"Fifteen years ago this month, on Jan. 20, 2001, his last day in office, Bill Clinton issued a pardon for international fugitive Marc Rich. It would become perhaps the most condemned official act of Clinton’s political career. A New York Times editorial called it “a shocking abuse of presidential power.” The usually Clinton-friendly New Republic noted it “is often mentioned as Exhibit A of Clintonian sliminess.”
Congressman Barney Frank added, “It was a real betrayal by Bill Clinton of all who had been strongly supportive of him to do something this unjustified. It was contemptuous.”
Marc Rich was wanted for a list of charges going back decades. He had traded illegally with America’s enemies including Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran, where he bought about $200 million worth of oil while revolutionaries allied with Khomeini held 53 American hostages in 1979.
Rich made a large part of his wealth, approximately $2 billion between 1979 and 1994, selling oil to the apartheid regime in South Africa when it faced a UN embargo. He did deals with Khadafy’s Libya, Milosevic’s Yugoslavia, Kim Il Sung’s North Korea, Communist dictatorships in Cuba and the Soviet Union itself. Little surprise that he was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List.
Facing prosecution by Rudy Giuliani in 1983, Rich fled to Switzerland and lived in exile.' NY Post
————
IMO Marc Rich was pardoned by Bill Clinton because the Israeli government pressed him repeatedly to do so. Why would they do that? At the time I was in the position of associating with quite a few international oil traders. They laughed when they talked about Rich as an oil trader and assured me that for an individual like Marc Rich to enter the oil futures and spot oil markets was a virtual impossibility. The amount of capital required was simply prohibitive. Their belief was that Rich's traffic in petroleum had to be backed with the money of a sovereign state that wished to trade for profit in this commodity. They insisted that the only state likely to have wanted to do this but inhibited by the state of its external relations was Israel.
If that was the case, then it is only logical that Rich's legal position with regard to his US taxes was badly compromised. Would the Israeli government have wanted him to pay US taxes on profits made with its money? I think not, but Israel would also not want it to be known that it had abandoned its agent. This is common practice in the world of covert action and clandestine intelligence. Such knowledge if spread around the Zionist community would reduce the willingness of others to take risks for Israel. It is for much the same reason that Israel pressed endlessly for Pollard to be released from prison. Were the Israelis sentimentally grateful for the invaluable services rendered by Rich and Pollard? Maybe they were but as a cynical past practitioner of the dark arts of covert action and espionage I doubt that was their principal motivation.
Were there incentives offered to WJC other than the unrelenting political pressure from key members of the Zionist community? Who knows?
And now the FBI has chosen to open at least some of their files on this matter to the public. Can this be other than a warning to their betters in the elected government? Is the sentiment "if you take action to stop our investigations or against us, what else will we release?" pl
http://nypost.com/2016/01/17/after-pardoning-criminal-marc-rich-clintons-made-millions-off-friends/
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/judicial-watch-documents-reveal-israeli-133212091.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Foxman
http://www.opednews.com/articles/3/Clinton-and-Israel–the-by-Philip-Weiss-130713-563.html
The book “The King Of Oil”, revealed the existence of a secret pipeline supplying Israel with Iranian oil.
Sir
It seems there is a Clintonworld cabal ensconced at high levels in both the FBI and DOJ. We have learned about McCabe and Kadzik. We know about AG Lynch meeting Bill on the tarmac. We also know that Martin Indyk and all the ziocons are preparing the staffing lists for the Borg Queen’s national security team. We also know Citi executives along with Podesta put together Obama’s administration. IMO, we’re just scratching the surface of the depth of corruption.
It would seem that few FBI officials with some integrity are fighting back to the best of their ability, while likely jeopardizing their careers. We know the Clintons are vindictive.
I don’t know much about Podesta but he seems to be a significant player in Clintonworld having been Bill’s chief of staff and then heading Obama’s transition team and now the pivotal figure in the Borg Queen’s campaign. He seems well connected with Wall St, the DC “think tank” propaganda machine, key media mouthpieces, and the ziocon complex. Is he the real power behind the scenes? Is he and his network the one we should focus on if the Borg Queen becomes POTUS?
