Refusing Fuisz

A Tough Sell on Capitol Hill, part three
May 21 2010

As the 2000 trial of Libyans Megrahi and Fhimah was being prepared, one controversy that surfaced and threatened was a revived claim by Dr Richard Fuisz. Reported in the Sunday Herald (Scotland), Fuisz was described as “a multi-millionaire businessman and pharmaceutical researcher,” reported by other sources to have been “the CIA's key operative” in Damascus, Syria in 1988. It was said he could “immediately resolve” the issue and name the true perpetrators of the bombing of Flight 103. None of them were Libyan.

We know of this because he deposited his story - or rather the fact that he had a story - with a Congressional Aide to Rep. Ron Wyden (D-OR). A solid liberal on the House’s blue team, Wyden’s own involvement is unclear. But according to the Herald, this aide shortly swore an affidavit regarding Fuisz’ claims. He had tried to tell the CIA about this before, but had the reports destroyed, the aide says. Further, she relates Fuisz’ assertion that:

"If the government would let me, I could identify the men behind this attack today. I could do the right thing I could go into any crowded restaurant and pick out these men I can tell you their home addresses You won't find [them] anywhere in Libya. You will only find [them] in Damascus. I was investigating on the ground and I know."

The government didn’t let him and one month after that affidavit “a court in Washington DC issued an order,” the Herald explains, “barring him from revealing any information on the grounds of ‘military and state secrets privilege’” Classic conspiracy theory fuel.

However, the paper also reported his gagging actually stemmed from another issue entirely – as part of the legal proceedings about criminal American military assistance to Iraq in its war against Iran. As a millionaire pharmaceutical researcher, that his secrets guarded the "nation's security or diplomatic relations" seems quite troubling.

Dr. Fuisz had apparently held his secret knowledge about Lockerbie for quite some time before coming out with it in late 1994. And legal proceedings being what they are (complex but largely predictable), he might just have guessed the Iraq weapons case could have him silenced any time – as happened in November. October then would be a strange time to simply tell someone, in effect, “I could name the true perps later on, except that I might be gagged.” If he wanted to tell the truth, why not just tell it outright before it’s too late?

There has been an amazing amount of apparent disinformation surrounding the Flight 103 case, and my sense of that is tingling a bit here. But I can’t see either ruling our or fully believing that Fuisz’ locked box contains a key to the case, as some have concluded. The Herald reported some unnamed UN ambassadors, alerted of Fuisz’ story and his gagging, urged the order be lifted to allow him to speak before the trial of the two Libyans. The request was of course ignored (I have the transcripts from the trial and Fuisz is not mentioned that I could find).

Now the congressional aide who had testified to Fuisz’ hints, one Susan Lindauer, was not so much ignored as attacked - albeit a decade later and over a different issue, again involving Iraq.
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Next: Part four: Susan of Grandeur
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Source (throughout):
MacKay, Neil. "Lockerbie: CIA witness gagged by US government." Sunday Herald. May 28 2000.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4156/is_20000528/ai_n13949725/?tag=content;col1

Trafficant's Transporter Override

A Tough Sell on Capitol Hill, part two
May 20 2010

Gerson and Adler’s book mentions a meeting, in late 1989 or 1990, where the President’s Commision on Aviation Security and Terrorism (PCAST) met with family members of Flight 103 victims to hear their questions. Of the 26 items they tallied from the session, five were grouped under the heading “Trafficant/Mossad allegations,” referring to Mossad poseur Juval Aviv, godfather of the drug swap theory, and Representative James Trafficant (D-OH). [1 p 65/66]

Trafficant, a boisterous Conservative populist, has been the loudest congressional critic of the official story on Lockrbie and, as far as I can tell, the only such critic. He was previously known as a conspiracy theorist (JFK, etc.), Israel critic, pro-life but pro-labor, advocate against the income tax, etc. Representaive Trafficant remained loved by many in Ohio for his bold stands and trademark one-minute speeches, usually punctuated with the sci-fi reference “beam me up.” [2]

An interesting 1992 article in New York magazine highlighted the role of LaRouche affiliates in helping Juval Aviv and Pan Am’s insurers to leak their CIA-implicating “secret” report to Rep. Trafficant According to author Christopher Byron, a man named Marchetti handed the file over, and on November 3, less than a month after it was finished, Mr. Trafficant was holding a press conference, “and began waving around several pages of the report while railing that the CIA was behind the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.” [3]

Aviv’s report is clearly a work of dubious or negative value, and Trafficant’s failure to catch that is not to his credit. His questioning of the official story remained based in large part on acceptance of the long-running hoax of the “drug swap theory,” as in another one-minute speech from October 2000, mentioning “an original Mossad report” about “a drug run from Frankfurt to New York” that “embarrasses the CIA.” [4] But he did make these spot-on observations:

”Mr. Speaker, the star witness in the Pan Am 103 trial turns out to be a paid CIA informant who lied through his teeth. […] The families of the victims deserve the truth. […] if these two Libyans were responsible for blowing up Pan Am 103, they [would] have already choked on a chicken bone in a jail cell of Qadhafi's.” [4]

Compared to the legislators mentioned in part one and their safe mainstream approach, this pompadour-toupeed self-described “jackass” is something of the opposite – full of rebellion and short on congressional survival skills. His ways left him awkwardly ostracized by both parties by the end of the 1990s. When Trafficant was jailed in 2002 for tax problems, bribery and racketeering, and making aides do chores for him, he was also expelled from Congress almost unanimously. Only Gary Condit, himself saddled with even graver accusations later dismissed, voted to keep Trafficant. [2] His transponder overridden, he would not be beamed up this time.

