Where Are They Now?

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Where Are They Now?

Postby Elvis » Mon Oct 19, 2015 11:41 am

This might be a useful place to inquire about interesting people who have dropped off the radar. Inspired by Searcher08's remark, "Just ask Indira Singh. If you can find her."


So I'll start with Indira Singh: what became of her? Where is she now?
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
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Re: Where Are They Now?

Postby Iamwhomiam » Mon Oct 19, 2015 3:03 pm

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Re: Where Are They Now?

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Oct 19, 2015 3:13 pm

MinstrelBoy :)
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Where Are They Now?

Postby seemslikeadream » Mon Oct 19, 2015 3:16 pm

The Disappearing Prince of Darkness
by Jim Lobe

Where is Richard Perle?

His virtually total absence from the Iran nuclear debate over the past two years was perhaps one of the most remarkable features of the whole controversy. Ubiquitous in the major media in the run-up to and aftermath of the Iraq war debacle and a long-time advocate of “regime change” by whatever means in Iran, the “prince of darkness,” Washington’s leading neoconservative operative for several decades, seems almost to have entirely disappeared from public view.

A pretty exhaustive search on Google and in Nexis-Lexis found only a couple of instances where he was interviewed about the Iran deal at any length. Both appeared on the right-wing “NewsMax” website. On March 3 this year, he commented on Bibi Netanyahu’s controversial speech to a joint session of Congress: “it was an excellent speech and should put behind us the controversy over whether he should’ve been invited.” And on March 23, he predicted that the deal between Tehran and the P5+1 was headed for a “crash landing” due to congressional opposition. On April 28, he was also interviewed in a video produced by the Wilson Center, but the main subject was the effectiveness of sanctions against other countries. The Iran sanctions “should’ve been part of a strategy for regime change,” he opined.

On June 8, 2015, he was interviewed on “Secure Freedom Radio,” an outlet of the far-right Center for Security Policy (CSP), led by his old comrade-in-neocon-arms and former subordinate in Scoop Jackson’s office and at the Pentagon, Islamophobe Frank Gaffney. But the subject of that show was Turkey and the Kurds, not Iran. You would think that the man the Corporation for Public Broadcasting chose to present the hour-long “The Case for War” in its controversial 2007 “Crossroads” series would get a bit more media attention as Washington debated perhaps the most significant Middle East-related diplomatic accord since the Oslo agreement a couple decades ago.

Warmonger

When I first noticed his glaring absence from the public debate on the Iran deal, I thought it was perhaps a clever tactical move on his part. After all, Perle was a very early promoter of Ahmad Chalabi and, more than any single individual outside the Bush administration, led the public charge for the Iraq invasion. He repeatedly insisted on the major television and cable networks, even before the proverbial dust had settled on Lower Manhattan, that Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks. Later he floated tall tales about meetings in Prague between Saddam’s agents and Mohammed Atta and the Iraqi leader’s crash nuclear weapons program. For him to take a leading role in rallying opposition to the Iran deal would inevitably evoke memories of his earlier warmongering and thus might prove counter-productive.

Of course, it was also possible that major media had learned that they had a public responsibility not to give a platform to people with well-established records either of mendacity or gullibility—Perle still thinks Chalabi, the architect of de-Baathification, is Iraq’s savior-in-waiting—depending on which you category you believe best applies to Perle. But, judging from all the attention they gave to Bibi’s views on the Iran deal—not to mention the recent ravings, at AEI no less, of Dick Cheney—I don’t find that explanation particularly persuasive.

In the two NewsMax interviews, Perle was identified as a “senior fellow” at the American Enterprise Institute. At the Wilson Center and on “Secure Freedom” interviews, he was referred to as a “resident fellow” at AEI. Remarkably, however, Perle’s name no longer appears on the think tank’s list of scholars and fellows. On Wednesday, I phoned AEI’s press contact to ask exactly what was Perle’s position. She hesitated and asked me to send an email that she could refer to the right person. But no reply was forthcoming. When I talked with AEI’s receptionist last week, she told me that, although Perle retained an affiliation with the Institute, he was “off-site.” And when I inserted his name into the site’s “Search” tab, the latest item that comes up dates back to April 20, 2014. This was an article he co-authored with his son, Jonathan, for The American Interest entitled “Leadership as a Last Resort”—a predictable neocon critique of the Obama administration—in which he was described as “a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former Assistant Secretary of Defense.”