The exposure of his emails show the sinister side of DC and I feel ever more certain that the leaks emanated from DC and not the Russian boogeyman.
jack
“in both the FBI and DOJ.” I don’t see it as yet in the FBI. pl
Was it mere coincidence that Clinton pardoned Al Schwimmer on the same day? Al was handling much of the arms traffic to Iran and Rich was trading in much of the oil used to pay for the arms. Those deals are pretty murky, at least in my murky mind…anyone know? Don’t steer me to the Larouchies, please, I was nearly mugged by them a few days before the 1980 election and I hold a grudge…well, they may have had a point, steer that way (Right, Left?) if you must.
Sir
McCabe is #2 at the FBI and apparently supervised Hillary’s private email server investigation and made the recommendation to Comey to not indict over the objections of several investigators.
It seems there is something going on at the FBI and I’m hoping someone will spill more beans so the public can learn about the attempts to game the investigation. Reading Podesta’s emails does not engender confidence in the system.
Timbre sick o’ More
What do the Larouch people have to do with this? pl
It’s interesting that a long unused FBI twitter account announced the release of Mark Rich pardon investigation docs so close before the election. Was someone trying to embarrass Comey?
Colonel, thanks for this post. I would add that Mark Rich – and later on Trafigura – controlled a good part of critical mining resources in Romania
Here is the information released by the FBI on its website. The first 64 pages probably refer to the Clinton Foundation, and are useless, because of redactions. Starting on page 65 are pages about the Marc Rich situation which have a lot of redactions, but you can see a little more. The pdf file that can be downloaded can be read by the Adobe Acrobat Reader program, but does not appear to display with the Apple Mac Previewer–
https://vault.fbi.gov/william-j.-clinton-foundation/william-j.-clinton-foundation.pdf/view
All,
I love it that HRC asked Comey to release what he has. Follow the dirty money and the characters involved.
Why are so many oligarchs, royal families, and special-interest groups giving money to the Clinton Foundation?
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2009/01/more_than_a_good_feeling.html
sir,
seems James Comey was involved with this also.
“…investigation was finished and was replaced by James Comey, who was critical of Clinton’s pardons and of then-Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder’s pardon recommendation..”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Rich#U.S._indictment_and_pardon
The Executive Intelligence Review is or was a Larouche publication, I think, and some of the earliest reporting that I discovered while looking into the background of US and Israeli involvement in arms trafficking in the first Persian Gulf War was from that outfit. I suppose Robert Dreyfus was their main ME preporter back then. I like his recent work, but he wrote some pretty nutty stuff in the 1970s, like for instance, the theory that the Grateful Dead arranged for the assassination of King Feisal. Come to think of it, I’m not sure if it was the GD T-shirt or the Carter sticker that set them off on me outside the Post Office that day.
Apologies for not providing a link, but I haven’t mastered this device yet. I truly appreciate this website, by the way. The perspectives provided by you and your correspondents are so valuable.
Another article about the Marc Rich pardon with some degree of detail is here–
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/10/03/the-pardon-of-arc-rich-how-hillary-clinton-served-as-the-secret-weapon-for-one-of-the-biggest-tax-cheats-in-american-history/
Col.,
I had dealings with some of Rich’s people in West Africa a good few years ago. I wasn’t happy to be working with them and I’d tried to prevent the deal going ahead in the first place but I was shut out. They wanted to rely on local paramilitaries for security, which was against our policy at the time and made me nervous. I was well aware of their reputation prior to this anyway and told my superiors that we shouldn’t associate ourselves with them. But the deal went ahead and I was put in charge of making things happen on the ground. Once I got on site, things went steadily downhill and our relationship with them quickly went sour.
What can I say about them? Fine to talk to but no scruples whatsoever. They told me about their exploits in Russia at the time and even I was taken aback by some of what they told me. They dropped some well known names in relation to their business over there (not Putin’s, I should say).
These guys don’t have souls. They reminded me of the retired South African mercs you meet in Angola.
I posted on one of the earlier threads regarding the emails that there is more to this.
Someone in the FBI is mobilizing Anonymous to react to this document dump.
In recent weeks, somebody using the pseudonym “FBIanon” has been posting to 4chan – favored hangout of types who tie themselves to Anonymous – claiming to be an FBI insider. Some of the predictions they made have proved to be startlingly prescient.
