The Ultimate Insider - Richard Perle

[DoYouEverWonder]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50388-2004May23.html

Richard N. Perle's Many Business Ventures Followed His Years as a Defense Official

By David S. Hilzenrath
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 24, 2004; Page E01

For longtime Pentagon adviser and boardroom insider Richard N. Perle, the bonus plan at newspaper publisher Hollinger International Inc. was a can't-lose proposition.

While Perle was overseeing Hollinger as a member of the board for the past several years, he also was co-chairman of a subsidiary that invested in dot-coms. He participated in a bonus plan that paid executives a share of the profits from successful Internet investments without taking into account losses on failures, the company said in a complaint against its former chief executive, Conrad M. Black, and others filed in federal court in Chicago this month.

Perle received $3.1 million in such bonuses from May 2000 to January 2001, the complaint said.

<snip>

In an interview Saturday, Perle said the investor's lawsuit "is in many respects just out and out wrong and in other respects very misleading," and any suggestion "that actions or decisions taken by me involved a quid pro quo for compensation I received . . . is absolutely false."

"Did I take actions, inappropriate actions, because of actual or promised or anticipated rewards or compensation? The answer is flatly no," he said.


Sure Richard. Whatever you say Richard, you never do anything wrong.

[ze_dscherman]

1. More like him

He was also in with the Boeing tanker scandal.

Some interesting article: McCain inserts key provision in defense bill

WASHINGTON -- Republican Senator John McCain has inserted into a defense bill a provision that would result in greater scrutiny of the Defense Policy Board, a controversial incubator for White House policy on security, arms procurement, and the war in Iraq.

A three-paragraph rider in the Senate version of the defense authorization bill directs the Pentagon's inspector general to address "serious concerns" regarding potential conflicts of interest involving Defense Policy Board members and arms manufacturers. The provision, put forward by McCain, Republican of Arizona, recommends the inspector general examine whether the policies and procedures of the "are adequate to sufficiently insulate its members from advising on programmatic decisions that may benefit defense contractors and/or organizations with which members may have a direct or indirect financial interest."

SNIP

Members of the Defense Policy Board include such well-known conservatives as former House speaker Newt Gingrich and former vice president Dan Quayle, in addition to powerful Washington insiders like Richard Perle, a former Reagan administration official and a leading proponent for the war in Iraq, and Admiral David Jeremiah, a former vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Jeremiah is a director or adviser of at least five corporations that received more than $10 billion in Pentagon contracts in 2002, according to the Center for Public Integrity, a watchdog group.

The provision in the Senate bill was motivated in part by the findings last year of a congressional probe into a Pentagon request to lease a fleet of tanker aircraft, which revealed Defense Policy Board members were lobbying on behalf of Boeing Co., which makes the aircraft. The investigation heightened concerns, according to analysts, that the board had evolved into a back-door broker between arms makers and the Pentagon. The bill recommends the Pentagon reduce the number of board members and impose term limits on them, tighten members' financial disclosure requirements, and open board meetings to the public.

More: http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2004/05/23/mccain_inserts_key_provision_in_defense_bill/

[salin]

3. Wow - I missed that article. Am very glad to hear McCain slipped

that into the bill. Wonder if it will stay in there...

[saigon68]

10. NOTHING TO SEE-- MOVE ALONG




"The Iraqi people are now free. And they do not have to worry about the secret police coming
after them in the middle of the night, and they don't have to worry about their husbands and
brothers being taken off and shot, or their wives being taken to rape rooms. Those days are
over."——Paul Bremer, Administrator, Coalition Provisional Authority, Sept. 2, 2003

"Iraq is free of rape rooms and torture chambers."——President Bush, remarks to 2003
Republican National Committee Presidential Gala, Oct. 8, 2003

“One thing is for certain: There won't be any more mass graves and torture rooms and rape
rooms."——Bush, press availability in Monterrey, Mexico. Jan. 12, 2004

[seemslikeadream]

12. Don't act suprised America - It's in our blood

WITHOUT SANCTUARY


African American male standing on buggy, facing camera, stripped, deep lacerations and wounds, his handcuffed hands placed to cover his genitals. lynch mob. Circa 1900, location unknown.



The defiant victim of this mob is forced to pose on a buggy for the camera. The handcuffs bite into his inflamed lower arms. He stares directly into the camera lens with undiminished dignity. In the righthand corner, wearing a softbrimmed hat, edging into the camera's view, is a grinning man with a whip. A coarse blanket rests on the buggy seat.

The three cabinet cards depicting the torture and hanging of this man (numbers 38 and 39 and 40) were at one time laced together with a twisted purple thread, so as to unfold like a map.

more
http://www.musarium.com/withoutsanctuary/main.html

EVERY DEATH CREATES NEW ENEMIES
MORE TERRORISTS
MORE DANGER
MORE DEATH
AND REMEMBER...
HE IS JUST GETTING STARTED...
BUSH'S PLAN FOR PEACE
IS THE PEACE OF THE COMMON GRAVE

LET AMERICA BE AMERICA AGAIN

http://www.bushflash.com/pax.html



Let America be America Again...by Langston Hughes


Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.
Let it be the pioneer on the plain
Seeking a home where he himself is free.