So why doesn’t he show up on AEI’s experts’ list? And why can’t its press people tell me what his status is?

Of course, he may simply have retired. But given his long service to and association with AEI, doesn’t he somehow deserve to be given emeritus status? He no doubt raised lots of money for the institution. When Perle and the neocons were riding high in George W. Bush’s first term (when Cheney ruled the roost), Bruce Kovner, a very private but very important neocon philanthropist, served as deputy chairman and then chairman of AEI’s board of trustees and was likely its top individual donor. From 2002 through 2005, he gave AEI some $11.5 million, according to tax filings. Kovner, who is known to have been close to Perle (as well as Cheney), is still on AEI’s board of trustees.

Pletka’s Ploy?

I have heard from some well-connected neoconservatives, however, that Danielle Pletka, a former Perle protégée who has served as AEI’s vice president for foreign and defense policy for a number of years now, has long looked forward to (and may have lobbied for) Perle’s departure. Her unhappiness with him apparently dates at least from 2008 when the Wall Street Journal reported that he was actively exploring investing in oil-related projects in Kurdistan. He was also looking into additional investments in Kazakhstan whose notoriously authoritarian and corrupt president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, he had praised as “visionary and wise,” according to the Kazakhstan embassy here.

As the Journal noted at the time, Perle resigned as chairman of Don Rumsfeld’s Defense Policy Board (DPB) in March 2003 after the exposure of his role as an adviser to a telecom company (Global Crossing) that was seeking the Bush administration’s approval of its sale to a Hong Kong-based corporation. Global Crossing had retained his services for $125,000 with the promise that he would receive an additional $600,000 if the sale were consummated, according to The New York Times. Perle subsequently severed his ties to Global Crossing and pledged to donate any fee for his past service to “the families of American forces killed or injured in Iraq,” But he retained his membership on the DPB—which, thanks to Perle and his good friend then-Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, was dominated by fellow neocons—at Rumsfeld’s behest. (Perle and Rumsfeld forged close ties dating back to their mutual effort to derail détente in the mid-1970s.)

Pletka’s unhappiness reportedly increased in 2011 at the outset of the insurrection against Muammar Qadhafi. Documents made public by the Libyan opposition established that Perle had travelled to Libya twice in 2006 to meet with Qadhafi as a paid adviser to The Monitor Group, a Massachusetts-based consultancy firm that had been retained by Tripoli for a “Project to Enhance the Profile of Libya and Muammar Qadhafi,” as one Monitor memo described its role. Perle, who never registered as a foreign agent, later reported his findings to Cheney, according to the documents.

If it’s true that Pletka has maneuvered Perle out of AEI, it marks something of a watershed. Probably Washington’s most influential neocon operative of his generation, he played a critical role in driving the U.S. to war in Iraq, along with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith (another Perle protégé). But he seems to have retired to the fevered swamps of Gaffney’s CSP.

His departure, if that indeed is what it is, follows those of his long-time collaborators at the Institute. There’s Joshua Muravchik, one of the few neocon apparatchniks who has voiced some regret about Iraq but who has nonetheless promoted war with Iran since at least 2006. And there’s also Michael Ledeen, who, judging by his writings, has long occupied a fevered swamp of his very own as a columnist at Pajamas Media. Ledeen went from being the “Freedom Scholar” at AEI to the “Freedom Scholar” at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) several years ago. Another former AEI scholar, Reuel Marc Gerecht, moved over to FDD at the same time. It’s not clear whether the departure of any or all three were related to Pletka’s dissatisfaction with their work (although Muravchik had loudly complained to colleagues before he left that he was under pressure to produce more op-eds in more prominent publications). Or perhaps the promise of FDD’s ever-expanding budget—provided by billionaire members of the Republican Jewish Coalition such as Sheldon Adelson and Paul Singer— lured them away.