On October 30th, an official FBI Twitter account, that had been dormant for a year, posted a series of links to the FBI Vault online records system. The series of links form a cipher.
The links include a ‘shout-out’ to 4chan. They refer to a humorous ‘fan-fiction’ meme postulating that DJT is a time-traveller (I know, but bear with me). The meme plays on the real world links between Nikola Tesla and DJT’s uncle, the MIT professor John Trump, as well as Trump’s uncanny ability to predict the future (Wiener, for example). It’s believed that these links are effectively an authentication of FBIanon to 4chan/Anonymous i.e. not an endorsement of the time-traveller meme but simply a way of saying “Hey, Anonymous, it’s me: FBIanon.”
There are many other cryptic clues contained within the links. One of the most obvious is that the penultimate link refers to a document concerning firearms and the executive order that relates to it. However, that executive order, on further investigation, refers to smoking in the workplace i.e. this is a ‘smoking gun’. The last tweet posted, which immediately follows the smoking gun, is the link to documents concerning the Clinton Foundation and the pardoning of Marc Rich. (FBIanon had pleaded with Anonymous to avoid being distracted by upcoming events and focus specifically on the Clinton Foundation.)
4chan and Reddit are now alive with people trying to decrypt the cipher and find the ‘smoking gun’ contained within the released documents. They are coordinating a series of FOIA requests to the FBI, which processes a daily quota through its online application portal.
The documents I’m referring to are the very same documents Col. Lang is referring to, above, that are causing disquiet within the Clinton campaign today. The link posted by the FBI says that they are only the “initial release”…
A lot more detail has been uncovered in the various threads currently being updated on 4chan and reddit. Kadzic was Rich’s lawyer when WJC pardoned him. Comey was involved in the rubber-stamping, as was Eric Holder. It’s not clear whether or not this is the smoking gun referred to or whether there is more to come.
I know how far-fetched this might seem to some, but it can be in no doubt that someone within the FBI is attempting to recruit Anonymous as a ‘stay behind’ taskforce, to work on disemminating these documents, and more via FOIA requests. Anons have long known that alphabet agencies lurked within their communities but never before have the two cooperated in this way. It seems that some faction within the FBI is ‘crowd-sourcing’ the investigation to get around those who’re trying to tie their hands.
No one appears to have been able to shut them down yet…
https://twitter.com/FBIRecordsVault/
What proof is there of such a pipeline? Sounds ridiculous
It is impossible to believe that people such as these — Rich , Chagoury Group and others of the worldwide rouges gallery would “donate” the vast sums to the Clinton Foundation(s) and all their various election pals and demand nothing in return.
Who can believe that?
As my previous post noted: The book “The King of Oil” by Daniel Ammann revealed the existence of a secret pipeline supplying Iranian oil to Israel. The pipeline was completed in 1969 and ran from Eilat to Askelon on the Mediterranean sea. The Shah held secret meetings with Golda Meir beginning in 1965 and endorsed the project after the closure of the Suez Canal during the 6 day war disrupted Iranian oil sales and convinced the Shah that Iran needed an alternative route to deliver Iranian oil to the Mediterranean. Israel bought part of the oil the rest was available for sale. This is where Rich came in, he was the one who marketed the Iranian oil that passed through the pipeline. This allowed Rich to become the first independent oil trader and made him an instant success. He later negotiated the right to sell more Iranian oil. Iran had been secretly selling oil to Israel since the mid 1950’s. When asked the Shah always replied, “Iran does not sell oil to Israel.”
Does anyone remember during the Lewinsky scandal when it was revealed that Bill Clinton had told Lewinsky he thought the White House phones were tapped? That would be by Israel. An Isreali company had some kind of contract that basically allowed access to any land line–I guess, even in the White House! Blackmail is a well known Mossad technique. No telling what Israel had on Clinton.
I appreciate the Colonel helping me put all this in context.
Miletus,
Gilbert Chourgny was a Rich associate who used HRC to keep Boko Haram in Nigeria off of the list of terrorist groups. Private mercenaries too?
Miletus,
Thank you, thank you!!