(America never was America to me.)

Let America be the dream the dreamers dreamed--
Let it be that great strong land of love
Where never kings connive nor tyrants scheme
That any man be crushed by one above.

(It never was America to me.)

O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.

(There's never been equality for me,
Nor freedom in this "homeland of the free.")

Say, who are you that mumbles in the dark?
And who are you that draws your veil across the stars?

I am the poor white, fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery's scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek--
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

I am the young man, full of strength and hope,
Tangled in that ancient endless chain
Of profit, power, gain, of grab the land!
Of grab the gold! Of grab the ways of satisfying need!
Of work the men! Of take the pay!
Of owning everything for one's own greed!

I am the farmer, bondsman to the soil.
I am the worker sold to the machine.
I am the Negro, servant to you all.
I am the people, humble, hungry, mean--
Hungry yet today despite the dream.
Beaten yet today--O, Pioneers!
I am the man who never got ahead,
The poorest worker bartered through the years.

Yet I'm the one who dreamt our basic dream
In the Old World while still a serf of kings,
Who dreamt a dream so strong, so brave, so true,
That even yet its mighty daring sings
In every brick and stone, in every furrow turned
That's made America the land it has become.
O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.
The land that's mine--the poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME--
Who made America,
Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,
Whose hand at the foundry, whose plow in the rain,
Must bring back our mighty dream again.

Sure, call me any ugly name you choose--
The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

O, yes,
I say it plain,
America never was America to me,
And yet I swear this oath--
America will be!

Out of the rack and ruin of our gangster death,
The rape and rot of graft, and stealth, and lies,
We, the people, must redeem
The land, the mines, the plants, the rivers.
The mountains and the endless plain--
All, all the stretch of these great green states--
And make America again!

[saigon68]

13. TRADITIONAL REPUBLICAN SUMMER NIGHT OUTING


This is prom night prank played out in Indiana





Lynching 1930

A mob of 10,000 whites took sledgehammers to the county jailhouse doors to get at these two
young blacks accused of raping a white girl; the girl’’s uncle saved the life of a third by
proclaiming the man’’s innocence. Although this was Marion, Ind., most of the nearly 5,000
lynchings documented between Reconstruction and the late 1960s were perpetrated in the South.
(Hangings, beatings and mutilations were called the sentence of ““Judge Lynch.””) Some lynching
photos were made into postcards designed to boost white supremacy, but the tortured bodies and
grotesquely happy crowds ended up revolting as many as they scared. Today the images remind
us that we have not come as far from barbarity as we’’d like to think.


This photo was taken 15 years before I was born. This was typical behavior into the late 60's in
certain enlightened areas of AMERIKA.

There were 5,000 of these quaint folk celebrations, with Black men being the primary recipients
of the crowds adoration.

[seemslikeadream]

14. America never was America to me,And yet I swear this oath--America will be

The steel of freedom does not stain.
From those who live like leeches on the people's lives,
We must take back our land again,
America!

[saigon68]

15. What a clueless man

Sent by God ??? LOL

[cosmicdot]

4. Notes on Current Board

- Ties to Defense Industry. Research by the Center for Public Integrity revealed that as of December 2002, Defense Policy Board members had ties to several prominent defense-related companies like Boeing, TRW, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Booz Allen Hamilton as well as some smaller firms like Symantec Corp., Technology Strategies and Alliance Corp., and Polycom Inc. Furthermore, the organization discovered that of the 30 board members "at least nine have ties to companies that have won more than $76 billion in defense contracts in 2001 and 2002." Additionally, four of the members "are registered lobbyists, one of whom represents two of the three largest defense contractors." < Center for Public Integrity, 3/28/03b http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/report.asp?ReportID=513&L1=10&L2=10&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0 >


- Focus of Board changed under Rumsfeld and Perle. Observers have noted that the scope of the board's focus has broadened under the Bush administration. While traditionally it had advised the Secretary of Defense on "long-term policy issues such as the strategic implications of defense policies and tactical considerations, including what types of weapons the military should develop," under Rumsfeld and Perle, the board has become more involved with issues relating to the overall objectives of US foreign policy. < Center for Public Integrity, 3/28/03b (see link above) > For example, in July 2002, a guest speaker - who had been invited by then-chairman Richard Perle - gave a presentation in which he "recommended that US officials give an ultimatum to stop backing terrorism or face seizure of its oil fields and its financial assets invested in the United States." < Washington Post, 8/6/03 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A47913-2002Aug5¬Found=true >

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/organization/profiles/defensepolicyboard.html

It's about time. No Senate oversight, etc.