None of this means, however, that AEI’s foreign policy team has lost its belligerent and militaristic stripes. Its most visible “scholar,” after all, remains John Bolton, while Paul Wolfowitz has occupied a perch there since his unceremonious departure from the World Bank. Pletka, who, like Bolton, once worked for Jesse Helms, has herself become something of a television regular as the acerbic critic of the “weakness” and “appeasement” of the Obama administration. Meanwhile, the albeit much more obscure Perle protégé, Michael Rubin, continues to uphold hardline neocon orthodoxy in his contributions to National Review and Commentary’s Contentions blog.
Mazars and Deutsche Bank could have ended this nightmare before it started.
They could still get him out of office.
But instead, they want mass death.
Don’t forget that.
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Re: Where Are They Now?

Postby Elvis » Mon Oct 19, 2015 5:17 pm

Thanks, SLAD -- Perle was another one I've wondered about. He's been too quiet.
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
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Re: Where Are They Now?

Postby zangtang » Mon Oct 19, 2015 5:27 pm

in that milieu, Feith & Wurmser ?

sounds like a failed singer/songwriter duo. Purveyors of quality wrongness.
sump-level advice at a price you cant ignore!
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Re: Where Are They Now?

Postby Grizzly » Mon Oct 19, 2015 7:37 pm

Where are,

Robert Kagan, Robert Martinage, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Robert Killebrew, Peter Rodman, Project for the New American Century, Roger Barnett, Paula J. Dobriansky, Saddam Hussein, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, Steve Forbes, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, William J. Bennett, William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Vin Weber, Stephen A. Cambone, Steve Rosen, Thomas Donnelly, Norman Podhoretz, Phil Meilinger, Midge Decter, Donald Kagan, Donald Rumsfeld, Dov S. Zakheim, Devon Gaffney Cross, Aaron Friedberg, Abram Shulsky, Michael Vickers, Dan Quayle, Eliot A. Cohen, Dan Goure, Alvin Bernstein, Barry Watts, David Epstein, Elliott Abrams, Frank Gaffney, John Ellis (“Jeb”) Bush, James Lasswell, Lewis (“Scooter”) (SEX WITH BEARS) Libby, Mark P. Lagon, Mackubin Owens, Francis Fukuyama, Henry S. Rowen, Gary Schmitt, Fred C. Ikle, Frederick Kagan, David Fautua, Hasam Amin, George Weigel


Now?
http://www.historycommons.org/context.j ... xamericana

:eeyaa :eeyaa :eeyaa
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Re: Where Are They Now?

Postby Elvis » Mon Oct 19, 2015 10:59 pm

Grizzly » Mon Oct 19, 2015 4:37 pm wrote:Where are,

Robert Kagan, Robert Martinage, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Robert Killebrew, Peter Rodman, Project for the New American Century, Roger Barnett, Paula J. Dobriansky, Saddam Hussein, William Jefferson (“Bill”) Clinton, Steve Forbes, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, William J. Bennett, William Kristol, Paul Wolfowitz, Vin Weber, Stephen A. Cambone, Steve Rosen, Thomas Donnelly, Norman Podhoretz, Phil Meilinger, Midge Decter, Donald Kagan, Donald Rumsfeld, Dov S. Zakheim, Devon Gaffney Cross, Aaron Friedberg, Abram Shulsky, Michael Vickers, Dan Quayle, Eliot A. Cohen, Dan Goure, Alvin Bernstein, Barry Watts, David Epstein, Elliott Abrams, Frank Gaffney, John Ellis (“Jeb”) Bush, James Lasswell, Lewis (“Scooter”) (SEX WITH BEARS) Libby, Mark P. Lagon, Mackubin Owens, Francis Fukuyama, Henry S. Rowen, Gary Schmitt, Fred C. Ikle, Frederick Kagan, David Fautua, Hasam Amin, George Weigel


Now?
http://www.historycommons.org/context.j ... xamericana

:eeyaa :eeyaa :eeyaa


Fun list, but it's easy to find out "where" most of those people are today, unlike, say, Indira Singh, who seems to have dropped off the face of the Earth...or at least off the Internet. All I know is, she's been silent; as far as I can tell from Googling, she was heard from around ten years ago, 2006 or so.