Miletus, I’m a little confused – if ‘FBIanon’ really works for the fibbers and has these ‘smoking gun’ documents why would he bother making the 4channers jump thru a bunch of hoops in order to come to a(possibly wrong)conclusion? Why bother with the cipher? Why not just anonymously stick the whole shebang onto the internet? (maybe get anon and 4chan to help spread the info)
It just seems needlessly complicated and confusing.
So Mark Rich’s former attorney is now an assistant attorney general of the United States and is investigating Hilary Clinton’s email server?
“Qui Pro Domina Justitia Sequitur. The motto refers to the Attorney General “who prosecutes on behalf of Lady Justice.” – from wikipedia
“I’m with her” takes on an all new meaning. So much for “justice for all”.
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/43150
Colonel,
This is certainly very interesting. The Podesta e-mails prove that there is a high level (revolving door) cabal that uses their connections to make deals with the understanding they will get contracts or well-paying jobs as benefits. Most involve looting irredeemable taxpayers and the deregulation of multi-national corporations. I am not surprised that Citibank selected Barrack Obama’s Cabinet.
Somebody does not want Hillary Clinton to be President. For good reason. Only a sociopath would call her top aid for 20 years, Huma Abedin, “one of my staffers”. This all seems to be payback for grudges held since Bill Clinton was President. What is truly frightening is that the Democrats blame Russia. 38 million and then 60 million people were killed due to similar insane perceptions and vanity that escalated into World Wars.
Would they mean a “figurative” pipeline similar to the Hillary Clinton’s weapon’s pipeline from the slain dictator Qaddafi to Turkish Al Qaeda / DAESH?
I thought, the Haifa refinery was being supplied by Iranian oil prior the 1979 Revolution. Thus it needed to be supplied with that type of oil, if they wanted to avoid the costs associated with conversion of the cracking towers.
The TIP line used to transport oil from Iran to Israel. Not exactly a secret though and supposedly shut down.
Meme magic…
The thrill is in the chase; deciphering the cipher creates a viral momentum all of its own. Consider the annual Cicada 3301 contest.
Releasing it in this manner draws in the anons. They ensure that it has life on social media and on the chan sites. The hope is that it can’t be ignored by the media for long.
There’s undoubtedly an element of trolling in this too though. It’s unmistakeable – the clues in the tweets are too obvious. It almost looks like a game of chicken. Given that the last tweet states that this is the “initial” release of files relating to the Clinton Foundation, it looks like someone is daring the Clinton’s to keep going…
OK, since Eddie Amame is in exile, I will volunteer to be the pincushion on this issue, although I am not a fan of Marc Rich and men of his ilk.
1] Rich reportedly provided information to US diplomats, not just Mossad. His company had locals in Iran, South Africa, Cuba, Angola, and even Nicaragua. The State Departments INR Bureau must have considered his tips a gold mine. Rich also did business in Russia, Syria and Libya. After Giuliani indicted Rich, why did he skip a chance to get the Swiss government to arrest Rich, an assertion made by a Swiss official who was ready to help, WH pressure?
2] Rich was somewhat of a hero in the 1973/74 oil crisis when he found a way to break the Arab Oil Embargo thereby lessening the two-block-long lines of cars at American gas stations. He was also given praise in the mid 70s for breaking the ‘Seven Sisters’ stranglehold on the oil market.
3] The Israelis considered Rich a humanitarian for his millions in donations to schools and hospitals in that country. The Swiss also for his charitable contributions in Zurich. Rightly or wrongly that follows a grand old American tradition of robber barons like Carnegie, Mellon, Rockefeller, Stanford and Vanderbilt improving their image after decades of immoral and unethical business practices. That was the primary reason that Rich’s lawyer pleaded in asking for the pardon.
4] WJC himself publicly admitted remorse for the pardon and realized after the fact that it was a mistake.
5] Rich paid more than $171 million in fines to the US government after his indictment and flight to Switzerland.
6] Lastly: “As a condition of the pardon, it was made clear that Rich would drop all procedural defenses against any civil actions brought against him by the United States”
The Trans-Isreal Pipeline used to transport Iranian oil across Israel from Eilat to Ashkelon, because it was cheaper than sending tankers around Africa or through the Suez Canal. When the Shah was deposed, the traffic stopped. Now it seems it transports Russian oil the other way for onward shipment to Asia for the same reason.