Unlike most congressional offenders, Rep Trafficant served seven actual years and wasn’t released until September 2 2009 - thus serving a sentence almost concurrent with “Lockerbie bomber” Megrahi’s. He’s since been speaking on the radio and at Tea Parties, against Washington’s Isreal slant, and considering seeking his old seat to pursue his agenda, like targeting the 16th amendment. [2] As a dissident voice I may not agree with, I welcome Mr. Trafficat’s return to the stage. But on Lockerbie, he’s no Tam Dalyell, and a champion of dubious PR value.
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Next, part three: Refusing Fuisz
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Sources:
[1] Gerson, Allan and Jerry Adler. The Price of Terror: Lessons of Lockerbie for a World on the Brink. New York, Harper Collins, 2001. First edition. 302 pages. pp 65-66
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Traficant
[3] Christopher Byron "The LaRouche Connection." NY Mag October 5 1992 p 24/25 (Via Google Books)
[4] http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=21107

"To Support Justice" - The Congressional Consensus

A Tough Sell on Capitol Hill, part one
May 18 2010

Compared to This...
Following the destruction of the American airliner Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie, there were quite a few voices in the United Kingdom’s house of Commons, and even Lords, and regional assemblies, who both supported victims' search for truth, and questioned or even rejected the official story of the bombing.

Some have championed this nuanced stance with great and vocal conviction; Tam Dalyell, a long-serving Scottish MP (Labor), staunchly anti-war and anti-Imperialism, has called 17 “adjournment debates” on Lockerbie down the years. [1] He's floated some seriously heavy notions, like a "Faustian pact" where the U.S. sacrificed one plane to prevent multiple attacks. [2] His views are not widely held, but intelligently put, generally spot-on, and heard regularly.

More recently Member of Scottish Parliament Christine Grahame (SNP, South of Scotland) in 2009 visited convicted “bomber” al Megrahi in prison, spoke up of belief in his his innocence, called for a new investigation, [3] questioned key evidence in the old one, [4] and gave the current name of the possible true bomber, protected in the United States. [5] The last was within the parliament chamber of Scotland.

...the American Mainstream
Across the pond, within just a few miles of that person and of Arlington National Cemetery and its monument for the 189 American killed in the bombing, we have the gathered US congress. Over the decades, many senators and representatives have done their bit publicly lobbying for the bereaved families of 103, predictably earning approval points on the way. Congressional support included urging an investigation, calling hearings, pushing related bills, and saying the right things at the right times.

Alan Gerson and Jerry Adler’s 2000 book The Price of Terror lists Congressional players from both houses and both sides of the aisle (alphabetically here): Al D’Amato, Bob Dole, Dante Fascell, Benjamin Gilman, Orrin Hatch, Henry Hyde, Edward Kennedy, Frank Lautenberg, George Mitchell, Frank Murkowski, and Arlen Specter. [6 p 307] Kennedy was “the senator who probably worked the hardest and longest on Pan Am 103” [6 p 60] Lautenberg also stands out, and both he and D’Amato served on President Bush’s 1989-90 President's Commission on Airline Security and Terrorism, (PCAST) to partially investigate the attack (mostly Pan Am's alleged failures at Frankfurt). [6 p 64]

“[W]hat pressure there was” to broaden and tighten sanctions enforcement on Libya, Gerson and Adler wrote, “came from Congress, especially from Kennedy and Lautenberg,” [6 p 258] Others like Phil Gramm (R-TX) took their turn with the tough stick, championing the families as they went. [6 p 293] Holding then and continuing on to many lofty positions, these folks all have stayed in the comfortable norms – to seek justice and truth is, to them, synonymous with prosecuting the Libyans as was done.

When it came time for an actual trial, they were less involved – and besides, sanctions over the impasse had always served U.S. interests better. But after the trial and al Megrahi’s conviction, the congressional fostering of the politically correct justice continued quietly with the status quo, until talk started of the "bomber" being released from prison. In August 2009 Seven senators (Gillibrand, Kerry, Kennedy, Lautenberg, Leahy, Menendez, and Schumer), alarmed at the possibility of compassionate release, urged the Scots to keep Megrahi in jail ‘til he was dead, in part “to support justice.” [7] They apparently failed to realize this would violate normal Scottish standards and would be arguably illegal.

And apparently none of them harbors even the faintest doubt about the man’s guilt, as continuing to hold him would clearly show that Scotland “oppose[d] acts of terrorism.” [7] We now know just how dubious the official findings are at their factual core, but that was always encased in an elaborate façade of procedural verification. Investigation, trial, and conviction is all the Senators needed to see, and that’s usually a sound approach. Further, the official story remains a safely non-partisan issue – the whole system wants to help the families and believes in the case heading to Zeist.

So clearly this kind of widespread acceptance of a “Big Lie” doesn’t require any systemic conspiracy. It does, however, indicate at the least a lack of truly rigorous independent thought. And those very few on Capitol Hill who have dared speak up in question of that process somehow wind up being less than convincing and wind up in deep trouble of someone’s making.
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next: part two - Trafficant’s Transporter Override
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Sources:
[1] Wikipedia. Tam Dalyell. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tam_Dalyell
[2] http://news.scotsman.com/comment/Tam-Dalyell-Lockerbie-papers-may.5575560.jp
[3] Wikipedia. Christine Grahame. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Grahame
[4] http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/2009/10/key-lockerbie-evidence-unsafe-claims.html
[5] http://lockerbiedivide.blogspot.com/2010/03/where-in-world-is-abu-elias.html
[6] Gerson, Allan and Jerry Adler. The Price of Terror: Lessons of Lockerbie for a World on the Brink. New York, Harper Collins, 2001. First edition. 302 pages.
[7] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/south_of_scotland/8206458.stm