Sex, Drugs, and the War on Terra

Hot off the presses, baby, thanks to Ken Silverstein:

The Wall Street Journal reported today that indicted former California Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham may not have limited his good times to partying on a rented yacht. It turns out the FBI is currently investigating two defense contractors who allegedly provided Cunningham with free limousine service, free stays at hotel suites at the Watergate and the Westin Grand, and free prostitutes.

The two defense contractors who allegedly paid most of the bills, said the Journal, were Brent Wilkes, the founder of ADCS Inc., and Mitchell Wade, the founder of MZM Inc.; both firms profited greatly from their connections with Cunningham. The Journal also suggested that other lawmakers might be implicated. I've learned from a well-connected source that those under intense scrutiny by the FBI are current and former lawmakers on Defense and Intelligence comittees—including one person who now holds a powerful intelligence post. I've also been able to learn the name of the limousine service that was used to ferry the guests and other attendees to the parties: Shirlington Limousine and Transportation of Arlington, Virginia. Wilkes, I've learned, even hired Shirlington as his personal limousine service.

It gets even more interesting: the man who has been identified as the CEO of Shirlington has a 62-page rap sheet (I recently obtained a copy) that runs from at least 1979 through 1989 and lists charges of petit larceny, robbery, receiving stolen goods, assault, and more. Curiously—or perhaps not so curiously given the company's connections—Shirlington Limousine is also a Department of Homeland Security contractor; according to the Washington Post, last fall it won a $21.2 million contract for shuttle services and transportation support. (I tried to contact Shirlington but was unable to get past their answering service.)

As to the festivities themselves, I hear that party nights began early with poker games and degenerated into what the source described as a "frat party" scene—real bacchanals. Apparently photographs were taken, and investigators are anxiously procuring copies. My heart beats faster in fevered anticipation.

Via Justin Rood:

...Yowzah.

Actually, make that a double-yowzah: Remember that Goss is the one who plucked one of Wilkes' old San Diego friends, the unusual and colorful Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, out of CIA middle-management obscurity to be his #3 at the agency. At the time of Foggo's appointment, no one could figure out where he came from, or how Goss knew him.

But if Goss was at the "parties," I wonder, was Foggo there too? Did they see each other? Is this where Goss had an opportunity to gauge Foggo's abilities, and determine he was qualified for the CIA executive director post?

Even better, they all worked out of the Watergate hotel. Via Billmon:

...Porter Goss, director of the CIA, may be implicated in a hooker service for corrupt (and horny) congressmen paid for by defense contractors and run out of -- you really gotta love this part -- the Watergate Hotel.

So what are we supposed to call this new scandal? Watergategate?

It sounds like a game of can-you-top-this played by a couple of spy novelists (say, Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum) after a night of snorting cocaine and downing tequila shooters. Or maybe a screenplay cooked up by Fellini and Costa-Gavras -- with some help from Spike Jones and Salvador Dali...

...OK, I know I'm getting carried away here. But this is really creepy stuff -- and only contributes to the impression I sometimes have that we're now living in the only banana republic armed with nuclear weapons. (Or, as I've also been known to call it, North Argentina.)

I mean, we've got political purges underway in the organs of state security; a one-party legislature run by guys who write their names above the urinals at expensive K Street restaurants ("For a good time, call Duke") and -- according to Harper's -- limo services tied to call girl rings pulling down multi-million dollar contracts with the Department of Homeland Security, which itself sounds like a name dreamed up for the movie Brazil.

Forget Fellini, even Terry Gilliam couldn't do this justice.

Via Correntwire, a little Ice on the cake- or black tar-walk:

You see there was this little article about a plane crashing in Afghanistan the other day. Did you see it or did it slip below the radar? A State Department leased plane crashed into some mud huts after a truck drove across the runway when the plane was landing. Here's the story.

It doesn't sound like much except that the vehicle was a Russian cargo plane and the fatalities could have been worse if the men had been in the huts and not out working the opium fields. Now why would the State Department have to rent a plane from the Russians? Is the United States so strapped it can't spare a plane to fight the war on drugs or is the Russian plane a cover. If it is a cover then what is it a cover for? As for the opium workers living at the end of the runway all I can say is how convenient that must be for all concerned.

The report states that the two Ukrainians were killed, other coverage of this story claims they were the pilots. Eleven people on board the plane were Americans leaving three of unknown nationality. Supposedly the people on the plane are "anti"drug agents but the story doesn't pass the smell test and brings to mind the Eugene Hasenfus affair that exposed Iran-Contra.

Military helicopters were brought in to transport the injured but Reuters reports that the British Secretary of Defense John Reid was delayed when one of his planes was sent to help out in the emergency. My guess is that they had to quickly take care of the "cargo". I knew there was some reason Ollie North was hanging around Afghanistan posing as a Fox News correspondent, what a great cover. Robert Parry reported on it back in the eighties and it's the same gang of criminals in positions of power today. I would love to see this story grow some legs and kick the shit out of the Bush crime family. No pardons this time around boys it's lockdown time.

Good luck with that.