There was formerly also the Mosul-Haifa oil pipeline which carried Iraqi oil to Haifa where it was refined. This operated between 1935 and 1948 when the Iraqis refused to allow any more oil to flow after ar broke out in 1948. There were hopes in certain quarters that after the invasion of Iraq in 2003 that this pipeline would be resurrected to assure Israel a supply of cheap oil. I don’t think anything came of it.
Assange and Wikileaks have offered a $25,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer of a DNC staffer that was murdered by a shot to the head on his way home late one night from a bar that he commonly frequented. This is only only cash reward that Wikileaks has ever offered. Wiki will not reveal their source of the DNC leaks, which is their commitment to leakers.
Police reports state that the victim’s watch and wallet had not been stolen.
A FOIA request is something the FBI is legally required to comply with. Tipping anon to FOIA requests sets a legally-protected process for releasing information in motion, thereby protecting those with prior knowledge from accusations of leaking sensitive information in the final days of a Presidential campaign. If any political hack tries to interfere with a FOIA process they are definitely on the wrong side of the law and definitely going to get the whistle blown on them for it.
“Israel’s Tehran connection”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/apr/04/israelstehranconnection
I worked in a “shipyard” in Eilat in 1968 – scraping rust of hulls – and I remember flagged Iranian tankers coming in to unload.
Fred
“So Mark Rich’s former attorney is now an assistant attorney general of the United States and is investigating Hilary Clinton’s email server?”
And is a pal of Podesta who notes that he “kept me out of jail”. It seems tinfoil hat conspiracy theories are true when it comes to Clintonworld. Who would have believed that the investigation is rigged and the blatant corruption at the Clinton Foundation if Podesta’s emails were not exposed?
Yet half the country will vote for a person that could very likely be indicted for felony criminal violations if there’s an impartial grand jury empaneled.
And now the FBI has chosen to open at least some of their files on this matter to the public.
Can this be other than a warning to their betters in the elected government?
Is the sentiment
“if you take action to stop our investigations or against us,
what else will we release?”
If Clinton wins, the long knives will be out for the FBI.
It will be an ugly, ugly scene.
The Third World has been dogged by corruption.
Well, Hillary and the Democrats have been doing everything possible to bring the Third World to America, and with it all its (their) attendant problems.
You can be that their slogan will be “bringing diversity to the FBI”,
which will, in reality, mean the demography of the FBI workforce will be reshaped into resembling that of the Washington Metro.
The problems then will be a combination of inefficiency and corruption.
Like, say, how the Obama DEA has enabled the opioid epidemic.
Am I right or wrong?
VV,
Look at the “story” in MotherJones:
“A Veteran Spy Has Given the FBI Information Alleging a Russian Operation to Cultivate Donald Trump”
These folks seem to be quite desperate and very dangerous. The next week is critical for the world…
Ishmael Zechariah
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/10/veteran-spy-gave-fbi-info-alleging-russian-operation-cultivate-donald-trump
sillybill,
Perhaps it takes this level of barriers to detection and traceback to permit the “Snowdens on the inside” to feel sufficiently protected against Clintonite-Borgist trackback and revenge.
As usual the Israeli’s F’d the Iranians and then wonder why Iranians hate them.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/swiss-court-orders-israel-to-pay-up-for-iranian-oil/
“Campaign finance records show Mr. McAuliffe’s political-action committee donated $467,500 to the 2015 state Senate campaign of Dr. Jill McCabe, who is married to Andrew McCabe, now the deputy director of the FBI.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/clinton-ally-aids-campaign-of-fbi-officials-wife-1477266114
not so secret if it’s in a book.
Very entertaining:
It’s believed that these links are effectively an authentication of FBIanon to 4chan/Anonymous
Hmm, the smoking gun is found when the fat lady sings. 😉
*********
But thanks the Allen Ginsberg files are interesting – a trip down memory lane.
It’s not complicated if you are following a bombshell dream. 😉
and the U.S. Attorney who investigated this “pardon” is the current FBI director.
