The real Syriania - Oil, Birbery and the CIA

An interesting follow-up article on the legal skirmish that has arisen around James Giffen.

In June 2004, the lawyers for James Giffen, the defendant in the “Kazakh-gate” bribery case being heard in the US relating to offences allegedly committed in Kazakhstan in the 1990s, made an application to the presiding Judge William Pauley III: they wanted classified government documents. Lots of them.

So it seems that the grand narrative spun by ISGP and William F. Engdahl, based on the geopolitical vision of Zbigniew Brezinski that is ultimately based on Halford Mackinder's geopolitical vision of the early 20th century isn't that far off from the reality.

Of course this whole affair can also be read as a crooked businessman playing the "I'm with the CIA"-card in order to circumvent a conviction. The article alludes to this in the following part:

To Mr Giffen’s lawyers, it was a “public authority defence”. To others, it looked like something else.

“The practice is referred to as ‘greymail’,” says Scott Horton, an assistant professor of law at Columbia University.

The Kashagan offshore field in western Kazakhstan is the world’s biggest oil discovery since 1968. Shamil Zhumatov / Reuters

“This is an increasingly popular defence because you can put the intelligence community on the defensive and the intelligence community’s instinctive reaction is to say, ‘Let’s get rid of this’.”

Of course, the whole story around Giffen was the inspiration for Stephen Gaghan's insightful movie Syriania - hence the title.

Reading the story as a confirmation of Mackinder, Brezinski and Engdahl would also support the narrative that Nafeez Mossadeq Ahmed has been composing in his blog as well as in his books. While I believe that most of what he writes about 9/11 and 7/7 is bullcrap, other things he has written are quite intriguing. His observation that there is circumstancial evidence pointing to the fact that the US has taken up the goal of fullfilling Halford Mackinders vision of global hegemony is rather striking.

So what do you think - are we dealing with a corrupt businessman that is trying to hide behind a lame CIA-cop out or is this story basically a confirmation that American operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are part of an integrated campaign to dominate the region which Halford Mackinder came to name the heartland about a hundred years ago?

Link to story



[edit on 30-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

[edit on 30-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

[edit on 30-8-2010 by NichirasuKenshin]

or is this story basically a confirmation that American operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are part of an integrated campaign to dominate the region which Halford Mackinder came to name the heartland about a hundred years ago?

No WMD in Iraq after being told categorically WMD are in Iraq. You do the math.

Who was waiting for the invasion of Iraq to commence so they could get in and start drilling? Oil companies.

When US forces leave next year, who will be left behind? Oil companies.

[edit on 31-8-2010 by mirageofdeceit]

Did I actually Birbery?

I can't stop to think that I have written Birbery?

Does any else keep making spelling mistakes on ATS that he feels he never makes anyone else? I smell a conspircay, I always suspected that this special tone of grey used on ATS was detrimental to the brain. It would explain alot.