Ayman al-Zawahiri's organization (Egyptian Islamic Jihad) had taken up residence in Baku, Azerbaijan. It also merged with bin-Laden's organization that year and issued a fatwa targeting American civilians. Zawahiri had spent time in Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Albania, Bulgaria and Poland. All of these places are major transit lines for the heroin trade from Asia into Europe.
That fact is extremely important because Edmonds claims that she discovered evidence of the 9/11 plot in intercepts that were not part of counter-terrorism investigations, but that were part of counter-intelligence investigations related to money laundering. And that money laundering was for cleansing the proceeds from arms and drug smuggling."
Ouch...
More:
"Most likely, she was translating intercepts of Azerbaijani businessmen or politicians that were involved in laundering large quantities of cash raised by Afghan heroin smuggling. She has also made clear that the drug dealers and the arms dealers are mixed up together and that the divisions become blurred between these organizations.
So, what kind of people have experience in money laundering, arms smuggling, and drug smuggling, but who also are known to have been involved in Azerbaijan?
The most famous Americans with such experience are the veterans of the Laos war during Vietnam. Many of them were later implicated in the Iran-Contra affair, which, of course, involved money laundering, arms, and drug smuggling. Among these crafty spooks are such veterans as Richard Secord, Heinie Aderholt, Farhad Azima and Richard Armitage. To this list, we must also add a little known charlatan named Gary Best.
Do any of these folks have any interest in Azerbaijan? In fact, yes, they all do. They also have links to the mujahideen from the Soviet-Afghan War."
And, finally, for the connection to the hijackers who allegedly attacked the WTC and Pentagon:
"Farhad Azima ran a cargo airline called "Baku Express" and he also was instrumental in helping modernize the national air carrier "Azerbaijan Airlines".
Both airlines had/have regular flights into Kabul." (...)
"Now, it is important to realize a few things about Farhad Azima.
Number One: he leased his plane to Ollie North so he could go to Iran.
Number Two: his airline, Baku Express, operated out of Ostend Airport.
Number Three: Baku Express was a cargo airline capable of bringing arms or drugs in or out of Afghanistan.
Number Four: he was implicated in the S & L scandal. Look up Indian Springs S & L out of Kansas City.
Number Five: he was implicated in the Lincoln Bedroom scandal.
Number Six: he gave Gephardt $4,000 in the past election.
Number Seven: he pals around with Dick Cheney and Henry Kissinger.
Number Eight: he has run CIA affiliated airlines going all the way back to the 70's with Egyptian-American Air Transport.
Number Nine: he is in business with the guy that owned the Flight School that trained the hijackers.
Number Ten: Riggs Bank probably handles his business when he works for the CIA.
Number Eleven: all these folks are up to no good in Equatorial Guinea."
(...)
"The owner of the Flight School where Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi trained is Wallace J. Hilliard. And Wally Hilliard seems to be an acquaintance of Farhad Azima."
(
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/3/91613/7260 )
It is time to return to the US Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce. There is one more member of the Board of Directors that I think deserves a mention.
"BOARD OF DIRECTORS
The business affairs of USACC are managed by its Board of Directors which is composed of distinguished individuals with an interest in the U.S.-Azerbaijan
relationship.
Farhad Azima
Chairman & CEO, Aviation Leasing Group"
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