“…investigation was finished and was replaced by James Comey, who was critical of Clinton’s pardons and of then-Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder’s pardon recommendation..”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Rich#U.S._indictment_and_pardon
mike allen
Anything that Rich did in passing diplomats cocktail party chatter was IMO just good cover. His function was to trade oil for Israel’s account. pl
The Cubs won! You might think this is off topic, but it’s not. Since the last time they won the World Series Ottoman Empire I still existed. For the Middle East the Chicago team’s repeat after 108 years means that the Ottoman Empire Redux is definitely on the rise.
PS: It may also mean the end of pre-sliced bread, since that hadn’t been invented in 1908.
I’m probably only half-joking when I say this:
The late counter-culture hero, Terence McKenna, came up with his own pseudo-scientific theory of time. It was called “novelty theory”. I won’t pretend to understand it (I don’t have nearly enough experience with psychedelics), but I recall that it was something along the lines of reality being pulled towards the end of time, characterized by ever-increasing novelty i.e. strange, unusual events. He based it off of the i-Ching (something I do have some knowledge of) and the Mayan calendar (of which I know little). If I wasn’t already fairly certain it was bat&^&* crazy, I was reassured when 2012 came and went without incident.
2016 has been a strange year.
Colonel –
I was not defending Marc Rich. I detest corrupt businessmen and tax evaders like him.
Have to wonder though, since Rich also did business with Russia did he also pass on info to them? And to Libyan and Iranian officials? The man was a snake IMHO.
mike allen
You are spy obsessed. My point was that Rich’s true function was to trade oil for Israel on the spot market. what chicken feed information he may have handed around was unimportant. pl
James,
Another good book on the oil industry is “Iraq and the International Oil System”, by Stephen Pelletier–
https://www.amazon.com/Iraq-International-Oil-System-America/dp/0944624456
Colonel –
Your point is well taken. And my point is not that Rich was a spy. He was a trafficker of economic background data with anybody or any country who would reciprocate. As you say, a gossiper at cocktail parties and various meetings with officialdom.
VV – in my view, for Hillary to call Huma Abedin “one of my staffers” has differing implications depending on the intention. If Hillary is preparing to cut her loose, then I agree – to reduce Huma to “one of my staffers” is cruel indeed. On the other hand, if Hillary intends to keep her dear one close to her, then referring to her as “one of my staffers” gives Huma a smaller profile for those inclined to attack her, and could be construed as a favor.
IZ,
Mother Jones is rolling over in her grave.
James,
Mine too which also explains why we don’t have the mass transit systems of others or electric cars.
mike allen
IMO you continue to ignore the actual function that Rich performed. The information he shopped around was nothing. It was the actual oil trading that made a great deal of money for Israel. pl
Mike Allen,
I have nothing to back this up except for the words of his people who I worked with in WA. One of the names they dropped was as high-level as it got at that time. They claimed that he and Rich did business with one another. They could have been all talk, of course. This came up in conversation when we were talking about contemporary events and they were shrugging them off as nothing – ‘If you think this is bad, you should have seen…’
My assessment is that they’re interested in making money. I doubt they have any allegiance to anyone, even if they try to stay on the right side of them.
On the subject of Glencore, up until that time it was a pretty small outfit with a very large market cap. When it floated, every employee got a serious windfall, even down to the secretarial staff. The guys I was working with made 7 figures but were still out getting their hands dirty. I doubt that many of them would speak ill of Mr. Rich or his company.
@ Miletus
Now the FBI is looking into that Twitter a/c:
https://thinkprogress.org/fbi-launches-internal-investigation-into-its-own-twitter-account-8d5fc2a81fdc#.aen3048e5
Lol, lol, lol, kinda difficult to shoot down a hasbara isn’t it?
jld
His “guidance” seems to have been clear. pl
Yes, I saw this earlier. ThinkProgress is a highly partisan supporter of HRC, and has been heavily compromised by WikiLeaks (Neera Tanden/Podesta emails). That said, the article names its sources as FBI officials who, by the way, are contradicting the official FBI line on the Twitter account. The official account is implausible, of course, but they’re contradicting it nonetheless. Not everyone in the FBI is steering in the same direction…
I look forward to them trying to prove that the Tweets are an encrypted message.