She told an amazing story, laid out in Iam's link,



but Iam, have I missed something on that Corbett page that gives a clue as to her present existence?
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
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Re: Where Are They Now?

Postby Iamwhomiam » Mon Oct 19, 2015 11:48 pm

^^^^ No. I must admit I mistook the 2011 article it as "news," and only realized after posting it was 4 years old. I think it was the first search result for her, with all others being older yet.

I think she might be embedded and undercover researching the inner workings of Guantánamo .
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Re: Where Are They Now?

Postby Joao » Tue Oct 20, 2015 1:32 am

There are 95 "Indira Singh" profiles on LinkedIn.

I wouldn't be surprised if she just returned to her consulting work, albeit perhaps under a different name. A person's gotta make a living after all. Interesting observation about her absence, though.

For my où sont-ils, I invoke Dreams End. I liked his writing and wish it continued (at least, I'm not aware of anything from him in the last few years).

Edit:
Iamwhomiam » Mon Oct 19, 2015 8:48 pm wrote:I think she might be embedded and undercover researching the inner workings of Guantánamo .

Lol! Brutal. Gallows humor is best humor.
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Re: Where Are They Now?

Postby Elvis » Tue Oct 20, 2015 2:41 am

Iamwhomiam » Mon Oct 19, 2015 8:48 pm wrote:^^^^ No. I must admit I mistook the 2011 article it as "news," and only realized after posting it was 4 years old. I think it was the first search result for her, with all others being older yet.


No problem; I should have linked to it myself, as background for any readers unfamilar with Ms. Singh.


I think she might be embedded and undercover researching the inner workings of Guantánamo .


:lol: :shock:
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Re: Where Are They Now?

Postby Searcher08 » Tue Oct 20, 2015 5:29 am

Indira seems to have vanished after the death of her colleague and fellow investigator, Michael Corbin, which she viewed very suspiciously.
I was aware that she tried to get back into consulting after it, but was having some health issues with her lungs (she was an actual first responder in NYC on 9/11).
The last trace of her is the site https://4acloserlook.wordpress.com/ from 2008. She was going to write a book called "Blueprint for Terror" which exposed the 9/11 financial trail... to Enron. She said the same players were behind both.
I remember going through linkedin looking for her a few years ago but with no luck.
If Indira wanted to vanish, I think she would be *extremely* through about it.

Should you ever happen to read this, Indira, thank you for everything you did in taking a stand - and for being granite when so many around you were sand.
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Re: Where Are They Now?

Postby Elvis » Tue Oct 20, 2015 12:29 pm

Thanks, Searcher.
“The purpose of studying economics is not to acquire a set of ready-made answers to economic questions, but to learn how to avoid being deceived by economists.” ― Joan Robinson
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Re: Where Are They Now?

Postby stillrobertpaulsen » Tue Oct 20, 2015 3:49 pm

Good post, Elvis. Brought to mind a couple other people I haven't heard from in a while.

Richard Barlow

Looks like there is a website detailing his legal odyssey since trying to show Dick Cheney's link with the A.Q. Khan network back in 1989. But not much info on where he's been the last 5 years.

Russell Tice

This guy blew the whistle on the NSA almost a decade before Snowden came along. He was willing to testify about it back in 2004, but the New York Times deliberately sat on the info until 2005 so that it wouldn't effect the election results. Last I heard from him was this post last year from slad.
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Re: Where Are They Now?

Postby KUAN » Tue Oct 20, 2015 8:52 pm

Here's David Shayler again - he disappeared for a while. Love is the Law - beam weapons at the twin towers - alien DNA - plus the guy in the 3 sizes too small shirt. Not that I'm knocking any of the above.

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