Members: Kenneth Adelman; Richard Allen; Gary S. Becker; Barry M. Blechman; Harold Brown; Eliot Cohen; Devon Cross; Gen. (Ret.) Ronald R. Fogleman; Thomas Foley; Tillie Fowler; Newt Gingrich; Gen. (Ret.) Charles A. Horner; Fred C. Ikle; David Jeremiah, Admiral; Henry Kissinger; Adm. (Ret.) William Owens; Richard Perle

"An FBI summary of a 1970 wiretap recorded Perle discussing classified information with someone at the Israeli embassy. He came under fire in 1983 when newspapers reported he received substantial payments to represent the interests of an Israeli weapons company. Perle denied conflict of interest, insisting that, although he received payment for these services after he had assumed his position in the Defense Department, he was between government jobs when he worked for the Israeli firm." (Findley 1989, chapter 5; see also Saba 1984)

Dan Quayle; Henry Rowen; James Schlesinger; Gen. (Ret.) Jack Sheehan;
Kiron Skinner; Walter B. Slocombe; Hal Sonnenfeldt; Ruth Wedgwood;
Chris Williams; Pete Wilson; James Woolsey; Michèle A. Flournoy;
George P. Shultz

Bios at Cooperative Research link.

[Just Me]

11. The board was certainly a back-door broker between arms makers,...

,...and the Pentagon. This isn't news except to anyone who simply does not pay attention. It's just outrageous they are allowed to advise on war when they profit from warring,...how f*ck'd up is that?

Hell, I remember reading about "Prince of Darkness" Perle actually advising investors about how to go about profiteering from war. Perle was makes me go "EWWWWWWWW",...so does Woosley, Kissinger and Gingrich. They seem to just love the prospects of death and destruction.

[UpInArms]

2. Seymour Hersh did an expose on him

in the New Yorker in March 2003

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030317fa_fact

excerpt:

Perle is also a managing partner in a venture-capital company called Trireme Partners L.P., which was registered in November, 2001, in Delaware. Trireme’s main business, according to a two-page letter that one of its representatives sent to Khashoggi last November, is to invest in companies dealing in technology, goods, and services that are of value to homeland security and defense. The letter argued that the fear of terrorism would increase the demand for such products in Europe and in countries like Saudi Arabia and Singapore.

The letter mentioned the firm’s government connections prominently: “Three of Trireme’s Management Group members currently advise the U.S. Secretary of Defense by serving on the U.S. Defense Policy Board, and one of Trireme’s principals, Richard Perle, is chairman of that Board.” The two other policy-board members associated with Trireme are Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State (who is, in fact, only a member of Trireme’s advisory group and is not involved in its management), and Gerald Hillman, an investor and a close business associate of Perle’s who handles matters in Trireme’s New York office. The letter said that forty- five million dollars had already been raised, including twenty million dollars from Boeing; the purpose, clearly, was to attract more investors, such as Khashoggi and Zuhair.

<snip>

As chairman of the board, Perle is considered to be a special government employee and therefore subject to a federal Code of Conduct. Those rules bar a special employee from participating in an official capacity in any matter in which he has a financial interest. “One of the general rules is that you don’t take advantage of your federal position to help yourself financially in any way,” a former government attorney who helped formulate the Code of Conduct told me. The point, the attorney added, is to “protect government processes from actual or apparent conflicts.”

...more...

[DoYouEverWonder]

5. "You don?t take advantage of your federal position

to help yourself financially in any way."

But in the WP article, Perle says he just doing what he has to do to provide for his family. Don't you realize he's just trying to make a living? The really scary part is that this monster has a family? I hope it doesn't mean he passed his genes onto another generation?

[ze_dscherman]

6. And just a little while later, Perle quietly resigned from the board

... after telling Blitzer: "Look, Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly."

http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/03/03/10_perle.html

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. And a little while after that

Perle decided it really wasn't a good idea to sue Hersh in a British court.

[ze_dscherman]

8. So Perle ceded to a (closest to a) terrorist!

He he

:bounce: :evilgrin: :bounce:

[JHB]

9. Honest Graft: Perle of Tammany Hall

Perley & pals are just reliving the glory days of Tammany Hall. That's may be one reason for having the CONvention in NYC.

To wit, here's an excerpt from "PLUNKITT OF TAMMANY HALL":

There's an honest graft, and I'm an example of how it works. I might sum up the whole thing by sayin': "I seen my opportunities and I took'em."

Just let me explain by examples. My party's in power in the city, and it's goin' to undertake a lot of public improvements. Well, I'm tipped off, say, that they're going to lay out a new park at a certain place.

I see my opportunity and I take it. I go to that place and I buy up all the land I can in the neighborhood. Then the board of this or that makes its plan public, and there is a rush to get my land, which nobody cared particular for before.

Ain't it perfectly honest to charge a good price and make a profit on my investment and foresight? Of course, it is. Well, that's honest graft.
---more---
http://www.uhb.fr/faulkner/ny/plunkitt.htm