According to my uncle who worked for Phibro all his life, Marc Rich left after his request for a million dollar salary at his annual review was rejected “nobody gets that kind of money” was the alleged response. His request was in his mind, justified by his oil trading profits for Phibro.
As for Marc Rich being “a spy” this is BS. All commodity traders do their level best to cultivate connected people and Hoover up all country specific information that may affect commodity pricing all the time. That includes all political gossip right down to who is sleeping with who. This information is shared within the firm via visit reports and also finds its way through well established channels to intelligence agencies and departments of state. As a child, I watched my uncle and my father regularly collect such information over many social occasions with people from many countries. I may even still have copies of the appreciations they subsequently wrote.
I think you know better Colonel. I would hope so anyway. I never disputed your claim about Rich and Israel, I agreed with it. If that agreement was not strong enough in your opinion then I repeat it here: you are right on regarding Rich’s oil trading for Israel.
jld – As for the hasbara moniker, I have agreed with the Colonel on the USS Liberty and agreed with him on the need to strip AIPAC and other Israeli lobbys out of Washington. You can search and check out my record on this blog. But on the hasbara insults you need to stretch your imagination and try harder. I am not thin skinned like some of the other guests here. I’ve been called better and I’ve been called worse, usually accompanied by lots of four-letter words.
mike allen
You are a brother to me as well as to your fellow Marines. pl
On Sept 18 2016 Joe Conason was on C Span to talk about his bio of Bill Clinton. #1 topic is the pardon of Rich.
~ 6 min Conason explains (in tones that assume that Americans will be deeply sympathetic with the reasoning) that Ehud Barak had asked Clinton to pardon Rich three times. Clinton & Barak had worked “very closely” on I/P peace deal and got “closer than anyone ever before.” Now, however, Barak was facing loss of his position.
Conason said “Barak told me when I interviewed him in TelAviv that Rich had been an asset of the Mossad for many years. He had done all kinds of work for Israeli intelligence, and some for US. But principally things like rescuing Jewish families in places like Yemen and Iraq . . . and Iran. He was able to get officials [in those hostile countries] to look the other way . . . In the eyes of the Israeli government he was a . . .sayin . . . and Barak felt that Israel owed him and asked Clinton to fulfill that debt for them.”
https://www.c-span.org/video/?414974-4/washington-journal-joe-conason-clintons-campaign-2016
Ronen Bergman has some interesting insights into Israel-Iran arms trading (rather, arms supplying) in his book, The Secret War with Iran: The 30-Year Clandestine Struggle Against the World’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Powerhttps://www.amazon.com/Secret-War-Iran-Clandestine-Dangerous/dp/1400159822
As is obvious from the title, Bergman disdains hyperbole & the book is cooly objective in every particular.
He writes that even tho “Khomeini hated Israel,” Israel sold arms to Iran throughout the Iran-Iraq war because Israelis felt profound consternation at being shut out of their former ability to acquire insider’s knowledge of Iran’s doings. Israelis had learned that selling arms to a “totalitarian” government was an effective way to stay close to the topmost centers of power. Besides, Bergman wrote, Israel was making money hand-over-fist; they didn’t give the ethics of the situation a single thought: they just sold sold sold, and let the Iranians and Iraqis kill each other.”
—-
[tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you —-)
I wouldn’t use the word “entertaining.’
Some of us have dear ones who have great abilities (and expensive educations) that put them in the center of this “entertainment.” While I appreciate the stimulation such specialists derive from the “thrill of the chase,” the chase is also fraught with moral and career hazards.
I’m going to guess that the investigation will be a token effort because of potential countermoves exposing political interference from the likes of McCabe, Kadzik, and maybe Lynch.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fbi-finds-emails-related-to-hillary-clintons-state-department-tenure/
“These emails, CBS News’ Andres Triay reports, are not duplicates of emails found on Secretary Clinton’s private server. At this point, however, it remains to be seen whether these emails are significant to the FBI’s investigation into Clinton.” (emphasis added)
At the very least, they were not disclosed.
The feeling is mutual Colonel to you and to your fellow Soldiers.
Cee,
You notice Hilary did not ask her 20+ year staffer Huma to release the emails.